How to Choose Oak: Vanillin vs Tannin Outcomes

Use growth profile and species differences to align barrel choice with style goals, instead of treating barrel selection as prestige shopping.

Quick summary

Core principle

So how do we select fruits for vanillin flavors or tannin flavors? If you look at a tree, you cut it, what you see is year rings or growth rings, right?

The older the tree, the more there are. What's most important is how far are those year rings apart?

Are we looking at a species of oak from which the barrel is made that is fast growing, or are we looking at a species of oak that is slowly growing? If it's slowly growing, there's going to be a lot of year rings and not a whole lot of whitewood in between.

If it's a fast growing oak species that your barrel is made from, it grows tremendously fast. There are few year rings and there's a lot of whitewood in the middle.

The whitewood contains the vanillins. It's the year rings themselves, the hard superstructures that contain the tannins.

So if you want more vanillin in your flavor, for example you want to make a bourbon, which is a relatively sweet, fruity, front of mouth kind of drink, maybe you want to have vanillins.

How it works in practice

If you buy barrels that are made out of American white oak, American white oak is a fast growing species. For its year rings, it's got a lot of whitewood in between. That means that relatively to other species of oak, the American white oak gives you a lot of vanillins, which is probably why it's used in the bourbon industry to create a bourbon, which is a relatively fruity and sweet kind of whiskey.

If you like those flavors, go for American whitewood. If you want to go for a more complex style, if you want more tannins, if you want to up the third dimension, a more rooty, earthy experience, not like a bourbon that stays in your mouth for five, six seconds, but like a more traditional whiskey that stays in your mouth for maybe 20 or 25 seconds, with a real back end. Not American white oak, because that's vanillin rich.

What you basically need is a French oak vessel. For instance, from a limousine or one of the other regions in France, a wine cask, because the species of oak in France is relatively slow growing. So there's a lot of earrings, so there's a lot of tannins.

There's not a lot of whitewood in between, so there's not a lot of vanillins.

Common mistakes and decisions

So in general, French wood, high in tannins, very good for the third dimension. In general, American white oak barrels have a lot of whitewood, a lot of vanillins, creates a sweeter, more fruity kind of whiskey that we now happen to call bourbon. So you can change it like that.

You can say, actually, what I want is I want this product to mature in a French oak, because I like that third dimension. Or I've got some barrels that are made from American white oak, and that's perfectly fine, because it will be a less complex whiskey with more sweet and fruity notes at the beginning. That's how I want you to look at management.

You're not buying the best barrels or this and that, such and so. You're basically buying the barrel that helps express the flavors that you need to express or want to express in your whiskey. Or to polish up mistakes that you made, like over-aging, oxidation, and now all of a sudden, you're not able anymore to get those flavors back unless you use a very fruity barrel.

Continue with Keeps oak choice tied to intended whiskey profile. to build directly on this foundation.

Choose by Style Target

Start with the spirit style target, then choose oak and toast to support that style. Barrel selection is strongest when used as a design decision, not as a post-hoc correction.

Key Takeaways