Misc addition
Bourbon Barrel Oak Cubes
Representative The maker publishes no figures for this product, so these are class-typical values instead.
- Type
- Other
- Added at
- secondary
- Form
- solid
- Formula
- n/a
- Concentration
- sold as the pure compound
- Typical dose
- 2-6 g/L, tasted out rather than timed out
- Timing
- Added to the conditioning vessel and tasted weekly until the oak and the spirit are where you want them, then removed.
Before you use it
Char is not toast: a charred cube leans on caramel, smoke and roast where a heavy-toast cube stays sweet. The residual spirit is real alcohol and it is not sterile — a cube that has been sitting in bourbon carries no infection risk worth worrying about, but the whiskey it releases will nudge the ABV of a small batch.
Description
American oak charred to a genuine barrel char and then soaked in bourbon, so the wood arrives carrying both the char and the spirit. Vanilla and coconut from the oak, caramel and smoke from the char, and a whiskey warmth on top that plain heavy-toast oak cannot give. The staple route to a barrel-aged imperial stout, old ale or strong Scotch ale without a barrel.