Cask: Culmination, and CocktailDB.com

Whether you're in the mood for a specific kind of drink or only have a select few ingredients to work with, CocktailDB.com is your friend.  CocktailDB is a sophisticated database of cocktails and the ingredients that comprise them, and what sets it apart is that it is a static database that contains only "classic" and "vintage" cocktails, as opposed to a site like DrinksMixer.com which contains commercialized recipes and the hottest drinks that all the Bros are mixing up in modern Frat houses.

Along with being able to search CocktailDB by drink names and ingredients, the site also offers up a curious tool: the Mixilator.  Rowen of the Fogged In Lounge details a bit more about the Mixilator and his adventures with it here.

One of my pet peeves about CocktailDB is that it's bloated with mediocre recipes and recipe variations that are lost to time.  While it's occasionally possible to find a diamond in this mixological rough, you'll find that more often it's just a collection of laughable or unremarkable blither.

 

Browsing recently, I got excited about and took a chance with a recipe that managed to use 3 ingredients that I had homemade myself in the past.  Apple brandy?  I have my own aged apple spirit.  Gin?  Why, I have my own attempt at slightly-aged "apple-twisted" gin still lying around!  Plum brandy?  While it may not be quite what is prescribed, I do still have my slightly sweetened umeshu, or Japanese plum wine(which is really more like a liqueur).  Why, you could even conceive of creating the recipe's orange liqueur via my prescribed limoncello method!

Despite my self-aggrandizement, this is actually a really good, dry cocktail.  I encourage you to make it at home.  If you don't have the plum brandy, I imagine any dry fruit brandy or eau-de-vie would suffice.  My only peeve with the thing is that it's a variation of another drink, so its history or pervasiveness is probably impossible to calculate.

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Casino Cocktail Variation

1.5 oz gin
.5 oz apple brandy
.25 oz plum brandy
.25 oz sweet vermouth
1 dash Cointreau

Stir with ice, and strain into a cocktail glass. (Brandied cherry garnish optional, and my personal addition.)

The Cask: Final

It was a good run, but the small little barrel has just sung its swan song. Almost 3 years ago, I began this very blog using my experiences with this small Copper Fox distillery cask as a flagship topic, if you will. In 2009, at-home aging was a topic scarcely written about online, and having valued unorthodox topics as a cornerstone for this site as I still do today, I took the cask project as a fitting starting line. Here in 2012, aging liquor at home is now a bit more popular online, though most of it concerns aging pre-mixed cocktails, not raw spirits, as I've mostly done. I chose this cocktail aging fad as my barrel's final batch.

Why final? Well look at the thing! Image quality aside, here is its before and after below.


Spilling and seepage have weathered it into a gnarly sticky mass. Over a half dozen batches of liquid have been aged in this vessel, a number that I feel is much above the average commercial spirit barrel's lifespan. I have no qualms with retiring this cask and purchasing another, should I feel the need to continue aging. (And I do!)

Scarcely 45 days ago I decided that the barrel was ready to work again, having rested from its last ghastly voyage. If you'll recall, I brashly tried to age a light fruity Sauvignon Blanc in it. After aging it much too long (if it could have been aged well at all), my resulting product resembled a vinegary vermouth more than a table wine. Apologetic to the cask, I left it in open air to fully dry. A month after that, I gave it a few flushes of nice hot water in order to extract any sour flavors before we continued.

And now we continue. Into the barrel's final gulp was, technically speaking, a variation of an Improved Scotch Cocktail, a glass of which would have been composed of a few fingers of Scotch whisky, a heavy dash of sugar syrup, a heavy dash of absinthe, a heavy dash of Maraschino liqueur, and a heavy dash of bitters.

A few notes on the ingredients. I had originally planned to use a young (and cheap) single malt Scotch, but was persuaded against it. I ended up using Johnny Walker Red Label, since popular consensus is that its age is somewhere near 8 years. Since the small barrel ages contents so quickly, I decided to let the input whisky err on the younger side.

