As with the current SPC Plum Pudding Bourbon Barrel Aged and the old FMC that both added the wood staves to their tins, has anyone tried transferring these staves to other blends to see how they effected the flavor? If so, did you just directly transfer it, or did you take a torch to re-burn the stave, then add it? Are there other things people have added to blends to try and get different flavors brought into them?
Adding Staves to Tobacco Jars
- Thread starter sunnysmokes
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Burning the staves would just create charcoal and add perhaps a Latakia flavor. The point of the staves is to infuse the tobacco with bourbon flavor. Bourbon is absorbed into the staves during the bourbon aging process. Burning the staves would burn off the bourbon and defeat the purpose. The barrels are pre charred before adding bourbon to them.
If a brown liquor flavor is what you're after, you'd get more of it by misting a (very) little on the tobacco or putting some tobacco in a big ziplock with an open tray of whisky next to the tobacco. Such that the evaporating alcohol gets absorbed into the tobacco.
You can buy chunks of wine barrels, bourbon barrels, or sherry barrels from wine making supply companies. I don't think that adding one dry is going to impart much of anything, but if you soak one of these in whatever liquor you want, it will impart a bit more. Some bourbons will be aged for two years in fresh barrels, and then spend a year or more in a sherry or wine barrel to make a more complex flavor.
These barrels are all charred before adding the liquids, so I don't recommend charring them more, or else you will just be burning off the flavors.
When making mead, I will soak my barrel chunks in rum for one night, not so much to add a rum flavoring, but to sanitize them.
These barrels are all charred before adding the liquids, so I don't recommend charring them more, or else you will just be burning off the flavors.
When making mead, I will soak my barrel chunks in rum for one night, not so much to add a rum flavoring, but to sanitize them.
What I remember reading about Sutliff's bourbon barrel-aged tobaccos, they only use freshly dumped barrels when the scents and flavors are strongest. If the barrel was dumped too long before, it won't have the intended effect. Alcohol is pretty volatile and will evaporate quickly, and carry with it many flavors. The wood will soak some flavor up though, like it'll be left behind when the alcohol evaporates.
If the stave gives off any scent, I'm sure jarring it with tobacco will, given enough time, affect the tobacco flavor in some kind of way, but I don't think it will impart a strong flavor like you can get from a blender produced barrel-aged tobacco, it may not impart any detectable flavor that way, just might only affect the tin note and not the smome flavor.
If the stave gives off any scent, I'm sure jarring it with tobacco will, given enough time, affect the tobacco flavor in some kind of way, but I don't think it will impart a strong flavor like you can get from a blender produced barrel-aged tobacco, it may not impart any detectable flavor that way, just might only affect the tin note and not the smome flavor.
I once tried adding a bit of coffee flavor to a blend. Put the tobacco into a baggie with a couple of ounces of nice, strong Sumatra coffee beans for a month. After the 30 days, opened the baggie and it actually did smell like strong coffee. Removed the beans and put the tobacco into a mason jar. A few weeks later, I decided to try my new concoction. There was absolutely NO coffee aroma or taste at all. 
After that I accepted that my career at making infused tobaccos was a bust and decided to leave the blending up to the pros!
After that I accepted that my career at making infused tobaccos was a bust and decided to leave the blending up to the pros!
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I’d be shocked to my core if adding a stave to a jar of baccy did anything at all. In fact, I suspect it’s a marketing gimmick when manufacturers do it but I don’t know shit about tobacco blending so I could be totally wrong.
It was just a cutesy thing.
Flick your choice of alcohol on a dry tobacco of your choice and then give it a toss and an hour or so to even out.
I don’t really mess with production blends though because you’re messing with the Ph (adding tobaccos) and burn rate (alcohol) as it was intended
Flick your choice of alcohol on a dry tobacco of your choice and then give it a toss and an hour or so to even out.
I don’t really mess with production blends though because you’re messing with the Ph (adding tobaccos) and burn rate (alcohol) as it was intended
It is nice gimmick in adding the stave to tobacco but it really doesn't add much to the actual enjoyment of the tobacco. And the aroma quickly disappears.
Well that saves me some time and effort. I was thinking of the same approach to adding coffee aroma and flavor to some Carter Hall. Sounds like I should just stick with a cup of black coffee on the side.I once tried adding a bit of coffee flavor to a blend. Put the tobacco into a baggie with a couple of ounces of nice, strong Sumatra coffee beans for a month. After the 30 days, opened the baggie and it actually did smell like strong coffee. Removed the beans and put the tobacco into a mason jar. A few weeks later, I decided to try my new concoction. There was absolutely NO coffee aroma or taste at all.
After that I accepted that my career at making infused tobaccos was a bust and decided to leave the blending up to the pros!
A little off topic, but I have an uncle who takes large volumes (by the gallon) of cheap grain alcohol, drops in a couple of charred oak blocks and ignores them for a few years. End result is actually not bad. I wouldn't call it a whiskey, but it definitely isn't a vodka either. The frog morton cellar was a nice blend, but I'm pretty sure the "oak stave" was a gimmick.
I should add McClelland's added a stave to its Stave Aged 35 Ribbon Virginia several years before the Plum Pudding tobacco.
IMNSHO, the staves are a gimmick and likely add nothing. Looks real cool and gives that sizzle factor. Good marketing.
Some shinai are smoked. Supposedly, the bamboo used in old Japanese houses will get smoked due to being on the top of indoor fire pit where they cook, and keep the fire going for the heat. Some of those were, or at least the story goes, used in kendo for shinai (bamboo sword). Had few of them for my practice, and they sorta smell nice. Maybe I'll dig up my old staves and stick it in a jar with Velvet.