Barley Mowat 

Last weekend, Sharon and I sat down with a few beers, a large amount of fruit, and mixed and matched until Sharon no longer wanted beer and I no longer wanted fruit. The reason? To devise three solid recipes with which to populate my three newly primed oak barrels.

In the end, though, I decided to play it safe, and only one true fruit/beer combo will be making an appearance in this round of “Chuck Tries To Poison Himself.” (Stay tuned for next round: “Licking things found in the alley beside Bitter”)

He tastes like… banana! Oh wait… no, no… I got it! That’s meningitis, isn’t it?

So what won round one? The boring and the safe, that’s what:

2 Litre Barrel Primed with Red Wine = Driftwood White Bark, Red Grapes, Brettanomyces
2 Litre Barrel Primed with Bourbon = Howe Sound Pothole Filler, Vanilla Beans, Dextrose, Champagne yeast
5 Litre Barrel Primed with Nothing = Howe Sound 4Way, Dextrose, Champagne yeast

And that’s it, really. The HS beers feature prominently half because I found some Pothole Filler at Darby’s, and half because I’ll need a lot of HS’s bottles to put all this beer back into when it’s done going off in my tiny oak botulism machines.

Hopefully the 2 litre barrels will be ready to go in as little as two weeks, but don’t you worry, I’ll keep this spot updated as I sample these guys along the way.

Oh, and for the curious, yes aging Jackson Triggs in a tiny oak barrel for two weeks did manage to make it somewhat drinkable. And Bulleit becomes… deadly smooth.