I opted for a new American Maraschino liqueur: Leopold Bros. It's one of their newer products and is absolutely wonderful. As someone who finds the traditional Luxardo a bit overpowering, Leopold's restraint is very welcome. Go buy some now.

Instead of using aromatic bitters which is traditional for the Improved Cocktail, I used my own homemade coffee bitters, which I always felt went well with Scotch.

And now, a note on sugar. Most of the cocktails that you've probably seen aged in barrels are along the lines of Manhattans and Negronis. While there's a bit of sugar in each of those, I wasn't sure I had heard of any aged cocktails that contained simple syrup, or even a heavy liqueur for that matter, and I wondered if there was a good reason as to why not. My cocktail mix ended up being only about 1/15th sugar, and since I knew this was my barrel's last hurrah, I went for it.

In the end, the sugar wasn't a problem. I let the mix sit in the barrel about a month and a half, just to get a bit of age on the ingredients, namely the whisky.

My biggest surprise in the end was how bitter the mixture became. The aging seemed to magnify the bitters' bitterness several times over. In order to calm it back down, I actually doctored the final aged mix with an additional bit of each of the cocktail's other ingredients except the bitters. The final concoction is a bit more bitter than I'd like, but I don't want to tinker with it any more in fear of upsetting its already endangered balance.

The coffee and vanilla in the bitters bring out a bit of chocolate from the whiskey. The liqueur and the syrup offer just a bit of sweetness to counteract the formidable bitterness here. Like it normally does in the Improved Cocktail, the absinthe provides a bright and aromatic highlight to the mix, which definitely needs it in this case. And luckily for me, the barely detectable white wine tones from the barrel's last batch adds sweetness to this one, if anything. But to be quite honest, I'm not sure the cocktail is better now than before it went into the barrel, though I'm definitely enjoying trying to understand its transformation. This has been a success.

And so, this barrel is done aging things. I'm not done with it completely, however, and if you're wondering what I mean, you'll have to wait and see.

As I end my home-aging journey, a friend of mine starts hers. She is Courtney Randall of Cocktail Quest. Her interests lie in aging cocktails, not spirits alone, though she realizes that it's a smart move to soften the barrel's charred innards first by aging a spirit before subtler cocktails are poured in. In a move after my heart, she chose Wray & Nephew's White Overproof Rum.

Courtney managed to articulate one of my favorite things about aging at home, something I've thought about for years but never was able to say it so well, so I will provide her words here (mangled by myself):

"With a newly empty barrel [after aging the rum], surely it was time to batch up two liters of cocktail. But... I started to reconsider. Perhaps one more spirit round wouldn't be a bad idea; two unique barrel-aged spirits must be better than one.

You see, when a spirit is placed in a barrel, a certain amount will disappear. But it doesn't just evaporate. The wood soaks some of it up like a sponge, and the barrel is forever changed. Whatever goes in next will be affected. For example, if you barrel age a white whiskey, and then fill the barrel with gin, some of the barrel-aged whiskey flavors will be incorporated into the gin's flavor profile. But the barrel's flavor is not constant. Each time you change the contents, the barrel will take on the new flavors and yet lose some of its own."

Well put, Courtney!

If you've enjoyed reading about my hijinks with aging at home, do yourself a favor and follow hers in suit.

As I said, while my barrel is done aging contents, I'm not fully done with it just yet. Stay tuned for further hijinks, and thanks to all you readers.

The Cask: Round 7

Well, I've gone and done it. Because of certain life circumstances (and an overall lack of confidence on how the aging wine was turning out), I let the Sauvignon Blanc sit in the barrel way too long. What began as a whimsical and haphazard experiment slowly morphed into an exercise in morbid curiosity. Well, it ends today.

If you'll recall, I poured a bit of the New Zealand Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc into my small barrel to see if would age poorly. It turned out to age quite poorly. The slight initial sweetness of the wine was overtaken by sourness. Much like how I slowly saw the aged apple brandy turn disgusting and then back again to great, I thought the same might happen to the wine. I was wrong.


