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| Stave Replacement to adjust aging |
Dr. Matthew
Crow spoke on three ways in which spirits change during barrel aging:
subtractive, taking away the less desirable flavors, additive, color and
flavors taken from the barrel, and interactive, the distillate reacting with
the wood, with oxygen, and with the barrel char. The choice of a new versus
many times reused barrels for a spirit is based on how much and which type of
wood influence is desired. The spirit
had lost its characteristic immature notes of young Scotch, yet had picked up
very little color or caramel flavor from the barrels. A barrel with heavily charred new ends, the
flat top and bottom of an old barrel. Crow
said they initially found the spirit to be too woody and spice dominant, masking
the "distillery character" from the spirit itself. But after another
eight to nine years of additional maturation, the distillery character
resurfaced as the spirit matured. To
bring it all together, a spirit matured in a variety of barrels, then blended
and rested in "low activity barrels," Crow said made a significant
positive impact on the character of final spirit.
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| The Good Stuff Coming out of the Barrel |
How much do spirit
makers rely on chemical analyses as opposed to human taste buds in creating
spirits? Crow said: "The chemical analysis
supports the sensory," to the mutual agreement of all the panelists. Bushell of Hennessy, added that in producing
Cognac the distillers are forced to make decisions on how to distill the wines
before lab analyses could be completed. If they waited for test results, the
wine would have changed enough that said results would no longer be
useful.
The more the
industry relies on the scientific portion to make its decisions, the more they
seem to need the sensory. I understand
the need for both, but the final products are not sold to scientific equipment,
but rather to people. People buy spirits
for their sensory enjoyment, not mental knowledge.
