barrel-aged cocktails , a fixture of high-end cocktail bars in the early 2010s, are precisely what they appear to be: cocktails (and occasionally other styles of mixed drink) that have been premixed and then put in a small oak barrel (these range from four liters [one gallon] to as much as twenty liters [five gallons]) and left to mature for a time. At the turn of the twentieth century, when branded bottled cocktails were introduced and rose to instant popularity, some of the top-selling brands, including Heublein’s Club Cocktails, the market leader, used the fact that they were aged in wood before bottling in their advertisement. Thus the Cook & Bernheimer company claimed the success of its Gold Lion Cocktails was the result of “long expert experience in blending the choicest materials,” and, of course, “sufficient ageing in wood.” See bottled cocktails.
While this might be simply making marketing out of necessity (stainless steel was still in the future, and the cocktails had to be kept in something before they were bottled), there was also some scientific basis to it. Even if stored in well-used barrels, the cocktails would take on some sweet oak notes, and the oxidation that occurred as they rested in the barrels would eliminate some of the spikier, more volatile compounds in the mixture.
The second coming of barrel-aged cocktails was unconnected to the first. It began in 2009, when the influential Portland, Oregon, bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler (1971– ) visited a new bar in London. Tony Conigliaro (1971– ), the owner of 69 Colebrooke Row and one of the pillars of London’s craft cocktail movement, had been experimenting with aging cocktails in bottles for long periods. Says Conigliaro, “Bottle aged cocktails were born of the idea that oxidization could be used in a positive way for pre-mixed cocktails, if the process was controlled in the same way that it is with wine when it ages.” He even subjected his bottled cocktails to gas chromatography, which showed that the sharp peaks that marked the chemical reactions between the ingredients greatly subsided over time. This signals “a final product that has an incredible smoothness and encourages a new direction for flavors that are already present in the cocktail.”
Having tried Conigliaro’s five-year-old Manhattan, Morgenthaler, back at Clyde Common, his bar in Portland, thought he would try aging a cocktail, but in a one-gallon barrel in which he had been aging Madeira. After some experimentation, he and his bartenders hit on six weeks as the ideal period (longer and the wood begins to dominate).
The barrel-aged Manhattan was an immediate success, and before long bars all around the United States were experimenting with barrel-aging cocktails, and then all around the world. Perhaps the most popular drink to receive the treatment is the Negroni. See Negroni.
See also cocktail renaissance; Manhattan Cocktail; and maturation.
“Club Cocktails” (advertisement). New York Clipper, September 14, 1912, 14.
Conigliaro, Tony. Personal communication with author, May 2016.
“Gold Lion Cocktails” (advertisement). New York Press, December 4, 1901, 5.
Simonson, Robert. “The Aged Cocktail’s Barrel Zero.” Punch, June 19, 2019. https://punchdrink.com/articles/aged-cocktails-barrel-zero-clyde-common-portland/ (accessed April 20, 2021).
By: David Wondrich