Whisky Barrels, Stephanie Aitkins

NEW LIFE IN DEATH

INGENIOUS USES FOR EX-WHISKY BARRELS

Speak to any whisky connoisseur for long enough about the spirit they love and you’ll see the almost reverent way they regard the humble barrel. The more you listen and learn, the more this esteem makes sense, for it’s in the barrel that spirit becomes whisky as we know it – full of flavour, viscosity and subtle character. The barrel is the mother of whisky, holding and nurturing the spirit until it’s ready to face the big wide world. And like any mother, its influence on its progeny is immense.

WORDS STEPHANIE AIKINS

With such respect and interest held in their lives, it seems to many almost sacrilege to simply discard the barrel in death. To go from being a hotly sought after resource to a pile of old oak seems dismissive and wasteful, and that’s where human innovation has come into play. We live in a world where sustainability forms the basis of all we do, while the desire for products that feel personalised and unique to us drives our buying habits. The result of these intertwining phenomena is that the barrel can be re-imagined into a seemingly endless list of decorations, tools and accoutrements.

The adaptation and re-use of barrels isn’t a new concept, however. In fact it links to a decades old tradition within the industry that stretches across continents, whisky styles and distilleries.

In an attempt to create work for coopers and loggers during the Great Depression, the American government mandated in 1938 that bourbon could only be aged in new barrels. Keep in mind though, the big players like Brown-Forman were already doing this, as the fewer times a barrel is used the more flavour it imparts to the spirit. The war effort during WWII may have halted the distillation of new whiskeys but it didn’t stop consumers from drinking the already matured barrel-aged expressions, resulting in a huge surplus of used barrels once the war came to an end. Perhaps it was a cost effective choice for war-ravaged British producers, but Scottish and Irish whisk(e)y makers were more than happy to take the once-used barrels off the Americans’ hands. These barrels took with them about four to five per cent of spirit that had been aged in their interiors, which added a slight desirable hint of bourbon flavour to the Scottish and Irish expressions.

There are certain sought after characteristics based on which a Scottish or Irish whisk(e)y maker will choose a barrel. The type of oak used, the amount of roasting or charring of the barrel and the spirit that has sat in it are

all important factors when choosing a barrel. In a happy coincidence, the traditional American Oak ex-bourbon barrels, or Quercus Alba, were not only relatively cheap and plentiful in the mid-20th century, but were found to instil delicate woody characteristics in the whisky and promote subtle notes of vanilla and sweet coconut due to the caramelisation of the lignin and wood sugars. Hence these industries became largely dependent on U.S. barrel imports.

During the same time period, 500 litre European oak butts used to transport sherry from Spain to the UK were also being re-used as a vessel for aging whisky. It was found the remnants of sherry absorbed into the wood enhanced the dried fruit and nutty characteristics in the whisky.

As 80 per cent of a whisky’s final flavour comes from the oak cask it rests in, it’s common practice nowadays to use multiple types of oak to mature a spirit. Generally the first cask used is the American oak ex-bourb on barrel, which gives the whisky a good base before European oak, previously used to mature rum, cognac, oloroso sherry, fortified wines like port or madeira, or wines such as pinot noir or Bordeaux reds, rounds out the flavours. Beer casks like former stout or IPA barrels are also growing in popularity.

For those bourbon barrels that don’t make it to Bonnie Scotland or the Emerald Isle, the cycle of re-purposing will see them sent off to Mexico for aging tequila or the Caribbean to be filled with rum. Many breweries have also jumped on board, requesting ex-bourbon barrels to age their craft beer. A quick ‘Google’ will bring up the array of ‘whisky barrel flavoured’ food products now available, from coffee, tea and vanilla, to maple syrup and even hot sauce. When at one point a large player like Wild Turkey was sitting on 30,000 barrels they couldn’t give away, now an ex-bourbon barrel will cost about $60-$70 US and is in hot demand.

However, just as all good things come to an end, so the barrel eventually loses its ability to impart flavour. At this stage, it was once thought there was little left to do than ship the barrel off to landfill, leaving it to age until its rusted metal hoops fell off and its staves turned to dust; that or convert them into somewhat quaint garden features or kitsch bar tables. Now they say necessity is the mother of invention, but it’s certainly true that sentimentality has spawned its fair share of ingenuity. It’s for the sake of sentimentality that we’ve seen ‘dead’ whisky barrels transformed into some pretty quirky keepsakes.

In 2016, New Zealand bartender Andrew Brown and local timepiece makers, Roys Road Watches, recycled old Glenfiddich casks into a rather elegant watch. In the same year, Glenmorangie teamed up with renowned spectacles maker, Finlay & Co., to make a set of sunglasses made from the same American oak used to age the Scotch. This isn’t the Highland distiller’s only unorthodox reuse of its barrels, with it also partnering with leading bicycle manufacturer Renovo in 2017 to create a bike entirely made of whisky casks.

Even on home soil, Starward whisky has worked with Cut Throat Knives to create an extremely limited edition knife carved from ex-barrel staves. Although each knife was priced at $730AUD and only five were made, that didn’t stop them from selling out in only four minutes.

What unites these seemingly eclectic uses for the modest whisky barrel is the dedication of time and effort to creating some truly unique and beautiful. That reverence for the barrel throughout its many stages of life is expressed through our desire to fashion it in ‘death’ into something timeless and part of our every day.