I evacuated the wine and found that about 40% had been given to the angels (because of the long aging time... the longest so far in this series). The remaining mixture had a brown tint almost as dark as whiskey. The smell, as expected, was a confusing mixture of light white wine and heavy oak. The flavor was similar to the smell, but with an overpowering vinegary sourness that seems to cut the tongue. The overall experience is not unlike a dry vermouth, but with much more age and acid in it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this stuff yet.

I'm going to give the barrel a rest, especially considering that its wood is soaked in sour wine. I'm going to be leaving the bung removed so that the inside can thoroughly dry as it sits. Once that's accomplished, I'll consider refilling it.

The Cask: Round 6

Having taken a bit longer than I thought, my gin is finally ready to be removed from my little barrel. If you'll recall, almost 2 months ago I put some Gordon's gin into my barrel that was still dripping wet from its occupant before that, apple brandy. I was hoping to make an apple-kissed aged gin, like the Seagram company does, and my experiment was a huge success.

My apple-brandied gin arrived having left the angels very unsatisfied; adding a bit of high proof grain alcohol has yet again proven itself as a surefire method to prevent liquid loss via evaporation. Even though this aging session was short, the gin loss less than I thought it would. I extracted over 1.5 liters this time around, which is pleasing indeed.

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The Review
Apple-brandied gin, at-home aged


In the Glass

The color of the stuff is a light gold... darker than light rum, but lighter than a gold rum or whiskey... it's more like the pallor of genever. It swirls cleanly just like a young spirit should.

Smell

The smells come to me in stages: juniper, alcohol, and wood... in that order. Inhaling deeply gets more alcohol and the faintest aroma of apples.

Taste

Immediately I realize that this tastes less of gin than it did before its time in the barrel. The wood has again imparted a sweetness that's very much like all its previous occupants. After the now muted botanicals die down, the flavor of apples arises, and much more strongly than I anticipated. The swallow ends in a bit of dryness from the wood.

Ice Cube

The addition of water to this gin increases its sweetness and dulls its flavor. I could barely taste any of the flavors that I had before.

Mixing

This apple-brandied gin performs in gin cocktails with style. It's great in a 1:3 Martini, but the vermouth in a "fifty fifty" Martini tends to overpower this tame gin. It also does fine in a gin and tonic, but the amounts of gin and tonic need to be about equal. The drink in which this stuff performed best was my previously-posted unnamed drink, where the gin's dryness and flavor of apples added exactly what the drink seemed to be needing.

Conclusion

This round is really a perfect demonstration in liquor production. The concept of aging spirits was born in order to tame and mellow spirits whose flavor were a little too wily and aggressive. Whether its the grassy pungency of rum, the cereal-like corn of bourbon, the peppery assault of tequila, or the pungent peat and smoke of Scotch... all of these sometimes overbearing flavors can be mellowed and sophisticated during aging. It's no surprise to me that the well-balanced herbs and spices in my beginning gin are barely there in the final aged product. It was simply bound to happen.

As for kissing the gin with apple brandy, I really didn't expect so much of the apple flavor to come through in this final mix. I had previously drained the barrel of apple brandy before pouring in the gin, and so what remained was only perhaps a few drops of brandy, and what brandy that was present in the soaked wood. In the end, this aged brandy claims apples as one of its prominent flavors, and so I'm happy to say that I was completely successful in mimicking Seagram's Apple Twisted Gin product.

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What's next?

I'd like to convey an interesting detail I found on the internets. Here you can find the website of small distiller in the state of Washington called Woodinville Whiskey Co. Among their products they offer an Age Your Own Whiskey Kit, not unlike the one I've been using to drive this Cask series. (Should you want to be like me, pick one up and have at it! A reminder that I'm using a barrel from Wasmund's Copper Fox Distillery of Sperryville, Virginia.)

An interesting note on Woodinville's site says that the small aging barrel can be "refilled and reused 5+ times." Well, I'm about to put my 6th passenger into this little barrel. I wonder if Woodinville knows something I don't about the lifespan of at-home aging vessels. Perhaps mine is on its last legs and I don't know it? It's certainly not showing me any signs of such. ONWARD, THEN!

