Whiskey Insider Speaks: Why NAS will kill us...

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Mon Jun 02, 2014 5:00 pm

The basis of NAS purports to be this...

And that is: "...it's the quality of the spirit, not the age". I know some of you are already onto this new marketing mantra which is really just a corollary to "...it's all good", right?

And that is true, but doesn't tell the whole story. The real truth is that whiskey has so completely succeed in every way that everyone in the business is getting so fat and happy that they find it difficult to believe that any other spirit really threatens. So although that marketing claim may have very briefly been true, it is no longer and NAS has become the bottling of rather younger and relatively ordinary spirits but hidden under a deluge of high end marketing and advertising, and of course fancy bottles.

Sydney Frank lives.

The real and awful truth is this. Whiskey drinkers are nowhere near as stupid as the Preacher's Monkey Club. And they have better palates; accordingly they are rapidly becoming disenchanted with this overpriced, underaged NAS drivel and are losing faith in the long revered names who are releasing them. Further, their wonderful short term NAS profits are reducing the amount of product left to be legitmately longer aged.

It's like selling the life preservers on the Titanic.

Flat Ass Bottom Line

The preceeding was just a bit of what I garnered from an insider's blog post entitled "No-age-statement will kill us all" in his Edinburgh Whisky Blog. Read it for yourself - a great post...

http://www.edinburghwhiskyblog.com/2014 ... nt-whisky/

Dai · Post by **Dai** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:51 am

I'm afraid it's the same old same old. Companies think they can cheapen a product and still retain loyalty. When will they ever learn that we buy these things for there taste, texture, feel and when that changes so do our loyalties and fellings for a product.

NCyankee · Post by **NCyankee** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:02 pm

Not to mention, I am sure this is responsible for the upward price drfit of the upper level products over the last couple years.

Some that I like or have wanted to try, with the prices I could have gotten a couple yrs ago vs lowest price I see now:

Balvenie doublewood $36 / $45
Balvenie 15 yr $50 / $70
Balvenie 14 yr Rum cask $50 / $65

Caol Ila 12 yr $45 / $60

Laphroaig 10 yr $30 / $40

There are many more but you get the point.

The only NAS I have had was Auchentoshan Classic, after hearing good things about the 10 yr which it replaced. It was not good.

Hassouni · Post by **Hassouni** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:40 pm

Aberlour A'bunadh is NAS and it's a reet banger of a whisky. Doorly's XO is NAS too, if I recall right. NAS doesn't necessarily imply a lack of quality.

NCyankee · Post by **NCyankee** » Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:51 pm

The article was referring more to the 5 yr olds being released as NAS, not to special releases such as A'bunadh, Uigeadail, Corryvreckan,
etc.

Johnnie Walker formerly had a Gold label with a 18 yr age statement that retailed for $70-80, and was very good. Now they have a $60 NAS "Gold Reserve" about which I have not heard good things, and a $110 18 yr Platinum label.

Hassouni · Post by **Hassouni** » Wed Jun 04, 2014 12:55 am

Well, if Ralfy is to be believed, the new Uigedail has nothing on the ones from even a few years ago, and he blames NAS for that. I have a couple year old one that is pretty great, but I have no point of reference.

Further drawing info from Ralfy, age isn't all it's cracked up to be either, as quality casks get more expensive due to higher demand. A lot of age-statement whiskies are not as they once were due to poorer barrels.

I don't think there's one factor that can be pointed to as "killing" whisky.

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Wed Jun 04, 2014 12:02 pm

Hass is right. As in medicine, NAS is a symptom, not a cause, which lies more with the mega-corporate consolodation and power for whom NAS is a tactic. Although rum has gotten away with it, I'm not sure that whisky will, particularly under keen observers and skilled reviewers.

Hassouni · Post by **Hassouni** » Wed Jun 04, 2014 3:10 pm

The thing is, what common rums have accurately stated ages? Appleton Extra, but not from what I've noticed the cheaper ones; all the Barbancourts; the El Dorados, for better or for worse; and to an extent the aged AOC rhums, where they often follow the Cognac system, where VS, VSOP, and XO, etc are defined by years.

Hassouni · Post by **Hassouni** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 11:15 am

By the way, Ralfy's most recent is a re-review of Highland Park 12, a verified age-statement rum, and he considers it to have declined slightly, and attributes it entirely to reduced availability of quality casks.

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 12:10 pm

Great contributions...

If rums were ever honest, it was long, long ago and not by many of them. As a reminder, even though US law allows for bonding, I don't know of a single rum producer who takes advantage of this. There are a handful of exceptions but without bonding we are forced to rely on the word of the marketing department.

Thus rums - with exceptions noted - seem a lost cause, and now the mega's are moving on to their extremely profitable whiskys, sacrificing the long term for this quarter's massive profits. If you have a link to Ralfy's re-review, do please post it.

Thanks.

Hassouni · Post by **Hassouni** » Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:18 pm

Ralfy 461: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Kq5g9aIzg

As for rums bottled in bond - there are so few rums produced in the US, and all are very small scale (discounting Puerto Rico or the USVI, of course), I don't think there'd be a huge impact. Does the bonded thing apply to PR and the Virgin Islands?

As I've said earlier, if the US and/or the EU passed a law that said for something to be sold as "rum" it has to made from sugar, be it cane juice/syrup or molasses and nothing else, with the exception of trace E150A (as is allowed for single malt scotch), I think the producers would fall into line lickety-split.

Here is a recent interview with Seale in which he notes that in both Barbados and Jamaica, to say nothing of the French AOC stuff, sugar and other adulterants are illegal. http://thefloatingrumshack.com/content/ ... hard-seale

Sadly, I suspect that Bim and JA produce a lot less rum than PR, USVI, DDL, and Angostura

NCyankee · Post by **NCyankee** » Fri Jun 06, 2014 3:50 am

In reference to the Seales interview - a week or so ago I tried a little experiment. I had finally opened my bottle of Plantation Barbados 5 yr and was deciding whether or not to order another from Hitime in an upcoming order. I like it but do find it a little sweet, but not a sweet bomb despite the 22 g/l I see on the Swedish lists.

I took a couple ounces of Doorly's 5 yr, added the amount of sugar I would need to approximate what is added to Plantation, and tried them side-by-side. As I expected, virtually identical.

Thus, it makes no sense to buy more Plantation at $15 per 750 ml when I could just make it myself by adding sugar to Doorly's at $10 a bottle (or $20 for a 1.75 ltr).

Not that I would do that of course