Training for Gold
I once heard from an old couple that “labor doesn’t end when the baby is born - that’s when it begins.“ As someone who really enjoys matured spirits, but also understands the complexities involved in doing it right, I couldn’t agree more.
Luis Ayala
Sure, fermenting and distilling are hard, and they irrevocably define what goes in the barrels, but just like children being sent to school, where they will be influenced and shaped by their environment, so is the case with spirits being introduced into an aging program.
Sometimes I feel like cellar masters are olympic athlete trainers, tasked with identifying talent in its infancy, so it can then be developed carefully and slowly, through closely monitoring and guidance. Great trainers will succeed with the majority of their trainees, their success will be measured by medals received in team competitions. But even great trainers will sometimes be lucky to have a truly exceptional individual in the team, one who will also excel in individual competitions.
Such is the work of a cellar master: fantastic results are achieved through the careful monitoring and blending of hundreds, even thousands of barrels, while single barrels, for those lucky enough to have and identify them, are set aside to compete and shine individually.
Consumers, like olympic judges, give feedback to brand owners, rewarding them (or not) for their efforts, sometimes influencing the direction of future aging programs. New sugarcane varieties, yeast strains and barrel types also influence both the personality of the “children” being sent to school, as well as, the environment in which they will be prepared to compete in the real world.
Cheers,
Luis Ayala, Editor and Publisher