I disagree with the idea that drinking aged whisky is necessarily about signalling, if that were the case then people would only drink it in social situations,

I disagree with the idea that drinking aged whisky is necessarily about signalling, if that were the case then people would only drink it in social situations, and I do not. If fast aging manages to get the same taste in less time (surely the definition of fast aging) and lead to cheaper whiskies with the same taste, then I will definitely buy them. Anyway Scotch whisky is interesting because the supply of barley is limited. It is used in beer production as well, and is sourced from several countries that also produce lots of beer, and harvests sometimes fail. Once turned into malt whisky, it is used for two different products -- as an ingredient of blend whiskies (grain whisky can be produced in larger quantities, but is worth much less by itself than when blended with malt whisky) or aged a long time to be sold as single malt whisky. This means that while single malts Scotch is really profitable, the supply will always be limited. And that probably won't change much if the aging process is sped up, so prices probably won't go down that much.