Well, what I know from my studies is that most (all?) bourbon barrels are not thrown away after the spirit is bottled but are sent to Scotland (and other places?) for use in aging Scotch whisky.
Likewise, Scotland ages a lot of spirit in used sherry wine and other wine barrels.
Further, those barrels can be used more than once. (Bourbon and rye and a few other types of whisky are required to be aged in charred new oak barrels in order for their respective names to be used. Corn whisky can be aged in uncharred new oak or used oak.)
So I guess my questions would be these:
What percentage of the world’s bourbon/rye and wine barrels are never used for aging a spirit? Is it most that get used?
When are barrels eventually thrown out? Obviously, they can age spirit for decades. Do most barrels eventually get used for second-fill or do they get pitched?
Considering the world’s much larger population and the popularity of aged wines and spirits, would it be a fair guess that barrel production now is higher than at any time in history, even though barrels used to be used for other stuff too?
And what other stuff were barrels used for? Obviously, transporting any type of liquids. But per the restaurant name, were there “cracker barrels”? That seems like a pretty bad way to transport and crackers (though I can see maybe hardtack and stuff like that).
Barrels can stay in use for a long time. Here is one 300 years old
In fact, they do normally get reused until the wood begins to rot. Even then, if it is just the odd stave, they can be repaired.
Go back 200 years and wooden barrels were a pretty ubiquitous method of storing goods, especially perishables. On an 18th century sailing ship the food and drink that wasn’t on the hoof so to speak, would be stored entirely in barrels.
I am not actually sure what the ‘crackers’ in a cracker barrel were, but the meaning seems to somewhat conflate with scuttlebut. (A but(t) was a type of barrel)
Do you mean that, say, the Jim Beam barrels that used for aging Scotch will just keep getting reused forever, or is there a certain point where they say, “Ain’t no more flavor in this puppy”?
Generally wine barrels are only used for about 3 or 4 years. Getting 3 or 4 different years of wine in them. The 300 year old barrel is not being used to impart a wood flavor to the wine it is a storage tank with a long interesting history.
Barrels for things like Scotch are generally used only once. But the scotch is in the barrel for few years. Some whiskeys will use barrels that have had once use from wine or port to give the whiskey and interesting flavor.
I have a whiskey barrel in my family room. It has a 36" round piece of glass on it, and a few high top bar stools nearby. Bought it from a vineyard a few years ago, when I remodeled my house.
Apart from flour and the usual staples, I seem to remember the sort of people who ate oysters transported them and kept them in barrels. Oysters were eaten alive-oh — vide Molly Malone —, so these barrels would have been full of the quick and the dead — until one opened the shell it was a sort of Schrödinger’s Oyster.
I used to live in one of the towns that had a factory. IDK when the barrels are destroyed, but they did sell defective barrels to the general public, to be used for whatever they wanted (and some were pre-cut into half barrels) and they were also used as trash cans in the downtown area.
I drove by the factory on the way to work, and even if it was dark (half the time, I went to work at 6am), I could tell when they got a new shipment of wood, because I could smell it from a block or two away.
Most articles I can find claim that “most” get reused and that prices for used bourbon barrels have increased as demand has increased (both by increased demand for scotch and by the use of old bourbon barrels by microbreweries).
According to this source a single used barrel (that article discussing sherry ones) are used for Scotch for about 70 years. The demand for used barrels apparently outstrips supply to a huge degree.
When I toured Buffalo Trace, they mentioned that they sold the barrels after each use. Some go to other distillers and some go to the public.
According to the tour guide, if you can get one straight from the distillery, you can pour about a gallon or so of water into it and it will pull the alcohol out from the wood and make a drinkable alcoholic beverage.
As noted above, US law is peculiar in insisting that the spirit called “bourbon” must be aged in virgin barrels, so selling them after each use is a pretty practical way of recouping the expense that entails.
I think it’s very unlikely that current barrel production is even a fraction of a percent of what it was at its peak. Barrels were ubiquitous for centuries, not just for alcohol, but for practically anything that had to be stored for any time, or transported any distance. Any liquid, obviously, but also dry goods, like flour or gunpowder; fruit and vegetables were often carried in barrels as well, fresh, dried and pickled; also nails and other hardware.
You’ve heard the expression “like shooting fish in a barrel”? Herring used to be shipped around the world, packed with salt into barrels as tightly as sardines are packed in a can.