Next up for the barrel is something about which I'm even less confident than I was about the gin: wine. White wine, to be more specific. I'm using a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand called Nobilo. I've enjoyed this product for quite a while now... its crisp and sour bite is paired with an extreme fruitiness... depending on the day, I can detect hints of grapefruit and pineapple, and sometimes even lime.

I'm going to spike the 1.5L of wine with about 100 mL of grain alcohol, just to punch up the proof, since we know the proof will lessen.

I have no clue how this is going to work. I don't know if anything about a barrel needs to be changed when going from spirits to wine. I hope the wine's sugar doesn't gum up the barrel into a sticky mess. I don't know how well this Sauvignon Blanc takes to aging. I hope the bright fruity flavors don't become disgusting when aged. I have no clue how long this should age. If you have any predictions about any of this, feel free to lay them on me.

With fingers crossed, I bid you farewell until next time.

The Cask: Round 5, Aged Gin

The apple brandy sitting in my small barrel has been there longer than any spirit before it. It's been almost five and a half months now, and there's a reason that it's been there for so long.

If you'll recall, I added a mixture of several products to the barrel this time around: Laird's Straight Apple Brandy, Captain Applejack, and sweet apple wine. Once the mixture rested in the barrel for a few weeks/months, what began to happen was something that I feared. The crisp fruitiness of the applejack began to take over the rest of the flavors, somehow. What had been an overwhelming flavor of apples was slowly becoming a somehow nondescript fruity tone, bordering on almost an artificial grape flavor. It's hard to describe.

Luckily for me, time was the remedy. As late as one month ago, that generic fruitiness still prevailed. But now, almost 6 months after the aging began, the mix has finally mellowed, and the result is great.

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The Review
Composite Apple Brandy, at-home aged

In the Glass

I was surprised to see the brandy actually had legs that would stick to the glass as I slowly swirled it around. Clearly, the wood from the barrel has given it a bit of body and viscosity. The wood also gave it color; the apple brandy's dark hue is somewhere between bourbon and a heavily aged rum.

Smell

Just like the other results of the Cask series, the smell is all wood. But somehow, it's a different kind of wood. The rum and the brandy gave off an aroma of being in a wood shop, but the apple brandy smells almost like a bourbon, with a much more distinct and dark, earthy character. After a few moments of trying, I can finally sense the apples, and then faint vanilla, as barrels are so wont to give.

Taste

I was again surprised to learn that despite the apple brandy's modest legs in the glass, the texture and mouth feel were thin. The angel's share in this batch hadn't been as devastating as times passed, so perhaps this is something that I should have expected. The spirit is also pretty hot... my guess is over 80 proof, maybe even over 100.

The first thing that my tongue thinks is "sweet". When the sweetness finally subsides, I get a rich apple flavor, which is admittedly short lived, because the sweetness again takes over. There's no smokiness at all, which this barrel sometimes imparts. The end of the sip gives you a nice dry (even tannic) woodiness that's not surprising, considering how long the brandy aged. The aftertaste is nice and long, with only sweetness and warmth.

Ice Cube

Somehow, the only thing that ice/water does to this spirit is makes it even more sweet. The mouth feel and flavor do not change... only the sweetness.

Mixing

There's not much I would mix this stuff with. As a considerably old spirit, there's much more merit in complementing it rather than having it complement. As if you couldn't see it coming, I made a composite apple brandy Old Fashioned. I used Fee Brothers Whiskey Barrel Bitters, and instead of citrus peel, I used a cinnamon stick for a garnish. It goes without saying that the result was very, very palatable.


Conclusion

The barrel showed me that it's still "got it". Its ability to age might be slowing, but it's nowhere near depleted. The maturity of the apple brandy is bordering on the barrel's original passenger, the Wasmund's Rye Spirit. I'm pleased and encouraged.

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So what's next? Something a bit unusual, that's what.

About a year ago I spoke of my fondness of Seagram's gin, but I also pointed out that they have flavored gins that are hard to take seriously. Well, one of these gins is flavored with red apples. Red apples and gin is such an interesting combination that I'm inspired to take this opportunity to make my own apple gin(sort of).

