Blame the rye? why?

[ModernThirst]

Then you would argue against the notions of Jim Rutledge, Harlen Wheatley, Booker Noe, Dave Backus, Elmer Lee, and other Master Distillers who in interviews have voiced an opinion contrary to your own.

As for the Scots, well, they're not making Bourbon are they? And what they do make is aged in a cold climate. You may remember the experiment some years back when Bourbon from Makers Mark was sent to Scotland to be aged and in exchange they received some malt from Glenmorangie to be aged in Kentucky. The results were disappointing but not unexpected, the difference in climates caused the Bourbon maturation to slow down to 1/3 of normal while the malt aged three times faster than normal.

The Scots don't want a new barrel rich in wood sugars and flavor because they're not practicing extractive aging. Theirs is a long, cold, slow, oxidative process that doesn't draw tannins from the barrel like a hot Kentucky climate would. As a consequence Scottish malt can slowly age in a refill Bourbon cask without becoming overly woody.

You're moving the goal posts a little. I agreed from the start that rye bourbons in particular peak fairly early. My objection wasn't to the fact that bourbon can peak at 6-8 years, it's the assertion that the barrel is used up and all the sugars and flavoring elements (one of the primary of which is tannic acids, by the way) are used up. Having no sugars and aging elements left to impart and becoming over-aged are two very different things. That tannic flavor is part of the aging/flavoring process from the very start, not an after effect when the aging process has ended. If there were no sugars or digestible acids left to age whiskey. you couldn't age early times, scotch, or other whiskeys in the used barrels. CEARLY, as Chris Morris stated it a couple months back to the Bourbon Society (speaking about rumored barrel shortages), the "low hanging fruit" of sugars and fatty acids will be taken by the bourbon, but the "barrel still has life." Jim Rutledge has said many times that most bourbon peaks at 6-8 years, but then he also has said his 10 year Q recipes this past summer were among the best he's ever produced. Again, "peaking" is not the same as running out of elements in the barrel to age...it means it has picked up the optimum level of them for that particular juice.

[ramblinman]

Lot of interesting thoughts here, and I honestly don't know enough about the chemistry of it (my worst subject in school, good student otherwise but chem makes me a blubbering idiot) to give an useful comments, but how does straight rye whiskey come into this collection of variables?

I know that most of our really high rye mashbill whiskeys come from Canada so aging is a bit more "graceful" than Kentuckiana, but the older Rittenhouse expressions that I've tried, small sample size that it is, seem to have aged quite nicely without becoming over-aged either.

[squire]

You're moving the goal posts a little.

I've come across that phrase on the internet and presume it to mean a rhetorical trick whereby one attempts to change what's already been said. I'm reminded of a comment attributed to Richard Nixon where he reportedly said, "I can win any game so long as they let me make the rules". As applied to me though the phrase is a complement because it presupposes I'm capable of multiple thoughts when in fact at my age I can barely hold on to a singular thought long enough to complete a post.

That said I make it a point to always tell the truth, always . . . then I don't have to try and remember what I said.

Edited October 29, 2014 by squire

[ModernThirst]

I've come across that phrase on the internet and presume it to mean a rhetorical trick whereby one attempts to change what's already been said. I'm reminded of a comment attributed to Richard Nixon where he reportedly said, "I can win any game so long as they let me make the rules". As applied to me though the phrase is a complement because it presupposes I'm capable of multiple thoughts when in fact at my age I can barely hold on to a singular thought long enough to complete a post.

That said I make it a point to always tell the truth, always . . . then I don't have to try and remember what I said.

I wasn't accusing you of dishonesty or anything... I was just saying that I started out agreeing that bourbons peak early in their aging (specifically saying I thought rye bourbons peaked earlier than wheat), but disagreeing that the barrel is actually used up after 6-8 years. It seemed like the responses kept turning to when bourbons peak, not the barrel itself. I was not arguing when bourbons peak, but whether there are sugars and enzymes left in the barrel after 6-8 years that allow bourbons to continue to age. My argument is that there most certainly are those sugars an enzymes (obviously less than when the barrel was new)- hence non-bourbon whiskeys using the barrels to age their spirit- just that additional aging negatively impacts the flavor, so a good distiller stops when that peak is reached. Edited October 29, 2014 by ModernThirst

[TunnelTiger]

Squire I have this statement to be true in both my personal and professional life, no matter the outcome.

Now at my age it is even more important for the exact reason you noted, cheers!

