All terms
Distillery glossary
Cooperage
Cooperage refers to the craft and facility of making barrels, and to the barrels themselves. A cooper builds, toasts, and chars the oak casks used to age whiskey.
For American whiskey the barrel must be new charred oak, so cooperage is a major recurring cost and a key flavor driver. Char level, toasting, wood species, and stave seasoning all influence maturation. Tracking each barrel's cooperage attributes from fill lets a distillery connect wood choices to outcomes and to cost per barrel.
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