The Resurgence Of The Age Statement?

Everyone who has even the  slightest interest in whisky must by now have heard of the term NAS (no age statement). The regulations for Scotch whisky say that if an age is stated it must be the age of the youngest component in the bottle. In recent years (although NAS is much older) it has become a trend in the industry to omit that age statement. The reason is that distilleries want to mix younger stocks in the blend but don't want to write an age statement of let's say 5 years on the bottle. Some people see the disappearance of the age statement just as a natural development  others are a bit more sceptical and other people see it as a monster that is haunting the industry. I still remember when I started drinking whisky and the Macallan, a distillery that was a favourite of many Scotch lovers announced that it replaced their age statement series with no age statement whiskies and people almost started running riot.

Whisky Meets Wine Masterclass

Last saturday I had the pleasure to attend masterclass with the name "Whisky meets wine" at the whisky ships in Lucerne. The evening was hosted by Marcel Telser who is the owner of a whisky distillery in Liechtenstein, a tiny country next to Switzerland, and Jürgen Deibel who is an expert for spirits and a 40 years veteran in the whisky industry. Some of you may already know Jürgen Deibel because he was co author of one of the if not the single best book about the water of life - Michael Jackson: Whisky. Since I own a copy of this book I was quite excited to meet the man who wrote the chapter about distillation.

After travelling to Lucerne with my buddy Pascal we went to the whisky ships first and enjoyed a few drams. We went for some grain whisky because we wanted something light so we wouldn't overwork our palate. After an hour or so we went to the ship where the masterclass took place. It was all set up very beautifully. There was a total of 12 glasses at each place. 8 drams of whisky and 4 glasses of either sherry or wine.