Are Age Statements Verifiable?

[Vosgar]

It'll be interesting to see what VW offers me for my 2012 Jetta TDI with 191.000 miles on it

(sorry for the thread drift)

 

Edited April 22, 2016 by Vosgar

[fishnbowljoe]

4 minutes ago, Vosgar said:

It'll be interesting to see what VW offers me for my 2012 Jetta TDI with 191.000 miles on it

(sorry for the thread drift)

 

 

Thread drift? Consider yourself warned.  

[cowdery]

There isn't really much incentive to lie about age. The risk would be huge, the return dubious. Too many people would know about it. Remember, every barrel has the barreled-on date on the barrelhead. Too many people would see that they were putting in younger whiskey than they were saying. You could never keep it quiet. You never know what a little company might do but the big guys? They simply have too much at stake to do something that stupid. A stunt like that could literally put them out of business.

 

While, no, there are no government inspectors physically checking, the government (the TTB) does have access to a complete database of every distillery's inventory, every barrel, when it was filled, when it was dumped. If someone was suspected of doing it the TTB would already have all of the evidence needed to prove it.

[starhopper]

4 hours ago, cowdery said:

There isn't really much incentive to lie about age. The risk would be huge, the return dubious. Too many people would know about it. Remember, every barrel has the barreled-on date on the barrelhead. Too many people would see that they were putting in younger whiskey than they were saying. You could never keep it quiet. You never know what a little company might do but the big guys? They simply have too much at stake to do something that stupid. A stunt like that could literally put them out of business.

 

While, no, there are no government inspectors physically checking, the government (the TTB) does have access to a complete database of every distillery's inventory, every barrel, when it was filled, when it was dumped. If someone was suspected of doing it the TTB would already have all of the evidence needed to prove it.

Thanks for the input Chuck, I appreciate the feedback.  So, I guess in practical terms it basically comes down to our trusting the distilleries to do the right thing - until somebody doesn't and gets caught.

Edited April 27, 2016 by starhopper

[Charlutz]

7 hours ago, starhopper said:

Thanks for the input Chuck, I appreciate the feedback.  So, I guess in practical terms it basically comes down to our trusting the distilleries to do the right thing - until somebody doesn't and gets caught.

 

I would refine your conclusion a bit. It's not that we rely on them to "do the right thing" as that implies following the law for the law's sake or being honest to be honest. I think the conclusion Chuck's post generates is that we rely on them to "do what is smart for their own business." Essentially, to behave like a reasonable business should because the upside of cheating is low while the downside is high. High risk, low reward. 

[Flyfish]

On ‎4‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 5:11 AM, starhopper said:

Thanks for the input Chuck, I appreciate the feedback.  So, I guess in practical terms it basically comes down to our trusting the distilleries to do the right thing - until somebody doesn't and gets caught.

You might want to see the What is the difference? thread where petrel800 talks about BT removing the SB designation from ER10. They probably didn't have to do that and the "harm" associated with the infinitesimally small mingling of bourbon from two barrels would be undetectable by the consumer. But they were being scrupulous in preserving the integrity of their definition of single barrel.

[tanstaafl2]

5 hours ago, Flyfish said:

You might want to see the What is the difference? thread where petrel800 talks about BT removing the SB designation from ER10. They probably didn't have to do that and the "harm" associated with the infinitesimally small mingling of bourbon from two barrels would be undetectable by the consumer. But they were being scrupulous in preserving the integrity of their definition of single barrel.

 

Well, yes that could be it or they may want to move to being able to blend as they see fit now that it is no longer designated as such. Even though it has no current legal meaning on a label to my knowledge perhaps they feel it might look bad if someone said they were no longer single barrel when the bottle still said it was. The whole bottling line story always seemed a little weak to me.

[flahute]

8 hours ago, tanstaafl2 said:

 

Well, yes that could be it or they may want to move to being able to blend as they see fit now that it is no longer designated as such. Even though it has no current legal meaning on a label to my knowledge perhaps they feel it might look bad if someone said they were no longer single barrel when the bottle still said it was. The whole bottling line story always seemed a little weak to me.

I totally hear that. 

I also can see a scenario (if they had kept the designation) where a whiskey geek touring BT's bottling line notices a tiny amount of the previous barrel being included in the first bottle of a new barrel thereby inducing them to write a scandalous post on reddit accusing BT of lying about it being a Single Barrel. Post goes viral, BT has to do damage control. It's just easier to remove it and look like the good guy (notwithstanding the fallout from those bemoaning the loss of the single barrel who they must have estimated to be a smaller possible percentage of dissenters than possible in the previous scenarios.)

[squire]

The law is specific enough and the fines are stiff enough I'm not concerned.  Of course if the label has some small print saying 'Made in China' . . .