Lies, dram lies and statistics

Crackdown launched against misleading whisky investments

According to the online advert for Whisky Investment Partners, investors could expect juicy returns of 12% a year.

Its plugs on Facebook gushed: "Enjoy an early retirement with your returns" and it promised: "Unlike other investments, all returns are tax-free".

Whisky Investment Partners is a trading name of Blackford Casks Limited, run by director 35-year-old Alistair Moncrieff of Leeds.

When the Advertising Standards Authority asked the company for evidence of investors getting 12% returns, it found "many of them had sold their cask back to Whisky Investment Partners for the same price they had bought it for".

The watchdog also found that none of the ads warned that returns were not guaranteed, or that the investments were unregulated, or that investors might face storage and insurance costs.