I know that most people probably already agree, but I just bottled my first barrel aged likker and I'm excited about it so I feel the need to share.
I made a chocolate bourbon.
Filled a 5 gallon barrel and kept some for topping up.
I also put some in a jar with a charred oak stick and some in a jar without any treatment.
My goal was to be able to compare the differences.
Wow, the barrel version is way better.
It was in there for 19.5 months.
The barrel was medium toast, heavy char, from Gibbs.
I filled it and topped it up a few times, 5 gallons plus 2950ml top up. 5.78 gallons?
Filled 18.5 750ml bottles. 3.67 gallons?
3.67/5.78 = 63%.
However,it went in at 60% abv and came out at 68% abv.
I'm not going to try to work that out.
But I lost around 1/3 of the volume over 19.5 months.
And I'm totally OK with it. 100% worth it.
The white dog is a little headsy and pretty tailsy, stanky even, it's not pleasant. Would not drink this or even use it in a cocktail.
The barrel aged stuff is neither solventy or stanky.
It's quite good actually.
Pretty much what you would expect from a bourbon: vanilla, carmel, a little spice, and a little on the dry/tannic side.
The chocolate flavor is definitely there. More like a dry dark chocolate though.
It also has some strong grainy flavors, pleasant though, like some of the European pilsner beers. Maybe a little crackery?
Reading that back, it seems like a lot for a homedistilled chocolate Bourbon but I think it's accurate, on my untrained pallette anyways.
The jar/oak stick version was ok. The underlying chocolate/grain flavors are there. And it's not hot or stanky. It's definitely lacking the dryness/tannin. It's got carmel and vanilla but not as much. It's comparatively flabby. Hmm.. never thought that about a likker before. But I think that's a good word for the difference.
What will I do differently?
I won't use the oats or the toasted malts again. Doesn't seem like it made any difference.
I will use whole cornmeal instead of the degerminated stuff. I really can't perceive anything that seems like corn or corny sweetness that other people talk about. Maybe it's because I used the degerminated cornmeal... one way to know for sure right?
I might try making it with rye or rye malt. I think this might be better if it had some more spice to it.
It will be a couple years before I buy another barrel, but when I do, I will leave the first full in there for longer just to see what happens.
What would I do the same?
Wide tails heavy cuts and topping it up.
5% chocolate malt seems to have given the right amount of chocolate flavor.
I assume the grainy flavor came from the 6 row barley malt, I like it, I'll do that again.
I filled the barrel with a mostly blackstrap molasses rum (20g molasses, 25# sugar). I don't really have plans for how long it will stay in there or what I'll do for the third fill.
I have another barrel with HBB like likker in it. I'm really looking forward to cracking that one open.
Anyways, thanks for reading.
This is exactly what I needed to hear. I think I'll be getting myself a few barrels for Christmas this year. Probably a 10 and 2 5's.- New users start here
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Post time 2022-9-17 23:13:40