How Oak Shapes Flavor In Bourbon And Wine

We get honest about what really builds bourbon flavor and why the barrel may be the single most important ingredient after distillation. We compare bourbon rickhouses to wine cellars, then bring in cooperage expertise on toast, char, white oak chemistry, and why great barrels still cannot fix bad spirit. 
• how oak drives extraction, oxidation, colour, and mouthfeel 
• why bourbon must use new charred oak and how entry proof and char levels shape outcomes 
• what char actually does versus what toasting creates in the wood 
• why wine producers chase stability with caves, humidity, and gentle oak influence 
• how used wine barrels become tools for whiskey finishing and flavour twists 
• why American white oak works, including tyloses and leak resistance 
• how air-drying staves reduces harsh tannins and bitter phenolics 
• why warehouse location, heat swings, and monitoring matter for maturation 
• what fermentation choices and distillation cuts change before the barrel even starts 
Remember www.scotchyburbonboys.com. For all things Scotchy Bourbon Boys, we got Glenn Karen's, we got t-shirts. Just check out our website. 
Make sure you do things like leave super chats or become members or leave good feedback, especially on Apple. Those five-star reviews immensely they help us out so much. 

The barrel is not just where whiskey sits. It is where whiskey becomes bourbon. We go deep on barrel influence in bourbon, whiskey, and wine, starting with the basics: new make comes off the still clear and raw, and oak brings the colour, sweetness, spice, and texture that people actually chase in a great pour. We break down how extraction, oxidation, and temperature swings drive flavour, why bourbon can pull 60 to 80 percent of its character from the barrel, and what details like barrel entry proof, char level, and even barrel size do to maturation and the angel’s share.

Then we zoom out and compare two totally different philosophies of aging. Bourbon rickhouses embrace environmental extremes, hot summers, cold winters, and big swings that force spirit into and out of the wood for faster, more aggressive interaction. Wine cellars and caves aim for stability, cooler temperatures, controlled humidity, and a lighter touch, because wine is delicate and easy to throw off balance. We also talk about why wineries reuse barrels for years until they become neutral, and why those used wine barrels can be so interesting for finishing whiskey, adding dark fruit and layered complexity without pretending it is “better,” just different.

Greg Schneider joins with real cooperage and maturation insight, including why American white oak works (hello, tyloses), how toasting converts wood chemistry into caramel and vanilla notes, and why char acts more like a charcoal filter than a flavour generator. We also get into natural air-drying, tannin management, cost trade-offs, and why no barrel can rescue bad distillate. If you love bourbon barrel aging, whiskey maturation, cooperage craft, and the truth behind cask finishing, this one is for you. Subscribe, share the episode with a bourbon friend, and leave us a five-star review so more people can find the show.

voice over Whiskey Thief

If You Have Gohsts

Transcript

Sponsor Spotlight And Opening Pour

SPEAKER_04 0:01

Middlewest Spirits was founded in 2008, focusing on elevating the distinct flavors of the Ohio River Valley. Their spirits honor their roots and reflect their originality as makers, their integrity as producers, and their passion for crafting spirits from grain to glass. Their Mixtelone Reserve line reflects their story from the start to the bottle to your glass, with unique wheated and rye bourbons, and also rye and wheat whiskeys. The Mixalone brand is easy to stick. It might be a grain to glass experience, but I like to think of it as uncut and unfiltered from their family to yours. So I don't know what is going on on the there. Perfect. Alright, I can hear myself. Microphone's working. Yes, there we go. Alright. So like always, welcome to the Scotchy Bourbon Boys tonight. Always full. It's been a rough one already tonight, just barely coming on at the time. Perfect timing. It's it's me tonight. But look forward to a little segment with Greg Schneider. He has joined, he is joining us on Facebook, but I'm gonna send him a link at one point and bring him on because he does know a lot about whiskey maturation. Tonight, the the what we're talking about is the barrel influence wine and of through wine and whiskey. So the barrel may be the single most important ingredient after distillation. New make

Welcome And Why Barrels Matter

SPEAKER_04 2:52

whiskey is clear and raw. The barrel creates bourbon. Wine and whiskey makers both rely on oak, but in completely different ways. Tonight we'll explore how wood, environment, time, and craftsmanship shape flavors. So remember www.scotchyburbonboys.com. For all things Scotchy Bourbon Boys, we got Glenn Karen's, we got t-shirts. Just check out our website. We've already started to do the updates based off of our sponsors and pictures and whatnot. We're almost to the point of uploading. Within the next couple of weeks, it's gonna be completely redone, and I'm looking forward to that. Also, remember on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X, along with iHeart, Spotify, and Apple. But remember, no matter whether you watch us or you listen to us, you gotta make sure you do things like leave super chats or become members or leave good feedback, especially on Apple. Those five-star reviews immensely they help us out so much. So we got a lot of people joining us. John Ritz here, Greg Schneider, Randy Ford. We also have Super Nash is joining us. He is not on, he is in Myrtle Beach right now, doing and working, and he's on the beach, so he's enjoying the podcast, also. And you know, we've got Kirk, also one of our biggest uh supporters at the moment. He has he is Kirk Ivanovich, he is our what would you say, our top shelf member on YouTube. And thank you for doing that. I really appreciate that, Kirk. And so that brings us to our the first segment segment. Uh, what a barrel does. So barrels, oak barrels, and there the it's a missed and misnomer that it has to be an American white oak, it could be any oak barrel as far as bourbon is concerned. Now, as far as whiskey is concerned, it's a wide open category what the barrels are made out of. But when it comes to bourbon, and that's what we're gonna do, we're kind of gonna treat bourbon a little bit different in this segment than whiskey, and then how wine goes about about it. But what a barrel does is extraction of flavor compounds, oxidation and breathing through the oak, interaction between spirit and wine and charred wood, temperature swings, moving liquid in and out of wood. Now that's mainly for the whiskey. Now, bourbon could pull 60

