Bourbon/Whiskeys With Sweet Notes

[deanodeano]

Some bourbons and corn whiskeys have sweeter notes than others. Some are pretty pronounced.

Any insight on how this is achieved?

[IMALOSERSCUMBAG]

I would look into SCD's Honey bear or his Sunday Chocolate Bourbon

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[Biker24a69]

Hbb is a bad ass recipe on 6 or 7th batch of it
On my first batch of Sunday but mash tasted great

[Bradster68]

Aging and oaking teqnices, toasting, charring, abvs

[Dougmatt]

Some bourbons and corn whiskeys have sweeter notes than others. Some are pretty pronounced.

Any insight on how this is achieved?

Here’s my experience and observations having done several different whiskeys and tweaking some variables. Others may have different results.

Corn is sweet, but mostly a background element, so your small grain selection will drive sweetness of the white spirit.

I find white wheat is more sweet, red is more spicy. Honey malt wheat gives you some sweet as well, but like in HBB I’ve only used it sacrificially. I have some chocolate malt, but haven’t used it. Don’t expect it would come across as “sweet”, but others can comment. Haven’t used caramel malt either.

When you age, a medium toast is sweeter than a heavy toast. Most bourbon is on heavy, but when I want a sweeter one, I use medium. Char also affects the bitterness imo. More char = more bitter so hold back on the char to drive more sweetness, but you will get less color so something to think about.

Aging proof affects sweetness as well. Lower is generally better, but not TOO low. I’ve been going into the barrel around 55-56% and feel like that is giving me good results. Higher pulls too much tanin and harshness from the wood to me.

Hope this helps.