Tuthilltown Barrel Aged Negroni

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!