Toxxyc wrote: ↑Mon Mar 22, 2021 10:10 pm
OK so it's been a month since I jarred the whisky with the oaks in there. I've been busy and it helps. I haven't touched the jar, but this weekend I noticed it with a friend visiting so I decided to give it a smell.
It's really improving well, even after only a month. I'm impressed. Patience pays off. I'll let it sit for a while longer still.
Pretty much another month later and curiosity got the better of me. Last weekend we got some friends over and I showed the guy my whisky-in-making. I opened the jar as he wanted to smell and to my surprise this stuff is starting to change. I honestly expected it to be taking much, much longer than this, but the smell definitely changed.
So the past weekend I couldn't help myself, grabbed a stainless steel straw and used it like a wine thief to pull maybe 5ml from the jar. Dropped it into a tiny tiny shot glass I have around here (works awesome for tasters), added a bit of clean RO water to water it down to tasting and set it aside to blend for minute. Then I tasted.
Suddenly the raw distilled spirit flavour is fading. A lot. The punch-in-your-face oakiness that I was worried would lead to overoaking is dropping away and revealing just a nice, mellow oak flavour. The drink itself, even when I watered it down to around 30%, was relatively rich with great legs forming on the glass and both the nose and the taste has a classic cheap Scotch note to it (sweet, slightly floral). From the piece of charred oak I dropped in there a tiny tiny bit of ash comes though, but in a good way.
I sealed up the jar and hid it away again. Age is amazing. I can't wait to get more liquor in jars and on oak!