I'm not going to rinse the barrel of excess apple brandy... I'm not even going to let it air out. Fresh and dripping from evacuating the brandy, a handle of Gordon's gin is going in. (Hey, if it's good enough for James Bond, it's good enough for me.) Gordon's is a good middle of the road brand, I'd recommend it if you find that you can't find the beauty in top shelf gins.

In contrast to the apple brandy's long aging time, I expect the gin's aging time to be short. Much like Seagram's gin, I only want a bit of color and flavor added to the gin from the barrel. I just want to "toast" it, if you will. My guess is two months or less.

New Scoreboard: Angel's Share 2, DJ 1

It's that time again. I opened the spigot and drained the grape spirit out of my little aging barrel. The liquid had been in there for a little over 4 months.


If you recall, this time around I had "brandy" sitting in the barrel. In reality, it was actually a mixture of two spirits; in order to not ultimately have over-aged brandy on my hands, I originally mixed an aged Cognac with a young pisco and poured it in to age and mingle a bit more. What I had in the barrel was essentially a composite grape spirit.

The good news is that my "desperate swipe" at the Angel's Share was effective. And I don't know why. Before the aging, I topped off my grape spirit mixture in the barrel with a generous pour of high proof grain alcohol. I'm not sure why... perhaps I thought that upping the proof of the overall mixture would somehow slow the evaporation. Well, it seems to have worked. While I only aged the stuff for about 15% less time than I usually do, I ended up with over 150% of the expected end volume. Can someone explain this to me?

Well, the spirit's time in the barrel has yielded something for which I was thoroughly unprepared. The character of the end product is entirely different than anything that's been in the barrel previously. This is why aging at home is so fun and riveting. Here is a picture of the stuff housed in a beautiful re-used bottle from Tommy Bahama rum. I have another 750mL bottle that's half-filled with the rest of it.

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Composite grape spirit, at-home aged

Smell

Its aroma didn't surprise me. It manages to have what is apparently my barrel's signature smell; it smells of wood and wood only. In fact, by its aroma, I could have mistaken this for the rum that was previously aged in this barrel. I had to ask myself "What bearing will this trend have on the development of the spirit's flavor?"

Taste

(The answer to the above question is "None at all.")

The spirit falls onto the tongue very dry, much like the previous products of this barrel. It's a characteristic dry/sweet combo that this wood has been known to develop. It spreads across to coat the tongue. Next I taste an ever-so-slight twinge of vanilla wafting up to my palate, if I concentrate hard enough.

Despite the fact that most of this product (in terms of volume) consists of Cognac, the mouth feel of the stuff is decidedly of a young spirit, like the pisco. (Perhaps because the Cognac used was on the bright and fruity side.) Despite the initial woodiness on the tongue, wood is absent from the rest of the tasting, instead replaced by a biting grassiness and spiciness. The swallow is peppery, as if it's refusing to be ignored, and I sense the slightest cinnamon aftertaste.

Conclusion

I'm at a loss for words as to what this "brandy" has become.

When spirits of all types are initially distilled and still clear and young, they often have flavor descriptors such as: spicy, pungent, peppery, grassy, rough, fiery, earthy, etc. The concept of aging spirits in barrels was designed to mellow these traits in spirits, while also building more complex flavors from the wood and evaporation. Well, it seems that in this case, the opposite was achieved.

Into the barrel was put a combination of fairly smooth, sweet, and fruity grape spirits and out of it has come something spicy, earthy, and more rough than before. This time around, the barrel imparted little to no flavor into its contents, but rather coaxed out completely different flavors that may have been hiding there all along. Fascinating.

I'm dying to see what's going to happen to the next barrel batch...

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Into the barrel now is going a mixture of apple brandy. Yes, you could consider this a "seasonal" aging since the clock just struck "autumn", but don't forget that spirits keep almost indefinitely! The word "seasonal" has no power here!