[ModernThirst]

Lot of interesting thoughts here, and I honestly don't know enough about the chemistry of it (my worst subject in school, good student otherwise but chem makes me a blubbering idiot) to give an useful comments, but how does straight rye whiskey come into this collection of variables?

I know that most of our really high rye mashbill whiskeys come from Canada so aging is a bit more "graceful" than Kentuckiana, but the older Rittenhouse expressions that I've tried, small sample size that it is, seem to have aged quite nicely without becoming over-aged either.

I wonder if (making an assumption that the chemistry comments I relayed earlier are true) if it has to do with having a generally lower amount of rye in bourbon than in Canadian higher rye whiskeys. In other words- corn becomes a neutral spirit when aging, and if only 20% of a given distillate is rye, that may process quickly and turn bitter in a barrel much more quickly than a barrel whose contents are 45%+ rye. So once the corn goes neutral, you've only got the rye and the texture grain of malted barley. If that rye is only 20% of the liquid providing flavor, it won't take long for it to be overwhelmed in the barrel. If it is more, maybe it takes it longer to react to the barrel and go "tannic" so to speak. I'm no chemist either, so maybe I'm not making sense at all here, and that may be way out of left field. Just a theory. Edited October 29, 2014 by ModernThirst

[kaiserhog]

Pappy gets the love because Poseurs need a brand they all can agree is the best. The name doesn't matter (could just as easily be Bookers or OGD 114) so long as it receives anointment from the "right" people. Pappy happened to be in the right place at the right time. Pappy was actually an accident from the beginning because Julian didn't set out to market a super aged whisky, rather his unsold stock just kept getting older. Nor did Pappy start out as a wheat recipe Bourbon. The first Pappy that won all the awards was a rye recipe Bourbon that wasn't made at Stitzel-Weller.

A word about aging. I don't know where the mysterious "they" are getting "their" information but the real experts (the Master Distillers) pretty much agree that aging whisky peaks between 6-8 years after which time the wood becomes dominate and nobody knows exactly why some barrels age more gracefully than others. My own theory is it has to do with tightness of the oak grain which is an individual thing as two barrels made from the same tree will behave differently.

Well said, Squire.

[bllygthrd]

Great thread!

No one has mentioned the mingling process prior to bottling/sale. We are tasting/drinking a product that has been concocted by an artist (artists) to have a particular taste profile. We are tasting what the master distiller (and his panel of tasters) wants us to taste. Single barrel expressions are closer to being uninfluenced samples, but bias is still built in as they are also selected by someone ... and not random samples. Too many variables for me to draw any concrete conclusions (not to mention I'm not that bright).

[ebo]

Very good topic and thread. I have a couple questions, as I have no idea about any of this stuff...lol.

If Rye doesn't age so well in bourbon, why is the most prized/valued Rye whiskey almost always older?

If a barrel is used up after 6-8 years, why do Canadian whiskey makers use essentially all used bourbon barrels over and over?

[squire]

If Rye doesn't age so well in bourbon, why is the most prized/valued Rye whiskey almost always older?

ebo I believe a statement that ryed Bourbons don't age well rests on mistaken assumptions. Rye has traditionally been a part of Bourbon mashbills (still are) and as you pointed out some of the most prized rye based expressions have a significant amount of age. In fact Pappy Van Winkle and others settled on wheat mashbills because they aged faster than rye and since they were starting over right after Prohibition they wanted a fast aging whisky to get it to market quicker.

There is general agreement among the Masters a new charred barrel gives up it's sugars and rich flavoring elements between 6-8 years which is about the time Bourbon reaches peak maturity as well. This is not to say a barrel is useless beyond that point, it just no longer possesses the qualities desirable for creating Bourbon that meets established profiles.

The Scots, Irish and Canadians want different qualities in a barrel because they're making a different Spirit. They want a milder barrel suitable for long aging in their cold climate where a fresh new barrel would in time overpower their gentler style of whisky. They also refill those barrels 2-3, sometimes even a 4th time, so when you add the years it also held Bourbon a barrel can last more than 50 years before it starts to fall apart.

[squire]

ebo let me add this about Canadian whisky. By law even their base blending whisky must be aged in barrel for a minimum of three years and used Bourbon barrels fit that role nicely. Those blending spirits are distilled to a high proof (180 or so) then enter the barrel as such so they don't pick up much barrel influence over three years but still they're preferable over raw GNS for blending purposes.

[ebo]

Thank you squire. This place is a treasure trove of knowledge.