Good Wood
Without good wood in barrels there would be no good whisky, all casks are not alike and many come from America because the Scots are a Cannie lot. It makes sense to use up the Americans who by law can only use virgin oak casks. There are many different countries producing oak casks all with different growth and density within the wood produced.
The finer the grained timber the less angel share, also a factor is the temperature during maturation and storage conditions which contribute to how much those dam angels drink.
The American oak is courser grained than European oak. Oak for barrel making is sourced from country’s all over the world and has all got specific qualities plus the barrels sourced outside America have in most cases been used wine production, again those Cannie Scots are at work.
There are barrels made from Tasmanian Oak, not a lot as a percentage of world production. But don’t forget strains of malting barley produced in Tassie and York Peninsular right here in South Australia which are sought from some local and overseas distillers.
In all cases the wood and previous use will adjust flavour profiles and add certain tastes preferred by drinkers of fine malts all over, in some cases barrels are made up using a combination of staves usually 50/50 from American and other country’s oak wine barrels, usually sherry adding to specific taste requirements by the distiller – a trick to use if you don’t want to transfer spirit into another type of individual barrel during maturation.
Barrelling in Australia
There are many opinions on whisky storage in Australia because of our high summer temperatures, in one case the distiller has painted his warehouse black to attract heat, this usually results in a typical American style whiskey. In that case casks expel water mainly with the spirit ABV rising during maturation, because of the excess spirit expansion and heat generated in this particular method. Sometimes there is an over expansion of casks causing leakage and giving occasionally a slight bitterness when they cool down in the evenings, particularly from older second and third fill casks.
In any case most casks matured on the Australian mainland are sometimes subjected to extreme temperatures e.g. above 40 degrees in many cases. In my opinion, casks should be stored in a temperature of 15 degrees or lower (where possible), producing a closer version of a matured product from a cold climate maturation. How you do this is in Australia is usually a guarded trade secret by most distillers.
This blog is relevant to our September meeting when there will be three expressions of wood:
- Sauternes Wood;
- Sherry Wood; and
- Port Wood.
Each from the same distillery using their new make spirit and presented at the same matured age, this should give you notes which will be relevant to picking tones and flavours for your assessment of whisky in the future.
Roger Gillard, Your Laird