Full Transcript for From Apprentice to Master: Bringing Back Traditional Household Coopering | Killian O'Mahony

like up to the mid-1800s, there was apparently 11,000 Coopers in Ireland. 00:04:43.040 --> 00:04:47.040 11,000 lads swinging a hammer every day making all sorts of vessels. 00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:49.199 So there was a couple of factions of coopering. 00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:55.439 Uh wet coopering, which would be what we know now mainly, which is for distilleries, wineries. 00:04:55.759 --> 00:05:07.120 Um, there was dry coopering, which would have been containing dry goods in a vessel, like for just for transport, uh, apples, flour, nails, gunpowder, even in some cases. 00:05:07.279 --> 00:05:10.800 Um, so you had to have each faction dealing with each type of coopering. 00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:24.000 Uh, brewery coopering is also its own faction because you're dealing with compressed um uh I suppose highly carbonate pressurized liquids, or your staves are thicker, you use brass bushings, there's these little intricacies between the trade. 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:30.879 But household coopering, or what was called then white coopering, is the making of all types of vessels for the household. 00:05:30.959 --> 00:05:37.519 So, like I have a plunge churn uh back here, which is literally going up and down inside in the vessel to churn butter. 00:05:37.759 --> 00:05:40.959 You have miniature casks, miniature barrels for all types of stuff. 00:05:41.120 --> 00:05:48.000 I have a couple of uh vessels up here for one-litre tankards, literally just drinking vessels. 00:05:48.160 --> 00:06:08.720 Um, but you would have had traditions in Ireland where there's a thing called a newlywed couple docket, where you would go down to the local family Cooperage and you would hand in the newlywed docket, and the cooperage would make the newlyweds their they'd have two pails or sorry, two noggins, two gills, which are small little vessels, dairy vessels for scooping, milk and stuff like that. 00:06:08.879 --> 00:06:14.319 You would have had an eight-litre or under a ten-litre plunge, it's kind of domestic size. 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:39.839 You would have had a wash tub and everything because we're very used to a world of like obviously plastics and glass and cellophane and topperware, but we're used to a world where we have fork trucks, where we have pallets, where we have shipping containers, where we can box things up and lift extraordinary weight and put it on a ship and send it across, whereas coopering was created out of necessity, the need to hold things, the need to transport things. 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:52.319 If you um know the clay amphoras that you would have seen in Rome, they're big um clay pots, um, they were literally the only technology that was there before for carrying mass volume of things. 00:06:52.560 --> 00:07:09.120 So, just to dive deeper into the history of it, and sorry I'm rambling on, but when Rome invaded Gaul in France, what we know as France today, they discovered Celtic tribes that were actually creating and binding staves together using hazel hoops. 00:07:09.279 --> 00:07:18.480 So, if you recognize the barrel, you see this each individual piece of wood is a stave, and the hoops around it are these pieces of metal here, but traditionally they were actually wooden hoops as well. 00:07:18.720 --> 00:07:29.839 So when Rome invaded Gaul, found the Celts making these casks, 250-litre traditional hogshead styles, that's when coopering technology was really taken on and spread across the world. 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:38.399 It was the Roman Empire now being able to move massive amounts of liquid, wine, beer, water, whatever they needed to their armours, to their people to grow the empire. 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:48.560 So that's really what blew it up, and then obviously the the necessity to transport stuff around the world, you could then roll it onto a cart over onto a ship and ship that to another country or another continent. 00:07:48.639 --> 00:07:54.800 So it was really the backbone of of trade and I suppose human evolution and civilization in a way. 00:07:55.279 --> 00:08:16.480 Do you think that, you know, in the world we live in today where people are starting to worry about even drinking things out of plastic uh and you know, just moving into a greener technology, do you think people are is this coopering, is your coopering trade increasing now because of that? 00:08:17.519 --> 00:08:18.079 Do you know what? 00:08:18.399 --> 00:08:29.439 It's it's such a note that I didn't even think about until we really started or after we started the family business, because everything here that we're doing is is truly about the trade and bringing back the vessels. 00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:38.879 I have a couple of things that I can show you of the restorations that we're getting to do now and bringing these vessels that are in dairy farms and houses and the back of pubs back to life and back into service, you know. 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:55.919 Um, but what I am 100% seeing is the more closer we get to a technological advancement with AI or whatever that looks like, the more people are actually leaning towards made by human, made by human hands and actually experiences that are bringing them closer to their food. 00:08:56.080 --> 00:09:03.039 So, like when I started this business, which is Omaha Craft Copridge, our main focus is miniature barrels and tankers. 00:09:03.360 --> 00:09:07.519 And the idea behind that is to be able to give an example here. 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:24.320 So these are our brass uh two-liter American ork casks, and the idea behind this was to find a way of bringing traditional vessels back into the modern home, not just for like um visual purposes and something nice to look at, but I've always been about form and function. 00:09:24.639 --> 00:09:36.799 So the form, the beautiful piece to look at that represents the history of the ork, the history of the wood and the cast that it came from, but the function of being able to mature your own wine or your own

whiskey or your own rum at home. 00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:46.080 And it brings you closer to developing your own favorite profile, finding out what you like, being able to sample it out every day, and seeing the effect that the wood itself has on that liquid. 00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:57.519 And I thought the same with the tankards, um, to the point that the tankers that we make, like the inside of them are charred, but that's actually the char the original char from the barrel stave. 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:04.879 So we buy we buy uh whiskey barrels um from distilleries across the country and cobble abroad. 00:10:05.039 --> 00:10:07.360 Uh we knock them, we take these staves out. 00:10:07.519 --> 00:10:11.679 I don't know if you can see the tide line, which is where the whiskey has soaked into the stave. 00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:12.320 Yeah. 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:13.759 That's what we're looking for. 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:18.480 So we're actually preserving this part of the stave and making multiple staves out of it. 00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:23.200 So the inside of the tanker is basically the inside layer of a whiskey barrel. 00:10:23.440 --> 00:10:23.840 Interesting. 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:25.840 Um I have a question on that. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:26.559 I have a question on that. 00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:32.799 So I've I've uh I've visited a few uh whiskey distilleries in Ireland. 00:10:32.879 --> 00:10:37.600 I actually am a barrel owner at the Crowley distillery up in Dunningroom. 00:10:37.919 --> 00:10:42.000 I get I get uh I'm gonna take delivery on that in like a year and a half. 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:45.200 But uh that's another story. 00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:47.279 I don't know how I'm taking delivery, I don't know how I'm gonna take it. 00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:48.480 That's gonna be a big day. 00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:49.360 Yeah, yeah. 00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:53.039 I'm gonna have to store some bottles at my my family's house over there. 00:10:53.120 --> 00:10:54.879 I'm not gonna be able to get it back to the States. 00:10:55.200 --> 00:10:57.120 I'm sure you'll have some tickers there, no problem. 00:10:59.279 --> 00:11:23.279 But uh so I visited the Middleton distillery uh recently when I was in Cork and we did like a little, you know, a little uh tour there, and you know, they taught you about how they show you how the barrels of whiskey are stored on their side, but they're they have like a glass front so that you can see how the aging process there's there's less and less amount of whiskey in there. 00:11:23.679 --> 00:11:32.720 So so f let's just say redbreast uh 27 years, it's it's got only this much whiskey in that in that barrel, right? 00:11:33.519 --> 00:11:46.159 What the staves that are on the outside part that are sitting there the longest, are they drying out while the bottom part, those the bottom staves are are soaking in more and getting No, great question. 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:54.639 Great question, because uh I've been asked

that in a different way of like how full the whiskey is, if it's only up to there, is the rest of the barrel drying out completely running into problems. 00:11:54.879 --> 00:11:58.399 It's actually about the internal environment of the sealed cask. 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:08.240 So if I uh this has a tap on it, this is all sealed the whole way, like natural, there's no glue, there's no sealants, there's no screws in any of the casks and any of the warehouses that you see around the place. 00:12:08.399 --> 00:12:12.399 What it is is actually the moisture swelling the cask from the inside out. 00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:17.039 So once that bung is on top and it's sealed, you've sealed that environment. 00:12:17.120 --> 00:12:25.600 So even though the whisky's here, you have the rest of it is full of vapour, the rest of it is full of alcohol fumes, and that is still moisturizing the barrel so it stays swollen. 00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:31.279 The staves are constantly trying to spring out because the grain is going upwards, so that's what they would naturally want to do. 00:12:31.440 --> 00:12:34.159 The metal hoops are keeping that pressure on. 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:38.720 So when I actually make the smaller ones, you dry them and dry them, dry them to a shell. 00:12:38.799 --> 00:12:44.639 So when the whiskey or the wine goes into it, it takes up all that liquid and swells out, and that just holds there. 00:12:44.720 --> 00:12:58.639 You might get small movement in warehouses, you might get small leak springs between hot weather and cold weather, but that's part of the maturation process because the liquid does need to expand into the wood, and that's actually what you're seeing here on that tideline. 00:12:58.879 --> 00:13:08.159 It's the whiskey soaking in that deep into the wood, and then there's a transfer pulling the flavours from the oak back into the whiskey, which is colouring and flavouring it, and doing all those things. 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:16.480 But a beautiful display in Middleton explaining the angel share and the evaporation of each cast, but you can see the colours and how it matures along the way. 00:13:16.639 --> 00:13:28.240 Um, what's super interesting is that's at like a 200 litre size or a 500 litre sherry butt size, and at a 200 litre size, you need at least three years, four or five, depending on what you're into. 00:13:28.480 --> 00:13:38.320 With the smaller casks, because there's more wood in contact with the spirit, it's a more intense, much quicker introduction of flavors and maturation. 00:13:38.399 --> 00:13:45.360 So within a couple of days, you notice changes in the small barrels that'll take months to years in the bigger casks, you know. 00:13:45.919 --> 00:13:52.000 Going back to uh when you first started this out and you said, Okay, this is the trade I'm gonna go into. 00:13:52.159 --> 00:13:58.240 Um did you did you have people around you that thought that this was a viable career? 00:14:00.399 --> 00:14:03.840 Oh,

