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Bourbon Barrels


Adam Schulz

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Seguin Moreau is producing Bourbon Barrels for the Craft Distillery market. We are producing 2 year air dried, wine quality stave wood barrels for $380/barrel

We have developed an innovation in cooperage called the U-Stave process.

By routering U-Shaped grooves inside of the staves, we can increase the internal surface area of a barrel by 50%. We have had a great deal of success with craft distillers that report increased color and extraction as a result of using these barrels.

There is more information on this process here

http://seguinmoreaunapa.com/innovation/u-stave/

Please contact me if you have any questions regarding our barrels or production timing.

Thank You,

Adam Schulz

Seguin Moreau

509.240.6833

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If barrel makers keep jacking their prices up we're likely to see an influx of cheaply made barrels from out of the country. I don't how any whiskey distillery stays in business with barrel prices being what they are at the moment without taking on a large amount of debt.

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Perhaps it's time to push the TTB for changes in designations, either through altered definitions, or through expanded classes and types that allow for more mainstream usage of alternative maturation techniques.

One could make the argument that new oak is extremely wasteful from an environmental perspective, contributing significantly to deforestation and carbon emission. The manufacturing process and downstream shipment is likely just as resource intensive, wasteful. I'm sure there are plenty of environmental groups just looking for a new mission. There is very clear precedent in the industry around the "recycling" or barrels, and the benefits.

Or, look at it from another direction - do you think consumers really care about the designations these days? I'd argue that your label design is significantly more important than your listed class and type.

The way I see it, why not simply adjust the definitions of "Whisky distilled from XX mash" from "stored in used oak containers" to "stored in contact with oak". I suspect very few would consider this a major change to these rarely-used designations.

Then, screw the barrel entirely and just label as "Whiskey" - you can get a brand new 350 gallon stainless IBC for $2000. That's 5 bucks a gallon, and can be reused for nearly forever. I'm pretty sure you can find virgin, fresh cut oak to cut into "staves" and char through your local tree services. There are plenty of large mature oaks that come down every day here in the Northeast, they all go straight into the mulchers or the landfill. Stainless aging with immersed oak is relatively commonplace these days, no doubt because of the high "wine barrel" prices.

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The last paragraph of your post resonates pretty strongly, since at the moment I have no fewer than three white oaks on my property that need to come down, per my insurance carrier.

(For the non-NJ folks out there, the homeowners' underwriters have been suggesting, post-Sandy, that large trees which threaten the structure be removed)

Each of these trees is 65' to 80' tall with a 30" trunk diameter.

That's a lot of barrel staves.

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