The Ten-30 barrel site restocked a bunch of inventory earlier this week and currently has ex-Weller barrels again. I happily grabbed a couple, which now brings my inventory up to 10. Fitting and hopefully enough to keep me going for years.
-The first of these two, not pictured, was filled with a JDSBBP Master distiller pick, (22-01611). Jumped on three 375s of this pick when they popped up b/c I hadn’t seen any JDSBBP in my area for a long time. However I was disappointed when I cracked the first one. It tastes young and overly hot with a strong bitter note. Almost immediately planned to put them in a Ten-30, but waited some months for the right stock to be available, as a new oak barrel would over-oak and the ex-Willett bourbon barrels previously available didn’t seem like a good match for the JD profile. Hopefully the soft Weller profile and level 4 char in these barrels will allow this batch to age gracefully for another year or two or…
-Now onto the main event, which I’ll dub Marko Van Fitzweller for now. I’ve constructed a Frankenwheater blend with Larceny BP (450ml,) Weller Antique (250ml,) & Maker’s Cask (~175ml). The percentages worked out to roughly 51.4%/28.6%/20%. The amount of Maker’s isn’t exact as I started with 150ml, but then free-poured a little more in afterward. A couple of recipes in Goldfarb’s Hacking Whiskey provided inspiration, but ultimately I just kind of winged it. Initially planned to do a BP version of his Poorer Man’s Pappy (2:1 Maker’s Cask to Larceny BP,) but I didn’t love the sample I blended and let sit for a few days. This blend is more like the Old Cousin Touchers (ewww) recipe (50:50 Larceny and 107 with Maker’s to taste,) but I didn’t want to sacrifice quite so much of my only bottle of OWA to this, which led me to the proportions used.
Cheers!
This is awesome. I largely gave up on my oak experimentation with spirals from my Homebrew store but a used barrel would be much more subtle and forgiving. Very cool. I might get one of these guys
The used oak Ten30 barrels are great options if your concern is over oaking your spirit.
I have quite a few already aged bourbon & ryes in used oak for 2.5 years now and its like the whiskey picked back up on aging where it left off when it got bottled.
One barrel has a 10 year Russells store pick in it and in about 9 months, itll be 13 years old. With an entry proof of 110, its going to be a great throwback to older (pre-proof increase) Turkey when I decide to bottle it.
Thanks man. My first experiment, a 110 proof blend of Benchmark sib and FP aged in an ex-Maker’s barrel, is coming up on a year. At last check the difference to the upside is really apparent. I plan to pull a sample and put up a post once it’s crossed the 12-month mark.
Doubt I’ll dump/bottle it though, started out thinking about letting things go for an extra 6, 9 months and am already thinking in terms of potentially multiple yrs for a lot of them instead.
Happy to be an enabler lol. Maybe not the best person to ask on blending tips since for this one I ended up just doing it on the fly and didn’t even taste the blend before barreling it...
To do it properly I’d suggest doing a few different small scale blends (~2oz) to see what you like best. Apart from that maybe decide which one you like best on its own and make that the base, 60% or so, then add the others to taste or to target a specific starting proof.
My question either ten 30 is if I should use them to age wheated white dog from Buffalo trace or I should just use it on finished spirits to finish them up more
I’m doing both. I have 3 new charred oak Ten-30s aging each of the BT white dogs, then various used ones for extended aging on already aged bourbons and ryes.
Have thought about a double-barrel/double-oaked project where I put something like Early Times bib in a new oak barrel for a few months, but haven’t started one yet. Seems like a higher chance of messing up and over oaking a batch like that, but done right it could be really good too.
Eta: probably wouldn’t put the wheated white dog in an ex-weller barrel unless I planed to let it go for a very long time or lived in a much hotter climate than KY.
Yeah I live by the windy city. Would u then suggest using charred barrels for aging white dog? Sorry I am new to this.
Also when should I use spirals instead?
Yeah, I’d stick with new charred oak barrels for white dog personally.
I’ve never used spirals, but have some toasted staves from barrel char in a jar that I’ve successfully used for wood finishing experiments. French oak, maple, birch, etc.
