Small Barrels Produce Lousy Whiskey.

by Charles K. Cowdery

Buffalo Trace Distillery Tested The Effectiveness Of 5, 10, and 15 Gallon Barrels for Aging Bourbon Whiskey. Chuck Cowdery's article about that experiment, published in his American whiskey newsletter, The Bourbon Country Reader, caused a sensation, especially among the micro-distillers who swear by small barrels. This small book includes that original article as well as some additional, related material. Some of it is new and appears here for the first time. It is being published as an ebook for the benefit of people who want to read it, but don't want to shell out for a subscription to the newsletter. The community of people who have an interest in this sort of thing is small but ardent. This seems to be the best way to make it available to the greatest number of people without just giving it away as a blog post.

23 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 13, 2012

Reviews

[Andy]

You can judge this one by the cover.

Definitely is what the title implies, it simply talks about all the ways that it can't work. I do wish there was more emphasis on chemical process that would need to take place, to make it successful, or possible ways we may be able to achieve rapid aging in the future. At times, it comes across that thee author is just saying, "dang ol' whipper snappers can't do this, it ain't right because we ain't done it that way" instead of embracing the evolution of the craft and where the two worlds could potentially collide in the future.

[Owenimholte]

Lacking

Was looking for more than just "small barrels taste bad" but this was just that said five different ways.

Save your time.

There are no further details about hypothesis or methodology, and the lack of description beyond "undrinkable" and "raw" are very unscientific.

[Thomas Skrmetti]

Good

Interesting analysis of the whiskey maturation process. Even if a little lacking in more technical detail, such as which organics compounds are being affected.