Making Whiskey: Maturation

Making Whiskey: Maturation

“I like my whiskey old and my women young.”

Errol Flynn

The distillery has taken humble cereal grains, malted them to enhance the sugar content and created rough grist which has been soaked, fermented and then distilled, usually twice.  The result is a rough tasting, harsh spirit which is around 60% to 75% proof called “new make”, and this is where the process would have ended but for one alcoholic dare in the mid-1700’s.

Renaissance man enjoyed his whisky very young and with a brutal taste, which frequently led to hangovers and alcoholic poisoning.   Death was not uncommon from drinking this extremely harsh spirit, and the first written record of whiskey is as a result of the death of an Irish chieftain in 1405.  In the mid-18^th Century, a long forgotten cask was uncovered and a party guest was dared to try it – the result was the discovery that aging whiskey in a wooden cask created a mellow, smoother finish and maturation was adopted.

Wooden Cask Maturation

White oak wood is typically used for the wooden cask to age the new make spirit, but the barrels used are typically second-hand.  Using casks which have been used to make sherry or bourbon is very common because the wood not only imparts flavor and tone, but so does the residue left from the sherry or bourbon which previously soaked into the wood.

Used casks were initially preferred because they were cheaper to source than buying new ones.  It was simply an added bonus that enhanced flavor developed depending on what had been stored in the cask previously.  You can source whiskey which has been matured in casks which have been used to make calvados (a French apple spirit), Cognac, port, beer and wine and they all add a certain something to the finish of the whiskey.

Maturation Myths

Even though the whiskey is stored in a cask, there is still some evaporation of the liquid which means that up to 1/50^th of the whisky is lost for each year of aging.  This is known as the “angel’s share”, because Renaissance Man could not figure out what was happening when they came to open an aged barrel.

Whiskey only matures in the wooden cask, so the age of the whisky you buy only relates to the length of time it has been in the cask and not in the bottle.  As soon as whiskey is bottled it stops aging and while you can keep the whiskey, it will not improve with age as a wine does in the bottle.

So-called, “coastal whiskies”, peculiar to the west coast of Scotland and the islands, claim to be matured in casks which allow the salty sea air to percolate and add to the taste of the product.  The reality is that the vast majority of these coastal whiskies are matured in purpose-built warehouses in central Scotland, far from the sea air.

To be considered  “Scotch”, whiskey must be made in Scotland and matured for a minimum of 3 years and one day but it is never referred to as Scotch in Scotland – simply “whisky” (note the spelling with no “e” – whiskey is the Irish spelling).

Finally, for all the claims of dominance in the whiskey market and history, it was the Irish who first made whiskey not the Scots!