Hellyers Road

– in Australia, this almost always means bottling a younger spirit as the environmental impacts of the Australian climate accelerate maturation by, very approximately, 3-5 times over that experienced in most areas of the UK and Europe.”

Many consumers like to buy the oldest whiskies they can, assuming that they must be the best, but as Edwards says, “there are outstanding whiskies produced at three years of age and there are outstanding whiskies released at 30, 40 or >50 years of age. Both young and old, can be as good (or as bad) as each other. It all comes down to the skill, experience and dedication of the distillery to manage the maturation of the whisky appropriately considering the spirit, environmental conditions, cask size, cask type, bond store location, and a number of other factors. If this is done correctly and the distiller is committed to bottling the spirit when it is at its absolute peak, rather than aiming for a predetermined “age”, the best expression of that spirit will result.”

Heather Tillott feels that their whiskies are somewhat of a hybrid in respect of ageing. Technically, their whiskies do have their age noted on the labels, but they do not seek to release pre-decided ages. She describes it as listening to each individual barrel and when it is ready, it will be bottled and released. Bottling normally starts around ten or eleven years but one cask might be ready at ten years, the one next to it may need another decade. So these are not traditional age statement whiskies.

That said, look to three recent examples of Sullivans Cove whiskies to exhibit the differences from age, but also the influence of oak – TD0352; TD0089; and HH0541. The first from American oak, ex-Bourbon and aged 11 years; the second from American oak refills aged 14 years; and the final bottle, French oak, ex-Tawny and aged 19 years.

The first offers florals and cinnamon notes, a touch of nutmeg. Terrific complexity with the palate moving to more caramel, chocolate and spices. Great length. The fruit just sings and some peach notes emerge towards the finish. The second whisky seems to have more depth and concentration and yet remains elegant, a whisky of finesse. Florals, cherries and a note like freshly made pancakes dripping with maple syrup. Seamless, a never-ending finish and an ethereal richness. Finally, our last offering gives us notes of spices, orange marmalade, raspberries, apricots, hazelnuts and a very fine Cohiba cigar. The palate offers honey, caramel, the finest chocolate (if it doesn’t sound too pretentious, imagine To-ak Chocolate – okay, yes, a bit pretentious). It seems to offer a mix of invisibility and balanced intensity. Invisibility in that this is so balanced that it offers no resistance. It seems to just melt into your tastebuds leaving a wonderful memory.

David Vitale makes the point that ageing in Australia is very different to other parts of the world (the ultimate example often used is the difference between a barrel ageing in a cold Scottish cellar and one in a Caribbean distillery). David notes that “thanks to Melbourne’s highly reactive climate”, he has some of “the hardest working barrels in the world. Our four seasons in a day weather results in the whisky liquid expanding and contracting within the barrels, this helps to extract the juicy goodness that has soaked into the barrel staves – considerably shortening the maturation time.”

As he says, “three Melbourne years is very different to three years elsewhere.” Those of us fortunate to live in Queensland would not argue!

But we can all enjoy the efforts of not only David and his team but all these quality distillers and their brilliant range of very different whiskies.

WHY NAS WHISKY?

NAS stands for ‘No Age Statement’, meaning whiskies that are bottled and labelled without any indication of their actual age. A great many bottles will list an age, however, let’s say you have a bottle which says ’12 Years’, then that bottle must have no whisky younger than 12 years maturation. It can have plenty of older whisky included but if there is a single drop of 12-year-old whisky in the blend then it must be called ‘12 Years’.

NAS whiskies give the distillery flexibility. They may feel that their whisky benefits from some younger material to freshen it – say a dollop of five-year-old material to freshen their 30-yearold whisky – but that would mean they would have to label it a ‘Five Year’ whisky. And that would mean marketing suicide. As a NAS, it gets the benefit of the blend without restriction in labelling. There is room for both. Johnnie Walker Red and Blue are NAS whiskies whereas their Black (12 years) and Gold (18 years) are not. It has proved an essential tool in battling the issue of shortages of aged material.

Whiskies with age statements are obviously limited by what was put in barrel at the time. NAS can be blended continuously – obviously, it is important to maintain consistency as best as possible, but they can continue producing. Macallan is a famous distiller which replaced much of its aged range with NAS whiskies allowing them to continue producing despite shortages.

Jodie Dawe of Lark notes that “despite being the oldest whisky distillery in Australia, we usually choose not to put an age statement on our product. Lark is usually released between 5-7 years of age but it is not unheard of for us to leave casks for up to 10 or 11 years, if we think they will improve with more time. Because of the climate in Tasmania, the spirit under maturation can change rapidly so all casks are monitored closely to ensure that they are being picked when they’re perfectly ripe. We’ve broken with tradition and released Legacy with an age statement.