“Fancy” cocktails have made a pretty big surge in the last few years. Personally, if I want to judge the quality of a bar or a bartender, I order an Old Fashioned or a Whisky Sour. These drinks will vary quite drastically depending on how they are made.

At some of the more fancy bars, serving these fancy cocktails, you may have noticed small Oak barrels behind the bar. Sometimes these barrels are not just for show, they are Oak aging, or Oaking, a tasty beverage.

Oaking a cocktail is when a spirit is mixed together in a “large” quantity, and placed in a small oak barrel for a while. *large meaning its making a “batch” of drinks, and not just a single cocktail. This Oaking process adds new complexity and flavor to the cocktails, and can put a new flavor to traditional or classic drinks. Oaking can add a buttery or smokiness to the cocktail blending the flavors of the ingredients. This is because the Oaking process smooths out the “rough” edges of a typically strong cocktail, whilst adding a bit of flavor from the barrel itself.

The main rule of Oaking is that what goes into the barrel must be “all” alcohol. High alcohol spirits tend to work best. This simply means you do not put any juice, soda, mixers, sugar, etc. into the barrel. Don’t worry, if the cocktail calls for it, you add juice, soda, seltzer, etc. at time of consumption.

Howto time. Here is the process to start your own Oaking.

Buy that barrel:

Before you start Oaking, you need to first get a barrel to do the Oaking. They come in multiples of liters. The general rule of thumb is that for each liter, you need to age the spirit for about 4 weeks.

It’s my opinion one liter is the ideal size. If you think it’s too small, get 2. Waiting 2 months for the Oaking process is a long time to wait.

Any barrel you can find on Amazon (or wherever) will probably get the job done.

http://www.amazon.com/American-Barrel-Black-Liter-Gallon/dp/B009FNOIZ6

Prep that barrel:

Your barrel may or may not come with instructions. If it doesn’t, here is some quick guidance:

First, fill the Barrel with water and let is soak for 48 hours. This processes seals the barrel.

Warning: the barrel will leak. You may want to do this in the sink or in a bucket.

Its OK to let the outside of the barrel get wet too.

Since the barrel leaks water, keep refilling it.

After the 48 hours, fill, rinse and empty the barrel a few times. There is likely to be small pieces of wood inside the barrel itself. You don’t want this in your glass.

Fill that barrel:

The barrel is probably not exactly the size you purchased, ie exactly 1 liter. I recommend filling the barrel with water and emptying it into a pitcher to get a more exact measurement of how much it can hold. You want to do this because you want to fill our barrel with the least amount of air as possible.

For your first cocktail, I recommend starting with a Manhattan. This drink is a classic and is likely to impress your palate and your guests. The Manhattan takes Oakiness very well and also “preps” the barrel with good flavor for other recipes.

I prepare my cocktails in a big pitcher first, then use a small funnel to fill the barrel. Make sure the spigot is closed. After the barrel is filled, put the stopper in the top.

Wait on that barrel:

NOW the not so fun part. WAIT!

If you want, you can rotate the barrel a quarter turn every week. I’m not sure this really helps, other than it feels like you are “doing something” whilst waiting.

Each week, taste the spirit to see how it’s coming along. Instead of opening the spigot to get a sip, remove the stopper from the top and insert a straw. Cover the top of the straw to extract a taste and see what you think.

Unbarrel that barrel:

Once the cocktail is ready, you will want to remove it from the barrel and put it back into a glass bottle. If you don’t, you will risk over-Oaking the cocktail.

To remove the cocktail, I find “spigot draining” to be too slow. Instead, take the stopper out of the top. Get your pitcher ready. Open the spigot to give the barrel air flow. Very quickly turn the barrel upside down to empty it from the top into the pitcher.

Bottle it:

Transfer from the pitcher into some old glass liquor bottles. To do this, use a funnel with a piece cheese cloth over it. This is to catch any remaining wood particles.

I like to fill a single 750ml bottle, and put the overflow into something else. Small glass flasks are good storage options, and they also makes a great gifts.

http://www.amazon.com/Tricky-Ricky-200ml-Travel-6-Pack/dp/B019I03VO4

And that’s it. It’s a relatively simple process, and takes about 20 minutes of time, for setup and bottling.

Other notes:

You can use the barrel many times. The cocktail is likely to take the oak flavor a little less each time you use it, so you may want to oak a little longer after each re-use. This is where the weekly tasting becomes important.

I’ve read that some barrels are charred on the inside, and you can re-char the barrel with a blowtorch but I’ve never tried that adventure.

Important! If you are not Oaking a cocktail, leave distilled water in it. If you let it dry out, you will need to reseal it over again. Clean the barrel once every few uses with an Oak Barrel Cleaning Kit, such as one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Oak-Barrel-Cleaning-Kit-2-liter/dp/B00OKPWBH6

The Recipes:

Here are the recipes I’ve made, they’ve all been delicious.

Manhattan

This is classic, delicious, and my most used recipe.

750 ml of Bulleit Rye (bottle)

2 oz Angostura bitters (¼ cup)

7 oz Antica Formula or Dolin Red Vermouth

Negroni

1 part Gin

1 part Red Vermouth (I used Dolin)

1 part Campari

If you want a sweeter version, substitute Aperol instead of Campari

Tequila Based:

You don’t like tequila? Don’t worry. This smooths and Oaks so well.

I serve this recipe over ice, and most people don’t even know the primary ingredient is Tequila!

4 parts Paqui Reposado Tequila (3 cups)

1 part Aperol (¾ cup)

1 part Sweet Vermouth, Antica formula (¾ cup)

Gin Based:

I don’t know what this drink is actually called, but a good friend of mine introduced me to this, and its great. Its just a bit sweeter than the others.

4 parts Gin (Beefeater) 3 cups

1 part Luxadro, ¾ cup

1 part Amaro (Ramazzotti) ¾ cup

Vodka Martini:

Although I prefer Martinis with Gin (since thats the real way to make a Martini) I tried this cocktail with Vodka. Vodka absorbs the oakiness very fast, so only age for 7–12 days at max.

4 parts vodka (Stolley) (750 ML bottle)

1 part vermouth (Noilly Prat) ~187 ML

Here are a couple of links I had saved. I had more saved, but now the sites are gone.

http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/barrel-aged-cocktails

http://theproper.com/barrel-aged-cocktails/