Casks contribute up to 80% of a whisky’s eventual character and this makes them disproportionately important to all whisky makers. Coopering is the traditional role of creating and repairing wooden barrels yet in today’s whisky industry it is a vanishing art.
The number of skilled coopers is dwindling rapidly, replaced by machine coopering. And yet for those distilleries that still take the time to employ one, a skilled cooper can bring multiple benefits. As Master Cooper for The Glasgow distillery I’ll run you through everything a good cooper can bring to a distillery.
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Balancing Tradition And Efficiency
I had trained as a cooper since I was 16, taking 5 years to become an apprentice and more than 20 years working for various distilleries after that. Eventually I was asked to retrain in mechanical coopering, but it was not for me. I spent 14 years thinking my coopering days were done, before a call from an old boss led me eventually to The Glasgow distillery.
I have been working with The Glasgow Distillery since 2015 and I am confident in saying it’s very beneficial for a distillery to have an on-site cooper. Sadly it is also very rare.
These days in larger cooperages everything is much more mechanical. When I was learning it was 100% manual but these days it does seem that it can be quantity over quality from some of the larger cask producers.
The Benefits Of An On-Site Cooper
Each cask is inspected visually and by nosing when it arrives, before it is filled, and before it is emptied. My decades of experience means I can detect any cracks or imperfections within a stave. I can remove and replace this before filling to ensure there is no leakage over time.
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Casks can look shiny and new and to the untrained eye everything can look fine – but if you know your wood and you look a little deeper you can detect flaws and things that will soon go wrong. When initially checking a cask I am looking for many things: bad staves, cracks, any staves that seem porous (any visible history of leaks from bad grain or pinholes), any weak spots where the staves could shift once filled, bad hoops, ends that don’t fit properly, and more.
The Glasgow Distillery use a lot of expensive casks, including virgin oak and sherry casks. To be able to make sure that the cask is in the best condition possible whilst it matures our single malt is essential in producing a good final product.
A Day In The Life Of A Cooper
We have a great distilling team at The Glasgow Distillery who produce an exceptional new make spirit. I in turn do my best to ensure all the effort and time that has gone into making the spirit is replicated when it comes to the casks themselves.
No day is ever the same! Some days start with deliveries of new casks arriving on site which will mean directing the logistics of finding a place to store these casks and inspecting them as they come off the wagon. Any cask that has a stave that needs to be replaced is marked with an ‘X’ and then I will work on those casks throughout the day before they are scheduled to be filled.
Some days I am re-racking (moving the contents from one cask into another for a finishing period). Other days I am filling casks with new make spirit direct from our spirit tank. I can also be found working in the office on the administration side of things to ensure every cask is correctly logged into our database.
Outside of this I may be working alongside Mike, The Glasgow Distillery Co-Founder, to meet potential new cask suppliers. Or working with our Head Distiller, Alex, to ensure cask management and the filling schedule is working in tandem with the spirit creation from the distillers.
I also draw samples from casks so that the whisky blending team can nose and taste them and plan future releases.
Sometimes I can find myself with the team on the road. I help with deliveries or showcasing our range of products at a whisky festival or spirits show. People like to meet the personalities behind the whisky and it’s a pleasure to share knowledge about the casks and the management of the maturation for our different releases.
“You Look After The Cask, And The Cask Will Look After The Whisky”
My Journeyman Cooper once told me “you look after the cask, and the cask will look after the whisky”. It is such an important part of the whisky making process and is integral in producing the final flavor.
At The Glasgow Distillery we focus on making a very fruity and sweet new make spirit, enabled by long fermentation, slow distillation, and the use of select yeast strains. The types of casks I help select and create must compliment the spirit we’re making and not over shadow it.
We are fortunate that it is newer casks we fill at The Glasgow Distillery. These new casks add a lot of flavor and are usually fairly well made, so they are easier to manage and maintain over time.
Keeping An Ancient Skill Alive
Passing on the skills I have learned over the year with the young team we have at the distillery is a real pleasure. For me, it is all about the people.
Seeing a cask that has been maturing for 20 years brought out, and to see that it hasn’t leaked one bit thanks to your own skill set is also very satisfying. Of course, the other side of that is seeing one that has gone away for 20 years and come back empty! Those moments are all part of learning to be better at my trade.
It’s a big responsibility to fill casks. The people around me have invested heavily in both the spirit creation and wood itself. It’s a pleasure to have their trust and to provide a service which will look after their investment over time.
