"If you take away the cooper, you take away the cooperage, you take away the barrels, then you don't get whisky," says Ray Prosser, Sales & Operations Manager at Oakwood Cooperage, the largest independent cooperage in the UK. Not just because Scotch Whisky must by law be matured in oak casks for a minimum of three years, but because, Ray says, 70% of whisky's flavour comes from the wood.
Ray's been a cooper for 36 years.
“I always had a fascination with wood, even from my days at school,” he tells John Beattie. “It was one of those things. I used to go to my old auntie’s down in Partick, and the neighbour used to come in and help her with the groceries and stuff like that. And they came in one Sunday and said, would I be interested in being an apprentice cooper.
“I didn’t know what a cooper was at the time. Obviously these were the days before internet… So I found out more about it, and I haven’t looked back.”
In this episode he takes John inside the cooperage, where the "unsung heroes" of the whisky industry apply passion, skill and tradition to rejuvenate, repair and restore the casks that give whisky its exceptional flavour, whether they're "your sherry casks, your wine casks, your Bourbons, or your virgin oak".
Join John as Ray reveals:
➡️the 60-to-100-year lifespan of a barrel;
➡️how casks are decharred, recharred and rejuvenated to start all over again;
➡️tips on how to identify what type of barrel a whisky was matured in, even if the label doesn't say;
➡️how coopers will resize casks to get a more wood to spirit ratio to speed up maturation;
➡️and provides a step-by-step walkthrough of barrel repair, hoop driving, and testing.
Slàinte!
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Socials: @C2GWhisky | @JohnRossBeattie
Creator & producer: David Holmes
Art work & design: Jess Robertson
Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)
Vocals: Andrea Cunningham
Guitars: John Beattie
Bass: Alasdair Vann
Drums: Alan Hamilton
Bagpipes: Calum McColl
Accordion: Gary Innes
Music & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John Beattie
Recorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland
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