What Oak Does To Whiskey

SPEAKER_04 5:41

to 80 percent of its flavor from the barrel. American oak gives vanilla caramel coconut notes. French oak often adds spice and tannin, elegance and subtle sweetness. Oak contains linens, hemicellulose, and tannins, all affecting flavors. You know, there's also a lot of stuff that Greg can talk to you about because he gets into the unbelievable details of this. Now, one of the some of the questions, like, for instance, can bad distillate be saved by a barrel? No, good, as Greg always says, good bourbon and whiskey in, good bourbon and whiskey out. How much does the climate matter? It matters, and what's the perfect age for bourbon? There is no perfect age for bourbon, it's different for everyone. Now, the when it comes to a whisk whiskey barrel science for bourbon, it needs to have a new charred oak. It's required, it has to be in a new charred oak barrel or container. Now, the barrel entry proof for bourbon is 125, but you can go lower, and a lot of people do go lower. It's not 125 is not just the standard level. There's char levels one to four and and five, which is an alligator char. What the purpose of the char is, we'll get into. Then also the standard bourbon barrels are 53 gallons. Wine barrels can be 59 gallons, and I believe I want to say if I remember, there's there's one that that's 136, but we'll get it gallons. I mean, there's a lot of different things on wine. The reason why 53 gallons used across bourbon is because and whiskey is because those barrels throughout time have been legitimized as the sweet spot barrel for getting the whiskey exposed, and the aging of you know, as you go about aging, the standards that happen within that barrel. You lose, I mean, part of the when you're aging in a barrel, you lose angel share. That is one thing, especially with whiskey because of the climate. When you're dealing with that hot and cold swing, those hot when it's being sucked in in the heat into that wood, it will evaporate out either alcohol or whiskey, depending on the temperature and the humidity. Also, there's toasting of a barrel, which is used mostly, which is used toasting is used in finishing whiskies. Sometimes it's toasted and then charred for whiskey, but in in wines, light toasts are common. That is, it's it's more of the the toasting. They're they are not charred for wine for a bunch of reasons. So one of the things you could say is bourbon made in the still or in the barrel. I think a really good bourbon is made both places. The yeast that you use can definitely affect flavor. Your, you know, what how well and efficient the e yeast eats the sugar to turn it to alcohol affects flavor, but once it's just that that causes that white dog distillate. I've had many different ones, they taste very different from from distillery to distillery. And what what what I would say is that once into the barrel, a lot of the barrel, there a lot of the flavor of the barrel that you get, the barrel can influence it at different levels. And a lot of times when someone's referring to young whiskey, being in the barrel, let's just say it's just a straight bourbon, it's been in that barrel for two years. Uh, that still, when you pull it out, you will taste flavors of the wheat, the grains that were used, and there'll be some influence of the barrel. But a lot of people refer that to as young because it can be harsh, those flavors can have like ethanol type things, and as you get further and further into that barrel, when you get six, seven years, the the wood sugars and everything happening in that barrel will smooth all that out, and it starts to have those those dessert flavors that you always pick up, but you know, some of them, you know, it depends on where the grain is grown and the tourwa, it it changes. I mean, there's all different types of flavors in whiskey. Now, the wine barrel influences. Why wine winery? It's like so wineries are using it, and we just finished up. Roxy and I just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary, May 24th, which was Sunday. We went to the local Gervassi, which is a fantastic winery and distillery. It's an Italian winery, and the Italian winery is it they have their own, they've got stuff that they make out of California, and they also have Italian wines there, but then they're also a distillery making their own bourbon and their their own gin, and there they they distill a good amount and finish barrels also because being

