Fail...er...Adventures in Blending: Improving Kilkerran Cask Strength, AGAIN

I love love love Kilkerran's Work In Progress (WIP) single malts, all of them. They're brilliant and possibly the best whisky being produced in Campbeltown at the time. The first batch of Kilkerran 12yo was also a more-than-worthy mate to Springbank 10yo. I'd grab another bottle if I could find one.

So I was very excited to hear that Glengyle distillery was going to release a series of age-stated cask strength Kilkerran batches. I bought a bottle of Batch 1, all ex-bourbon casks, as soon as it materialized. And it took me nearly five years to finish it. It just did not work. Despite being older than half of the WIPs, it read more immature than all of them, very hot and incomplete. I tried to spruce it up with some magical old Famous Grouse 18yo Malt, with mixed results.

In 2020 I tried Batch 4, which was all recharred sherry casks......and I wasn't wild about that one either, as its oak and sherry elements were completely out of balance with the spirit. Then, in 2023, I split a bottle of Batch 7, port casks, and that one went the wrong direction, full-tilt.

Thus I've lost interest in the cask strength batches, especially if Glengyle won't release batches with a mix of sherry and bourbon casks. They blended casks in the first four WIPs (younger whisky may I add) and knocked it out of the park each time.

But what if I did a little blending myself? Well, I did in 2022. And then completely forgot about it. So my two little ~35mL creations sat for 21 months, marrying or merging or cuddling. And now it's time to find out what resulted.

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Vatting #1

1 part Kilkerran Work In Progress, Sixth Edition, sherry wood, ~10 years old, 46%abv

+

2 parts Kilkerran Cask Strength, Batch 1, bourbon casks, 8 years old, 56.2%abv

Full strength, 52.8%abv

Nose: Walnuts, honey, and oranges. Antiseptic, sandalwood, chocolate, and mild peat smoke.

Palate: Slight sooty with a bit of heat. Sweet oranges and Luxardo cherries.

Finish: Soot, oranges, hint of toffee.

Comments: NAILED IT. Oh wow, this keeps many of the best parts from WIP6, ditching the weakest elements of CS1.

Diluted to 46%abv

Nose: Toffee, almond butter, and date rolls. Peat smoke starts out quiet, then expands with time.

Palate: Weirdly bitter, with almonds and black pepper in the background.

Finish: Sweeter and less bitter than the palate.

Comments: The nose works. The palate does not. I'm surprised by how much it changed.

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Vatting #2

10mL Kilkerran Cask Strength, Batch 4, re-charred sherry casks, 8 years old, 57.1%abv

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25mL Kilkerran Cask Strength, Batch 1, bourbon casks, 8 years old, 56.2%abv

Full strength, 56.45%abv

Nose: Brine, barley(!), and almond extract, with hints of blossoms and industrial smoke stack.

Palate: Very floral and hot. Heavy peat. Tart lemons and a hint of soap in the background.

Finish: Floral, salty, sweet, and very peppery.

Comments: Very good nose, but everything else is out of whack.

Diluted to 46%abv

Nose: Brine, black currant jam, and piney peat.

Palate: Orange marmalade. Plenty sweet with gentler oak and peat.

Finish: Oranges, wood smoke, and a touch of bitterness.

Comments: Much better this way. I wish I had another ounce or two to ponder.

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#1 at full strength is the obvious winner, though I'd be happy with a bottle of #2 at 46%abv. Both are complete whiskies, fashioned with dumb luck. I guarantee you that J&A Mitchell & Company's blenders have the stock and skillset to run circles around me, so why don't they give it a try? There's room to grow with this CS series, and I do not mean tequila casks. Kilkerran can still offer coffee-dark sherried or straw-light bourbon cask batches, while also dropping a masterful mix into the series once in a while. No finishes, just vattings. I know I'd buy it.

Tasting the Old Tailor Rye

You've seen pictures of the killer barrel and my hairy punim (from like three years ago), you've studied the evaporation rate and bought a bottle of the tawny port, you've lost faith in all other ryes and, as a result, are now sending me your unopened bottles of MGP-era Willett. So now you await the tasting notes, like you await the presidential election, with adrenaline-triggered indigestion.

First, there was a taste off between Old Tailor Rye, the new make and Midsummer Night's Dram 6.2 (High West's port cask finished rye). As youthful as OTR is, the original spirit's notes proved to be nearly absent. HWMND is a very different whiskey, with bigger tannins and fortified wine notes sitting deeper in the palate.

I will say this, Old Tailor's color is right.

But aside from a whiskey's origin story, its color can be its most misleading attribute.

The nose honks "Youthful Rye", though not necessarily baby MGP. The dill note is nowhere to be found. Instead there's rye bread, hazelnuts and ground mustard seed. Cherry lollipops, warm caramel sauce and a hint of grape jam. A good measure of toasted oak spice as well.

The palate is hotter and sharper than the nose. There's lots of tangy citrus and salt, along with the cherry lollipops. It softens up and sweetens after 15-20 minutes in the glass.

Sweet citrus, salt, black pepper and grape jam make up the finish.

It makes for a very reasonable Manhattan (2:1 rye:Antica), one of which Kristen found very acceptable. The port element does not over-sweeten the cocktail, instead a grainy/bready note sits right in the center of the palate.

Old Tailor is a weird success, as my few successes are. Sometimes the port peeks out, sometimes it hides. The palate is simple and may even need a few drops of water. I think it may work best in cocktails and will apply it to such endeavors once we've cleared out our other half-dozen open ryes.

Is the whiskey worth the $150+ I spent on it? Ha! But it is better than I'd expected. A higher quality barrel would have been nice, but I think my mini barrel maturation days are over. It's your turn now.

Old Tailor Rye and how it came to be

Kravitz was an occupational surname in Ashkenazi Polish, Ukranian, Czech and Slovak communities. We were tailors, a trade which continued in my family right up until my grandfather's generation. But one must generously tailor the definition of "tailor" to get it to fit me, as I tailor spreadsheets, screenplays, cocktails, blog posts and terrible whisky experiments. Meanwhile, National Distillers' Old Taylor bourbons are my favorite dusty American whiskies. And "Taylor" was the Norman occupational surname for......you guessed it, cash application senior specialists. A match made in Ohio!

So I made a whiskey. And when I say "made" I do not mean I distilled the stuff. Like any self-respecting American whiskey producer, I aged rye spirit that was distilled by Midwest Grain Products. The good stuff, in the key of 95/5. America's Eau De Vie.

I seasoned a 2-liter barrel with 10 year old Tawny Port for two weeks, leaving a good drizzle of fortified wine in the cask.

Then I deposited clear spirit into the wooden vessel, bunged it up and waited.

The setting

One thing quickly became clear. The barrel was, shall I say, porous. Though I gave the staves twice the recommended time to expand, the barrel leaked from three places, three spots conveniently located so that no matter how I rotated the barrel something was always escaping. Nevertheless I persisted.

