Blending and Aging whiskey At home

[Justjoshinya]

Hello my name is Joshua, i do not distill i have fermented and made wine at
home which got me into aging at home. Recently i started a project i
ordered a 5L oak barrel i then blended Rum to seal and season the cask to
further age some whiskey. The rum i blended was 10Liters of Bicardi white
1Liter of Creme De Banana and 1L of Vanilla Rum i let this blend marry in a
12L carboy for 2 weeks with 3 charred oak sticks, then i filled the cask
with 5Liters of this rum blend it sat aging for 5 days in the cask all
leaks had stopped and i drained the 5Liters into a second carboy and
refilled the cask with the remaining 5Liters of rum blend, the 2 extra
Liters of rum blend were lost to barrel swelling and evaporation i topped
off the barrel occasionally over the 10 days while seasoning the cask. I
now have about 10Liters of this rum blend bottled which i will give away as
gifts and drink it is really good with a splash of coke.

Step 2 i bought and blended some whiskey in a 12Liter carboy the blend i
chose was based of bourbons/whiskeys i have tasted and do indeed like. The
blend i went with was 1.75L of Buffalo Trace 1.5Liters of Glenlivet 12,
750ml of Elijah Craig 12yr, 750ml of Four Roses small batch, 750ml of 1792
small batch, and finally 750ml of Breckenridge bourbon. this blend has been
marrying in a carboy with 3 charred oak sticks for the past 2 weeks and is
just about to go into the seasoned rum cask. i was just thinking of adding
something a little higher proof to bring up the alcohol content to help
interaction with the wood. i have done some similar blending and aging
before but have never seasoned the cask with rum and am hoping this blend
picks up a little sweetness and possibly flavors from the rum, the rum
smells of banana and vanilla but doesnt taste of it unless mixed with coke,
the coke brings out the flavors.

[ydoih8u]

I don't get why you are adding all that oak to product already thoroughly oaked. Sounds like an overoaked mess to me. Blend of whiskies sounds interesting though. Everyone has their own tastes but that's a lot of oak...

[NZChris]

The proof you are barreling at is very low compared to what those liquors were originally barreled at and is likely to extract flavors from the wood that you don't want. I wish you good luck, but I won't be trying this myself.

[moosemilk]

I wish i had the money to play with some fine whiskeys like that. Although they wouldn't get blended . . . except on my palate.

NZChris is correct. Aging at lower proofs often brings out unwanted flavorings. I did some lower proof before to see, and it turned out rather "woody" tasting. Not the nice caramel and vanilla notes brought out with higher proof.

Good luck though.

[Justjoshinya]

im not really looking to oak it more just mellow and change it, thats why i was seasoning the cask with the rum to get some of the oakiness into the rum and some of the rums sweetness and flavors into the barrel maybe i should leave the rum in there longer i was hoping to add some sweetness to the whiskey blend, the blend is already blended and theres no going back on that its actually quite good once you let it marry a few weeks. but i have not added the whiskey to the barrel yet so i can leave the rum in there a bit longer i thought the rum would take a lot of the oak out of the barrel the first few weeks. i got a aging kit as a gift from Breckenridge distillery that came with a barrel and some unaged whiskey which got me started reaging my own blends of what i liked but i used that barrel for over a year so when i would put whiskey in there it didnt really pick up too much oak anymore so i figured after i used this new barrel it would lose that effect to the rum. but seems its going to load the whiskey with more oak since its a brand new barrel. maybe i wont put the blend in or wait a few months with rum in it then try it.