The Charred barrel in Bourbon and Scotch

There's a lot of history and 'lore' behind bourbon so discuss both here.

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Unread postby gillmang » Sun Jun 11, 2006 7:10 am

Thanks for that.

On whether the "Canadian" taste may have been brought by Loyalists to Canada before bourbon and rye became the red layer whiskeys we know today: I mentioned earlier that modern Scotch grain and Canadian whisky may resemble the bruited (by Mike) pre-bourbon oak aged American whiskey. Of course, I know that M'Harry used what we call today true bourbon and rye mashes, and generally used a pot still (although this is not as important as may first seem the case). A better analogy to the pre-bourbon may be Michter's U.S. No. 1 which apparently is a bourbon mash product aged in reused barrels (although some feel it might have been flavored with something). I still don't feel that my analogy to, say Seagram 5 Star or Barrel Select is that far out of line though. When discussing his clarifying processes (again the leaching of new spirit through flannel, cloth and/or maple charcoal) M'Harry states at one point the clarified whiskey will "scarcely have the taste of whiskey". So he was able to get a fairly neutral product even then. The commercial impulse was to satisfy the market for clean spirit for blending with brandy, beer, rum etc. There is some evidence too in M'Harry that such super-refined spirit was regarded by him as superior to common whiskey although this is difficult to tell with certainty.

M'Harry's early form of neutral-type spirit aged in new or other non-charred oak might have been the first brown vodka. One can perhaps deduce this from his imitation version: adding parched wheat or caramel (in small amounts - he did not add a lot) to green, bland distillate would produce a kind of brown vodka.

John theorised some time ago that Loyalists and other Americans who came early to Canada brought straight rye and it later transmogrified to Hiram Walker's Canadian Club and that type whisky. This was (and is) an interesting thought provoking theory. But did they come so early that they brought not red layer whisky which later got debased but an American pre-bourbon, and that taste has endured here to this day? (I don't know if whisky was made in Canada before the Loyalists came, that is another question).

Modern U.S. corn whiskey may be the closest U.S. survival to this pre-bourbon. The barrel, being reused, would impart little, but some, flavor. Maybe Michter's U.S. No. 1 is another example but possibly M'Harry's oak-aged pre-bourbon was even more neutral tasting than those. I wouldn't say for example that those two products "scarcely taste like whiskey"! Then too, what those words meant in M'Harry's time may be an open question. His regular common whiskey might have been quite congeneric or feinty.

Still however, I can't exclude that at least when using new barrels as distillers did sometimes and the product was permitted to stand for a while, a bourbon-like drink emerged. Because, M'Harry said, the new barrel gave the whiskey "color" and "some taste". A true bourbon only 1-2 years old would have "some taste". Also, modern malt whiskies aged in reused American wood don't take much colour even after years in cask: we have all seen the so-called "white wine" whiskies which are almost white in color. Malt whisky gets color mainly through some influence to sherry cask wood or by addition (where lawful) of caramel, or by very long age (longer than what M'Harry was thinking of). Anyway the question comes back to whether the barrels or hogsheads which held product for a while and produced an "aged taste" in his words were charred or not. Some distillers probably did make some whiskey of this type for their own use or tried to imitate that specific taste but it seems not to have emerged as a recognised style by 1809. Certainly M'Harry does not use the word "char" or its variants or discuss the effects the process had on whiskey or talk about the sweeter taste red layer whiskey has.

