Australian Whisk(e)y offerings....

[BarItemsPlus1]

I would like to dedicate this thread to Gillman(as you have asked me directly, although it's TROY, not Tony ).....

Ok here is what is available in Australian whisk(e)y....
- Bakery Hill, this is made in Melbourne
- Lark Distillery, Tasmania
- Cradle Mountain, Tasmania
- Sullivan's Cove, Tasmania
Most of these distilleries use barrels cut down to 100 and 200 litres and are generally aged around 3 years. They offer both Single Malts and Blends, Peated and Unpeated.
Cam has made mention of Bakery Hill's reviews, but Jim Murray makes mention of Tasmainia's whisky also. There was a recent article - somewhere?? - making mention of Jim(I think, sorry bout the bits and pieces of info but I only try and remember the main points) purchasing some barrels of tasmanian whisky for use in a blend, and he gave it rave reviews!!

Whisky no longer produced....
- Tom Cobb, I have found little info on this but it seems as though it had a lot of additives, ie. colouring, etc.
- Australian Outback Whiskey

Well if there is any additions that people can make please do so......
Cheers!!

[Gillman]

Thanks kindly Troy, and sorry for getting your first name wrong, I was typing (and reading) too quickly.

Most interesting, it seems that the local producers incline to younger ages, I wonder why..?

Gary

[camduncan]

Could be due to our generally wamer environment.... but honestly, I'm just guessing.

[BarItemsPlus1]

The age is more to do with the supply/demand factor....that's why most of them use 100L barrels. Basicly in 3 yrs they can have a whisky that has developed similar to an older whisky of say around 5+ yrs old. There would be a formula that could be worked out, generally speaking, to calculate the age equivalent in smaller barrels. I should point out that you would have to work on a constant, eg. A hogshead.
Here is an example....
The reference point - 200L Cask
so a 2L cask is 10%
10% of 10 yrs = 12 months
Remember that this is all ONLY a guide as many more factors influence the whisky other than age.

Cam in response to your point, I would have to disagree....
The weather is the most influential part of the ageing process....a whisky will very much vary if you say had a cask mature in a fairly stable enviroment...ie. temps. and humidity levels.....than a cask aged in an enviroment with extreme changes in the surrounding conditions...
When I have the $$$, I plan on having a number of wharehouse's in areas of great climate changes.
I am looking at the moment for property down on Port Phillip Bay, Geelong area. This is an area I believe can have a great positive influence on the ageing process.

[JeffRenner]

Troy wrote of how cask (or barrel) size affects the rate of aging:

The reference point - 200L Cask
so a 2L cask is 10%
10% of 10 yrs = 12 months

It isn't a matter of volume of the cask, but rather more of the surface area (as was discussed in DougDog's rebarreling project thread, that is important in considering how barrel size affects the rate of aging.

If you consider the barrel to be a cylinder with a radius the average of the maximum and minimum radii, you can calculate the surface area more easily than trying to take into consideration the actual barrel shape with its curved sides. It is the area of both ends plus the sides.

But it's harder to do if you can't actually measure the two barrels.

If you know the dimension of a barrel, and you really want to calculate the surface area, you can use this online calculator.

Jeff

[BarItemsPlus1]

It isn't a matter of volume of the cask, but rather more of the surface area.....

Jeff you are indeed correct and I never wish to dispute facts.

If there are any physisysts(soz bout the sp ) in the house your attention is required....
I am no scientist but I do a lot of research and reading!
My addition to your comment Jeff is....
The calculations of the surface area are 2 maybe 3 dimensional, to make my point a little clearer, it may take(and I am really only guessing here!) 1 or 2 molecules to actually cover the curface area of the barrel. Yet indeed there are millions of whisky molecules in a barrel.
Does this make sense to any one??
Makes sense to me

So my point is there is a lot more whisky in contact with the surface area at different times.... any clearer, LOL

I would love an opinion from a Distiller or Scientist!!!

[barturtle]

OK, I'm not much of a scientist, but I know what you need here:

First you need the volume of the barrel,
Then you need the surface area,
Then you compute the surface area to volume ratio
(the surface area to volume ratio is why single celled organisms only get so big-see I do remember something from my '94 Biology class )

A higher surface to volume ratio will allow quicker aging(if you really want to maximize this make a really long thin barrel), however this higher ratio also increases the rate of evaporation(more lost whiskey )

Of course this is assuming all other factors equal:
same number of staves, same thickness of wood, same char, temperature(which will fluctuate more rapidly in the lower volume barrel), and so on and so forth.

Seems Tdelling and I had a discussion about the otherbarrel caused effects of evaporation and such http://www.straightbourbon.com/ubbth...?t=4446&page=3