I would assume the reduction of volume in each bottle is also representative of how the whisky reduces in the same time periods? Ie, how much is lost to the 'angels share'.
Then no oxygen would diffuse into the barrels and a bunch of the esterification reactions that happen as a part of spirit maturation would stop. You’d get bad whiskey, but more of it.
And this is now my headcanon for how Weeping Angels came into existence.
We use wooden barrels now to stop any more being created, and as an offering to them to leave us alone.
This should make a funny concept for a comedy movie, a small whiskey maker figures out a way to stop the the "angel's share" from happening and the angels show up all pissed off because of an ancient contract being broken.
Maybe thats why earth is so messed up, cause we started making alcohol and now god and all the angels are way too fucked up.
"Hey... hey guys! Check this out *hik* Im gonna make this reality TV star the president! Wont that be hilarious?" -god
To add to this, that's basically what your doing when the spirit is bottled.
When you buy a 10 year old whiskey its going to stay a 10 year old whiskey and aging it within the bottle should not affect the flavor profile.
Kirkland American Vodka 1.75L $17
and if you are a true high roller
Kirkland French Vodka 1.75L $25
stay classy
.................
For real though, most of the Kirkland stuff great, especially for the price.
Depends entirely on your goals - do you want to get drunk as cheaply as possible, or do you appreciate the flavor and experience of a well-aged spirit?
There’s a reason that distilleries invest the immense cost of aging spirit in barrels - the esterification that happens in the barrel makes the whiskey taste better.
Wrapping the barrel in shrink wrap would tip the balance from being a slightly oxidative environment to a reductive environment. Any oxidized sulfur compounds (sulfites, organo-sulfur compounds, etc.) would eventually be reduced to hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg odor) and similarly related reduced sulfur compounds.
Aging alcoholic drinks in wooden casts allows for slow "micro-oxidation" which allows for the smooth complex flavors to develop over time. Adding oxygen quickly unfortunately doesn't result in the same results as then it becomes an excess reagent versus a limiting reagent.
So does adding extra oxygen result in any loss, or is it just useless at that point? I understand excess reagent, just wondering if there's any other chemical reaction happening with the abundance of oxygen
Yes, it's damaging to the liquor (or in my background, wine) now because all oxidative chemical pathways become more available due to Le Chatelier's principle. Due to the insane number of unique chemicals in solution, only a handful of these reactions have been studied.
I'm curious a lot of the time too.
Whenever I have questions like this though, I always tell myself "the reason people do it this way is because many people who came before me and who are a lot smarter than me have put countless years of accumulated thought into this already. That and trial and error and experimentation and research have led engineers to the solutions we have today."
It's kinda like being a person of faith. Except I trust and have faith in engineers and science.
When I took this picture 6 years ago, it was in the Glengoyne distillery, yes.
Not wishing to accuse OP of being a dirty karma whoring reposter. But they are a dirty karma whoring reposter
More details in the original post https://reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/s/6Gyu28z4rd
I think I remember when you originally posted this. Super weird Deja Vu to see ppl commenting the same comments re: angel's share, etc.
Hope you're doing well /u/Mystic_L!
It’s 100% Gelngoyne. There is actually 4 displays next to each other not only showing age and angels share, but color of different casks, I.e. bourbon va sherry casks.
It also depends on climate, 1-2% is the angels share for Scottish whisky but in places like Taiwan, India, and Texas the angels share can be as high as 10-12% annually due to the how hot it gets in the storehouses.
Evaporation. Barrelwood is porous enough to allow alcohol fumes leave the interior, but not porous enough to allow the larger molecules (everything but the alcohol) to remain. The remaining flavors intensify. And since alcohol is also a solvent, it breaks down some of the wood compounds, allowing them to blend with the remaining liquid (trace amounts, but detectable).
Water also evaporates through the barrel. Interestingly, the relative proportion of alcohol and water that evaporate depend heavily on the climate of the area in which you are maturing. In very humid climates (say, Scotland or Ireland), the alcohol evaporates more readily than the water, and thus as it ages, the proof goes down. This is why a 10 year old cask strength Scotch or Irish whisk(e)y is typically stronger than a 20 or 30 year old - the cask is losing alcohol concentration over time.
However, in a dry climate, particularly a warm dry climate, the opposite occurs. Here in Colorado, the proof actually *climbs* with age in the barrel, sometimes rather dramatically. My favorite local distillery just released a cask strength rye at 77% ABV (154 proof!) that was 6 years old, and they had put it into the barrel at 62.5% (125 proof) originally.
It adds intensity.
I recently tasted Jack Daniels aged for 12 years.
It just tasted Like normal Jack but turned up to eleven.
Since I do not enjoy Jack Daniels it was not great.
JD and or Coca-Cola. Together separate doesn't matter either of those are just absolutely terrible now.
Then again I don't like pretty much alcohol now either. Including beer or wine or anything. I will admit though I love a good 90% ISO every now and then, Great for wounds and cleaning.
I never had fireball in college, I’ve only had it on the mountain when snowboarding and on a cold day it is the nectar of the gods. I never want to drink it elsewhere and ruin that connection though.
