How to use Cocktail Aging Barrels from the Cocktail Dudes

hey I'm Jeff and I'm Phil in or the cocktail dude today we're talking about cocktail aging barrels that's right yes we have our full collection here well then we have one little smaller that we currently in the basement this is 20 litres is puppy here by having 1/4 gallons all right 10 litres 5 litres and 3 litres yep the 3 liter one that's going to be your most common one for using around the house and they have it on your kitchen countertop right experimenting with all right you think I hear if you're a bar or if you're having a lot of people over for a party right we've used this guy once right and let me tell you it holds a lot of liquor that's a good party so what we're gonna do today is talk a little bit about barrels kind of barrel management and what they have to offer right so you in aging cocktails in the barrel you're gonna get a metal or a cocktail you're gonna get the harsh alcohol edges are gonna be rounded then you're gonna get the characteristics from the oak so little oakiness a little vanilla which is natural from oak and the character from whatever was in the barrel previously that's right right now these real barrels that we get from barrels online.com mm-hmm right let me say that because people are curious but we didn't get these for free right now we didn't just like everything else we pay for everything ourselves and we don't get anything for free so if we're plugging something that's not because people are giving us free stuff it's just cuz we like it and I think they're reasonably priced what you look for in a barrel is thick oak all right of course you want the seams tight we'll talk about that a little bit later okay you want to charge on the inside this has sort of a medium char and that's kind of what the inside of the barrel looks like once you get it rinsed out you'll see so that's sort of the amount of char on these barrels and nice you know pace seems okay that's right okay you also you don't want it barn because you want it to be able to breathe right so and that's what makes barrel-aged cocktails fun it's when the liquid inside the barrel goes in and out of the wood and that's what gives it a flavor like the footman barrels in Kentucky or the Scotch barrels in the highlands it's the the variation in humidity and temperature that makes things mix the contents go in and out of the wood yep and that's why you mentioned we have one right now down in the basement we put that down there because that's the climate it's going to vary a lot more yep if you just leave it in your house it's very temperature control there isn't a lot of variance so that's not gonna allow it to go in and out yeah we are a little contrarian as to a lot of things right we we believe is sticking these in your garage yeah all right and let them fluctuate with the humidity and the temperature and that's where you're gonna get the most flavor now a small barrel like this you're gonna start noticing the difference at about 30 days if you're using the monster here it's gonna take about a month and a half or so that's right so plan your parties wait I've got fun you know fill one up and just taste it every day every five days is sort of fun to watch it evolve if you get to a spot where you're saying hey this is really good then you can Bob up we have these little six and a half ounce bottles and we'll show you how to do that he's a bottle it cap it and put it in your refrigerator that empties out your barrel so you can start another round right it won't keep aging in the bottle but it does open up your barrel for other things and you get to keep that flavor that you like so much and you want to keep track of what is in your barrel and the history of your barrel because what you have in there is gonna seep into the wood and flavor it and if you put something different in the barrel next time it's gonna hand that right this guy here has had two Negroni bees in it and then we switch to a martini so you only tastes in the groaning when you're tasting the martini but you have sort of a hint of it a little bit of bitterness a little bit a bit of sort of extra depth to it which adds interest and fun right it's one experiment over two another great way to add a little more complexity to a lot of different cocktails yeah now when they make a barrel of course they put the hoops on the front part first turn it upside down charred on the inside and then put the button in all right then they drill the holes in the top and the front so when you get these things they're gonna be filled with sawdust right so the first thing you have to do just rinse them out and you do that at the sink you plug the bottom hole with your finger and then fill it up with warm water you slosh it around a bit and then turn it over and let it pinky out up the top hole and all the saw this and it's a charge wood that are free and that you don't want in your drinking to come out and then just repeat that as necessary until the water you put in the barrel looks like the water this coming out right with the small barrel it takes about two rinses but this big guy like four or five times but just not that hard to do I mean this thing gets heavy but just do it and then when it's clear you're good okay and you put the spout in the bottom hole and tap it in firmly with the hammer and then you're set now what most people recommend is fill it up with water because every barrel is going to leak a little bit we've got a few that haven't leaked but when they do make they're gonna leak around here around the head or off course on the back on the bus at that seam occasionally they will leak along the sides but that's that's more uncommon but we don't believe in adding water I mean the idea you add a liquid it will get drawn into the wood the wood will expand and all the seams will become really tight yeah but the problem is is now you have that water in the wood so it's gonna water down whatever you put in there yeah so it's worth a little bit of leakage to not water down the cocktails yeah so we after it's clean we will put the cocktail mixture straight in there and it's gonna leak and it's gonna stain a little bit if it leaks out you're gonna have a Campari stain or a sweet vermouth stain all right but that doesn't bother us right now it's like seeing a Jeep and mud on it just like hey all right way to go guy you're craving nothing like supposed to so this is holy night you know for holding cocktails and if you're do you want if you want to keep it nice and pretty then soak it with water it will water it out a little bit but that's you know it's it just I don't know that it's really noticeable but it sort of is in our psyche yeah you know that's right I don't know it's there so that's the trick now in between when you're the bureau's empty and you're gonna fill it with something else you want to just sterilize it a little bit so you think your big this is a five liter beaker so five liters of warm water 1 teaspoon of citric acid she didn't get at your baking store or down easily by the canning aisle in your supermarket right and we use that it's preservative we use that in some of our syrups like our following and stuff so you just pour a teaspoon of citric acid in the water stir that to get it mixed up and then just pour it into your freshly in feed barrel and then you stake it around for about five minutes and that will just get any mold or anything in there knock it out now if you're using you know high-proof spirits you're not gonna have as much of a problem as if you're using wine or aging beer or if you have some sort of fruit juices in there like lemon juice and lime juice but you're really going to get things going moldy but since you can't see in there you don't really know so rinse it out with a citric acid washed dump it out and then rinse it with water dump that out then when you're ready to go again yeah and it should affect the flavor because you're not leaving it in there to get soaked into the wood so just rinsing everything out of there all the flavors that could be trapped in the wood they're not gonna be affected yeah and if you're gonna store a parallel for a long time without using it you don't wanna keep you do want to keep some liquid inside it about a quarter of the way full of liquid just to keep the seams tight otherwise you can it'll get loose and the new barrels will slip this line and you don't right alright so that's the key thing put it on your shelf enjoy it watch it evolve drink it until it's empty and refill it again or if you want you can bottle it up pour some in to your bottle label it cap it keep it chilled in the refrigerator you can have an barrel-aged cocktail at any time that's right alright so there's the tools of technique video on barrel-aging cocktails enjoy Cheers you

Channel: cocktaildudes

Views: 51,754

Keywords: cocktaildudes, cocktail dudes, cocktail, cocktails, dude, guys, dudes, best, martini, recipe, how, to, make, classic, alcohol, history, drink, how to make, cocktaildudes.com, original, How-to (Website Category), aged, aging cocktails, Negroni (Beverage), boulevardier, manhattan

Id: iH4mPZhhau8

Length: 9min 15sec (555 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 20 2014