commerce
No-age-statement (NAS)
Trade shorthand for a bottling carrying no declared age. It describes an absence, not a legal category — the whisky still meets the minimum maturation for its category: three years for Scotch and Irish, none at all for bourbon.
Not a legal term
No whisky regulation in Scotland, Ireland, the United States, the EU or Japan defines this. It is a trade or marketing term, so it is only actionable if its use is actively misleading.
Worth knowing
Vintage references are separately controlled: Scotch may state a distillation year only if all the whisky was distilled in that calendar year and the label also shows the bottling year, maturation period or age in the same field of vision (reg. 12(2)). Numbers that could be mistaken for an age — cask numbers, '1824' — are restricted by reg. 12(3).
Related terms
Last reviewed 2026-07-30 · All glossary terms