that's an interesting question from when I started. 00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:06.960 Um no, not at the start. 00:14:07.200 --> 00:14:13.200 Um I suppose when I when I got the job, I didn't tell my family what was going on. 00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:21.279 Um I was 20 at the time, I was going through different jobs, was putting myself through college, didn't want to bother get anybody's hopes up, going for this trade. 00:14:21.440 --> 00:14:25.360 Um but what I found when I was telling people then I was like, sorry, you're doing what? 00:14:25.440 --> 00:14:28.240 Like they didn't even remember or recognise the word itself. 00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:39.600 But when I told my grandmother, um I was saying to her, like, yeah, I went for this apprenticeship, um, I'm in this trade, I'm an apprentice cooper now, and she was like down in Middleton, and I was like, Yeah, yeah, she goes, You plonker. 00:14:39.919 --> 00:14:40.559 I goes, what? 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:49.759 And she opened a drawer and she had a picture of my great-great-grandfather, um who was actually the chief blacksmith in Middleton distillery 150 years ago. 00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:57.519 And I had no no idea, I had no idea, it was just that's what I wanted through, and she was like, I I didn't need it, thankfully. 00:14:57.679 --> 00:15:01.360 Um, but to walk back into the place and say, Hey, this is actually something different. 00:15:01.519 --> 00:15:05.279 And my grandmother at the time couldn't believe that this was a viable career. 00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:13.759 She saw I was going good with my hands, I need a physical job to engage me, so you don't have idle hands, or does it idle hands make the devil's work kind of thing or whatever? 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:26.240 So she knew I was going to the right place, having a good physical labour job, and she even couldn't believe at the time, whoa, this this might just be a kind of like, is it ceremonial or Cooper's needed anymore? 00:15:26.399 --> 00:15:31.200 And the further and further I got into it, and when I started travelling, then I really understood what's going on. 00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:49.600 Like the the reason casks are still here, the reason that there's millions of barrels across the warehouses in Ireland is because of the maturation, because of the Irish whiskey industry, because of the wine industry in Europe, it's the maturation and it's the wood itself, and it's back to necessity and bringing that into the products that people are making, you know. 00:15:49.840 --> 00:16:08.639 So as I as I as I gained, I suppose, knowledge and understanding of what was going on, then I was like, I need to learn absolutely everything that I can about this trade, even the things that I don't need know that aren't pertinent to my job as a repair cooper or fixing barrels or inspecting barrels, but everything that I can about the trade. 00:16:08.799 --> 00:16:20.799 Um and the guys that the mentors that I found along the way in Scotland and in Spain and America, every single one of them were absolutely delighted to see me because they thought they're the last generation. 00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:26.639 They genuinely think retired at 72 years of age, I'm the last in my line, Coopering isn't even going on anymore. 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:32.720 And then this 21-year-old fella shows up from Ireland with a tick cock accent going, teach me absolutely everything you know, please. 00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:34.080 This is what I'm doing for my life. 00:16:34.240 --> 00:16:41.759 So it was definitely a growth to it, and I got to meet the people that didn't believe it was viable, and everybody's changed their minds as we've gone, you know. 00:16:42.080 --> 00:16:44.879 What was your first day like on the bench? 00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:50.399 First day on the bench, first day on the bench was actually in Scotland. 00:16:50.879 --> 00:16:55.519 Um, so the as I said, the skills base was decimated across the country. 00:16:55.679 --> 00:17:02.559 Um so starting off in Scotland was a bigger language barrier than I had in Spain. 00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:13.200 We both were both Celtic people, like the Irish and the Scots, like and we we both have thick accents, but the language barrier of trying to understand each other was like being in a foreign-speaking country altogether. 00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:14.799 Um, but it was cool. 00:17:14.880 --> 00:17:29.759 Uh, we we really got I got a year on the benches in an apprentice school in Camp uh Cambas uh near Aloha and it was graft, it was like I was used to graft, I grew up in building sites and just laying blocks and just labouring for my uncle and my godfather and stuff. 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:37.279 But this was real graft, like you've got to pick up a hammer at seven o'clock in the morning and start swinging it, and you don't put it down until three or four o'clock in the day, you know. 00:17:37.519 --> 00:17:41.279 And that was a wake-up call of oh, my body's not ready for this. 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:49.920 Um I was listening to David Cahan actually about the lifting stones, and he was on about oh, he went from 74 kg to 104 kg. 00:17:50.079 --> 00:17:58.000 It took me many years to realise, oh, I need to build a body ready for this work rather than just trying to keep up with it and breaking your body down over time, you know. 00:17:58.079 --> 00:18:03.119 So now it was a wake-up call, like hey, you're in it now, this is this is go time, like, and it was an amazing year. 00:18:03.279 --> 00:18:07.119 First day on the bench was as good as the last day on the bench leaving Scotland. 00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:10.240 Um, just as exciting constantly, you know. 00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:15.519 Is there one uh technique that's that was the hardest to m to uh master? 00:18:17.279 --> 00:18:23.680 Um I'm thinking the ads straight away, just because it's um I have a tool here. 00:18:23.920 --> 00:18:26.160 This is a video as well, I think, is it? 00:18:27.519 --> 00:18:29.680 Just

in case people are looking at things, I suppose. 00:18:29.759 --> 00:18:40.880 Uh this is an ads, um, and it's a curved blade that you swing this way on a cask, the sharp end kind of basically you're always swinging sharp tools or blunt objects towards it. 00:18:41.200 --> 00:18:48.319 So we're wearing aprons and stuff, but this is definitely one of the ones where you're gonna mess it up a thousand times before you do it right once. 00:18:48.400 --> 00:18:54.960 You're gonna do all the work to that cask, you're gonna put a stave in, and then you're gonna mess it up by just not using this tool right without experience. 00:18:55.119 --> 00:19:01.359 You gotta take it out, start again, and that was the best way to learn is get in there, mess it up, and you just get nicer and nicer. 00:19:01.440 --> 00:19:11.839 So I think one of the videos that I put online was actually using this ads, and it might be like 10 seconds, but it's just clean lines, clean strikes, just this nice rhythm. 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:25.920 And I think people that that went big because people really kind of saw and felt, oh, that's experience, that's skill, it's every single stroke, and it is it's it's every single thing has to be in a rhythm of your day and your body, and then you really start dialing in. 00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:28.960 How many coopers would there be in a city? 00:19:29.039 --> 00:19:34.480 Like, how many Coopers would support an entire city at you know, going back 100 years? 00:19:34.799 --> 00:19:51.920 Yeah, even like up in the eight middle 1800s with 11,000 Coopers on benches across the country, different factions, brewery, wet coopering, household coopering, but it was every village, every town, every dockyard, every ship that was coming in, everything on it had to be maintained by Coopers. 00:19:52.000 --> 00:19:58.000 So, especially near the cities, especially near docklands and the merchants' keys and stuff, you would have a lot of cooperages. 00:19:58.079 --> 00:20:04.000 Then in the cities and the villages, you would have a lot more family cooperages for household coopering and stuff, you know. 00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:18.640 But like even on Cork docks, there was there's a place called Furkin Crane, um, and as far as I know, it was the actual crane that used to lift Fercans, which are 40 litre casks, onto ships to be exported in the dairy trade. 00:20:18.799 --> 00:20:29.359 But there was these Ferkins that were 40 litres, and there were six and a half thousand of those being made every single week just in cork alone on the docks to supply the export industry. 00:20:29.519 --> 00:20:34.640 So, again, when it's down to transport and maturation and necessity, it's it's literally it's thousands. 00:20:34.880 --> 00:20:37.440 Every village, every town, it was an absolute necessity, you know. 00:20:37.599 --> 00:20:38.240 Yeah. 00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:43.200 Um, when I grew up, I grew up right next to a very small little horse farm. 00:20:43.359 --> 00:20:46.720 And when I was, I remember I was six, seven years old. 00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:50.240 On Mondays, the blacksmith would be there to shoot a horses. 00:20:50.480 --> 00:20:53.279 And I used to, as a little kid, I was fascinated by that. 00:20:53.519 --> 00:20:56.720 And I went there to to watch the the blacksmith. 00:20:57.039 --> 00:21:00.960 And that was again, that was when I was a little kid, and then we moved away from there. 00:21:01.200 --> 00:21:17.119 But many years later, uh probably in my twenties, I went to I was in Ireland and we went to Bunraddy Castle, and in the back there, they have like that whole little village setup, and the smell, I I'm getting I I just I got goosebumps now, even talking about this. 00:21:17.599 --> 00:21:26.720 I got the smell of the blacksmith, you know, and that was a smell, it was a distinct smell, and it was a smell I hadn't smelled probably since I was seven or eight years old. 00:21:27.119 --> 00:21:31.359 And it hit me, and I was like, oh my god, so we had to go look at the blacksmith. 00:21:31.599 --> 00:21:36.000 So what did an old cooperage uh what did that sound like? 00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:38.720 What did what did that smell like in the old days? 00:21:39.200 --> 00:21:51.039 The it's funny because the I suppose the smell you're talking about is the forge, like it's the hot metal, it's the coals, it's the smoke, it's the striking, and all, and it produces the same as a cooperage, produces very distinct smells. 00:21:51.200 --> 00:21:59.680 Like when when I was younger, uh my father was in the navy, so those smells for me were uh diesel and burning engines and and that sort of. 00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:16.640 Stuff and my son, who's six, recognises the smell of cooperage when I come home, which is like oak, shavings, dust, whiskey, maybe a bit of sherry on the boots, like you know, and it's this mix of stuff, and that's really cool that you go through Bonratti and you're getting the smell of the forge because they do have that running. 00:22:16.880 --> 00:22:21.680 There's a guy up there in the moment, Owen McBride, and he's forging away in Bonratti Castle. 00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:35.119 Um, when like when I was going around collecting, like I have a lot of tools here on the back, this has taken like 13 years to build and hone in and get the specific tools of what I'm doing because you can't buy them on Amazon or go into the local co-op and buy them. 00:22:35.279 --> 00:22:43.680 So I took on my favourite ones and I went to a forge in Cork, which is actually the first forge in Cork City for decades upon decades. 00:22:43.759 --> 00:22:50.160 And there's two lads that are about the same age as me in their 30s, and they are forging brand new tools for Coopers. 00:22:50.319 --> 00:22:53.759 Literally, this one they made this one, Leaside Forge in Cork City. 00:22:53.920 --> 00:23:00.160 Um, so we have blacksmiths now again in Cork forging tools for Coopers from Cork. 00:23:00.480 -->

00:23:04.400 So it's this whole circular economy of craft revival, it's pretty cool. 00:23:04.559 --> 00:23:19.200 With the with the Bun Ratty Castle, um, what's been really cool for us is when I was on about the tanks and the barrels, really, really thinking a lot of bringing traditional vessels with a purpose, giving people a purpose to have a vessel in their hoax again, not just something to look at. 00:23:19.279 --> 00:23:25.680 But when we started up, I didn't ever think that I'd be saying the sentence that I'm up the walls with butter churns. 00:23:25.839 --> 00:23:35.759 Like I have the new make churn, so there's an 8-litre double-handed plunge churn gone down to West Cork, they're making butter in it every couple of days now. 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:42.960 Um Bunraty Castle were on in the last couple of weeks, and they have a churn which is called a tumble churn. 00:23:43.119 --> 00:23:53.440 It's a it's it's kind of a round barrel without the shape of it, but it has a handle on the side that you turn and it churns this mechanism inside that turns the butter or that churns it. 00:23:53.599 --> 00:24:03.039 But the one they're using and the tea inside in the or the bond and tea inside in the castle show how to make butter with it, but it's an old one and it's leaking, and they keep trying to repair it. 00:24:03.119 --> 00:24:06.799 And they said we can't believe that there's actually a coop bridge opened up that we can contact. 00:24:06.880 --> 00:24:08.559 Would you be able to recreate these? 00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:14.480 They want them like for like the ones that have been used there for so long, and that's one of the projects that we have on the moment now. 00:24:14.559 --> 00:24:20.079 So I'm getting the blacksmith in Bunratti Castle to forge the handles and the metal mechanisms. 00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:21.359 He's gonna send them down to me. 00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:26.079 I'm gonna recreate their churn and it's going back up to Bunratti Castle to be making butter every day. 00:24:26.319 --> 00:24:26.960 Wow. 00:24:27.359 --> 00:24:28.319 So it's cool, man. 00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:35.359 I also tell us tell us a little bit about the social custom of visitors churning butter. 00:24:35.519 --> 00:24:36.400 I've read about that. 00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:37.680 Yeah, they're good. 00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:39.359 I that's something I say it to. 00:24:39.519 --> 00:24:51.279 I was actually at uh a medieval festival in Yaw uh in Cork only last week with her business and Sean Cooper, and I asked that question to uh to an old lady that was there, very nice. 00:24:51.359 --> 00:24:54.640 She was looking at this churn that I'll show you in a minute. 00:24:54.720 --> 00:25:00.000 But she I asked her the tradition of churning butter when you visit somebody else's house. 00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:01.519 Is there any truth to it? 00:25:01.680 --> 00:25:06.799 Because you would go and when you're a visitor in the house, everybody's always churning, somebody had

