12-year-old whiskey and storing it for 3 years VS a 15-year-old whiskey
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Whisky **only** ages in the cask. This is because the wood of the cask is semi-porous, allowing the alcohol to absorb into the wood and pull out alcohol-soluble compounds, then pull those back into the liquid whisky. Those compounds are what give the whisky its distinctive color and flavor. There is also some evaporation, but that is less important.
The longer the whisky is allowed to mature in the cask, the more subtle flavors it is able to absorb from the wood. The age of the whisky is _always_ the number of years it spent in the cask (or, in the case of a blend, the number of years the youngest whisky in the blend spent in the cask).
Once the whisky is removed from the cask, the aging process stops. A whisky removed from the cask after 10 years is and will always be a 10-year-old whisky, no matter how long the bottle sits on the shelf.
So, to your question directly, a 12-year-old whisky that is stored for 3 years remains a 12-year-old whisky. It can never become a 15-year-old whisky.
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