NAS whiskey stands for No Age Statement, that is, simply whiskey without an indication of the aging period on the label. However, this does not mean that the distillate is bottled directly from the distillation cube – Scotch whiskey (Scotch) by law cannot be younger than three years. The abbreviation NAS makes it clear that the manufacturer does not indicate, but in fact hides information about the aging of the drink.
Causes
The reason for the emergence of unaged whiskey is purely commercial – in the wake of increased demand, stocks of aged brands with a respectable age of 10 years or more began to deplete. The NAS label allowed distillers to fill an empty niche in the market by circumventing the consumer prejudice that young whiskey was bound to be of poor quality.
Quality
The quality of NAS whiskey depends on the manufacturer, and is not always worse than that of aged samples – sometimes quite the opposite. Labeling allows producers to experiment with flavors and blends without violating standards.
For example, according to the rules, the age of the youngest alcohol from the blend is indicated on the label. Even if the bottle contains a blend of ten 20-year-old whiskeys and one 3-year-old whiskey, the final product will be three-year-old and, accordingly, will seriously lose in price. The NAS label gets around this.
The closest analogue is the Russian system of GOSTs, that is, the standard of product quality adopted by the state. If the manufacturer does not comply with it, he follows some of his own standard – TU – which can be equally worse or better than the official one.
What should a buyer look for
The vast majority of consumers determine the quality of whiskey by its age. If this criterion is not present, other markers come to the fore:
- Color – should be caramel of one shade or another.
- Taste – the best examples can boast notes of smoked peat (typical for Scotch whiskey).
- Region – Regardless of age, Highland or Skye whiskey is likely to be decent.
- Technology – for example, the Laphroaig Triple Wood brand is sequentially aged in three different oak barrels. With this approach, the aging period is not so important, the taste will still be rich and unusual.
Consumer reaction
In surveys, over 90% of whiskey drinkers said that aging is very important to them. However, during a blind tasting, it turned out that NAS whiskey received no less positive reviews than its “age” counterparts.
Famous brands of NAS whiskey
The most famous example of NAS whiskey is Johnnie Walker. This brand differentiates the quality of its products with multi-colored labels – but these colors are only indirectly related to aging.
Another famous representative is Macallan. This manufacturer also has brands indicating the aging period, but it only supplies NAS to Duty Free stores.
Other whiskeys: Yamazaki Sherry Cask 2013, Glenmorangie, Ardbeg Supernova, George T. Stagg, The Balvenie Tun 1509, etc.