to be churning. 00:25:06.960 --> 00:25:12.240 Um, and she said, Yes, it was a known thing that you would actually nearly be inviting people over. 00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:18.799 Ah, come on over for a cup of tea and a bit of soda bread or whatever, because when they come over, they have to start the churning. 00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:21.759 So she knew it so much that she actually made a joke about it. 00:25:21.839 --> 00:25:30.240 And the guy that was standing next to her was in his 80s plus, and he turned around and he had a visceral reaction to seeing the churn. 00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:33.599 Like everybody else is like, Oh, it's amazing, haven't seen this in ages. 00:25:33.680 --> 00:25:39.359 But he was like, Oh, the churn, oh my god, every day who's churning, get down there and churn. 00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:41.039 Every day somebody had to be on it. 00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:50.480 So he remembers as a young fella, his kids, his father, his parents, his uncles, everybody was churning, and at five or six, he had to be in there playing his part in churning as well. 00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:54.640 Wow, it's cool, but like that that that's that's the gap. 00:25:54.720 --> 00:25:56.960 Like, you know, it's literally from where we are now. 00:25:57.119 --> 00:26:00.640 We're talking to people that are in their 80s that remember it when they were an infant. 00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:01.839 Like, you know, that's the gap. 00:26:01.920 --> 00:26:13.279 It's 80 to 100 years, and I'm trying to get as much information as off as many people as possible, get these vessels out of the places that they're in, and and get them back into their life, get them back into service, you know. 00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:17.200 So you're being asked to to repair old ones. 00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:21.759 Yes, I'll actually I'm gonna turn this around just so I can show you something. 00:26:21.839 --> 00:26:25.440 We have something in at the moment, which is which is pretty cool. 00:26:25.839 --> 00:26:27.039 Can you see this guy? 00:26:27.200 --> 00:26:29.599 Yeah, this is a barrel churn. 00:26:29.680 --> 00:26:31.119 So there's there's many different types. 00:26:31.200 --> 00:26:33.920 It's the plunge one that we saw a minute ago going up and down. 00:26:34.079 --> 00:26:39.200 But this is one with a handle, it's on a frame, it has its capacity on the top of it. 00:26:39.359 --> 00:26:49.680 It can take uh full capacity is 12 gallons, but the churning capacity is six gallons, and if you put in six gallons of cream into this, you're gonna get out 18 pounds of butter. 00:26:50.240 --> 00:26:56.720 But this actual vessel, every piece that's on it, is original, and it's from a family down in Killa. 00:26:56.960 --> 00:27:00.240 Have you heard the song Killa from a couple Irish lads called Kingfisher? 00:27:00.640 --> 00:27:01.119 Yes. 00:27:01.599 --> 00:27:07.440 That that town land is 10 minutes down the road, so we're very close to Killa, we're in his Cork. 00:27:07.839 --> 00:27:16.799

This barrel churn came from a family in Killa and it was in their dairy farm for four or five generations churning butter every day. 00:27:17.119 --> 00:27:21.519 Their family friends came up and saw that festival we had the other day, and they can't believe it. 00:27:21.680 --> 00:27:25.440 So the guys in Deaf Enterprises in Cork restored the frame. 00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:29.599 This is up here for the restoration of the barrel, it's missing a hoop, it's woodworm. 00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:31.680 Uh all of these have to be tightened back in. 00:27:31.839 --> 00:27:40.079 There's two brackets here to fix, but this is then going on display in the butter museum in Cork for people to come in and look and enjoy, you know. 00:27:40.160 --> 00:27:46.880 So it's not going back into service in the traditional sense, but it's going back with love and care and on display in the butter museum. 00:27:47.039 --> 00:27:48.000 Oh, very good. 00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:49.519 It's stuff like that, man. 00:27:49.599 --> 00:27:52.960 It's it's like it's each vessel has we have something over here as well. 00:27:53.200 --> 00:27:53.519 Sorry. 00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:55.759 Uh like each vessel has a story. 00:27:55.839 --> 00:28:01.519 Again, David McCann was not about every every stone, they have the story, they have their history when that starts, when they're lifted. 00:28:01.680 --> 00:28:03.039 This is when they're made, you know. 00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:06.000 This vessel's story has been going on for 150 years. 00:28:06.799 --> 00:28:12.240 And this one is just beginning because this was made for a fella called Max Jones down in Westcore. 00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:14.400 It's a herring cask. 00:28:14.640 --> 00:28:19.759 So it's actually about 30 litres and it's for preserving salted fish. 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:34.960 You would take a bed of salt on the bottom, then filleted herring on top of that, salt herring, salt, herring, salt herring all the way to the top, and I put a press on the top of it, and it basically presses the moisture and the fish oils out down through this wooden tap. 00:28:35.200 --> 00:28:41.200 They then collect the fish oils and use it to burn oil lanterns and keep them lighting in the traditional house like they have. 00:28:41.359 --> 00:28:41.759 Wow. 00:28:42.240 --> 00:28:47.680 I didn't even know about this vessel existing, what type it was, but very traditional down in West Cork. 00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:59.599 Max Jones did a bit of research on it, he put on a festival sea of traditions, and he's coming up uh to collect this Friday, and that is going straight into service, preserving and salting herring fish next week. 00:28:59.920 --> 00:29:00.559 Wow. 00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:03.359 So it's like there's things I'm learning. 00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:10.559 I'm learning every day by people reaching out and saying, This is what we have, this is what we know about it, this is the history we know, what can you do to it? 00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:11.680

And that's what we're doing. 00:29:11.759 --> 00:29:15.839 We're just bringing these vessels back to life and back into service, and that's where it started. 00:29:15.920 --> 00:29:20.880 So when you're asking the question of like, oh, are people coming back to like more handmade stuff? 00:29:21.200 --> 00:29:36.640 I'm seeing that now, but what it started with is these vessels need to be looked after, and it's my only opportunity to give back to the trade that I've that I'm raising a family on, like you know, a trade that's looked after me, that's taken me around the world and has given me this life. 00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:42.400 It's my only opportunity to put all the time into bring back the vessels that people have made before me, you know. 00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:47.759 What's the most unusual object you've made or have been you know been asked to make? 00:29:51.839 --> 00:29:53.279 Whoa, there's a lot. 00:29:53.599 --> 00:29:54.960 Funnily enough, there's a lot. 00:29:55.200 --> 00:30:02.960 There's a lot, there's a lot of kind Yeah, there's some there's some there's some NDAs out there alright we can't talk about, which are really, really cool. 00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:13.839 Um, but one of the funniest things that I've been able to do is experiment with wood types, how wood types become casks, the porosity of it, um, how they work under tool. 00:30:14.079 --> 00:30:16.559 Um that that's been a really really fun experience. 00:30:16.640 --> 00:30:21.920 I made a couple of casks out of maple, um, which we were told just will never ever work. 00:30:22.079 --> 00:30:29.839 They worked fantastically when we got every single piece of stave right, took out the porosity, it took a fair bit of work, but it was really really fun. 00:30:30.240 --> 00:30:34.960 The one of the one of the coolest ones that I've made recently was a custom order. 00:30:35.119 --> 00:30:40.079 So there's a lot more whiskey enthusiasts and private whiskey clubs out there than I would have thought. 00:30:40.319 --> 00:30:51.920 And since we opened the the Family Cooperage, people have been getting a contact and looking for custom casks because they know the profile already, they know that they like sherry, or they know that they like pastels, or they know that they like this wood type. 00:30:52.079 --> 00:30:55.119 So a guy came out here one day and we were looking through our wood types. 00:30:55.200 --> 00:31:04.559 I was showing him the American oak staves, the European Sherry staves, and I showed him one of these, which is a French oak X wine barrel. 00:31:04.799 --> 00:31:08.240 So the wine has actually soaked into the wood just like the whiskey does. 00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:14.319 Um and he wanted a 20-litre cask, which is a pin, uh traditional pin, uh toasted. 00:31:14.400 --> 00:31:21.039 So when I was toasting it, the wine and the sugars that were inside on it were literally like bubbling up out of it and like caramelizing on the top of it. 00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:33.839 So I made that cask in full, lovely tapping it, it went away down to his place up the country, and he got back onto me and said, I'm after changing plans and just letting you know because the second that I smelled the cask when it landed, it's amazing. 00:31:33.920 --> 00:31:35.359 I'm not putting whiskey into it. 00:31:35.440 --> 00:31:40.559 I have 20 litres of pachin that he's getting shipped up and he's put in the cask. 00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:54.960 So there is a barrel, there's a 20 litre pin made out of ex-French uh oak with red wine, toasted to caramel, filled with pachin, and aging pachin in it for the last three to six months, somewhere in this country. 00:31:55.119 --> 00:31:56.960 And that that's one of the most interesting. 00:31:57.200 --> 00:31:58.160 I just want to see what it is. 00:31:58.240 --> 00:31:59.359 Is it even paccin anymore? 00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:00.319 Is it aged patin? 00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:01.359 Has it become whiskey? 00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:07.839 But he got on to me and he said it's like ruby, it's like ruby port coming out of it after putting a new make pachin into it. 00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:11.759 So there's really cool things like that that's happening that I didn't even expect. 00:32:11.839 --> 00:32:17.359 Like you know, people are coming with their ideas, and I get to put my abilities and skills into it. 00:32:17.440 --> 00:32:23.279 Um when you say whiskey clubs, are these these are people that are creating their own whiskey? 00:32:23.519 --> 00:32:29.759 Like here we have I I have friends that are in whiskey clubs, but they're just guys that go around tasting different whiskies. 00:32:30.079 --> 00:32:35.119 Yes, so when you say whiskey club, you're talking about people who are actually creating their own whiskey? 00:32:35.359 --> 00:32:45.359 Yeah, and like private about it, aren't on social media, aren't going to public tastings, they'd get um distilleries in, or they'd get invites to launches and stuff like that. 00:32:45.519 --> 00:32:58.960 There's a lot more of that going on than a new, and having this outlet for those guys to say, hey, we want to see what European oak is like on this, but within a couple of weeks, perfect, this is the size cast that you need, and it just lets them explore more. 00:32:59.039 --> 00:33:18.400 Like there's a there's a group of guys came out and they bought a two-litre barrel each, or sorry, a four-litre barrel each, so they could try their own um style at home and they have a WhatsApp group where he's like, I put rum into it, I put new mech spirit into it, I put a 16-year-old this into it, and they keep in contact about it and monitor themselves. 00:33:18.559 --> 00:33:28.319 They came back and they got then a 46-litre forcon, so just larger than a forkin, made out of European oak. 00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:35.680 Out of this, they discovered here's where we're all meeting, here's where, as a club, all of our taste profiles are crossing. 00:33:35.759 -->

