Andy Watts from James Sedgwick Distillery on Whiskey Aging

This is an extract from an interview with Andy Watts from the James Sedgwick distillery who, again in 2018, was selected as producig the world's best grain whisky at the World best whiskies award.

Leah van Deventer from Food24 interviewed Andy Watts, the Master Distiller and Blender at Bains Distillery. 

The full Interview is available at this link.

Age vs Quality

Q: How important is the age of whisky when it comes to quality?

"The only real correlation between age and whisky is the price!

And both age and price are just selling tools.

As mentioned earlier, climate plays a role during maturation, so a whisky matured for 10 years in a warm climate, for example, will be quite different to a whisky aged for 10 years in cool climate.

The world’s going through a period when there’s a shortage of older malts, so a good thing is that many blenders are now looking at the style of their whisky and not just relying on an age claim. NAS, or No Age Statement, whiskies are here to stay – again, just keep an open mind (and don’t fixate on age)."

Conclusion

As Craft Distillers, what can we take from this?

NAS is "here to Stay" ... if only South African legislators would wake up to it so that we can enjoy it as well!