[MM-MALTS-L] Sulfurous whisky

[Joe Barry]

Hi Paul and Peter

By coincidence I have just read an article by Jim Murray in his Whisky Bible
2008 on page 8 entitled Bible Thumping - Candles of Misunderstanding wherein
he discusses this very phenomonen. In essence he says sulphur candles are
burned in the sherry butts whilst in Jerez prior to shipment to Scotland
otherwise, according to the Jerez people (and not Jim!), the spoiling of the
wine residue in transit would be quite ruinous to the new spirit filled into
the cask.

Jim is horrified by this practice and points out that firms like Macallan
and Irish Distillers are proactive and make a point of shipping and using
the casks speedily during the colder months with no sulphur being allowed.

All in all a very interesting article and puts forward another angle on the
(increasing) problem of ruined bottles.

Cheers
Joe






On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 11:58 AM, Peter Wood <st.peter at paradise.net.nz>
wrote:

> Hello Paul
>
> No one else has responded to your interesting comments about American oak
> sherry butts being the reason for a decline in sherry bottlings, but I am
> intrigued. I don't know enough about the use of Quercus alba (I guess that
> is what you mean by American oak) casks for sherry, so I can only raise
> questions, not answers. I guess it is common knowledge that organo-sulfur
> compunds are produced from barley protein breakdown during the mashing and
> fermentation process, and that both contact with copper during
> distillation, and oxidative reactions during maturation reduce the
> concentrations of methyl polysulfides to acceptable levels. Also there is
> some acceptance that sterilising sherry butts with sulfur dioxide leads to
> sulfurous flavours that survive maturation (though I've never seen an
> explanation of the chemical processes involved). But how does the light
> charring affect the process - less active charcoal to remove the sulfur
> compounds perhaps? And where does the American v. European oak chemistry
> and wood structure come into play? I'm aware that they provide different
> proportions and type of cask-derived congeners during maturation
> oxidation-ethanolysis, but how does this affect sulfur aroma? I'm not
> suggesting it doesn't, just wondering why and how?
>
> Regards
> Peter wood
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