7 Barrel Aged Gins Worthy of Mixing or Sipping
Gin is a distilled spirit flavored with juniper and other botanicals. It is not aged, except when it is. Distillers, brewers, and winemakers have been swapping barrels back and forth for quite a while now and barrel aged gin is one result of this type of collaboration. The result pushes gin to a more complex aroma and flavor, with less of the bright herbal notes found in a typical London dry, and more of the vanilla and caramel flavors that whiskey drinkers love. While aging gin in barrels might seem newfangled, it was actually done out of necessity in the early 1900s, but it wasn’t called barrel aged gin because the goal wasn’t to manipulate the flavor of the gin but to facilitate storage and shipping.
Aging Gin vs Aging Whiskey
District Made Barrel Rested Ivy City Gin
Fun fact–unlike whiskey production whose aging processes are highly regulated, gin distilleries can cask the gin at a whopping 145 proof, which allows a huge amount of flavor transfer during the resting process. “We’re really getting a lot of extraction from the barrel at that high proof,” says Alex Laufer, Co-founder and CEO of District Made Spirits in Washington, DC. Laufer’s team then bottles their spirits at the proof they feel works best, at a huge 102 proof, in the case of their aged gin. “We tasted it from…cask, all the way down to 80 and it’s where we liked it, we liked it at 102.”
Barrel aged gin vs Old Tom Gin
It’s easy to confuse barrel aged gin with the revived classic Old Tom gin, a gin with sugar (or occasionally other sweeteners) that is commonly made in both aged (like Ransom’s The Geezer) and unaged (Hayman’s) styles. We’ve selected a few examples of golden-hued gins that show softer botanicals and oakier profiles but without the level of sweetness of an aged Old Tom or a whiskey or other barrel aged brown spirit.
While these are gins you may want to sip or serve on the rocks, they are also versatile enough for cocktails. Learn how to use barrel aged gin in cocktails.
District Made Barrel Rested Ivy City Gin
The barrel rested gin “is definitely not just our [regular] gin in a barrel,” says Laufer. “We knew going into the barrel we would lose some of the subtleties of the botanicals, so we wanted to balance the flavors coming out of the oak. We wanted to up some of those botanicals. So more fennel, more juniper.” They also added orange peel, an ingredient not present in their unaged Ivy City Gin, to naturally enhance the sweetness and citrus, to the others, which includes red Northern Spicebush berries that are native to the Appalachian region. Another unique feature–a distinct rye-forward mashbill, which adds even more woodsy spice to the mix.102 proof, it is 66% Abruzzi rye, 28% corn and 6% malted rye.
Copperworks New Oak Cask Finished Gin
This award winning aged gin comes from a Seattle distillery that loves to play the barrel game. They’ve put gin in every imaginable type of spirit barrel, from Spanish oloroso sherry casks to those that held aging mezcal or beer in past lives. Their new oak cask gin rests for three months in the same charred American oak that they use to age their whiskey, producing the spicy caramel and vanilla notes that aged spirit fans are after.
Lucky Sign Spirits Gin Rested in Bourbon Barrels
Based near Pittsburgh, PA, Lucky Sign Spirits calls itself “a traditional and experimental distillery.” Their high proof (45% alcohol) gin lives in bourbon barrels for six months to create a smooth liquid that’s perfect for mixing in cocktails. In 2022 it was a double gold winner in the NY International Spirits Competition.
Filibuster Dual Cask Gin
A beauty from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, this gin features local herbs including holy basil, lemon verbena, and rosemary to brighten and enhance the smooth profile created by aging in French oak. Filibuster Distillery bottles the spirit at a bracing 90 proof–they say it is reminiscent of old time bathtub gin, but those lively botanicals say otherwise.
Axe and the Oak Distillery Dream Stream Barrel Aged Gin
An eye-catching watercolor painting of a rainbow trout adorns the label of this two year aged gin won gold in the 2023 NY International Spirits Competition. Many whiskey distillers make gin to offset the wait while their bourbons to age, but then can’t resist aging said gin in their empty bourbon barrels. The result from this Colorado Springs spirits company is both citrus-y and vanilla-y and 100% yummy.
Drexel Barrel Aged Gin
Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, Drexel Small Batch Spirits Barrel Aged Gin is aged in bourbon barrels and sold in hand-numbered bottles. Its flavor profile is fresh enough to make it work in a gin and tonic but rich enough to star in a fine Michigan-style Martinez. It was a gold winner in the 2022 NY International Spirits Competition.
Barrel aged gin
Many barrel aged gins are one-offs–experimental gins aged for fun in barrels shared by other distillers, or in previously used casks from a producer’s other spirits. The folks at Maverick Distilling kept some of their unique Texas Dry Gin in bourbon barrels for two years inside an underground bank vault at the San Antonio distillery and then released just 250 bottles of their Samuel Maverick Barrel Aged Texas Dry Gin. The fresh floral and citrus aromas of their mix of local Lone Star state botanicals remains, deepened by rich notes of vanilla and brown sugar.