I can't recall where I read that some people think whiskey was left to stand in disused mashing and fermentation wooden vessels that had truly been charred, and this lead to bourbon's development systematically. It might have been in Carson or Waymack and Harris that I read this. If it is true that Harrison Hall (we are talking 1813 or so) used charred mashing or fermentation vessels because of a flavor improvement (although over such a short period as it takes to make new whiskey?) one can see that such vessels, once past their prime, would have become storage vessels. One sees this today in breweries and distilleries, vats and tanks are used ultimately for holding purposes or storing finished product. And when noticing that the storing of whiskey in charred disused vessels of this type improved the product, distillers or middlemen started to put it in purpose-charred barrels to get the effect with predictability. This is entirely possible. Also, in the hot summer at least, I doubt a few puffs of smoke would truly sweeten a hogshead. There would have been bacterial and other flavors hard to clean. The word "handful" does trouble me though now that Mike has pointed this out to me. But you know I'm still thinking of this. If a bitsy handful of straw was all M'Harry was talking about why would it be necessary to turn over a large cask? True, it would trap the smoke but if there is so little to start with, why not throw a bit more straw in the cask and leave it upturned? Maybe to avoid burning the cask..? Anyway this "handful" matter does perturb me, like it does Mike, and I too now can't get my head around it, unless M'Harry was using the term loosely for some reason.

I repeat though that I have read elsewhere that straw was used in early days to char casks (i.e., once it was decided, whenever that was, to purpose-char casks). I can't recall where I read this but the Krafft, Hall or Boucherie books, or other, later 1800's books on distilling, may contain more information on this. I think the flavour of straw would be imparted to a degree to the char layer and this may have added another element to early bourbon flavor that is now lost. Amongst the many possibilities of a further experimental line (further than what BT did recently), one could envisge whiskey aged in straw-charred barrels. I think the experiment would be well worth doing Mike but further textual evidence of how straw was used exactly to sweeten in the early 1800's would be helpful.

Gary
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Unread postby bourbonv » Mon Jun 12, 2006 11:26 am

Gary,
This is subject that is very unclear due to the fact that the writers of the time assumed that their readers would have the information at hand on many of their subjects. I think that there is information to be found, but it is going to take some searching of primary sources in archives. I do know that John Corlis, a Bourbon County distiller, was told about charring barrels in a letter from a Lexington grocer in 1826. Bourbon was first advertised for sale in the newspapers of Kentucky in 1821. Aging in charred barrels seems to be what made "Bourbon" different from "whiskey" and seems to have started in this time period. Chuck is right in that he and I disagree as to the origin of bourbon. I respect his ability to do history, but I disagree with his conclusions. In reality, we both may be wrong, but I do think the answer is out there.

I think that bourbon came about when the first whiskey tax was repealed and the Louisianna Purchase opened the Mississippi River and New Orleans to trade. Kentucky and Pennsylvania farmer distillers were selling their whiskey to grocers who would ship it down to New Orleans to be distributed to markets on the east coast. The whiskey did not bring a high price, but the fact was that only one trip could be made a year, so it took several years for people realise they had to change the product to make a better profit. By the time they decided this, the War of 1812 and the embargoes that prededed it closed the markets and brought back the tax.

After the tax was repealed in 1817, someone decided that since they were not buy the corn whiskey, they would make it taste more like a product the people of New Orleans were drinking - cognac. They did this by aging it in charred barrels like cognac. It was a hit and caught on in New Orleans and the cities on the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri Rivers because steamboats were connecting the cities and sharing ideas and whiskey. To add to this cognac taste, they decided to name the product after Bourbon County, Kentucky, a name that would also appeal to the French loyalist who came to America to escape the revolution in France.

I think the primary source for this change is the French immigrants, the Tarascon brothers here in Louisville's Shipping Port neighborhood. They came to the falls of the Ohio to set up trade between Kentucky and New Orleans. They owned a warehouse at the Falls that kept goods from flatboats going over the falls on their trip to New Orleans. If the flatboat was destroyed, the owner could either build a new flatboat or sell the goods to someone in Louisville.