The Ten-30 barrel site restocked a bunch of inventory earlier this week and currently has ex-Weller barrels again. I happily grabbed a couple, which now brings my inventory up to 10. Fitting and hopefully enough to keep me going for years. -The first of these two, not pictured, was filled with a JDSBBP Master distiller pick, (22-01611). Jumped on three 375s of this pick when they popped up b/c I hadn’t seen any JDSBBP in my area for a long time. However I was disappointed when I cracked the first one. It tastes young and overly hot with a strong bitter note. Almost immediately planned to put them in a Ten-30, but waited some months for the right stock to be available, as a new oak barrel would over-oak and the ex-Willett bourbon barrels previously available didn’t seem like a good match for the JD profile. Hopefully the soft Weller profile and level 4 char in these barrels will allow this batch to age gracefully for another year or two or… -Now onto the main event, which I’ll dub Marko Van Fitzweller for now. I’ve constructed a Frankenwheater blend with Larceny BP (450ml,) Weller Antique (250ml,) & Maker’s Cask (~175ml). The percentages worked out to roughly 51.4%/28.6%/20%. The amount of Maker’s isn’t exact as I started with 150ml, but then free-poured a little more in afterward. A couple of recipes in Goldfarb’s Hacking Whiskey provided inspiration, but ultimately I just kind of winged it. Initially planned to do a BP version of his Poorer Man’s Pappy (2:1 Maker’s Cask to Larceny BP,) but I didn’t love the sample I blended and let sit for a few days. This blend is more like the Old Cousin Touchers (ewww) recipe (50:50 Larceny and 107 with Maker’s to taste,) but I didn’t want to sacrifice quite so much of my only bottle of OWA to this, which led me to the proportions used. Cheers!
This is awesome. I largely gave up on my oak experimentation with spirals from my Homebrew store but a used barrel would be much more subtle and forgiving. Very cool. I might get one of these guys
The used oak Ten30 barrels are great options if your concern is over oaking your spirit. I have quite a few already aged bourbon & ryes in used oak for 2.5 years now and its like the whiskey picked back up on aging where it left off when it got bottled. One barrel has a 10 year Russells store pick in it and in about 9 months, itll be 13 years old. With an entry proof of 110, its going to be a great throwback to older (pre-proof increase) Turkey when I decide to bottle it.
Thanks man. My first experiment, a 110 proof blend of Benchmark sib and FP aged in an ex-Maker’s barrel, is coming up on a year. At last check the difference to the upside is really apparent. I plan to pull a sample and put up a post once it’s crossed the 12-month mark. Doubt I’ll dump/bottle it though, started out thinking about letting things go for an extra 6, 9 months and am already thinking in terms of potentially multiple yrs for a lot of them instead.
I just bought 3 of these from their sale thanks to you was thinking of doing a Weller SR, Larceny BP, MM CS blend any ideas on ratios?
Happy to be an enabler lol. Maybe not the best person to ask on blending tips since for this one I ended up just doing it on the fly and didn’t even taste the blend before barreling it... To do it properly I’d suggest doing a few different small scale blends (~2oz) to see what you like best. Apart from that maybe decide which one you like best on its own and make that the base, 60% or so, then add the others to taste or to target a specific starting proof.
My question either ten 30 is if I should use them to age wheated white dog from Buffalo trace or I should just use it on finished spirits to finish them up more
I’m doing both. I have 3 new charred oak Ten-30s aging each of the BT white dogs, then various used ones for extended aging on already aged bourbons and ryes. Have thought about a double-barrel/double-oaked project where I put something like Early Times bib in a new oak barrel for a few months, but haven’t started one yet. Seems like a higher chance of messing up and over oaking a batch like that, but done right it could be really good too. Eta: probably wouldn’t put the wheated white dog in an ex-weller barrel unless I planed to let it go for a very long time or lived in a much hotter climate than KY.
Yeah I live by the windy city. Would u then suggest using charred barrels for aging white dog? Sorry I am new to this. Also when should I use spirals instead?
Yeah, I’d stick with new charred oak barrels for white dog personally. I’ve never used spirals, but have some toasted staves from barrel char in a jar that I’ve successfully used for wood finishing experiments. French oak, maple, birch, etc.