It can be difficult to gauge sarcasm when dealing with blunt instruments of communication like Twitter, but I would like to think that all the panicky media reports of looming supply crunches in Velveeta, Sriracha, string cheese, ketchup, and the like have been penned with a healthy sense of their absurdity. A truckload of industrial whey concentrate might overturn here and there, or maybe the high fructose corn syrup hose gets clogged, but come on, guys: there is no earthly reason to fear a prolonged disruption to America's processed foods supply. I'm here to tell you that there is, however, one impending shortage that should be making your palms sweat a little bit: high-quality whiskey.

We are living through a tremendous reversal in attitudes toward whiskey. This much is obvious. Ten years ago everybody drank vodka, and Scotch was something you kept around for when your dad visited. Irish whiskey was otherwise known as Jameson, and it sat gathering dust in the back of the liquor cabinet, waiting for moments of personal crisis. Bourbon was basically a punch line.

Now, whiskey of all kinds has become a fetish object of the young, urban, and image-conscious. Sales volumes have increased pretty much across the board, but it's the expensive stuff -- juice that was put in a barrel years and years ago, while the whiskey category was still in a downturn – that's seeing the steepest action of all. Sales of single-malt Scotches, which tend age for a minimum of 12 years, have doubled in the past ten years. Super-premium bourbon sales have tripled. And that's just in America. Globally, business is booming as emerging markets develop a taste for the brown stuff; American whiskey exports topped $1 billion in 2013, up from under $400 million in 2002.

The precise state of distillers' whiskey reserves remains ever-mysterious, a trade secret held close from the prying eyes of booze journalists. But the writing on the wall is that this dramatic increase in demand for aged whiskey has distillers scraping the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, wishing they could travel back to the 90's and lay down more stock. "The dirty little secret of the Scotch industry is they've become addicted to high prices, but they've run out of old whisky," says Ian Buxton, the whisky expert and author of 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die.

We've already seen public evidence of distillers struggling to keep up: last year, Maker's Mark tried (with disastrous PR consequences) to water down their bourbon; Buffalo Trace warned of potential shortages. Meanwhile, an increasing number of single-malt Scotches are being released without an age statement, a way for blenders to have more latitude to work around gaps in inventory.

And prices for older bottles are ballooning. In 2007, Eagle Rare 17 sold for an average of $57 per bottle, Macallan 18 for $132, and Pappy Van Winkle 15 for $47. Today, those same bottles are going for $337, $193, and a mind-bending $982 as demand fails to match up with supply.

What whiskey drinkers face now isn't just increased competition for older bottles, but the real potential for quality to drop across the board as unproven, would-be distillers crowd into the market, while legacy brands face difficult decisions about how to get the most from dwindling stocks.

"Inevitably what happens and what historically has happened in the whiskey market is that as demand goes up, quality goes down, and then the consumer gets disenchanted by the category and switches to other types of drink," confided David King, the C.E.O. of Anchor Distilling, which imports Scotch from distilleries like BenRiach and The Glenrothes.

This is not a new problem. Whiskey-makers have been plagued by ups and downs since the industry's 18th century beginnings, producing when demand was high and cutting back when demand was low, ensuring a roller-coaster ride of gluts and – yes -- shortages. "The history of Scotch whisky is a story of booms and busts," writes Charles Maclean in 2008's Whiskeypedia. "The expansion of the 1780s terminated suddenly in 1788. Of the dozens of new distilleries that opened after 1823, only a small percentage survived 'the hungry '40s.' The Great Whisky Boom of the 1890s turned dramatically to bust in 1900. The post-1945 expansion led to overproduction and closures by the mid 1980s." Bourbon and Irish whiskey have moved through peaks and valleys in a similar fashion.

For the past ten years, we've been working our way through oceans of very, very good bourbon and Scotch that went unsold during the 80s and 90s, when American whiskey consumption hit an epic low. "When I got into the business in the 1990s, they were putting 11 year old juice into Rebel Yell," recounts Trey Zoeller, the master blender of Jefferson's Bourbon, referring to the bottom-shelf label. No wonder we all became whiskey converts.

In the face of today's surge in demand, distillers are once again ramping up production as fast as they can. Diageo, which counts Johnnie Walker, Caol Ila, and Talisker among its vast collection of labels, has invested over $2 billion in Scotland alone. Meanwhile, new players like Alibi, Tuthilltown, High West, TX, St. George's – the list goes on -- have entered the market, eager for a taste of the action. But given the long timeline for premium whiskies, none of that will necessarily help in the short term. "You can't just whistle up a 12 year old Scotch," as David King put it to me. Aging time isn't the only bottleneck: the quality of a whiskey is based in large part on the quality of the barrel, and there are currently shortages of those, too.

All of which is to say: it's never been a better time to become an educated drinker. Herewith, four tips for being a smart consumer in the new whiskey economy.

Stick with established brands. The tech industry thrives on mavericks and disruptors, but for whiskey production, where the time horizons are long and infinitesimal details can vastly change the taste of a the product, being a startup is not a positive. Years of experience in blending and tasting are invaluable for producing consistent, high-quality liquid. Most master distillers at established brands (The Balvenie's David Stewart, The Glenlivet's Alan Winchester, Jim Beam's Fred Noe, for example) have been on the job for decades. If I see a whiskey distillery that's being run by, say, a former marketing executive or a hedge fund billionaire, I generally give them a wide berth.

Don't get too excited about new releases. Insiders will tell you that those "limited edition" offerings are mostly red herrings, aimed at bringing attention to the brand in an increasingly crowded marketplace. "There is a huge demand from retailers for novelty to try to keep the energy and excitement in the category," says Nick Morgan, the Head of Whiskey Global Outreach for Diageo. "For most brand owners, in terms of single malt, your core brand is your 10 to 12 year old expression and it's going to be 85 to 95 percent of your business. All the other stuff is about raising awareness."

Try younger (cheaper) whiskies. Almost all of today's growth lies in ultra-premium whiskies (a.k.a. the oldest stuff), so it stands to reason that demand will push those prices the highest. Remember that age doesn't mean quality, it means rarity. Younger expressions from notable brands are a great value, especially when it comes to bourbon: the relatively warmer temperatures of the American south means that bourbons mellow out faster than whiskies aged in Scotland or Ireland.

When in doubt, hoard. If you are resolutely attached to a certain 18 year-old single malt, it isn't going to get any cheaper or easier to find in the next five years. Unlike wine, whiskey stops aging once bottled – so buy as much as you can afford today, and keep some stashed away for a rainy day.

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