Jeff- The wooden (usually white oak) barrels used for Bourbon are slightly charred inside-in the wine industry they call it "toasted". So the interaction between spirit and wood is even more complex! Tennessee whiskey is made the same as Bourbon except it is filtered through a charcoal-filled column after distilling and before barreling for smoother taste. I guess something is filtered out by the extra charcoal contact, but here's where avoiding chemistry in high school and college comes back to haunt me. Lawrence Becker, RPT Piano Technician College-Conservatory of Music University of Cincinnati -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Tanner [mailto:jtanner@mozart.music.sc.edu] Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 4:25 PM To: College Technicians Subject: Re: What's in that stuff? (was vertigris) I'm not a distiller and I'm no chemist, but I've learned a tiny bit from tv and other sources about making liquor. I understand the color in the bourbon comes from the wooden barrels. Different barrel woods (oak, hickory, or whatever they use) produce slightly different coloring and slightly different flavor. Clear corn liquor on the other hand, (like Ever Clear, Golden Grain, Moonshine, etc.) is not aged in wooden barrels but in stainless steel drums, thus the reason it is clear. Can be the same exact stuff before aging, (except as I understand it, modern moonshiners use more sugar than in the old days because sugar is cheaper than corn) but the aging process is what separates the types of bourbons from other grain liquors. So, the coloring in the bourbon is substances pulled from the wood, and I'm guessing some form of glucose or sucrose in the sap is a part of that, which would account for the sticky substance you wipe off the bar. Jeff _______________________________________________ caut list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives
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