It’s widespread information that whiskey will get its colour and most of its taste from the method of barrel ageing. Barrel ageing is without doubt one of the defining traits of the spirit, however is that course of obligatory for any liquor to be categorised as whiskey? 

Each nation that produces the spirit has its personal distinctive set of legal guidelines that dictate whiskey manufacturing. Many of those restrictions prolong to barrel ageing and may regulate how lengthy a whiskey is aged, how every bottle must be labeled, and even what forms of wooden it may be aged in.

Phrases like “straight bourbon whiskey” and “bottled in bond” aren’t simply advertising and marketing hooks, they’re legally outlined phrases. If you happen to see “straight Kentucky bourbon whiskey” on a label, that signifies that the distillers needed to comply with a algorithm to make use of that time period.

Taking a look at each nation’s laws for producing whiskey would fill a guide. Fortunately, American whiskey is about as closely regulated as anyplace on the planet and gives an ideal case research to reply the query of whether or not or not whiskey really must be barrel-aged.

Whiskey legal guidelines

To grasp why whiskey manufacturing is so closely regulated within the U.S., we’ve got to take a look at when the trade was a bit extra free.

“Return to the nineteenth and early twentieth century rectifiers and the individuals who would add totally different sorts of coloring and flavoring and totally different substances to whiskey, and even simply nice impartial spirits to promote it as whiskey,” says Susan Reigler, writer and director for whiskey schooling for Buzzard’s Roost whiskey. “That type of nonsense went on up till the Bottled in Bond Act of 1897.”

The Bottled in Bond Act of 1897 was the primary federal laws that imposed strict manufacturing requirements on whiskey. The regulation basically states that to be labeled bottled in bond, the whiskey must be produced from a single distillery throughout a single distilling season. The whiskey should even be aged in oak barrels in a federally bonded warehouse beneath authorities supervision for at the least 4 years. Bottled in bond whiskey should even be bottled at 100 proof. 

In 1909, President William Howard Taft amended the Pure Meals and Drug Act of 1906 to additional make clear the authorized definition of whiskey. The Taft Resolution outlined the time period straight whiskey, which refers to a whiskey that’s barrel-aged for at least two years and made out of nothing however grain, yeast, and water.

“Straight bourbon is required to be aged a minimal of two years in new charred oak barrels, in contrast to different world whiskey choices that may be aged in beforehand used barrels, leading to a extra intense impression from the wooden on the whiskey,” says Danny Kahn, the grasp distiller and distillation and ageing operations director at Buffalo Hint Distillery. 

Whereas combating the rectifiers, the U.S. developed a few of the world’s strictest legal guidelines for ageing whiskey. “We have now laws on distillation proof, and what sort of barrels we age in. If we have been to make a rye whiskey however age it in a used cask, it’s now not a rye whiskey, it’s now a whiskey distilled from a rye mash,” says Kate Douglas, the distiller at Keeper’s Coronary heart Whiskey.

Probably the most necessary laws is implementing a minimal age assertion. 

“If the whiskey bottle does have an age assertion, nothing in that mix could be youthful than the age assertion,” says Kahn. “For instance, if in case you have 1,000 barrels at 20 years previous and one at 4 years previous, one may age assertion the bottle at 4 years previous or haven’t any age assertion in any respect. You can not use a mean or use the bulk.” 

Due to this, customers all the time know the age of the youngest whiskey blended right into a bottle.

All of those guidelines are overseen by the Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Commerce Bureau (TTB) which has to approve the labeling of any distilled spirits bought within the U.S. Distilleries must report back to the TTB, which enforces the principles positioned on the numerous totally different acknowledged forms of whiskey. 

The gray areas of whiskey regulation

Taking all of that into consideration, can an unaged spirit be bottled and bought as whiskey? The reply is a bit sophisticated. 

Technically, to be thought-about a whiskey, the spirit should spend at the least a while maturing in a picket container. The particular guidelines differ between straight bourbon, rye, and different forms of whiskey, however all whiskeys are required to the touch wooden.

As with many legal guidelines, there are some loopholes.

“You can take your new make off the nonetheless, put it within the barrel, instantly dump it, and now you are entitled to name it whiskey,” says Reigler.

Douglas additional provides, “Some will interpret the regulation because the whiskey that passes by way of a barrel, others will say that it wants to sit down in a barrel for at the least an hour.” 

There are laws in place to keep away from any obfuscation from whiskey producers, nonetheless. “If the bourbon is aged for lower than 4 years, it should have an age assertion someplace on the bottle telling the client how lengthy it was aged,” says Kahn. 

Due to this, most distillers will age their whiskey for at the least 4 years to keep away from having to place a minimal age assertion.

Some producers appear to take pleasure in pushing boundaries. 

“I’ve seen some age statements like that, the place they’re going to provide you with months as a substitute of years to make it look older,” says Reigler. “Possibly you are simply glancing at it on the shelf and suppose ‘oh, wow, how great. An 18-year-old bourbon,’ and then you definately take a better look and discover out it’s solely aged 18 months.”

Unaged whiskey is bought within the U.S., however it’s normally labeled as white canine, which is simply American whiskey jargon for unaged distillate. Buffalo Hint, for instance, bottles three of their totally different whiskey mash payments to permit the distillery’s followers to strive what their whiskey tastes like earlier than it’s aged. Though it’s made out of the very same grains and yeast, and distilled the identical approach as whiskey, it may’t be labeled as such as a result of it by no means rested in a picket container.

So, does American whiskey must be barrel-aged? Technically sure, however so long as the bottle is labeled appropriately, the spirit solely has to make transient contact with any wooden to be thought-about whiskey.