StillSmart

I recently received some American White Oak dominoes and wasn't in a hurry to use them as I've tried them before and was very suspicious of the rapid results they produced which, to be completely open, left the spirit tasting like an over sweet essence treated spirit.

The dominoes I received this time are slightly different. I can actually smell the rich, vanilan laid, sweetness of the wood from a couple of feet away. Add to that the fact that the dominoes are completely uniform in their colour, even the end grain.

I buy seasoned American White Oak planks from a specialist supplier. I cut and toast the Oak myself but the dominoes I produce never, and I mean NEVER, smell as rich and sweet as these dominoes and the colour always has variations. The only time my AWO dominoes are the same colour all over is when they come out of the Whisky.

This means either the one I was sent as a sample/gift are the real thing and I'm wasting my time toasting my own or it's the other way round.

Anyone else had this experience?

AidanMac

It sounds to me like they have been soaked in something. I've toasted oak before and never had it smell like that or that strongly.

Mine make whole room smell if I leave the bag open. I would expect home and cooper toasting to produce different things but......

Hi there!

At least I can tell you, that our products are not "soaked" in anything - or flavored in an artificial way. I have pointed out many times now, that Suber Lefort is the manufacturer of our oak adjuncts and they do it mainly for the wine industry a very tightly controlled business. There is no place for artificial flavours there, it has to be all natural.

But I also can tell, that they are very skilled in what they do, every product is made to fit a special flavour profile, they don't simply char or toast, they do it in many different styles. They choose their wood varieties, cuts, size of the bits, mixes of different wood and so on, to achieve this outcome. So just cutting and charring or toasting is not sufficient. Sorry to say that. There is more to it and Suber Lefort is the most skilled and advanced company to do so. We are very happy to have them for our special distilling oak adjuncts line.

Best regards,

To be clear, the ones I've received came from the US and not from SD

My last order from SD did arrive with two sample bags of American White Oak No 1 and a No 2 but I haven't gotten around to them yet. They'll have to wait until my next batch of All Grain spirit is ready, prob, end of June

However, having read through Suber Leforts' website I did note their product is designed for use with wines so I'll have to wait and see how they perform with grain whisky

Loking at SD's pricing I see that their lowest cost American White Oak No 4 Blocks, would cost me €24.48 per Kg incl VAT (not including shipping)

Compared to my current cost of American White Oak, (seasoned but untoasted) at €7.35 per Kg incl VAT. This has doubled from two years ago apparently because of the weak Euro.

That's a huge difference per Kg for someone else doing the prep & toast. More than three times the price

At the other end of the scale SD's American Oak No 3 Blocks cost a whopping €42.93 per Kg incl VAT

For those of us making Whisky and ever striving to improve what we make, learning how to produce good quality toasted Oak should, in my opinion be a high priority for our Research & Development Dept.

In the meantime, it is good to know that we have a supply of reliable quality available from a known supplier.

well, I answered, because someone else had also doubts... that's why...



Yes, toasting it at home may be cheaper but not everyone likes to have the perfume of freshly toasted oak in the house - but it is a high quality product with clear flavour profiles and we sell in small 100g batches too - so everyone can try some and not have to purchase the whole kg.

Later on we will also have very reasonable priced 5kg sized packs for the professionals or those, who nearly are and shipping is free for you in the UK or Ireland over 100EUR without tax.

I've not even tried mine yet, got some SD french oak no4, it was a gift with an order, thank you Sunshine Im gonna make some rum next week got the strip ready to go and it might be going on the the oak for a month depending on how the rum turns out!

If it's a good white rum in the middle cut, I'll keep it and only age the other cuts on oak, all depends on how it turns out.

I'm tempted to go down the Bacardi route and age it all for a while, then carbon filter it to remove the colour.