Speaking of Ebay- Anyone else try THIS?

[TCayer]

I bought a 2 liter oak cask on ebay, and use to age my own tequila!

It makes bad tequila good, and good tequila better!

The first batch was about a half a bottle of Partida Blanco, which I aged for about a week. What a difference! The Blanco wasn't bad to begin with, but afterwards- WHOA! Smoother, golden-colored, better-tasting! Then I put in an organic Anejo that I had paid about $50 for. It was good but not outstanding. When it came out 10 days later- MMM! Another triumph! Next went in a bottle of Ultima Anejo which my friend bought at the urging of the liquor store guy- damn him! It was strong with a real heat on the finish. After about 2-2 1/2 weeks in the barrel it was a whole lot better! Much smoother and rich golden brown color. I had a little bit of Scorpion Mezcal which I have in there now. We'll see what that comes out like. I'm wondering if I put Cabo Wabo Anejo in if it would come out tasting like Uno? I've also been tempted to buy Jose Cuervo (shudder) and see what its like after a couple weeks in oak.

According to the guy who sells the casks- due to the small size, a month is equal to a year of a distiller's sized batch. After my few trials I tend to believe it!

[MrAgave]

I did cask aging for a couple of years, but due to evaporation I used the spirals in glass after that. Fun to experiment...

New Tequila Aging Options

[TCayer]

Originally Posted by MrAgave

I did cask aging for a couple of years, but due to evaporation I used the spirals in glass after that. Fun to experiment...

New Tequila Aging Options

"spirals in glass" not familiar with that... and I think the problem with casks is absorbtion into the wood. I also wonder how the saturated insides effect the next batch?

[SPR-GRN]

I'm a homebrewer (beer & wine) and I decided to do this myself. I love good tequila, but don't like to pay for good tequila that often (just dropped a wad on a few bottles of RDLF 2009/2010).
Thanks to a link I found here I ordered a few bottls of a decent tequila (2009 Ocho single estate plata) at a seriously decent price.
One bottle will go in an oak barrel, I have oak chips I'll be adding to one bottle to experiment with, and the third bottle I'll just drink over ice.

Glad someone else has done this and gotten good results.

Roughly how much tequila have you noticed gets "given up to the ghost"?

[MrAgave]

A lot will depend on the humidity in your surroundings, quality of the barrel, length of aging. I lost more than half in a 5 liter barrel on first use, but I live in bone dry Colorado, and left the Tequila in for about 18 months.

Those small barrels are nice to look at, but I wouldn't use them again for aging.

[Paul G]

Remember that smaller-sized barrels will begin imparting oak flavor quickly! This happens because the proportion of surface area of your liquor or wine in touch with the oak sides of the smaller sized barrel is actually greater than in a larger barrel. It takes about a quarter of the time. I wouldn't use wood chips. It can be fun to age your own but remember it will always be better and cheaper to let the big boys do it. But at 12.99 a bottle have fun!

[SeattleJuan]

I agree with Mr. A about the infusion barrel vs. the wood barrel. I bought a 2L Voodoo Tiki barrel from Tequila Joe earlier this year and filled it with a couple of 1L bottles of Cabrito Blanco and had a 3rd bottle for topping the barrel off. Even keeping it constantly wrapped in wet towels for the 2 months or so it was in the barrel, I had to add about 2-300ml to keep the barrel full. Came out tasting fine but the loss is just too much even for tequila that costs $25-30 a liter.

I went the glass infusion barrel route. Got one that holds 4 liters and started using oak spirals, both American and French oak with different toast levels. Put 1 or 2 liters in, get 1 or 2 liters out.

I have done some more Cabrito Blanco, the new El Charro Blanco, 4 or 5 bottles of the new Espolon, an El Tesoro Platinum, Oro Azul Blanco and Sombra Mezcal. The Sombra was really the best as there are not a lot of Anejo Mezcals, Ilegal aside.

One thing I have noticed is it doesn't take much of a spiral maybe 1/5 to 1/6 and the color appears in less than 24 hours though it takes 2-3 weeks for the flavor to mature, so to speak.

[SPR-GRN]

Hmm... 15% loss to the barrel huh.. maybe I'll just age use the chips and see how it turns out before i try the barrel; if the chips are good enough, why bother with the barrel?

I wonder what the difference would be between cubes, chips, and spirals...

aha! maybe another experiment when I get some more "identical" bottles of tequila!!