The category has been slowly chugging along since around 2008, when Citadelle released Réserve, one of the first modern barrel-aged gins. “We took that as a sign that the spirits industry is certainly open to barrel-aged gins.”
“We were absolutely shocked and didn't expect to even medal there,” Bumpers says. In 2018, McClintock’s Reserve Gin won double gold in the gin category at the New York International Spirits Competition - the first barrel-aged gin to ever wine double gold. It didn’t take long for him to find out, though. Only, there weren’t too many barrel-aged gins on the market at the time, and Bumpers wasn’t sure what the response would be. The idea, says co-founder Braeden Bumpers, was to add complexity and depth to McClintock’s gin recipes. McClintock Distillery in Frederick, MD planned to produce a barrel-aged gin even before it opened its doors to the public in December of 2016. But even though it’s more common, there’s just one problem: What are you supposed to do with it?
The spirit has both the botanicals of a classic gin and the smooth barrel notes of a whiskey. Over the past decade, barrel-aged gins have become an increasingly common sight.
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