A few years ago, a well-known international whiskey publication hired me to write an article about rapid-maturation technologies—and, for the first time in my writing “career,” I felt dirty. I wasn’t particularly keen to write the article, but the money was good, and articles in that particular publication held weight in certain circles. So, I sauntered forth, just trying to get the damn thing over with.
My day job is making whiskey in a fairly traditional fashion. The people for whom I work—whether in my own distilleries or my clients’ operations—always seem to expect a certain level of old-fashioned technique in my approaches. So, over the years, I’ve become a traditionalist. For my money, when maturing whiskey, nothing outdoes the marriage of Mother Nature and Father Time.
Yet while interviewing people and writing that article a few years ago, a funny thing happened: I became a bit agnostic to the whole concept of rapid maturation. Don’t get me wrong: For my own projects, I still think “rapid maturation” is an oxymoron. But I’ve learned that there are more nuances surrounding the arguments for these methods than I had previously considered.
So, here we are again. It’s 2025, and I’m writing on the topic once more—but this time, I believe, I can approach it with a keener edge.