Creeping Bourbon Effect

Don’t like vanilla, caramel, and oak flavors in your Cabernet, Calvados, or Cognac? Too bad.

By Susannah Skiver Barton

When Goose Island Brewery put a stout into a bourbon barrel in 1992, the resulting style was so new and innovative that the Great American Beer Festival didn’t even have a category for — and wouldn’t for several more years. (There are now six wood-aged beer categories at the annual event.) Over the next three decades, Goose Isla…