If there were no rules...

I'm not sure if it's ever been done with other whiskies, but I think a scotch aged in first fill maple or other wood barrels would be interesting.

@michaelschout, it is quite rare that anyone has even attempted use of maple wood for whisky barrels, for reasons apparently related to the properties of that particular wood. Woodford Reserve's recent Master's Collection Maple Wood Finish claims to be the only successful attempt at having used maple wood for cooperage barrels for a bourbon. It works, and you can taste the maple for sure. (N.B. my Connosr review of WR Master's Collection Maple Wood Finish) Interestingly, you also get significant maple flavour from the sugar maple filtration used in Tennessee whiskies. I won't speak for Jack Daniels, but with George Dickle # 12 the maple flavour in the whisky is significant. There is some experimentation in the US using Applewood and Cherrywood in whiskeys, though, as with Copper Fox Distillery, not in whole barrels made of the wood, but in the use of wood chips in the barrels and drying the grain using smoke from apple and/or cherry wood chips as fuel.

I'd like to see barley roasted with creative fuel sources; what different smoke profiles might we achieve? On Islay, presumably due to a shortage of wood gnereations ago a tridition of using peat to roast the malted barley developed. OK, following the theme of using what you have locally: I live in Colorado, work for Stranahan's; suppose one were to roast one's barley with pine duff (the dry pine needle bed on the forest floor)? Or if one were in Texas, why not use mesquite? For the--ahem--well, for those who prefer smoke to drink, we could use hemp.

I also wonder what would happen if we were to roll our barrels constantly as they age, like on a rock tumbler. How much more quickly would the whiskey age?

Suppose the Scots were to experiment with different grain recipes? What would a Scottish rye be like? How would a bourbon amde in Scotland compare? A 100% barley pot-still whiskey from Kentucky?

What would a Scotch be like were it distilled in a Coffey still or a column still?

How might we experiment with blending? What other spirits might we use than grain nuetral? A raw brandy spirit, perhaps?

Great topic.

I would like to taste a bourbon in a cask different than new oak. or maybe a blend of bourbon and single malt (I could try my own by the way).

yes, that is a good idea @Charlie-Davis . why not kilning with applewood or maple or cerisier...

As the master distillers say, the wood is everything. I like the idea for spice tree. I would toast staves to help the whisky along. I would avoid anything that makes it sweeter, it does that naturally. Look for something that adds new esters to the mix. Maybe some automatics of some kind.

What say ye? :)

Love the idea of the alternative fuels for barley roasting... Enough that I plan on finding out what the laws are for small scale distilling where I live! I would love to see the results that you could get from placing loose staves inside barrels used for aging, giving the effect of speeding the aging process (as is done with wood chips and some red wines) but also allowing not just finishing with different barrels, but allowing the spirit to age in contact with ex-burbon and ex-port (as an example) at the same time.

In the UK the minimum size of still required for legal production of whisky is 1800 litres, it would be interesting to abolish that limit and see what smaller craft distilleries might achieve in Scotland.

Perhaps some might recreate the styles of whisky produced by the early pioneers of whisky distillation?

I would want to work on each distillation run producing a single cask of spirit.

I would like to see more "cross breeds" as such. At the moment Celtic Nations is the only multi-vatted malt combining Irish and Scottish single malts (Cooley & Bruichladdich), and after this thw SWA got the hump and stopped it. The possibilities could be immense if this rule was lifted and more distilleries got involved.

Great topic. I'm for free market. Let distillers make whatever they want and see if anything gets popular. It's this way anyway, right? You just can't call it "Scotch" or "Whisky". I am seeing a lot of white dog around now so someone must like it.

Different smoke profiles sound interesting. I've yet to make the Laphroaig/Blueberry ice cream I've long dreamed of.

How about a quarter cask Bourbon?

Man, what a pain to look up this thread. :(

Anyhow, as I was drinking some armagnac, I was thinking on why there isn't a distillery that experiments with/uses single distillation, like armagnac is made. Or at least not one that I know of. I couldn't find anything on a ban on this by the SWA, at first sight. So what's the reason then?

If you notice the difference in taste between double and triple distilled spirits, the latter usually being more subtle and refined, what would a singe distilled whisk(e)y taste like?

Can anyone enlighten me on this matter?

@Jean-Luc Great topic I would like to see the introduction of new or different wood staves in the casks much like what Compass Box tried at least if nothing else they should be credited for thinking outside the box or outside the compass box. :)

Great idea the use of different woods and the use of woods not often used - How often do we see the use of the venerable black oak, the first choice of producers of the finest Armagnac. Edradour had a Whisky at Cask Strength that had been finished in the supreme quality casks of Chateau d'Yquem; and a mighty fine 'drop' it was! Glenmorangie and several of the independents have given us fine Whisky matured in port casks for some, if not all of their maturation. Hart Bros. did a delicious spicy Whisky that was Springbank distillate matured for 11years in an ex. Port cask; it was so moorish!

I've always felt that good quality casks that have held good quality Rum have been sadly neglected by the Whisky makers - The several I've tried have been incredible!

Cheers.