A Decree on Aged Things, and the Cult Thereof

The age statement on a bottle has acquired an authority it has not earned. Eighteen years is assumed superior to twelve, twenty five superior to eighteen, and the prices follow the assumption faithfully.

Age does things to a spirit. It rounds edges, deepens color, contributes vanilla and spice and tannin from the wood. Past a certain point, it also overwhelms. A whisky held too long stops tasting of the distillery and starts tasting of the barrel, and the barrel is the same barrel everyone else has.

The same is true of cheese, where age brings crystalline crunch and depth until it brings only ammonia, and of wine, where the dead bottle drunk five years past its window is one of the sadder sights in this hobby.

Everything has a window. Inside it, the years are working for you. Outside it, they are simply passing.

Drink things when they are ready rather than when the number impresses. The finest dram I own carries no age statement whatsoever, and I have watched a man refuse a glass of it on that basis, which is the most expensive mistake I have ever witnessed a guest make for free.