Harebrained Bourbon Cider Scheme?

Alright. Here's my harebrained scheme. I'm thinking of making a cider using a low attenuation ale yeast (for nice residual sweetness). But my brilliant flippin idea is to rack the cider to the secondary a little early, and then use a really nice bourbon to raise the alchohol level to stop the fermentation and preserve both some of the sweetness and some of the fresh apple character form the cider.

Is this insane? Any hints/tips/words of warning?

Related question, what should be the target %alcohol for such a wacky project? A level that would discourage further fermentation, but would not taste like bathtub moonshine. 9%? I guess the lower the better to keep as much cider flavor as possible.

For some backstory, the last time I attempted cider, I tried a mulled cider with about 3/4 a pound of medium color crystal malt, and it came out tasting like clove water with a little vodka in it. Not just dry, shriveled. Thus this elaborate plan to make a sweet appley cider.

Thanks.

Why not just put a couple campden tabs in it?

Could. I was thinking bourbon for two reasons.

1) I love the taste of the spiked bourbon cider we make on thanksgiving.
2) I don't keg/force carbonate, so wouldn't the tablets kill enough yeast that I wouldn't be able to carbonate it in the bottle? (I don't want it still.)

It could be done, I guess. I don't really see the point, though.

You'd have to get the alcohol % pretty high to kill the yeast- in the 15 or 20% range.

For a 5 gallon batch, that is a heck of a lot of bourbon.

Seems to me it would be easier, and whole lot cheaper to make a sweet cider in the 5-6% range, let it finish, bottle it, and add the bourbon in to taste when you drink it.

It would be a much better idea to ferment your cider to dryness, which without adding sugar to it will produce between 4 and 7% depending on the sugar content of your original juice. Once it is completely fermented, discourage any further fermentation with sorbate and sulphate, then just backsweeten with some sugar or honey or juice or whatever.

That is of course if your goal is just a sweet cider. If you want to infuze your cider with some bourbon characteristics, I say either oak or or go ahead and add some bourbon, but that would be uncharted waters for me so do it to taste I suppose. It would definitely need some aging to blend the flavors, but could be quite fantastic.

EDIT: If you want to sweeten it AND bottle condition, not sure how you plan on accomplishing this if your intention with the bourbon is the kill the yeast.

Could be you're right, Docapi.
Maybe I just need to read up more on making a nice sweet 5-6% cider.
Maybe I'm trigger shy from my last escapade when it turned out so flavorless.

If you are looking for sweet and sparkling, you need to consider either kegging (which you said you don't do) or nonfermentable sugars. Ferment it dry, then add splenda, or lactose or stevia to taste before bottling. That along with the regular 1 oz per gallon of priming sugar will get your a sweet sparkling cider around 5 or 6%

I think I get what my mistake is here.
I wasn't thinking of killing the yeast so much as tricking it into abandoning the first stage of fermentation and moving on to the next stages. But, the yeast doesn't make that transition based on the alcohol % and how hospitable/inhospitable the conditions are, it makes that transition because of the presence or lack of fermentable sugars.

Thanks folks.

You could always buy a used bourbon barrel & age your cider in it; that would be a LOT of cider though.