Several months ago I bought the Woodinville Age Your Own Whiskey Kit. And when I say several months, I mean July of 2011, it’s almost April of 2012… The kit instructions specify to let it age at least 3 months, MAYBE 6. Well, I tripled that. Mainly because of laziness and because other bottles came into the house and kept me distracted.
Now, when I finally poured the ages whiskey back into the original bottle(s), I expected the Angels to take their fair share. What I didn’t expect is for them to be so greedy! These Angels are apparently as big of whiskey fans as I am, I BARELY filled 1 of the 2 750ML bottles that I poured into the barrel! Now, because the barrel is so small, the aging process is sped up greatly but so is the evaporation and the soakage into the wood.
Since I bottled it a couple of days ago and have yet to taste it myself, I’ll go ahead and live-blog the experience. I know you’re all so thrilled, at least I’m not live-tweeting it. That’s for next time…
On first nose, I pick up a very fruity note with a very herbal back. The body is smooth and then BAM! it hits you with some heat, if I had forgotten that this is “Barreling Strength” and proofed at 110, I would remember now! It’s smooth though, very smooth. Very robust on the finish with a strong herbal lingering taste. Surprisingly though, after a couple minutes from your last sip, it leaves a sweet taste and makes me want another drink, don’t mind if…. I do… ahhh…!
I guess I’m a pushover though, it could be terrible and I’d still drink it, well not really, I do have some standards. But this is really good, delicious even! I’m a blatant Bourbon lover and the fact that I got to age it myself, make the experience that much better. Definitely, next time, I will be tasting it once every week for 3 MONTHS instead of 9. You could even say that I made a booze baby in that amount of time.
That’s enough from me, the proud father of a beautiful bottle of bourbon, signing off.
- Brad
I aged my own for 6 months, with frequent tasting until I got a little tired of not seeing change. There was a huge Angel’s Share, plus a small initial loss from forgetting to close the spout when filling with White Dog (I’m dubbing that the idiot’s share
). I read somewhere that frequent sampling can increase the Angel’s Share, but in the end I bottled about the same amount you did. As the color deepened and the flavor mellowed, I detected crushed apples in the nose and and increasingly strong sasparilla (almost rootbeer) note on the finish when tasting.
The experience was cool, but my end product is pretty rough. I think the heavy loss of fluid means it’s way higher proof than where it started. I now have a mix of Buffalo Trace Wheated Mash and Mash # 1 in the barrel. After that, I’m considering watering my bottled Woodinville product and re-barreling.