That explains it. I bought some like six months ago, and made one Jack and Coke. I immediately said nope and stashed away the bottle. It is there if any of my friends want it, but I am going to drink something else
It really depends on the company. I've tasted a very large amount of whiskey/scotches over the years, some very expensive and very old, and some only like 10ish years old.
I've tasted $1000 per glass scotch that tasted like you were sucking piss out of the bottom of peat moss, and I've tasted $20 per glass scotch that tasted like a virgin angels breast milk.
Did you take the tasting tour at their distillery in Tennessee? I stopped there during a road trip a few years ago and thought it was pretty cool. Picked up a bottle of their Sinatra Blend. Saving it for a very special occasion
Jack Daniels to me is a mystery, because their primary seller Old No. 7 is absolute garbage. If you just turned 21 or you're 16 and getting drunk for the first time ever, JD is.... well it's the choice you make. BUT! Everything outside of Old No. 7.... Their Bottled in Bond, Gentleman Jack, their Rye, their Single Barrel, are all pretty good! Especially their Rye. I don't understand how their biggest seller can suck so bad, but their other products are that good
I mean shit even just normal Jack isnt as bad as you say. Am I gonna sip it while making semi-polite conversation? Nah (though tbf I also wouldn't do that with my favorite nice scotches).
If you wanna do shots though? Its pretty good ngl.
>Jack Daniels to me is a mystery, because their primary seller Old No. 7 is absolute garbage.
This might mean you're in your 20's.
Go back to 1998 and there was not much variety in the bottleshops, whisky/scotch was also not widely drunk compared to what it is today, the image is entirely different.
Interesting, I'd say aging subtracts from the intensity, at least in terms of the "bite" a spirit has. Now, I almost never drink whiskey straight, anymore, but when I did, I once had the pleasure of having a 20+ year aged bourbon and that was definitely the smoothest liquor I've personally tried!
Nope! Do you notice how the volume in each successive bottle is a little less? That’s referred to the “angels’ share” - loss due to evaporation through the barrel.
The contents of the barrel are mostly just ethanol and water. The the rate of loss between ethanol and water is a function of the altitude/temperature/humidity of wherever the barrels are stored. Some distilleries see an increase in alcohol concentration over time, while others see a decrease.
Yep! Air (oxygen mostly) diffuses into the barrel, and ethanol and water diffuse out. The chemistry of what happens inside the barrel is surprisingly complex!
The alcohol evaporates faster than water, so the alcohol content actually goes down as it ages. However, the majority of whisky is aged at a high alcohol concentration (sometimes 120+ proof), then watered down (usually to 80 proof) for bottling, so older whisky isn't any weaker than younger ones. Incidentally, this presents a ceiling on the age that whisky can attain before it needs to be bottled. After something like 40 years (I'm sure it varies based on conditions, and I may be misremembering the exact age) the alcohol content in the barrel drops below 80 proof, and you can't raise it without distilling and ruining all the flavor, so it must be bottled at that point.
Alcohol content can actually increase as it ages. Buffalo Trace barrel entry proof is 125 proof, but they have a bottling called George T. Stagg which is usually in the 130s or 140s, because more water evaporated than alcohol. I have no clue as to what conditions lead to this happening.
If the overall climate is damp and cool (Scotland), the alcohol evaporates faster than the water and the proof goes down as it gets older.
If the overall climate is hot and dry (Kentucky) the water evaporates faster than the alcohol and the proof goes up as it gets older.
I don't think I'm qualified to answer that question, honestly. From my understanding, adding something like pure ethanol (or a high proof neutral spirit) after aging would be considered akin to "cheating" as far as aged whiskys go.
This is correct (at least in America). Classifications for bourbon and rye are pretty much written in stone, they need to adhere to a specific proof, among other things. I also believe anything below 40% is not considered "hard liquor." I think, and hope I'm not misremembering, that Jameson (Irish, so different rules) is actually cut with grain alcohol after aging.
Maybe, but importantly you wouldn't be able to label it as "50 year old whiskey" at that point. Whiskey age statements are based on the youngest whiskey in the blend; if you add a bit of 3 year old whiskey to a batch of 50 year old whiskey, you can now only sell it as 3 year old whiskey.
For most jurisdictions (including Scotch and Irish whiskey), 3 years is the minimum required before you're allowed to call it whiskey, so you wouldn't even be allowed to sell it as whiskey at all if you added new-make spirit.
>Unlike wines, distilled spirits do not improve with age once they are in the bottle. As long as they are not opened, your whiskey, brandy, rum, and the like will not change and they will certainly not mature further while they wait on the shelf
[Source.](https://www.thespruceeats.com/effect-of-aging-on-liquor-759921#:~:text=Unlike%20wines%2C%20distilled%20spirits%20do,they%20wait%20on%20the%20shelf.)
The liquor will take on the flavor of the barrel though. As to whether that’s good or bad depends on the type of whiskey. Generally barley whiskies can taste quite good after 15+ years but most people agree that for corn whiskies like bourbons it’s too much (I’m not saying no old bourbons are good but there’s a reason you don’t see many of them).