My previous barrel experiments played out in our former Long Beach apartment which would get very hot in the summer. But I'm in Ohio now. And I have a basement! A basement which stays between 62 and 69 degrees all year, and remains dry thanks to a dehumidifier. Thus the maturation environment was much stabler this time.

The details

Seasoning: 750mL of Porto Morgado 10 year old Tawny Port. Seven full days, quarter turns every 12 hours.

Spirit: Approximately 1,989 mL of Redemption White Rye batch 001, distilled by Midwest Grain Products with a 95% rye, 5% malted barley mashbill. 46%abv.

Rotation: Quarter turns once a week.

Day 7: ~1.24% evaporation so far, or 0.176%/day (August 11, 2017)

Day 14: ~2.03% evaporation, 0.145%/day

Day 22: ~3.64% evaporation, 0.165%/day

Day 28: ~4.50% evaporation, 0.160%/day - Color: Peach. Notes: Berries, cinnamon sticks, chocolate.

Day 35: ~5.67% evaporation, 0.162%/day

Day 43: ~7.02% evaporation, 0.163%/day

Day 50: ~8.20% evaporation, 0.164%/day

Day 58: ~9.61% evaporation, 0.165%/day - Color: Light gold. Notes: Rubber, fennel seed, flowers, pears ginger, cocoa, caramel.

Day 65: ~11.02% evaporation, 0.170%/day

Day 77: ~12.99% evaporation, 0.169%/day

Day 85: ~14.46% evaporation, 0.170%/day - Color: Gold. Notes: Pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon candy, mint, very bitter.

Day 91: ~15.80% evaporation, 0.174%/day

Day 96: ~18.34% evaporation, 0.191%/day

Day 114: ~22.08% evaporation, 0.194%/day - Color: Apricot. Notes: Shortbread, underripe stone fruits, pears, rye bread, pumpkin pie spice, dry red wine.

Day 126: ~24.88% evaporation, 0.197%/day

Day 168: ~36.13% evaporation, 0.215%/day - Color: Red. Notes: Pear and cinnamon tart, smoky apples, vanilla pods, pear, cherries, cinnamon.

Day 170: Now bottling. Lost nearly 1.60% in last 48 hours alone. (February 4, 2018)

Something happened right there on Day 168. Per my notes, the bung plug had completely worn out by that point so the seal was probably lost. And maybe some quicker leakage. Bottling proved clean and quick. Space was made for it in the cabinet. And there it stayed, waiting 22 months for a label and even longer for an embrace.

Further thoughts

I find this experiment more enjoyable to write about than it was to actually carry through. As you may note in the list above, my motivation to measure the thing began to evaporate (jokes!) after the third month. The barrel was poorly coopered, the experiment cost at least $150 and the process just wasn't that interesting, or at least not nearly as fascinating as my then-brand-new baby daughter. The Diving For Pearls Whisky Machine, Version 2.0 hasn't seen a second experiment, and I'll probably blow it up with fireworks like a good American.

Thanks to dumb luck, the resulting whiskey wasn't that bad. Proper examination will follow on Friday!

The Barrel

This barrel wasn't supposed to be that relevant. I ordered this inscription two-and-a-half years ago, inspired by Woody Guthrie's guitar message, which he'd crafted after he wrote "Talking Hitler's Head Off Blues". Guthrie opposed all forms of fascism, and in my naïveté I had thought the majority of Americans did too, or at least had once done so. But perhaps we've only opposed other countries' fascism while accepting our own. Or maybe we thought things were okay as long as it wasn't present in our neighborhoods, but that it was necessary to impose anti-liberalism on other people's neighborhoods. I cannot follow that logic, as it seems antithetical to our constitution and any dream to fulfill the promise of a healthy republic. One would think this is something our country needs to figure out without further delay.

This barrel is not an "antifa" barrel. And if you regularly use the word "antifa", may I encourage you to add some variety to your news sources. In truth, the above description could have been "This Machine Kills Fascists, Communists, Nihilists and Know-Nothings" but there wasn't enough room on the barrel head.

Here's the reverse side:

On Wednesday, the experiment. On Friday, the tasting!

Where's the whisky? And where are the rye barrels? Important questions.

It has recently come to my attention that I drink whisky. Like, ofttimes. On the reg. Et cetera. Since this blog went whisky — and especially since parenthood commenced — I have rarely gone more than two days without a pour. When healthy, I have not gone more than five days without a single drink since.......since.

As of today (Friday), it has been one week since I last consumed an alcoholic beverage. The reasons are threefold. Firstly, I had an awesome whiskey experience a week ago, something I intend to write about shortly, and the body needed a rest afterwards. Secondly, a giant turd of a winter dropped early this year, ushering compounding colds into my home. If I can't trust my nose, then I'm not wasting liver cells. Thirdly, I appreciated the challenge.

After a week away from the sauce have I become a new man, clear of mind, sharp of reflex, calm of temper? Not even remotely. But I did it. Hooray for me. Now I would appreciate a glass of whisky.

Luckily I had Wednesday's Ledaig review in the queue, so there was some sort of content here, because no drinking means no reviews. I mean, Randy Brandy could have posted a review but he's busy doing......doing......what does he actually do?

Speaking of mysteries, where are all the rye barrels? I mean all the rye barrels. Society will never hear the end of bourbon barrel this and bourbon barrel that. Bourbon barrel-aged wine, beer, tequila, rum, brandy, every whisky not made in America, hot sauce, feta cheese and husbands. But what has happened to all the former rye whiskey barrels?

I've seen a few microbreweries age ales in ex-rye barrels. Johnnie Walker did their short-lived rye barrel-finished blend. Glenmorangie did a thing. There's a quarter-cask rye barrel-finished Tamdhu floating around out there (thank you to Jordan for pointing that one out!). But where are the other 99% of rye barrels going?

Does anyone have a lead on this? Am I missing something? Also, for goodness' sake, why isn't rye barrel scotch a thing? It can be done.

Fail...er...Adventures in Blending: Improving Kilkerran Cask Strength?

It pains me to write this, but I was disappointed by the first batch of Kilkerran 8yo Cask Strength. I'd waited and waited for them to release something like it. Then they did, and I bought it. And I found it to be just fine, which is (for me) a letdown because I'm very big fan of their whiskies. Also, the key to making it "just fine" was by diluting the whisky down to 46%abv, which is the strength of their regular releases. Yet, even then it wasn't as good as their regular releases.

At the end of my review of that whisky, I said it "could have used a small percentage of the distillery's good sherry casks to lift it up a bit". After additional sips, I realized it was so raw that perhaps it needed some sherried whisky with more age and less alcohol. This called for my new blending friend: Famous Grouse 18 year old blended malt.

While visiting another one of these United States this year, I found the oldest of the vatted Grouse on clearance for $49.99. So I scooped one up and opened it immediately (but not in the parking lot).

I'll review it on its own another time, but I'll say here that it's deeply sherried and very approachable. As it was bottled in 2011, it contains quality ingredients from the early nineties, possibly Macallan and Highland Park, though more likely it's mostly Glenturret.

