You could probably tell by the name of this blog, but I'm really interested in barrel-aged cocktails. My fascination started early last year with a trip to
The Aviary in Chicago where I was able to taste one.
I had first heard about the process of barrel-aging cocktails in a
video made by The
Aviary’s Craig Schoettler, and I only later discovered that
Jeffrey Morgenthaler
had been aging cocktails at
Clyde Common in Portland for quite some time
(see his article on barrel-aging here and
articles about him here and here).
That
night at The Aviary, I ordered an aged Martini flight. The first was a fresh-made 3:1
Martini of Plymouth gin, Noily Prat vermouth, and oranges bitters; the second was the same cocktail aged 2 months in an oak barrel;
and the last was the same but aged 4 months. Each Martini was amazing. While the fresh
Martini was elegantly balanced and made to perfection, its older brother and sister had a depth of flavor
that was lacking from the traditional Martini. After that night, I was
determined to learn more about aging cocktails, and I was insistent on trying
to reproduce the efforts of The Aviary at home. In fact, that determination was
the catalyst for starting this blog.
In August I used some of my birthday money to buy a small
2 liter oak barrel from Copper Fox Distillery. I was thrilled to let the included white Rye
spirit season the unused barrel, and I looked forward to aging a Negroni in it once the
barrel was ready. The problem I had, however, is that liters of Negroni is about 1 bottle each of gin, vermouth, and
Campari, which would basically clean out
my supply of all three of those liquors. I thought this was a bit risky for an
experiment. Because of this, I’ve been hesitant to use the oak barrel
for aging a cocktail since I don’t want to pour $50+ down the drain because of
a mistake.
And that brings me to the purpose of this post. As I was
putting together my Christmas wishlist, I came across a brilliant product from
Tuthilltown Spirits: the
barrel-aged cocktail kit. Anyone who has read about
cocktail aging has doubtless come across Tuthilltown’s name, and anyone
familiar with whiskey knows of their
excellent, small-batch products. So, when I saw that I
could spend $10 to get a Tuthilltown bottle with a piece of charred barrel
stave inside of it, I was intrigued. Since the bottle included in the kit is
only 375 ml (about 13 oz.), it would only take 4 oz. each of gin, vermouth, and
Campari to experiment with an aged Negroni. I was sold. My wonderful wife purchased the kit for me at Christmas,
and upon opening it, I almost immediately went to the liquor cabinet to put together
a Negroni for again. I combined 4 oz. each of Beefeater gin, Dolin sweet vermouth,
and Campari, and waited 10 days (this is another great feature of the small
bottle; rather than having to wait 2 months for the cocktail to mature in the
barrel, it was perfectly ready after a week and a half!).
I decided that it was time to sample the Negroni this past
week, and I was delighted with what I tasted. All of the descriptions of
barrel-aged cocktails tasting smoother, more well-rounded, softer, and more
integrated are spot on. The Campari was tamed, the vermouth a bit sweeter, and
the gin softened. Put simply, it was the best Negroni that I’ve ever had.
After transferring the Negroni to another bottle to stop the
aging process, I decided that I wanted to make another cocktail to age (that’s
what’s so great about this kit! It allows small-scale experimentation). I was
debating between a classic Martini and a Vesper and decided on the latter. So, the Vesper is currently undergoing a magical
transformation, and I cannot wait to give it a try in a week or so.
I’m definitely going to order a few more of these barrel
aging kits from Tuthilltown as well as some of their
bottles (at $2 a piece!)
in which to put the aged cocktails. Also, I’m thinking about asking the people
there whether they’d be willing to sell the barrel stave pieces so that I could
simply add a new one to the bottle when I wanted to age a new cocktail. This new product from Tuthilltown has received little press,
but I’m sure that it is going to be a big hit in the cocktail
world this year, as it allows one competently to enter the world of barrel-aging for a
fraction of the price and a smidgen of the time as a traditional oak barrel.
Cheers!
Appearance: Light copper, burnt orange
