What to age in a twice used 5 gallon barrel?

[BarkAtTheMoonshine]

Hi all!

I'm working on an upgrade from my 5 gallon still to a 15.5 gallon keg still so I can start building up some aging stock. My end game is to work my butt off a couple times a year to fill a new 5 gallon barrel with an AG bourbon around Christmas time, let that age six months (or 18 months) till summer, empty and bottle that and fill the barrel with rum to age for another six (or 18) months. Point being to do a bourbon in the winter and rum in the summer time. Throughout the rest of the year I'll do smaller runs refining recipes and such, but anyone have any ideas on what should go in that barrel once the rum is done? At that point it could age indefinitely because the alternative would be to toss the barrel... Ive got a lot of time to decide, but I want something to start reading into and playing with.

[Bushman]

I toured a distillery with Odin that only makes Jenever. Some of their barrels are 30 years old and they are always patching leaks. It is used only for the angels share as they do not get nor want flavor from the barrels.

[BarkAtTheMoonshine]

I'm not sure I follow, these barrels will only be at most 3 years old at their third filling. I'm trying to come up with a spirit that would benefit from aging a few years in a barrel previously used for rum, maybe a sweeter single malt?

[Bushman]

A barrel can be re-charred, some folks add oak chips to the barrel to prolong the life and attain flavor. My previous comment about Jenever or Gin is that if you are not worried about attaining flavor from the barrel it can still be used for aging.

[MichiganCornhusker]

Not sure if your brew beer or not, but I think putting a high gravity stout or porter would be great coming out of a used rum barrel. Hmm, an imperial red ale might work well with rum, too.

And then follow the beer with a rye whiskey. That's about what I did and it has worked out great, the rye works well with the chocolate, roasty notes from the stout beer.

You have quite a journey lined up, good luck, keep us posted.

[BarkAtTheMoonshine]

Bushman: ok, that makes a lot more sense, thanks!
MCH: I don't, but I have no shortage of friends that do. This still upgrade is actually part of a stepped improvement leading me to a 1/2bbl keg thumper to do 30 gallon ferments on these big runs and charging the thumper with the dirtier, squeezed half of my AG washes. You've got a similar setup, no? What kind of low wines yield do you usually get from a big run like that?

[8Ball]

I just did a third fill with rum. First two were bourbon.

[cayars]

You could just bounce back and forth between rum and a bourbon. This will make an interesting whiskey or Rumskey you might really like.
Try mixing 1/10 part rum to 9/10 parts bourbon to get a rough idea of taste profile. <-- you can experiment like this with any two "flavors" to get an idea what the cask might do for you when filled with the next different spirit.

Hell you can do interesting things like pour a 750 mL of sherry in the barrel and rotate it a few times a day for a week or so to let the oak soak up some of it. Drain anything left (use it again) and fill with bourbon. Now the bourbon would get some rum and sherry notes.

Experiment!

[Beerswimmer]

I would fill with the same recipe, you will probably need to leave it longer the next fill though. I had a used Balcones 5 gallon barrel that I put rum into for a year, it's going to keep getting rum until it's spent.

I plan on doing all sorts of barrel finishing experiments in the future with ones used for bourbon. Rye, rums of course, Scotch styles, beers, sugarheads, etc. Fill one with red wine for a few months and then fill with something too.

My dream is to have a solera starting with a used 25 gallon barrel. Fill it, wait a year, fill 2 10 gallon used barrels, wait another year and fill 3-4 new Gibbs barrels for a year. Then drain out 10-15 gallons from the 25, top up from the 10's, and top up the 10's with the 5's and keep it up every year by filling new 5 gallon barrels. The used 5's will go to the next set or for finishing experiments. Have a solera set for bourbon, rum with all used barrels, and peaty Scotch with all used barrels. Party at my house in my barrel room!!!

[Deplorable]

Balvenie makes a Caribbean cask scotch finished in rum casks that is a fine sipper.

[Windy City]

I just finished a bottle of Jimbo’s bourbon/whiskey that was aged in a quite used barrel.
The flavor was phenomenal with heavy Caramel and toffee.
I know to be a TTB certified bourbon it has to be aged in new American white oak charred barrels but we are home distillers we can technically call it anything we like because we are not getting TTB certification.
I and others have found that second, third, eighth time it is used the flavors just come out sweeter and smoother, you do lose the fresh oak flavor of a new bourbon barrel But the caramels,toffee’s and vanillas really come out after first use.
So go ahead and use a Bourbon recipe if that is your favorite. I like to use my used bourbon barrels to make my blue label rum which is a rum aged in used bourbon barrels that comes out very sweet without back sweetening.