Balcones Single Malt Aging

[jlevac]

I'm curious as too how long Chip is aging his single malt before he releases them? I've just received some various single malts from 2012 and 2013 and i'm impressed at how good such a young product is. I've googled and couldn't really come up with much.

thanks

[Brewer]

I have a pretty good idea how they were doing it about 3 years ago, but not going to share anything private. Those dates you are seeing are most likely the blended / bottled date. The blending is very impressive, rows on rows of glasses from individual barrels. Discussion over which will go together. Disagreement, more discussion. I remember 60 glasses to select 6 barrels for a blend, and that's rounding down. Those numbers are not exaggerated, I'm sure I've seen more out at a time.

Now with all of that new space, barrels are not stacked 5 high. I wonder if they still get sloshed around as much when samples need to be taken. I read that movement is good for the spirit. Imagine every couple of weeks you are handed a list of numbers, trying to find those barrels to draw a sample, write the barrel number on the glass (some of which might have been selected just because they were on the bottom of the stack?) the hunt through a small room filled with barrels, with just enough room to lift one barrel and walk backwards a few steps, elbows hitting other barrels with each step, finally put it down where you can find space, repeat.

Now all of that space - are the barrels still stacked only one high? Where will the interns get their workouts? What about how the spirit benefits from movement?