Can A Bourbon Be Too Old?

A couple of posts back I talked about the best damn single malt I’ve ever had, and how it happened to be 50 years old and kind of a miracle of nature, and used it as a rebuke to writers who say that all extra-old whisk(e)y is too old. I mentioned it yesterday to my friend (and maker of the spectacular Old Duff Genever) Philip Duff, and he asked, “But don’t you think that the age and the rarity had something to do with why you loved it so much?” In this particular case I disagreed with him — I’d much rather the 50 Year Old Bowmore single malt, distilled in 1966, be an affordable 12 year old, because then I’d be able to drink it again as well as proselytize about it to my friends without sounding like such a damn snob. But I agree with him in general. An extreme age statement on a bottle is always intriguing, and it can be kinda sexy, too, even if the stuff inside might taste better had it been bottled a few years or decades earlier.

When it comes to bourbon, the effects of over-aging are, from my experience, more clear-cut and more pronounced. It’s certainly possible to find a spectacular 20 year old bourbon (Michter’s, which has periodically releases bottlings, comes immediately to mind) but more often they’re unbalanced, overly spicy, astringent, painfully woody…. you get the idea. Some of the worst bourbons I’ve ever had were 20-plus years old, including an almost unheard-of 36 year old that was damn near undrinkable… and sold for $1,200 a bottle.

Anyway, for a look at what constitutes and overaged bourbon and what distillers think of the trend toward extra-aged bottlings, look no further than my Whisky Advocate article on the subject. Of course, you can look further as well, but start with my article and go from there.