Make Your Own Bourbon! Part 1
Artist's rendition of our new booze-making enterprise. I'm the fat one who looks like The Skipper from Gilligan's Island standing next to the cowboy overcompensating with a Tommy gun.
That's right folks. We're going into the booze-making business and NOBODY CAN STOP US, SEE? Look out Maker's Mark! Watch your back Buffalo Trace! The Boozebloggers are coming for you...very, very slowly. WITH THESE!
It's not the size that matters. It's how you booze it.
Yep, we're making our own Bourbon! ....1 liter at a time.... (At this rate you should see Boozeblogger Bourbon on the shelves sometime before the economy improves...haha...get it?)
We found these little beauties online at Oak Barrels Ltd which is run by a nice lady from Texas named Cinda who sells barrels like these to people who want to conduct mad-scientist-like "boozeperiments." Oak Barrels Ltd sells new, charred oak barrels at a VERY reasonable price which you can use to age your own spirits and to make other cool things like homemade wine, vinegars, and cider. WE immediately saw their potential for both personal Bourbon creation and future world domination...it's just the kind of guys we are.
We're not going to give away our super secret bourbon recipe just yet. But suffice it to say that it will include LARGE amounts of vodka...and that's just for the planning phases. Before we get to all that though we want to walk you through the first steps toward creating your own personalized booze with these barrels.
Step 1. Curing the barrels
Just like a full-size whiskey barrel these little guys are made up of a series of "staves" which are really just planks made from Oak. The staves are laid into a pattern and then forced together by pure pressure. Only then are the six galvanized hoops you see around the outside applied. There is NO glue involved in the making of these barrels at all, their ability to hold spirits without leaking comes ONLY from pressure. This is why you have to "cure" the barrels with hot water before using them. The hot water causes the staves to expand just enough to close off any gaps that might have existed. Oak Barrels Ltd orders their barrels on a weekly basis from a third generation cooper which means your barrels have usually been made within the same month you ordered them and they rarely have ANY problems with leakage. Which means you can keep those greedy, drunken angels from getting a drop!
What you'll need.
OF COURSE I didn't do this in my bathroom...That would just be weird...Pay no attention to that toilet-paper roll...
Another handy feature you get from Oak Barrels Ltd is the miniature wooden stand. Without it filling these little things would be damn near impossible. The next part is the hardest: like the grape-eating wino said to Mitch Hedberg - "you have to wait." But not for very long. We just filled our barrels and we're pretty sure there is no leakage happening at all. (That or we're just so excited to be making our own hooch that we're hallucinating.) Oak Barrels LTD actually has a replacement policy for any barrels that leak for more than a 7 days but, like I said, it probably won't take anywhere NEAR that long before you can get down to business. After you're SURE the barrels aren't leaking anymore you can drain the water and fill them with your favorite spirit. (One of the best things we've heard of is buying a cheaper Blanco Tequila and aging that. Since these barrels are so very small it won't take any time at all. One person we know of said it only took about a WEEK to go from Blanco to a Reposado-like aging...see here)
NOW WE WANT YOUR HELP! Do you know about bourbon making or any other kind of home brewing? Leave us a comment and some bright ideas about what we could do with these barrels. We've got some idea about how we're going to (hopefully) create a nice bourbon but we're really just making this up as we go along. So pass this link around to your friends on the interwebs and let us know if you come up with any good ideas. We'd really love to have some input from you guys (and girls) about what goes into these things.
IF YOU HAVEN'T YET...go check out Oak Barrels Ltd. We are just a small website and the owner, Cinda, has been really nice to provide us with these barrels and the chance to create something unique to share with all of you. We wouldn't push these things if we didn't believe in the product. Just so you know, nobody has ever paid us a dime to say nice things about them on this site. We just love supporting small businesses and the people behind them and we really love the idea of making our own spirits.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!
OH! And check out this awesome video about how bourbon barrels like these are made!