Anyway, most of this new mix is comprised of Captain Applejack and Laird's Straight Apple Brandy, both 750mL, both bottled in bond, and both 100 proof. Frankly, it's my shoddy understanding that Captain Applejack is simply a Laird's product under a different label. In fact, they have the same bottling plant code in the fine print on the back of their bottles. Regardless, they are actually different products. The straight apple brandy is through-and-through an aged eau de vie of apples. The applejack is a combination of straight apple brandy and neutral spirit (vodka) distilled from apples. Their characters are different, and I wanted both in the barrel.

I topped the contents off with two more things: the grain alcohol that was so useful in combating the Angel's Share, and about 200mL of Chateau O'Brien apple wine, produced right here in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The wine is at the same time intensely sweet and intensely tart, and should liven up the other spirits.

After the grape spirit experiment, I have absolutely no clue what to expect on how the character of this apple spirit will change. Will its flavor get darker and deeper or will the barrel once again reveal some more feisty flavors? Will any wood flavors be imparted? Has the little barrel finally lost its ability to traditionally "age" spirits inside it? I'll let you know in a few months.

Scoreboard: Angel's Share 2, DJ 0

Time flies. The day has come again for me to evacuate the liquor from my small barrel and see what's what.

In the barrel this time was 2L of Cruzan Estate Light rum. What has come out of the barrel is a rum that's darker in color (big surprise!) and its aroma, as I expected, smells highly of wood. But wait a second... why is the rum gone??? Where did my rum go? Damn those angels... the angel's share is certainly a mighty opponent, I've come to learn. It's official: aging things in this barrel for about 5 months tends to yield results that are less than half of the original volume. It's time to taste the rum!

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Cruzan Estate Light, at-home aged

Smell

Mostly of wood, though it doesn't taste of whiskey, which I feared. There's not much smoke either, like I predicted. What we have here is an aroma mostly of dry wood, with a little rum seeping through.

Taste

Honestly, this stuff is fantastic. It's certainly doesn't taste much like a traditional rum. Most of the rum's original flavor is gone... pummeled by the wood. [insert dirty joke here] Much like its aroma, only the slightest rum taste remains as a base, and atop it is a full woody flavor that manages to taste completely of itself, and barely smokey. Although "dry" and "sweet" tend to be opposing terms in the world of wine and spirits, this result manages to be both. The intense woodiness of this stuff lends a very dry mouth feel that's almost bitter, but at the end of sip there's a glorious sweetness that rests and spreads on the tongue. Quite honestly, I don't know where the sweetness came from: this seems sweeter than the Cruzan source material, and I don't think that there would be any sweetness in the barrel. Perhaps the enormous loss of rum via evaporation has concentrated what sugars were there. All I know is that this result is excellent, and I'm very pleased with it.

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That next passenger for this barrel is a mixture of grape spirits. I've put in 1 liter of Ansac VS cognac, which is one of the best brandy values I know. It's on the fruity side, with a deep flavor and a sweet finish. Then I poured 750mL of Machu Pisco. Pisco is distilled from grapes like brandy, but is aged less for a more vegetal and spicy taste. Its aroma and flavor are fruity... it almost smells like apple juice to me. I chose to add pisco so that the overall contents of the barrel wasn't too old before I began to age it even more. The resulting mixture had the darkness of a younger gold rum, and I'm ok with that. Oh yeah, and I also added about 200mL of 190 proof grain alcohol... call it my desperate swipe at the angel's share.

The Cask: Part 3, Final. The Cask, Round 2: Part 1

So, after a little over 5 months in the barrel, my rye whisky is finally mature enough to exit, I figure. You can read about my at-home aging exploits here and here. I originally dropped 1.5L of Wasmund’s Rye Spirit into this small oak barrel, and I’ve been letting it sit until now.

As soon as I evacuated the whisky(spelled that way by Wasmund’s request), the first thing I noticed was the volume. Aside of the small pours I’ve been taking out here and there for myself and a few of my friends, I was very surprised at the Angel’s Share. I started the experiment with two 750mL bottles, and the result is less than one of those bottles. I suppose it makes sense: the increased surface area of the small barrel which allows me to mature a spirit much quicker than a big distillery also accelerates the rate at which the alcohol (and water) evaporates through the barrel. So, my end product is not great in amount, but great in flavor instead.

