Making Wooden Barrels for Wine and Whiskey

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Clay Risen, Packing Technology Into a Barrel; To meet soaring demand from wine, whiskey and beer makers, an industry reshapes its craft. New York Times, Aug 28, 2016.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/2 ... imeless-barrel.html

Quote: "A century ago, when TW Boswell founded Independent Stave, the wood barrel was the equivalent of today's aluminum shipping container, a workhorse used to haul products as diverse as whiskey and wood nails. * * * Between uses, merchants would burn their barrels’ insides to sterilize the surface and remove errant smells or flavors. Somewhere along the way, customers noticed that wines and spirits that spent a few months in a barrel lost some of their edge and took on a pleasant color and flavor. Barrel aging was born. * * * the 1935 Federal Alcohol Administration Act, passed two years after the end of Prohibition, which requires virtually all American whiskey to be aged in new barrels. Once a barrel is used, no matter how short the aging period, it must be replaced."

Note:
(a) "SALEM, Mo — Standing on a wooded hillside in the Ozarks, about 100 miles southwest of St Louis, Brad Boswell watches [the felling] of a 100-foot white oak. * * * His great-grandfather, TW Boswell, founded Independent Stave in 1912 * * * Based in Lebanon, Mo, it is the world’s largest barrel manufacturer, at a time when demand for wine, whiskey and beer — all of which rely on barrels for aging — is skyrocketing."
(i) The tree was felled at Salem, Missouri.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem,_Missouri
(The name Salem is derived from the Hebrew word Shalom, meaning "peace")
(ii) Company headquarters is at Lebanon, Missouri.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon,_Missouri

, which is 62 miles (air or straight distance) due west of Salem, MO.
(iii)
(A) Quercus alba
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_alba
(white oak; "Although called a white oak, it is very unusual to find an individual specimen with white bark; the usual color is a light gray")
(B) Latin-English dictionary:
* querkus (noun feminine): "oak"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quercus
(iv) Compare
(A) stave (n; plural staves): "any of the narrow strips of wood or narrow iron plates placed edge to edge to form the sides, covering, or lining of a vessel (as a barrel) or structure"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stave
with
(B) staff (n; plural staffs or staves): "a pole, stick, rod, or bar used as a support or as a sign of authority <the staff of a flag> <a bishop's staff>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/staff

(b) "The barrel industry * * * stands as an exception in a mainly dismal American manufacturing industry * * * Bucking that trend, several new cooperages are in the works, and existing companies have all expanded production."

cooperage (n)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cooperage
(c) "Not long ago [in the 1980s and '90s] * * * American winemakers preferred to import expensive French oak [Quercus petraea] barrels, the better to craft the Bordeaux-style reds coming out of California.  Low-tech American cooperages didn’t do much to improve the situation. An American barrel in 1990 looked, and performed, about as well as a barrel from 1790.  But alongside the bourbon boom of the last decade has come a technological revolution in American barrel making * * * No wonder American wineries preferred the sophistication of French oak. In France, coopers dried their wood for up to three years, while Americans tended to stop at a year. French coopers applied small flames to the inside of their barrels to lightly toast them, turbocharging certain flavors. Americans practically set their barrels on fire, giving everything, whether whiskey or wine, a charred, intensely vanilla flavor. * * * American barrels cost about $450, on average — against $700 or more for French barrels."

craft (vt): "to make or produce with care, skill, or ingenuity <is crafting a new sculpture> <a carefully crafted story>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/craft
(d) "At first, Independent Stave just made staves — the slats that make up a barrel, hence the name — because many distilleries fashioned their own barrels. * * * Whiskey and wine consumption picked up through the postwar years, and the company expanded with it. In 1951, it opened its own cooperage"

In other words, in 1951, the company started making its own barrels.
(e) "Independent Stave isn't the industry's only innovator. Black Swan makes barrels with a honeycomb design etched on the inside, which increases surface area and reduces a whiskey's aging time. * * * And there are long waiting lists. 'We have a lead time of 12 to 15 months' * * * Skilled coopers still build the barrels, by hand."
(i) Barrel Styles Available. Black Swan Cooperage LLC, undated
www.blackswanbarrels.com/barrel-variations/
(Black Swan HONEY COMB® Barrel (patent pending) [with punched depressions])
(ii) lead time (n)
vwww.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lead%20time