Woodie Dept: Is finishing finished? Or should it be?

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Tue Oct 07, 2014 8:39 am

...an ongoing dialogue...

I still remember the first time I had a Macallan ex-sherry matured whisky. Or Richard Seales Doorly's XO. Both of these used ex-sherry barrels in a serious way, not the quick dunk in worn out Limosin as heavily marketed by Plantation.

It seems clear that the use of ex-sherry cooperage widely appeared first in single malts, by old, wise and experienced Scottish distillers.

But things have changed...

First the mega's have truly taken over anything even remotely profitable and end up owning untold hundreds of thousands of barreled whiskies of all kinds. So how are ex-sherry barrels used?

1. Some commentators have noted that some cheaper whiskys are sherry-finished to make them more palatable and profitable.

2. The demand for "new" and marketable products leads to the less expensive means of taking already made older whiskys (think 10 years plus), giving them a dunk and then promote them as "new editions", "special selections", "signature" - you know, the usual mooseshit. No need to wait 10 or 15 years for a new release, much less expensive, and promoted at premium prices.

3. There is a huge demand for ex-sherry barrels, reflected by the appearance of ex-port/chardonnay/marsalla/burgundy/bordeaux/tokajietc/ale/rum, etc. barrels. This may have more to do with marketing and economy than quality, in direct opposition to the glowing ad copy.

4. Even once sacred bourbon is being blurred. For nearly a hundred years bourbon was the purest of spirits and is still restricted to the use of only new, charred oak barrels. The mega's have managed to blur even that line by offering what they call "sherry finished" bourbons (which does not legally exist) and in the case of one called "Sherry Signature" even adds actual sherry to a bourbon that - unbelievably - that is labelled "Straight Bourbon Whiskey", sold for a completely unjustified $150.

5. Some distillers actually "season" new or even used barrels with sherry, in a not so transparent method to alter the spirit with real sherry, the wood itself being just a cover for the practice.

Flat Ass Bottom Line

There isn't one yet, as this just establishes this current issue. More than one commentator finds that "finishing" has become more than faddish, but a major trend in continuing to support ways to create so-called "premium" and "super-premium" editions. Many see "finishing" as a way to alter a spirit and to quickly add new flavors, sweetness, etc.

Jim Murray is very concerned over the use of sulfur to preserve empty sherry barrels, and which he claims is negatively detectible in many whiskies. He is especially perturbed that the bourbon mega's are mislabelling what should legally be called "whiskey distilled from bourbon mash" as "bourbon", despite the fact that the spirit was stored in barrels other than "charred, new oak".

I am sure that there are some among us who were already not big fans of ex-sherry finishing. Sue Sea and I are part of this group. Think about it: it's hard enough to make a fine aged spirit, much less then endeavor to then "finish" it with unknown results. Do they risk a 12 or 14 year old investment by tossing it into a new barrel? Or are they more inclined to finish a marginal whisky? No wonder these are "special editions" in limited supply - they are experiments conducted for the marketing department.

It's a turkey shoot.

A blurring of the issue

One last issue is blurring - not of the spirits identity (see bourbon, above) - but of the actual spirit itself. Sugar and sherry have long been added to alter lesser rums to make them palatable and profitable. More than one of you have pointed out the "blurring" effect that results form added sugar. Sherry does the same, and adds a covering layer of flavoring. Fast "seasoned" barrels is a way to accomplish this.

On our recent review of Santa Teresa's Anejo Gran Reserva we did some cross comparisons. We noted that the sugared Teresa was blurred in comparison to Doorly's Five with the Doorly's being perceived as crisper and more defined, ie NOT blurred. At another point we compared Doorly's XO (which is honestly double aged using ex-sherry barrels) to Seales 10 and had a similar if lesser reaction.

Using ex-sherry barrels properly is expensive and challenging. Done on the cheap or using questionable seasoning methods can easily overpower the spirit to which they are sometimes brutally applied.

Even the marketing monkeys are beginning to see the light, as the people catch on to the game. The term "finishing" is now being replaced with new terms like "extra matured", "double-matured" or Bruichladdich's evasive "A.C.E" (additional cask enhancement).

What's your take?

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Tue Oct 07, 2014 8:49 am

Homework...

1. Wood is hard to find (why port wood):
http://www.connosr.com/worldwhiskyrevie ... port-wood/

2. Fad Focus #2: Wood Finishes:
http://whiskeyapostle.com/2009/02/fad-f ... dfinishes/

3. Ralfy and Sherry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMEpqcM ... HdRLA8JWZg

4. A Beginner's Guide (Malt Madness):
http://www.maltmadness.com/malt-whisky/ ... ation.html

Please do add your own links...

