The name of this story should really be “What Happens When You Cross a Bourbon Barrel, a Sherry Cask, a Stout Barrel and a Irish Whiskey Barrel?” but, that’s just way too long. This is a graphical story of what happens when a whiskey master distiller and a brewery master distiller meet in a bar and hatch a plan to experiment.
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The story is actually quite simple, you take a used whiskey barrel, send it to spend 2 to 6 months holding stout beer then send it back to the whiskey distillery to hold some whiskey one more time. The result is a unique product called Caskmates. Not sure exactly how you could identify the age of these spirits. I’m sure TTB would have a field day trying to identify the age on this whiskey. Is there such a mark as “Not BIB”?
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What came out was greater than the sum of their casks, a new product called Jameson Caskmates with new flavors of cocoa, coffee and hops picked up from the stout.
You can step through the “What Happens Inside a Barrel” infographic below to see the entire process. I expect to see lots more experiments like this as distillers and consumers curiosity for new and different spirits continue to grow.