00:33:38.880 So let's go back and get a big cask made for the club. 00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:44.319 Let's put this 16-year-old spirit into it and open it on our 10-year anniversary kind of thing. 00:33:44.559 --> 00:33:46.880 So, yeah, they're they're they're buying whiskey. 00:33:46.960 --> 00:33:57.599 Sorry, uh, there's some lads making different things, but they're buying whiskey from different distilleries, um, different age spirits, and trying it out and finishing it in their own casks that are coming from here then. 00:33:57.920 --> 00:34:00.160 Can we can we back up with that on just a second? 00:34:00.319 --> 00:34:09.920 Can you give me what's the actual process from like if I wanted to do that, if I said uh Killian, set me up with something like I I want to create my own barrel of whiskey. 00:34:10.480 --> 00:34:12.960 Obviously, it would be like one of these small ones, right? 00:34:13.199 --> 00:34:18.719 So what's the what's the time frame for doing something like that and and what would be the first steps to do that? 00:34:19.119 --> 00:34:19.599 Absolutely. 00:34:19.760 --> 00:34:28.000 We have like on the website at the moment, the main bread and butter will say are the miniature two-liter barrels of brass or steel hoops, and then we have the tankards. 00:34:28.159 --> 00:34:29.840 But then we do custom tasks. 00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:33.440 Um so basically custom orders like we were just talking about. 00:34:33.679 --> 00:34:38.400 You just get in contact with us and we can share our um specialty wood list. 00:34:38.480 --> 00:34:48.880 So we have American oak and European oak, but when we dive deeper, we go into the types of French oak, ex wine, ex sherry, um, even ex amanteado. 00:34:49.039 --> 00:34:56.800 So this the wood itself has had time being seasoned by another drink, whether that's wine or whiskey or or rum or whatever. 00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:06.159 So we have a lot of um, I suppose, selections to choose from, um, and even kind of matter woods that you wouldn't think would be would be common and all. 00:35:06.239 --> 00:35:09.360 Um, there's there's things like acacia out there in the world. 00:35:09.599 --> 00:35:16.480 The Japanese have had a long stranding standing tradition of chestnut casks, um, and chestnut is one of my favourite. 00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:24.960 But you would then basically we go through your profile, see what you like, whether it's sherry or whiskey or pot still, and it'd help you pick out what we think would be the closest to you. 00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:27.920 If you're here in person, we get to do that very sensorily. 00:35:28.079 --> 00:35:32.880 Um, pick up the staves, look at it, smell them, try out a few samples of what's coming out. 00:35:33.119 --> 00:35:34.880 We pick the wood type, pick your size. 00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:41.199 It doesn't just have to be two-liter, we do two, five, ten, twenty, and forty-liter barrels. 00:35:41.360 --> 00:35:43.039 You've seen the two-liter cask. 00:35:43.119 --> 00:35:49.840 Um, so we have those two-liter casks, they're very intense, they're making impact very quickly within a couple of days. 00:35:50.079 --> 00:35:57.440 We have a 10-litre cask here, which is a bit bigger, it gives you a bit more time, it has a mellower influence than the intensity of the small ones. 00:35:57.519 --> 00:36:05.280 So there's these big variations between sizes and wood type, and that's why like people getting in contact for the custom orders, so we can kind of talk through their profiles and stuff. 00:36:05.440 --> 00:36:10.480 Um, this one here was actually me and my wife's wedding barrel from 10 years ago. 00:36:10.559 --> 00:36:18.159 Uh, it's just under 20 litres, and we filled it full of whiskey, and it was gone in the wedding party in about 25 minutes. 00:36:18.400 --> 00:36:23.599 Um, but me, me and my son, who's six now, he wasn't around at the time of our wedding. 00:36:23.760 --> 00:36:29.039 We actually took our family business up the country at a craft festival, and we got to open this up together. 00:36:29.119 --> 00:36:37.599 And me and my son recharred it, and we're putting the heads back into it, uh, cleaning it up, and we're going to put wine, red wine back into it, a Ryaka. 00:36:38.159 --> 00:36:53.760 Um, so again, every vessel has a story, and that's what I want people to get that as soon as it comes into your house, as soon as you have your own barrel, as soon as you put something into it, you're making it unique because you're aging the spirit or the wine that you put in, but you're also seasoning the wood of the cask. 00:36:53.920 --> 00:37:01.119 So you take that out when you're happy, bottle it or drink it, and then the next one you put in is being influenced from the fill before it. 00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:03.760 So it's constantly creating these new cask types. 00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:10.480 So your neighbor has the same cask, it's not going to be the same type of cask, they're going to have their unique character developed over time. 00:37:11.360 --> 00:37:17.360 These smaller casks that you create, those littler ones, that that makes the whiskey quicker. 00:37:17.840 --> 00:37:29.039 Yeah, like if you um if you take put uh 200 litres of of spirit into a 200-litre barrel, take three to four years to turn out the whiskey that you're you're looking for a minimum. 00:37:29.199 --> 00:37:39.280 With the two-liter casks, you could put the same type of spirit in and find out in two to three months the finished product that you're gonna have from that wood. 00:37:39.679 --> 00:37:45.679 Because it's just it's more wood that's in contact with the liquid and it just has a faster impact, you know. 00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:51.519 Does your website show uh like give those types of uh uh instructions? 00:37:52.239 --> 00:37:54.079 In terms of how it works? 00:37:54.320 --> 00:37:59.360 Of like, yeah, if if somebody wanted to you know buy these things and create their own Fisher Club.

00:37:59.920 --> 00:38:09.920 No, that's that's what we're getting to in terms of custom orders, and I want the website to be able to you go into the custom order drop-down menu of your wood type, drop-down menu of your char level and stuff like that. 00:38:10.000 --> 00:38:16.960 We're not there yet, um, but we do have a broad website that covering those things and contact to get in contact for custom casks. 00:38:17.119 --> 00:38:25.599 At the moment, all the information is on the website as well as omcc.omcc.ae is the website, and uh Instagram is omcc as well. 00:38:25.840 --> 00:38:34.559 So we have information, we have cash care cards to tell you how to look after it, keep it in service, don't let it dry out, the the do's and don'ts really. 00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:43.440 Um, but definitely something we need to focus on is bridging the information gap of what we're actually doing and what we're creating to what people that buy can actually do. 00:38:43.519 --> 00:38:48.400 So that's definitely in the in the next phase of growing the business and the social media and I suppose. 00:38:48.719 --> 00:38:55.440 Well, hopefully, this is gonna put out a little bit more uh you know uh awareness of it as well, you know. 00:38:55.679 --> 00:39:01.519 How much of the whiskey's final character comes from the spirit and how much of it comes from the wood itself? 00:39:01.840 --> 00:39:03.119 Depends who you ask. 00:39:03.199 --> 00:39:09.760 If you're talking to a blender, they're gonna say something different to a distiller, and a Cooper will always tell you at least 60%. 00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:24.559 But to be fair, blenders and distillers know that more than anybody too, and that it's about the wood type and the cast type, and it is it is generally said 60% of the influence on the final product comes from the wood itself. 00:39:24.719 --> 00:39:28.719 I would tend to say more, but again, it's depending who you ask. 00:39:28.880 --> 00:39:31.119 And and it's the dependent on the wood type as well. 00:39:31.199 --> 00:39:40.000 There's so many different levels of tannins and vanillains, like American oak is known for being very sweet and high caramel, and then you have European oak, which are darker fruit colours. 00:39:40.239 --> 00:39:43.199 Chestnut is an absolute uh it's a brilliant wood. 00:39:43.280 --> 00:39:46.719 It within a year, what it can do to a spirit is amazing, you know. 00:39:46.880 --> 00:39:49.679 So I'd say it's a very, very deep rabbit hole. 00:39:49.920 --> 00:40:02.800 Um, but you know what you said about just yeah, getting it out there and getting the business out there and hoping it'll help it's it means a lot to us, not just um I suppose the Irish connection but the Irish New York connection with O'Mahany. 00:40:02.960 --> 00:40:09.280 Um we found out again with my grandfather being blacksmith about four or five years ago. 00:40:09.599 --> 00:40:19.920 My granduncle uh gave me a book written by a lady called Mary O'Mahany Lupton, and it was about the O'Mahonys um in Skiberene in West Cork. 00:40:20.239 --> 00:40:27.760 And we found out reading that book that my great-granduncle was a cooper down in Skiberene in West Cork. 00:40:28.079 --> 00:40:29.760 His name was Henry O'Mahony. 00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:42.000 He got on a boat that was paid by for his brother, who was living in New York, and Henry travelled to New York and started hooping apple barrels in the big apple. 00:40:42.239 --> 00:40:53.760 Yeah, and he actually wrote that he didn't like the work because it was too easy or mundane compared to the new vessels that he was making, listing the staves, making new turns, making different things. 00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:57.840 But he went to New York, got the fare paid, started hooping apple barrels. 00:40:57.920 --> 00:41:08.320 He had to get out of Ireland because of something called the Land League, um, which is yeah, so uh if you know anything about that, though a lot of those lads had to had to go. 00:41:08.559 --> 00:41:13.920 Um, but they were in and out, and he got on the boat when he was 17 and they stayed over there. 00:41:14.079 --> 00:41:17.440 They he eventually was on the gunboats in the Mississippi. 00:41:17.599 --> 00:41:25.920 I I'm assuming we won't say what side just in case, but he he settled uh down in Texas, West Texas. 00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:35.840 So there's a group of O'Mahonis from West Texas that actually settled there that are direct lineage from the Henry O'Mahany that O'Mahony craft Coopers is named after. 00:41:36.320 --> 00:41:40.480 What actually happens to the wood when you do that toasting and charring? 00:41:40.719 --> 00:41:42.400 What's what's happening there? 00:41:42.480 --> 00:42:00.719 What's the is there a is that a chemical process that's affecting uh probably not a chemical process, but um what you're doing when you're bending a cask, so like one of the things to make timber move and malleable, you use heat and water and then coopering it's it's fire and water. 00:42:00.960 --> 00:42:08.559 But then the second part of that, as you're bending the cask, you're heating it up and you're basically cooking the wood and starting to transfer the heat into the cask. 00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:12.159 If you're gonna see inside that it's the char, it's that finish. 00:42:12.239 --> 00:42:16.000 So it's not just cooking the timber, but you bring it up to the point of combustion. 00:42:16.320 --> 00:42:20.559 Because what happens at the start of it is the things inside in the wood start breaking down. 00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:28.719 Tannins, which colours the whiskey, um, vanillin, which is one of the sweet notes that comes from oak, um, lignin. 00:42:28.800 --> 00:42:35.760 You have loads of different compounds, but they're not bioavailable for extraction until you break them down with heat. 00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:51.519 So when you're bending the cask, you're cooking the timber, but when you're charring the cask, you're making the

