Kentucky Distillery Aging Its Brandy With a Little Springsteen

Distilleries across the country are getting awfully creative these days with the way they age their beer and spirits. A while back we told you that Dock Street was aging a beer while playing Wu Tang non-stop, and today I learned that Jersey’s own Bruce Springsteen is being blasted near aging barrels of brandy at Copper & Kings distillery in Louisville, Kentucky.

Vice’s Munchies blog has the story, explaining that, unlike Dock Street who play one song at a time, Copper & Kings curate themed playlists for their kegs that are played 24/7. “Some days it’s based on musicians’ birthdays, while on others the playlist is picked based on a new market that the brand has broken into,” Vice writes.

For instance, Springsteen came in to play on Independence Day:

On July 4, Springsteen, Hendrix, Kravitz, and Bowie rounded out a medley of independence-themed songs queued to get the aging all-American spirits in a patriotic mood. And on other days it’s just based on the distillers’ tastes—anything from My Morning Jacket to death metal to jazz. It doesn’t matter as long as it has that pulse, pulse, pulse. They draw the line at Katy Perry, though.

This all jives, Vice writes, as part of owner Joe Heron’s “sonic aging” process.

Heron says that “happy brandy makes happy drinking,” and believes that the gentle vibrations of the music assist in the aging process for his craft spirits, absinthe, and brandy. By pushing frequencies inside the barrel, liquid constantly circulates, causing more surface contact with the oak barrels. Unlike bourbon, which moves in and out of the oak due to changes in temperature, his nuanced indie brandy calls for finesse and tender coaxing.

Dock Street’s Vince Desrosiers told us something similar when we interviewed him about his Wu Tang brew in May:

Though the constant Wu Tang music is a bit of a gimmick, Desrosiers points out Cambridge Brewing Company’s Will Meyers stimulated the fermentation process using tuning forks for a beer he called Om. “It started as a joke,” Desrosiers says, “and then we wondered if the bass would cause enough vibration to move the yeast around and create some different flavors during fermentation.”