Victorwine wrote:In regard to aging spirits in oak barrels, besides time, wouldn’t the proof of the spirit that is placed in the barrel also be considered when determining how much time is needed to get the “desired” extraction from the barrel? One would think that the more proof the spirit is (the more “pure” it is) less time will be required.
Salute
Okay, this is where it gets tricky.
The higher the proof, the less flavor there is to develop---or another way of putting it would be that the higher the heat of distillation, the more the flavor components of source and fermentation are obliterated. That's because the higher the heat at distillation the closer a spirit gets to eliminating all flavor components and becoming neutral grain spirits.
So, lower proof levels means there's more flavor going into the barrel, and thus more for the barrel maturation process to develop, thus more nuances of flavor in the resulting spirit that comes out of the barrel.
What's tricky also is terminology. What a chemist or technician might call "impurities", a master blender would call "flavor"
Also what's tricky is what is actually going on in barrel maturation. Note that many 'purists' call this barrel maturation, and not simpy age. An age statement on a whiskey, for instance, doesn't necessarily tell you a great deal. It's not just how many years the spirit was in there---it's the type of the barrel used, hold old the barrel is, what might have been in it before (unless you're required to use all new barrels, as in bourbon), and---very important---the diurnal process the barrel goes through, as well as the entire seasonal process.
Barrel maturation in Scotland (pre-used barrels, cold, and wet) is very different from barrel maturation in Kentucky (new barrels, extreme diurnal ranges, warmer climate), and both are very different from Caribbean rum (any kind of barrel, not very much diurnal change, significantly hotter weather, ocean influence, high humidity; and the fact that you can use up to 10% of your spirit from the barrel through evaporation and transpiration).
even if you have exactly the same product in exactly the same type of barrel, where those barrels reside is crucial to the final product that comes from them. If it's in a warehouse in Kentucky, you look for different development in barrels that are lower down, in the middle of the rick, or very high up.
That's why the term "honey barrels" came about---they were the best developed of all the barrels, and were usually the barrels from the part of the warehouse that gave the highest diurnal ranges, and thus benefitted from more development. So, again, it's not the age spent, or number of years in the barrel, it's what the barrel went through.
Plus, mere extended barrel age is no guarantee of any sort of quality. Try a Single Malt scotch in 12, 18, and 25 year styles. The 12 can be wonderful, the 18 sublime----but the 25 could be dull, flat, insipid. So it's not just age.