The Importance Of Aging Whiskey In Wooden Barrels
Without being finished with the barrel aging process, whiskey simply isn’t whiskey. When the clear, sour, and highly potent unfinished liquor separates from the mash and is technically drinkable, it’s still raw and unappealing to all but the most devout alcohol fanatic! The wooden barrels that whiskey ages in for months to years add some of the most notable characteristics of the drink itself. Most notable of these characteristics are coloring, flavoring, and depth of taste.
Tannins from the wood, and often the charcoal from the firing process of the wood infuse the whiskey on the molecular level with attributes from the individual components. That rich golden red to dark golden brown color has more to do with the barrel itself than any of the distillation process. The longer the whiskey stays in the barrel, the more richly colored it will become.
The more richly colored a whiskey typically is, the more flavorful it tends to be. You can generally bet that the redder a whiskey is, the stronger a “bite” it’s going to deliver when you sip it. And the darker a whiskey is, the more earthy it will taste, these are all qualities that come from the barreling!
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