Wine Barrels And Finishing Bourbon

SPEAKER_04 12:08

a winery, you have that port, those port barrels you can finish stuff in, and you know, you have the ability as a winery to reuse those barrels for whiskey. Now, one of the reasons one of the things about when we were in there's two big things between how once the the the so one with so bourbon is going straight into they go s it goes straight thanks Greg, we appreciate it. Bourbon, it goes straight right into a new charred oak barrel. In some cases, the it could be toasted and then charred, it could just be charred and the charred levels are one to five, five being an alligator char. One of the aspects of what the char does is that there's impurities when you're distilling that go in that are still in the alcohol when in the white dog. So when you put it in the barrel, the barrel is going to take those impurities out through that char, which is acts exactly like a choke charcoal filter that you have on your Britter water filter or any water filter, it's filtering out those impurities. But as they go through and get absorbed in, where the char ends and where the barrel begins, the wood sugars that were there are caramelized, and then they're not, then it's just kind of the sugars were drawn out, and then you get into the wood where the wood sugars are, but also those oak, the tan, you know, everything in there as far as the wood flavor. Fred No referred it to it gets too woody if it gets too too overaged. I've heard it over oaked, many different things, but as it goes in and out over the seasons or the many times of the cold and the hot shifts, and when that's really hot, it's absorbed in and it stays in that wood, and then when it gets cold, it pushes out into the bear back into the barrel, causing those wood sugars and those caramelized wood sugars, and then also the impurities to be taken out. So the longer it's in the barrel, the cleaner the distillate is as far as what was what was distilled, and then also the flavor just keeps getting enhanced, and that's very important. But when you come to like a scotch, they actually buy the the used bourbon barrels because we can't use them, we can't reuse them. If you reuse a barrel and put distillant in, the best you can do is American whiskey from that point. It can't be bourbon because it's in a used barrel. Many times there's been times where they put bourbon and they had no more barrels, so they put it in a used barrel. And when they put it in a used bourbon barrel, it no longer is bourbon, it's American whiskey. And those things have gone on the market from time to time, and it's not nothing's there's nothing to be said that it's bad. But what happens when you're using a used bourbon barrel? For instance, let's just say you use a four roses barrel. Well, there's a certain amount of four roses whiskey that's still in there, and then there's still a reduced amount of flavor from the barrel. There are the impurities. Now, a lot of times, if you take a barrel, sometimes the distill the the distilleries will have the cooperages take apart the barrel, shave off the the char, put the barrel back again, and rechar it. So that's that's something that can happen also. But the the wine barrel makers, they reuse the barrels because of the fact that they're when when you put it in the barrel, it's not charred, it might be toasted. You're not putting it in there for very long. You're looking to bring out certain flavors, and it doesn't take that long to do it. And so wineries will reuse barrels, and they have they'll reuse barrels for a long time, and then after six or seven times, it becomes a neutral barrel, which means they can store whisk or wine in there, and it won't be affected the same way. And this is a the way that it would the wood and the you know has all the wood flavors been used up, and this way you could store it in the barrel, but not affect the wine. Now, the so also wine barrels, used wine barrels, are used to finish whiskey, and that is also another part of like what this is right here. This is a American, I mean uh this is a single malt whiskey that was fin aged. I want to say. Alright. In heavy toast, this is a cognac barrel. So that's not, but that's that's kind of what you can do. I forgot that was a cognac barrel, but they have wine barrel, especially port wine is used in making angels envy and that type of thing. So red wine barrels finishes in, you know, red wine barrels finish in bourbon. I mean, there's no doubt about it that that affects those flavors. Wine barrels may be reused for decades. Cabinet barrels often add dark fruit notes to whiskey finishes. Winemakers generally prefer less aggressive oak extraction than the bourbon makers. French oak is prized in high-end winemaking for elegance and spice, where American oak is then used more often for whiskey because they're looking for I wanted to be I had it there. So they're looking for not the elegance and spice, they're more looking for those flavors that they're pulling out of the caramelized sugar and that type of thing. Now, does wine finishing improve bourbon? I would say it makes it different. And then can a barrel overpower a wine? Yes, you have to be very specific. If this is where I wanted to get into the difference of the controlled warehouses versus what you do in whiskey and bourbon. Wine barrel storage is usually far more climate controlled and carefully managed than whiskey rich houses. That's one of the biggest philosophical differences between wine aging and whiskey aging. Let's see. All right, so wine barrel houses sellers. Winemakers generally want stability, slow maturation, controlled oxidation, delicate oak influence. So wine barrels are often stored in underground caves. That's one of the things at Jravasi. We went to the underground cave. They actually built a cave, they they built up the land, dug into it, set it up. They've

Wine Caves Vs Bourbon Rickhouses

SPEAKER_04 20:17

got the the tasting room and bar right in the cave, and then two whole barrel rooms holding about 720 barrels. Stone cellars. I mean, it it's basically the whole cellar is brick, but I will tell you that they then temperature control the warehouses and humidity control the warehouses. Typical temperatures are 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, very stable year-round. That's something that you can get in in a cave. Too much heat can cook the wine, accelerate aging too quickly, destroy delicate aromas. Humidity, usually 65 to 80 percent humidity. This helps prevent cork drying, reduce evaporation, keep barrels from shrinking. So that's one of the things they want. They don't want their barrels to dry out because when they dry out, they leak. They're not in, you know, when you put wine into a barrel, the last thing you want is leaking. You don't have angel share as much except for what the barrel absorbs in. But if you keep it at that 65 to 80 percent humidity and the temperature around 55 to 60 degrees, the barrel's not going to be absorbing nowhere near as much as if it was exposed to heat. The light exposure, that minimal light, UV light can damage wine. That's why many wine caves are dark, underground, humid, and cool. Winemakers want why winemakers want control? Wine is delicate, small environment. Environmental changes can dramatically alter fruit character, acidity, tanning structure, and aromatics. Winemakers are usually trying to preserve elegance and balance. It's more like this, you know, this delicate kind of art where your margin of error is very, very slim, and you have to work within it, and you don't want to go outside of it because when you do, bad things can happen. Whiskey rick houses are almost the opposite. Whiskey makers often embrace environmental extremes, especially in bourbon country. Rickhouses, hot summer, cold winters, massive temperature swings. Why? Because heat and expansion force whiskey in and out of the oven. That creates faster extraction, more caramelization influences, deeper color, bigger flavor. Bourbon rickhouses can reach 120 degrees Fahrenheit on upper floors in the summer, near freezing in the winter. These extremes help mature bourbon aggressively. Wine aging equals gentle evolution, whiskey aging equals aggressive interaction. That's the easiest way to think about it. Modern changes. Some modern whiskey distilleries now use climate-controlled warehouses, experimental aging environments, and precision humidity monitoring, especially Scotch distilleries, Japanese whiskey producers, and craft distilleries. But traditionally, Kentucky bourbon still heavily relies on natural seasonal cycling. Winemakers fear heat, bourbon makers often love heat. Heat can ruin the wine, heat can supercharge bourbon aging. That's why Kentucky summers are actually considered an advantage for bourbon production. Now I will say that the controlled environment, which I did a deep dive. Let's see, facts. Winemakers are okay, whiskey beer. So I so into um Buffalo Trace. And they have, we're gonna get into that a little bit right after this, but bourbon, what what you get out of the oak from our vanilla caramel toffee smoke spice color mouthfeel. Without the barrel, bourbon would come off as still a clear spirit called white dog. In many cases, 60 to 80 percent of the bourbon flavor comes from the barrel. And then we got that's why some bourbon people have that heavy char at five. Everything's extreme with aging that. The rick house matters because it actually, when it comes to flavor of some of our of the bourbons that you love, it's based off of where the barrel was in a specific Rick House that might have been there for hundreds of years. The the people who are there, and when you start out a new distillery, you don't know exactly in the Rick House how the bourbon's gonna age, but after 10,