Its individual parts were chosen for blending purposes so that the end result would be a good blend. And that good blend, in turn, seems to blend well when applied to other whiskies. Would it work with the fiery Campbeltown youngster?

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I made two vattings and let them marry for three months. A Vegas marriage, if you will. Here's the resulting Taste Off:

K8CS - Kilkerran 8yo Cask Strength batch 1, full power (56.2%abv)
K46 - Kilkerran 8yo Cask Strength batch 1, diluted to 46%abv
KILL GROUSE, THE YOUNGER - (4:1) 4 parts K8CS to 1 part Famous Grouse 18yo (53.6%abv)
KILL GROUSE, THE ELDER - (2:1) 2 parts K8CS to 1 part Famous Grouse 18yo (51.8%abv)

K8CS
Nose - Yeasty, bready. Citronella candles and fresh apricots. Simple peat. A hint of raspberries.
Palate - Very hot. Sweet and malty. Unsmoked tobacco, chocolate milk, black peppercorns, yeast and paper.
Finish - Heat, peppercorns, sugar, yeast and paper.
Commentary: I'm sad to report that this bottle has gotten less interesting in the eight months it's been opened. While it's of interest to try something that seems like a barely legal Glengyle, it's not worth more than one try at full strength.

K46
Nose - Cocoa, flowers, a few more fruits. Dough and wet cardboard. It fades fast, becoming just yeast and peat.
Palate - Still hot, though creamier and peatier. Peppery and grainy. Hints of tobacco and flowers. Fades quickly here too.
Finish - Hot sauce and apples. Sense memory: unflavored prescription cough medicine from the '80s.
Commentary: My notes here are different than they were in the November review. The dilution also doesn't work as well as it did before. It's still a minor improvement over the neat version.

KILL GROUSE, THE YOUNGER
Nose - Very fudgy. Some dunnage notes and funkier peat. Mixed berry jam. How about brownies with a raspberry ribbon?
Palate - Starts with honey, oranges and lots of fresh ginger. But then the K8's heat comes blasting in. It turns tangy and peppery. With port-like berries and pretzels?
Finish - A gingery sizzle on the tongue. Tangy and sour citrus. Pepper. Less heat.
Commentary: It's an improvement. It's also sort of a mess on the palate. The nose works though. Fascinating how just a little bit of the 43%abv 18yo malt totally turned the nose around.

KILL GROUSE, THE ELDER
Nose - More grapes. Cocoa and baked blueberries. The peat fades into a soil-like note. Chocolate malt, nougat, graphite and a hint of lime.
Palate - Softer heat and more graceful peat. Limes, berries, light florals, milk chocolate. Mothballs. Less ginger. A bit winey at times.
Finish - Big. Ginger, pepper, citrus candy and peat.
Comments: Best mouthfeel and longest finish of the foursome. It's the closest to a complete product, though again the theoretically thinned out older malt still knocks the younger stuff right over in the mix. More of the 18yo would have hidden the Kilkerran entirely. Though that's not the worst thing, it also wouldn't result in a balanced blend.

KILL GROUSE, THE ELDER wins the battle, and that was entirely due to the surprisingly muscular Famous Grouse 18yo malt. But. Kilkerran Work in Progress editions 5 through 7 (all woods) would beat all four of these contestants by some margin. So I'm going to steer clear of the Kilkerran CSes until they pick up some age or a few sherry casks.

Cocktail Recipe: Ginza in June

I've never liked whisky cocktails. No cocktail improved the drinking experience that the whisky itself offered. Sweet vermouth was one of the main culprits. Just two drops of sweet vermouth in a cocktail ruined everything. Its cloying nauseating flavor spread through the drink like a drop of ink a glass of water. (That's a metaphor I promise to overuse.) Then, one day last winter, I discovered a solution: Don't Use Cheap Sweet Vermouth.

I mean, the real solution was Carpano Antica Formula and Luxardo cherries. Since then, I've been drinking a lot of Manhattans. During some stretches, I'm drinking Manhattans more often than single malts. I finally found a use for American whiskey! 😬

Then, in October, as I was opening my current bottle of Nikka Whisky from the Barrel (NWFTB, not NKOTB), I had an idea. What if I created something along the lines of a Manhattan or Rob Roy with my beloved NWFTB? I'd go easy on the Carpano Antica in order to highlight the quality of the whisky.

And it worked on the first try. The Carpano Antica merged with the whisky, pushing the grain aside and moving the malt to the fore. Plenty of spice, not too much sweetness.

* * * * *

Because this drink is utterly bourgeois with its expensive Italian vermouth and cherries, and it includes the whisky I travelled with during both of my Japan trips, I chose to name it after the bougie-est corner of Tokyo I explored this year.

With its Rodeo Drive-inspired lineup of Valentino, Salvatore Ferragamo, Dior, Fendi and on and on and on, Ginza is the epitome of rāga, one of the three forms of suffering (or poisons or fires) in Mahayana Buddhism, stemming from the desire for wealth and the ownership of physical, sensory things.

The gorgeous weather on June 14th made that corner of Chuo feel even more posh. So, inspired by the sugary romance of "Danke Schoen" ("I recall Central Park in Fall"), I named my cocktail, Ginza in June.

* * * * *

And now, the recipe.

Ingredients:

1.5 fluid ounces (or 45mL) of Nikka Whisky from the Barrel

0.5 fluid ounces (or 15mL) of Carpano Antica Formula

2 generous dashes of Angostura bitters

2 drops of marasca syrup (from the Luxardo jar)

1 Luxardo Maraschino cherry

Instructions:

1. Fill a tall mixing glass with ice cubes (not crushed ice).

2. Pour the first four ingredients over the ice in the mixing glass.

3. Stir clockwise 24 times. (Lucky number hachi multiplied by my lucky number san)

4. Plop the cherry into the most faux-proletariat glass you own.

5. Strain the cocktail into your prole drinking glass.

And:

— Feel free to up the whisky content to 60mL, but make sure the whisky-to-vermouth ratio remains 3-to-1. Also remember that NWFTB is 51.4%abv. So be cautious.

— For more zip add more bitters.

— I don't recommend adding more than 2 drops of the syrup because it will take over the drink.

— Feel free to apply less sweet vermouth. I don't recommend adding more if you want the whisky to fly high.

— If you don't have NWFTB on hand (and who does, really) I recommend high quality blended malts that have little or no peat. Compass Box (speaking of bougie) Spice Tree may do the trick.

Kanpai, my lambs.

The Dusty Vat, my only great blend

Blending scotch whisky is an art form. Blending scotch whisky is an art form at which I have failed. Blending scotch whisky is an art form at which I have failed, repeatedly. Blending scotch whisky is an art form at which I have failed, repeatedly, damn it.

But then, this past August, I was in possession of several partial ounces of unexciting single malts. These were reviewed samples that I just could not finish. Amongst these samples were three dusties. Since I had little desire to drink them on their own, I thought what the hell, I might as well blend them. Plenty of lessons had been learned from my previous failures with scotch blends and I hoped to apply them to this mysterious alchemy.

