Producing high-quality whisky requires not only meticulous selection and preparation of ingredients (the grain, yeast and water), precise distillation processes (ferment times, mash schedules and cut points) – but also a well-strategised maturation schedule.
Maturation is where commercial realities meet idealised flavour forecasts, and the compromises that make or break a distillery’s reputation often come about. Understandably so – maturation holds the key to your distillery’s financial viability and the quality of whisky you produce.
Before you read on – a caveat. If you are planning on getting into whisky production, start by setting out your desired House Style!
The following article assumes you have already got a clear house style and the New Make Spirit is aligned with your idealised flavour profile.
Understanding the importance of a maturation schedule at planning phase
Even if you are entirely self-funded, creating a maturation schedule and detailed ageing programme facilitates better cash flow management and maximises the chances of better procurement strategies – let alone achieving success.
It’s madness not to do one from long before you start distilling.
However, if you took the “just fill something and let’s see” approach – it’s never too late and the benefits are still great.
A systematic maturation plan will enable a continuous flow of product availability for sales forecasts. It aids in maintaining a steady revenue stream and helps you understand what market demands you can adequately fulfil. It leaves you certain in the knowledge that you will have revenue being generated from sales, but not at the expense nor by compromising future whisky sales.
For those making the types of whisky that are allowed to use re-fill casks, it’ll also helps you prepare for when you will have casks to refill and what do to at that point. Having re-fills at your disposal will fundamentally alter your inventory management, procurement, tracking and flavour evolution calculations.
So, be it for financial planning, for flavour forecasting or marketing and route to market sales planning – it’s the absolute bedrock of a new whisky distillery.
Starting your plan
Before you can really map out your maturation schedule you need to answer several questions succinctly. Here are some pragmatic starting points.
Grounded research and expert consultation
Engage with industry experts to understand the nuances of whisky ageing. You must have some idea for to what to expect from the type of casks you are selecting. Give yourself a chance to predict what will happen over time.
Consider climatic factors that influence the ageing process. Talk to wood experts and cask brokers about your vision. Ask them how they would do it and form your opinions from an informed stance, not just a hunch.
It might seem like a time consuming and expensive thing to do – but it pays dividends as when tailored to you and insightful, the advice given compounds over time.
Procurement of quality casks
How will you procure casks? Not just from who, but in what quantity? Consider how your New Make spirit production looks like. Will it be variable and in individually distinct batches, or consistent and consolidated into predictable weekly runs?
Do you have space to store empty casks and operate at a rate that will ensure they are filled before they dry out? There are many more questions in this area, all of which try to map out what your cask demand is going to be like, and the type of supply arrangement that will suit you.
This will inform if you need them drip fed into a filling station, or if you if you need to invest in holding tanks for batch filling less frequently. There are compromises to be made. It’s more logical to bulk buy from a cask purchase point of view, but the clock for ageing only starts once the spirit is in the cask so every day counts… There’s a balance to be drawn.
Do you want to consolidate around certain types of oak, previous occupants or ideal cask sizes? Most distilleries spend a lot of time questioning this and then have very fixed mindsets once decided. Once you commit, you need to be consistently dedicated to that strategy for years…
It may be prudent to commit 80% of your resources (both your buying budget and volume of New Make) to a clear plan, then use the remainder for rogue experiments that can help diversify your range, add interest or be used to bring in extra depth once you start blending. That said, 20% is a big commitment to spend on something that may prove ineffective and leave you with problematic inventory.
Systematic documentation and more questions
You will need to document every detail, from the date of filling the casks to noting down the characteristics of the whisky at various stages. What have you got in place to do this? Have you researched warehouse management systems (WMS) that integrate RFID tags?
How do you intend to monitor the casks to gauge the maturation process? What kind of warehouse do you have. Palletised approach vs racketed give you different options (think bung holes and tracking tags).
There are a lot of questions to answer before you can move forward. But that’s also the whole point of a maturation schedule – it irons out these details and ensures your plan is going to be possible.
Now that you have got your procurement, filling and tracking better assessed, you can begin to outline a timeline during which different casks will reach their optimum ageing point.
Balancing the predictable and unpredictable
Whisky maturation is a slow process, and a good ageing programme requires a reservoir of patience. And money! Much of the craft involves holding back stock for extended periods to allow yourself the chance to build more complex profiles and enhance your market position.
It is imperative to develop a strategy that carefully considers the following elements:
Pre-release (18months – 2years):
Regular sensory evaluations to track the progress of the maturation process are crucial. These provide insights into when the whisky has reached its optimum maturation point.
