Post #735961 by tabuzak on Sun, Jan 25, 2015 12:43 PM

Just getting started (finally) myself on this barrel aging thing. I have been putting it off way too long, partially out of skepticism.

I have three barrels now, a 2 liter and two 1 liters. One arrived a week before the other two, so the aging is staggered a bit. The barrel labeled "1" (after soaking in water for several days as per instructions) has been aging El Dorado 151 for nine days at this point.

I filled barrel no.2 with Wray & Nephew Overproof and barrel no. 3 with Beefeater gin two days ago.

I am reading different opinions on how long to age spirits in these small barrels. Some said to check it within 5 days and that 10 days may be a good maximum. others say start tasting in two weeks.

Anyway, I poured a taste of the 9 day aged El Dorado 151 and provide a photograph as follows. The glass on the left is plain old ED 151. My aged rum is on the right. There is a very noticeable change in color as you will see. There is also a striking change in flavor. It's mellowed out tremendously to a nice sipper with lots of tannins. I get wood and custard on the nose with oak, walnut and butter in the flavor. I am finding the results encouraging, and of course, different than I expected. I was hoping to come up with a good Mai Tai float ingredient. I might just try that test in five days. There's none of that smoke and dark brown sugar found in Lemon Hart. Maybe with more time I can get something darker?

Cheers!

Jack