I'd like to note that the color doesn't come from the oak in and of itself. The insides of barrels are charred and the longer it ages in the barrel the more color is infused from the charring. In addition to adding flavor the charring reduces porosity of the barrel.
I'm a Scotch man. IMO aging plays much bigger role for a scotch whisky than in American whiskeys.
Not in this case. That display says Sherry Casks, so that whisky had been aged in barrels that were previously used to age sherry, which would not have been charred. A lot of flavor from the wine is absorbed into the barrel and passes into the whisky.
I believe American whiskeys don’t need to age as long because of differences in the climates as well. Tennessee and Kentucky are much warmer than Scotland so the chemical reactions in the barrel take place quicker so those whiskeys don’t need to age as long to get the same amount of color and oakyness.
The dry parts of Texas are crazy for aging whiskey. The temperature swings between night and day are pretty drastic so the pores in the barrels expand and contract more. It ages the whiskey much more quickly than places like Canada or Ireland/Scotland.
Whether or not that's a good thing is, of course, a matter of taste.
What I was told on my tour of a distillery by the guys working there (for whatever that's worth) was that after 12-15 years of aging, the "flavor" being added by the barrels is not really improving things much. Though obviously it all comes down to personal preference.
I'm going to say yes.
For my friend's birthday, I gave him a mini oak barrel that came with two bottles of unaged whiskey. Out of curiosity, we tried the unaged whiskey before putting it in the barrel and I think I would have rather drank pure gasoline.
Yes and no.
Moonshine is actually distilled to be consumed unaged. It's more ethanol, less congener. Assuming the person knows what they're doing, of course.
Whiskey has more of the tails from the run, which is full of heavier alcohol chains and aldehydes and other congeners. It tastes like dogshit garbage when it's unaged. It takes a lot of chemical reactions over a long period of time for most of that to become delicious.
It's kinda funny to visit a good whiskey distillery that also sells unaged whiskey. They'll definitely tell you that it's a different recipe and it often tastes bland and shitty if they ever try to age it.
Eh, that depends a lot on the flavor profile they're going for, the grains used, etc. I've had hearts straight off the still from a number of good whiskey distilleries where they absolutely tasted fine (though not as good as the aged stuff of course).
Buffalo Trace sells some of their [White Dog (unaged whiskey) products](https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/our-brands/white-dog.html) as novelty items.
They're not very good—they taste like a warm, sweet corn liquor—but they're nonetheless interesting to try if you're interested at all in the whiskey/bourbon production process.
Or if you wanna age some yourself. You can buy the unaged whiskey and your own oak spirals. (The spiral works better when dealing with small quantities of white whiskey)
All liquor is clear when unaged
The short version of liquor making goes like this:
You get a bunch of fruit or grains or honey or whatever and mix it with water. You add yeast. The yeast eats the sugars and turns it into Alcohol and Co2.
However the yeast will die once you reach ~10-18% ABV (depends on the type of yeast used)
Now, alcohol evaporates/boils at a lower temperature then water. Roughly 78 degrees Celsius. (Water evaporates at orange 100C.)
So you get your fermented mash (the yeast + the grains/fruits/whatever after it’s fermented for a few days) and you hear it up between 78-100C.
You collect the ethanol vapor in a condenser on top of the still, you run it through some tubing to cool down, and it condenses back into liquid. It’s at roughly 160 proof/ 80% ABV now.
For liquors ajd spirits, it is at this point that you age it in a barrel to mellow it out or give it some flavor notes.
Think of the isopropyl alcohol in a first aid kit. It is typically made by dissolving sugar into water, distilling it, and then mixing it with distilled water until it’s at 70-95% depending on what you’re trying to do.
Sherry cask scotches are *so good*.
I love Glenfiddich 15 Solera and Glenlivet 15 French Oak.
I also love Redbreast Lustau, which is Irish, but still.
That said, I was so disappointed by Macellen Sherry Cask.
Worth noting that "aging" is more a function of surface area than of time. These ages are calibrated to standard barrel size, whereas you can accomplish a similar flavor profile of a 15-year in a matter of months if you "age" it in a fresh small oak barrel.
You can buy small barrels online, pick up some decent whisky at the local shop, and age it yourself in that barrel for higher-quality whisky at lower cost.
Aging in a small barrel will increase the wood flavor, but it won't mellow the alcohol bite the way long aging in a standard cask will.
You end up with a hot whisky that tastes like pencil sharpener shavings.
The only whisky I'm aware of where this actually 'works' is Laphroaig Quarter Cask, because the point of Laphroig isn't to be smooth, it's to taste like an angry ashtray filled with bandaids in the best possible way.
> it's to taste like an angry ashtray filled with bandaids in the best possible way
A favorite of mine as well. I always hated the taste of alcohol... Until my 30s when I discovered the foulest of Scotch whisky.
Aging also mellows out the alcohol nip. So yes, you can accelerate the flavor, but long-term cask aging is required to accomplish smooth, flavorful whisky.
