Discussion of science of whiskey production
The black fungus Baudoinia is a common sight on the outsides of whiskey warehouses in Kentucky. Turns out the way the fungus grows also has an interesting connection with another well known phenomenon, Angel's Share.
An innocuous looking document sent out by the TTB on the 27th of April 1962 would change the way American whiskey had been barreled since before Prohibition. Was the science it was based on any good or was the outcome predetermined?
Last week I went on about all the qualities American white oak brings to the maturation of Bourbon. But that's not the end of the story. Seasoning, kilning, charring and toasting are all types of wood degradation performed as part of 'raising' barrels. Each makes its own unique contribution to the whiskey maturation process.
There's so much to admire and praise about the American white oak and the qualities it lends to Bourbon and rye whiskey. Here's a few of them.
There are two common schools of belief (or perhaps ‘churches’ is a better term) on chill filtering. One school declares that chill filtering is a harmless process and that what’s removed has no impact on flavor, only color and possibly the texture (mouthfeel) of the whiskey is affected. The other school strongly believes that chill filtering is destructive and results in an unavoidable attenuation of aroma and flavor in the whiskey. It seemed unlikely that both of these assertions could be true so I decided to look further into the matter.
The federal government has never defined a standard for what sour or sweet mashing means when it appears on a whiskey bottle label. But it has had a number of things to say about these techniques in publications intended for IRS employees. These may provide some insight into how these techniques evolved over time.