The end result was exactly 6 fluid ounces of a blended malt, with ingredients from Speyside, Highlands, Lowlands, Islay and Campbeltown. I named it The Dusty Vat.

Ingredients

18mL Glenallachie 11yo 1985 Signatory cask 4063 (43%abv)
19mL Bladnoch 16yo 1980 Signatory cask 89/591/20 (43%abv)
19mL Port Ellen 14yo 1983 Signatory cask 266 (43%abv)
20mL Glenturret 10yo official bottling (40%abv)
39mL Tomintoul 16yo official bottling (40%abv)
5 mL Laphroaig 10yo official bottling (2016 UK release, 40%abv)
25mL Kilkerran 12yo official bottling (2016 UK release, 46%abv)
25mL Macallan Cask Strength (60.1%abv)
7mL filtered water, applied to Macallan CS before adding to the vatting

So, yes I sorta buried the lede. There's Port Ellen in the mix. But it wasn't particularly good whisky, so I hope nobody gets the vapors over me putting it in a blend.

As mentioned in the ingredients, I proofed down the Macallan CS (for 48 hours) before blending it in, to make sure it didn't overwhelm the other ingredients.

Speaking of overwhelming a blend, Laphroaig. If you're going to do your own blending, please please please be gentle with the Laphroaig because its character easily dominates everything else in the recipe. Personally, I recommend keeping Laphroaig at 5% or less of the vatting. In this case it makes up 2.8% and is fully present, bringing a lovely layer to the mid-palate.

The Highland/Speyside contingent makes up 61.5% of the malt. Ex-bourbon cask whisky makes up at least 80% of the vatting, and most of those casks were likely refill. Even the Macallan CS felt more like American oak than European when drunk on its own. My goal was to focus on the spirit and not oak, much like whisky producers of earlier times ⇐ admittedly a romantic notion.

THE DUSTY VAT blended malt, 43.05%abv

The nose is full of "barley barley", as per my notes. A hint of woody peat smoke. Peated Good & Plenty candy. Fried plantains, grilled pear and oxidizing/browning apples. Hints of vanilla bean and oloroso sherry cask. There's also an actual dusty note lingering about. 

On the palate there's LOVELY peat, WTF?! Then lemons, caramel candies, toasted marshmallows, graham crackers and a nice sharp bite. It's malty, has a bit of musty warehouse to it and a bright plummy foreground.

Wood smoke and earth lead the finish. Some peppery heat, barley and scorched marshmallows. An almost total lack of sweetness.

Wow. It's now gone and I am sad. I'm just going to lie to myself (and you) and say this is what '50s Teacher's must have tasted like. Though the majority of the blend's ingredients are mediocre-to-OK Speyside, the dusty and old school style whisky transforms the thing. That touch of Laphroaig also goes a really long way (as mentioned above). I'm staring at the empty bottle now. I don't know if I can ever top this vatting, but in my heart I'll always have The Dusty Vat.

Availability - Gone. :-(
Pricing - Buying the individual ingredients would cost hundreds of dollars or pounds or euros nowadays
Rating - 88

A week of wut? Michael's Solid Number Two, the review

After three months, WTF Is This? has come to a (temporary?) close.  But it's a stylish close!  This week I'll be honoring that series with three unique(ish) reviews you won't find anywhere else, hopefully.  First up, my whiskey.

I am a terrible whisk(e)y blender.  The blending failures not published to this site are vast, vast, vast in number.  Vast.  But even a poor blender is entitled to some half-assed success.  Enter Michael's Solid Number Two.  One year and one week ago, I wrote a post about three whiskey blends made from the cask strength version of Balcones's True Blue Corn Whiskey and Rittenhouse Bottled-in-Bond Rye.  Out of the three blends the second one turned out to be very good, thus the subtle literary post title, Michael makes a solid number two.

It was an ultra high (is that name my invention too?) rye bourbon, with a mashbill of approximately 51/40/9 and an ABV of about 51.4%.  For the experiment I made a 30mL sample and let it rest for 18 days.  After discovering the resulting success, I scaled it up to 650mL in the bottle above.  Would've done the full 750mL but I was out of ingredients.  Anyway, I drank it all.  Except for one sample...

Color -- Dark gold
Nose -- Big rye, just like the old label Ritt I had used (and used to love).  Meaty/savory but also highlighted by flower blossoms.  Lots of mint and caramel sauce.  Some saline.  A vanilla bean note grows with time.  It sometimes seems like it's getting younger with time, too, picking up some yeast and new make notes.
Palate -- Hotter than the nose.  And (woo!) really peppery too.  Very thick texture.  A medium sweetness level, mostly fueled by corn syrup.  There's a nuttiness that leans towards roasted peanuts.  A slight burnt note.  Bitter coffee.  Gets drier with time.
Finish -- Extensive and sweet.  Brown sugar and cayenne.  Lemon and lime candies.  Black cherry soda and vanilla.  The bitter note from the palate does an upswing into tangy.

Yep, hits the spots.  Similar to the lower rye mashbill versions of rye (like Rittenhouse) with some more youth and sweets.  It works very well on the rocks, keeping much of its flavor.  Man, I miss this stuff.  I can't tell you how many days this summer I sat praying for another number two.

Availability - All gone, unless you make your own

Pricing - You'd have to buy a bottle of a sold out cask strength corn whiskey and the old label version of Rittenhouse BIB

Rating - 85

Fail...er...Adventures in Blending: Salvaging a Springbank

As documented in my previous post, I recently encountered a problematic single cask bottling of Springbank, a bottling whose main characteristic was ethyl heat.  Applying water did help open the nose slightly, but the palate just became watery.  At the end of the tasting that led to my review, 2.5 fl. oz. of the whisky remained.  After taking 6 months just to consume the first five ounces, I didn't have much interest in drinking the rest as is.  So I decided to do three separate vattings to see if I could salvage my whisky.

Historically, my home vattings cannot be described as successes.  The only one I've enjoyed drinking was the ultra-high-rye bourbon I built last summer.  But failure never stopped me.  Actually that is not true.  Failure always stops me.  But not with whisky!  So I made my three vattings and set them aside to compare with the original whisky then......forgot about them for four weeks.  At least that left the ingredients more time to commingle and merge.  Here are the results:

Whisky #1

Springbank 13yo 1999 Rum Cask for Whiskykanzler

The original whisky, tasted again without looking at my previous notes.

Stats:
Approximate ABV: 57.1%
Quantity bottled: 30mL
Resting time: 28 days

Nose - Oatmeal, pine, brown sugar, and a slight industrial edge that I don't remember being there before.  It's still one of the hottest noses I've ever experienced.  Smaller notes of band aids, honey, canned peaches, and polyester.

Palate - Heat.  Peat reading as smoke.  Caramel.  Coconut.  A hint of Mount Gay-like rum.  Slightly farty.

