How To Turn into A Whisky Cask Cooper

Coopering is the traditional craft of setting up picket barrels. It’s a talent that’s key to whisky making and the traditions of hand coopering have been handed down by generations. Nevertheless in at present’s whisky business hand coopering is a vanishing artwork and the variety of expert coopers is dwindling quickly.

Shrug Q, Grasp Cooper for The Glasgow distillery is one in every of lower than 300 coopers remaining in Scotland. Right here he runs by the journey from apprentice to grasp and the meandering journey to get there.

The Historic Artwork Of Constructing and Repairing Casks

Coopering is an historical commerce that dates again centuries, and today there are only a few precise coopers left – I imagine lower than 300 in Scotland. To maintain the custom alive is an actual pleasure. With nearly 30 years of expertise I attempt to share my insights and expertise with all of the employees round me on the distillery to go on the data I’ve discovered.

The abilities concerned in hand coopering are very conventional. I’ve labored at The Glasgow Distillery since 2015 and there’s no automation; every part is completed by hand, with hammer and driver. I like having the ability to spend my time being lively, bodily, and engaged—I’m not one for sitting nonetheless for too lengthy.

Turning into A Cooper

My older brother was the Head Cooper and my uncle was the Manufacturing Director at Common Containers in Maryhill, Glasgow. I left faculty aged 16 and instantly began as an apprentice there, a course of which takes 5 years. As an apprentice you get teamed up with a Journeyman Cooper who reveals you the ropes and the methods of the commerce.

My Journeyman was a person known as Jimmy Hogg, a person who taught me every part I do know. The way in which it could work again in that day was I’d be paid a primary wage of £27, however the Journeyman Coopers had been all on piecework – you bought paid by the cask. My journeyman would additionally receives a commission for all of the casks that I’d make in every week so from day one the stress was on to carry out and make as many casks as you may. If I carried out properly that week my Journeyman would give me a money bung on the Friday.

After the 5 years apprenticeship, and every week earlier than my twenty first birthday, I handed my Commerce Take a look at and have become a completely certified Cooper. The most effective a part of passing the check was that you just had been now on piecemeal, getting 100% of your cask earnings every week, which was £2.40 for the standard barrel, and a bit extra for bigger casks comparable to a sherry butt or a port pipe.

At 23 I utilized for a job with Grants in Irvine, so I handed in my discover to my uncle, who was not too impressed. Involved that I used to be shifting away to make somewhat further money, he requested me to attend a day and after I subsequent got here into the cooperage he informed me I had an interview with J&B Distillers (later Diageo as of 1986) on Blythswood Property in Renfrew. It turned out that it wasn’t an interview in any respect however ended up being a job that he had secured for me.

Constructing 40 casks per week would get you a primary pay however something over can be on bonus. By this time I used to be properly and actually in my stride and repairing over 100 casks per week and making good cash.

I spent 20 glad years there however in 1999 I used to be given the chance to enter mechanical coopering—working extra with machines than along with your arms like the standard technique I used to be skilled in. I turned the provide down and determined to take voluntary redundancy as an alternative.

At this level I had accepted that my coopering days had been behind me. I labored as a Hackney black cab driver for the following 14 years.

A Return To The Trade

Someday, out of the blue, my outdated managing director at Diageo requested if I wished to do a job for them at Penderyn in Wales. The cash was good so I went down to assist them a few occasions, sharing my data and serving to them restore any defective casks.

The identical good friend then requested me if I wished to do the identical at Speyside Distillery, which I did.

Then, in 2015, he requested me if I used to be curious about serving to out a model new distillery which had simply began producing single malt in Hillington, an Industrial Property on the outskirts of Glasgow. It was right here that I met Liam Hughes, and the remaining is historical past. I joined the distillery simply days after the primary cask was stuffed, beginning with at some point per week.

Someday per week grew to become two, then three, and finally grew to become full time. I’ve been with the Glasgow distillery for 9 years now and have witnessed it develop from a start-up into a completely fashioned, profitable producer exporting around the globe. The expansion has been outstanding however the staff right here nonetheless preserve to the identical hands-on ethos inside manufacturing that I witnessed from the very starting.

The Instruments Of A Cooper

At The Glasgow Distillery it’s all outdated and conventional methods. I take advantage of a wide range of instruments in my day-to-day job:

• A coopers hammer.
• A Driver; a software used for pushing hoops down and tightening them.
• A Crumb Knife which makes certain the staves are the identical weight (the identical thickness) to arrange the croze – the form each stave has to ensure the top suits in uniformly throughout the cask.
• A Croze Block which cuts the croze
• A Plucker, which is a coopers spoke shave to make the surface clean – a ‘coopers airplane’
• A Adze – which is a multi use software for a lot of totally different jobs
• A big compass to measure ends
• A Heading knife for slicing in ends
• A examine, which is coopers anvil for hand riveting (there’s no rivet machine so I do that by hand and tighten the hoops by hand as I discovered in my apprenticeship).
• And a leather-based apron!

I used to be given these instruments as an apprentice cooper, and these are nonetheless the identical ones that I take advantage of to at the present time. A coopers’ instruments will final a lifetime in the event you take care of them properly. My outdated journeyman additionally gave me some instruments which had been offered to him when he began, in order that they have to be over 60 years outdated.

Being a cooper within the whisky business is particularly rewarding because it’s a brilliantly social and fulfilling business to work inside. It is filled with characters and I’ve made nice buddies through the years. Individuals all around the globe love whisky, it’s an actual ardour for therefore many individuals, and whether or not I’m serving to our staff out at an occasion in Glasgow or exhibiting some guests across the distillery I’m all the time blown away by the appreciation and particular place that scotch whisky has within the hearts of so many individuals.

It’s a privilege to contribute to that in my very own, small, method.