#16 Each Bottle Is One Year Older. Whisky!
whiskynet.com
For something like a single malt Scotch, there are hard and fast rules about what you are allowed to sell and call it Scotch. While you lose approximately 2 percent of the volume of a whisky for every year of age, you also lose a certain percentage of alcohol. This varies depending on the size and makeup of barrel, local humidity and heat. The 2 percent lost is known as the Angels share. This is one reason older whisky costs more – there is simply less of it when the aging is done. However, at a certain age the whisky will approach dropping below 40 percent alcohol. Were this to happen you would not be allowed to you sell it as a Scotch Whisky. This is rare because you would be approaching 65 plus years in cask, but is a consideration for some distilleries. If the alcohol drops below 40 abv, then the value plummets because it isn’t in the Scotch Single Malt category, which leaves you the only option of blending in younger stock. Because of whisky labeling laws, you can only label and market according to the youngest whisky in the blend. Again, diminished return.
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