Finish - A sweetness that gets very aggressive, even with all of the ethyl burn.  Some citrus, rum, and smoke.

Verdict: Nose was better than I remembered it to be, but the palate is still a bum.  Suddenly way too sweet in the finish.

Grade Range: C/C+

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Whisky #2 

3 parts - Springbank 13yo 1999 Rum Cask

1 part - Macallan Cask Strength (60.1%abv version)

Goal: Perk up the whisky with a little bit of full strength ex-sherry malt.  This version of Mac's CS is the only recent one I've enjoyed, and was also the only high strength sherried whisky I had open.

Stats:
Approximate ABV: 57.9%
Quantity made: 15mL
Resting time: 28 days

Nose - Something between strawberry bubblegum and plaster.  Vanilla simple syrup.  Plastic toys.  Graham crackers, a hint of lime, and blue raspberry sno-cone syrup.  Less ethyl, despite the higher abv.
Palate - Peppery, peatier.  Still very hot, but more drinkable.  Toasted grains, golden raisins, and caramel.
Finish - Salt and tart with a peep of sherry.  Blackberry syrup?  Mildly sweet, but very acidic.  Gets weird on the tongue and I can't wash it off.

Verdict: Somewhat successful.  A better (and very zany) nose is the highlight.  The odd finish holds it down.
Grade Range: B-

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Whisky #3 

3 parts - Springbank 13yo 1999 Rum Cask

1 part - Lagavulin 16 year old official bottling

Goal: Perk up the whisky with a little bit of quality peated malt, yet not turn it into a peat beast.

Stats:
Approximate ABV: 53.6%
Quantity made: 15mL
Resting time: 28 days

Nose - An early puff of rotten meat exits quickly.  Lime and a light dusting of peat take over.  Also lemon zest, hot concrete, and a hint of mango appear.
Palate - Much peatier and saltier, pulling all the way out to Lagavulin territory.  But then it takes a quick turn into saccharine and ash.
Finish - Almost all Nutrasweet.  A whisper of peat shows up, only to be drowned in rotten milk.

Verdict: Nope.
Grade Range: D+/C-

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Whisky #4

6 parts - Springbank 13yo 1999 Rum Cask

1 part - Lagavulin 16 year old official bottling

1 part - Macallan Cask Strength

Goal: Perk up the whisky by adding small touches of both rich sherried whisky and well-aged peated whisky.

Stats:
Approximate ABV: 55.7%
Quantity made: 15mL
Resting time: 28 days

Nose - Band aids, prunes, orange blossoms, Turkish honey, dried leaves, and a little bit of tropical fruit too.  Somehow the sherry reads the loudest on this one.
Palate - Peppery and fruity sweet.  Lots of citrus and stone fruits.  Rose blossoms, watermelon Jolly Ranchers, and peat cinders.  Peeps of sherry and vanilla.  The least hot of all the palates.
Finish - Peat and oranges.  Tiny bits of tart and sweet.  Least weird of the finishes, though it still leaves a strange aftertaste.

Verdict: Success.  I would happily drink this again.  The issue with the finish keeps this one from flying.
Grade Range: B

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With two successes and one failure this is the best luck I've ever had with vatting single malts.  One element that ran through all three vattings was a strange residue/texture in the finish.  Perhaps it was due to the Springbank spirit or the rum cask itself.

As always, I recommend taking it easy with incorporating a peated whisky into a vatting, especially if you're adding one of the big Islays.  I'd recommend being cautious with adding sherried whisky as well, though a blend should be able to take on sherry better than peat.  Ultimately, I do think many subpar single malts can be salvaged to a point with blending.  Just keep in mind, the quality of your final product often lies in the quality of your ingredients.

Fail...er...Adventures in Blending: Trader Kirk's 10 year old blended malt

On Monday, I reviewed the 10 year old Highland single malt that bears Trader Joe's name on its label.  On Tuesday, I reviewed Kirkland's 18 year old sherry-finished Speyside.

Just gonna keep recycling the same bad picture

TJs' 10yo Highland joins the "don't buy at Trader Joe's" list, accompanying their chicken (the grisliest butchery since I, Robot and Bicentennial Man -- seriously, leave Asimov the f**k alone), their whole wheat pita (reliably covered in mold less than 24 hours after purchase), their refried beans (which taste like absolutely nothing), and the Dark Chocolate-Covered Pretzel Slims (because I will eat the entire damn bag in the car).  Meanwhile, Kirkland's 18yo Speyside is worth its $30 price tag.

TJs' single malt's weakness is its palate.  It is light on character, like a bland blend.  I was hoping that adding a little Kirkland malt would pep it up.  And by "little", I mean "a lot".  The ratio in my blend experiment was 3 parts Kirkland 18yo to 2 parts TJs 10yo.  The result?

The biggest element of the nose is a wall of charred American oak, almost like a watery bourbon.  Once that, and a big ethyl pop, wears off it gets lightly floral and grainy.  More welcome notes of halvah, cardamom, anise, and honey appear with time.  The palate is papery, bitter, and has an odd amount of heat for its 40%abv.  Tart lemons, black pepper, banana, and malt make brief appearances.  Grain, heat, caramel, and banana appear in the finish, but it's mostly black pepper and blah.

Thus, if you have a bottle of $19.99 Trader Joe's 10 year old Highland single malt that needs pepping up, you're going to need something bigger and bolder than Kirkland's 18 year old sherry-finished Speyside.  You'll need a sherry bomb or something Laphroaig-ish.  Otherwise, you shouldn't waste too much of the 18yo on it.

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For this Turkey Day, I recommend not drinking.  That's right!  Whisky blog guy says don't drink on Glutton Day.  Save those calories for all the awesome food on the table.  Though, if the food sucks (and/or the company sucks) then drink something that tastes really good and isn't necessarily a bargain.  You gotta enjoy something.  May you all have a great Thanksgiving!

Further failures in bourbon blending......

(Yes, I'm aware that these aren't all bourbons, but I was looking for lazy alliteration.)

Two weeks ago, I shared with you the brief tale of my solid number two.  I made three whiskies out of Balcones True Blue Cask Strength corn whiskey and Rittenhouse Bottled-in-Bond straight rye.  Whiskey #1 and #3 had their strengths, but their weakness tilted them out of favor.  Whiskey #2, an ultra-high rye bourbon, was good enough to bottle 600mL worth.

On September 2nd, I took the last dribbles of the Balcones True Blue CS, the remainder of the Koval Dark Millet, and some of the Koval Dark Rye whiskey (each 100% one grain) and did two experimental blends.  The idea was to create a bourbon and a rye, but using the extra light millet grain whiskey rather than a malted barley whiskey as the third grain in each.

On the surface it sounds relatively harmless, but there were two issues floating above the experiments.  Firstly, these were all super young whiskies that displayed nearly no maturation characteristics.  Secondly, I didn't particularly care for the way any of them tasted on their own.  There were positives in their noses, but not in the palates.  With my previous whiskies, #1, #2, and #3, at least I had Rittenhouse BiB bringing a little bit of age and luscious flavor to the mix.