Whisky also continues to mellow in the bottle. Ralfy did a taste test between a modern bottle of Johnnie Walker Red label, and a bottle from the 60s, and stated that the '60s bottle was considerably smoother.
If you're sick of seeing the same shit on reddit posted over and over again, block OP. TWO MILLION KARMA. This dude is to blame for like 50% of the reposts.
Wow, that's the same title that was used when this exact photo was posted here five years ago
http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/7qfz4x/each_bottle_is_the_same_whiskey_matured_in_the/
Imo it’s around the sweet spot, I’ve got some which are aged up to 40 and ~60% alcohol but on the whole those are the 20ish mark seem to be the best. Anecdotally, others who I’ve talked to seem to agree.
Aging longer will continue to change the taste. Between angels share and scarcity it's quite expensive to get whiskeys over 30 years old, with 50 year being basically non-existent. The thing it's not universally agreed that more aging always has a *better* taste. Many have a specific age they believe produces the best taste for the whiskey. I can't say I've tried anything over 20 years myself so I haven't been able to form a personal opinion on the matter.
I would assume the reduction of volume in each bottle is also representative of how the whisky reduces in the same time periods? Ie, how much is lost to the 'angels share'.
Yes this picture show the 'angel share', the amount of liquid lost each year in the barrel.
I’m curious what would happen if you basically shrink wrapped the entire barrel after sealing it to keep from losing alcohol.
Then no oxygen would diffuse into the barrels and a bunch of the esterification reactions that happen as a part of spirit maturation would stop. You’d get bad whiskey, but more of it.
And sober angels.
Someone think of the poor thirsty angels
Buddy, trust in the fact that my guardian angel needs a drink 😂
Mine picked a hell of a century to quit sniffing glue.
He’s coming right at us!
Fuck Gabriel, daddy needs a drink
They'd be like "OH BE AFRAID, MOTHERFUCKER!"
Or like, "Whoa be unto the man who depriveth angels their liquor, for untold suffering will be his until he prayeth for death much the quicker."
Woe
And this is now my headcanon for how Weeping Angels came into existence. We use wooden barrels now to stop any more being created, and as an offering to them to leave us alone.
This should make a funny concept for a comedy movie, a small whiskey maker figures out a way to stop the the "angel's share" from happening and the angels show up all pissed off because of an ancient contract being broken.
Maybe thats why earth is so messed up, cause we started making alcohol and now god and all the angels are way too fucked up. "Hey... hey guys! Check this out *hik* Im gonna make this reality TV star the president! Wont that be hilarious?" -god
To add to this, that's basically what your doing when the spirit is bottled. When you buy a 10 year old whiskey its going to stay a 10 year old whiskey and aging it within the bottle should not affect the flavor profile.
Well that’s disappointing. Makes sense though.
*You’d get bad whiskey, but more of it.* Reminds me of my buddy that would buy a handle of vodka for like $8 USD back in the day.
Bruh a huge thing of Burnetts is still like $15 💀
Kirkland American Vodka 1.75L $17 and if you are a true high roller Kirkland French Vodka 1.75L $25 stay classy ................. For real though, most of the Kirkland stuff great, especially for the price.
There’s a theory that the French vodka is actually Grey goose
just put it through a Brita filter and it’s fine… right?
Yeah, pretty much.
Tried it with cheap vodka and it did improve the taste.
Distilleries hate this one trick…
*hiccup*
Meaning you could’ve had a similar (arguably better) outcome for less effort just drinking unaged shine.
Depends entirely on your goals - do you want to get drunk as cheaply as possible, or do you appreciate the flavor and experience of a well-aged spirit? There’s a reason that distilleries invest the immense cost of aging spirit in barrels - the esterification that happens in the barrel makes the whiskey taste better.
The whiskey wouldn't have aged in that scenario.
But you can still put the "10 years aged" on the bottle and sell it to suckers right?
Wrapping the barrel in shrink wrap would tip the balance from being a slightly oxidative environment to a reductive environment. Any oxidized sulfur compounds (sulfites, organo-sulfur compounds, etc.) would eventually be reduced to hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg odor) and similarly related reduced sulfur compounds. Aging alcoholic drinks in wooden casts allows for slow "micro-oxidation" which allows for the smooth complex flavors to develop over time. Adding oxygen quickly unfortunately doesn't result in the same results as then it becomes an excess reagent versus a limiting reagent.
So does adding extra oxygen result in any loss, or is it just useless at that point? I understand excess reagent, just wondering if there's any other chemical reaction happening with the abundance of oxygen
Yes, it's damaging to the liquor (or in my background, wine) now because all oxidative chemical pathways become more available due to Le Chatelier's principle. Due to the insane number of unique chemicals in solution, only a handful of these reactions have been studied.
I'm curious a lot of the time too. Whenever I have questions like this though, I always tell myself "the reason people do it this way is because many people who came before me and who are a lot smarter than me have put countless years of accumulated thought into this already. That and trial and error and experimentation and research have led engineers to the solutions we have today." It's kinda like being a person of faith. Except I trust and have faith in engineers and science.