timber combust and you're controlling it so the front layer is combusted and is cracked open, like blistered, so the spirit can enter into it, into that tide line, like we were we showed a minute ago. 00:42:51.599 --> 00:42:52.000 Wow, okay. 00:42:52.239 --> 00:43:16.639 And basically, when it's soaked, the timber then is absolutely soaked in whiskey, and between the warm temperatures and the cold temperatures, the liquid is expanding and contracting, it's soaking into the timber, and there's this constant transfer of liquid in and out of the stave, and as it's coming out, it's extracting those compounds the lignin, vanilla, and the tannins, and that's literally what's colouring flavoring the whiskey over maturation. 00:43:16.880 --> 00:43:17.679 Vital step. 00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:20.559 Without it, it's it's not match maturing. 00:43:20.960 --> 00:43:23.280 My my next question is probably a dumb question. 00:43:23.360 --> 00:43:25.920 I uh I know they say there's no such thing as a such thing. 00:43:27.519 --> 00:43:33.519 But I never I never quite understood how uh what do you call the um those slats again? 00:43:34.159 --> 00:43:35.679 Stave stave. 00:43:36.159 --> 00:43:41.599 How is it that you get every stave to have the exact same uh uh bend? 00:43:41.920 --> 00:43:50.960 You know, and I always thought this uh uh especially with boats, like how boats how wooden boats are created with the same exact how do you do that? 00:43:52.159 --> 00:43:59.599 The two different well the the the boat is actually usually steam bending and bending it onto a frame, so you steam each plank. 00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:06.719 Individually, they're also quarters on white oak, usually, and you bend it to the form of the frame of the boat, like the hull that you made. 00:44:06.800 --> 00:44:11.280 But in coopering, you're actually bending all the staves at the same time. 00:44:11.440 --> 00:44:18.800 So when you raise a cast, like these aren't bent staves, these are just straight staves, so it's a straight stave vessel. 00:44:18.880 --> 00:44:28.000 But with a barrel stave, the middle is wider than both ends, but both ends are equally as wide. 00:44:28.239 --> 00:44:36.719 So that means if every stave is like that, then the top of the barrel is going to be the same circumference as the bottom of the barrel. 00:44:36.960 --> 00:44:42.239 But the belly or the bilge of the barrel is going to be wider because the staves are. 00:44:42.400 --> 00:44:46.400 So these staves start off straight, just kind of like that angle over the fire. 00:44:46.639 --> 00:44:52.400 But as you're heating it, you're putting on more hoops and you're bending all the staves in together into that shape. 00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:55.119 And you put a hoop on the bottom, and then you have your shell. 00:44:55.280 --> 00:44:58.719 And then pretty much, pretty much this is your shell. 00:44:59.039 --> 00:45:04.480 So I've made these out of staves, the middle part is wide, these are equally as narrow. 00:45:04.639 --> 00:45:09.599 You they're different sizes, but once that holds true to every stave, you get the same shape. 00:45:09.760 --> 00:45:12.480 Um, again, we used fire and heat to bend that. 00:45:12.639 --> 00:45:16.000 Put this hoop on it as you're pulling and bending these staves in. 00:45:16.079 --> 00:45:30.719 It's a very delicate process because obviously timber splits if it's not cut the right way, if the grain is going the wrong way, if there's any knots, so you're really doing a lot more inspection of getting the perfect specimens of staves into the cask so you're not running into problems like that, you know. 00:45:31.039 --> 00:45:32.079 It's a cool trade, man. 00:45:32.159 --> 00:45:35.360 All this stuff I learned in the last 13 years by doing it hands-on. 00:45:35.760 --> 00:45:52.239 Working in Kentucky, actually in America, um, in a cooperage where we were chatter 15 barrels at the same time, and you're there with a hose and a pipe, and you're controlling the flames, so you're listening to this fire while you're watching the colour of the flame on that fire, and you're literally it's like popcorn. 00:45:52.320 --> 00:45:59.519 It's like cooking 15 bags of popcorn at the same time, and you're listening to when the combustion hits that note, and then you're dosing it. 00:45:59.679 --> 00:46:04.719 So it's it's a such a sensory trade, it's actually really, really fun and engaging, you know. 00:46:05.119 --> 00:46:12.880 So before you said that the the smaller the smaller casks can create the whiskey sooner or you know quicker. 00:46:13.519 --> 00:46:14.559 Why is that? 00:46:14.880 --> 00:46:17.039 What is the process that makes it quicker? 00:46:17.679 --> 00:46:20.079 It's a wood to spirit ratio. 00:46:20.400 --> 00:46:40.639 So if you take a 200 litre cask, which these staves are made of, and you take this entire surface area, but the entire surface area, the inside of the barrel, you will get uh a meter squared or or whatever the calculation is, and that's the amount of surface area, and with the amount of spirit that's in it, that's 200 litres. 00:46:40.800 --> 00:46:55.360 So the amount of surface area that's from wood contacting spirit is that number, but as you go smaller in cask, even down to a 20 litre, the amount of wood that's in contact with the spirit goes up. 00:46:55.599 --> 00:47:02.239 So the more wood that you have contact with the spirit, the more influence it's gonna have faster, because it's all just there in contact. 00:47:02.400 --> 00:47:14.079 So within like this is beautiful, this is a beautiful size for a couple of months, even up to a year, kind of a forking size, you can do months or or years if you want, depending on the type of wine or spirit. 00:47:14.239 --> 00:47:23.599 But in these smaller two-liter barrels, the reason we put the taps on them is you'd want to be sampling very regularly and taking notes because you would be amazed at how quickly that changes. 00:47:23.760 --> 00:47:26.880

You leave it two or three days, and it's like a whole different whiskey. 00:47:27.119 --> 00:47:36.000 But because I have I suppose I have my head in a barrel at seven o'clock in the morning for the last 13 years, I'm smelling whiskey, I'm smelling oak, that sensory experience is quite high. 00:47:36.079 --> 00:47:42.079 So I I like heavy riakas, traditional Irish pot stills, heavy oak influence. 00:47:42.159 --> 00:47:54.639 So these barrels suit me perfectly because I can take um a whiskey that people like think is very strong on the oak, and I'd even put it in that and get more influence into it to suit my palate. 00:47:54.800 --> 00:48:07.440 But you can do the same from whether you're on like grain whiskey and Pinot Grigios, or you like pastels and riacas, you can do so many different things with the same cask because you're developing your own profile if that makes sense. 00:48:07.760 --> 00:48:12.960 And you can ship these to the United States or anywhere, we do, we ship all over the world. 00:48:13.039 --> 00:48:26.000 It's actually really cool to say that we have barrels going all over the world at the moment, and tankards or one-liter tankards are quite popular because once you put it up to your face, you're smelling the inside of the barrel of the staves, the whiskey soaked in, the beer. 00:48:26.079 --> 00:48:27.760 It's it's such a different drinking experience. 00:48:27.840 --> 00:48:32.320 But yeah, we ship to the states, we're going, we have one going to Canada, to the UK. 00:48:32.480 --> 00:48:35.519 Does a tankard gone to Finland last week? 00:48:35.760 --> 00:48:37.440 It's it's happening, like it's all real. 00:48:37.519 --> 00:48:43.599 Like it's it's I don't get to talk about it or think about it anymore, or say I'd love to bring this back to the trade, or I'd love to get these vessels out. 00:48:43.679 --> 00:48:46.159 We're actually doing it, we're making churns every day. 00:48:46.320 --> 00:48:59.519 Um, we're we're sending them all over the world, and yeah, these did the new makes are going uh abroad, like the states in Canada and stuff, but the restorations and the butter churns and the vessels coming back out, they're all domestic, obviously, in Ireland. 00:48:59.599 --> 00:49:02.000 So it's there's so many cool sights to it, man. 00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:04.239 That is it's so cool. 00:49:04.400 --> 00:49:06.239 I'm down, I'm I'm hooked here. 00:49:06.400 --> 00:49:07.199 I want in. 00:49:09.840 --> 00:49:12.800 Yeah, another another hobby for me to do. 00:49:13.840 --> 00:49:14.400 It's dangerous. 00:49:14.480 --> 00:49:17.840 I have to be I I found that even telling myself like two or three weeks ago. 00:49:17.920 --> 00:49:21.280 I was listening to your podcast and I was like, stop, stop thinking about it. 00:49:21.360 --> 00:49:23.280 I have to be careful of the rabbit holes, you know. 00:49:23.360 --> 00:49:28.239 And then it's like, of course, you could just go out and lift stones, of course you could go out and