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#4 - Goal: Design a 51%-corn bourbon.  Result: Due to adjustments I had to make to take into consideration the whiskies' alcohol strengths as well as the microscopic milliliter adjustments, I had to settle for a 52%-corn bourbon.  Curses!

Stats:
Approximate resulting mashbill: 52/24/24 (corn/rye/millet)
Approximate ABV: 47.4%
Quantity made: 30mL
Resting time: 22 days

Nose -- Turpentine, caramel, vodka, corn, apple-flavored candy.  Lightly smoky.  But that's before I air it out.  After giving it 20+ minutes in a covered glass something awful began to happen.  While it still smelled of caramel and sugar, a massive note of rotten fish began to emerge.  And it wouldn't go away.  Either it absorbed something weird from the air or I crossed the streams.
Palate -- Corn, apple juice, vodka, and paper. With the extra time in the glass it improved slightly, with some more sweetness and bitterness.  But it never reaches a drinkable quality.
Finish -- More paper.  Very drying.  With air it becomes chemically bitter.

Verdict:  Wow.  Bad.  I could not finish it.  Worse than the sum of its parts.

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#5 - Goal: Design a rye with Rittenhouse's mashbill (37/51/12), substituting millet for barley.  Result: Due to the structural issues mentioned in #4's, I got pretty darn close

Stats:
Approximate resulting mashbill: 37.6/52.6/9.8 (corn/rye/millet)
Approximate ABV: 45.1%
Quantity made: 30mL
Resting time: 22 days

Nose -- Less ugly than #4.  A little bit of rye spice sneaks in.  Some flower blossoms.  Vanilla.  Vodka.  Lots of corn pushes past the other elements.  With 20+ minutes in the glass there isn't much change.  Might be a little more sugary.
Palate -- Lots of bitterness.  No sweetness whatsoever.  Corn, paper (again), bland vegetation.  Very light, almost like a Canadian blend.  With time no major flavors develop.  Sort of semi-bitter / semi-sweet.  Sort of drinkable.
Finish -- Paper, corn, imitation vanilla extract, some bitterness and caramel.  Nothing changes with time.

Verdict:  Better than #4, but I still wouldn't drink it if it were free.

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Both of these blends were crappy, though on different levels.  Aside from the bizarre rotten note, what was most disappointing was the feeling that in both instances I was drinking paper-flavored vodka (attention: makers of Cupcake Vodka...).  For a moment I considered blending #4 and #5 together, but then I decided that the whole thing needed to end promptly because...

The main lesson I learned from this blending experience is to not expect to suddenly create something good from elements one doesn't like in the first place.  Quality ingredients are the key to great dishes and cocktails.  Having at least one decent whisk(e)y may also be required in a blend.  So it's likely that one won't be able to salvage a bad whiskey by adding another one to it and then another one.

This week we'll see if professional blenders did a better job than I with the young whiskies they had at hand.

Michael makes a solid number two

(alternate title: Adventures in Bourbon Blending!)

I was sitting on (figuratively) about about eight fluid ounces of Balcones True Blue Cask Strength, a high ABV all-corn whiskey which smelled nice but didn't taste like much.  With no desire to ever drink it again, I wondered if there was a drinkable bourbon to be made from it.  Perhaps applying some good rye would fix things.  I had plenty of Rittenhouse Bottled-In-Bond on hand, so I began to tinker.

Here are the three bourbons I blended:

#1 - 50% True Blue Cask Strength / 50% Rittenhouse BIB.

Stats:
Approximate resulting mashbill: 71/24/5 (corn/rye/malted barley)
Approximate ABV: 53.6%
Quantity made: 30mL
Resting time: 11 days

Nose -- Very nutty, specifically hazelnuts and almonds.  Then caramel sauce, halvah, Heath bar, sawdust, and maple syrup.
Palate -- Very hot and tannic.  It's nutty here too, maybe walnuts?  Something fibrous and grainy in there.  A little bitterness and very light on the sweets.
Finish -- Wood smoke and coffee

Verdict:  Smells yummy but tastes so-so.  Too hot and woody for me.  Have no interest to drink it again.

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#2 - Goal: Design a high-rye (~35%) bourbon.  Result: Due to the two whiskies' mashbills it became an "ultra-high-rye" bourbon.

Stats:
Approximate resulting mashbill: 51/40/9
Approximate ABV: 51.4%
Quantity made: 30mL
Resting time: 18 days

Nose -- A bit hot at first, but it eases down with a little air.  At first sniffs there's corn meal, molasses, sugar & spice.  Then a lightly perfumed foundation powder, sawdust, caramel, vanilla, kettle corn, and mint.  And oh so much rye.  Rye candy!
Palate -- Bourbony cough medicine, salt, and pipe tobacco.  An orange peel note develops into tart cherries and blackberries.  Very tingly with a soft bitterness underneath.
Finish -- Cough medicine, salt, and an herbal r(h)um. Mellow tartness and a mild herbal bitterness.

Verdict:  It's almost all rye on the nose, while the palate is thick and rich.  It tastes very good.  I wanted more as soon as I finished my sample.

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#3 - Goal: Design a high-corn (~79%) bourbon.  Result: Easily doable with with these whiskies.

Stats:
Approximate resulting mashbill: 79/17/4
Approximate ABV: 54.6%
Quantity made: 30mL
Resting time: 18 days

Nose -- Less hot than #2 (though the ABV is higher).  LOADS of caramel.  Saltwater taffy, butter, caramel apples by the ocean, maple candy, and raisins.
Palate -- Here it's much hotter, though quiet flavor-wise.  Corn stuff, but not sweet.  Some rye spices lift it up.  A hint of wood smoke.  Grows a little sweeter with time.
Finish -- Cigar mouth, sugar, some tartness.  Long, but mild in content.

Verdict:  The nose was good again, though the buttery element became weirdly strong.  Yet as vibrant as the nose showed itself to be, the palate went the opposite direction.  The corn and rye didn't merge and almost no secondary flavors appeared.

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Without a doubt, my favorite was #2.  While all three blends smelled nice, #1 and #3 didn't taste great.  I enjoyed the second one so much that I sacrificed the rest of my Rittenhouse bottle to fix up 600mL of this solid number two.

After giving it two weeks in the bottle to marry, I just tried it again last night and it's still very lush.  Sometimes it tastes like a bourbon, sometimes like a rye.  It's almost too big for the 90+ degree September heat, so I'll probably use it to fix up mint juleps and sazeracs.  If I can remember to do it, I'll save a sample for a proper review when the weather cools off.

Next week, I'll post about bourbons #4 and #5, which I built from three American whiskies...