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 10:07 am

Winter must be approaching...

...as the Project's denizens seem to be entering a state of hibernation. Meanwhile, I've contacted Richard Seale for a truly qualified view of both the use and abuse of "finishing", a term which once was applied to a successful frat party, lol...

Dai · Post by **Dai** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 2:22 pm

Speaking of a sherry finished rum I'm about 3/4 the way through a bottle of Dos Maderos 5+3 finished in sherry barrels for three years. It is sweet you'd swear it had been laced with sugar it may have been I don't know but, it certainly does make the rum very smooth and palatable. If this is the effect of sherry barrels then bring it on, there are quite a few rums that could do with it. Like you say Jimbo the blurring does have an effect on the taste of rum. I'm not against the use of sherry barrels per se, if done correctly then they are a good tool to have for any rum producer to have and use. The problems come when it gets flogged to death and misused then it becomes a marketing gimmick.

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 5:51 pm

What's wrong with this statement?

"Today, in the aging of Scotch Whiskey, anywhere from 300,000 to 400,000 bourbon casks are used, which is a stark contrast to the Sherry casks, that were numbered at around 18,000. In spite of popular belief, there are very few whiskeys being aged exclusively using bourbon barrels."

Now I do know that sherry barrels are hard to get (which has led to the use of ex-port and other barrels). I also know that sherry barrels are used for more fills than ex-bourbon barrels. But look at the numbers above and try to relate them to the fact that about 30% of all whiskies spend time in an ex-sherry barrel.

With all these in mind something is wrong. My guess? What's euphemistically called "sherry finishing" is a quick dunk, a new batch, a quick dunk, a new batch, a...

Dai · Post by **Dai** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 7:50 am

I've been thinking about the use of barrels and the use of second hand bourbon barrels. Why does a good scotch or rum cost as much as a similar quality bourbon when they use a second hand barrel which was cheaper to buy in the first place. Outside of the bourbon distillation we are being ripped off, other spirit makers are using inferior barrels (they have already been used once for bourbon) at a cheaper price then charging us a similar price as they do for the original bourbon that was a first use spirit. Think about it a second use cask in Scotland is a third use of that barrel but, they may charge us more for there product than the original bourbon that barrel aged in the first place.

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 11:27 am

Dai, I understand your take on this...

...but let's examine this a bit. First of all, the distillers of rum and Scotch tend to avoid new charred oak as it's just too fresh and not really suited to longer aging (although it's perfect for younger bourbons wherein the new char and new wood quickly take off the metallic edge of new make, and quickly adds some of the vanillan and sweeter tones of bourbon. So the rum and whisky distillers actually prefer a used ex-bourbon barrel, which they will use another two times before these barrels are depleted.

The cost of the using the ex-bourbon barrels is not all that high, about $40 or $50, used 2 or 3 times for a total of about 400 or 600 liters of product. Ex-sherry barrels cost up to 10 or 12 times more, so this would account for the far lesser purchase of these (see above), and the repeated uses of them (often up to four or five times) or even more for what is euphemistically called "finishing" which to me is nothing more than a quick dunk, for an unknown series of refills.

As far as Scotch/single malts go it's important to realize that bourbon is mass produced in huge column stills, while single malts are much more expensive due to higher costs in malting, drying, batch distilling in pot stills, and much longer storage costs and angel's losses (compared to bourbon).

The issue remains: has "finishing" lost its fad allure (as the marketers have already discovered? And does sherry "finishing" blur the spirit?

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Sat Oct 18, 2014 10:47 am

An official, Capn Jimbo approved bump...

Why is this thread being bumped? My own fault, I'm sure, since I do have a slight tendency to carry on but forget to keep calm. The questions at hand...

1. Has sherry finishing (not aging) become overdone? Is it misused? Does it validate super-premium prices? And perhaps more to the point:

2. Does sherry finishing actually blur a spirit? Is it a compensation to cover up or "upgrade" lesser spirits? For details galore consult the OP...

Dai · Post by **Dai** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 12:27 pm

Capn Jimbo wrote:An official, Capn Jimbo approved bump...

Why is this thread being bumped? My own fault, I'm sure, since I do have a slight tendency to carry on but forget to keep calm. The questions at hand...

1. Has sherry finishing (not aging) become overdone? Is it misused? Does it validate super-premium prices? And perhaps more to the point:

2. Does sherry finishing actually blur a spirit? Is it a compensation to cover up or "upgrade" lesser spirits? For details galore consult the OP...

