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Maturation

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Whisky Science

Abstract

Spirits stored in wooden barrels “mature” over time: in addition to color change, certain negative characteristics diminish, and new beneficial characteristics develop. Slight changes occur when spirits are stored in glass bottles, but these are negligible compared to the changes occurring in barrels. Consequently, maturation is intimately related to the chemistry and transport properties of wood.

The finished whisky flows into a spirit vat in the spirit store and is poured into wine-saturated casks where it will mature. The function of these casks – they are generally sherry casks – is often misunderstood. They do not impart qualities to the whisky which it did not possess before, although the action of a saturated cask may be to conceal, under a strong, imported, winey flavour, some defects in an inferior whisky. But the casks give colour to whisky, which in its native state is a wholly colourless liquid. Why this austere achromatism of whisky should be unpopular is not easily to be explained. It may be that the unearthly pallor of the pure and fiery spirit strikes terror into the heart of man, as the whiteness of the whale alarmed Captain Ahab and his ship’s company.

– George Malcolm Thomas, 1930 [473]

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  1. University of California, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Davis, CA, USA

    Gregory H. Miller

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Miller, G.H. (2019). Maturation. In: Whisky Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13732-8_8

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