Make Your Own Bourbon: Part 3 – Midnight Hobo
Ladies and Gentlemen, I proudly present to you...Midnight Hobo. It's been a long and lonesome road, but my bourbon journey is finally complete. Actually it was complete awhile ago, but I've only recently been able to sit down with some good fellows (friends, not mobsters) and get an unbiased impression of my booze creation. The name is inspired by my favorite webcomic of all time: Questionable Content (which does not need a link because it gets 1 billion hits a day but YOU should go there anyway because it's brilliant.) In said comic the voluptuous and sometimes-secretly-southern Faye requests a cheap, manly bourbon, a harsh bourbon, the kind of bourbon that knocks your socks off and then puts them back on for you again - Midnight Hobo. I first read this comic back in 2004 and we are just now getting a peek at the bottle - not quite the way I pictured it but I'm ok with that.
I know it doesn't look it, but this was VERY exciting for me.
The bottling took place about 7 weeks after our second post. Now, that isn't an exact time for aging your bourbon in a 1 litre casks - it's just when I felt mine was done. If you want to try this I suggest tasting your bourbon at least once every few days because with such a small cask it can get past it's prime very quickly. At first I thought I might have let it age a little bit too long because right out of the cask it tasted incredibly harsh, but after repeated tastings I think 7 weeks was just about right for me. The "angels share" (alcohol evaporation) wasn't too bad either. I started out with 1 litre of liquid and ended up with just enough to fill a 750ml bottle. I'm pretty happy with that.
Both distinctive AND classy.
So what does it taste like? Since I can't actually give you a taste I have to compare it to the other whiskeys I have on hand. I tried to pattern my recipe at least somewhat after Maker's Mark because it's one of my favorite brands. The level of flavor is actually quite similar to Maker's 46 (which is aged longer than the original with charred oak staves) but what it really reminds me of is a stronger and more flavorful Evan Williams. I'm actually quite happy with that. Evan Williams, in my opinion, betters a lot of more expensive brands and I think Midnight Hobo is actually a step above E.W. Yes, I completely and totally biased in this assessment, but some impartial parties who tried it agreed with my conclusions...to a point. The consensus from our little tasting was that Midnight Hobo is a bit harsh (something you'd want to drink with a bit of water), but that it was packed with flavor. It doesn't work nearly as well as Evan Williams as a mixing whiskey but was the clear choice for something you'd sit down, enjoy and contemplate. Since it's something like 100 proof, I'm willing to take the harsh statement, but I still think it works great in a Manhattan.
This was an awesome experience and something I'll definitely try again. I think the total cost for this project was somewhere in the neighborhood of $60. But who can put a price on having a whiskey you designed and aged yourself sitting on your bar? I highly recommend designing your label and giving it a name like I did - it really completes the experience. A special thanks goes out to the guys over at the homedistiller.org forums who helped with the recipe and gave us so many great comments on all our posts. If you're looking for a gift for the Whiskey lover in your life a barrel like the one we used from Oak Barrels LTD. is a great idea. Next time: Tequila!
Ten points to the first man who can name that Hobo.
12 Drinks of Christmas: #3 Egg Nog
Some people say that if you don't like egg nog then you've never had it home-made. I say, "if you don't like egg-nog you probably tried to make it at home once and completely EFFED it up." I hate to post a drink recipe that I was unsuccessful at turning into a tasty beverage but I'm not really the best chef, so maybe you'll have better luck.
Here's what I was working with:
- 4 egg yolks
- 1/3 cup sugar, plus 1 tablespoon
- 1 pint whole milk
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3 ounces bourbon
- 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
- 4 egg whites*
This is Alton Brown's recipe and while Alton is definitely one of my favorite cooking personalities, I'm not sure he really knows what he's doing here. There's no vanilla (which I really like and would have expected) and not all that much sugar in the recipe either. The biggest selling point of making it fresh, for me, was that Alton told me I could make ice cream out of it. Wrong. Didn't work. You suck, Alton. You can find the full episode (and a better guide than I could type) for this recipe here and here. Just keep it under your hats or Food Network is going to shut us down.
There are about a hundred different videos on youtube with recipes for egg nog. This is by far the best one I've found, if only for the sheer massiveness of it's host.
