• Whiskey

  Whiskey without Barrels: Exploring Single Malt Varieties

  Posted by john d on June 27, 2015 at 12:35 am

  I know I have seen it but I cant find it. How can a single malt whiskey be a whiskey without going into Oak barrels, just using wood chips. I did search and looked at standards but didn’t find when you can call it single malt whiskey without a barrel.

  Thanks.

  lenny replied 9 years, 5 months ago 5 Members · 9 Replies
• 9 Replies

• 

  ebstauffer

  Member

  June 27, 2015 at 3:09 pm

  IIRC, you can a label is a “colored and flavored with oak chips / staves / dust /”. I’ll see if I can dig it up.

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  ebstauffer

  Member

  June 27, 2015 at 3:10 pm

  http://www.ttb.gov/rulings/87-3.htm

• 

  dhdunbar

  Member

  June 28, 2015 at 3:15 am

  The above ruling applies to brandy, not whiskey. Whiskey must go into oak barrels. It is part of the standard of identity – 5.22(. It can be whiskey without going into oak only if TTB is asleep at the wheel when they approve the application for label approval. Buy the way, the class for the product is “malt whiskey,” not single malt. Single malt is a Scottish designation, not applicable to American type whiskeys. TTB has not standard that makes a malt a single malt.

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  bluestar

  Member

  June 28, 2015 at 3:06 pm

  The above ruling applies to brandy, not whiskey. Whiskey must go into oak barrels. It is part of the standard of identity – 5.22( . It can be whiskey without going into oak only if TTB is asleep at the wheel when they approve the application for label approval. Buy the way, the class for the product is “malt whiskey,” not single malt. Single malt is a Scottish designation, not applicable to American type whiskeys. TTB has not standard that makes a malt a single malt.

  There is no TTB standard, but they will let you use the term as part of the description if it is otherwise “true”, that is, meets the accepted industry description for the term “single” (one distillery, not blended). There are a number of US whiskies out there with the description “single malt whiskey”, even “single malt rye whiskey”, which is for a malt rye instead of malt barley mash.

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  john d

  Member

  June 30, 2015 at 8:11 pm

  So if I distilled an all malted barley mash / wort soaked it in oak chips. I could bottle it as an American single malt whiskey?

  Thanks for the reply’s.

• 

  dhdunbar

  Member

  July 1, 2015 at 12:08 am

  NO. Capital letters scream! And I resort to exclamation points (!!!!) as well.

  Oak chips do not a barrel make, to paraphrase a poem by Frost.

  You can’t toss oak chips into a malt mash and call the distillate malt whiskey.

  Do not let the provisions of Sec. 19.303 fool you. “A proprietor may add oak chips that have not been treated with any chemical to packages of spirits prior to or after the production gauge,” because (1) that is an addition to spirits; and (2) although you may do it, doing it does not make whiskey.

  You have to put it in a barrel. If you designate it is malt whiskey, it must be a new charred oak barrel. If you designated it “whiskey distilled from malt mash,” it can be a used oak barrel, but it must be a barrel .

  Don’t ask me how long you have to keep it in oak; TTB has made a debacle of that. But you do have to make a truthful statement of how long it was in oak and TTB appears to be trying to recapture territory, that it previously surrendered by default, by now insisting that “Less than one year” is not a sufficient statement. They announced that with some fanfare.

  The only exception to a statement of age is for whiskey stored in oak for more than four years. Any label that contains no statement of age is read to mean the stuff in the bottle was aged in oak for more than four years. If it was not, the omission is deceptive and in violation. My guess is that TTB will be looking at that if they come a-knocking of your distillery door. So, to quote another poet, I’d suggest you “Nevermore” omitting a statement of age on whiskey less than four years old. That means, if you follow the wag who, in answer t to the question,”How long in oak?” offers the seemingly clever response, “How long does it take to roll a barrel across the floor?” be prepared to respond,in turn, with a label that says, “Aged for 24 seconds.”

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  ebstauffer

  Member

  July 1, 2015 at 11:43 am

  Not to be a pedant, but it needn’t be put in a barrel, only in an oak container.

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  bluestar

  Member

  July 1, 2015 at 4:51 pm

  Not to be a pedant, but it needn’t be put in a barrel, only in an oak container.

  Meaning, I presume, it could also be a cask, a barrique, a puncheon, a gorda, a butt, a hogshead, a drum, a pipe, or a blood tub. But, we would think of all of these as “barrels” in the generic sense.

  It does raise an interesting question if someone made a non-traditional oak container: for example, what if a cube (plastic, metal) were lined with oak plank? I presume, so long as the oak was “sealed” the TTB would allow this.

• 

  lenny

  Member

  July 1, 2015 at 10:58 pm

  

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