It really is amazing what you find when you clean your office. A little over a week ago, I got fed up with the disorganized mess that used to be my office. When I realized that I had started to record my monthly (ish) Patreon video in another room, I decided that the time had come to bring it back to a less stressful level of disorder.
As I was cleaning, I found something that I received on a visit to a local craft distiller that I took with a couple of friends. It's an Oak Infusion Spiral created by The Barrel Mill here in Minnesota. He was talking about some failed experiments that he had tried and held one up. Since he wasn't using it, he asked if we wanted them. There were three of them and three of us, so we all said yes. Upon returning home, I promptly set mine on one of my desks and proceeded to let the sediment of time cover it in a pile of papers, notebooks, and folders.
So when I found it last week, I was anxious to do something with it. While I have almost no desire to add it directly to a bottle of spirits, I did have a couple of ideas of what to do with it. I was in the process of making a batch of orange bitters and tossed half of it in there while the liquid rested. To be honest, I never thought to do a control batch on that, so I have no idea if it helped, hurt or did nothing.
With the other half of the spiral though, I decided to get a little more ambitious. I made 750 mL of Manhattan (minus the water/ice) and poured half of it into each of two 375 mL bottles. With one, I put the spiral into and with the other, I left it out. I figured I would let them both sit for seven to ten days and then try each along with a freshly made Manhattan using the same ingredients. (I'll be setting the no spiral one aside to allow it to bottle age for three to six months. Look for that post in the future.)
The main question I wanted to answer was: does this thing do anything? The answer to that is yes. The Manhattan with the oak spiral is noticeably silkier and is better integrated than the freshly made one that I am having next to it. So that's it. The stick does the trick.
Or does it? Oaked versus fresh doesn't really tell you if it was the time it sat or the spiral doing the work. To answer that, I tried the 10-day-old oaked one next to the 10-day-old non-oaked one. To be honest, I expected that there would be little difference between the two since there wasn't a noticeable "oakier" flavor in the bottle with the stick versus the freshly made drink. But there was a huge difference. The non-oaked version might be the worst Manhattan I've ever had. It basically tastes like I used old ingredients.
To sum up, I can't say if this will help your whiskey should you stick it in the bottle. But it might help your cocktails. Just don't try to use it with ones that use non-spirit ingredients to minimize spoilage.
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