I have a shillela here. 00:49:29.119 --> 00:49:30.719 I have a shillela here, right? 00:49:31.039 --> 00:49:32.079 The whole time, black horn. 00:49:32.239 --> 00:49:35.199 It was actually given to me by go on, get your shillele. 00:49:36.239 --> 00:49:38.159 Not more than an Irish snug, sir. 00:49:39.679 --> 00:49:40.639 Very good. 00:49:41.039 --> 00:49:49.039 Um, this was actually given to me by Owen Reardon, he's an Irish craftsman, woodworker, does TikTok videos and YouTube and stuff, he's very good. 00:49:49.199 --> 00:49:51.039 Um, but he made this for me. 00:49:51.119 --> 00:49:52.800 I have another one next door. 00:49:52.960 --> 00:50:03.199 But as soon as I got this in my hand, only three or four days went by, and I was listening to Nathan and uh Irish stick fighting on your podcast, and I was literally looking at this all day. 00:50:03.280 --> 00:50:07.119 I was like, I have jiu-jitsu tonight, we're training on the weekend with the small floor. 00:50:07.199 --> 00:50:19.599 We're in martial arts since we were younger anyway, uh a lot of my life, and now we're in jiu-jitsu, and I'm like, hey, relax, let's let's go through the belts in jujitsu first now, and then that journey before you pick up a stick and go fight stick fighting complaints. 00:50:20.400 --> 00:50:23.119 You know, it's funny, I've this this isn't the one that I've had. 00:50:23.199 --> 00:50:25.280 I we've always had one in my household. 00:50:25.519 --> 00:50:29.440 Since I was a little kid, I remember there was always one in the sitting in the corner. 00:50:29.599 --> 00:50:55.119 This isn't the one I actually I think my father or my mother has the original one, but this one was given to me by uh my wife's great aunt, who she wasn't from Ireland, her her uh her family was from Ireland, but she was you know she was getting up there in age and she came over our house for Christmas one year and she came in and she says, Tim, now this is a woman that's never been to Ireland. 00:50:55.519 --> 00:51:11.199 You know, she's all heard all the stories about Ireland, and you know, for for us who had never gone to Ireland, you know, I've obviously I go there a lot, but there there's a whole in the in the United States there's a lot of people that have never been there that dream of going there. 00:51:11.519 --> 00:51:12.960 And she was one of those people. 00:51:13.039 --> 00:51:18.480 And when she handed me this, she said, Tim, I want you to have this. 00:51:19.360 --> 00:51:24.800 It's from Ireland It's really from Ireland. 00:51:25.280 --> 00:51:30.480 The way she said it to me, you know, I I took it and I said, I'll keep that forever. 00:51:30.960 --> 00:51:34.320 Yeah, you know, it meant so much to her to give to me. 00:51:34.719 --> 00:51:35.519 It's amazing. 00:51:35.599 --> 00:51:55.920 I felt uh it's amazing that you have that story behind that as well with family, because even when I was in Kentucky, man, people hear the accent and they're straight up, and it is it's this it's this familiarity, like you know, and even people like you said, I've never been there, but I know how Irish I am, and my grandparents have talked about always keeping our heritage and stuff, and we dreamed to go back one day and stuff, you know. 00:51:56.079 --> 00:52:08.639 I had a friend William who's still in Kentucky, uh managing a cooperage over there, um, and he came over for our wedding, and I got to go golfing with him, and it was his first time in Ireland, and it's literally that man, we get to share our culture. 00:52:08.800 --> 00:52:13.760 Things like this, things like your uh your friend, sorry, your wife's great aunt, is it? 00:52:14.000 --> 00:52:14.400 Mm-hmm. 00:52:14.559 --> 00:52:23.360 Like that, it's so important to her that you understand this is being given to you and look after this piece of heritage, if it be even be a shillely, you know what I mean? 00:52:23.440 --> 00:52:27.119 It's amazing that that people have that reverence for who we are and what we do still, you know. 00:52:27.440 --> 00:52:29.599 Oh, it's it's alive and well. 00:52:29.679 --> 00:52:41.280 I you know, I it's one of the reasons why I'm doing this podcast is I like to uh and you know, and maybe revive it a little bit too, because it was there was a little bit more, maybe I should say a lot bit more when I was growing up. 00:52:41.440 --> 00:52:46.000 Um, you know, a lot of people didn't go, couldn't go to Ireland, a lot of people just didn't have the money. 00:52:46.079 --> 00:52:54.960 And and you know, listening to my grandmother talk about Ireland, you know, she when she came to America, she had never gone back because they didn't have the money. 00:52:55.280 --> 00:52:58.800 So growing up in a household, you know, my father had never gone. 00:52:59.280 --> 00:53:05.599 Uh to me, going to Ireland was the same thing as going to Mars. 00:53:05.840 --> 00:53:07.199 It's just unobtainable. 00:53:07.360 --> 00:53:09.440 Like we didn't think we could ever get there. 00:53:09.760 --> 00:53:12.800 That's it's sort of like the what you had in your head, you know. 00:53:13.119 --> 00:53:20.719 And then later on in life, you know, I I wasn't I I was 25 years old before I made the trip to Ireland my first time. 00:53:21.280 --> 00:53:22.320 And now I'm over here. 00:53:23.199 --> 00:53:33.679 It has to be some sort of kind of memory thing as well, because the fact that you can't get back or knowing that it's going to be so hard to return, like that's what was in that book about Henry O'Mahani. 00:53:33.920 --> 00:53:39.679 Like, they knew they were saying goodbye, like, you know, it's you're going to America, your brother hasn't come back, you need to get out of here. 00:53:39.840 --> 00:53:47.760 Yes, you're bringing your hammer driver, your trade with you, but this is goodbye, like, and and that's still going on for generations of one day we should get back there, you know. 00:53:47.920 --> 00:53:49.360 It's not too long ago, man. 00:53:49.599 -->

00:53:52.719 I mean, half of the songs written are all about that. 00:53:53.039 --> 00:53:58.239 You know, one song I always uh think of is uh to I Cherish the Ladies. 00:53:58.400 --> 00:54:02.639 Uh it's actually the guy Don uh Stiff, I think his last name is. 00:54:02.880 --> 00:54:06.079 He sings this song called The Christmas Letter, and it's it's sad. 00:54:06.239 --> 00:54:12.639 It's so sad that you know this mother is is her her kids are going off to America and she's never gonna see them again, ever. 00:54:12.960 --> 00:54:19.360 Yeah, it's a sad story, but um, but even sorry, you said something there that just sparked something. 00:54:19.599 --> 00:54:20.079 Yeah. 00:54:20.320 --> 00:54:27.199 Um yeah, it just yeah, it's it's like these these final goodbyes to things, like the song, sorry, the song. 00:54:27.519 --> 00:54:31.519 You have like obviously Irish songs, the big tradition. 00:54:31.599 --> 00:54:34.800 You get a group of us together, you're gonna hear us singing from miles away, like you know. 00:54:34.960 --> 00:54:38.320 Um, and it's it's a way that I've definitely learned our heritage. 00:54:38.400 --> 00:54:47.840 Me and my brothers and my cousins, we grew up singing these rebel songs, we grew up understanding our culture through the songs that were written about every struggle that we've been through as a population, you know. 00:54:48.079 --> 00:54:58.480 Um, but there's another there's another song, I can't remember the name of it, but very famous Irish song, and it's uh By trade, By Trade I Was a Cooper, Lost Out to Redundancy. 00:54:58.719 --> 00:55:00.880 Oh, yeah, that I sing that song. 00:55:01.280 --> 00:55:04.000 Yeah, well, that's uh that's the rare old times. 00:55:04.400 --> 00:55:05.280 Yes, exactly. 00:55:05.440 --> 00:55:07.360 Yeah, lost out to redundancy. 00:55:08.000 --> 00:55:11.840 Um, progress, my trade of memory. 00:55:12.559 --> 00:55:13.119 Memory. 00:55:13.280 --> 00:55:14.000 Do you know what I mean? 00:55:14.079 --> 00:55:22.719 Like literally, there's a s there's a song, such famous our song that has the lyrics that the trade that I've been in for the last 13 years of the family Cooper's already started, it's a memory. 00:55:22.800 --> 00:55:24.000 At that time, it's gone. 00:55:24.079 --> 00:55:31.840 Like Guinness had a Guinness had a ceremony in in 1963 of this is the last wooden barrel ever. 00:55:32.000 --> 00:55:33.679 Say goodbye to Coopering in Ireland. 00:55:33.760 --> 00:55:37.360 It's not just brewery coopering, this is the beginning of the end for it, you know. 00:55:37.519 --> 00:55:40.159 And it was, they made so they made so many things. 00:55:40.239 --> 00:55:47.280 And what's crazy is I also met people along, like it's almost they want to see or they want to be like the last part of something, you know. 00:55:47.519 --> 00:55:51.760 And it's like that that could stop something reviving, that could stop something coming back up. 00:55:51.920 --> 00:56:01.119 And truth is now there's a generation of us, there's 12 lads across this country that are not just paying their bills and fixing barrels, but raising families off the trade in Ireland again. 00:56:01.199 --> 00:56:05.360 It's a huge thing, it's in our music, it's in our culture, you know, and it's coming back. 00:56:05.440 --> 00:56:10.559 And and please God it makes it to a song again where where coopering is no longer a memory, you know. 00:56:10.719 --> 00:56:11.440 Right, right. 00:56:12.000 --> 00:56:14.400 No, that's this is this is it's a great point. 00:56:14.559 --> 00:56:15.840 It's a great point. 00:56:16.639 --> 00:56:17.440 Yeah, dude. 00:56:17.599 --> 00:56:27.199 The last guy, sorry, the last guy that was actually doing this household coopering that we know of was a fellow called Ned Gavin, and uh he retired in before 1980. 00:56:27.440 --> 00:56:31.519 Um, but before him, he was a sole trader making these casks and stuff. 00:56:31.679 --> 00:56:38.880 It's been a hundred years since this faction of coopering was up and booming and making vessels and stuff, so it means the world to us, man. 00:56:39.679 --> 00:56:44.000 Yeah, I I think it's I just uh hope it stays on track. 00:56:44.159 --> 00:56:46.800 I know there's a lot of a lot of stuff going on right now. 00:56:48.079 --> 00:56:48.719 But you know what? 00:56:48.800 --> 00:56:54.239 What what you said about uh food and people experience and technology, and yeah, it's gonna get crazy. 00:56:54.400 --> 00:57:06.880 But what we are seeing is people want to connect with things again, people want to connect with their heritage, their culture, whether that's through vessels, through food, through alcohol, through your own experience as a human to be able to like that. 00:57:07.199 --> 00:57:17.199 I can't bel I literally can't believe I have vessels I have butter turns that I have to make in this style in the Bonrati Castle style, that it's not just for oh, we'd love to look at this. 00:57:17.280 --> 00:57:22.000 No, we actually need a turn, and we've known that we can get it made, and we've been using this thing for decades. 00:57:22.159 --> 00:57:23.679 Can you make us as many as possible? 00:57:23.840 --> 00:57:28.320 So it's this connection to food that's bringing us back, the connection to our heritage as well, you know. 00:57:29.840 --> 00:57:33.519 How involved is the rest of your family in the Cooperage? 00:57:34.079 --> 00:57:36.079 Man, I'll be very honest with you. 00:57:36.239 --> 00:57:44.480 My little man who is six years of age had his apron on and hammer making noise in the Cooperage here before I got down here this morning. 00:57:44.719 --> 00:57:49.519 So he's like, he's he's grown up with this as part and parcel in his life. 00:57:49.599 --> 00:57:53.920 He was at the displays, the heritage festival that we were at with his apron on. 00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:55.920 We were charring this barrel together. 00:57:56.079 --> 00:57:58.880 Um, yeah, man, it's it's it's a family business.

