Now and then. Ah, the joys of nostalgia.
If there’s a topic guaranteed to start an argument around the table, it’s when sports enthusiasts try to pick or assert that a particular sporting team from one era was superior to the team from another era. For example, is the Hawthorn team from the 1980’s better than the Hawthorn team from 2013-2015? Was Don Bradman’s 1948 “Invincibles” side a better cricket team than the all-conquering Steve Waugh side of 1999-2001? If the two teams were to compete against one another, who would win?
Sadly (or happily?) in the case of such arguments, it is all speculation and conjecture. For, quite simply, we will never know. And how do you compare teams across different eras when rules were different, playing conditions differed, and the level of athleticism and professionalism was different. The discussion is nothing more than hypothetical amusement.
Increasingly of late, similar discussions and assertions are translating across into whisky circles. For example, a commonly-seen thread in many online whisky groups or forums is the assertion that the whiskies of today are not as good as what they were 20 years ago. Or that whiskies have changed over the years.
Continue reading “Now & Then: Comparing old bottlings with today’s counterparts”