Mike Veach
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Unread postby gillmang » Mon Jun 12, 2006 12:54 pm

All this makes a lot of sense to me in terms of bourbon being developed as a commercial or saleable product. I am trying to see whether individual distillers or intermediaries had hit on the same idea, earlier. I have to assume they did. Burning casks was an old English way to cleanse them. There were apparently (see Cecil's book) some 3000 distillers in PA alone in the time we are discussing. Some of them would have known this secret well before the 1820's in my view. The true bourbon whiskey (as we know it today) could have developed independently in different parts of the frontier at the time (as guitar feedback may have in England in the mid-1960's). But in terms of the name Bourbon, the French people, cognac and its charred (or heavily toasted) barrel, the river trade, etc., what you say makes a lot of sense to me. It might have been as simple as a Corlis-type load fetching a high price in New Orleans and someone saying, hey, get me more of that. Or it might have been those French brothers specifically at that holding point who thought this through - maybe they transferred some corn whiskey to casks that had recently held cognac and, "voila!". Brandy at the time (especially shipped brandy) may only have been held for a year or two in heavily toasted wood, and an ex-brandy barrel of the time may have had lots of red layer still to give a second fill. Or maybe someone else did that intentionally or by error. My main point is, I believe the whiskey type was known before 1800 and one of these distilling books or other records yet found may provide evidence. My second point is, with the benefit of Mike's thoughts on U.S. pre-bourbon, I inadvertently may have hit on why Canadian whisky is what it is.

Gary
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Unread postby bunghole » Sun Jun 18, 2006 2:05 pm

Would you gentlemen be so kind as to summarize your points?

This should be a riviting thread, but due to (let ima be polite here) a tendancy towards over verbosity it becomes as dull as wading through Marx's Das Kapital which is arguably the most boring book ever written.

So please make your points straight away in 25 words or less! If you have any references - LIST THEM underneath each point.

ex: "ima bunghole invented the charred white oak barrel: the sour mash method of fermenting mash, the pot still, the column still, corn, water, and sex." - page 1 "ima bunghole knows GOD!" M'balz Es Hari 1776

OK?

:arrow: ima :wink:
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Unread postby Bourbon Joe » Sun Jun 18, 2006 11:22 pm

LOL........Now thats the Linn we all know and love.
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Unread postby gillmang » Mon Jun 19, 2006 1:03 pm

Alright, some conclusions:

1) Before 1810, date of Samuel M'Harry's Practical Distiller, there was probably no or little new charred barrel-aged whiskey. Therefore, bourbon developed later.

2) wooden vessels to produce and maybe hold whiskey were sanitized with straw smoke but this was not deep charring.

3) there was barrel-aged whiskey made from what today are bourbon and rye mashes (see again M'Harry). Probably it did not taste like bourbon or rye today since the barrels used were not charred (new or other).

4) some distillers or middlemen at the time probably hit on new charred barrel aging; this is an inference, I've seen no direct evidence.

5) whisky aged in new or used barrels may have come to Canada with the Loyalist influx at the end of the 1700's.

Gary
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Unread postby bunghole » Mon Jun 19, 2006 7:57 pm

Thank you Gary! 8-)

John?

:arrow: ima :angel7:
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Unread postby cowdery » Mon Jun 19, 2006 8:32 pm

I don't know of any references to American whiskey being "red" that appear before the 1840s (my book, page 33), so that is about when I believe long aging in deep charred, new barrels began, but it didn't become common and routine until after the War of Northern Aggression (I am writing this for Linn, after all), and didn't become synonymous with "bourbon" until the 1890s, except perhaps earlier among the cognoscenti in Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee.
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Unread postby bourbonv » Tue Jun 20, 2006 10:36 am

Linn,
My points are as follows:

1) American whiskey, bourbon in particular became known as an aged product in charred barrels in the 1820's.

2) This was a time when there was no whiskey tax so aging did not create an additional financial burden on the distillers.

3) It is my belief that this was so successful in the American Markets that the Scotch whisky distillers started to immitate this process with their whiskey in the 1840's.