Be prepared to tweak your plans based on the ongoing maturation observations and market trends. Things might evolve differently than what you forecast!
Initial releases. 3-4 year maturation
You need a significant amount of stock to become good enough to bottle in a short timeframe. First fill casks, STR casks and a broad selection of cask types are all helpful in proving you with options that, once artfully blended, will create a complex profile despite a young age.
You can’t fast forward quality maturation. It’s worth embracing that you’ll have a young, vibrant product that can shine a light on what’s yet to come. Lean into it.
Depending on what else you make, this is likely to be your core release for a while and will need to be made consistently for a few years. It’s worth waiting for as long as possible to be able to deliver that consistency (both flavour and volume). Only sporadically having stock on the market, then not being able to supply and having to go through making new sales / trade relationships all over again is the worst possible scenario…
Intermediate holdings. 6-8 year maturation
Having spent longer in cask, it’s fair to expect your spirit will have been transformed into a more refined product, capturing a balance of youthful vigour and more mature notes.
Typically, distillers get useful feedback from 2-3yr old samples that helps them tweak their process and optimise their house style (mentioned in the pre-release above). They optimise the ferment, the cut points, the proof at which the spirit enters the cask etc.
This means the stock coming through is likely to be far better than the first casks that reach 6, 7 and 8year old status.
As a result, it’s easy to see why some who had earmarked casks for medium term maturation leave additional numbers (in addition to what they had planned) to rest longer and don’t use the allocation. Again, money talks here, but there’s no point releasing a second SKU now that’s weaker than what it could be in a few years time. Conversely it also explains why some incorporate it into existing product.
The above example has two benefits: 1. You can use some stock to build volume and quality for the core releases already in market, making them incrementally better. 2. If you chose not to do that, you have more stock going into double figures that has the capacity to change your market position and approach to your range in the future.
Again, it’s about patience and knowing what improves your overall brand value. It’s also a reminder that you need to ensure you have sufficient financial resources to sustain the long maturation periods without compromising the quality.
It can be so tempting to use the entire stock and increase your baseline turnover. Don’t! Try and build yourself into a situation where you don’t have to do that to keep stakeholders happy either. That’s easier said than done…
Long-term vision. 10 years and beyond
With a decade or more of maturation, you can rightly expect products with complex, layered profiles, representing the pinnacle of your ability.
But ten years is a long way off to forecast accurately! Not just in predicting flavour but also market trends. Therefore, it’s not easy mapping out what to do with stock, as so much will depend on both the contents of the cask, the market and the distillery’s success to date.
The case you need to make for planning then, is ensuring enough casks get to double figures so that you will have interesting decisions to make. Don’t get bogged down into the minute details, just make sure the numbers are there and that they stack up (in this case – literally).
“Workshop” example of a maturation schedule
Let’s assume we are a distillery with a production capacity of 150 casks per year, and looking to build a solid range of two (maybe three) whiskies, with the occasional limited edition release.
Here’s how we would suggest sketching out a speculative 10-year maturation schedule.
It’s not an exact blueprint that you can use as a template, but it will help illustrate a few concepts we’ve mentioned and guide you when crafting your own plans.
Year 1-4: Setting the foundation
- Year 1: Produce 150 casks. Set aside 50 casks for long-term ageing and earmark the rest for the first product release (in year 5).
Test and sample a broad range of casks to understand if you need to make adjustments to either the spirit or the casks selection being made. You may find that some combinations result in good early results while others take time. It’s not a case of optimising for speedy return, it’s a case of learning about what you produce and making incremental changes that marginally improve each subsequent fill.
- Year 2 & 3: Repeat the Year 1 plan, setting a consistent foundation for your maturation schedule. At the end of the year, you should have 300 casks down and have optimised the process (be it malt, mash, ferment, distilling, sourcing etc).
- Year 4: As you produce another 150 casks, your first batch of 50 reaches the 3-year maturation mark, ready for a young, vibrant release that introduces your brand to the market.
Hold off releasing anything!
Having more stock to play with will make for a far better product (more blending options). By the end of the year, there will be a lot of inventory to work with, rather than just the casks laid down in Q1 & Q2.
Moreover, it will allow more volume to be able to support consistent supply to retailers / bars and DTC.
Consider hosting a preview night for fans and trade instead of a release. This builds excitement and starts a conversation with influencers well ahead of time. Often the feedback at such events informs release strategies and even minor liquid (blend) adjustments.
Year 5-6: Establishing a product
- Year 5&6: Time to launch! In year 5, blend a selection of 3 and 4year old casks and launch your inaugural product.
