will

...just reading about this now... No, Jonathan, not in tabular form. The reference I'm reading was recommended to me by Bill Owens, and it's right here...in chapter 7: Maturation and Blending. Whisky: Technology, Production and Marketing Handbook of Alcoholic Beverages series Edited by Inge Russell Academic Press © 2003, Elsevier Ltd. This book covers Scotch whisky, but the info applies to other matured spirits as well. As Ben said above, any number of factors will affect the outcome. Clearly among those are (1) the original constituents (type of wood, depth of char, spirit strength, etc.), (2) Time, (3) Temperature & temp cycles, (4) wood surface to spirit volume ratio, (5) internal barrel pressure, (6) permeability of the barrel (evap. of spirit (etoh & h2o) and ingress of o2), and (7) Humidity. from pp221: "Scotch whisky maturation Maturation can be viewed as the specific combination of one type of distillate with any one type of cask leading to the development of a flavour profile relative to time (Philp, 1986). Modern analytical techniques have been used to identify an increasing number of reactions that take place during whisky maturation. Most of these reactions are identified by chemical changes, and their influence on the sensory properties of a mature spirit has not been clarified." (my emphasis) Another interesting observation, from pp 212: "while maturation of a Scotch malt whisky in a new charred oak cask may produce a well-matured whisky, it may not be readily identifiable as a Scotch (Clyne et al., 1993) Big producers have dozens of casks to blend from, even from a single year. This means that they can make corrections for unbalanced flavor profiles, while micro-distillers are forced to hit the nail on the head with each stroke of the hammer. You might want to consider a few tests in Mason jars with some of the toasted stave products available. This will allow you to get some ideas while working in small volumes. Don't expect to be able to duplicate a 30 year old Ardbeg in only a few weeks...it doesn't work that way! will

I suggested a similar question to a producer, but I asked about his variable costs. He reckoned it was about $0.50/gallon for a whiskey wash containing part corn. Presuming he's already in revenue and his fixed costs are covered, he may be willing to sell it as low as $0.65/gallon in your tanks...but I'd be prepared to pay more. Even at $1.00, it's far below what your costs would be if you didn't already have the physical plant. will

I think you've nailed it, Sonja. It behaves like one of the sites you've mentioned. In the forums section http://www.burningstill.com/?q=forum there are only 15 TOTAL posts. It appears to read RSS news and capture anything related to distilling. Check this: http://www.burningstill.com/?q=node/55 (don't forget to note the date of publication). Will