By Jack Denton Order Reprints Text size Bourbon, by U.S. law, must be aged in new oak barrels. The maturation is also how whiskey increases in value. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images The fund managers at Wave Financial Group considered different options when they were looking for an investment they could turn into a digital asset. Fine art, wine, and racehorses all lost out to America’s humble native spirit: Kentucky whiskey—$2.5 million worth of it. The group’s Kentucky Whiskey 2020 Digital Fund purchased 2,500 barrels of new whiskey in 2020, betting that the barrels will increase in value by three to five times in the course of the five years they spend stored in a warehouse in Kentucky. The group initially had a higher target of 25,000 barrels.