Yes and No, depends on who is doing it and for what reason it is being done.

Some distillers will use it for marketing others use it for product enhancement. it's similar to the sugar question. It's all a matter of education and sorting the wheat from the chaff I'm afraid.

Dos Maderos make a good rum finished in a sherry barrel so do four square Although not a great fan of Doorly's XO maybe I need to revisit it. Can't speak to others as I've not tried them.

JaRiMi · Post by **JaRiMi** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 4:06 pm

The sherry (or other) finishing is a complex matter. Let me try and share at least what little I know of the topic..

So we all know that traditionally since day 18-hundred and something at least Scottish whisky was aged in oak sherry casks - among others. To be honest, they probably tried any and all kinds of casks - not all of them oak either - which had bee new wood, old used, containing previously whatnot - from slated herring to sherry and other wines, fortified or not. Ex-bourbon casks came into the picture later I believe in the 20th century after WWII.

Anyhoo, the original sherry casks that were used were a mix of things. Most were so-called "transport casks", made of cheaper American oak (or European - if it was readily available). They were 500 litres in size (a sherry butt), and their job was to store the sherry as it made its way across to the tables of the posh English gentele lot, drinking sherry like it was running out any day. I have heard from some of the oldest distillery workers that they actually also did get bits of the sherry soleras as well occasionally for example, but majority was butts, and they had not contained the sherry in them forever - maybe a few months or so. After being emptied of their original contents, the Scottish bought them and filled them up with new make spirit, and 10 - 25 years later, presto - we could enjoy a fine sherried whisky fully matured in a (typically Oloroso) sherry cask. Cool - and good!

Spaniards made changes to laws, and all sherry needed to be bottled in Spain from thereon - I think this was circa 1979 - 1981. After that, whisky companies had to custom-build/order sherry casks, and these were filled with whatnot oloroso sherry for a period of time, sherry then dumped (or used for whatever - sellable as sherry it is not) - and voila! - we had sherry butts again for whisky, to be shipped to UK as whole, or in pieces (rare I hear..dunno, it would be cheaper for sure?). Expensive. VERY expensive, especially if made from European oak. Sometimes dodgy also, as bacteria might contaminate the cask, or some idiot Spaniard might light up a sulphur candle inside the cask to protect it from aforementioned bacteria - simultaneously spoiling and infecting the cask with that dreaded sulphur...

In comes the bourbon casks. Cheap. Well, cheaPER - not cheap, but ok. As time passes, more and more whisky is matured in ex-bourbon, or 2nd/3rd/4th/refill casks of sherry/bourbon. Tastes different to a first-fill sherry cask? You bet. But the economics...these days most Scottish distilleries age just 5 - 15% of their whisky in sherry casks, and the rest in bourbon. Even the greats like Macallan, who boasted for years that they use "only the finest sherry casks" introduced from nowhere ex-bourbon casked wonders, as old as 30 years old whisky. Soooo....they had been using ex-bourbon casks in secrecy for quite some time eh? Yup. And are their current sherry versions aged in 1st-fill oloroso casks exclusively? Some (many) say not.

Lets now throw in that nasty 70s - 80's curb ball - Scotch whisky was no longer hip. It was not selling. OUCH!!! Distilleries mothballed, closed, demolished. Whisky "Loch" filling up, old distillates standing in wood - blended is a no-go, nobody wants it. Only the big survive, and they are also suffering. A period comes when whisky production is less, and where nobody really wants to pay for top casks, since - who cares? Old stock matures in best casks, new spirit goes into casks that fulfill these requirements:

- It is made of wood
- It does not leak

Then comes...the age of...Malts. Single Malts? A new savior! Coming to 90s, single malts come in with a bang, and wow, did they taste GOOOOD. Why? Because there is no pressure to save in blending them to their best flavour ever! A single malt from distillery X, released with the age statement reflecting the lowest age of whisky thats put in it, say 12yo - contains also distillates up to 25 years old. WHY?!?! Because:

- There is no market yet for special old bottlings, for which some fool would pay as much as $5,000
- Older distillates are aplenty, so why spare them? Use them, and make 10yo/12yo/15yo core releases taste AS GOOD AS POSSIBLE.

And the customers like myself say muchos gracias...your whisky is...MAGICAL! Yummy!! The super-age of malt whiskies is born in the early 90s, to last until around 2005.

Now then...Much whisky was aging in not-so-great casks. Shit casks, to be honest. A gentleman from distillery X (which had not been successful, and was known as a workhorse for blends) said that when they bought the distillery around 2000, they inherited in the deal hundreds of thousands of litres of spirit maturing, some of it very old. Great deal! But when they tasted a 21yo spirit from one of the casks, it still had the character of...new make. DAMN. So used-up were the casks, that they had imparted virtually NO FLAVOUR to the whiskies.

