Wood seasoning is a crucial part of the barrel making process. The benefit most often associated with wood seasoning is the reduction of tannin. While this is indeed an important result of wood seasoning, a lesser-known benefit is the boost in extractive potential.
The first few years of maturation are the most active for the influx of barrel- derived flavor compounds into the aging spirit. Normally, producers have the choice of four different char levels for new barrels. The degree of char can alter the rate of extraction in new oak maturation.
This experiment explores the impact of different char levels on the flavor development of barrel-aged spirits.
The science of oak and spirits maturation is incredibly complex. Many factors can influence the result and thus are inherently of interest to our Research and Development team.
The Boswell Family Warehouse represents the intersection of tradition, education, and innovation. It’s a place where students, researchers, and industry professionals come together to advance the science of barrel aging while preserving the rich heritage of Kentucky spirits.
Through our experimental barrel program, the whiskey library at the Kentucky Research Center has grown from a small collection of roughly 100 bottles to 2,000+.
ISC sources oak logs from all over the world to make our world class spirit barrels. The most popular selections come from a multitude of states here in the U.S. and from several different forests dotted throughout France.
ISC has been dedicated to our customers’ success for over one hundred years. As oak experts we partner with distillers and play an active role in supporting customers on their unique journey to unlock flavors.
“Assume a spherical cow”
Before I came to ISC to study spirit maturation, I was in the field of engineering. I graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and for the first five or six years out of college, I was strictly focused in that area.
Over the next four years, students at the University of Kentucky will be able to monitor the progress of eight barrels resting inside the Boswell Family Warehouse and learn about the complexities of oak maturation from the liquid that they themselves will gather and then analyze
The James B. Beam Institute at the University of Kentucky hosted their 5th annual industry conference last week.
Oak staves and heading should be seasoned for a minimum of 3-to-6-months, but the real differences begin to manifest when you go beyond that timeframe.
Esters are fascinating little compounds in the sense that they are responsible for some of the more distinguishable and potent aromas that most of us run into on a frequent basis, not just in our glass of favorite whiskey or wine.
Update on our 2019 warehouse maturation experiment
Read about how ISC Barrels helped one company bring a new luxury American Single Malt Whiskey to life
Visit a distillery anywhere in the world and you’ll likely hear your tour guide talk about the influence climate has on whiskey maturation. While there has been much speculation on the effects, I was not able to find any hard data or documentation of a proper barrel experiment aimed at studying this variable, so we decided it was time to lay the groundwork and begin our own barrel experiment.
At Independent Stave Company, we feel it is necessary to be on the forefront of barrel innovation. We try our best to deliver new and innovative barrels for our distilling partners on a near constant basis. The process of developing a new type of barrel takes quite a bit of time. Before we release a new type or offer a new variation on an existing barrel, we will test the idea in what we call a commercial barrel experiment.
Have we been busy at the ISC Research Center? Indeed, we have! Our experimental barrel program has grown by leaps and bounds over the past seven years. We now have over thirty different experiments covering nearly three thousand experimental barrels.
Sensory evaluation is one of the best parts of my job. It is as enjoyable as it is interesting and most importantly, it is absolutely necessary for quality assurance and new product introduction. Any person or any business involved with food or beverage production, whether it be alcoholic beverage production or not, should have a sensory protocol in place for evaluating experiments.
Our last post about aging whiskey on different levels of a warehouse sparked some questions from our readers about how the results we receive from our chemical analysis relate to the overall quality of the whiskey being tested.
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