Sweetness in Bourbon?

[tanstaafl2]

I am wondering, not being a distiller, where "sweetness" comes from. Does "sugar" in the typical sense come off the still typically? I would think not but don't really know. Esters, and other congeners do but they aren't or at least don't start out as sugars. And yet some new make can seem to have sweeter taste than others. Do congeners convert to sugar or just stimulate the "sweet" taste buds the same as sugars?

I have presumed most sugar comes from the sugars in the barrel of the wood that are acquired over time by expansion and contraction of the distillate through the wood, which with most things is charred in part to help pull the sugars to the surface and caramelize them.

So if you examined new make whiskey in a lab would you find "sugar"? Or would you have to know to look for different types of sugar like xylose, glucose, lactose, etc and depending on what types of sugar you find can you speculate what their source is? Presuming they don't get broken down over time!

Edited February 22, 2014 by tanstaafl2

[OscarV]

I have presumed most sugar comes from the sugars in the barrel of the wood that are acquired over time by expansion and contraction of the distillate through the wood, which with most things is charred in part to help pull the sugars to the surface and caramelize them.

The sweetness comes what you stated above and the corn.

I have heard bourbon being referred to as corn congac.

Wheated bourbons are espicially sweet because unlike rye the wheat grains are mild and allow the corn sweetness to come thru.

[tanstaafl2]

The sweetness comes what you stated above and the corn.

I have heard bourbon being referred to as corn congac.

Wheated bourbons are espicially sweet because unlike rye the wheat grains are mild and allow the corn sweetness to come thru.

Thanks. I guess what I am most curious about is how does the sweetness of the corn carry past distillation? Obviously you are not making 100% alcohol with bourbon and most other brown spirits like cognac/brandy. So does sugar get carried over from the still with the alcohol or is it something in the esters/congeners that provide the corn sweetness (or grape sweetness in cognac or cane sweetness in rum)?

Does new make white dog actually have identifiable sugar, whether it be lactose, fructose, galactose or whatever, that one can identify chemically? Or do sugars not show up until time in the barrel? Has always confused me a bit and my 30+ year old and rarely used chemistry degree isn't proving any use to me!

[squire]

Good questions. I'm sure they are some variables with the different mash bills and yeasts but I'd like to hear the group thoughts.

[benpearson]

You should try some of the buffalo trace white dog, and I think it should mentally clarify things a bit, at least from a palate standpoint . As far as from a chemistry standpoint, I have not a clue, I assume there are some sugars in any distillate. This may also be the reason some cars don't do well with ethanol?

[tanstaafl2]

You should try some of the buffalo trace white dog, and I think it should mentally clarify things a bit, at least from a palate standpoint . As far as from a chemistry standpoint, I have not a clue, I assume there are some sugars in any distillate. This may also be the reason some cars don't do well with ethanol?

I've had the white dog at BT, both in the bottle and off the still. Also tried it a few times at other places. Kick ass stuff and yet still some sense of corn sweetness in there. Just don't know if that is perception from congeners or actual sugar or both. Or just my imagination!

I am guessing ethanol for cars is further refined to pretty high proof and doesn't have much resemblance to white dog! More like Golden Grain/Everclear.

[PaulO]

Whiskey is distilled from a type of beer. Yeasts typically stop working when ethanol gets up around 10%. There is probably at least some sugar left in the mash that gets distilled. I don't know how much would make it into the spirit.

[squire]

I've presumed, well, for as long as I've thought about such things, that the sweetness comes mostly from the charred barrel vanillin and wood sugars. I would like to see someone age new make Bourbon mash whisky in a toasted rather than charred barrel. It wouldn't qualify as Bourbon of course but would be unique and something distillers like Leupold or Finger Lakes could produce.

[flaminiom]

In beer making, corn will add a unique sweetness. Depending on the mash temps, grist percentage, and yeast used would determine residual sweetness. I'd assume that would translate to the whiskey. Also the barrels. I would think the mash recipe would also either enhance or balance that sweetness on all levels.

