Aging

Using the barrel to get a more intense oak presence or caramel-forward flavor into your whiskey may not be as straightforward as you think. Sydney Jones, supervisor and lead distillery technician at Heaven Hill in Bardstown, Kentucky, lays out some recent findings on char and toast—plus, some tips on finishing whiskey in spirit casks.

Because you get only one chance to make a first impression… In an increasingly competitive environment, craft distilleries should consider premium packaging options to pair with their small-batch products.

Much of whiskey’s flavor comes from maturation on oak. Sydney Jones, supervisor and lead distillery technician at Heaven Hill in Bardstown, Kentucky, explains why—and how both climate and entry proof can dramatically affect that impact.

Just because the spirit made it into the bottle doesn’t mean it’s across the finish line. Proper care and handling upstream are important to ensuring it retains the proper color and flavor all the way into the consumer’s glass.

Barrel aging is a complex process that can take decades to master, but every distiller should at least understand the outlines of the journey.

A range of filtration tools and techniques allows the distiller opportunities to clean up the flavor profile and clarity of their products.

Distilling in Florida’s hot and humid environment, and producing spirits specifically tuned for cocktails in a tourism-driven locale—those are the major guideposts for the creative direction of these sibling distilleries, as well as for their methods of barrel aging and adding flavor.

Smaller distilleries can tap into flavors and opportunities that may not be available at larger scale, whether that’s to support modest growth or simply to make the best possible spirit.

When it comes to diluting a spirit before packaging, deliberate slowness has a strong following among distillers. Yet there’s a lack of hard evidence to back up the approach—or to dismiss it.

The available data around flavor impacts is unclear—even contradictory—but this much we know: Distilling a range of strengths for the barrels will give you a broader range of blending options.

Aging barrels on rivers and waterways offers distillers a unique profile—and an intriguing story—for their spirits. However, there are some legal and technical challenges to overcome.

Oh, the sweetness of loss… Here’s how and why the slow, inevitable reduction of cask-aged spirit plays a valuable role in its maturation and flavor—and why some people try to prevent it anyway.

Port, sherry, and other wines offer distillers a wide variety of options to accentuate their whiskeys.

Understanding the reactions that occur in a barrel can help distillers get the most from their cellar environment and cask choices.

While smaller vessels can speed up certain types of aging reactions, the results are uneven among different aspects of maturation. Let’s look closer at what’s happening inside those barrels.

Spirits that feature foraged ingredients offer unique flavors while appealing to locally minded drinkers.

To everything, there is a season... but to a barrel-aged spirit, there are several. Those fluctuations in temperature play a key role in how the wood affects the liquid’s flavors. In this clip from his video course, Santa Fe Spirits master distiller Stephen Julander discusses climate, barrel placement, and more.

Each failure to impress is a missed chance to get someone to try your spirit—yet packaging is expensive, especially on a smaller scale. Here’s how some craft distilleries are elevating lower-cost bottles for brands that shine on the shelves.

Santa Fe Spirits master distiller Stephen Julander explains how coopers use fires of different intensities and times to prepare barrels to influence character of spirits over the long haul.

There are spirits in the trees, but pines are a source that modern distillers often overlook. Whether using fresh buds or gooey cones for brandies or liqueurs, here’s how a couple of small distilleries in the Northwest are sourcing and distilling them for a distinctive local product.