BUFFALO TRACE SMALL BARREL EXPERIMENTS A FAILURE

[Luke Gough]

Interesting...

http://www.whiskyintelligence.com/2012/08/buffalo-trace-distillery-announces-small-barrel-experiments-are-failures-american-whiskey-news/

[Good Whiskey Hunting]

Thanks for that Luke, I was wondering how they were getting on with it.
It's still a very interesting piece of research.

[Pudge72]

Thanks for the link. A worthy experiment nonetheless, and something that BT should be commended for at least attempting. Experimentation can lead/has led to some great developments for the industry.

Has there been an Irish whiskey 'quarter cask'-style release (a la Laphroaig or Ardmore)in the past? Is one of the distilleries currently working on one?

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Thanks for the link. A worthy experiment nonetheless, and something that BT should be commended for at least attempting. Experimentation can lead/has led to some great developments for the industry.

Has there been an Irish whiskey 'quarter cask'-style release (a la Laphroaig or Ardmore)in the past? Is one of the distilleries currently working on one?

Yes, Cooley have done some smaller barrels. And I along with 3 other forum members have the pleasure of even owning one.

Even more exciting is that it is one of the first single pot still distillates from the Kilbeggan stills.

It was distilled and casked in 2007. we've tasted it over the last few years and it is coming along nicely but at 5 years still has a way to go. Ours is much bigger though but I do believe they may have smaller ones.

However I think quarter casks over here will behave quite differently than over in the states for 2 reasons.

Firstly new casks (Virgin oak) in the states as opposed to bourbon first fill over here.
Then the temperatures are much more exaggerated in the US than over here.

So it is a much more gentle affair over here I would guess.

[Luke Gough]

John Hansell's thoughts on the subject:

http://www.whiskyadvocateblog.com/2012/08/24/small-barrels-vs-large-barrels-some-perspective/

[Pudge72]

Thanks for the additional info, Adrian. I thought Irish distilleries would get into the "quarter cask" concept a bit since it has been executed well in a similar environment (Laphroaig, Ardmore) in recent years.

Reading the article (and its attached comments) provided by Luke ( ) it would seem to me that BT may have geared the experiment towards seeing if small barrels could produce quality bourbon, while being handled in a "high volume/lower cost" production environment (i.e. fewer checks on the barrels) similar to how BT would operate the rest of their distillery. In that regard, it would seem that the experiment failed, if only because BT did not want to consider making concessions (i.e. much more frequent checks of the barrels) that would seem to be necessary to making the small barrel process a success.