Sweat the Barrel

Disclaimer: Yes, my husband has brewed his own whiskey. He bought a barrel in Kentucky at the Woodford Reserve Distillery last November and here's the story of how the whiskey came to be.

It started on a whim, a purchase for fun, but has turned into much more. The funny thing is that neither Todd nor I even drink whiskey, but plenty of our friends do. Todd built a contraption last winter to hold the barrel and has been rotating it ever since. It has spent some time outside and some time inside, brewing away.

The time officially came this weekend for the barrel to be "sweated." It's had a good 7 -8 months for the whiskey to brew, so it was about time.

Todd bought the needed supplies at Lowes and they got started. Here is a photo gallery of their journey.

Here's the barrel, with the whiskey still inside.


Todd's job: hold the syphon in place.
BJ's job: suck the syphon.
Weeb's job: filter the whiskey.


Here's BJ, sucking hard to get the whiskey to come down they syphon while Weeb gets the filter ready.


Jimbo watches and offers advice, before sucking the syphon himself and getting a mouthful. (PS- yes, that's Jack watching.....). No worries, he didn't drink any!


Here's a close up of the whiskey being filtered.

No words needed.

Steady hands.

The finished product- standing next to a real bottle of the same whiskey.

Here's all the utensils.

Cheers. The guys try a glass of whiskey and sweet iced tea.

So it's all been done. We'll see how everyone likes it. Todd asked me to buy two gallons of water. I guess he's going to try again.

Until next time...