After the clean success of the initial test barrel, we decided to try a new spot for the full 4-barrel drop, this time swimming them out from the shore. The liter barrels are smaller than the 3-liter guys we usually use for our hospitality clients who require both higher volume and greater efficiency from the trips. These barrels were easy to load onto our small raft that carries a dry bag, the Nikon and the dive flag. The sea was flat flat, the sun was out, and it was warm for early December. We pushed off the beach and swam east.

This was a quick swim out, only about a mile or so, and we made good time in the calm conditions. Eddie and I chatted about anything and everything on our way out to the new spot, enjoying the change of pace and only checking the GPS occasionally. This was the first time we’d swum the barrels out without the kayaks, and on clear days like this one it seemed almost too easy to be true.

It was playtime, we stopped short of the spot and brought the camera out to get some shots of the barrels on the surface and under the water before we pinned them down in the sealed bags to sit for a month. With the amenable conditions we had no wind or big swells to contend with so we took our time getting the shots we wanted. The sun was high enough that we got clear light all the way down to the flat sea floor. We shot until we felt we had some winners and continued on to drop them.

After ~35 minutes of swimming, we were on the mark. A quick final trip to the bottom and we were back around on our way in.

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Fast forward through the month and we shot back out on the kayaks to retrieve the barrels. Back in the lab, we tapped and filtered each barrel separately to make sure they all came out clean. There’s nothing worse than realizing you’ve just inadvertently dumped a barrelfull of saltwater into an otherwise perfectly good yield. Thankfully, all 4 came out clean. The time underwater had imparted a slightly richer color to the naturally light Angel’s Envy, and the aroma was a notably sweeter nose with just a faint hit of sea breeze. On the palate however we instantly saw the real impact of the submersion: the typically light and smooth flavor of the port barrel-aged bourbon had taken on a deeper and creamier quality with a pronounced salinity on the tail end.

We use only Level 3 Dark Char Virgin American Oak barrels for our process, which imparts a strong degree of caramelization for spirits to react to. In the case of the already-barrel-aged bourbon we saw an intensification happen between the spirit and the char layer. With the added contrast of natural sea salt, the resulting bourbon had an umami quality that set it apart from anything we had tasted, just like the smaller test batch.

Of the four barrels, one of them started to leak when the vacuum was broken, so we had to return the filtered whiskey to it’s original bottle least it leak out slowly over the next few days. 3/4 barrels maintaining integrity is less than ideal, but not an issue when it happens in the lab. We’ve found that the natural process of underwater aging allows for a compromised barrel to rentain a perfect seal against the seawater until it’s internal pressure is relieved so we’re regularly able to save the full yield.

The Sea Angel

the Barbancourt barrel