My Final Barrel Experiment, Part IV: Lessons learned

(Monday, Part 1, link)
(Tuesday, Part 2, link)
(Wednesday, Part 3, link)

Part 4 of 4

No matter how they resulted, all of my barrel experiments were fun.  There was a lot of joy in the anticipation each time, marking the calendar, weighing, nosing, drinking, guessing.  And I learned a number of things, the hard way:

• A spirit does not taste the same fresh out of the barrel as it does after resting in a bottle for a week (or more) afterwards.  That has been true for every spirit I aged in my barrel.  Knowing this would make me a little concerned if I was selecting single casks for paying customers.
• The Rye Storm was palatable when first bottled, but grew increasingly harsh and astringent in the matter of a couple of weeks. 
• The Eagle Morning continues to change; the oak and rye notes have grown much stronger over time.
• The Ron Matusalem rum that I'd used to season the barrel seemed to have changed little when I poured it back into the bottle, but less than a month later it was a sawdust-riddled sulphuric mess.  I've dumped a half bottle down the sink.
• The whisky blend's palate went from being so-so to almost undrinkable in a week.
• By suffocating the barrel and cutting off oxidation, maturation is severely altered. There's actual chemistry involved in aging spirits.  A shortcut is a guess and probably a bad idea.
• One of the major whisky companies really should do a rye-finished single malt.  But...
• Rye-finished single malts need very little time in the rye barrel because rye is STRONG stuff.  I wonder if rye-finishes have been tried and wound up unsuccessful.  Still...a brief finish in a Rittenhouse barrel shouldn't be too abusive.
• Malted rye spirit is probably not the best thing to age if you're new to at-home spirit maturation.  Its flavors are much different than the unmalted rye most of us are used to.  I would recommend aging a regular rye spirit (and with some corn in the mash bill) before trying something more experimental.
• My home is probably too warm to gracefully mature spirits.
• Milliliters are not the same as grams, no matter what the kitchen scale says.  Density matters.
• If you're doing spirit infusions, cinnamon sticks and orange peel are elements that require very little time in the liquor. I recommend tasting the infusion after four days, and then testing again each succeeding day.
• Also, per Alex in yesterday's comments, the cinnamon sticks we Americans see in stores tend to be cassia bark, rather than true Ceylon cinnamon. Cassia tends to be hotter and spicier, while ceylon cinnamon tends to be subtler, fruitier, and pricier!
• Infusions are an entertaining way to salvage crummy whisk(e)y.

These exercises have often been humbling, as I went into each with a just enough naïveté to mess with the results.  But even if I discount my inexperience, this little barrel was a mystery.  I never knew the char level nor the quality of the cooperage.  Now, if a business offered mini barrels with charring and oak options, I'd recommend it to those who want to do some spirt maturation at home.  But I don't think anyone is offering those options at the moment.  So it's difficult for me to wholeheartedly recommend buying a mini-barrel.

I don't foresee me getting a new barrel any time soon, either.  A 2-liter mystery barrel can cost $80-$100.  My three experiments cost $350-$400, not including the barrel (which had been wonderfully gifted to me).  The important result of those expenditures wasn't the weird brown fluids that emerged at the finish line.  What I really received was many months of anticipation, lots of blog content, and an education on how not to mature spirits.  That's been wonderful, but my next set of quirky ideas needs to be cheaper than $500.

Right now I'm much more interested in working on infusions and perfecting brandied fruits.  And I'm even more interested in drinking well made spirits fashioned by those who know what they're doing.  Again, my adventures aren't over.  They're just going to be a little different going forward.

My Final Barrel Experiment, Part III: The Firebird and The Heron

(Monday, Part 1, link)
(Tuesday, Part 2, link)

Part 3 of 4

Almost two liters of ruined Scotch whisky sat in bottles, awaiting demise.  I awoke one more morning during the week following my failure, still disappointed that my experiment had added up to a lot of bitter brown fluid.  Driving out to the gym, I decided I'd just dump the whisky down the kitchen sink when I got home.  While cranking through my hour of cardio at the gym, my mind drifted (as it often does) to things anti-exercise.  I was thinking of buying a super cheap bourbon and infusing it with a split vanilla bean for one week to try to create a vanilla-bomb dessert bourbon.

But then I realized, why buy a bourbon?  I had a load of unpleasant whisky at hand.  We already had vanilla beans here.  Then I remembered the Armangnac cherries I'd made (a whole other story) last year.  Those were a success.  In the 'gnac and sugar reduction, I had used a cinnamon stick and some whole cloves.  Then I started thinking about fruit......I seem to be finding lots of citrus peel notes in the whiskies I've been reviewing.  So I could throw in some orange peel scrapings too in order to bring that part out.

But those were a lot of ingredients to infuse, possibly resulting in a jumble of flavors.  So I could split the experiment up.  If I set aside 200mL of the whisky fail for historical purposes, I would be left with two 750mL bottles of a whisky base.  I had two never-used clean 375mL bottles, so I could take one of the 750s and split it in two in order to see if this would even work.  One infusion would be a simple half vanilla bean (scored lengthwise) and a whole cinnamon stick.  The other infusion would be the busy one, a half vanilla bean (scored lengthwise), a whole cinnamon stick, four whole cloves, and a little bit of orange peel.

The infusions started that day:

I read some online suggestions about infusion times, but most folks were infusing vodka and gin.  My whisky was much less neutral and I anticipated that it might need a little more of a boost.  So I gave the bottles one week.

And the results were intense.

Vanilla Bean and Cinnamon Stick infusion
Nose -- Cinnamon! Fresh zucchini bread. Vanilla cookies.
Palate -- Woo. Spicy. Not much malt, maybe some dark rum. Chocolate. Lots of candied ginger. Cinnamon overwhelms the vanilla. Crazy spice heat, yummy  <-- technical terminology

Vanilla Bean, Cinnamon Stick, Whole Cloves, and Orange Peel infusion
Nose -- Orange then cloves then cinnamon then vanilla. Bold and perfumy. Juicy Fruit gum.
Palate -- Less spice, more fruit that the other one.  Mostly orange and cinnamon.  Cloves hit in the finish.  Vanilla drifts around the edges.

That color you see in the jars there, that's not a lighting issue.  The infusions were dark red.  And their flavors were just as vivid.  And they were good.  Probably a bit strong.  If I could reduce the character, I wouldn't do so by one full step, instead maybe a half step.  I already knew what to do: Refill infusions.

I took the second 750mL bottle of whisky base and split it between the two bottles with the same used infusion elements.  This time, I gave the two "refill" infusions five days rather than seven.

Vanilla Bean and Cinnamon Stick infusion, part 2
Nose -- Cinnamon is still in first, but the vanilla is more present now than before. More rum and whisky notes. Curiously, some lime peel too.
Palate -- More whisky. And better whisky. Creamy texture. Cinnamon remains the strongest link. Less ginger, but now some mint. There's still a touch of bitterness from the oak.

Vanilla Bean, Cinnamon Stick, Whole Cloves, and Orange Peel infusion, part 2
Nose -- Same order as before: Orange-Cinnamon-Clove-Vanilla. Orange remains very strong. The cloves and cinnamon seem to have fused into a single note. Something about this feels more like rum than whisky.
Palate -- Mostly orange and cinnamon. A little whisky in the mix. That hint of bitterness in the finish, as with the other one. But it's still pleasant overall. Less aromatic in the mouth than in the nose. Hints of malt make it more like whisky than rum.

