Warning-Atlas Barrel Fraud

[Avonak]

Warning, DO NOT buy from Atlas Barrel Company. 

We made a purchase in January of this year, paying 50% deposit. We have heard twice that the barrels would be sent soon, only nothing ever arrives. And now we cannot get a hold of anyone to request a refund. DO NOT use them!! 

[Red Pine]

Same. Got told twice that production was delayed due to supply problems. Finally quit waiting and demanded a refund, was told in April the refund check would be sent out the following day. Still nothing.

[captnKB]

Sorry to hear you may have gotten ripped off. We use Kelvin Cooperage and they supply with excellent barrels at a reasonable cost 

[jeffw]

We have been slow to get our barrels from them (if they are coming).  That said, we ordered from them last year and our barrels are great.  Hopefully it all gets sorted out.  Cannot say that I am not a little nervous.  They have or had a real production facility.

[Avonak]

Update: after making a stink on many sites, I have been told most of the barrels are ready to ship on Monday (pretty convenient). They really did not want to provide a refund. I will update whether the barrels arrive and in what condition. 

[Red Pine]

Did some digging on my transaction after seeing this posted. Tracing back the number that appears on my credit card statement, the google research connects it back to the "Russian Federation". There are also 2 facebook pages each with a different number, so my conclusion is that there is an individual or group posing as Atlas Barrel. So it's possible there is a legitimate Atlas Barrel and a fraud.

[Atlas Barrel Company]

Hello Distilling Community!

This is Remington Riehl here, and I handle all client relations for Atlas Barrel. I am sure that I have met up with many of you in person or at least spoken with you over the phone. 

To clear the air, we are 100% a working cooperage out here in Watertown, MN. I posted a video below from the guys at the factory hard at work today. We are open M-F 7:30-4pm, and welcome anybody who's interested in a free tour of the shop, and an opportunity to link up with our founder while you personally char a barrel yourself! 

I know that our Owner reached out to you Avonak and came to a delivery agreement. Separately, Red Pine, I've responded to your PM you sent us on our Facebook page directly.

And no...we are not tied to the Russian Federation. We are a hard-working bunch of individuals here in middle America, trying to supply a unique cask, made from 100% Minnesota white oak to interested distillers in our community. I've requested to take down a duplicate profile page on Facebook to mitigate confusion. It was created at our companies inception by one of our founder's kids and never managed FYI. This is our current page  https://www.facebook.com/atlasbarrel/

Ping me or give me a shout anytime, and I'd be more than happy to chat with you.

 

-Cheers, Remington

Client Relationship Manager

remington@atlasbarrel.com

612-424-5700 (ext3)

http://atlasbarrel.com/

 

[Avonak]

Update, 

I did receive a shipping notice (with invoice) this morning for the full order. I guess it takes some pushing and shoving to get things done. While I hope this was only a serious miscommunication, its concerning that it takes so much effort to get the product. I will keep this post updated with barrel quality once received. 

[bluestar]

1 hour ago, Avonak said:

Update, 

I did receive a shipping notice (with invoice) this morning for the full order. I guess it takes some pushing and shoving to get things done. While I hope this was only a serious miscommunication, its concerning that it takes so much effort to get the product. I will keep this post updated with barrel quality once received. 

More likely, it is the trials and tribulations of starting up a new operation. But the advice I would give such a new business, is to clearly and publicly communicate the status, and reason for delays, during start up of operations.

[Avonak]

Update: We did receive most of the barrels (remainder are being shipped at a later date). On a positive note, I do like that the barrels re individually wrapped, hope it will make barrel prep easier. On a negative note, the 10 gal barrels have a tiny bung, going to to have to get few new things in order to fill. Also, the silicone bungs we have will not fit. 

[Bluebird]

WARNING, Potential Fraud - We Pre-purchased barrels from Atlas Barrels after being cold called by them. We figured we would give a new barrel maker a chance. Barrels were promised in 6 weeks. Inquired about the barrels around 12 weeks and that is where all the problems started. First few phone calls, we were told the appropriate person would give us a call back... never happened. Finally got a call back from Remington, who we asked for our money back. Weeks later, still nothing. Called again asked to talk to Owner/CEO, never received any contact back again. Thankfully this bill was on our credit card, which we contacted the credit company as fraud, and were issued our money back from Master Card, as they would then go after Atlas.  Still Atlas has never responded back.

[jeffw]

Received my Atlas barrels. They were definitely late but they did come and appear to be in good condition.  Hopefully they clear their backlog soon.

 

Cheers,

Jeff

[Huffy2k]

We too had a delayed shipment with Atlas.  Remington seems to be a very nice guy and we are very happy with the barrels we eventually got from them.  Unfortunately, late shipments on barrels is a serious problem for small distillers who may not have the storage capacity for finished spirits.  Production can be impacted if you can't continue to run your still because you don't have any available storage tanks if you couldn't barrel. Sounds like they still have an issue with order backlog and timely delivery. Hopefully they can clear up their production backlog and start delivering orders in a timely manner. They do make a quality barrel.

[SlickFloss]

We also aren't very fond of Atlas here.

Initially ordered a few hundred 53 gallon containers from them, paid by their terms, and had similar experiences as y'alls. They didn't return calls, they were late on shipments, and they kind of just disappeared on us.

They split the order on us for delivery, and both loads when the product came off of truck it was clear things were very inconsistent. The most notable thing about them is their work has little uniformity. Barrels will vary in length. Some heads are more recessed than others. There are barrels with drastically different numbers of staves. They don't sit on racks uniformly. Most of them tend to have an odd shape to them. Some hoops were nail fixed, some were not; none of them were supposed to be. We had a lot of barrels that point blank wouldn't hold 53 gallons of fluid, which is what we paid for. 

When they filled the second order nothing was better.

So now we're a few years down the line filling Atlas 53s (we've bought a bunch of different barrels in between) and we are just about done with our inventory. Many of the barrels had literal holes in them. I would say 25-30% of the inventory needed an extreme amount of recooping (tons of spiles, wax, and bungs) on both the heads and body staves on brand new fully steam hydrated barrels. About 5% of inventory was completely unusable. Pin holes all over body staves. I have lost so much product in leaks. We have so many barrels we store standing up because we couldn't get head seams to seal. The ones that look the best perform the worst, which is ridiculous. 

So get this, we also bought mini cocktail barrels from them. They look great but they're absolutely awful. So many customer complaints about leaks and inventory loss it was a nightmare. So they short filled the order, we actually ended up sending it back for quality reasons. They wouldn't give us our money back and insisted on fulfilling the order, so they sent back the supposedly recoopered barrels with our full order amount this time. Still wouldn't hold fluid. Still wouldn't take money back, so we sent back AGAIN. and guess what, we sent back a third time before giving up. This order we were smart enough not to pay in full ahead of time. 

I realize this is an exceptionally old thread but people need to understand how these people operate. They are still taking orders. They are still taking advantage of the trust of our community. They re still making shitty product. They need to be held responsible. They are the Corson Manufacturing of cooperages.