[TunnelTiger]

Sweetness is the term I would use to describe my first pour of SB blend last night. Thank goodness I didn't try it on Fri or Sat might because there would have been a big dent in my W12 & OWA.

[Brisko]

Well, there is sweetness from the mash, and sweetness from the barrel. Depending on the yeast, you can get a variety of fruity or flowery compounds that enhance or complement the natural sweetness of the grains. As the bourbon ages, it gets all those wood sugars from the barrel but eventually they start to overshadow the initial sweetness from the mash. Beam products are very obvious in this respect. Start with White Label (or Jacob's Ghost, blech) and then try KC or the new 12 year for the other extreme. In my opinion Booker's straddles the middle pretty well.

Or with HH, compare the gold BiB to EC12. Same idea, but Beam products tend to be sweeter overall, in my opinion.

[Conquistador]

Whiskey is distilled from a type of beer. Yeasts typically stop working when ethanol gets up around 10%. There is probably at least some sugar left in the mash that gets distilled. I don't know how much would make it into the spirit.

There is one country that I know of, Sweden, that actually tests sugar levels in distilled spirits, among other variables such as proof/abv on a routine basis. Sweden's government actually sponsors a private group (Systembolaget) to disseminate information about alcohol on the web (http://www.systembolaget.se/English/). I'm not a chemist, so others who have the proper educational background, please correct me if I'm wrong (or jump in and expand upon the discussion), but I believe their testing significance threshold is 3 gm/l for sugar content. On a whim, I did a search on several corporate spirits distillers (e.g., "Beam", as well as "Zacapa"), and the sugar content for various lines within the Beam lineup were all over the place. As expected, the flavored Beam products contained relatively high sugar content (Beam Honey = 128 gm/l), but surprisingly, even the base brand Beam White is listed as "less than 3.0 gm/l" for sugar content (while Beam Rye, Beam Black, and Knob Creek all don't have a listing for sugar content).

What was more surprising, and a little off-topic, was that many rums had relatively high sugar content (Zacapa XO = 26 gm/l, Zacapa Gran Reserva = 41 gm/l).

[tanstaafl2]

There is one country that I know of, Sweden, that actually tests sugar levels in distilled spirits, among other variables such as proof/abv on a routine basis. Sweden's government actually sponsors a private group (Systembolaget) to disseminate information about alcohol on the web (http://www.systembolaget.se/English/). I'm not a chemist, so others who have the proper educational background, please correct me if I'm wrong (or jump in and expand upon the discussion), but I believe their testing significance threshold is 3 gm/l for sugar content. On a whim, I did a search on several corporate spirits distillers (e.g., "Beam", as well as "Zacapa"), and the sugar content for various lines within the Beam lineup were all over the place. As expected, the flavored Beam products contained relatively high sugar content (Beam Honey = 128 gm/l), but surprisingly, even the base brand Beam White is listed as "less than 3.0 gm/l" for sugar content (while Beam Rye, Beam Black, and Knob Creek all don't have a listing for sugar content).

What was more surprising, and a little off-topic, was that many rums had relatively high sugar content (Zacapa XO = 26 gm/l, Zacapa Gran Reserva = 41 gm/l).

[squire]

Mostly water I expect, the flavoring elements are minute.

[DrinkSpirits]

The wonderful thing about Bourbon is that you can't add anything to it except for water, so the sweetness you get comes from the caramelized wood sugars in an American oak charred barrel. One of the things I love about spirits is how they can taste sweet but not actually BE sweet or sweetened.

With a lot of Scotch whisky it's all about the flavors from the grain so you get more of the sweet tones from the distillate than the barrel. With malted barley you can get great apricot, honey, dried fruits, caramel, vanilla.... the list goes on.

So the short answer is: Sweet taste comes from the distilled corn and from the time in barrel extracting wood sugars AND compounds which taste sweet.

[sailor22]

Recently the TWS bottled juice that had been rebarreled in a used 53 gallon barrel that had previously held ER 10. In the 2.4 years it sat in a barn it gained a LOT of vanilla and caramel sweetness. I can only assume that that amplification of flavors came from the used barrel. Or perhaps a combination of oxidation and barrel flavors.