Modern Warehouse Control And Buffalo Trace

SPEAKER_04 25:00

15, 20 years, and now especially with these distilleries, they are what would you say, they are monitoring these cycles and these temperatures and these changes. And in the case of Buffalo Trace, when they recreated, when they started doubling their production and they recreated the Rick House they were gonna that they were putting the whiskey in, for instance, the Blanton warehouse H, they've made more of those, put them on the same angle to the sun in the same positions. But what they do is they put in humidity and temperature control in those warehouses, and they monitor the humidity and temperature control of the main warehouse, the original warehouse H, and they match it at the other warehouses to get to try and get the where those barrels were in the original warehouse that Blanton's was coming from to the same places in the new warehouses so that they can match what's happening. And so that's kind of cool what they're doing, and that's technology. So it definitely what is fantastic as far as what they do as far as the aging and the controlled environment that Buffalo Trace is doing. So, once again, now what I'm gonna do is I am gonna quick got all this keep going, walking through the wheel. Copy invitation. Let's see if I can get it to Greg sometimes down here. I know I could send it to there. Let's see if I could get it to him. Alright, I need this. I will bring Greg in if he wants to come in. Let's see. Control V. Return. Did it go? I think it did. Got it. So if you want to come in, Greg, at this point and school me a little bit, I think I'm getting better at it. There was a lot of information on this. And then if Greg is gonna come in, I need to get this over here. I did send him the invite. So hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Hello, sir. Hey, make it work, man. Jeez. What? This low tech red deck is, I guess, figured out. That's great, man.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Well, we've had a probably a couple hundred podcasts to finally figure it out, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Well, I just I don't click in too often on my phone. It's usually on my computer, but yeah, yeah, I'm loving it, man. I love the topic. Love to talk about, you know, you know what you're talking about and share some insight. So that's cool, man. Appreciate you. Happy anniversary. That's awesome, buddy. Thanks. Appreciate you and your lovely wife so much.

SPEAKER_04 28:42

I I just what I would like to ask you as you get as we get older, why when you relax, is it way more exhausting than not than just basically doing things? I just I don't understand. You know, we didn't, we were there, we got to do we

Greg Joins With Cooperage Insight

SPEAKER_04 29:02

did massages, we did wine tasting in a cellar. There was nothing, no kids to bother us. You know, I mean they you know, they all thought we were work five minutes away from the home, but it anyways, but it was just like we got home last night and I was exhausted. And I'm like, I didn't do anything.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

That's that's you know, that's everybody like buddy. I mean, it's kind of enjoying the retirement phase of pre-retirement for your case, anyhow. But uh uh yeah, and you just gotta kind of get uh get relaxed and and you know, you're wore out and relaxing, so I get it.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

That's just how's that even possible? That's crazy. All right, so you know, you know, and and you you've ever most people who are listening to the show understand that you have been involved with a cooperage for a while, a long time, ran a cooperage, and then now what you've actually taken a brand where you took, you know, you saw how the cooperage was run, and you took it like one step further when you made by picking out specific staves and whatnot, and you understand the chemical reaction that happens between the whiskey and the wood, right? So my question is is when it comes to the wine making, and you know, that you're basically putting in much lower proof, you know, spirit, not a spirit, but a much lower proof, you know, what would you call it?

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Alcohol beverage, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:46

Yeah, alcohol beverage, and it it reacts differently. It's gotta react differently, and you don't do a lot of stuff that you do to the whiskey, it's much more subtle. But do you do you you find even it's just like when you do now, a lot of people will barrel age beer now. I mean, is it all similar or are there just each one has its own what would you say, nuance?

SPEAKER_01 31:18

So, so man, there's so much to cover here, Jeff. Let's start it together because you're right, wine and bourbon and beer are all totally different animals, okay? White oak, American white oak, is used uh for several reasons. Number one, and you talked talked a little bit about the chemistry. Number one, white oak, when you quarter saw it, it won't leak. You can make a barrel out of it. Red oak, black oak, live oak, pin oak, maple, cherry, walnut, they'll all leak. White oak contains a substance called tilosis. And I think I've I've shared this with you during during the the tours that we did down at Bar San Burbicup or whatever, but white oak contains a substance called tiloses. Tyloses is the membrane that lies on the inner surface of the cell. And when that tree is goes through hard chip or is cut, that membrane collapses and it clogs the cell. So when white oak is quartis on, not flat sawn, quartisan, it won't leak. All those other species I mentioned a minute ago, I don't care if you quarter saw it, flats on how you cut it, it's gonna leak because it doesn't contain telosis. So that's one of the primary reasons that white oak is used. The second reason is the chemical composition. Other than oakes, white oak contains cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Now, cellulose is the primary cellular structure that makes white oak hard and strong. Hemicellulose is where the polysaccharides are, the wood sugars. Okay, and lignin is the third component. So when you take that barrel, you build it and you're gonna heat it up. Whether you're charring it, I prefer toasting it a deep deep penetrating long toast, a medium, medium plus toast before you charge. But some some companies do the costs savings, they just charge. They don't give it the toast. Either way, you're gonna convert some of that chemical structure into the flavors you want to. Hemicellulos, remember, says wood sugars, polysaccharides, wood sugars, just like taking sugar in a spoon and holding it over a Bunzy burner. What that does, it starts melting that sugar and caramelizing it. That's where your caramel flavors come from. Likewise, the third component, lignin, when you heat that up, the conversion of lignin gets into vanlin, and that's where your vanilla flavors come from. So you mentioned approximately 70% of the flavor in a good bourbon of whiskey comes through that white oak barrel. You mentioned earlier. You know, I've always said the statement you can't make a silk purse out of a sales here. If that whiskey's not good going into the barrel, it's not going to be good coming out of the barrel. So you've got to have good whiskey going in. But when you have a great barrel, it has all these flavor components that you can extract through the heating and cooling of the seasons. Man, that's that's ideal. Okay. Wine. Now let's talk about wine. What's the difference there? You know, you talked earlier, wine is a much lower alcohol content, a much softer beverage. So what happens in wine, most wine barrel specifications require at least a 24-month natural air-dry specification. They want to cut the that white oak, whether it's French oak or American oak, whatever oak it is, they want to cut the stays in the heading, and they stack it and they let it sit outside for at least two years. Now, a lot of a lot of bourbon companies, you know, when I work with Chickencock, Maker's Mark, same weight. Maker's Mark's requirement is a minimum of nine months natural air-dried stays. They used to make every barrel. When I was at Blue Grass Cooperage, we made every barrel for Maker's Mark