What to do?!??? RE-CASK THEM. Company first bottles whatever was usable from the stock, and simultaneously acquires a multitude of used wine casks of any kind. A massive re-casking of older distillates starts (while new make spirit which they have again started to make goes directly into A-class casks). As the wine casks are fresh, they can "fix" the whisky into sellable state quite fast. As is, they also deliver interesting varieties - some great, some ok, some...not so good. But the company stays afloat, and rises later to great fame.

In the meantime, many other companies see their stock suffering from similar conditions, and silently re-cask their stock by hundreds of thousands..some into less exotic cask choices, but still - recask. Most of them. No law bans this, and it does not have to be mentioned. Overall, the operation raises quality, and some malt whiskies which were once frowned upon become a huge success also.

Oh, did I loose track? Finishing? OK... Back to that. Some wood finishes last several years. Glenmorangie was the first to become famous with their wood finish range of whiskies in the 90s. They were a big hit! I enjoyed especially the port wood version, with its colour not unlike blush wine (I kid you not). It was new, it was nice, it worked.

Wood finish can take years, but some are done just for a few months. But then...how do we now differentiate this from...re-casking? What about single malts which are composed of many different elements, meaning sherry casks 30% of total (out of which 50% are 1st fill American Oak, 25% 1st fill European oak, and 25% are refill whatnots), 70% ex-bourbon (out of which 30% are 1st fill, rest refill - undefined how many times used)? Most single malts are bottled from vattings of hundreds of casks of various types, and some contain portwood etc more exotic ones too. Rum wood even.

I don't know what to say here.

Is re-casking a good thing? I think yes. Otherwise much good distillate would be wasted, just because some mental dwarf or impoverished distiller put it to mature in sh*t casks. What a waste!!! By all means, re-cask and give it a new life.

Was the original sherry casks "treated with sherry for a short period"? Most were, yes. But the the whisky sat in them for a long time after, with no changes - we think.

Is wood finishes a bad thing? Well - I am not impressed by all the results at all. Some are great though. I have even tasted a wood finish of a 1st fill bourbon cask - apparently precisely because the original refill cask imparted very little to the spirit, which in itself was of great pedigree and quality. But do not - I repeat, do NOT - give me any Calvados-finished whisky. Apple and me do not see eye-to-eye - ever. Having said that, I would not knock down completely wood finishing though, since it is not like we would be putting any essences or sugar into the mix

Sorry for ranting.

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Fri Oct 24, 2014 7:13 pm

J... magnificent post, what a treat!

But allow me to pose this question, a dilemma in my mind (posted earlier):

"Today, in the aging of Scotch Whiskey, anywhere from 300,000 to 400,000 bourbon casks are used, which is a stark contrast to the Sherry casks, that were numbered at around 18,000. In spite of popular belief, there are very few whiskeys being aged exclusively using bourbon barrels."

If this is true, then roughly only 5% of the barrels used for Scotch whisky are ex-sherry casks - yet - elsewhere I read that 30% of the whiskies are reported to be sherry aged or finished. What this implies to me is that there must be a lot more brief finishing than real aging going on, with the relatively few ex-sherry barrels being repeatedly filled and emptied.

Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but wouldn't this imply the ex-sherries are used 6 times (30/5)? And if so, then what are we really getting beyond a quick dunk?

JaRiMi · Post by **JaRiMi** » Sat Oct 25, 2014 6:00 pm

Capn Jimbo wrote:J... magnificent post, what a treat!

But allow me to pose this question, a dilemma in my mind (posted earlier):

"Today, in the aging of Scotch Whiskey, anywhere from 300,000 to 400,000 bourbon casks are used, which is a stark contrast to the Sherry casks, that were numbered at around 18,000. In spite of popular belief, there are very few whiskeys being aged exclusively using bourbon barrels."

If this is true, then roughly only 5% of the barrels used for Scotch whisky are ex-sherry casks - yet - elsewhere I read that 30% of the whiskies are reported to be sherry aged or finished. What this implies to me is that there must be a lot more brief finishing than real aging going on, with the relatively few ex-sherry barrels being repeatedly filled and emptied.

Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but wouldn't this imply the ex-sherries are used 6 times (30/5)? And if so, then what are we really getting beyond a quick dunk?

