American distilleries age their barrels of whiskey stacked on “ricks” in buildings called “rick houses.”
But McLaughlin Distillery in Sewickley Hills is sending out some barrels to age in, among others, Mike’s house, Jim‘s house and Jen’s house.
Customers across the region and the state have jumped at the chance to buy the little distillery’s new Age Your Own Bourbon kits. They include a new, charred white oak barrel and enough unaged, clear distilled malt spirits to fill it up and keep it topped off while it ages into bourbon over several years.
“Of course, they have to have enough self control to stay out of it,” says owner and distiller Kim McLaughlin.
He’s selling a 2.5-gallon barrel package for $747, a 5-gallon barrel package for $1,459.72 and a 10-gallon barrel package for $2,739.44 (all plus tax), and says customers can save money on the booze by doing the aging at their own homes.
This is a new wrinkle on something he started doing shortly after he opened six years ago: He allows customers to name a barrel, which he ages at the distillery for up to four years, and then that customer has the option to buy as many bottles of it as he or she wants to. (And what they don’t buy, he sells to other customers.) He has about 200 such barrels on hand now, and not a lot of room for more. Two of them he’s keeping for his own granddaughters, whose names and birthdates are written on the barrels, until they turn 21.
“We’re always evolving,” he said. “It’s just an accumulation of ideas.” He previously tried something like this with used barrels, but most of those are scooped up by breweries, wineries, even maple sap producers. New barrels seem more appealing to customers, who so far this year have purchased about 20 of the kits to age at homes as far away as Philadelphia. (McLaughlin will ship across the state.) He’s planning to promote the kits as a Father’s Day gift.
Federal law prohibits him from selling barrels with the spirits in them. Everything he sells must be in properly labeled bottles. But, he explains, “Once you leave here, what you do with it is your business,” and so customers can pour their bottles of this “white” whiskey — literally labeled “Moonshine” — into their barrels and let it transform into something with a lot more color and flavor.
Mr. McLaughlin tells them it’s best to keep the barrels in a place, such as a garage, where the temperatures fluctuate and never get too hot or too cold, so the spirits can work in and out of the wood. He also tells them to expect to lose some of the liquid to “the angels” as the oak, especially when new, will soak up a lot of it, and some will evaporate into the air — the “angels’ share.” Hence the extra bottles to top up as needed. Depending on the aging environment and time and the proof, or water-adjusted strength, at which the customer decides to bottle the bourbon, he or she can expect to get nine to 15 750-milliliter bottles from a 2.5-gallon barrel, 20 to 28 bottles from the 5-gallon barrel and 40 to 50 bottles from a 10-gallon barrel.
And that’s for the consumption of the customer, who can’t legally sell the stuff.
McLaughlin sells its finished bottles of bourbon starting at $69.99 a bottle.
Lots of bigger distilleries will reserve the contents of a single and bigger barrel for an individual or group and then sell them the bottled contents when they’re ready to drink. In a different twist, Ponfeigh Distilling, which is being built in Somerset, is offering people the chance to invest $1,300 per barrel of the rye it’s making at Southern Distilling in Statesville, N.C., and then, after Ponfeigh ages it for three or four years, it will pay customers back with about 10% interest when the barrel is “dumped” and bottled (no booze included).
But the do-it-yourself component of McLaughlin’s kit appealed to regular customer Jennifer DiPasquale, a science teacher at North Hills Junior High School. She’s in the process of filling up a 2.5-gallon barrel that she plans to store in the garage, though she may bring it in occasionally for her hobby of shooting cocktail videos.
“I love the process,” says the woman who sometimes helps at the distillery, and who has twice visited the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and toured the big rick houses there.
She plans to baby her barrel for at least four years and bottle it at cask strength, the bourbon that Mr. Laughlin sells for $199 a bottle. She should have 11 bottles.
In other barrel news, East End Brewing Co.’s Good Wood Fest of beer aged in all kinds of booze barrels returns to the Larimer brewery from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 26. Liquids are coming from East End, of course, and a more than a dozen other area producers: Acclamation, Allegheny City, Bloom Brew, Cinderlands, Dancing Gnome, Eleventh Hour, Four Seasons, Grist House, Headley’s, Lavery, Old Thunder, Roundabout, Trace and Wigle. The $65 tickets include a sampling of everything being poured on site — Acclamation is bringing its Harlequinade a brown ale brewed with tea, local honey, and spices that’s lived in a Wigle white whiskey barrel for 11 months — plus a couple of slices of pizza and a souvenir East End snifter glass.
Bob Batz Jr.: bbatz@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1930 and on Twitter @bobbatzjr.
First Published: March 9, 2022, 11:00 a.m.
