The Art of Aging Well
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Last weekend we were on a tour of Stitzel-Weller Distillery where they have 29 houses filled with 380,000 barrels of whisky. According to the tour guide, that's not even a large amount compared to other locations used for the aging process. I've tasted 30-year whisky before but what I never really thought about until that moment was how long 30 years actually is.
I mean think about that. 30 years. Where were you 30 years ago? Were you even alive? Were you on a path that you ever imagined would get you to wear you are today? I personally was 9 years, 11 months old which would have put me in 4th grade. While 4th grade is far too young to fully understand where you want to go in life, there were signs.
Elementary school was when I had my first poem published and 4th grade specifically was Mr. Born's class - my favorite teacher - and I remember making a drawing of the entire class and him passing it around to all the other teachers, so proud of my creativity. So, while I didn't turn into an artist, at that young age my creative side was already showing its colors.
Did I know at 9 exactly where I was going? No. But I did have an inkling. Whisky is the same.
30-year bourbons are often distilled to be something different. Meaning, they start the process knowing they'll be whisky but may start off as one kind of whisky and end up as another. 30 years is a very long time, which means companies are sold, barrels moved, and what one barrel ends up as may be very different from the original intention. Sometimes, barrels can be traded so many times they lose their identity and become known as orphan barrels. But even these barrels can be reclaimed and brought back to life. This can be done by mixing with other barrels or if their flavor has gone bad, they can be moved to places known as honey holes which are special spots that, for whatever reason, age barrels better than others.
I used to think that a 30-year whisky just had to sit somewhere for 30 years; I never realized how much goes into the aging process and how that process can be influenced by many different people. Whisky doesn’t become great by accident; it becomes great because time, environment, movement, disruption, and even a few unexpected detours shape it into something richer than it could have been on day one.
None of us stay exactly who we were at nine years old, or nineteen, or even last year. We’re traded between seasons, influenced by people who cross our paths, and moved into new environments we never saw coming. Sometimes we lose the thread of where we started but that doesn’t mean we’re lost, it means we’re still aging. With the right mix of experiences, the right people, or simply the right moment, we can find our way back to ourselves; we can land in those rare places where we grow a little faster, deepen a little more, and become something we couldn’t have predicted, but somehow were always meant to be.
If you’re in a season where you feel uncertain or unfinished, remember this: greatness takes time, identity can be rediscovered, and just like a 30-year whisky, you are still becoming something worth savoring.