Chef Paul
Please notice that Chef Paul Prudhomme is sitting through this entire clip. Asking him to stand for 90+ seconds at a time is simply out of the question because the man is so incredibly fat. After eating his own cooking for 50+ years the man has gotten so fat that he is now, in fact, bulletproof. You read me right, Chef Paul's layers of pure unadulterated butter-fat may have in fact saved his life in 2008 when a stray .22 caliber bullet struck his now impervious exterior. He is 70 years old now and the fact that this man is not dead yet suggests that his sheer defiance of all things healthy has caused God to grant him immortality, just to screw with skinny people.
Here's the facts boys and girls: If you simply add a few ounces of Bourbon to your favorite "Carton O' Nog" (a 3-1 ratio ought to do it) and a little fresh nutmeg and you can save yourself about an hour of hassel and possible food poisoning. Win, win, win.
Yes, I Know, I'm WAY Behind...More Drinks Coming Throughout the Day. AND LOTS MORE CAPITAL LETTERS!
Make Your Own Bourbon: Update #2
So it's been about 1 month and 1 week since I laid down my super not-so-secret recipe. I've been tasting it here and there, as well as taking a bit out every few days to check the color and I think it's coming along nicely...but not quite there yet. I'm thinking she needs another few weeks in the barrel to mellow. I'm not sure how much I'm loosing to the angels. But if I'm able to get a full bottle (750ml) from the liter I put in I'll be happy.
One thing I can say: At this point it's a harsh Son-of-a-Bitch. There's some good flavor happening, but the 50% ABV kicks like a mule. I'm thinking the final product will be best consumed with a bit of water. I DO have a name for it...but we'll save that for later...it's going to be a tribute to my favorite web-comic. IF anyone can guess the name before I get it done I will send you a small prize...maybe even a taste.
I'm planning to go the whole nine yards with it: give it its own name, bottle, make a cool label - everything. All in all, if this thing comes out drinkable I'm calling it a success. Stay tuned for the bottling process. Should be up sometime in the next few weeks.
P.S. to our loyal readers. Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I'm a bit pre-occupied with the other parts of my life at the moment. (I know, lame. Adulthood blows, right?) But I promise we'll be back up to full steam in the coming weeks. Take this time to leave us a comment about were you'd really like to see us go in the near future. We'll probably listen to it...maybe!
365 Drinks a Year: #43 The Washington Apple
Drank so much alcohol he didn't ever have to brush his teeth.
It's Presidents' Day. What does that mean to you? NOTHING. Because poor schmucks like you and me still have to go to work, and we have to deal with a 1000% increase in little kid noise wherever we go. The only solace we have is to drink away our sorrows in honor of the founder of modern dentures, President George Washington.
The Washington Apple
2 parts Apple Liqueur
2 parts Bourbon
2 parts Cranberry Juice
Ok, normally this drink uses Canadian Whiskey. What the fuck is that about? Even if the only Apple Liqueur you can find is Sour Apple Pucker© at least have the decency to make this drink with an American Whiskey.
Actually now that I think of it, I don't think I know of any other apple liqueur. If anyone knows a good one leave it in the comments. Thanks.
365 Drinks a Year: #27 Whiskey of Curacao
This drink, like, makes you feel gooooooooooooooooooooooooooood. Yep.
This drink is another Boozeblogger original and one of my personal favorite drinks that I make at home. The ingredients are exact, important, and not easy to find, so you might not be able to get this at your local bar but a high-end establishment might be able to whip one up for you. The reason it's difficult to find is because one of the main ingredients, Curacao of Curacao, is not yet widely available and that particular liqueur is what makes this drink special. I haven't had a chance yet but I'd really like to try this out with some top-shelf bourbon and see how it fares.
Whiskey of Curacao
1 1/2 oz Bourbon (if you've got it, use the good stuff)
1/2 oz Curacao of Curacao
Twist of Lemon
2 cherries
The idea of this drink is to highlight the flavors not only of the unique Curacao of Curacao but also of whatever bourbon you're drinking. Notice that the proportions of the recipe have only a small portion of the Curacao, this is because it will easily overwhelm your bourbon and make the drink too surgery. You're trying to add another dimension to the bourbon, not make it into an orange soda. The lemon peel adds an extra citrus note to the aromatics and the cherries....well, I just like cherries. Judging by how much my vision is currently blurring I can say that, though not too crazy, this drink still packs a punch.