Whisky matured on oloroso sherry casks and color / coloring

[Thomas Sundblom]

Paul, and other list friends.

For a whisky to become "black" it doesn't have to mature in a dark oloroso cask or equal. Even whisky that is matured in pale sherry casks gets quite dark after a while. It's well known that the european oak has other characteristics than its american sister. One of these things is that it colours the whisky alot more! And it's quite obvious. How could 5-10 liters of sherry darken 500 liters (or more) whisky by its own to be that black? It also well known that newmake from different distilleries got coloured in different ways. 
I have seen and tasted 3 yo Glenfarclas that was matured in sherry butts that was fresh, in that perspective that the wood was in very good shape. The 3yo was dark as 15yo Macallan, although not as redish yet.

So to your question: It's the european wood that do much of the trick, together with the newmake and also the liquid that used cask before.
I recommend  you all to read "Whisky Technology" by Ian Russell. Boring but very educational with lots of "technology" about whisky.

Cheers
Thomas
__________________________________________________________
Thomas Sundblom

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Dejong" <paul_dejong at TELENET.BE>
To: <MALTS-L at LISTS.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE>
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 5:32 PM
Subject: Whisky matured on oloroso sherry casks and color / coloring


> Hi all,
> 
> Since Ralf posted his question on American bourbon casks...
> I would like to post a question regarding a nagging problem that has been
> err...nagging me and a friend of mine for a couple of weeks now.
> A friend of mine -who imports some whisky into belgium- wanted to take
> things a bit further, and wanted to supply some of his own casks, to be
> filled with new-make, to his friends in the industry. Since there have been
> a couple of problems in getting good sherry-butts, he decided to go and
> visit a number of bodega's in spain, in order to buy some casks.
> Naturally he tasted some of the sherry produced in those bodega's...
> When he asked for dark oloroso casks...the only thing he got, was raised
> eyebrows... Seems that oloroso from Jerez, gets no darker (no matter how old
> it gets) than  our "average" 40% (caramelised) marked house whisky (such as
> the 10yo standard Macallan...)...thus, nowhere near as dark as the "dark
> oloroso Ardbeg's" we know, or the black bowmore, or....
> 
> Before his trip, Our (hopefully) logical assumption was that the oloroso,
> which this naturally very dark whisky, matured on... Had to be even
> darker... Because we would find it very hard to understand that the maturing
> whisky could end up being "mahogany" if the original oloroso was -at best- a
> darkish brown...? 
> 
> If there is no oloroso that is virtually black (in Jerez)... What type of
> casks did that dark whisky mature on?
> (mind you, all the bodega's that were visited gave us the same answer...and
> proved it! Jerez Oloroso is far from "almost black"  !! )
> 
> So that leads to my question: How can "oloroso" matured whisky end up being
> nearly black, if the originating sherry is even lighter in colour than a
> thorougly matured single barrel bourbon such as George T. Stagg...(and that
> irrespective of age, and the sherry matured in a solera system)...
> 
> Possible answers:
> 1. since the names of the different types of sherry are a little bit
> confusing... Could it be just a case of mistaken identity? The only 'black'
> sherry he found in Jerez was Pedro Ximinez... Could oloroso be actually
> Pedro X?
> 2. since Jerez is the only region my friend visited (the most logical choice
> since sherry got its name from the region) ...and i assume sherry is not
> exclusively made in Jerez, could it be that oloroso sherry is made elswhere
> in spain (from different grapes?) to a much darker colour? And that those
> butts did not originate in Jerez, but a different region?
> 3. somebody suggested it may have somethig to do with the evaporation...
> (although I find that very unlikely, because i cannot believe it would
> become that dark...)
> 4. maybe it has to do with the wood? Quercus alba is much lighter then
> Quercus robur...  But nowadays most sherry is matured on quercus alba...and
> my friend saw with his own eyes that european oak gives no more colour to
> the sherry than the American white oak... So that seems unlikely to.
> 5 Could it be that the higher alcohol% extracts more colour from the wood?
> I think so...but I doubt it would make that much difference...
> 
> Questions, questions, questions... Who can provide the answers?
> 
> Paul
> 
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