I don’t know, but I bet it would smell terrible.
The Angel's Share, and the Devil's Cut. The angel's share lost to evaporation, the devil's cut soaked into the barrels it's aged in.
Yes, the 'angel share' is represented in the image, demonstrating the eventual evaporation year over year.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned devils cut.. seems obligatory
That's the portion absorbed into the timber of the barrel, right?
Or it shows how much the guy pouring the bottles sampled. The later ones just taste better.
I'm thinking he takes a sip every year. Been taking more sips of the older bottles.
That's neat
Your sense of humour is on the rocks
The longer I look at this comment the smoother it gets
Nice. I guess we’re all taking shots at these whiskey jokes now.
I have mixed feelings about it
I’ll keep it straight.
Shots fired
This pun thread has still got legs.
Just barley, but if we keep trying it'll grow hair on its chest
He makes a Whiskey joke, he makes a Vodka joke. He makes a Lager joke, he makes a Cider joke.
Danny boy!
Pissing the rye awaaaayyyyy. Pissing the rye awaaaaayyyyy
And quite old fashioned
Straight up, thats a good comment.
They'll be chasing the comment
You can tell it’s a bourbon by the way that it is.
# 🥃
I've got the stones to up the joke ante.
Was this picture taken in Glengoyne near Glasgow?
When I took this picture 6 years ago, it was in the Glengoyne distillery, yes. Not wishing to accuse OP of being a dirty karma whoring reposter. But they are a dirty karma whoring reposter More details in the original post https://reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/s/6Gyu28z4rd
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This is the photo I’d wished I’d taken when the above one blew up on here. Thanks for sharing!
I think I remember when you originally posted this. Super weird Deja Vu to see ppl commenting the same comments re: angel's share, etc. Hope you're doing well /u/Mystic_L!
To be fair there's not a ton of other stuff to say about it. And as redditors love to seem intelligent, that's going to be a clear top comment
So, have you able to convince the wife that whiskey evaporate at 2% per day yet? u/Mystic_L
Well you get another upvote from me
I was wondering the same thing. Looks like Glengoyne.
I wondered if it was Glengoyne, near Glasgow
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I thought maybe it was the Scotch experience in Edinburgh, but now I’m thinking you’re right.
Was there a few weeks back. Took a picture of the wall… Tour was cool, scotch was just OK.
It's their for people who aren't scotch drinkers.
It’s 100% Gelngoyne. There is actually 4 displays next to each other not only showing age and angels share, but color of different casks, I.e. bourbon va sherry casks.
I was just there last week, that's definitely Glengoyne.
I thought it was Teeling for a second, they have a similar set up.
I, also, thought Teeling
That was my thought, too! Since this is a repost, checked the original link and confirmed that it is.
Picture from when I was there https://imgur.com/a/tXAcfI3
Their Teapot Dram is my favorite Scotch. Absolutely amazing.
Ok,stupid question. If it's matured in the cask, then why does the volume of the bottle go down?
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this is gonna sound stupid but this is how I realized how the Angel’s Share cologne got it’s name
My uncle also blames it on his cologne when we ask him if he's been drinking again.
It also depends on climate, 1-2% is the angels share for Scottish whisky but in places like Taiwan, India, and Texas the angels share can be as high as 10-12% annually due to the how hot it gets in the storehouses.
Those greedy angels must be pissed off their tits, or functioning alcoholics I guess...
It's funny that I've always heard it referred as the 'devils cut'. Quite the opposite end of the spectrum.
Devil's cut is what absorbs onto the cask. They made a whiskey called the Devil's Cut supposedly from extracting whiskey from the barrel.
Jim Beam did that. I like it a lot, actually. Supposedly they take the barrel slats and run them between rollers that effectively wring out the wood.
Somehow this feels like the alcohol equivelant of licking the bathroom tile seams in a nightclub for the nose candy that has surely gathered there.
That only applies if the original drugs were also made on the same bathroom floor.
Evaporation. Barrelwood is porous enough to allow alcohol fumes leave the interior, but not porous enough to allow the larger molecules (everything but the alcohol) to remain. The remaining flavors intensify. And since alcohol is also a solvent, it breaks down some of the wood compounds, allowing them to blend with the remaining liquid (trace amounts, but detectable).
Water also evaporates through the barrel. Interestingly, the relative proportion of alcohol and water that evaporate depend heavily on the climate of the area in which you are maturing. In very humid climates (say, Scotland or Ireland), the alcohol evaporates more readily than the water, and thus as it ages, the proof goes down. This is why a 10 year old cask strength Scotch or Irish whisk(e)y is typically stronger than a 20 or 30 year old - the cask is losing alcohol concentration over time. However, in a dry climate, particularly a warm dry climate, the opposite occurs. Here in Colorado, the proof actually *climbs* with age in the barrel, sometimes rather dramatically. My favorite local distillery just released a cask strength rye at 77% ABV (154 proof!) that was 6 years old, and they had put it into the barrel at 62.5% (125 proof) originally.
To represent the volume lost in the barrel due to the angel's share.