I began with Wasmund’s Rye, but the version I had was almost completely unaged, clear as water. What I have now is a whiskey that’s darker than any I’ve ever seen on the shelves. You can see my short review of the unaged whisky here. And now, a review of the final product:

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Wasmund’s Rye Spirit, at-home aged

Smell

The smell of this is drastically different than from the start, although it's still fairly simple. Five months ago it smelled grassy and pungent, assaulting the nose with alcohol. Now, it smells overwhelmingly of smoke and oak, with still the mischievous tones of butterscotch, as I began to notice 2 months ago.

Taste

The smoke and oak still dominate here. It’s impossible to escape the smoke of Wasmund’s whisky, especially considering that they smoke their malted barley with fruitwoods. The pungency of the rye is still there. It still tastes fairly high proof, perhaps still over 100. (Really?? I would have thought just about all of it had evaporated :D) The butterscotch smell does not carry over to the palate… instead you taste honey and spice. You can’t really buy whiskies quite this complex unless you begin to pay over $100… and come to think about the spending for this project… I just about did.

Ice cube

The high proof warrants the ice cube, but the taste of the stuff doesn’t change too much with water. The only difference I notice is that both the pungent rye and smoke become more pronounced. Fabulous!

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What’s next for the barrel?

I’ll tell you what’s next: rum. Lots of it. I do hate conforming, but I’m hardly one to shirk tradition. Rum fans know that aged rum is often matured in oak barrels that were previously used for whiskey… bourbon, most often. Well, all I got is a rye barrel, so I’m using that.

I’ve been given conflicting advice on how exactly to begin aging this rum. Do I try to re-char the inside of the barrel? Do I let the barrel air out? Do I “flush” the barrel with water for a few days?

I decided to put in the rum without re-charring the barrel. I really don’t have the resources (or expertise) to do it, not to mention that this small barrel wasn’t designed to be handled so. I didn’t flush the barrel; I want a strong flavor to the rum I’m putting in it, so all I did was “air out” the barrel for about 12-24 hours, and then began to pour.

Pour what? Cruzan Estate Light. Two full liters of it. Cruzan (CROO-zhun) is a company based in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, and their rums are all fairly subtle in flavor, and are often compared to rum from Puerto Rico. Cruzan Estate Light, their lightest product, is one of the best rum values of which I know. When anybody asks me which rum they should buy for Mojitos, or cola, etc... I always tell them Cruzan. (Even though Cruzan just limited their Estate Light aging time from 2 years down to 14 months, it’s still great.) Cruzan is usually cheaper than Bacardi (depending on your state’s distribution system), and while Bacardi Superior usually tastes and smells like rubbing alcohol, the Cruzan is so good that it can be sipped with an ice cube. To me, Cruzan tastes mostly woody with hints of almond and vanilla. You’ll notice that it’s not completely clear, but has a nice beige tint to it. I look forward to seeing how it holds up under the oakey onslaught inside the barrel. So, for the love of your savior, never buy anything Bacardi again (unless it’s Bacardi 8 or Bacardi Solera or another of the few limited products they make), and buy Cruzan Estate Light instead.

So there it is. The second batch of spirit is already aging in the Little Barrel that Could. Any suggestions on what I should age after the rum? I'm thinking Port or Sherry.

The Cask: Part 2

It's been about 2 months since I've put some of Wasmund's un-aged rye spirit into my little aging cask, which you can read about here.

According to heresay, the whiskey is about halfway done toward being appropriately aged. So of course, I'd like to monitor the spirit's progress. I turned the cask's nozzle to let loose some of the liquor. The color now is that of a gold rum, and perhaps about 2/3 as dark as I expect it will be in the end.



