From March 4-6 our ISC Barrels team visited the city of Pittsburgh for the fifth annual American Craft Spirits Association Convention and Tradeshow. The convention boasts the largest gathering of licensed craft spirits producers in the U.S. – so we were in good company!
At ISC Barrels we are proud to have our casks in distilleries around the world. While many barrels reside in whiskey rick houses, others hold international spirits – pisco from South America, rhum from Martinique, cachaça from Brazil, rice wine from China and our topic today, Mexican tequila.
Offered in limited quantities, our Small Batch barrels combine innovation and technology to bring out the best in your spirits.
Flavor development in barrel aged spirits is a complex process. As coopers, our focus is on oak extractives and their role in flavor development. We study the perception of those oak extractives in spirits and what we can do to heighten or mask their perception.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our team!
Our Cooper’s Reserve barrel brings creativity to the forefront, allowing distillers to create a fully customized barrel tailored to their spirit. Here, the focus is on flavor, using wood type, seasoning, and an extensive range of toast options to achieve specific goals for each mash bill.
ISC Barrel Account Manager, Chad Spalding, recently sat down with the Wilderness Trail Distillery Owners Shane Baker and Pat Heist.
Chad gets some great insight from Shane and Pat on how they met and started their distillery. Plus, get some insight on their favorite cocktails and what they would do if they weren’t distillers.
At our six domestic company-owned stave mills, employees take the high-quality white oak logs and process them into rough staves utilizing 100% of the log. Material that cannot be used for staves is converted into a variety of natural products such as chips, mulch, and sawdust.
Sensory analysis is a critical aspect of research and development at ISC. Each year we lay down new experimental barrels and our sensory panel provides our team with data to track the performance of each barrel. In conjunction with chemical analysis, we rely on this sensory data to maintain barrel quality, develop new products, and test new flavor possibilities.
Our Classic barrel has been around for decades, earning it a reputation as the go-to barrel for distillers around the world. With char and toasting options, the Classic barrel can be customized to your specifications.
ISC Barrels is proud to sponsor and judge the long tradition of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival World Championship Bourbon Barrel Relay™. The first bourbon barrel relay was held in 1991, 26 years ago, and was sponsored by Kentucky distillers.
At ISC, we take sustainability and growth of our white oak resource seriously. We support the Missouri Forest Products Association Logging school which emphasizes the importance of safely harvesting timber while implementing sustainable management practices to ensure the long-term health of our forests.
ISC Barrel Account Manager, Chad Spalding, recently sat down with the Master Distiller at Bardstown Bourbon Company, Steve Nally.
After logs are harvested in the forest, loggers transport their loads to one of our 11 domestic log yards for purchasing. Independent Stave Company Log Procurement has six main log buying yards located at our company-owned stave mill facilities and five satellite yards.
Product Profile: Cooper’s SelectOur Cooper’s Select barrel was developed to allow distillers the opportunity to explore additional flavor characteristics for premium spirits. The extended seasoning of the staves used in our Cooper’s Select barrel allows natural elements (light, humidity and fungal activity) to facilitate changes to the oak chemistry. This …
Before an ISC Barrel is even a twinkle in our coopers’ eyes, the process of sourcing the best American white oak trees for barrel staves has already begun.
In mid-April, ISC team members from around the world convened at our new Research Center located in Lebanon, Kentucky. Attendees came from as far as Germany, France, South America, and Australia. Others represented Mexico, Asia, and the United States.
ISC Barrel Account Manager, Chad Spalding, recently sat down with the Co-founder and Distiller of Limestone Branch Distillery, Steve Beam.
Historically, the benefits of aging spirits in charred barrels was discovered by accident. Intense heat was used in both barrel construction and as a way to cleanse the barrel after use. Through one or both of these processes, it was realized that storing beverage alcohol in oak containers that had been subjected to heat yielded a much more palatable drink.
Oak is an excellent choice for crafting spirits barrels. Why? It contributes a wide variety of desirable flavors, it is ring porous allowing the oak extractives to be more accessible, and oak is liquid tight when quartersawn (American oak) or split along the grain (French/European oak).
