Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 34
Dave & Will Hoffman
of Lonely Oak
Distillery. The open-air
rickhouse provides
great ventilation,
thing that we don't change in whiskey, it seems like.
We change the ingredients, we change the mash
bill, we change the yeast, we change how long you
age it-but for some reason people get hung up on
the size of the barrel-and historically, the sizes of
barrels have changed throughout history."
Hoffmann believes that the brouhaha over barrel
size indicates that the industry sees small craft distilleries as a threat. He points to a 2018 TTB proposal
that a barrel for aging bourbon be defined as a
"cylindrical oak drum of approximately 50 gallons
capacity" (emphasis added).
"What that would've done is to take all the craft
distilleries who use small barrels off the market," he
says. "To me, it's part of the craft, it's part of what
makes us special and what also allows us to make
different products, different flavor profiles."
He also notes that bourbon used to be barreled
at a much lower proof. "I think being able to explore
and to find new and unique flavor profiles, not only
from the grain-we use heirloom grain-and the
yeast and the barrel proofing, but also the barrel
size-trying to standardize that, one size, pigeonhole
the industry, does a disserve to the art, to the craft.
We proudly use small barrels."
However, he adds, "I'll probably get some 53s
just to fill them because I'm going to want to know
what my bourbon would taste like in 53s. I'll never
know until I try."
Iowa Legendary Rye uses smaller barrels, too, but
for an entirely different reason.
"We go to painstaking measures to make [our
rye] the way it was made in '32," Schneider says,
which means using quarter casks, i.e., 15-gallon barrels. For bootleggers like Lorine Sextro, "The purpose of the quarter cask was that it's easier to run
with it-you know, get out of Dodge. ... So in the
Templeton area, where my family hails from ... they
never used anything other than 15-gallon barrels."
Schneider adds: "We find that it ages the spirits
a little more quickly, and it comes out with great
flavor. It's a Minnesota white oak barrel and we've
just had immense success with that application."
WAREHOUSING, FROM CLIMATECONTROLLED TO NATURE'S WHIMS
Barrel storage runs the gamut, too.
Templeton Rye uses a modern warehouse. "We
have great air movement in our warehouse," says
Brown, and "six of those Big Ass Fans." That's good
for the aging of whiskey as it allows air flow, he says,
but especially for safety. "The barrel warehouse is
set up to monitor the LEL [Lower Explosion Limit]
34 IOWA SPIRITS
LONELY OAK DISTILLERY
level of the building, to ensure that the alcohol expiring out of the barrels doesn't risk an explosion."
Other Iowa distilleries, including Cedar Ridge,
Iowa Distilling, and Lonely Oak, let Mother Nature
work her magic.
"That's one thing that we kind of consider a key
differentiator," says Murphy Quint, head distiller at
Cedar Ridge. "We age all of our whiskey in non-climate-controlled environments. Some are literally
outside; others are in barrel sheds with no insulation.
... We take advantage of rapidly fluctuating temperatures in state of Iowa ... [which] causes magic
to happen inside that barrel. As the temperature
gets hotter, everything naturally starts to expand.
So the wood will start to expand and become more
porous. All the whiskey will then seep into it a little
bit. And then as it gets colder again, everything will
start to contract, and it becomes less porous and
squeezes it back out. So it causes a lot of movement
inside of that barrel, and that's exactly what we
want."
The open-air rickhouse at Lonely Oak offers similar benefits. "We have good ventilation," Hoffmann
says, "and we have a few other tricks that we use
that we're not ready to divulge yet, [but] there's no
chemistry or anything like that involved."
"We move our barrels about quite a bit," says
Schneider. "We feel like moving them is good and
conducive for working all of the wood since you get
a little bit of evaporation, a.k.a. angel's share, as you
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - Cover1
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - Cover2
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 3
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 4
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 5
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 6
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 7
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 8
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 9
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Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 21
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Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 44
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 45
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - 46
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - Cover3
Iowa Fall 20-Winter 21 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/leisuremedia360/leisure/iowa-fall-winter-2022-2023
https://www.nxtbook.com/leisuremedia360/leisure/iowa-spring-summer-2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/leisure/2021Q4IowaSpirits
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/leisure/2021Q2IowaSpirits
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/leisure/IowaFall20Winter21
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/leisure/2020Q3IowaSpirits
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/leisure/2019Q4IowaSpirits
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/leisure/Iowa_Spirits_SpringSummer_2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/leisure/Iowa_Spirits_FallWinter_2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/leisure/Iowa_Spirits_Vol1_2018
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com