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Tuesday, November 19, 2019

How Much Bourbon Evaporates Over Time?

One of the neat things about how bourbon works is that it's a very time intensive process. Once the bourbon is made, the liquid is poured in a wood barrel where it sits for years or even decades. One of the challenges is that over time, like the vast majority of liquids, evaporation happens. This is commonly referred to as the Angel's Share and often produces a black fungus known as Baudoinia (see photo below from a warehouse at the Wild Turkey Distillery).


I wrote a little about how much product evaporates each year in a post about a 50 year Glenlivet 50 Year Old Single Malt. In that article, I found a quote from Harlen Wheatley, Master Distiller at Buffalo Trace where he states
...The angel's share is 10 percent for the first year (because whiskey is absorbing into the wood of barrel as well as evaporating), then 4 percent for the next 8 years after that, then around 3 percent per year after that
The good people at Alcademics.com did the math on a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23 and found that at bottling, a typical 53 gallon barrel produces a mere 14 gallons of product. As companies are producing longer and longer aged bourbons (Canadian Club 42, Michter's 20, etc.), I think it's helpful to take their work and extrapolate it to a full 50 years as a reference. The entire chart is below.


YearAngel's Share (Percent)Total


53
10.147.7
20.0445.792
30.0443.96032
40.0442.2019072
50.0440.513830912
60.0438.89327767552
70.0437.3375465684992
80.0435.8440447057592
90.0434.4102829175289
100.0333.377974430003
110.0332.3766351971029
120.0331.4053361411898
130.0330.4631760569541
140.0329.5492807752455
150.0328.6628023519881
160.0327.8029182814285
170.0326.9688307329856
180.0326.1597658109961
190.0325.3749728366662
200.0324.6137236515662
210.0323.8753119420192
220.0323.1590525837586
230.0322.4642810062459
240.0321.7903525760585
250.0321.1366419987767
260.0320.5025427388134
270.0319.887466456649
280.0319.2908424629496
290.0318.7121171890611
300.0318.1507536733893
310.0317.6062310631876
320.0317.0780441312919
330.0316.5657028073532
340.0316.0687317231326
350.0315.5866697714386
360.0315.1190696782955
370.0314.6654975879466
380.0314.2255326603082
390.0313.7987666804989
400.0313.384803680084
410.0312.9832595696815
420.0312.593761782591
430.0312.2159489291133
440.0311.8494704612399
450.0311.4939863474027
460.0311.1491667569806
470.0310.8146917542712
480.0310.4902510016431
490.0310.1755434715938
500.039.87027716744595

2 comments:

  1. Six year bourbon is good enough for me. My time for drinking is very limited!

    Yooper Joe

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like older bourbons at barrel strength because the flavors are more concentrated since no dilution occurs.

    ReplyDelete