Why White Oak Works And Flavor Chemistry

SPEAKER_01 35:45

back then in the 10 years I worked for them. Uh excuse me, 12, yeah, nine years I worked for them. So anyhow, wine barrels. Most wine barrel specifications require a two-year, 24-month natural air-dried wood. What happens is they want the rain, you know, the snow, the sun, the wind, the hot, the cold, hitting, hitting that wood. And when you cut the staves and you stack it up and you set it outside, what happens is you start getting a fungus growing on the outside. It's kind of a greenish-gray fungus that grows on the outside of those staves. And within that fungus, the microbial activity starts degrading the cellular structure of that wood. And it opens up the grain. And so when the rain hits, the wind blows, the sun shines, whatever, it starts leaching out a lot of the harsh tannic acid from that white oak or that mare or the fridge oak that you don't want. A lot of the bitter phenolic compounds that you don't want to impart into the flavor of your wine or your whiskey. Now, again, wine is a much softer, much lower alcohol, so it's more susceptible to those those components, those negative congenitors that can really give a negative taste to your wine. Bourbon, however, you know, higher higher alcohol contact, you know, it's it's much more tolerable. So it's it's not as susceptible to that. But you still, the more you can extract out of it, you know, the less you're gonna impart in the flavor of your product. So, you know, that's that's a big, big element. A lot of people don't realize it. Again, the whisky or wine going in that barrel's got to be top notch going in, or it's not gonna be top-notch coming out. But that barrel can do so much to enhance the flavor.

SPEAKER_04 37:39

Yeah, I mean, with the wines also, you're not looking for quite as much flavor from that wood that you are from a barrel when you're dealing with whiskey, because you already have your fruity notes, and you, you know, the the grape itself and the wine itself has it, and you're you're basically, what would you say, you're you're you're enhancing it, or it's just more of a, you know, just it's it's much less that what you want to do to the wine than with whiskey, like you said, you're looking for 60-70% of that flavor of pulling that sugar in. You know, that's what you and then also that char will, you know, filter out any a lot of the stuff of that you do the un undesirable flavors that you don't want in there. Some of the you nailed it, man.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

I mean, I it's it's amazing through my years in this business, as you know, I've been doing it 48 years, yeah. But people say, you know, the level of char creates the amount of flavor you're gonna get out of the barrel. And and and barber and whiskey, no, I'm sorry. You said earlier, that char is merely a charcoal filter. For me, all the barrels I made of bluegrass, unless the specifications were different, all the barrels I've tried to use in the products that I've been responsible for, I want to deep pen into trading, medium to medium plus toast first. Then I'm gonna chart, but I'm only gonna chart a number three-level chart. I just created all this great flavor through the toasting process, converting the hemicellulose into the caramel flavor, converting the lignin into the vanilla flavors, you know, and enhancing the oak black toast. The last thing I want to do is overchar it and burn off all those flavors.

SPEAKER_04 39:33

Well, do you think that, well, also the char when you get into an alligator char is a thicker char level and you're burning off more of the wood on the inside, which would technically make the stave thinner as far as when it absorbs into the wood, which then could lead to more angel share, also, correct, on a heavier char?

SPEAKER_01 39:55

Nah, I don't know. I mean, you know, you you talked about five levels of char. I've only known four levels of char. To me, a number four is as heavy as you can go. A lot of a lot of companies say, oh, we we go take it beyond, you know, it's fine. You want to take it farther, go ahead, but that's exactly what you're gonna do. You're just gonna burn too much away from the wood and and not create flavor. The char is strictly a charcoal filter.

SPEAKER_04 40:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

When you taste that whiskey going into a barrel, you taste the corn, the rye, the weedy, or if it's a weed deverb, and the malt the barley, the yeast, and and that's what you taste right off the still. What that does through through the soaking into the barrel and the maturation of you know, pumping that in and out through the heating and cooling of the uh seasonal cycles, it strips that draininess flavor out. It's a charcoal filter. It may enhance the color a little bit, but its primary purpose is the charcoal filter. It it strips that draininess flavor out, and it picks up all that caramel, vanilla, allows those and pulls it back out. I mean, that's that's the whole process.

