“In my opinion there is no perfect age for bourbon,” says Bourbon Historian Michael Veach. “It depends upon what flavor profile you are going for as to where you age the whiskey in the warehouse and for how long. It is more about maturity or ripeness than a specific time frame. Some barrels mature quicker than others. That is why whiskey production is as much art as science. Whiskey is not constrained to a tight formula.”
This is a common sentiment echoed throughout the bourbon industry. To put it in basic terms, it’s ready when it’s ready.
Larry Kass, Director of Trade Relations for Heaven Hill, points out with so many different brands they are on both extremes in regard to age. “Barrel selection is driven by the attributes of the product and by inventory,” says Kass, adding that Heaven Hill has “1.1 million barrels in inventory – an embarrassment of riches in terms of what we have to draw from.” When they are bottling a 12 year old Elijah Craig, for example, they have a wealth of barrels from which to choose in order to maintain the necessary flavor profile and attributes. In order to bottle a Heaven Hill product at the perfect age, it’s all about “knowing where to look and having good tasters.”
Package sales are a little different, though. Westport Whiskey and Wine owner Chris Zaborowski often selects private barrels from various distilleries for his store in the east end of Louisville: “I don’t have a perfect age for a bourbon. I seem to prefer ones in the 8 to 10 range. I appreciate older ones and younger too. When we pick a single barrel bourbon, we look for balance, then we ask for the age. We rarely pick the oldest in any selection, as we have found that many times the wood tannins start to skew the flavor.”
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Zaborowski’s customers, though, tend to put more weight on age statements. “As a retailer, I have found that most of our customers are fixated on age and proof. There is the prevailing thought that older is always better. We frequently are asked for anything over 20 years, which as you know is very, very limited. It is a shame, because it limits them to their choices and they really miss a lot of very good whiskey. As more products become NAS (no age statements) it will be interesting to see what the sales trends will be.”
The driving force behind older bourbons, which many whiskey experts agree are not necessarily better, is often blamed on consumer demand. While that is sometimes the case, there was also a lot of very old bourbon sitting in rick houses across the state of Kentucky before the bourbon boom really started to take off. Diageo was able to capitalize on these stocks by rolling out The Orphan Barrel Project. for example. If very old bourbon is your thing, grab these releases when you see them because they won’t be around long. But if you’re looking for balance and perfect ripeness, those 8 to 12 year old releases and masterfully mingled NAS bourbons are here to stay.
