Simon Aron

Spear’s Review

With an extensive background in technology, commercial property and agriculture, angel investor and serial entrepreneur Simon Aron decided to turn his obsessive hobby into his life’s focus. 

He has been collecting whisky for over three decades and in 2018 launched Cask Trade with the goal of creating a marketplace that would make it easier for people to buy and sell exceptional casks of whisky. Aron and his team take care of every cask through each stage of its life cycle, ‘from the date whisky is distilled, to the day it has been aged to perfection’. 

Cask Trade has its own full bottling service and has opened an office in Hong Kong to serve the Asian market. Most recently, it opened its own warehouse in the heart of Speyside to welcome clients seeking to visit – and taste – their casks in person.

Adviser Profile

Established in 2018, Cask Trade was set up when I realised there was a need for a reputable marketplace where cask owners could not only buy, but sell with confidence and connect with people across the globe. We are now regarded as a valuable expert team for the whisky cask industry and are internationally recognised as one of the biggest stockists of casks in the world, along with the widest selection of ages, distilleries and cask types.

Growing from three to 23 staff, we sell cask whisky to trade and private clients globally, with an office in Hong Kong and joint ventures in Dubai, UAE and mainland China. We believe in the whole cask journey, from 3-year-old whisky to 60-year-old, offering valuations and samples along with tasting notes and opinions. We support our clients with exceptional whisky knowledge and experience, including cask management, market advice and exit options. We also offer a large consignment sales service for our clients, in addition to a full bottling service for private label and trade.

In 2025, we opened our own warehouse in the heart of Speyside, Scotland, with the capacity for 25,000 casks, including a bottling facility and tasting room all for our clients.

In 2020, we established auctionyourcask.com as the world’s first online cask whisky auction platform. It offers cask owners, whisky enthusiasts and trade the opportunity to buy and sell unique whisky casks with 0 per cent seller’s fees.

In 2024, we were 24th in the Startups 100 Index and 147th in the FT1000 ranking of Europe’s Fastest-Growing Companies.

Alongside running Cask Trade, I recently joined the judging panel for the London regional EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2025. After setting up multiple successful businesses over the years and being a finalist myself in 2023, it was exciting to share my entrepreneurial experience with some of the country’s most exciting business owners.