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The reason for the industry moving away from age statements (or towards No Age Statement, or NAS bottlings) is popularity. Whisky goes through peaks and troughs

by crdb 12y ago

The reason for the industry moving away from age statements (or towards No Age Statement, or NAS bottlings) is popularity. Whisky goes through peaks and troughs, but, like coffee (whose trees take a few years to yield fruit), supply lags demand. During troughs, perfectly palatable 12+ year old single malts get chucked into your basic Jonny Walker type bottle because it makes more economic sense than storing it. Peaks require some creative thinking to cope with massive demand. Take Japan: both Nikka and Suntory have moved to NAS (Taketsuru Pure Malt, Hibiki Harmony, etc.) because of a surge both in foreign demand for Japanese whisky (thanks to Murray who helpfully added that in his mind Scottish quality had been declining for several years after giving top ranking to Japanese names) and because Suntory (I think) tried to resurrect the waning appetite amongst the young Japanese for the "unfashionable, old-fashioned" brown spirit by launching advertising campaigns centered on highballs. They just don't have enough 12/17/21 year old barrels to meet demand and try to deflect some onto the NAS blends (and also skim some margin off the wave of popularity). I don't know what Laphroaig is doing, but as a long term drinker of the 18 I've also noticed a steady drop in quality (shorter finish, less complexity). And of course most of the major houses now add caramel to their base offering and often in more expensive older ones too... Meanwhile, Karuisawa distillery, which had to close some years ago (like Port Ellen) for economic reasons and due to the lack of interest in whisky at the time, is now seeing its last bottles go for thousands - if you can find them anywhere. Hibiki 17 is out of stock at all Japanese duty frees and - as of April - is no longer sold at Haneda airport. You're seeing a lot of smaller names come into existence immediately at Scottish level prices - Ichiro/Chichibu (formerly Hanyu), Mars, Fuji to name three - and they are also often out of stock. (If you're interested in the subject, the Nonjatta blog is phenomenal.) The rum industry is relatively untouched. Yes, there are massively marketed rums using all the tricks in the book, but if you are a fan of vintage rhum agricole (e.g. La Favorite La Flibuste or Privilege, 35 year old rhum agricole, still hand bottled and waxed, for 100-120 EUR!) or limited editions from Italian houses finding interesting barrels, you'll pay a lot less than for the equivalent quality in malt world...

e12e 12y ago
Agreed that rum is probably the cheapest, high-quality, aged brown liquor (with the caveat that I don't really know anything about brandy/Armanac -- just a little bit about Cognac) available. > I don't know what Laphroaig is doing, but as a long term drinker of the 18 I've also noticed a steady drop in quality (shorter finish, less complexity). I have a similar impression of Laphroaig 10 (the only one I drink from time to time) -- but I assumed it was me getting more accustomed to more complex single malts. Perhaps not. No question that NAS-branding has much to do with, well branding -- an steering volume sales. But I think it can/could work in favour of minor distilleries starting up (in terms of esp. single malt whisky, also "new" blends). "Years in barrel" is a pretty silly guide anyway -- it matters a lot what the barrels have been used for before etc. At any rate I have no confidence that the industry (any industry, really) -- is going to be able to come up with branding that gives a reasonable idea to the consumer what they get for their money -- without tasting the product. But like solid gold speaker cables, people will buy based on brand and branding, even if they might be able to make better decisions if forced to do a blind-test... (and, as they say -- if you can't tell the difference in a blind test, go for the cheaper one every time...).
- GordonS 12y ago
  > it matters a lot what the barrels have been used for before Which is a good thing, because it allows distillers to be creative, adding different notes to both scent and taste. Quite a few whiskies nowadays do tell you what kind of cask they were aged in. Bourbon and sherry have traditionally been popular choices, but wine, port, cognac and rum barrels are also being used recently.
- collyw 12y ago
  "But like solid gold speaker cables, people will buy based on brand and branding" I am not so sure. I recently tried a high quality Belgian whiskey. It was smooth like a good single malt, but just didn't taste right. There were a lot of flavors, but they were not in harmony like a good Scotch. But the Belgians haven't been doing it for long. (Maybe the fact I am Scottish biases me somewhat).
  - crdb 12y ago
    Yes, exactly! A lot of the newer distilleries have not found their balance yet (including, imh and controversial o, Kavalan and Amrut, whose extraordinary ratings I do not quite understand) and part of the reason I keep coming back to Scotland is to find that balance.
  - e12e 12y ago
    I didn't mean to imply that there aren't regional differences between different distilleries etc. For some reason (taste among the makers, climate, soil whatever) does vary quite consistently. I recall there were some people out in Normandie that made a pretty good, smoked single malt, not entirely unlike a decent Islay whisky. I meant more branding in terms of "Distilerry X, N years old". Just as good champagne really is quite different from most others sparkling wines (although, I have a hard time accepting the idea that soil etc is as important for distilled spirits as it is for wine...).
- crdb 12y ago
  Absolutely on age. I think the Taketsuru NAS is very good, for example (it's a blend of malts by Nikka, and available everywhere in Japan), for its ridiculously low price locally. Bruichladdich is consistently outputting both solid classic stuff (PC5-8) and interesting innovations (Bere Barley) all of which are less than a decade old. The ones that consistently impress me are the "limited edition small run" houses like Rhum Rhum, Rum Nation, Velier and so on. The Rhum Rhum cask strength Liberation (the one with the lobster on it) is only 5 years old but (to me at least) fully justifies its very high price tag - this is what we want bottlers to do! Whereas I remember a horizontal Islay 30+ year old tasting that left me thinking I was drinking wooded water - the price tags were purely a function of supply (none) and demand (there's a sort of vicious circle whereby the rarity makes the price go up, turning it into a Veblen good amongst wealthy non-amateurs). For the price of the night, I could have had a couple bottles of legendary Veliers... Regarding buying without tasting, I'm done with that - generally I get people I trust (such as Stephane M. at la Maison du Whisky in Singapore for rum) to make some guiding recommendations, pay for a few shots and buy the best. I've had too many promising bottles left on the shelf to be used as expensive mixers, especially lately. You're right that cognac and armagnac especially are still little known, I think because they are still very fragmented and small family businesses compared to scotch which is basically Diageo and the Japanese. A few houses (usually owned by the likes of LVMH) get away with monstruous pricing thanks to their extensive DFS exposure, but if you browse the Cognatheque (particularly the 30+ and 50+ sections) you'll find a lot of very interesting stuff at reasonable prices even including international shipping; although it might not be worth the risk of buying blind.

