Special shipping conditions
A handful of countries
play by their own rules
For most of the map, a parcel of ours behaves the same way: it is packed in Groningen, handed to the carrier that is best on that route, and it arrives. For a small number of destinations something in between gets in the way — a customs regime that treats whisky as food, a war, a carrier that will only take one bottle at a time, or an import process that runs through a clearing agent on another continent.
None of that is a reason not to bid. It is a reason to know about it first, so the extra cost, the extra weeks or the extra paperwork are things you decided to accept rather than things that happened to you. Everything we know about those countries is on this page.
Five destinations
Everywhere else is standard
Two are disrupted
Ukraine and Israel
Surcharges before you bid
Named on this page
Not sure about your address?
Ask us and we will check
Right now
Two destinations are
not running normally
Routes close and reopen faster than any page can promise, and when they close it is rarely the carrier's decision or ours. This is where we keep the current state of the two that are affected today.
A suspension never costs you the bottle. It is stored here, insured and free of charge, for as long as it takes — and if you would rather not wait, we will look at an alternative address or put it back into a coming auction for you.
Ukraine
SuspendedDeliveries are suspended indefinitely because of the war. Bottles you win are stored for you free of charge until shipping is possible again, or sent to an address in another country.
Israel
Shipping againShipments were suspended several times over the past months because of the situation in the region, and are running again. It has changed before, so this is worth a look before you bid rather than after.
Country by country
What changes, and
what it costs you
Five destinations, and the reason each of them is here. If your country is not on this list, nothing on this page applies to you and the standard rates and delivery times are the whole story.
Croatia
A surcharge on remote addresses- Remote areas
-
Parts of Croatia count as a "remote area" as far as the carriers are concerned, which is their way of saying the last stretch of the journey costs them more than the rest of it put together. Where that applies, an additional delivery fee is added to your invoice automatically.
Whether your own address falls inside one of those zones is not something you can tell by looking at it, so ask us before you bid and we will check it against the carrier's list for you.
Israel
Customs may open a bottle- Customs inspections
-
Israeli customs and the Ministry of Health classify alcoholic drinks as food products, which brings whisky within reach of a food inspection. During one, the authorities may open a single bottle from a shipment to verify it and reseal it afterwards.
It is done on a sample basis and says nothing about how the bottle was handled or what is in it. What it does mean is that the original seal cannot be guaranteed on arrival in Israel, and that this is entirely outside our control once a parcel has left the Netherlands.
- Deliveries have been interrupted
-
Shipments to Israel were suspended several times over the past months because of the situation in the region. They are running again at the time of writing, and the state of play is at the top of this page.
If a suspension comes back while a bottle of yours is here, it stays here: stored free of charge until the route reopens, or sent to an address somewhere else if you would rather not wait it out.
South Korea
One bottle per parcel- Single-bottle parcels
-
Bottles travelling to South Korea go one to a box. An order of three bottles is therefore three parcels, three journeys and three shipping charges rather than one.
It is worth working that into the sum before you bid on a second lot, because the usual saving from combining an order into one box does not apply here.
Ukraine
Deliveries are suspended- Suspended indefinitely
-
Shipments to Ukraine are suspended for as long as the war lasts. No carrier we work with is moving parcels of this kind into the country, and we are not going to pretend otherwise by taking the shipping fee and hoping.
You can still bid. Anything you win is kept in our storage, free of charge and for as long as it takes, until deliveries become possible again. If waiting is not what you want, we can send the bottles to an address in another country instead — talk to us and we will arrange it.
United States of America
Cleared in New York, then onward- A two-step journey
-
Bottles bound for the United States are not flown to your door. They travel first to New York City, where our customs agent imports and clears them, and only then continue by UPS Ground to your delivery address.
You get tracking for both halves: the international leg into New York, and the domestic leg once the parcel has left the Netherlands and cleared. Shipments go out roughly once a week, usually on a Thursday or a Friday.
Allow around five weeks from end to end. A surcharge of € 31,50 covers the additional handling this two-tier system involves, and delays at US customs are common enough to expect and entirely outside our hands.
- Trade tariffs
-
US trade tariffs on imported spirits are added at checkout, so the figure you pay us is the figure. At the moment that means 10% on Scotch whisky and Irish whiskey and 15% on Japanese whisky.
American bourbon coming home is exempt: no import tariff applies to a bourbon shipped to the United States.