00:57:58.960 --> 00:58:00.480 We're all we're all there for each other, you know. 00:58:00.559 --> 00:58:04.880 And it's that's what I was saying about Henry O'Mahani and why it's O'Mahani craft Cooperage. 00:58:05.119 --> 00:58:08.719 It's the generations before us that have laid it out and done their best for us. 00:58:08.880 --> 00:58:12.480 It's us who are here now doing it, and please God, it's the generations to come. 00:58:12.719 --> 00:58:16.320 You know, it's we're not messing around, it's not something that we're getting into and out of. 00:58:16.400 --> 00:58:18.719 This is a generational family thing we're bringing back. 00:58:18.960 --> 00:58:20.480 I I want to share something with you. 00:58:20.559 --> 00:58:31.119 I had taken a note on my probably around the time I first got an iPhone, and you know, it's got the notes section, and I it was done in 2012. 00:58:31.280 --> 00:58:36.000 I took this note, actually, I had it was my son who was nine years old at the time. 00:58:36.079 --> 00:58:37.199 He's 23 now. 00:58:37.519 --> 00:58:47.039 But when he was nine years old, my wife was going out for the day, and I told him, I said, Liam, let's make a list of what we want to do today. 00:58:47.519 --> 00:58:52.239 And he said, Okay, Dad, and I still have that list, and I want to read that list to you. 00:58:52.639 --> 00:58:52.880 Please. 00:58:53.760 --> 00:59:11.599 You know, my wife was out for the whole day, and this was what we were gonna do that day get a basketball hoop, go out for lunch, have a lacrosse catch, go for a bike ride, go food shopping and make dinner for everyone, make something out of wood. 00:59:13.440 --> 00:59:15.760 That was the last thing on his notebook. 00:59:16.639 --> 00:59:17.760 That's a big day. 00:59:18.480 --> 00:59:22.000 Yeah, the big day, but that was that's the the mind of a nine-year-old. 00:59:22.239 --> 00:59:42.159 And but I the make something out of wood thing is something that I always thought was it was just a great thing that he wrote down because I do feel that we have there is sort of an inner human thing that you know making things out of your hands and out of wood is uh I'm I'm a bit of a little bit of a woodworker myself. 00:59:42.239 --> 00:59:44.800 I've done uh finished carpentry, you know. 00:59:44.960 --> 00:59:49.360 I built my whole bar, I built, you know, I I do a lot of that kind of stuff. 00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:51.760 Did you get to that task? 00:59:51.840 --> 00:59:54.400 Did you get to did you clear that list for what did you get to? 00:59:55.840 --> 00:59:58.079 Something we just wiggled out of a that's all that matters. 00:59:58.159 --> 01:00:00.639 We made something to work together like yeah, it's amazing. 01:00:00.800 --> 01:00:03.760 Where's his little oh what he does actually? 01:00:04.239 --> 01:00:17.039 So anything from the the staves or the barrels, if something doesn't work out, like the wood is too porous or the stave ends up too thin, he actually takes those staves off me and he turns them into incense burners. 01:00:17.360 --> 01:00:18.480 So he drills a hole. 01:00:19.199 --> 01:00:24.880 Something out of out of the the stuff that's uh literally, yeah, it was we're not gonna do these work. 01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:26.719 Nothing goes to waste. 01:00:26.800 --> 01:00:36.960 And like if it's not, if these aren't turned into incense burners, he drills two holes on them, he sands them down, he brands them with me, he oils them, and he sells them at the little markets we go to as well. 01:00:37.039 --> 01:00:44.159 So like he but he's done with his headphones on doing that, working away while I'm over here making barrels, like and it like that's how involved he is, isn't it? 01:00:44.559 --> 01:00:45.599 And how old is he? 01:00:46.000 --> 01:00:46.639 Six. 01:00:46.800 --> 01:00:47.840 That's terrific. 01:00:48.320 --> 01:01:01.840 This guy was standing, this guy was standing at a stall with me, and we're talking about Coopering and the history of it, and we've the miniature barrels and the tankards, and this guy was all questions, you know, talking away to me with some used to, and uh next thing he kind of started, oh thanks very much, and started walking away. 01:01:01.920 --> 01:01:07.679 And my son looked at me six years of age with his apron on, and he goes to your man, you you can buy something too. 01:01:08.559 --> 01:01:14.480 At six, like and your man turns around and he goes, Oh, sorry, the the barrels might just be a bit over my price range today. 01:01:14.559 --> 01:01:15.519 He goes, That's no problem. 01:01:15.599 --> 01:01:17.920 I'm selling these incense burners for a ten-year run off. 01:01:18.719 --> 01:01:20.239 Ah, that's at six, yeah. 01:01:20.320 --> 01:01:22.000 That's six like he got them for you. 01:01:22.639 --> 01:01:23.519 It's nice, but yeah. 01:01:23.760 --> 01:01:25.039 It's a good salesprint. 01:01:25.199 --> 01:01:26.559 Yeah, but he's do you know what? 01:01:26.639 --> 01:01:28.320 This is this is normality to him, Tim. 01:01:28.400 --> 01:01:30.079 We we live a very traditional life anyway. 01:01:30.159 --> 01:01:35.199 Myself, my wife, Miss Walfellow, we hunt all the food uh or farm all the food that we have. 01:01:35.280 --> 01:01:44.880 We have a small holding, we do chickens, cows, uh, we do a lot of hunting, deer, we all the shavings from the shave horse making barrels here on the cooperage. 01:01:45.280 --> 01:01:57.039 If it's not used to smoke our meat or to cook our meat on the barbecue, we actually make tanning bats and we put the deer hides and the cow hides and we tan our own leather and make our own stuff here as well. 01:01:58.079 --> 01:02:09.440 It's it's like these this bid like this this this trade, the traditional lifestyle, it has this circular economy, so it suits our family so well because of the balance between what we do, the balance between what we love. 01:02:09.519 --> 01:02:14.880 Like, you know, she's baking soda bread while we're out

hunting deer and building barrels and and tanning leather, you know. 01:02:14.960 --> 01:02:17.760 It's it's a nice life because we are so connected to what we do. 01:02:17.920 --> 01:02:18.880 Yeah, and we're conscious of it. 01:02:19.119 --> 01:02:19.760 Especially with kids. 01:02:19.840 --> 01:02:28.320 I I grew up hunting myself, and you know, here in New York, it's big the big thing is white-tailed deer, turkey hunting, duck hunting, that kind of stuff. 01:02:28.400 --> 01:02:32.000 But um what what's the what's hunting look like in Ireland? 01:02:32.159 --> 01:02:36.639 I you know, there's not it's everybody pictures uh rolling grass fields. 01:02:36.719 --> 01:02:38.960 I I don't elk. 01:02:39.760 --> 01:02:42.880 Eh, very like that's actually fallow, fallow deer. 01:02:44.000 --> 01:02:45.920 Have you ever seen the Irish elk? 01:02:46.880 --> 01:02:50.400 Um we don't have them now anymore, up to six. 01:02:51.280 --> 01:02:51.519 You know what? 01:02:51.679 --> 01:02:53.119 I have a drawing here. 01:02:53.360 --> 01:02:53.840 You know what? 01:02:54.000 --> 01:02:54.719 Hold on one second. 01:02:54.800 --> 01:03:05.039 I have to draw so a friend of my father's that he grew up with, he's an artist, and he drew I have a bunch of drawings that he did in my house. 01:03:05.360 --> 01:03:27.119 And they're all Irish, you know, like he's got I have the rock of Cashel, I got uh a bagpiper, I'm a bagpiper, so um I have a Celtic cross, there's different things, but this is my favorite, what I'm gonna show you right here, and I oh I always assumed it was I never looked it up, but I always assumed that it was a fictitious animal. 01:03:27.840 --> 01:03:30.400 But he calls it the Great Irish Deer. 01:03:30.800 --> 01:03:33.280 And I said this is something I love. 01:03:33.519 --> 01:03:35.360 Yes, sir, yes, sir. 01:03:35.519 --> 01:03:38.239 That is in fact the Great Irish Elk, yeah. 01:03:38.559 --> 01:03:42.000 The descendants, then we so we don't have mandalandscape anymore. 01:03:42.079 --> 01:03:48.719 It's actually taught that the Great Irish elk is the reason why we have Irish wolfhounds. 01:03:49.039 --> 01:03:56.559 The size of them, the big long legs, the running through the heatherlands in the forest and chasing elk, Irish elk down. 01:03:56.719 --> 01:04:00.559 It was the biggest elk of all time, the species that they've ever found. 01:04:00.639 --> 01:04:06.559 There's a guy up the country only in the last couple of years, and he found the connected antlers of an Irish elk. 01:04:07.119 --> 01:04:10.480 As far as I know, they were six metres in span. 01:04:11.440 --> 01:04:12.559 I honestly thought that this was. 01:04:22.079 --> 01:04:28.159 They used to say a red squirrel could travel from Cork to the top of the country, you know, without touching the ground. 01:04:28.239 --> 01:04:32.159 Um, so what lived inside their tour mountain ranges and everything was deer. 01:04:32.239 --> 01:04:40.960 We had red deer, but we had the Irish elk, and I think it was up until about 6,000 years ago, maybe even earlier, um, that they were on this landscape. 01:04:41.039 --> 01:04:50.320 But it said that the Irish wolfhound and the the only predator that was on the landscape to hunt them down uh was that like and people with with Irish wolfhounds. 01:04:50.400 --> 01:04:51.679 But no, very real animal. 01:04:51.760 --> 01:05:06.320 There's a guy that pulled, I think it's a six metre or seven metre, like 18 or 21 foot span of antlers, like would fill this entire wall, and they pulled it out of a bog, obviously preserved in the bog, they were doing work on the farm or turbury rights pulling turf. 01:05:06.559 --> 01:05:11.280 Um and they found this, and it's like there's one up in the National Museum of Ireland as well, I think. 01:05:11.440 --> 01:05:12.800 But no, very, very real. 01:05:12.880 --> 01:05:19.360 The the red deer that we have, which is our only native species of deer in Ireland, is a direct descendant from the Irish elk. 01:05:19.440 --> 01:05:22.960 They go up to like 220, 230 kilos. 01:05:23.360 --> 01:05:23.679 Okay. 01:05:24.159 --> 01:05:26.800 Now, are those the ones that they domesticated as well? 01:05:26.960 --> 01:05:41.440 Like for um I remember back in the 90s when I was in Ireland, we visited my friend's aunt's house, and that was a time where the mad cow thing got really big, and they they got rid of doing cows and they were raising deer. 01:05:41.679 --> 01:05:42.960 Is that a red deer? 01:05:43.039 --> 01:05:44.079 Is that what they were doing? 01:05:44.639 --> 01:05:48.239 Um that was I'm guessing it's probably fallow. 01:05:48.400 --> 01:05:57.119 Um, because we have two other species of deer in Ireland, Sika, which is Japanese, um, and then we have fallow, uh, which are which are these fellows. 01:05:57.280 --> 01:05:59.840 That's what I mainly hunt in in monster cark, typically. 01:06:00.159 --> 01:06:00.880 Rai Waterford. 01:06:01.199 --> 01:06:03.119 They have the big palmated antlers. 01:06:03.440 --> 01:06:04.880 They even get wider than that. 01:06:04.960 --> 01:06:07.760 They kind of look like moose antlers with the paddles, like you know. 01:06:07.920 --> 01:06:19.519 I would the the only farming that I've seen of deer would be the fallow one for the velvet and the red deer, possibly for the meat, but it's not very common in Ireland at all to be to be farming deer. 01:06:19.679 --> 01:06:22.480 We have a wider population that's completely out of control. 01:06:22.800 --> 01:06:26.079 We have an open season that's running about eight months of the year now. 01:06:26.320 --> 01:06:29.199 Um, like literally, we have an open bag limit. 01:06:29.280 --> 01:06:35.840 I hunt, I might drop 20 to 30 animals a year for our yeah, for our freezers. 01:06:35.920 --> 01:06:36.480 We butcher us. 01:06:38.480 --> 01:06:40.880 Or is there like a limited amount of hunters? 01:06:41.920 --> 01:06:44.480 A limited amount of hunters, so this is back to heritage.

