Getting oak flavour into a home spirit without a barrel

Getting oak into a home spirit without a barrel

There is a point most people reach where the spirit is technically fine and it still tastes like it was made last Tuesday. It is sharp, it is a bit thin, and it has none of the roundness you get in something that has spent time in wood. That is oak, or rather the lack of it, and it is the single biggest difference between a young spirit and one that tastes finished.

Worth saying plainly before we go on

Owning a still is lawful in Australia and so is selling one. Running one to distil spirits at home is not, unless you hold an excise manufacturer licence from the ATO. Adding oak character to a spirit you have bought is a different activity entirely and needs no licence, and that is what most people are doing with this.

What oak is actually doing

Barrels were originally about storage rather than flavour, and the flavour was a happy accident that the industry then spent a few hundred years learning to control. What happens in there is that tannins, vanillins and the toast and char off the inside of the barrel work their way into the liquid slowly, and the sharp edges get rounded off in the process.

The trouble with doing that at home is that a barrel is expensive, it takes up room, it needs looking after, and it takes months before you know whether it worked. That is a long way to go for a batch you might not like.

The bottle version

Still Spirits Mellow Oak is an oak extract in a 50ml bottle, and it does the same job in a fraction of the time. It suits whisky, bourbon, dark rum and brandy, and the amount you add is up to you, which is the useful part. A little gives you a hint of oak behind the spirit. More gives you something properly woody.

Shake the bottle well before you use it, mix it into the spirit, and let it rest for seven to fourteen days. That resting time is not optional, because the oak needs to settle into the liquid rather than sitting on top of it, and a spirit tasted the same night will tell you nothing useful.

How to get it right rather than close

1. Start light. You can always add more oak to a batch and you cannot take it out again.
2. Do a small test first if you are working on a quantity you care about. Split a little off, dose it, wait, taste, then scale up from what you learn.
3. Write down what you used. Oak is the sort of thing where the difference between good and too much is small, and you want to be able to hit it again.
4. Taste it cold and taste it at room temperature. Oak reads very differently depending on how you drink it.

What it will not do is fix a bad spirit. Oak adds layers to something clean and it makes something harsh taste like harsh spirit with wood in it, so if the base is off, sort the base out first.

Shop related products

• Still Spirits Mellow Oak 50ml. Oak extract for whisky, bourbon, dark rum and brandy, dosed to taste.
• Still Spirits Wild Eagle Bourbon 50ML. Malty bourbon character with vanilla and spice behind it.
• Still Spirits Rye Whisky 50ML. Rye character, and it takes oak well.
• Still Spirits Original Whisky 50ML. The traditional whisky essence, and the value option in the range.
• Still Spirits Smokey Whiskey 50ML. Smoke rather than oak, and the two work together.

Did you know we also stock the Still Spirits Oak Cask and Cedar Oak profiles and the Sam Willard's bourbon oak soaker in store. They are not on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf. There is more in the homebrew range online, and Brewhilder will walk you through a batch if you want to plan it out first.

Read next

• Top five common homebrewing mistakes and how to fix them
• Why every homebrewer needs a decent fermenter
• Brewing beer with liquid malt extract

Patience is the ingredient nobody wants to buy and the one that does the most work.

Candeece

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