Now there are some side issues that have come about due to this discussion. I find them quite interesting myself, even if you do find some of us as overly verbose. I do plan to continue to write my lengthy essays the way I wish to and hope that John, Gary, Chuck and others will do so as well. One man's junk is another man's treasure as they say. It may bore you, but I enjoy it.

Mike Veach
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Unread postby gillmang » Tue Jun 20, 2006 11:08 am

I too can only write in the way I know and it helps me to formulate my thoughts and arrive at positions that can be summarised. I write mainly for myself and I hope others find it of interest. Not that I compare myself, but whether it's Veach, Jackson, Cowdery, Crowgey, Cecil, John, etc., we all seem to use a discursive style to set out ideas and directions (and here, to ask questions and seek commentary) before being able to come down on a position. E.g., I was convinced for a while M'Harry was talking charred barrels but I see now he wasn't, or not in the way of methodical bourbon making anyway.

I must say too while I have learned a lot here, it is interesting that we are not much further ahead than in the 1980's on when bourbon started and why. Jackson in World Guide To Whisky in that era referred to early distillers' texts that mentioned burning barrels to clean them but not to age whiskey in. And that is what I found too by reading M'Harry (admittedly only one book, but still). I am sure the breakthrough will come but it is taking time. Mike, I think you said earlier the primary sources need still to be reviewed further (and I'd include all known distillers' texts in these). Hopefully a breakthrough will come.

Gary
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Unread postby bourbonv » Tue Jun 20, 2006 11:46 am

Gary,
Primary sources are needed. I know that there is more out there waiting to be found. I just wish people would realise that a document is really not worth squat unless it is available to researchers at some public or private institution. About 4 years ago we had a man come in here talking big about investing in some old family homes and saving the papers. He claimed he had letters from the 1770's from his ancestors, the Crowe brothers, describing their distilling practices. I asked him to send me copies but I never heard from him again. If he was not blowing smoke, then he is holding on to the what could be the earliest written records of Kentucky distilling. The problem is that unless researchers can have access to these records, they don't mean crap.

Antique Roadshow has been a double edged sword. It has shown people that old documents are worth saving but at the same time it has convinced people that every old document is worth thousands of dollars when most are not worth over one hundred dollars. People hoard their documents and papers expecting huge amounts of money so in reality, the document is worthless because 1) they are not getting a penny out of it sitting in their basement and 2) If researchers can not see it, then it might as well not exist.

Enough of my rant and on to the point. Primary sources are the answer. I have a pretty good idea as to what is in Kentucky archives. I would like to know what is in Pennsylvania and New Orleans as the other two important players in distilling west of the mountains. Maryland distilling would also be of some interest since so many Kentucky distillers came here from that state.

Mike Veach
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Unread postby gillmang » Tue Jun 20, 2006 12:25 pm

Excellent points Mike. I think today perhaps uncatalogued historical papers are a "market" (in part anyway) whereas before they were lodged more readily perhaps with official repositories, i.e., as a matter of course. Maybe physical and electronic auctions are changing the way records are kept, offered and used. I don't know since archival research and history are specialised areas I don't have expertise in, but this is my sense as an amateur. I think you are right that PA and MY records must be quite voluminous though in this area, probably there is a lot that can be checked especially in trade records.

Gary
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Unread postby bourbonv » Tue Jun 20, 2006 4:39 pm

Gary,
I would like to know if there is a letter or some other document in Pennsylvania similar to the Corlis letter at the Filson that actually mentions charring the barrels. That, unfortunately will take time in the archival institutions of the state.

Mike Veach
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Unread postby bourbonv » Fri Jul 14, 2006 10:52 am

I have a couple of photocopies of early distilling books from London - one printed 1781 and the other 1818. Neither one discuss aging the product at all. The 1818 book even describes how to make Uisquebaugh using herbs for flavor. Clearly they are not talking aged products in the English market.

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Unread postby bourbonv » Tue Jan 23, 2007 7:55 pm

Another thread to move forward for the historical fiction writer.
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