Anybody here ever tried barrel aging liquor?
Barrel Aging
- Thread starter boykinlp
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I thought ALL Liquor was barrel aged. The main difference was the quality of the barrels and how long the Liquor was stored in them.
OP
You may be right. What I saw a few articles on was "further aging", I guess you would call it. You buy small white oak barrels and DIY at home. Kinda interesting I thought.
shouldazagged
Absent Comrade
Sounds like a project for a connoisseur. Among my forebears a connoisseur was someone who took the bottle out of the bag first. 
My old Granddaddy use to age the corn likker he made as long as three days before bottling it for sale. I think he used churns instead of barrels, though.
Took a tour last night of a local micro-distillery.The 140 proof run straight out of the still was something [emoji91][emoji15]
shouldazagged
Absent Comrade
Tuesday was a good year.
zzzippper
Member
I have two barrels, one 750ml and one twice that. My first experience with the 750 was a disaster. I lost 90% to the angels and the remainder was undrinkable. It had aged for three months.
The bigger barrel has been aging two months so far.
Which warehouse and where in the warehouse it ages affects the product too. Whiskey is a living thing and everything that happens to the barrel until it gets bottled affects the taste.
The bigger barrel has been aging two months so far.
Which warehouse and where in the warehouse it ages affects the product too. Whiskey is a living thing and everything that happens to the barrel until it gets bottled affects the taste.
Autococker07
US Veteran
Holy schnikes!! what are those, 105 howitzer barrels?!?! I cannot get but a capful in my old 38 barrels..... On a serious note, I wonder how much volume has to do with it.... i.e., if you had something spoil in a 750ml barrel, a 53 gallon distillery barrel would probably have enough volume to dilute that.... Seems like this would be hard to control in tiny volumes.....
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I have heard so many things about making whiskey and aging it that I don't know if any of it is true anymore. Supposedly the more the whiskey is in contact with the sides of the barrel the better it ages or the faster the process, so to speak. Seems like this would work better in a smaller barrel. Jack Daniels used to advertise how they would drip it slowly over cubes of charcoal on a long string right out of the still to give it the "equivalent" to so many years of aging. I think it actually has to sit in the barrel for a minimum amount of time by law....and we got some strange ones when it comes to liquor in the U.S. How much you roll or shake the barrel has something to do with it as well...a smaller barrel would be easy to pick up and shake. Big barrels can only be rolled every now and then. I can see a smaller barrel working better/faster. I can also see it being near impossible to get small barrels of whiskey to taste the same as each other.
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Not big on spirits, but I have tried barrel-aged Sriracha, and it is DELICIOUS !
OP
Learn something new everyday!
zzzippper
Member
With my first experiment I made several mistakes. One, I left about 1/4 cup "pure" so I could do a side by side test. I found that the barrel should be full. I also did not agitate or turn the barrel. Now I roll it and invert it every couple of days. I think this is going to reduce evaporation a lot.
Being inside an environmentally controlled house also hurts. Temperature fluctuations are important to the wood and whiskey working together. Higher temperatures, like at the top floors of warehouses, produce an oakier whiskey.
If you want a real education in what wood can do to the taste try a bottle of Angel's Envy. It is aged in port wine casks and it is awesome! They have a line aged in rum casks but I have not tried it.
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Arik
Member
Yes. I've done that. Have a 20ltr barrel. Bought some cheap bourbon and aged it a year. Tasted better
rburg
Member
Among my forebears a connoisseur was someone who took the bottle out of the bag first.
I've heard of people doing that. Never witnessed it myself, nor have I done it. Seems like a lot of wasted energy. Besides, someone would want to take it away from you or old women would complain you were enjoying yourself.
zzzippper
Member
Isn't that what guns are for?
Stranahans ages their whiskey in an unheated warehouse,but they keep the humidity at 45% which cuts the angels share to 3-4%
zzzippper
Member
Stranahan's is some of the worst, most over-rated horse piss that I have ever tasted. Nasty stuff! It got a cult following because it was the first CO distillery. Taste that and then taste Michter's or Willet's. No comparison.
Big Cholla
Member
You 'Agers of Whiskey' do know that all commercial whiskey is aged in oak barrels that were charred before use and that first use was to age Sherry or Port Wine. That charring is of one of three methods depending on the final flavor desired in the whiskey/scotch/bourbon to be aged. Then the barrel is diverted into the whiskey aging business. Also, by law the barrel can be used only once for commercial uses. I'm sure those laws don't apply to private practice. .............
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IYHO [emoji23]
