Smoked whiskey

[WhiskeyTaichou]

Agreed, you should not use woods you would never use in other foods. so evergreen trees like pine are a no no as they can be toxic. This other biggies are you should never use lumber scraps as they may have been treated with chemicals, and if there is mold growing on the wood you can smell when burned it can be quite toxic.

When not lurking on SB I like to hang out at the smoking meat forums, and here is there list of who to stay away from:

Types of wood that is unsuitable or even poisonous when used for grilling. Don't use any wood from conifer trees, such as PINE, FIR, SPRUCE, REDWOOD, CEDAR, CYPRESS, etc. Also ELM, EUCALYPTUS, SASSAFRAS, SYCAMORE and LIQUID AMBER wood is unsuitable for smoking.

This is a bummer as Cedar and Sassafras are two of my favorite smoked whiskeys in our experiments at our distillery.

I would think you would get some toxic stuff from the pine tar if you use pine. The pecan shell aged rum was good? I would think it may be bitter. Ever ate pecans that had a little shell stuck in the meat? Bitter is not the word. I have not had the pleasure of trying the smoked stuff From Corsair, but need to get some. We have some 50 ppm malt aging that is looking good.

[WhiskeyTaichou]

300 years ago all beer and whiskey were smoked. It was not until the invention of indirect malting in the steam age that beer, and therefore whiskeys were smoke free. And there are records of people using all kinds of things to smoke their malts besides wood: coal, corn cobs, peanut shells, hay, etc. Hay was popular as it was so mild. Some herbs were also burned in with the main fuel source for luck. We can only imagine if they used sage what a strong smelling whiskey that would have been.

I have certainly seen pecan shells used in smoking meats and cheese. I need to do some research on magnolia, as it is used in Chinese medicine, so there may be some reactive substance in the wood and bark. I do love magnolia trees and we have plenty of them in the South. So thanks, I can't believe I forgot that one. I don't see a lot of banana trees in Tennessee or Kentucky. I need to research that one and palm trees.

I'd love to see what Magnolia would do... What about Banana trees - or palms?

You mentioned walnut & peanut shells, but what about pecan shells? There's an Austin, Tx, based Rum (Pecan Street) that uses pecan shells in the barrel for aging, and it's results in a very "whiskey-like" Rum. Quite enjoyable.

I also really like Pine (toxic, though?) and the smell of burning pine needles - lots of smoke and could be a good "additive" if not a full source of smoke/burn.