Whats in your Rum Barrel?

Most people don't get to see the inside of a barrel I thought it'd be good to show you this so you can understand how Black Swan barrels a company we've been working with actually makes cross cuts and honeycomb staves so that the ROM with all the pressure in Key West is constantly moving around in the barrel. So how does it do that well it basically moves in and out if you think of it like an accordion when the pressure goes High the barrel relaxes and expands when the pressure goes low the barrel contracts and squeezes this is happening all day and Key West so our rum is circulating through all the wood where we want to get the flavor from now let's get back to the Salt shirt part if a barrel is soaked in the ocean filled up with salt water brought back after it swells it emptied and then it dries out and gets rid of the water which is a bacteria and is only left with the salt resin it opens up the pores of the wood where all the flavor lives and if you're putting a very smooth and clean rum that comes out of your still in it you're going to get these flavors faster and easier it only takes about three weeks for the rum to become dark inside the barrel but that's not the idea it's all about getting flavor a lot of places use molasses and end up with a not-so-great quality of rum so they would let it sit in the barrel for years and it would smooth and mellow it out being in the 21st century we can use organic chemistry and progression to make the rum have the same flavor as a five-year-old except we can do it in a year in a smaller Barrel using the salt to buffer the pH levels and the curves and the cuts to have more circulation of the rum with the wood together these flavors such as fig vanilla Cherry that are all naturally in American Oak so the next time you look at a barrel and say wow looks pretty simple you might realize it's not