Store bought flavors

Homebrew shop essences talk.

Store bought flavors

Postby Kimbo » Sat Mar 19, 2011 2:38 pm

Hi Andy,
welcome. How do you flavour your spirit?
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Re: Tomato paste wash

Postby QLD.Andy » Sat Mar 19, 2011 4:13 pm

Still Spirits Classic mainly
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Re: Tomato paste wash

Postby Kimbo » Sat Mar 19, 2011 4:46 pm

What flavours, do you oak?
im keen to hear new recipes.
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby QLD.Andy » Sat Mar 19, 2011 7:55 pm

I oak my Bourbon only, as MrMac says "its part of my staple diet :) " so I tend to spend more time getting it tasting good.
I make my neutral spirit and soak 5 litres on a 100 gram pack of Kentucky Bourbon chips for 1 month.
I then add 2 packs of Still Spirits American Classic Bourbon.
Leave for 1 month and drink.
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby Frank » Sun Mar 20, 2011 1:18 pm

Hi fellow (Oz?) distillers... any recommendations re single malt whiskey flavours. Im keen on peaty/dry ones myself but happy to read all suggestions.
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby QLD.Andy » Sun Mar 20, 2011 2:19 pm

Hi Frank.
For single malt, you would be best to buy the Still Spirits Whiskey Profile Kit.
It comes with a bunch of flavor bottles and a booklet to tell you how many drops of each flavor to add to get the taste you like.
Its not cheap but I am told (I dont like whiskey) that its worth every cent.
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby torry73 » Mon Mar 21, 2011 11:26 am

Hi Frank
The profile kit is good you can adjust the flavour to suit yourself. Another that is good is Edwards Single Malt it is similar to Glenfiddich. With the profile kit you can do a copy of Glenfiddich,Laphroaig,Teachers,Johnny red,Johnny Black,Tullamore & Jamesons. Good Luck.
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby Frank » Thu Mar 24, 2011 10:56 am

Thanx for Whiskey Profile kit tip fellas. (Hope Santa can come early this year :) )
Ok how about Bundaberg rum UP substitute? My dad really likes the stuff and I'd love to make something he reckons is similar/better... and if its relevant, he is a coeliac (gluten intolerant)
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby Geoff » Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:38 pm

Brand Type Makes Score/5 Taste test Nose
Spirits Unlimited Bourbon 5l 1.5 Not strong. Not good. Too fruity. fruity/flowery like Southern Comfort
Spirits Unlimited Southern Shine 5l 1 weak flavour, tastes bit like a grey water drain straight Weak smell
Spirits Unlimited Premium Bourbon 5l 2.5 Nicely balanced flavour, a little mollases not strong with cola but OK Potential for oaking with chips grain
Still Spirits Top Shelf Kentucky Bourbon 2.25l 2 straight it has some bourbon character but with cola taste weakens, weaker taste than SU bourbon Weak smell,
Still Spirits Top Shelf Kentucky Bourbon+4ml SS Mellow Oak 2.25l 2 Straight-woody and dry with .with cola loses flavour slight perfumey
Still Spirits Top Shelf Bourbon 2.25l 2.5 Drier than TS Kent. Bourbon. Some wood,Not very srong with cola,maybe less fruity and less flavour. vanilla,caramel
Still Spirits TS White Rum 2.5 Gary says edwards smells stronger. Mild. Weak rum
Still Spirits
Still Spirits Classic American Bourbon 2.25l 3.5 Smokey flavour and cuts through cola,ageing improves balance Smells great, strong and woody.
Still Spirits TS Cafelua 1.125l 3 Much like Kahlua, not as intense Coffee
Still Spirits Classic Tennessee Whiskey 2.25l 3 Brandy or fortified wine taste, not much wood or smoke. Brandy smell overwhelming, not much like JD to me
Edwards Single Malt Whiskey 3.5l 3 Straight-Woody and smooth, scotch drinkers seem to think it good, like average single malts
Edwards Melon Liqueur 1.4l 3 weaker than willards in smell, colour less clear weak
Edwards Single Malt Whiskey+2ml SS oak 3.5l 3 Straight-Woody and smooth,
Edwards Tennessee Style Bourbon 3.5l 2 With cola tastes sweet and muskey like a musk lollie,straight quite musky. 1 week old. Bit better after 3 weeks but still musky. strong musk
Edwards Super Smooth Kentucky Bourbon 2.5 Same as SU premium bourbon. More fruit than grain, by a very small amount. vanilla, caramel
Edwards Rum 3.5l 2.5 Standard old style rum, just enough flavour with cola Like old style rum
Edwards Irish Cream 1.4l 2.5 Not much flavour, tastes OK, greasy with UHT full cream mild chocolate
Samuel Willards Black Sambuca Nero 1125ml 4 Tastes great Strong aniseed smell.
Samuel Willards Irish Cream 1.125l 3.5 Chocolatey and sweet with tiny hint of coconut , not same as Baileys but nice with good afterburn. gets a bit much like cherry cough mixture after few months
Samuel Willards Melon Liqueur 1.125l 3.5 The girls like it. Smells strongly melon.
Essencia Triple Sec 1.125l 2.5 Only for punch use though since weak flavour. Smells weaker than Grand marnier bit like Cointreu.
Essencia Kentucky Bourbon 1.5 OK young, gets horribly chocolate. Caramel/vanilla flavour, More choc with age, and more chocolate, vanilla
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby MacStill » Sat Mar 26, 2011 2:47 pm

Hi Geoff, welcome to our little corner of the www

I just gotta say that is an awesome bit of info you posted for those of us who use such flavorings, and thank you for your contribution.

