I've had an experiment rolling around in my head for a while, and finally put some things together in March to get it rolling. After a few months I have something to report.
On the net there are a lot of home aging kits that you can buy to age your own whiskey. they are essentially small charred oak kegs that you can dump a bottle of liquor into and in a short period of time have "aged" whiskey. Due to the large surface area of the charred wood that is in contact with the white dog whiskey, it only takes a short period of time. My guess is that you would have young amber colored whiskey, but I wanted to give it a try.
Since I wanted to watch this thing progress, I opted for a clear mason jar and some charred white oak.
First I had to search far and wide for a plank of white oak. Wound up buying it online. I cut it into small pieces for the sake of convenience (sent some to my brother since he wanted to give this a go as well). My goal was to toast this and then char it so it was aligatored ( ) a bit...I wrapped a piece of oak in foil and into the oven at 450 °. Here is what it looked like next to a fresh piece...Let me tell you the entire house smelled like toasted oak!
Then I hit it with a torch to give it a good char.
I chose a George Dickel no. 1 as the test subject. It is the same mash bill as their regular offering and the reviews I read were encouraging. I wanted to start with something that was decent.
Everyone into the pool!
After a couple days...
About a week. I sat this outside to catch a temperature swing.
Three months...This is next to some Buffalo Trace Sazerac Rye and some Reiger's Kansas City.
I opened this up and tried about half a shot. It has definitely changed and taken on notes of toasted oak. I have to say It is young, but it is really pretty good. I don't like white dog whiskey, but this definitely has some merit. It has only been a few months, so I'll let this go a bit longer and see what it is like. I may start a larger batch of this one. I also picked up this Devil's Share by Ballast Point Distillery to see what it was like after I age it a bit.
On the net there are a lot of home aging kits that you can buy to age your own whiskey. they are essentially small charred oak kegs that you can dump a bottle of liquor into and in a short period of time have "aged" whiskey. Due to the large surface area of the charred wood that is in contact with the white dog whiskey, it only takes a short period of time. My guess is that you would have young amber colored whiskey, but I wanted to give it a try.
Since I wanted to watch this thing progress, I opted for a clear mason jar and some charred white oak.
First I had to search far and wide for a plank of white oak. Wound up buying it online. I cut it into small pieces for the sake of convenience (sent some to my brother since he wanted to give this a go as well). My goal was to toast this and then char it so it was aligatored ( ) a bit...I wrapped a piece of oak in foil and into the oven at 450 °. Here is what it looked like next to a fresh piece...Let me tell you the entire house smelled like toasted oak!
Then I hit it with a torch to give it a good char.
I chose a George Dickel no. 1 as the test subject. It is the same mash bill as their regular offering and the reviews I read were encouraging. I wanted to start with something that was decent.
Everyone into the pool!
After a couple days...
About a week. I sat this outside to catch a temperature swing.
Three months...This is next to some Buffalo Trace Sazerac Rye and some Reiger's Kansas City.
I opened this up and tried about half a shot. It has definitely changed and taken on notes of toasted oak. I have to say It is young, but it is really pretty good. I don't like white dog whiskey, but this definitely has some merit. It has only been a few months, so I'll let this go a bit longer and see what it is like. I may start a larger batch of this one. I also picked up this Devil's Share by Ballast Point Distillery to see what it was like after I age it a bit.
Comment