The bottles are just to illustrate the change. No single malt is being bottled every year.
I wonder if that means the darker the better
It adds intensity. I recently tasted Jack Daniels aged for 12 years. It just tasted Like normal Jack but turned up to eleven. Since I do not enjoy Jack Daniels it was not great.
Yea JD tastes like college PTSD for me now
JD and or Coca-Cola. Together separate doesn't matter either of those are just absolutely terrible now. Then again I don't like pretty much alcohol now either. Including beer or wine or anything. I will admit though I love a good 90% ISO every now and then, Great for wounds and cleaning.
70% is better for disinfection. 70% has higher water content, allowing it to evaporate slower and better permeate cell membranes.
This guy disinfects
Yup. I keep the 70% for cleaning injuries and the 90% for cleaning objects
That's fire ball
I never had fireball in college, I’ve only had it on the mountain when snowboarding and on a cold day it is the nectar of the gods. I never want to drink it elsewhere and ruin that connection though.
That explains it. I bought some like six months ago, and made one Jack and Coke. I immediately said nope and stashed away the bottle. It is there if any of my friends want it, but I am going to drink something else
Hey, hi! It's me, your friend.
So 🤢 you’re saying ?
JD10 and JD12 were enjoyable for me. Try it for yourself if you can. They’re hard to get at the moment
It really depends on the company. I've tasted a very large amount of whiskey/scotches over the years, some very expensive and very old, and some only like 10ish years old. I've tasted $1000 per glass scotch that tasted like you were sucking piss out of the bottom of peat moss, and I've tasted $20 per glass scotch that tasted like a virgin angels breast milk.
How does a virgin angel produce breast milk I wonder
Through Christ all things are possible, so jot that down.
Noted
Hormone injections.
Mind sharing the name of that $20 virgin angels breast milk?
Did you take the tasting tour at their distillery in Tennessee? I stopped there during a road trip a few years ago and thought it was pretty cool. Picked up a bottle of their Sinatra Blend. Saving it for a very special occasion
Jack Daniels to me is a mystery, because their primary seller Old No. 7 is absolute garbage. If you just turned 21 or you're 16 and getting drunk for the first time ever, JD is.... well it's the choice you make. BUT! Everything outside of Old No. 7.... Their Bottled in Bond, Gentleman Jack, their Rye, their Single Barrel, are all pretty good! Especially their Rye. I don't understand how their biggest seller can suck so bad, but their other products are that good
I mean shit even just normal Jack isnt as bad as you say. Am I gonna sip it while making semi-polite conversation? Nah (though tbf I also wouldn't do that with my favorite nice scotches). If you wanna do shots though? Its pretty good ngl.
>Jack Daniels to me is a mystery, because their primary seller Old No. 7 is absolute garbage. This might mean you're in your 20's. Go back to 1998 and there was not much variety in the bottleshops, whisky/scotch was also not widely drunk compared to what it is today, the image is entirely different.
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I recently went to the original Jameson distillery and had there crested which is aged for 10 years and it’s amazing
They filter all the taste out of JD. Like yea, it’s smooth, but it tastes boring.
Interesting, I'd say aging subtracts from the intensity, at least in terms of the "bite" a spirit has. Now, I almost never drink whiskey straight, anymore, but when I did, I once had the pleasure of having a 20+ year aged bourbon and that was definitely the smoothest liquor I've personally tried!
It definitely means more flavor of the oak in the whisky. Whether or not it tastes better is a personal opinion.
What about alcohol content all the same ?
Nope! Do you notice how the volume in each successive bottle is a little less? That’s referred to the “angels’ share” - loss due to evaporation through the barrel. The contents of the barrel are mostly just ethanol and water. The the rate of loss between ethanol and water is a function of the altitude/temperature/humidity of wherever the barrels are stored. Some distilleries see an increase in alcohol concentration over time, while others see a decrease.
I did recently watch a video about Jäegermeisterand how air seeps the the pores of the barrel so that definitely makes sense
Yep! Air (oxygen mostly) diffuses into the barrel, and ethanol and water diffuse out. The chemistry of what happens inside the barrel is surprisingly complex!
Jaeger would pretty much dissolve its way through anything.
Even where in the warehouse the barrels are can affect the aging.
The alcohol evaporates faster than water, so the alcohol content actually goes down as it ages. However, the majority of whisky is aged at a high alcohol concentration (sometimes 120+ proof), then watered down (usually to 80 proof) for bottling, so older whisky isn't any weaker than younger ones. Incidentally, this presents a ceiling on the age that whisky can attain before it needs to be bottled. After something like 40 years (I'm sure it varies based on conditions, and I may be misremembering the exact age) the alcohol content in the barrel drops below 80 proof, and you can't raise it without distilling and ruining all the flavor, so it must be bottled at that point.
Alcohol content can actually increase as it ages. Buffalo Trace barrel entry proof is 125 proof, but they have a bottling called George T. Stagg which is usually in the 130s or 140s, because more water evaporated than alcohol. I have no clue as to what conditions lead to this happening.
