From the Editor
Luis Ayala
I recently caught myself complaining AGAIN about the aches and pains associated with old age. It became obvious to me that the frequency and duration of my complaints had gradually increased with the passing of time, something that was so gradual that I had grown accustomed to it.
My complaining and whining about the symptoms of age were quite often accompanied by a yearning for how things were in the past: pain-free joints, increased vitality, better sleep, etc.
It was then that I also had an epiphany about how many of us view getting old versus how we should view it. As someone who has made a living aging distilled spirits, I should have seen this from the beginning, but somehow, I didn’t: people getting old are no different than spirits maturing in barrels!
There is an aspect of “freshness” and “single-mindedness” that newly-distilled spirits possess. This is similar to the vitality and seemingly endless energy young people have. But, as these young spirits spend more and more time inside barrels, their impetuous nature starts to yield, the rough edges become softer, their see-through bodies slowly become tainted by tannins and their overall personalities become more complex. As trade professionals and consumers of aged spirits, all these traits are things we look for in casked products. Their absence is a quick indicator that either aging is not present or that calendar years have elapsed, but the maturity is lagging.
Why is it, then, that so many of us struggle to cherish these transformations in ourselves, but want them, even demand them, in our distilled beverages?
There are many possible answers, but the one that I like the most is that, unlike casked spirits, we have agendas, things we want to do before our time is up. I believe that we reject the reality of growing old because it is a sign that time is simply running out.
Growing old is the same as aging distilled spirits inside barrels: we must transform ourselves, maturing, extracting experiences from our medium, suffering evaporation losses, ending as more enjoyable versions of ourselves. Perhaps this is why Ralph Waldo Emerson said that:
“The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles!”
Cheers!
Luis Ayala
Editor and Publisher
http://www.linkedin.com/in/rumconsultant