Most casks are used several times, I think - but 6x sounds too many times in malt whisky maturation for any real purpose other than pure storage, with no thought in quality. After 2nd time (refill) the cask imparts very, very little in the whisky - and the cask becomes either garden furniture, or...the cask is rejuvenated. I've seen this process being done (started) at the Speyside cooperage, where casks are broken down, casks rebuilt, decharred, then retoasted/recharred etc. [remember, most American casks that are 180 litres are anyways generally rebuilt in a cooperage into hogsheads, containing about 250 litres]

After this rejuvenation the casks are anyways different from 1st fillers, as they cannot reconstruct all aspects (oak lactones, tannins)...so the balance of wood extractives in
regenerated casks is very different, but at least the reactive charring will be in place - so the casks may still have then 1 more use time I think. Again, I would not expect them to be ever used more than 3 - 4 times - for malts at least.

Remember, for every malt cask, there is a lot more grain whisky maturing, and people are not nearly as particular as to what kind of refill cask those are kept in, as far as I know. Also in case of dire economics, I suspect they've used casks many times more, as long as the wood lasts. Right now this is not necessary in malts at least.

How many sherry casks are at any given time in use in Scotch (and Irish) whisky industry? No clue. The following link refers to 10% of Scotch (all malt, no grain) being matured in sherry casks (of varying phase of life cycle).

http://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/media/16269/cscasks.pdf

Here is another nice little article worth knowing:

http://www.maltmaniacs.net/E-pistles/Ma ... Klimek.pdf

To come back to numbers mentioned, I have seen Glenfarclas's warehouses. Unlike most others scattered here and there, they are all at their one site. Within those dunnage warehouses, it is said that anything between 50,000 - 70,000 casks are resting at any given time. And this is just one malt whisky distillery, with a capacity of about 3 million litres annually.

Counting from this, the overall number of casks in use just for malt whisky in Scotland is massively much more than mentioned above. Scotch whisky association says over 20 million casks of whisky - out of these, malt whisky may be somewhere between 5 - 7 million?

http://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/what-we ... s-figures/

Another link:

http://www.whisky-news.com/En/Wood%20finishes.pdf

And this one on cask rejuvenation:

http://whiskyscience.blogspot.fi/2011/03
/rejuvenation.html

And finally....Now this is a nice one, on the history of wine treated casks etc> Its a lot older practice than many thinks!

http://whiskyscience.blogspot.fi/2013/0 ... tment.html

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Sun Nov 02, 2014 8:16 am

And about bourbon...

Jim Murray and now moi are both clear that unlike single malts (where any oak is legal), what is called "bourbon" is strictly limited to being "stored... in charred new oak containers". The CFR specifically does NOT define or distinguish "aging" from "finishing" - both are simply considered "storage". Likewise the the CFR's do not specify barrels, cask, pipes, etc. or size but lumps all of these together as "containers".

Thus when the distillate of a legal bourbon mash (51%+ corn) is stored at any time, for any reason in a used ex-something barrel/container it must now be called "Whisky distilled from bourbon mash". The moment storage shifted from charred new oak is the moment it stopped being a "bourbon".

Enough. It is clear that bourbon - historically the purest and unaltered spirit in history - is now being degraded and premiumized by the marketing invented "finishing" of what are often lesser spirits, now sold at a premium.

Has this worked?

The boyz at straightbourbon - under the leadership of Cowdery (who sees nothing wrong with this mislabelling) - seem to think so. Not so though at the Bourbon Enthusiast:
http://bourbonenthusiast.com/forum/view ... p?f=8&t=73

"Why stop at sherry or cognac? Why not bourbon flavored with lemon-lime, or raspberries. Anything to cover up that awful whiskey taste. Hmmm.... maybe if we distilled it to even higher proof and kept it away from those stinky wood barrels, we could dilute it down to eighty proof and have something the young'uns would really like. Let's call it something with an "old world" ring to it. Maybe something Russian or Polish-sounding.

Nahh... that's dumb. It would never sell."

The Enthusiasts seem to understand the game. So why don't the STR8-guyz get it? First is the Cowdery influence of course. But long time bourbon lovers have been spoiled by well over a hundred years of purity. Except for the few who also enjoy rum, they are not aware of how bad things can get.

Thus they believe that if the distiller uses clever labeling which includes the non-term "finished" that things are just peachy keen. The marketing monkeys trade on their naivety, and are happy to promote the association with fine single malts (that legally can be stored in either new or used oak).

The fix is in. The mega's are slowly degrading everything under their control. Legality has nothing to do with it. When guys with as much clout as Cowdery does with bourbon give them a pass, they are just insuring the further blurring and degradation of the Spirit Once Known as Bourbon...