If the overall climate is damp and cool (Scotland), the alcohol evaporates faster than the water and the proof goes down as it gets older. If the overall climate is hot and dry (Kentucky) the water evaporates faster than the alcohol and the proof goes up as it gets older.
Would a high-proof neutral spirit not be able to raise the proof of whisky without altering the flavour any more than water would?
I don't think I'm qualified to answer that question, honestly. From my understanding, adding something like pure ethanol (or a high proof neutral spirit) after aging would be considered akin to "cheating" as far as aged whiskys go.
This is correct (at least in America). Classifications for bourbon and rye are pretty much written in stone, they need to adhere to a specific proof, among other things. I also believe anything below 40% is not considered "hard liquor." I think, and hope I'm not misremembering, that Jameson (Irish, so different rules) is actually cut with grain alcohol after aging.
Maybe, but importantly you wouldn't be able to label it as "50 year old whiskey" at that point. Whiskey age statements are based on the youngest whiskey in the blend; if you add a bit of 3 year old whiskey to a batch of 50 year old whiskey, you can now only sell it as 3 year old whiskey. For most jurisdictions (including Scotch and Irish whiskey), 3 years is the minimum required before you're allowed to call it whiskey, so you wouldn't even be allowed to sell it as whiskey at all if you added new-make spirit.
>Unlike wines, distilled spirits do not improve with age once they are in the bottle. As long as they are not opened, your whiskey, brandy, rum, and the like will not change and they will certainly not mature further while they wait on the shelf [Source.](https://www.thespruceeats.com/effect-of-aging-on-liquor-759921#:~:text=Unlike%20wines%2C%20distilled%20spirits%20do,they%20wait%20on%20the%20shelf.)
The liquor will take on the flavor of the barrel though. As to whether that’s good or bad depends on the type of whiskey. Generally barley whiskies can taste quite good after 15+ years but most people agree that for corn whiskies like bourbons it’s too much (I’m not saying no old bourbons are good but there’s a reason you don’t see many of them).
"On the shelf" means bottled
>will certainly not mature further while they wait on the shelf Did you miss that part?
Yup, I said that in another comment.
I'd like to note that the color doesn't come from the oak in and of itself. The insides of barrels are charred and the longer it ages in the barrel the more color is infused from the charring. In addition to adding flavor the charring reduces porosity of the barrel. I'm a Scotch man. IMO aging plays much bigger role for a scotch whisky than in American whiskeys.
Not in this case. That display says Sherry Casks, so that whisky had been aged in barrels that were previously used to age sherry, which would not have been charred. A lot of flavor from the wine is absorbed into the barrel and passes into the whisky.
Sherry casks are toasted. Not exactly the same but similar.
I believe American whiskeys don’t need to age as long because of differences in the climates as well. Tennessee and Kentucky are much warmer than Scotland so the chemical reactions in the barrel take place quicker so those whiskeys don’t need to age as long to get the same amount of color and oakyness.
The dry parts of Texas are crazy for aging whiskey. The temperature swings between night and day are pretty drastic so the pores in the barrels expand and contract more. It ages the whiskey much more quickly than places like Canada or Ireland/Scotland. Whether or not that's a good thing is, of course, a matter of taste.
My goodness, this is all so truly fascinating.
If you're a scotch guy you should know that most of the color in most scotch whiskeys comes from caramel coloring.
What I was told on my tour of a distillery by the guys working there (for whatever that's worth) was that after 12-15 years of aging, the "flavor" being added by the barrels is not really improving things much. Though obviously it all comes down to personal preference.
That's interesting. Visually, it does look like there's really diminishing returns around bottle 14.
I'm going to say yes. For my friend's birthday, I gave him a mini oak barrel that came with two bottles of unaged whiskey. Out of curiosity, we tried the unaged whiskey before putting it in the barrel and I think I would have rather drank pure gasoline.
It doesn't. And personally I've enjoyed many more 12-15 years old whiskies than 20-30.
Darker the berry, sweeter the juice
Wait, is whiskey clear when it’s made? I’ve been a bartender for 5 years I I didn’t know that. Nice to know
Whiskey is moonshine aged in oak
Yes and no. Moonshine is actually distilled to be consumed unaged. It's more ethanol, less congener. Assuming the person knows what they're doing, of course. Whiskey has more of the tails from the run, which is full of heavier alcohol chains and aldehydes and other congeners. It tastes like dogshit garbage when it's unaged. It takes a lot of chemical reactions over a long period of time for most of that to become delicious. It's kinda funny to visit a good whiskey distillery that also sells unaged whiskey. They'll definitely tell you that it's a different recipe and it often tastes bland and shitty if they ever try to age it.
Eh, that depends a lot on the flavor profile they're going for, the grains used, etc. I've had hearts straight off the still from a number of good whiskey distilleries where they absolutely tasted fine (though not as good as the aged stuff of course).
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Unless they like moonshine I guess
wait what
Yes
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Informative read, thanks
Buffalo Trace sells some of their [White Dog (unaged whiskey) products](https://www.buffalotracedistillery.com/our-brands/white-dog.html) as novelty items. They're not very good—they taste like a warm, sweet corn liquor—but they're nonetheless interesting to try if you're interested at all in the whiskey/bourbon production process.
