Experts believe that up to 80 percent of a whiskey‘s flavor comes from the time it spends inside a barrel (although the quality of the new make spirit and fermentation obviously play big roles as well). And where those barrels are physically located has an important effect as well—whiskey matures differently in the mild climate of Scotland than it does through Kentucky’s hot summers and cold winters. To further highlight just how climate affects a whiskey’s flavor, two Texas distilleries have conducted some interesting experiments, and the results are telling.
Balcones is a small distillery located in Waco that was acquired by drinks giant Diageo a few years ago. Before that merger, the team decided to see how its American single malt whiskey would react to very different maturation environments. And while they don’t explicitly state this, it seems to be a move to show how the Texas climate uniquely affects the distillery’s whiskey. Barrels filled from the same distillation run were matured in four locations for about 48 months in first floor warehouses that were not climate controlled: Scotland, Washington, Kentucky, and Texas.
The Balcones team performed chemical tests on the whiskeys and put together flavor maps that show how each compound is highlighted on the palate, but that gets a bit in the weeds so we’ll keep things simple here. The whiskey aged in Scotland had notes of honey, toasted nuts, and vanilla; the whiskey aged in Washington had some spice, fruit, and oak; the whiskey aged in Kentucky had an intensity to the flavor profile that was heavy on nutty spice notes; and the Texas climate made the barrels act like a “wooden pressure cooker,” as the distillery terms it, with big notes of dried fruit, caramel, and espresso. For the time being, this whiskey is not being commercially released.
Milam & Greene, located in Blanco, released its experiment in the form of a bourbon called the Answer. The production team traveled to Bardstown to distill bourbon in 2019 using their own yeast strain and mashbill (70 percent corn, 8 percent malted barley, 22 percent malted rye). Like Balcones, the whiskey was aged in two different locations: half in Bardstown, half back in Blanco, all of it in full-size 53-gallon barrels. The Answer is being released as a set of two 375-ml bottles (SRP $150), so you can taste the whiskey for yourself to see how each maturation environment affected it. “The popular hypothesis that the hotter, drier climate significantly differentiates Texas bourbon across the board with higher oak extraction compared to a Kentucky bourbon is a good one, and now you can taste it,” said CEO and master blender Heather Greene in a statement. “I encourage other distilleries in Texas to iterate on our findings, though, and I suspect many will come up with similar results. This is exciting.”
Overall, the consensus seems to be that aging climate does have a big impact on a whiskey’s flavor, which makes sense given the science behind this—whiskey expands when its hot and enters the wood to extract flavors and contracts when it is cold out, sort of a respiration process. Of course there are other factors and variables that should be taken into effect, but if all other factors are equal there are some distinct differences that arise when the same whiskey is matured in places that have different average temperatures and humidity levels. You can find Milam & Green’s the Answer set at select retailers now and at the distillery’s website, and the entire Balcones lineup, which is now focused on American single malt, at ReserveBar.
Authors
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Jonah Flicker