Whiskey Age Statements Are More Important Than You Think

Have you ever looked at a whiskey bottle and seen an "age statement?" The bottle might advertise an age of eight years, twelve years, or even longer. The possible timespan can vary depending on whether it's a bourbon (one type of whiskey) or scotch or another variety. Presumably, this age statement refers to how long the whiskey has been aged in a cask before being bottled, right? That's mostly true, with one very important note: The vast majority of bottled whiskeys for sale from big name whiskey brands are blends, which means they contain a mixture of different whiskies that were distilled in separate barrels.

Knowing that, how do you measure the age of a bottle which contains spirits of possibly different ages? In these cases, the age statement refers to the age of the youngest whiskey in that blend. Every drop in the bottle is at least that old, although "how much older" depends on each individual distillery's process, and a bottle advertising blended whiskey can contain whiskey from multiple distilleries. 

Age plays a major role in the spirit's flavor, because whiskeys are barrel-aged, which means they're kept in wooden barrels where they absorb the flavor of the wood. Typically, whiskey is aged in oak barrels, and younger whiskeys have sharper, stronger flavors while older whiskeys have richer, more subtle flavors. A bottle's age statement is a hint toward its flavor.

There is a minimum and maximum amount of time that whiskey can age in its cask and keep a good flavor, and there are strict laws about whiskey aging in several countries including the United States. Modern U.S. whiskey laws can be traced back to President Howard Taft, who helped legally specify in 1909 that straight whiskey must be barrel aged for at least two years. This is still true today, and the youngest fermented grain spirit in the bottle must be at least two years old to legally be called whiskey. In the world of scotch whiskey, the minimum is three years.

There are different factors which all play a role in how much the distilled spirit draws flavor from the charred oak barrel (such as climate or the density of the barrel). It's common to see bourbon age statements ranging from about five to fifteen years, and somewhere in the middle of that range is often considered a sweet spot. If whiskey spends too long aging in its barrel, then it can take on too much of the wood's flavor, making it too bitter to be drinkable. Don't assume that aged whiskies are always fancier, because age is a sliding scale from "stronger alcohol flavor" to "stronger wood flavor."