The smell of the spirit so far is still fairly strong... I imagine it's still fairly high above 80 proof, and will even stay so after a few more months; alcohol still wafts boldly from the cup. The aroma is mostly of smokey butterscotch, which is certainly not one that I've smelled on any whiskey before. Near the end, the slightest whiff of traditional rye whiskey comes through, finally.

The sip doesn't burn as much as it did when it was clear in color, about 2 months ago... now it's just warming, like a whiskey should be. My guess is that it's about 100 proof right now. As soon as it hits the tongue, there's a fleeting sweetness. The fullest flavor in the spirit is still that pungent rye which blooms on the tongue, and it's not without a touch of fruitiness, staying long after you swallow. Smoke again fills the throat once it's gone.

This would be quite an interesting spirit, if something like this were sold, but it's still a bit too fiery and bold, not unlike a tequila. I would indeed say that this stuff is halfway aged to something apropos, and perhaps a bit less than halfway toward perfection.... but that's a different post. :)

Cheers.

The Cask: Part 1

Behold. Wasmund's 2-liter aging barrel: one of the many exciting products being produced at Copper Fox Distillery in Sperryville, Virginia. Copper Fox sells at-home aging barrels of various sizes which tailor to different budgets, time constraints, and expertise.

What you see here is Copper Fox's smallest barrel. An average aging in this bad boy should take about only 4 months, and can be re-used several times (something of which I plan to take full advantage). One need only pour in about 2 bottles of (preferably barrel proof) spirit and let the aging begin.

Incidentally, my tastes mostly lean towards rum, and this barrel has the rum fan inside me going absolutely insane thinking about the possibilities. However, Copper Fox is best known not for their barrels, but for their whisk(e)y (Hereafter "whisky". Copper Fox prefers it). Wasmund's Single Malt Whisky (review coming soon) calls Copper Fox home and, along with their aged single malt and rye products, they also provide unaged whisky for the very purpose of at-home aging. How many (good) unaged whiskies do you know of? Exactly. This opportunity leaves me little choice but to christen my barrel with Wasmund's crystal-clear, overproof, Appalachian spirit.

Another consideration is that many rums are aged in barrels previously used for bourbon, and so, especially taking note of Wasmund's fruitwood smoke-drying process used for their single malt, I believe that it's completely appropriate to warm up the barrel with Wasmund's before the rum joins the party.

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The Whisky
Wasmund's Rye Spirit, less than 30 days old

This endeavor begins with Wasmund's Rye Spirit, unaged. This product is quite interesting in and of itself. Each rye batch produced is truly a small one, with about only one barrel produced on each run. Their rye spirit mash consists of 2/3 rye straight from a local source, and 1/3 hand-malted barley that's been fruitwood-smoked. This is all offered at 124 proof for your aging convenience. I thought I would taste the spirit before I aged it.

Smell

It's hard to navigate though the evaporated alcohol as you inhale this one. After I began to concentrate, the most noticeable aroma is pungent, full-bodied, and grassy. It's not unpleasant, however. A further effort finally revealed a bit of smoke, as expected.

Taste

Damn, this stuff is strong. Ok... the smoke comes through much more here, which is quite nice. The sips are dry and short, no aftertaste. Finally come the first hints of rye, a bit spicy and warming. A few sips later, I begin to taste the malt. Even unaged, this is much more interesting than I anticipated. But really, this stuff needs some ice.

Ice cube:

Just a wee bit of ice and its character changes ever so slightly. Much more of the spiciness rises up and lasts longer. I even taste some floral hints as I breathe out. And finally, about a minute after each sip, I can taste apples, likely from the apple wood used to smoke the malted portion of spirit's source barley.

Conclusion:

A ridiculously interesting spirit for something so young. I can see why Copper Fox claims that many customers enjoy replacing various spirits in classic cocktails with this stuff, something I also plan to try. The spiciness and grassy character of this spirit beg to be played with. The only hurdle I can foresee is the proof, but if you're like me, you just don't care.

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The Aging Begins

The spirit is poured and now time is my friend. I will drop quick samples of my aging product about every two weeks, and will post about any tastings of note or process revelations.




Questions and comments about my endeavor are welcome. Aloha.