Cocktails Drink Recipes |
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The Angel's ShareMistery of the Dakness. By Christian Perez. The Second chapter. Close your eyes, think, get inspired, start reading, the second chapter .. welcome. Christian Perez. Why oak? Originally it was for practical and economic reasons. Oak was cheap, Europe and eastern North America had lots of it. It didn’t rot easily, it was free of knots, durable and easy to work with. Other woods were and are used as well, notably chestnut. But oak has it all. Ageing in oak actually improves spirits. The alcohol leeches out tannins ( for colour) . celluloses, ( sweetness) and flavoroids ( vanilla, caramel , etc ) from the wood, especially in the first one to three years in new wood. In which respect , size matters; casks of around 200 litres capacity optimize the the contact of spirits and wood. And oak is fractionally porous to water and oxygen molecules and that is vital . That´s the angel´s share ? Absolutely I love talking about the angel´s share. A percentage of the alcohol and water content of the spirits passes through the oak annually between 3-5% in Europe, 10% in the Caribbean, much more than that in the first one two years. But alcohol molecules are larger than water ones. So the spirit´s water content reduces faster than the alcohol, especially in warmer conditions. Cooler ones give fruitier, less oaky tastes. Meanwhile the oxygen filtering back into the cask slowly oxidizes the contents ; H2O breaking down and forming new chemicals bonds, and therefore complex new flavours.
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