system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do whiskey companies deal with the fact that the product they make today gets sold to a market 15 years in the future?

How do you respond to shifts in demand with a latency of 15+ years for the maturation of your product?
gpt
If the demand is higher than predicted:

* Raise prices, of course

* Offer more whisky that hasn't been aged as long. If a distillery produces both a 12 and an 18year bottling, they may choose to release more of the 12 year right away. Of course that means 6 years later they'll have less available at 18 years. At that point they'll either make less money or try to raise prices on the 18.

* Right now, some distilleries that traditionally offered only 12 year and older are starting to release younger whisky, such as 10 or even 8 year old.

If demand is lower than predicted:

* Hold some to sell later.

* Release something called a "bastard malt". That's a whisky that doesn't have the original distillery on the label, and is sold cheaper than the branded bottles. It's not necessarily true that these bottles will be as good as the ones that carry the true distillery name. The taste of the whisky in every cask is different, so the best casks can be retained for the distillery brand.

One thing that gives the distilleries a little more flexibility is that the age on the bottle doesn't mean all the whisky in the bottle is exactly that many years old. It's actually *minimum* age in the bottle. Everything in the bottle is at least that many years old, but may be older.

\* Edit Fixed some typos that made me sound like I'd had a dram or two before answering.