Fall is barrel aged gin time!

Fall is here and it means it’s time to change up your cocktails! While summer cocktails lean more towards the fruity and sweeter side of things, fall cocktails tend to be more savoury in nature.

A perfect spirit for any fall cocktail is a barrel aged gin. But what is that exactly? Imagine your favourite gin is used to fill a 200 liter, used oak barrel. These barrels previously contained whisky (either wheat, rye, or bourbon) and the residual flavours of the whisky remain in the barrel, as they have soaked into the wood over the previous three plus years while the whisky was aging.

As the gin itself “ages” in these barrels, it picks up flavour notes from the whisky, usually including baking spices, a hint of smoke, as well as caramel, and brown sugar. The usual gin notes like juniper, cardamom, and citrus are also enhanced along the way, as the wood amplifies their flavours on your palate.

The final result is a gin that is unique to any other in the world, a cross between the usual white spirit gin and a brown spirit whisky. The key comes in the length of time the gin is in the barrel; too little time and you won’t notice a dramatic difference, whereas too much time can reduce the gin notes too much.

The final spirit can be sipped pure over ice, or used in a wide range of cocktails found online.

Stillhead Distillery’s Barrel Aged Gin was aged for 18 months in ex-bourbon barrels, adding notes of vanilla and spice. Winner of Best Canadian Matured Gin at the World Gin Awards 2020 in London, UK. Available at the distillery in the Cowichan Valley, or for sale online at Stillhead.ca.

You can find Stillhead Distillery at Stillhead.ca and in the Cowichan Valley at 5301 Chaster Rd #105, Duncan.