Barrel Aged Cocktails with Deep South Barrels

We’re all about doing things yourself and experimenting with new flavors, cocktails and techniques. Heck, we’ve even explored making our own Crème de Cacao (it’s great because you control what goes in and how sweet it is — you personalize it to your tastes!). Exploring making that whetted our appetite for the next step in cocktail alchemy: barrel aging some cocktails! Some of the best barrels you can buy? The fantastic ones from Deep South Barrels.

“Why would I want to barrel age my cocktails?” you might ask. Good question. Allow me to refer you to that red wine you drank, or that white wine, or that bourbon, or that whisky. What’s a common theme there? Barrel aging (unless you drank a stainless steel fermented white, but we’re not talking about those here).

It’s time for you to take control and barrel age some alcohol yourself.

Yes, you can take some tequila, gin or whatever your alcohol of choice is and plop them in your barrel to add some smokiness and caramel notes. I approve of this! However, the real fun comes from aging whole cocktails in there — let those flavors live together and become best friends in a barrel, pick up some oak notes, soften their harsher edges. Oh yes, a very fine thing indeed.

two liter deep south barrel

two and five liter barrels

“OK, I’m sold on barrel aging, how do I know which barrels are good?” Now you’re onto something. What you don’t want is an old barrel of unknown origin that came from some shady producer who disappears after you’ve bought it. Remember, you’re putting your booze in there — at some point, you’re probably going to want to drink that. You don’t want something dodgy.

This is why Deep South Barrels is awesome.

Firstly, they’re from Texas. They know their way around a mean cocktail down there and know that people aren’t messing around (seriously, “Don’t mess with Texas [cocktails]” I’m 90% sure that’s how that one goes).

Secondly, they make their barrels from premium American White Oak grown in the good ol’ US of A. You know exactly what you’re getting, nothing strange here.

Thirdly, if you want your barrel personalized (and come on, you do) they’re gonna laser etch that bad boy for you. You get the barrel you want, your way, with your design, up to your specs and looking great.

Fourthly — and I don’t want to say most importantly here, but pretty importantly here — they offer a 90 day, 100% satisfaction guarantee on their barrels. If you’re not happy for any reason, they’re going to take care of you.

close-up deep south barrel

two and five liter barrels close-up

Now that your appetite is whetted, get over to Deep South Barrels, pick up a few barrels for yourself and friends, tell them we sent you and get to aging some cocktails! We’re working on some ourselves and are going to have them up as soon as they’re done maturing — the waiting is really the hardest part.