[tptacek]

Aged liquors aren't speaker cables. You can get before/after and old-wood/new-wood flights from distillers to see the difference: age makes a huge difference, and cask type makes a huge difference --- as, apparently, does cask size, according to Chuck Cowdery.

[anfractuosity]

I'm assuming cask size would effect ageing, by altering the surface to volume ratio.

With a wooden beer cask I had (4.5gal) you could taste the vanilla from the wood, which I believe was so prominent because of the small cask size, because of more wood touching the beer.

I'm wondering if the cask size also effects the amount of angels share too.

[tptacek]

Cowdery finds the opposite: that smaller barrels produce a less pronounced aging effect. It's counterintuitive.

[anfractuosity]

That's very interesting!

I've just been skimming: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/j.2050-0416.1995....

Although it says "An increased surface to volume ratio of the miniature cask, and increased oxygen concentration, appeared to enhance both extraction and further transformation of wood components, resulting in the dominance of a single characteristic, sweet, after 21 months of maturation." they go on to mention

"maturation of Scotch malt distillate in miniature casks did not enhance the sensory quality of the final product, nor did miniature casks provide a suitable model of an accelerated Scotch whisky maturation process."

[camperman]

> Aged liquors aren't speaker cables.

So what? He was talking about guitars made of wood, not speaker cables.

[dtornabene]

He was noting the difference in comparison...which was the op's point. its apples to oranges.