Many of the whisky drinkers believe the older the whisky is, the better it tastes. Well, it’s true in most cases or at least has been so far. After all, the time that the (new age) spirits spend in a cask(s) influences it’s color, flavors and the alcohol %.
However there has been a recent advent of whiskies without any age statement - this is widely referred to as NAS or no age statement - In this case, the distilleries do not disclose how long the spirit has been left matured in the casks.
On my recent visit to Scotland, I brought this up to a couple of distilleries. It was an interesting conversation where the folks I spoke supported and in fact promoted their own NAS expressions, if they were A- Playing catch up to the sudden surge of demand for their distilleries products OR B- New distillery in the industry and had not ramped up capacity nor had the time (note: Historically it usually takes over 7-8 years to start getting any revenue from a distillery) to as they seek to start making money on their investments. On the other hand distilleries who were fairly well established and had done a great job of anticipating demand in general and for their own products in particular, scoffed at the idea of no age statements, saying these were not true to the "spririt" of being a malted whisky.
No matter where you are on this topic, there have been siginificant advances in the whisky making/maturing techniques (ex. using more first fill casks or small casks which provide greater surface area for the new spirits to interact with the wood). These new mechanisms allow the spirits to interact with the casks on an "expedited" schedule, resulting in a great expression, in less time. More and more blind tastings are proving that the NAS expressions are (near) par with the "aged" expressions. Come to think of it the primary reason why we mature the spirits is for it to interact with the wood/ cask and extract flavors, and colors from it. Historically scotch malt used first filled bourbon (american oak) cask to begin with and in some cases, were finished in either Sherry or Port casks (or even others more recently, I have seen more and more wine finishes too). As distilleries reuse the casks, it imparts lesser and lesser flavors, requiring the spirits to be matured longer for it to "hit the mark". The newer techniques that the distilleries are using - and there is a lot of experimentation around - have the spirits maturing quicker. Any where from where the casks are matured , which type of warehouses they are stored during maturation, temperatures/ local climate can accelerate the maturation, thus churning out a fine whisky in lesser time.
Some of the examples of NAS whiskies are coming from Japan, where, as we all know, there was a run on the local product, and there have been significant shortages. Japanese have innovated and expedited the production to meet this surge in popularity / demand for their products. One of my favorite recent NAS is The Dalmore Cigar Malt Reserve (also listed on my top 10 list here), Another example is from Feis Ile 2022 - Laphroaig Cairdeas Bottled 2022- Warehouse 1 - but have tried several others and I must say they are convincing me (a skeptic) to be a believer in this NAS expression.
Would love to hear from you all on your thoughts on this topic - next time we meet, until then Slaintè!