The first thing to say is that all the barrels that leave our cooperage (new or used) are pressure tested before they leave the premises. This means that we put water in them and let them sit for a while (and turn them) and check to see if there are any leaks. So when they…

Oak barrels are a key component in the production of many types of alcoholic beverages and here we are going to look at how this process works. One of the reasons oak barrels are so important in the production process is because they add unique flavors to the beverage being aged within them. We will…

Here we will look at the different ways that barrels are produced in the US and Europe as well as looking at the different properties that American and French/European oak have. When comparing a US cooperage with a typical European one, the most obvious difference is scale – as with so many things, Americans just…

There is no getting away from it – used port barrels are not cheap! There is a good reason for this – there is a limited supply because only so many barrels get released on to the market each year and there is a growing demand as distillers become more experimental with the ageing techniques.…

We have an extraordinary variety of clients buying our used barrels – from experimenting distillers who want a couple of 40 litre barrels to world renown brands who regularly buy containers of 150 barrels at a time. As a used barrel supplier the trick for us is to balance having just enough stock of barrels…

Our cooperage is still very much run along traditional lines, so whilst we have invested in machinery such as laser guided machining to produce are staves and a semi-automatic press to fit the staves, most of what we do as a barrels supplier in Portugal involves a hammer and a lot of skill from one…

The char is undoubtedly the most mystical part of barrel making and because we are a very traditional cooperage (we are based in Portugal), we treat it with the reverence it deserves. So that means that we do not use gas to char our barrels, rather we remove the heads from the barrel and set…

As with so many sectors in the global economy at the moment, cooperages are suffering from a shortage of a key raw material and there is no more important raw material for making a barrel than oak. Traditionally France is seen as the source of the finest oak on the planet and whilst there may…

Our cooperage is based not far from the Douro valley, so it is no coincidence that the majority of used barrels that we sell are from port wine – we do have a lot of customers who are unsure whether they should order ex ruby or ex tawny port barrels, so here we will go…

Whilst we supply a broad range of fortified wine barrels, including used madeira barrels, but also muscatel, sherry, brandy and cognac, our real speciality is used port wine barrels. One of the trickiest part of our job is sourcing the barrels from the port wine cellars when they have finished with them: typically what happens…