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If you've seen all the excitement and hubbub around cask-aged gin and wanted to get in on the action yourself, then this right here is a six-sided, cardboard-encased dream come true - the Mature Your Own Gin Kit! Containing a 1 litre (well – 1-and-a-bit litres) freshly toasted American oak barrel of medium-to-heavy char and 2 x 50cl bottles of gin, you'll have all you need to make your own yummy cask-aged gin.
Directions: Put the gin into the barrel (using the dinky little stainless steel funnel provided), wait for a few days or weeks (don't forget about them - the rate of evaporation is quite high), and enjoy! You'll get about three uses before the oak influence wanes, so you can fill 'er back up with yet more gin or something completely different, such as a batch of your favourite cocktail...
A few pointers:
First – you’ll need to give the tap a good old whack to ‘seat’ it in the barrel. Don’t go nuts and break the barrel, but ‘pushing it in’ isn’t enough.
Second – if the hoops around the barrel feel a bit loose, or there’s a bit of seepage from the cask ends when you fill it, you might want to bung a bit of hot water in before you fill it to help the wood expand and become watertight (liquor-tight?). Barrels are constructed without the use of any glue, and rely on the tension/compression of the staves against the other staves/hoops to keep them watertight.
Third – The fact that these barrels are made from Fresh Oak means that the first fill will be incredibly powerful in terms of Oak influence. You’ll be able to re-use the barrel at least two more times before the oak influence wanes.
Finally – The rate of evaporation from these puppies is quite large. The reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, the surface area to volume ratio of the barrel is very high, and secondly, you’re probably not going to keep it at as low a temperature as you’d find in a warehouse in Scotland. You can expect to lose a fair old percentage per month if you’re keeping them at room temperature so keep an eye on them!
