Barrel of fun

"One thing still remains the same. The old oak casks."

Scotch whisky is big business. Global sales have reached well over 5 billion pounds per year with demand still growing in countries where previously whisky was far from the tipple of choice.

Drinks companies have been eager to quench that thirst, building huge computer-run distilleries all over the world to increase production.

But one thing still remains the same. The old oak casks.

Whisky isn’t Scotch Whisky unless it has been distilled in Scotland and matured for a minimum of three years in an oak cask which comes in various capacities from a Pin to a Butt. The tradesmen who build and repair the oak barrels, known as coopers, have passed the skills down through the generations and show no signs of entering the hi-tech world. They still use traditional tools such as a dowelling stock, flagging iron, inside shave and a hollowing knife.

I visited the Speyside Cooperage which started as a family business in 1947. It is situated in the small village of Craigellachie in the north of Scotland - affectionately known as the Malt Whisky Trail. They repair and build up to 150,000 oak casks a year, with each ‘cooper’ still being paid per cask, working on 20 to 30 per day like it always has been. The hardest workers can earn up to 60,000 pounds per year.

It’s a very busy working environment with no room for small talk or lazing about. Cooper’s earn their crust from the moment they roll a cask to a workspace, begin taking it apart, hammering the lid, metal hoops and inspecting the wooden staves. They then make the repairs and put it back together again. It’s pretty much “perpetual motion”, a phrase used by Andrew Russell, the general manager of the cooperage.

Outside the cooperage's main building are rows (or stow’s) of oak barrels delivered from around the world. Stacked high in the air with the different distillery names stamped on the lids, it’s a formidable sight.

Among the barrels are U.S. bourbons like Jack Daniels and Jim Beam as well sherry and port barrels from Spain and South America. It’s like a holiday brochure of countries you want to visit and shows how a local company in the north of Scotland can remain a crucial part of the global market through traditional methods and a hard work ethic .

From the water in the hills, via the distillery's copper still, to the oak cask where it may sit for up to fifty years until it is finally tasted – it’s perpetual motion. I couldn’t put it any better myself.

Slainte!