by crdb 12y ago

e12e 12y ago

Agreed that rum is probably the cheapest, high-quality, aged brown liquor (with the caveat that I don't really know anything about brandy/Armanac -- just a little bit about Cognac) available. > I don't know what Laphroaig is doing, but as a long term drinker of the 18 I've also noticed a steady drop in quality (shorter finish, less complexity). I have a similar impression of Laphroaig 10 (the only one I drink from time to time) -- but I assumed it was me getting more accustomed to more complex single malts. Perhaps not. No question that NAS-branding has much to do with, well branding -- an steering volume sales. But I think it can/could work in favour of minor distilleries starting up (in terms of esp. single malt whisky, also "new" blends). "Years in barrel" is a pretty silly guide anyway -- it matters a lot what the barrels have been used for before etc. At any rate I have no confidence that the industry (any industry, really) -- is going to be able to come up with branding that gives a reasonable idea to the consumer what they get for their money -- without tasting the product. But like solid gold speaker cables, people will buy based on brand and branding, even if they might be able to make better decisions if forced to do a blind-test... (and, as they say -- if you can't tell the difference in a blind test, go for the cheaper one every time...).

GordonS 12y ago
> it matters a lot what the barrels have been used for before Which is a good thing, because it allows distillers to be creative, adding different notes to both scent and taste. Quite a few whiskies nowadays do tell you what kind of cask they were aged in. Bourbon and sherry have traditionally been popular choices, but wine, port, cognac and rum barrels are also being used recently.
collyw 12y ago
"But like solid gold speaker cables, people will buy based on brand and branding" I am not so sure. I recently tried a high quality Belgian whiskey. It was smooth like a good single malt, but just didn't taste right. There were a lot of flavors, but they were not in harmony like a good Scotch. But the Belgians haven't been doing it for long. (Maybe the fact I am Scottish biases me somewhat).
- crdb 12y ago
  Yes, exactly! A lot of the newer distilleries have not found their balance yet (including, imh and controversial o, Kavalan and Amrut, whose extraordinary ratings I do not quite understand) and part of the reason I keep coming back to Scotland is to find that balance.
- e12e 12y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that there aren't regional differences between different distilleries etc. For some reason (taste among the makers, climate, soil whatever) does vary quite consistently. I recall there were some people out in Normandie that made a pretty good, smoked single malt, not entirely unlike a decent Islay whisky. I meant more branding in terms of "Distilerry X, N years old". Just as good champagne really is quite different from most others sparkling wines (although, I have a hard time accepting the idea that soil etc is as important for distilled spirits as it is for wine...).
crdb 12y ago
Absolutely on age. I think the Taketsuru NAS is very good, for example (it's a blend of malts by Nikka, and available everywhere in Japan), for its ridiculously low price locally. Bruichladdich is consistently outputting both solid classic stuff (PC5-8) and interesting innovations (Bere Barley) all of which are less than a decade old. The ones that consistently impress me are the "limited edition small run" houses like Rhum Rhum, Rum Nation, Velier and so on. The Rhum Rhum cask strength Liberation (the one with the lobster on it) is only 5 years old but (to me at least) fully justifies its very high price tag - this is what we want bottlers to do! Whereas I remember a horizontal Islay 30+ year old tasting that left me thinking I was drinking wooded water - the price tags were purely a function of supply (none) and demand (there's a sort of vicious circle whereby the rarity makes the price go up, turning it into a Veblen good amongst wealthy non-amateurs). For the price of the night, I could have had a couple bottles of legendary Veliers... Regarding buying without tasting, I'm done with that - generally I get people I trust (such as Stephane M. at la Maison du Whisky in Singapore for rum) to make some guiding recommendations, pay for a few shots and buy the best. I've had too many promising bottles left on the shelf to be used as expensive mixers, especially lately. You're right that cognac and armagnac especially are still little known, I think because they are still very fragmented and small family businesses compared to scotch which is basically Diageo and the Japanese. A few houses (usually owned by the likes of LVMH) get away with monstruous pricing thanks to their extensive DFS exposure, but if you browse the Cognatheque (particularly the 30+ and 50+ sections) you'll find a lot of very interesting stuff at reasonable prices even including international shipping; although it might not be worth the risk of buying blind.