We cover a lot of cask-finished whiskeys here for the simple reason that there are a lot of them to cover. Many secondary maturations are tried and true—think wine, sherry, or rum barrels. But every now and then you find something that you haven’t seen before, as is the case with this new whiskey finished with staves from Gibson electric guitars. The question you should always ask, however, is if it actually makes a difference.
In this case, we can’t really say because samples were not available yet to try (and the only way to really gauge would be to try a finished and unfinished sample side by side). Still, this new whiskey from Whiskey Jypsi does sound interesting. If you’re unfamiliar with the brand, it was cofounded by country music star Eric Church along with some partners as part of a company called Outsiders Spirits. There have been several releases over the years, including Explorer, a 6-year-old bourbon, and multiple batches of the Legacy series, which are blends of aged whiskeys.
This release is the first in a new series called Tonewood, and it consists of two different expressions. What binds them together is that each was finished with “tonewood” staves, which according to the whiskey maker Ari Sussman are specific types of wood chosen for the acoustic properties they give to an instrument. The staves were made from “offcuts,” essentially leftovers from the production of Gibson guitars. Sussman experimented with different profiles, extraction rates, proofs, and other factors before settling on the final staves, which were put into barrels of whiskey to finish for about six weeks and presumably add new flavor. Stave finishing is not new, of course, and has yielded some great results before—Maker’s 46 is perhaps the best-known example of this practice.