Great stuff :mrgreen:

Cheers.
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby Geoff » Sat Mar 26, 2011 3:08 pm

Hi McStill

Actually I did not mean to post, since I could not work out yet how to format a table properly, so it is a bit of a mess. I thought I was previewing only LOL. I left a post in the general section asking about this. I will re post if I can to make it readable since the end parts about the nose are indistinguisablr from taste at the moment.

You'll see the top line is the column descriptions, I am not happy with the mess that it currently is.

Cheers
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby rumby » Sat Mar 26, 2011 4:03 pm

Frank,

If you live in Brisbane, a HBS at Kingston Road, sell their own brand of rum essence, how much it hurts to pay top dollar for essence, which costs them nearly nothing. I am having trouble finding a taste I like with a mollassses wash, as I only drink rum and being a queenslander, its Bundy all the way (however, since I have been experimenting with different oaks etcs and amounts of essences have been very happy with the results). Anyway I mix a neutral with essence, then oak chips, charred oak chips, and throw a bit of JD chips for an aftertaste , but dont leave the JD chips in for more then a week, because it takes over and gives a very slight burbon taste. I source all the oak chips (except JD) in bulk, so the chips dont cost much I found this to be fairly close to bundy. I have been pot stilling mollassses and mixing approx 25 % to the nuetral wash recipe and it seems to add a bit of grunt, which I would associate with Bundy OP.

Try un charred oak first and see what you think, and the first big batch I made was awesome, but because I mixed & matched some much & didnt write it down, I am still trying to get it back.

Hopes this helps, if you want any more detail let me know. If you reside near spud, he has a shit load of oak.
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby reknaw » Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:16 pm

Geoaff and Rumby, Bloody good posts with some good info, I recon that'll give a few people some good ideas to start playing with.
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby SBB » Mon Mar 28, 2011 6:20 pm

Bought a bottle of SS Italiano a few days ago. SS's version of Galliano ..... I think this ones not to far from the real thing. I guess ya need a glass of both to know for sure. Anyway I like it :)
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby Geoff » Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:08 am

Here are some tasting notes I made. The score is out of 5. It is mostly bourbons since that is my favourite dark spirit. You'll see quite a number on a score of 2.5. These are all pretty similar in that they taste OK straight but the taste weakens when mixing. I prefer stronger flavours. Many find milder flavours better so you may like these in that case. For me, a score of 3 or more is good, though a score of 2.5 is just acceptable for private consumption.

Reading around the internet a lot of new distillers want to know about the bewildering range of flavours available. I have noticed that straight away someone usually says forget flavours and go to other washes/potstilling/complex recipes etc. That is all valid, but some people at least want to find the best commercial flavours to see if they can enjoy that first. For some, they do not have the time, space or circumstance to do anything but commercial flavouring so I hope this thread remains on topic. If people want to try the other methods after a while, there should be plenty of info on other threads to fulfill that. So I urge more people to contribute to this thread so that we don't have to buy every flavour to get an idea of what it tastes like. BTW, for new distillers, the smell of a bottle of concentrate usually is not a very good predicter of its taste, IME.

Companies are bringing out better stuff all the time, and so it is interesting to try new ones.

Image
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby MacStill » Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:53 am

Well done Geoff and thanks for going to so much trouble to post that table, great stuff!

I have noticed that straight away someone usually says forget flavours and go to other washes/potstilling/complex recipes etc. That is all valid, but some people at least want to find the best commercial flavours to see if they can enjoy that first. For some, they do not have the time, space or circumstance to do anything but commercial flavouring so I hope this thread remains on topic. If people want to try the other methods after a while, there should be plenty of info on other threads to fulfill that.


Very valid points, and if anyone want's to talk about flavor from pot stilling they're quite welcome to do so in another topic.

Cheers.
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby maheel » Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:45 am

i like scotch but always found the flavors a bit lacking, i put it down mostly to aging. so i would mix flavour and oak and leave it to age.
i have run out but had some last year from 2004 i had left in tallies with oak chips and essence, it was not new oak but old barrel chips and i found this to be the best i had ever made in "real scotch"

but i always liked Still spirits bourbons, they seemed to be pretty good after a couple of weeks aging in the bottle. (but have not used them for ages)

if your neutral is good time is the best thing to make it taste better, the flavours mellow more if you can leave them to "mix" even using essence's you just have to find the ones you like.

the best whiskeys are often 12-18+ years old it's hard to match that in a 50ml bottle but you can build in some good flavour fast.
i also liked to tip in a bit of port into my mixes, say 300ml in 5L just seems to give it a more rounded flavour, i would just by a 2L cask of port to use like penfolds or something reasonably priced. it kind of went glass of port for me glass for the mix :)

try putting a bottle or two away and open them in a few years, at the time i had free water and power so the still worked very hard for a year or so in 2004 :twisted:
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby Geoff » Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:49 am

Important errata in my table.

The "disappointing" comment was meant for the Still Spirits Classic Tennessee Whiskey, not the Edwards Tennessee style bourbon, which is actually much worse. The SS was disappointing because it is expensive and touts itself as a JD clone.
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby Jimmy1 » Fri Apr 01, 2011 8:03 pm

Hey Fellas
The wifey loves jim beam, and I dont drink the stuff, But I was wondering what is the closest way of replicating a similar flavour using neutrals. I made up a batch of ss American Bourban yesterday but I'm letting it age for at least two weeks before wwe crack it. Any answers would be greatly appreciated.
Thankyou Jimmy
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Re: Store bought flavors

Postby Geoff » Sat Apr 02, 2011 9:32 pm

Jimmy

If that is SS Classic American Bourbon, the one in the sachet, not the bottle, then that is reasonably close to Jimbeam style. The closest commercial effort I have tasted anyway. It is really a nice drop, though not identical. I do not find it changes much after about 15 days aging.

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