Yep, still a little bit of whisky in there, yet also loads of infusion character.

Having mixed a little of the opposing infusions together, I realized that sort of blending added nothing to either.  They would stand on their own.  So, I combined like with like in the 750mL bottles.

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courtesy of Kristen

The Vanilla Bean & Cinnamon Stick infused blended whisky is named The Firebird, after the mythical bird of rebirth which goes by many names in different European cultures and is also referenced (as "Chol") in the Book of Genesis and the Book of Job.  There is a well-known cinnamon-flavored-whiskey in the market at the moment with a name similar to The Firebird.  Let's just say that my version is a more graceful and layered, yet no less fully flavored, rendition of that popular flavored-whiskey's approach.

How about some official tasting notes, after two weeks in the bottle:
Color -- Cherry red
Nose -- Not just cinnamon (though there's plenty of that), but loads of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.  Hints of vanilla and honeyed Speyside-style whisky.
Palate -- Spicy but never too sweet.  A little bit of green herbs and grass clippings.  Cinnamon and pepper largely keep the oak at bay.
Finish -- A soft bitterness mingles with cinnamon and vanilla.

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courtesy of Kristen

The Vanilla Bean & Cinnamon Stick & Whole Clove & Orange Peel infused blended whisky is named The Heron, after Bennu the Egyptian deity associated with rebirth.  The Heron is unmistakably related to The Firebird, but keeps busy with more spice box elements and a burst of orange oil.

Official tasting notes:
Color -- Crimson mahogany
Nose -- Intense orange peel meets a clove-cinnamon fusion. Maybe a sprinkle of ground nutmeg. Juicy Fruit gum. And maybe maybe a hint of peat smoke.
Palate -- Starts big on the orange peel, shifts to vanilla, then explodes with clove, as cinnamon gumdrops linger behind.  It gives the impression that its going to be sugary but never gets too candied.  A moment of oak is carried away by the cinnamon.
Finish -- A cinnamon stick floating in a floral tea.

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THANK YOU to my beautiful wife, Kristen, for creating those two labels.  They're better than my whisky infusions!  As a result, she has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer of D4P Distillers.

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My infusions could be utilized as whiskies for people who are afraid of whisky; those folks who run to heavily-flavored artificially-sweetened watered-down versions of sorta-whisky so they can do some shots.  But The Firebird and The Heron should be sipped (even though they bring with them a higher ABV) and I think they would be more appealing to whisky fans than most flavored-whiskies on the market.  My infusions will still freshen your breath and get you tipsy if that's what you want, but there's much more to them to appreciate.

The Firebird and The Heron are far from what was planned.  But as the plans crumbled, I embraced improvisation and was rewarded with madness in a bottle.  Two bottles.

Tomorrow, I'll finish this series with a few more pics and some lessons learned.

My Final Barrel Experiment, Part II: The Maturation, The Numbers, The Result

(Monday, Part 1, link)

Part 2 of 4

I had the best greedy intentions.  By wrapping the barrel tightly, I wasn't gradually spilling my whisky into the air.  But I really didn't know how this would affect the actual maturation of the whisky inside.  Since there was less being lost, I hoped that would mean the aging process would be more gradual.  Small barrels, especially very small barrels, age whisky differently than large ones.  They can often result in a product that is somehow both much too young and much too oaky, a problem experienced by some American craft whiskey makers and even some Scotch producers who are trying to speed up the maturation process.  If I wrapped mine, then maybe things would go a little slower with less spirit-oak-oxygen interaction.

I really didn't know what would happen.

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On Day 0, I estimated the blend to be 47% malt, peating level around 6ppm, and with a 44.6% ABV.

FIRST CHECKPOINT - 4 weeks
Measurement only.  Success!  0.96% lost to the angels (0.0343%/day).  An 89.5% reduction in the rate of volume lost to evaporation when compared to The Eagle Morning.  90.2% reduction in loss compared to Rye Storm.

SECOND CHECKPOINT - 8 weeks
Measurement: 2.24% lost to the angels (0.0401%/day).  That's a 89.3% reduction of the rate lost compared to Eagle Morning, 87.7% compared to Rye Storm.  I was actually going to keep my whisky!  But...

It tasted exactly the same as it had 8 weeks earlier.  None of the blended elements had integrated.  They were all floating around as separate parts.  On the bright side, there was very little oak present.  Though I had originally estimated 8 weeks as being my bottling point, this biscuit had barely begun baking.

THIRD CHECKPOINT - 12 weeks
Measurement only.  2.99% of liquid lost (0.0356%/day).  When I had re-wrapped it after the second checkpoint I likely sealed it more thoroughly, as evaporation had slowed further in the four weeks since.

FOURTH CHECKPOINT - 16 weeks
Before unwrapping, I decided that this might need to be the cutoff point for maturation.  I had no idea how long was too long.  Then I cut off the wrapping and found the following:

The metal was being corroded and oxidized.  The whisky, unable to escape into the heavens, had been eating the barrel.  Yeah, it was time to empty it.

Measurement: 3.846% lost to the angels (back to 0.0343% per day).
In its final days, The Eagle Morning was losing 0.5% of its volume each day; Rye Storm was losing over 0.7% daily at its end.  Comparatively, this new blend was losing 0.028% per day during the last four weeks.  The angels drank The Rye Storm 25 times faster than this new blend.

Then, the tasting notes:
Color -- Medium gold
Nose -- Very nice and malty. A light dusting of cinnamon and peat smoke. Some gooey sugary stuff and talcum powder.
Palate -- Instantly astringent. Wood resins, green and bitter like chewing on a new branch.  A box of pencils: wood, lead, cardboard, yellow paint, and all.  Maybe a flat plastic shopping bag laying on the side of the road?  Difficult to find the whisky part.
Finish -- Sugar coated pencils. Very bitter.

So, statistically, this was a runaway success.

But it tasted poorly......which broke my whisky heart, because the blend actually smelled very good with the rum, oak, and whiskies pleasantly intermingling.  But whisky is for drinking and my whisky was not for drinking.

At some point in the maturation, without interaction with the air, the whisky dug deeper and deeper into the oak, past the charred surface, soaking up the bitter resinous plant material beneath, leeching the xylem and phloem.  And it couldn't breathe, so those compounds carried back into the barrel.

Something had been lost by wrapping up the barrel.  As mentioned above, at the 8-week point nothing had yet occurred in the palate and nose.  It smelled and tasted like all of the separate parts were still separate, as if it had just been sitting in a bottle for a couple days.  While it's true that char may have been largely exhausted by this point, I can't help but think that the angels' share exists for a reason.  They take but they also give.  Oxidation had been suffocated, maturation had been corrupted.

So now I was left with tainted goods.  Disappointed, I considered dumping it all down the sink.

But then an idea took root.  All was not lost.

Tomorrow, The Firebird and The Heron...