The Art of the Barrel

I am really into barrel-aged cocktails.  Why?  Let me tell you.  It makes a delicious drink even more delicious.  How?  Magic.  (Not really, there is a ton of science behind it.  We’ll get to that sometime later.)  In short, the barrel smooths out the drink and adds complexities not obtainable by simply artfully crafting a cocktail on the spot.  

Let me digress for a moment.  I once worked for a Chinese doctor after college.  He is Chinese, a CBC (China Born Chinese) as opposed to ABC (American Born Chinese).   He showed me the best places in the city to eat Chinese food.  It was at that time that I learned that every reputable Chinese restaurant has a secret menu for Chinese people, as opposed to the American menu for the general public.  So one day we met on a Sunday for lunch together to celebrate Chinese New Year with his family and friends.  And they ordered seafood.  From the Chinese menu.  And when it came out, it looked something like this:

(Full disclosure: this photo isn’t from the year 2000.  Cell phone technology wasn’t so great in the camera department back then.  But you get the idea.)

The prawns (not pictured) came out with the head, antennae, shells, and legs still attached.  The fish (as above) weren’t filleted.  And the doctor told me, “When the fish comes out with the head on, it is more delicious.”

So, back to the barrel.  When a cocktail is properly crafted and aged, like a Chinese fish served with the head on, it is more delicious.  It is as simple as that.

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I first was exposed to barrel aged cocktails when visiting Spago at the Forum Shops in Las Vegas, adjacent to Caesar’s Palace.  That Spago is one of my favorite restaurants in the world.  To be honest, initially the thought of a drink sitting in a barrel sounded gross.  What gives?  I was under the impression that for a cocktail to be the tastiest, it had to be crafted fresh to order.  Wallowing in wood is basically the opposite of that.  However, under the advice of the bartender, I broke my paradigm paralysis and ordered one.  I had a barrel-aged old fashioned, and it was like drinking a rich, smooth adult candy.  It was divine.

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So I started looking into the phenomenon.  Apparently, barrel aging cocktails was started in the United States by this famous bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler in Portland, Oregon.  He has a great website you should check out:  www.jeffreymorgenthaler.com.  Nowadays, there are dozens of websites with information regarding barrel aging.  Basically, allowing any spirit to soak in a charred american white oak barrel will allow the spirit to pick up flavors (such as vanilla or caramel) from the barrel.  When aging a drink like an old fashioned (bourbon or rye, sugar, bitters), the nature of the drink becomes more complex and smooth.  When aging a drink like a Manhattan (rye and vermouth), even more chemistry takes place in the barrel, since there is greater oxidation due to the vermouth (a fortified wine) interacting with the barrel.  Some people would say not to even age a high proof spirit on its own (such as an old fashioned) because the liquor is already high proof and there is little room for oxidation.  That is why you shouldn’t listen to anybody on the internet.  I disagree with those people.  It tastes great, so do it.

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Anyhow, since having a busy full-time profession and attending to my family wasn’t enough to keep me busy, I decided not to let the professional bartenders and the faceless, nameless people of the web be the only ones barrel aging.  So I purchased a new 3 liter barrel online.  After shipping, it cost around $60-$80, depending on where you get it from.  Mind you, a regular bottle of alcohol is 750 ml, so the barrel will hold 4 bottles of booze if you fill it to the top.  And I operate under the motto of quality in, quality out, so I could tell this hobby was going to get expensive quickly.  I was looking at  least $120 in booze per full barrel.

After looking at different recipes online, I decided the best recipe would be to age a drink I liked to make, and to multiply the recipe to age in mass quantities.  So that’s what I did.  Plus, since a 3L barrel has much more surface area per volume than the 52 gallon ones used by the big boys who age whiskey in Kentucky for 7 years, you can notice a difference in the taste and color of the cocktail after only a few weeks. I recommend aging for no less than 4 weeks.  Definitely sample the flavor weekly until you think it has peaked, then bottle the goods to stop the aging process.  I have read that you can age a drink too long, that the flavors become too oaky and flat.  Thankfully I haven’t had the patience to allow any of my drinks to wait that long to be ruined.

Don’t age any fresh fruit or any juice.  It will go rancid.  And if that happens, then you’ve wasted a Benjamin on a lemon.  As Trump says, Bad!

So far, I have made a batch of Old Fashioneds, Boulevardiers, Vieux Carres, and Manhattans.  Currently, I am aging a 1.75 L bottle of El Jimador Blanco 100% Agave Tequila.  It already looks like a reposado tequila.  The flavor is less harsh, more oaky, sweeter, and smoother.  I started aging the tequila immediately after finishing the Manhattans.  So, there is the extra sweetness of the previous drink imparted on the new resident of the barrel.  The tequila has been in the wood for a month.  I want to wait for it to get a little darker.  Although there is something to say about bottling this, my first aged tequila, on Cinco de Mayo, that would be cool.

So, when you’re finished aging, what do you do with the goods?  Certainly you have your friends over to show off.  But in order to look respectable, and to stop the aging process, you need to bottle your product.  This can be accomplished by saving the liquor bottles you purchased when filling up the barrel and filling them back up with your new and improved creation.  But if you have a wife like mine, she tells me that apparently isn’t good enough.  So, you can purchase cool whiskey bottles of your own as illustrated below:

Well, that’s my first lesson on barrel aging.  More to come.  And when you have a premium aged liquor, you need premium (read: CLEAR) ice.  Thus, my Ice Program was born.  Another post for another time.  Enjoy.

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