SPEAKER_04 41:03

So, like the evolution, all right. So you take a Jim Beam, a Jack Daniels, which are the age on those, there is no age statement, but we all know where where it is usually. It's definitely not a two-year whiskey. But over the years, I mean, bourbon, when you're talking about you actually experienced it with Russell's, you know, and you did the, you know, they had aging whiskey that before this type of thing that's happened, which I really feel the the age of of how far whiskeys aging are aging now, and how the the the rick, the the different distilleries are aging them out, they're getting those caramel, they're always shooting to get that caramel flavor at a level of almost like it's a dessert, you know. Like, but before that, people didn't look for that caramel flavor of dessert in their whiskeys. You know, those regular what bourbon was, they didn't want as much sugar as people want today, I would say. And the base product still, when you drink a Jim Beam, you pick up a lot of you pick up flavor, or you or you do wild turkey 101, but you're not quite getting what you'd get out of a Russell's 10-year or a Russell's 13, where that caramel is just that barrel influence has just taken over the the people used to like to have a little bit of the grain in. Would I be correct in in that statement?

SPEAKER_01 42:47

Yeah, I don't know. Every everybody's palette's different. I mean, I I I love as have always loved the the maturity, the deep, mature bourbon flavors, you know, whether sweetness, whether spiciness, you know, softness or weed or whatever. I mean, it just you know, everybody's palette's different.

SPEAKER_04 43:06

Well, ours was the same on that 15-year-old bourbon that you made that one time because that that that that showed me what bourbon could taste like.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Yeah, it was pretty special.

SPEAKER_04 43:18

Yeah. But yeah, keep going.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

So, anyhow, I mean, uh it's it's one of those things that uh everybody's palette's different. Everybody likes what they like. From a maturation standpoint, from an oak standpoint, I mean it's like double oak, you know, with four branches, you know, one of my clients. We just came out with a Liberty Reserve, which hopefully we'll do some show coming up here next month or so. We took some 10 year old attack straight burning. Some fantastic Texas Greek bourbon, by the way. We took some six and a half year old, fantastic four-grain bourbon. So it was 70% of the 10-grain bourbon, 30% of the six and a half-year-old bourbon, four-grain. And I blended them together, and then I put them not in a charred barrel, but I put them in a new medium plus toasted barrel. I didn't want the charcoal filtering. I had some great flavor. Didn't want to strip out any of the flavor through charcoal filtering. So what I did, I just toasted. And what I wanted to do was extract more caramel, more vanilla, more oat lactose. And we put it in the top floor of the warehouse. And it was in there six months. And we bottled here. It was last week go today, actually. A week go today. And it is freaking phenomenal. It is so good. Well, I'm telling you, it's yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:59

It's a it's a it's amazing the playground that you're playing in. It's just like, and I was gonna ask you that earlier. So we all know that that to be bourbon, it has to have a charcoal filter, it has to have that char in it. But do you think that you would a new toasted barrel, you know, you know, without the char, with just a heavy toast, there's a place. Does that intrigue you? I mean, I understand we all have labels of what it has to be for marketing. Marketing is the biggest thing ever, but I'm talking about if there wasn't categories of what you wanted to drink, would that work?

SPEAKER_01 45:46

So, so yeah, let me see. I think I may have told you this story before, Jeff, but when I worked for Brown Foreman and managed the Cooperge operations, we well, I mean, we did a because I was on the Brown Foreman maturation committee, and we did so many experiments, you know, maturation experiments, whiskey, you know, mashing and fermenting, and and different experiments. And on the Cooperage side of it, we did a ton of experiments. We always had to get permission from the T or back then it was BATF for approval, but they said, yeah, no problem. One time we took 10 barrels, okay, and I may have told you a story, but we took 10 barrels, same wood from the same mill, probably the same trees, same forest, anyhow, and we built 10 barrels, and we gave those barrels a medium plus toast, no charred.

Toast Vs Char Plus Cost Realities

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Now, the government says to be a bourbon, it has to be a charred, you know, uh a new oak, uh new charred oak container. Doesn't say barrels, it's a new charred oak container, okay? Well, charred is a relative term. You know, is it a half a char? Is it a one char is a two char is a three char? You know, that's relative. So we gave them a medium plus toast. I mean, the wood was definitely burned, but it wasn't crackle. I mean, it wasn't you know, crocodile skins, so to speak. Then we took ten barrels, no toasting, just set them on fire. A number four level jar. We put the same whiskey from the same batch in those 20 barrels. We set them side by side in a warehouse, same location, same length of time. Four years later, it's actually four and a half years later, when we dumped that bourbon out of it, and we taste it every year. We check it, look at it, you know, examine it, do a sensory analysis every every year. After four years, though, we dumped it out. The bourbon in the toasted barrel was darker and much more flavorful than the bourbon in the charred barrel. And the same, you know, color and flavor. It's crazy. But that's I'm a scar truth.

SPEAKER_04 48:20

No, I believe that because going through the char to me, just like you know, when you when you charcoal filter your water, it's going through there and it doesn't turn the water any color. And I understand it, you know, that it's just where the caramelization is happening where the char ends. Whereas the whole barrel now with the toast is you got those, you you toast you you heated it up enough to caramelize the sugar without burning. Well, it's some people like you know, seared steaks, and other people like grilled steaks. You know, the char level of what's on the steak. Some people love the char, and other people, you know, they want to, they'll just put it in the oven and broil it so there is no that's that's a great analogy.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

It really is a good analogy because you know, I tell people, and I think I've told you this before, but you know, at least 80% of the distilleries in Kentucky, their barrel specifications are number four level char, no toast, you know, no natural air drying, just make the barrel. And the reason they do that is is money, you know.

SPEAKER_04 49:32

Yeah, speed.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

Yeah. I mean to to natural air dry it, to toast it before you char it, you're looking at close to $50 a barrel more. Whoa, you take you take Jim B, and and not knocking Jim, I'm just saying the volume they do, half a million barrels a year, okay? You take that $50, and you know, there's $25 million they didn't spend because they want a number four level char not have to do anything else to it, and they get the quality whiskey they want to out of it, right?

SPEAKER_04 50:05

And people still drink it.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

Oh, good whiskey, not problem.

