gillmang wrote:Well, I am in partial agreement, John.. ...My point is that old bourbon and rye existed since the mid-1800's to satisfy a market much like the one today for similar.
Where we disagree perhaps is when the distillery people (many of them) speak of 6-8 year old whiskey as ideal: I think in most cases they really think it is - and they are right, at least for the whisky made today. But there are exceptions.
Actually, I don't think we DO disagree, at least not about whether extra-aged whiskey was common in earlier times.
As for whether 6-8 years is actually an optimum time, though, you brought up a very good point:
"at least for the whisky made today". Up until a few years ago, the whiskey we really LIKED (I'm thinking VeryVeryOldFitz; Pappy20 & 23; JohnnyDrum 12 & 15, etc) contained whiskey made before the "bland-ization" that occured contemporary with (if not the result of) Reagan's deregulation policies in the 1980's. By 2000 or so, most of what remained of that whiskey was 15-20 years old, and by now any whiskey under 15 years old will be the modern style.
I'm not implying that the modern style isn't good whiskey. In fact, I'd agree that, overall, today's product is excellent -- and that's because the distillers have done exactly what the marketing department spends millions telling people that they never do... they're making whiskey DIFFERENTLY than their grandpappy did!! In some cases, very differently. And that's why we have experimental whiskeys from Buffalo Trace, from Four Roses, from Heaven Hill. Especially from Woodford Reserve, whose entire operation is experimental, and whose original (and award-winning) product back in 1996 would have been the last of the '80s' Old Forester.
At 9 years, Knob Creek is the oldest of the Jim Beam small batch collection. It was introduced in 1992, and thus the whiskey was made no later than '83. Of course, since KC isn't single barrel, or even bonded, there's no telling the age of the oldest whiskey used, nor how long the old stock could be metered in. But it's probably safe to say that today's Knob Creek is a true 9-year-old with little or no pre-1990 whiskey in it. So, have those of you who do tasting notes noticed a change in its flavor profile versus say, ten years ago?
I didn't mean to go off-topic here. The reason I brought this up is in support of Gary's point about the whiskey made today. I believe it's perfectly reasonable that the flavors once associated with extra age are no longer present in today's whiskeys, and in fact, today's products may well be optimized for a specific maturing profile, in much the same way as Coca-Cola or packaged lunchmeat with "sell by" dates.
And by now, what we call "today's whiskey" would include any current 12- to 20- year old -- provided it's BONDED whiskey (since non-bonded whiskey
could contain older product). And it's interesting that most distillers, even those offering a 100-proof expression, no longer wish to maintain the Bottled-in-Bond status that would ensure 8-year-old to be NO OLDER than eight years old.