advice on whisky ageing

[diifii]

Hi, i hope this is the right section for this post. I was just thinking if i could get some advice on some single malt whisky ageing.
I am thinking of getting a 1L US oak barrel medium charred and filling it with Yalumba's Muscat fortified wine. This is an amazing dessert wine, one of my favourite. I plan to leave that wine in the barrel for a few months so the barrel absorbs the flavours. Then I plan on pouring out the wine and filling the barrel with some smooth whisky that has just been aged in ex bourbon barrels. Then i plan to leave that whisky in the barrel so it picks up the sweet wine flavours.
I was wondering if this could give me a good result and produce a fine flavoured whisky?
do you think this will work?
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[opelfruit]

If you are going use a whisky off the shelf then try to find one that is cask strength and NCF, and don't leave it in the barrel for long, no more than a few weeks at most. 1 litre is not very big and the ineractions with the oak with be high, if you don't carefully monitor it you will end up with a ruined and totally over oaked product.

If you go for something that is a standard bottling then it's been watered down (to 40% usually), chill filtered, coloured and bottled. This is not the same stuff that's aging in casks. To get the best out of it you should try to stay as true to raw whisky as possible, you want all the conginers present so that means no filtering and higher volatility will get the most out of the cask so you want cask strength.



Personally, I would bother, but if I were going to then I would buy some new make spirit. I'd use that to age first until it was at a level I was happy with. I'd then empty the barrel and fill it with the finishing product (wine in your case), leave it for a while, empty it out and recask the earlier matured new make. This way it was all your own doing, rather than trying to run a "finish" on an already bottled and stamped whisky.......just me.
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"Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whisky is barely enough."

[diifii]

this is massive help thanks a lot. i was also worried about using a whisky that is only at 40ABV. i will try and get a good single malt that is cask strength. i will look into that.

thanks again.
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Drinking with Diifii is all about getting the most out of great drinks. I like to look behind the flavours and brands. Facebook

[sorren]

Yes it will work but be careful as the wine and whisky could spoil very quickly in a small barrel, I would leave the wine for about 6 weeks then put the whisky in, you may need to top up with whisky and keep trying it to make sure you catch it, I used s 2l barrel and filled with port, then whisky for 2 month then a second fill for 3 months, both finished well, good luck

[diifii]

sorren that sounds amazing. can i ask what port and whisky you used?

also did you rinse the barrel at all before putting in the whisky?
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Drinking with Diifii is all about getting the most out of great drinks. I like to look behind the flavours and brands. Facebook

[sorren]

I've done this several times, I have used just simple port up to special reserve port, first time was just a cheap port and Glenfiddich 12yo, it was a very interesting change and was good to see the changes, I have also used Auchentoshan valinch so I could get the strength, I put in a better port for the valinch finish, I've also done it with new make so got a full maturation, I've also done a sherry finish and red wine finish, it is better to use cask strength whisky, just have fun and remember it might go wrong so only use stuff you can afford to loose ....