SPEAKER_04 50:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

Now, so what happens then is that if you take a number four level char, it's a spill barrel, number four level char, what happens is you look at the inside, you do a cutaway. Inside of that barrel, about an eighth of an inch on the inner surface is charred. Just inside that charred layer, you're getting about a sixteenth of an inch of the red layer. That's a conversion of the hemicellulose and lignin, converting the caramel and vanilla flavors. So basically, you've taken advantage of three sixteenths of an inch. Well, that whiskey's gonna soak at least a half inch into that stave, into that barrel. So there's five sixteenths of an inch. You didn't create any flavor, you didn't extract any flavor. And so that's the importance of really giving a good deep penetrating toast before you char the barrel.

SPEAKER_04 51:07

Yeah, get those, get them. I uh so with that said, can you could you get a well, I mean, who? All right, who's gonna, if you toast the barrel, let's say you give it the the uh a little bit more, you you toast it till it's not that right before it's char. Okay, you take it to that level where it's not char, but it's toast. And then you do, and you but is is there somebody there gonna say you can't call that bourbon? I mean, if you might as a all relative.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

The level of char is is all relative. Is the process the the the inside's black, okay?

SPEAKER_04 51:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

So you tell me is a definition of char what you know, depending on on the color, the depth of burn. Uh no, there is no no relative definition. It error there is it's all relative, basically. There is no specific definition.

SPEAKER_04 52:14

So so I understand also though, with you know, when you're dealing with the column still, there's and and and how it works and what you're pulling off, there's still some stuff you want to pull out, and that charcoal filter completely allows that to happen. Now, like you said, you know, you to do something better off a you know, when you come off your still, and if there's no money involved and you, you know, you're not worried about it, people would do things a lot differently, right? I mean, they're doing it a lot of times, you're doing that type of distilling to be as efficient as you can. And being efficient in some places, you've taught me, is very, very important. Like when you're talking about how the cook is. You know, you initially, when you were doing cooks at Bardstown, you weren't getting the yield off the yeast of the alcohol that you wanted. And so you adjusted a couple things to bring your yield up. And that's one thing that you have that that modern distilling technology really makes it a lot easier than it used to. You know, I mean, it was hard. You could do it back then, but it was it was a lot harder than it is now, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:36

So, yeah, what you're talking about is we adjusted the set down after the first first batch I made down there in 2000, 17 to 18, whatever it was, can't remember. The yields weren't as high as they should have been. We still had some sugar left over, the balling, balling sugar left over after

Fermentation Yields And Cutting Heads Tails

SPEAKER_01 53:56

72 hours of fermentation. And so what we did is we lowered the the set temperature. So we we took the mass coolers, you know, cranked them up, and lowered it up so that the the fermentation would would ease into it quicker and and and began the fermentation. After that, it was it was it was golden, it was it was perfect. Um talking about as far as some impurities coming off the still, and I've I've worked with well, I should say work with, because everybody I worked with has done it right, but I have seen other distilleries that they put in a still, calm still, you know, put in uh the fermenters, and they just you know start mashing, good cooking, under the the still, and I'm thinking, well, well wait a second, so where's your heads and tails? Typically the the old school is the first product going through the still you pull off. That's called the edge. It's got some some really funky strong aldehyde, it's got methanol in it, which is poisonous actually. It's got just a lot of impurities that you want to extract out of it. Now, the hearts is what's following it. So, what you do is you pull it off for a period of time, and when you get to the hearts, and you know it's good cleaning whiskey, you run that through. But as the batch finishes going through the collagen still, the tails, you want to pull that off as well. Because it's got some some strong congenitors that you don't want to impart in the flavor of your whiskey. So you collect that head from tails, and the next patch, what you do is you you reflux it back into the still slowly, so that as you you're re-distilling it and pulling off some of those imperfections. There are distilleries in Kentucky that aren't doing that, they're running through. And I've tasted within this month, I'm telling you what, some of my clients have gotten some some whiskey that they've acquired or thinking about acquiring that was not good. I mean, 11 20-year-old bourbon. Well, I mean, I mean it tastes acetone. I mean, it was nasty.

SPEAKER_04 56:15

Also, you know, it's it's when you think about it, a place like Bardstown Bourbon Company, which is doing runs for people on a column still, so it can be treated somewhat like a pot still because of the fact that it's a batch and you run it through and you stop. Whereas, like at Jim Beam or Jack Daniels, those stills constant that the column still was made to constantly run. The batch, you know, the batch can go for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

Well, same thing, same thing in Barge Town. Uh, Bargetown has a continuous distillation process. So they don't have a heads or tails today. Okay, what they do, you know, they have it goes through the column still, and then it goes into the doubler, which is like a pot still.

SPEAKER_04 57:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

But so it's a two distillation process. So when they start, a new batch coming out of a fermenter goes in the beer well, gets churned up, and they pump it into the still. What they do when it first comes out, they they fill up the doubler with water. Okay? And so as this stuff starts going through and and the the the low wine, as you know the term, low wine come off still, goes into the doubler. Well, the doubler's full. So what it is, it kicks on an automatic valve and it pushes that low wine with all these funky stuffs, the heads, back into the beer well. And so it turns it back up to the beer well. So it's a continuous process. So, and then runs it back through. So again, it's it's an amazing. I mean, engineering-wise, technology-wise, it is probably the state of the art. It's it's it's phenomenal what they've they've doing down there. It really is.

SPEAKER_04 58:08

Yeah. And and like you said, I I believe there's low wine and high wine at at Beam also. They they do that, they have the doubler and everything, but they're just constantly running. They they don't same principle.

SPEAKER_01 58:25

They got you get beerwell, and that beerwell is taking you one or two fermenters and just turn them together and just keep keep pushing it through. It's right.

