Innovations in Whiskey Production

Good whiskey takes years of aging.  Each distiller has different techniques to produce their own brand. Perhaps spurned by the increased interest in whiskey some new distilleries are experimenting with new techniques to produce good whiskeys at less then the 8 to 10, to over 20 years traditional brands take.

Nobody trades more on whiskey that is aged slowly for a long time than the company’s president Julian Van Winkle. His 23-year old Pappy Van Winkle is the Holy Grail for many bourbon collectors — fetching up to $3,000 a bottle — and he believes that the quality comes from the geographic and climatological advantages of Kentucky. “One of the beauties of our climate is that it is so miserably hot in the summer and cold in the winter,” says the cultishly followed pappy of Pappy. “This is good for whiskey since we get better extraction and absorption from the barrels over the seasons. It’s been said that one year in Kentucky is worth five years of aging in Scotland.” FoodRepublic

Chris Chamberlain at FoodRepublic.com writes about several innovative whiskey producers.

Tuthilltown Spirits founded in New York’s Hudson Valley in 2003, was an early advocate of innovative aging techniques. Rather than using the industry-standard 53-gallon oak casks, they aged their Hudson Baby Bourbon in barrels as small as three gallons. The logic is that the increased ratio of surface area to volume allows for more surface contact between the wood and the whiskey. Translation: Speed aging. To get the maturation going even more, Tuthilltown pumps low-frequency sound waves through their aging room to keep the liquid agitated — like dancers waiting for the drop at a dubstep show. The results are a whiskey that isn’t just palatable after only four months, but that is actually wining awards

For a few hundred years whiskey production (Scotch, Irish, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc) has been based on tradition. Now there is a constant stream of new distilleries and small batch whiskeys.  

Here is an example of a new whiskey producer from Texas that purports that the process is traditional, eschewing new techniques : (Austin Chronicle)

The husband-and-wife team of Nick and Amanda Swift co-founded Swift Distillery in October 2012.
The Swifts spent years traveling, researching, and solidifying their business plan and recipe, before the first batch of Swift Single Malt was finally released in late October 2014. 

Although there seems to be something up with the water:

Thanks to Amanda's scientific background and attention to detail, the water is controlled down to the molecular level to match the composition of Scotland's water..

If my math is right this means this whiskey has been aged for 2 years maximum.  but I have read that whiskeys need 3 to 5 years minimum to be palatable. 

I have had some small batch whiskey.  So far, I have not had a good one.  Time will tell.