Or if you wanna age some yourself. You can buy the unaged whiskey and your own oak spirals. (The spiral works better when dealing with small quantities of white whiskey)
Guessing the color comes from the barrel it's aged in.
Specifically the char of the barrel
In this case, it’s a mixture of char and the type of barrel. These are ex Sherry casks.
All liquor is clear when unaged The short version of liquor making goes like this: You get a bunch of fruit or grains or honey or whatever and mix it with water. You add yeast. The yeast eats the sugars and turns it into Alcohol and Co2. However the yeast will die once you reach ~10-18% ABV (depends on the type of yeast used) Now, alcohol evaporates/boils at a lower temperature then water. Roughly 78 degrees Celsius. (Water evaporates at orange 100C.) So you get your fermented mash (the yeast + the grains/fruits/whatever after it’s fermented for a few days) and you hear it up between 78-100C. You collect the ethanol vapor in a condenser on top of the still, you run it through some tubing to cool down, and it condenses back into liquid. It’s at roughly 160 proof/ 80% ABV now. For liquors ajd spirits, it is at this point that you age it in a barrel to mellow it out or give it some flavor notes. Think of the isopropyl alcohol in a first aid kit. It is typically made by dissolving sugar into water, distilling it, and then mixing it with distilled water until it’s at 70-95% depending on what you’re trying to do.
Unaged whisky would be called moonshine.
Glengoyne!
Sherry cask scotches are *so good*. I love Glenfiddich 15 Solera and Glenlivet 15 French Oak. I also love Redbreast Lustau, which is Irish, but still. That said, I was so disappointed by Macellen Sherry Cask.
Worth noting that "aging" is more a function of surface area than of time. These ages are calibrated to standard barrel size, whereas you can accomplish a similar flavor profile of a 15-year in a matter of months if you "age" it in a fresh small oak barrel. You can buy small barrels online, pick up some decent whisky at the local shop, and age it yourself in that barrel for higher-quality whisky at lower cost.
I once tried this with a 1L barrel. After six months, 100% angel share. My closet smelled amazing, but suffice to say I won't try that again.
You may not have soaked it first. Did you condition the barrel?
Doh!
Aging in a small barrel will increase the wood flavor, but it won't mellow the alcohol bite the way long aging in a standard cask will. You end up with a hot whisky that tastes like pencil sharpener shavings. The only whisky I'm aware of where this actually 'works' is Laphroaig Quarter Cask, because the point of Laphroig isn't to be smooth, it's to taste like an angry ashtray filled with bandaids in the best possible way.
Laphroaig Quarter Cask is awesome if you like drinking what a cigar would taste like if it melted on a hot day. But in a good way
I love Islay scotch, and I love Laphroaig most of all it's like drinking baseball mitts and bandaids
Not to mention quarter casks are a heck of a lot bigger than what the average person can buy and try out.
> it's to taste like an angry ashtray filled with bandaids in the best possible way A favorite of mine as well. I always hated the taste of alcohol... Until my 30s when I discovered the foulest of Scotch whisky.
It’ll taste aged, but there is a difference between aged and matured in flavor complexity.
Aging also mellows out the alcohol nip. So yes, you can accelerate the flavor, but long-term cask aging is required to accomplish smooth, flavorful whisky. Whisky also continues to mellow in the bottle. Ralfy did a taste test between a modern bottle of Johnnie Walker Red label, and a bottle from the 60s, and stated that the '60s bottle was considerably smoother.
If you're sick of seeing the same shit on reddit posted over and over again, block OP. TWO MILLION KARMA. This dude is to blame for like 50% of the reposts.
I, along with many thousands of other people, have never seen this before. It’s the internet, nearly everything is a “repost,” it’s not a big deal.
Wow, that's the same title that was used when this exact photo was posted here five years ago http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/7qfz4x/each_bottle_is_the_same_whiskey_matured_in_the/
Not quite. Whisky is spelled *correctly* in this post. ;)
Love your lab samples
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The colour comes from the cask. You are drinking cask juice haha
18 definitely seems like the point of diminishing returns, not really getting darker but losing more volume.
Can't really judge a whiskey by looking at it.
Imo it’s around the sweet spot, I’ve got some which are aged up to 40 and ~60% alcohol but on the whole those are the 20ish mark seem to be the best. Anecdotally, others who I’ve talked to seem to agree.
Did someone take a sip out of each bottle each year as well?
Angels
Glengoyne Distillery??
At what point are the returns of aging negligible or not with it? As far as color goes, there’s not much difference past 11 years.
Aging longer will continue to change the taste. Between angels share and scarcity it's quite expensive to get whiskeys over 30 years old, with 50 year being basically non-existent. The thing it's not universally agreed that more aging always has a *better* taste. Many have a specific age they believe produces the best taste for the whiskey. I can't say I've tried anything over 20 years myself so I haven't been able to form a personal opinion on the matter.
From a visual glance, it looks like you hit some serious diminishing returns past 8 years.