In years gone by, when barrels of spirits such as rum and whiskey were transported between continents by boat, the combination of agitation and time led to a nicely matured product that tasted much better on the shores of the destination than it would have upon leaving the origin point.
Today, some producers are reviving that historic tradition of aging spirits on the water. However, it’s an endeavor that comes with challenges.
Photo courtesy of Goslings Rum, Hamilton Bermuda
Spirited Seas
When Bermuda-based rum brand Goslings first had the idea to put some barrels of rum on a boat, they were solving a logistical issue. “As you can imagine, there’s not a lot of commercial space available on the island,” says brand director Andrew Holmes.
Goslings blends rum sourced from the West Indies, and the rum matures in former bourbon barrels. One day, as the team was wondering where to put a recently arrived shipment of Maker’s Mark casks, they decided to place filled barrels on the Oleander container ship. Typically, empty containers go back to New Jersey every week.
“The hardest part,” Holmes says, “was convincing U.S. customs on the other side that this container full of rum coming into port was not leaving the boat.” Once they’d cleared that hurdle, 60 rum-filled barrels returned to Bermuda on the boat—and would continue to travel back and forth for about 10 months.
“There’s a huge temperature contrast between New Jersey and Bermuda,” Holmes says. “So, as the boat goes back and forth, the barrels are constantly expanding and contracting. There’s no doubt it has an impact on the flavor.”
In fact, the team was able to see precisely what that impact was: For the first batch of Spirited Seas ocean-aged rum, they held on to two filled barrels that never went on the boat. Once the barrels that had spent 40 weeks on the Oleander were back, it was time to compare.
“The liquid that came off the water was so much darker than what was left on land,” Holmes says, adding that the additional interaction of liquid and cask led to a greater oak influence on its character.
Jefferson’s Ocean
Like Goslings, the Kentucky-based bourbon brand Jefferson’s also faced challenges when trying to explain their plan to regulatory bodies.
Jefferson’s founder and chief strategist Trey Zoeller says that when the brand approached the TTB and explained what they wanted to do—essentially, to export their barrels and import them again, without doing anything else to them—it was hard at first to get approval.
“They didn’t really understand the concept of what we were trying to do, initially,” he says. To placate concerns, Jefferson’s pays taxes on the bourbon before it leaves the distillery to age on the overseas journey. Naturally, that means paying some taxes on bourbon lost to the angel’s share. “Depending on the voyage, we can lose a substantial amount,” Zoeller says.
For Jefferson’s Ocean Aged at Sea Bourbon, barrels filled with six-year-old whiskey travel all the way to the Tasmanian Sea on a journey that lasts from six to eight months, spending equal time in the Southern and Northern hemispheres. “When we found this route, we were super-excited that we could touch all these different points and all these different climates, and go into these super-volatile seas as well,” Zoeller says. However, when the barrels face rougher seas for extended periods, the amount lost to evaporation can be greater.
Each voyage transports about 800 barrels in a shipping container that is vented extensively; sunroofs expose the barrels to the elements and allow salt air to permeate. Most of the time, Jefferson’s blends the barrels once they return, setting aside a barrel for special single-barrel releases.
Zoeller says every voyage is truly unique: He recalls one during which the vessel hit three storms in the North Atlantic. The angel’s share was substantial, leading to a more concentrated finished spirit. “It was exceedingly briny,” he says. The impact of the time at sea is more than just anecdotal: The team worked with scientists who conducted molecular analysis on 300 different points of differentiation, discovering that the voyage had made a material impact.
It’s a challenging way to produce whiskey.
“When we lock those container doors in Kentucky, they’re not opened until they come back, six to eight months later,” Zoeller says. This means that leakers can’t be patched as they could in Kentucky, and losses do happen. However, he says there’s nothing like the feeling of tasting the barrels when they return from their epic journey.
“It’s like Christmas morning.”
Photo courtesy of Maison Ferrand, Ars-sur-Formans, France
Barge 166, the Floating Cellar
Alexandre Gabriel is founder and master blender at Maison Ferrand, which acquired Stade’s West Indies Rum Distillery in 2017. Gabriel says he wanted to offer people the chance to buy full barrels aged on the Seine River in France, aboard the brand’s Barge 166, originally built as a commercial vessel.
“When someone purchases a barrel, they become private cask owners, and they’re going be a part of a shared adventure,” Gabriel says. Buyers can choose from four cognac and five rum expressions, which age from three to five years on land before going onto the barge. “We suggest aging for one or two years on the boat with the dynamic aging in 30-liter barrels,” Gabriel says. “It’s an incredible interaction.”
He describes the barge, built in 1948, as “a very venerable old lady.” For decades it cruised along the Seine carrying wheat and other grains. When it was decommissioned about 15 years ago, as larger and more modern barges gained favor, Maison Ferrand had the opportunity to buy it, redesign it, and convert it into a floating cellar.
Barge 166 is a bonded warehouse. “We had a lot of issues because it was not possible to park a boat with flammable product for more than two weeks on the dock,” Gabriel says, “and we didn't want the barge to move up and down the river.” By working with the government officials who oversee the river, they were able to agree that Barge 166 would be classified as a floating cellar rather than a vessel. “We took out the engine, and it gave us more room,” Gabriel says.
Photo courtesy of O.H. Ingram, Columbus, Kentucky
Mellowed on the Mississippi
O.H. Ingram is another brand that ages spirits on barges—in this case, aboard retrofitted vessels on the Mississippi River in Columbus, Kentucky.
Sourcing the whiskey from Green River Distilling in Owensboro, Kentucky, O.H. Ingram loads new-fill barrels directly onto the barge and ages them there for at least four years. In side-by-side tastings, the O.H. Ingram team has compared bourbon aged in its floating rickhouses to those aged on land—and they prefer those aged on the river.
“We noticed a pretty big difference in the color and taste,” says master blender Scott Beyer. On land, barrels that haven’t been properly rotated may have some staves that see no liquid contact and begin to dry out. The bustling river, however, provides consistent movement for the spirit. Wider temperature swings on the water, meanwhile, also help to accelerate the interaction of liquid and wood.
“We’ll see a 40°F [22–23°C] swing in the course of the day—it’s not unheard of,” Beyer says. He also says he’s been pleased with the yields, giving credit to the moisture of the river environment. “As of now, all of our yields have had higher rates than what I’ve seen with rickhouses on land,” he says. “Consistent high humidity helps create osmotic pressure.”
For now, Bayer says, the biggest challenge is achieving uniformity for the brand’s true small-batch blends.
“Our biggest hurdle as of now is trying to continue to gather consistency over time as these barrels age,” he says. It’s a rewarding challenge for the blender. “Every barrel is different, and being on the water it’s even more intensified.”