SPEAKER_04 58:33

So but the hearts, like you said, the hearts are always going through at that point. And then when the when the when the end of the run starts coming through, that's when the tails start to to f appear, right? Or no, they are they always appearing and it's just dealing with it that way.

SPEAKER_01 58:51

I mean, by the time they work it all the way through, there is no tails to really worry about because it's all all blended up and just keep working its way through.

SPEAKER_04 58:58

It's already it's already turned into stillage.

SPEAKER_01 59:01

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:03

All right. All right, yes. And so, so there's many different things that the with whiskey that uh we just didn't to summarize up is that the barrel is used very differently than with wine. I mean, the wine barrels, they they'll use five or six times for the flavor, but then they'll they'll they'll do they'll actually have neutral barrels, which they'll keep using going forward, either to store or whatever, and they can use them up to you know 10, you know, for decades. And because that's the one thing I learned is they control humidity and temperature like a cave, and they want the humidity controlled because they want those barrels to not leak at all. They don't want any drying out or anything, they don't want anything get they want all the wine that went in, and they don't want the wine to go deep into the barrel. They want it just to,

Big Takeaways And Bourbon Philosophy

SPEAKER_04 1:00:02

you know, add, you know, just make it so that it just adds just that little bit of smoothing and finishing of those flavors, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

Yeah, wine storage, it's always a you know, if it's not underground, it's very cool climate. They don't want any extreme heat changes, very temperature controlled, and that's why usually when it's underground, it's going to be temperature control. Not a lot of of you know the hemicellulose or lignin conversion. What they're trying to get is mostly the oak lactones, just a little bit of oak lactone flavoring. They're not looking to overpower it with wood, no doubt.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:46

Yeah, and then they just got to make sure that it technically doesn't wreck the wine, also. I mean, there's so many bacterias or whatever, but that's why they use the French oak or the American white oak, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:59

Yeah, I mean, French oak for years, you know, French oak was the standard for most wines in the world. The problem was, because when I started, you know, out at the Cooper's in 1989, you know, we were strictly making bourbon barrels. And opportunity came up, we started making wine barrels. The reason we started making wine barrels was that French oak was five to six times more expensive than American white oak. So what happened was there was an evolution. You know, the American couproaches were learning how to make barrels, wine barrels, to satisfy the wine customers, and vice versa, the winemakers were learning how to use American oak to aid the wines and extract the flavors they wanted. So it was, it was a cool evolution. Well, you know, they saved a hell of a lot of money using American Oak and actually got some award-winning wines that competed with any French oak out there.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:01

So yeah, actually, you know, Napa Valley and California wines initially, when I as you remember, they were not those wineries weren't always the prestigious wineries they they eventually became. I mean, that that whole that whole evolution happened in our lifetime. Because I re I remember initially, you know, hearing about wine when I was a kid, that you know, the French wines, that was the the you know what everybody went with. And the California wines were not in, there was no comparison. And then when probably when they started using the American oak, they probably were able to get some flavors that would that you know it's just like anything else. Why would why would another state want to compete with Kentucky bourbon? You want to make your own bourbon and your own flavors from your state because Kentucky already makes enough Kentucky bourbon. If you're trying to get into that, you're you're you and you're not in Kentucky, it's probably not a good, what would you say, roadmap to success.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:10

Yeah, you know, I spent a lot of time in Napa and Sonoma Valley in particular, but throughout California. Went to Australia, the wine country, went to Italy. And and you know, it's it's it's it's so interesting because every every part of the world has their own philosophy, their own their own thought process on their winemaking and what they want to impart from the wood into their wines. But yeah, uh Napa and Sonoma were great. I mean, I I worked with a lot of different wineries out there and and trying to create the flavors that they wanted to extract out of the barrel through through toasting process and what have you. But it's it's you know, it's all part of the spirits industry, and I'm thankful to be a part of it and have been for so many years. But yeah, it's it's it's been fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:58

Yeah, for sure. Greg Smith asked, he knows there's one, two, three, four charring and whatever. Is it the same categories to wine? No, wine does not char their barrels. That's they they basically just use the oak, and that's one we were, I think there was a hundred thirty-two gallon that they were 132 or 136, and it was this, you know, that large barrel that they were storing the wine in, or uh the the other one was a 59-gallon, you know, they don't the typical the standard wine barrel is 200 liter, which is 59 gallons, the 53-gallon, which is a bourbon barrel, is 200 liters, so there's a difference, but you know, most American cooperatives were set up, they didn't have the equipment to make a 225-liter, a 59-gallon barrel.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:52

So that's when a lot of the winemakers said, okay, well, make me a barrel to age by wine. So a lot of the wine barrels that were going out to California per se, it would were 200-liter, which is which is a 53-gallon. But at Bluegrass where I work, we ended up, you know, setting up the right equipment, getting the equipment we needed to make a larger the 59 or the 225 liter. So that's a standard wine barrel, a little bigger than a whiskey barrel, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:21

And it it made sense to uh do the equipment because anytime you want to force something down somebody's throat that they're used to doing one way, it just doesn't work the same. It it can work there, you know what I mean? It should work, but they don't they don't buy into it the same way as if you give them what they know, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:44

So all right. Well, thanks for thanks for joining. I'll finish up. Do you want to stay on for getting the guys on, or are you that's fine, yeah?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:53

Love to, man. Love to talk, yeah. All right, love you, love you get thank.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:56

Yeah, same here. All right, everybody, make Make sure that you check us out. www.scotchyburbonboys.com for all things Scotchy Bourbon Boys. Make sure that you listen to us on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and X, along with Apple, iHeart, and Spotify. And remember, good bourbon equals good times with good friends. Drink responsibly, don't drink and drive, and live your life uncut and unfiltered. And AI will take us out.

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I did send out the