Whiskey Barrels

The barrel is the singular most expensive component of making aged whiskey. There are reasons for this expense that many people don’t realize. A whiskey barrel takes years to make and time is money. I thought it might be interesting to look at the whiskey barrel and examine these expenses.

First of all it takes years to grow an oak tree to be large enough to make a barrel. The cooperage has to seek out these trees and purchase the wood from the tree growers. One tree might supply enough wood to make a barrel or two, so a cooperage needs to purchase a lot of trees. Once the tree is cut, the process can begin. The wood is cut into billets from which the staves can be made and then dried. There is the expense of milling the wood and then the process of letting the wood dry until it is ready to make barrel staves. Drying can be quickened by using a kiln to heat the wood and letting it dry, but many distilleries want their barrels made from air dried oak and that can take anywhere from one to four years or even longer. That is an expensive part of making a barrel as the cooperage has wood stacked on a lot, just sitting there until it is ready to make staves.

Once the wood is dried, the cooperage can make a barrel. It takes some specialized equipment to make a barrel and that adds to the expense. The equipment has to be purchased and maintained. Then the cooperage needs skilled coopers to make the barrel. Skilled workers need to be paid well with benefits or they will quit and look for other employment. A skilled cooper can raise a barrel in a short amount of time and can produce a lot of barrels in a day, but it takes a lot of barrels to make whiskey, so the cooperage needs a lot of skilled coopers on their payroll. Once the barrel is created it must be sold to a distillery and this takes a sales force. Once the barrel is sold, it must be delivered to the distillery meaning the cooperage must either have their own fleet of trucks or pay a trucking company to deliver the barrels. All these expenses add up and this is why the barrel is the most expensive component to making whiskey.