Let's Age Some Whiskey!

It would be interesting to try a white dog with a different base such as rye or a corn mash after you finish with this run. Have fun with this and I'm excited to see your reviews. I highly doubt PA will allow shipment of something this into the state so I may have to live vicariously for awhile.

Kewl! Enjoy! Wonder if you'll have some 25 year down the road?!

Thank you for the video Doc4. I only got about half way through it today and plan to watch the rest later. Pretty informative!

I checked the barrel when I got home tonight and saw no signs of leakage so I emptied the water. I took a small sample of the water out and after three days it was already taking on a light coloring. I just thought that was interesting to see.



I took one nip off the bottle to taste the White Dog at full strength. I don't know exactly how to describe it other than being sweet, but burning and takes the breath away a little so it was difficult to taste a whole lot of what was going on. It compares to unaged corn whiskey as in they both share some certain underlying taste, but I could definitely tell the difference. Sweet...sweet and burny!

I poured the two bottles of unaged whiskey into the barrel and added the water as instructed. Then I took my small sample of the diluted whiskey straight from the barrel. It tasted like bile. I almost didn't finish it. It clung to the sides of the glass when swirled, it was oily and coated my mouth which made the bile taste try to hang around. It's kind of difficult to tell due to the reflection, but the glass has a small sample of the diluted White Dog in it.

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hotreds said:

Kewl! Enjoy! Wonder if you'll have some 25 year down the road?!

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That would be pretty cool. I was thinking about trying to find a smaller bottle to seal some in so I can open it up years down the road and see if there's a difference.

I've never aged spirits, but I'm pretty sure nothing happens to them once they are out of the barrel.

Those really old spirits that go for more than one of my paychecks are indeed aged in barrels for that amount of time. After a while they move them to older barrels so it doesn't pick up as much oak.

Edcculus said:

I've never aged spirits, but I'm pretty sure nothing happens to them once they are out of the barrel.

Those really old spirits that go for more than one of my paychecks are indeed aged in barrels for that amount of time. After a while they move them to older barrels so it doesn't pick up as much oak.

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This is spot on.

You may be right. I read that there's some truth to your statement but it's more complicated than that. I read that like wine, whiskey can improve with age in the bottle but it takes much longer. This is because the aging in bottle is dependent on the tannins being affected by age and that while wine has plenty thanks to the grapes it is made from, whiskey pulls tannins from the barrel resulting in less tannins overall and longer aging needed. I really don't know personally though. That's kind of the purpose of all this: to learn something new and develop a more intimate understanding via doing it myself. If you have any links that explain either side of that theory please post them. I would appreciate getting to read them and learn more as I'm sure others here would. I'll try to find the post I read tomorrow sometime and link it here.

Maybe after a few batches this barrel can become my long term aging barrel or something.

I can see the sense in that. Unless you purge the bottle with C02 before bottling, you will have some oxygen in the bottle. Its doubtful that the oxygen present in the bottle, and what is allowed to enter if you are using a cork will not somehow react (oxidize) some of the compounds present. I'm no chemist, so I don't know if ethanol will oxidize under normal storage conditions (room temperature, no light). That would be the only undesirable oxidation reaction I could think of, but would probably be unlikely to happen unless you stored it above 100°F in direct sunlight.

I really don't know if it would benefit at all from sitting in a bottle...I do think it would be really neat to save a small bottle though to one day later on taste the differences between my different batches or even just to say, "I aged this myself and I've held onto this bottle for ten years."

wolfmanxiii said:

Maybe after a few batches this barrel can become my long term aging barrel or something.

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I'm not sure such a small barrel would be good for long term aging. Much of the whiskey would be lost to the "angels share" when starting with only 2 liters, over a longer period of time.

I hadn't considered that, but you're probably right. I did read that I would end up with less that I had put in there. I read one review from this guy who said he only got one bottle out of it, but I think that was probably a more extreme case, he didn't have it properly sealed or he let it age for way too long.

Also, a smaller barrel like that will age the whisky a lot faster than a big barrel ... it all has to do with the ratio of volume to surface area of wood involved.

Tonight marks one week of aging and my first tasting. The whiskey has taken on a very light, but noticeable golden/wheat tint (or something like that). I still notice a stronger burn, but no more bile taste. It has started to mellow a little. There is definite wood taste to it at this point. After that I pick up vanilla and I think a hint of liquorice right at the end.

I am digging that personal barrel of whiskey more and more. Keep up the communications from the field!

Will do. I believe my next tasting is tomorrow so I'll try to post an update. Hopefully I'm not boring you guys. Feel free to hijack this thread, discuss whiskey or even your own experiences with aging spirits.

Looking forward to the update.

On a side note in regards to aging whiskey in a bottle, I have a bottle of scotch I picked up from a local distillery that has a piece of the cask placed in the bottle. This is supposed to allow it to continue to age. After talking with one of the distillers, their trials gave it at something like 6 months in bottle = 5 more years aging due to the surface ratio. I thought it was an interesting concept. When I do open it, I'll post in here for sure.

Sorry about not posting an update last week. It has been a very busy week. I did another tasting tonight. The color hasn't changed much. It has gotten seemingly more oily and now has an overpowering wood taste to it. I couldn't taste anything else.

Purplemonkey, I've heard of those things but can't remember what they're called. Was it a barrel stave? I was thinking about getting some of those as opposed to a barrel to save some money since it should give about the same result. That is until the lady friend bought me this kit.

wolfmanxiii said:

Sorry about not posting an update last week. It has been a very busy week. I did another tasting tonight. The color hasn't changed much. It has gotten seemingly more oily and now has an overpowering wood taste to it. I couldn't taste anything else.

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Interesting. The color is going to come mostly from the amount of char on the wood from what I understand. Hopefully the woodiness mellows a bit soon.