Unless you’ve been living the last few years with your head buried in the sand, you probably know that in addition to the continuing growth of the craft beer juggernaut, the past hal;f-decade or so has brought with it a renaissance of mixology, with bars and restaurants both embracing classic cocktails and new innovations. Such as, believe it or not, barrel-aged cocktails like Negronis, Manhattans and Blood and Sands.
Seattle bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler was the first to do this, so far as I can figure, and this LA Times article seems to concur on that front. I haven’t been to his or any other barrel-aging bar to date, but the idea has me plenty interested.
Wow, that is interesting!
So you just make a giant batch of a cocktail and then put it in a barrel for a while? I like it.
Incidentally, I had some oak-aged vodka (aged for a few months) a few weeks ago for the first time and was impressed – it was like bourbon without waiting so long!
Yep, that’s basically it, Mark. Makes me wish I had kept one of the mini-barrels a local company was marketing a while back for home-aging small amounts of whisky.
I’ve not yet tasted barrel-aged vodka that has worked for me, although I’ve tried a couple of interesting aged gins.
Coincidentally, I actually put a Manhattan batch into a 5-liter charred white oak barrel on Saturday. Hope I can be patient with it! 🙂
-Steve