Ideally, keep in mind the second product that will be released and what your eventual range might look like. (In this hypothetical scenario, the flagship is an intentionally accessible and fruity malt, with the second product due in year 7 a more complex and mature offering).
Year 6 is about building the volumes being bottles and sold. Which is the hard part!
It can be tempting to want to release more products, but by focussing on sales and driving volume into a single product you’ll be better off in the long term. Not unloading inventory allows a lot of stock to mature. It gives you options in years to come that will fundamentally change the perception / reputation of your brand. And your profitability.
Additionally, not releasing loads of variants at this stage allows you to seed the message of what your house style is and create awareness about your message.
Learn from the gin boom on this one – those who built rate of sale around their core product have prospered, those that released broad ranges have not… Heed the lesson so many of them failed to until it was too late – you are a maker yes, you are selling spirits, yes – but what are you really selling. Brand Building / Brand USP / Differentiation are all hard to seed, take the time to do that rather than focus on the next product.
Year 7-10: Developing the Brand
- Year 7, 8 & 9: Developing the brand (and range)
You continue to build stock to service the core offering and build volume of sales. These are the years to start looking at limited edition bottlings, interesting finishes, single casks and other ideas that propel the brand identity and help establish your USP.
An older cask or two committed to this sort of project is well spent. The right selection can generate huge interest, as well as help refocus the narrative around your distillery.
By this point, you should also be getting good feedback from the market and a good understanding of what your New Make will do over time. This should allow you to change the range if it needs to adapt to market trends or what your audience has responded particularly favourably to.
Over these three years, we would recommend two things. 1st, improve the flagship offering by using older stock if needed. Age doesn’t equate to quality, but it can provide fantastic tools for the blender to work with to add extra dimensions. 2nd Release another core product.
- Year 10: This year marks a milestone as your first batch of casks reach the 10-year maturation mark, ready for a premium limited-edition release and a deliberate age statement bottling.
Go big here, celebrate the journey, use a bold quantity of casks. Use the income to reinvest in infrastructure, brand identity and ease cashflow burdens to set yourself up for further growth.
Here’s what the above workshop example cask split looks like over ten years.
It’s only an example, but it might help with what your maturation schedule and inventory could look like. The input of 150 casks a year is constant. We’ve withdrawn the casks used from the total based on the suggested rational above. The end result is a healthy 40k units P/A available to sell, and just over 800 casks as maturing inventory.
It is just one way of doing it, and it is better suited to New World Whisky makers. Clearly Bourbon works to a different timeline and where mash bill affects product differentiation within a range more than casks. It’s aimed at illustrating the points made and to help spark your thinking.
Use it as a way to ask yourself what you want to do, not as a fixed blueprint to follow.
There are universal concepts that can be taken from it, however.
If you don’t map out your maturation plan fully before you begin, you miss out on asking so many questions that will fundamentally improve your procurement, production, marketing plan and route to market strategy. Mapping out input vs casks withdrawn forces a fundamental reality check to the ambitions you have.
Taking a strategy that focuses on getting the flagship product right and waiting until the 5th year to launch it allows for a good spread of aged inventory.
Going too soon is almost always the root cause of a distillery finding evolution hard years later. It decimates options to build the range. It inevitably forces you to stick to making young products for longer than you might have hoped.
Most of all, maturation plans also focus the mind on sales. It’s one thing making whisky, or ageing it wisely. It’s another financing an operation to last 4 years without selling anything while also laying casks down at a consistent rate. But how are you going to sell 35k, 45k, 50k bottles a year, or more?
Lastly, mapping it out from the start will help inform your oak selection and what cask types you need. Not just in terms of what diversity you need to build a complex offering in your flagship product, but also what you might need to put down to have options for special releases.
It’s the third part of an important trinity to get right. The trinity of good maturation planing is having a clarity over house style, securing good oak selection, and implementing effective time management to not just track what inventory exists, but know when it can be available.
A schedule for success
Crafting a successful whisky maturation schedule is key for any distillery wanting to make whisky and not burn out. It balances commercial objectives (and realities) with flavour aspirations, ensuring the financial viability of the vision.
A well-planned maturation schedule encompasses expert consultation, quality cask procurement, systematic documentation, and a strategic approach to ageing.
It requires patience, adaptability to market trends, and a clear vision of the distillery’s style and goals.
Ultimately, a thoughtfully crafted maturation plan not only enhances the whisky’s quality but also solidifies the brand’s market position and reputation. If you are planning yours – we hope this helped and hope you enjoy the process, it’s one of the more interesting and exciting parts to get stuck into!