01:06:44.639 --> 01:06:48.000 One of the things I hunt a lot of old land. 01:06:48.239 --> 01:06:50.239 I hunt a lot of mountain ranges. 01:06:50.320 --> 01:07:20.239 Um, I'm very lucky to know some very nice farmers who have a lot of land, and some of the land that they own are old English estates, where the land league would have run the landlords out of, where the Irish people now own the land that the English had indentured Irish servants on, and me as a cooper, a lowly cooper, caught hunting the king's deer, which is what it was called at one time, I would have been hung drawn and quartered, and it would have been a public event for the king, you know. 01:07:20.480 --> 01:07:30.480 So the fact that I get to hunt deer for my family, make a living off coopering and go live traditionally and hunt a deer on this land to feed my family is a huge thing. 01:07:30.639 --> 01:07:38.320 I get to enjoy that I get to hunt what they would have considered their deer and the king's deer on the land that I do and what would have happened. 01:07:38.480 --> 01:07:48.000 But because of that culture that was beaten out of us really, not much venison eating happened for a long time here. 01:07:48.159 --> 01:07:49.360 People were told they can't hunt. 01:07:49.440 --> 01:07:51.199 You'll be hungry on a quarter if you hunt. 01:07:51.280 --> 01:07:52.079 It's not your right. 01:07:52.159 --> 01:07:54.960 You can't hunt rabbits, you know, you can't hunt deer. 01:07:55.119 --> 01:08:00.480 Um, goats were a very common food source in Ireland at one time, but people turn their nose up to it now, you know. 01:08:00.639 --> 01:08:06.079 Whereas I we hunt wild goat populations in Ireland, we hunt deer, and that's our mainstay is the wild game. 01:08:06.159 --> 01:08:10.400 Our mainstay diet in our household is the Irish wild game that's in this country. 01:08:10.719 --> 01:08:11.360 Wow. 01:08:12.000 --> 01:08:13.440 That's really cool. 01:08:13.679 --> 01:08:23.039 It is, and it is it like being a lowly cooper, hunting where I hunt, I do regularly see these old artifacts and railings of these old English states, and I just laugh because this is what it is. 01:08:23.439 --> 01:08:24.239 I want to fix something there. 01:08:24.319 --> 01:08:26.800 I don't think you should be calling yourself a lowly cooper. 01:08:26.960 --> 01:08:34.079 Maybe that's a big problem in the old days, but I I'm holding you uh at a much higher level than a lowly cooper. 01:08:36.159 --> 01:08:36.640 Thanks. 01:08:36.880 --> 01:08:39.520 Where where do you see yourself in ten years? 01:08:39.920 --> 01:08:41.680 Oh, here, please God. 01:08:41.920 --> 01:08:46.000 Because this is um like well, do you see expansion? 01:08:46.159 --> 01:08:50.399 Do you see uh you know maybe bringing on more Coopers, apprentices? 01:08:51.039 --> 01:08:51.520 For sure. 01:08:51.760 --> 01:09:04.239 Yeah, like I'm still in the uh the Irish whiskey industry, so I kind of have my day job um there, which I love, I love

being a part of, um, and I love engaging in all of the factions of coopering that I get uh. 01:09:04.399 --> 01:09:09.359 Uh here, here is a whole different beast because it is a family cooperage. 01:09:09.520 --> 01:09:21.520 My cousin, um, she's in college at the moment, but she's very handy with with woodworking and geometry, and the things that she's made I've seen actually have a have a bit of uniqueness to them. 01:09:21.680 --> 01:09:26.079 And she's also of the same bloodline of our great-grandfather who was a blacksmith. 01:09:26.239 --> 01:09:28.239 Um, so that's what I really like to see. 01:09:28.319 --> 01:09:31.680 I'd like opportunity in the family to come in and look after this trade as well. 01:09:31.760 --> 01:09:41.680 I'd love to see maybe my cousin um her working here as an intern or hopefully uh an apprentice because it would mean a very different thing. 01:09:41.840 --> 01:09:46.880 Apprentices now go through the Scottish Coopering Federation, it's just for wet coopering, distillery repair. 01:09:47.039 --> 01:09:50.880 There is no authority, there is no association on household coopering. 01:09:50.960 --> 01:10:10.079 And if I'm to bring an apprentice in here, I want to make it a full apprenticeship of your learning everything from the start to finish, and you're a fully fledged cooper that can go out on your own if you wanted, even we mightn't be in that world, but that's the level of training that I that I want to bring back into the faction and have a real apprenticeship of not just working here and doing that and oh your apprentice, no, no. 01:10:10.159 --> 01:10:13.600 This is like from start to finish, the same as it was a hundred years ago. 01:10:13.680 --> 01:10:21.359 You need to be able to do the job, and whether that's my cousin Afa or whether it's a brother-in-law that's coming in, um, that's hopefully what I see for the business going forward. 01:10:21.520 --> 01:10:24.960 Obviously, Cody, he's six, he can do whatever he wants in the world. 01:10:25.039 --> 01:10:31.279 Um, whether he wants to pick up the hammer and driver or he wants to go hunt deer for a living, or whatever he wants to do, he'll never have any pressure on him. 01:10:31.439 --> 01:10:36.560 But it's for him to understand that we have options and then we have things to do if you want, you know. 01:10:36.960 --> 01:10:38.159 That's great. 01:10:38.800 --> 01:10:39.279 Great. 01:10:39.760 --> 01:10:45.039 What should people remember about the barrel the next time they drink whiskey? 01:10:45.520 --> 01:10:46.239 But you know what? 01:10:46.319 --> 01:10:47.279 What's a good one? 01:10:47.680 --> 01:10:57.039 When you the next time you nose whiskey, or the next time you nose wine, remember that it's the ork that you're smelling mostly. 01:10:57.680 --> 01:11:07.039 It really is when you put your head into uh a bottle of whiskey and oh that smells like oh, and they put their head into a barrel and they say, oh, that smells like whiskey. 01:11:07.520 --> 01:11:11.760 It's actually the ork that you're smelling that we associate with whiskey. 01:11:12.079 --> 01:11:22.239 So even like we're so associated with food, smoking food with ork for years, preserving food um through all of that, it's been part of our sensory experience as humans. 01:11:22.560 --> 01:11:33.920 So when we associate the smell of whiskey, we should be associating it with oak and with the wood itself, not just whiskey standalone, because without the barrel, you're not getting that whiskey, you know. 01:11:34.640 --> 01:11:41.359 Let me tell you something that uh where my whiskey level learning has uh and it's pretty recent. 01:11:42.239 --> 01:11:49.039 Um I've I like red breast, I've liked I was drinking red breast before it even came into the United States. 01:11:49.119 --> 01:11:55.760 We actually would have to go to Ireland and bring a bac a barrel, uh we'd bring a bottle back home. 01:11:56.079 --> 01:12:02.640 But then it eventually came to the United States, and you know, it would always be the 12-year-old or the 15-year-old. 01:12:03.119 --> 01:12:08.560 Um, bourbon here, I always drink it uh with a with an ice cube in it. 01:12:09.119 --> 01:12:16.560 Um but whisk with the Irish whiskey, I I was putting ice in it until I started drinking a little bit better whiskey. 01:12:16.640 --> 01:12:19.600 And then and my father always said, you it's gotta be neat. 01:12:19.680 --> 01:12:20.640 It's gotta be neat. 01:12:21.039 --> 01:12:26.079 But I never I didn't I didn't hit that neat stage until much later in life. 01:12:26.399 --> 01:12:32.319 And and then a buddy of mine bought the the 27-year-old uh Redbreast. 01:12:32.640 --> 01:12:50.880 Yes, and and we had it neat, and I took a sip, but I took a sip of it similar to how I would take a sip of a sip of bourbon or a sip of you know anything else with uh with an ice cube in it, and it was it was a lot uh stiffer than I thought it was gonna be. 01:12:50.960 --> 01:12:52.079 I thought it was gonna be smooth. 01:12:52.479 --> 01:12:54.960 I went out and bought this these types of glasses. 01:12:55.279 --> 01:12:55.520 Oh I think that's it. 01:12:56.079 --> 01:12:59.279 I never had these uh specific this specific glass. 01:12:59.680 --> 01:13:13.119 So I went out and bought those, and when I'm drinking that 27-year-old now, I put as little whiskey as I can in my mouth at a time so that I can get all those flavors. 01:13:13.439 --> 01:13:15.279 Like that's when you can really taste it. 01:13:15.359 --> 01:13:21.840 If you if you put too much whiskey in your mouth at one time, now this I I could be I'm not a connoisseur. 01:13:22.000 --> 01:13:29.199 I'm just telling you how I experienced that particular whiskey and how I would drink it today, you know, if I was having it. 01:13:29.279 --> 01:13:31.439 But is that something you've experienced? 01:13:31.920 --> 01:13:41.760 You're on the ball because I also think it's a palate development thing, the way we're

starting from Ice Cube, and it has to come almost kind of be dulled on as an introduction as you're growing into it, you know. 01:13:41.920 --> 01:13:58.560 I found the same uh with myself, and the further I got into the trade because my sensory experience was growing and growing and growing and being impacted, I actually leaned towards the heavier Ryak as the grand reserve as five years in a barrel rather than three and stuff. 01:13:58.640 --> 01:14:04.159 Um, and the same with the Redbreast, Redbreast is absolutely up there, one of the best whiskies in the world, one of my favourite. 01:14:04.479 --> 01:14:10.000 And I'm gonna tell you some blasphemy about whiskey whiskey drinkers mightn't like this story at all, to be honest. 01:14:10.159 --> 01:14:13.760 But Redbreast 27, absolute banger, sensory experience. 01:14:13.920 --> 01:14:20.319 I believe my opinion is you're drinking that the right way because it's it's meant to be a sensory experience, you're supposed to enjoy it. 01:14:20.560 --> 01:14:24.880 Same as like a glass of wine, you're not just absolutely throwing it back, yeah, you're enjoying it. 01:14:25.039 --> 01:14:29.840 I love a glass of red wine because it can get deep, it can get complex, you can have that sensory experience. 01:14:30.000 --> 01:14:34.399 Same at Redbreast 27, the port finish one, especially beautiful. 01:14:34.720 --> 01:14:36.399 We went on a family hike. 01:14:36.479 --> 01:14:43.359 Um, me and my aunts and uncles and cousins down a place of West Car called Bear Island, um, where my grandparents were actually from. 01:14:43.600 --> 01:14:51.279 But we went up a hike up to Martello Tower, and in the bag, I brought a bottle of Redbreast 27 and opened it up there. 01:14:51.359 --> 01:14:56.399 Quite the bottle out to be opening at the top of the mountain, and we realised well not a mountain, a hill, I suppose. 01:14:56.479 --> 01:14:59.119 Uh we realised all we had brought was plastic cups. 01:14:59.279 --> 01:15:03.920 So we had the plastic drinking cups, but I were going to pour it in. 01:15:06.399 --> 01:15:16.399 Complete plastic because I was like, because I was telling about like oh, I was walking them through the barrel type, all different types, and it's finished in port or whatever, but then you put it into this plastic cup, and all you smell is plastic. 01:15:16.479 --> 01:15:20.159 I'm like, oh no, I didn't realise you're gonna ruin the sensory experience. 01:15:20.239 --> 01:15:21.359 So, no hundred percent. 01:15:21.439 --> 01:15:27.760 The reason that glass that you have works is because it has that bulbous shape on the bottom of it, so the fumes come up and impact you like that. 01:15:27.920 --> 01:15:30.239 That's why there's different shaped glasses, you know. 01:15:30.479 --> 01:15:35.680 That's why I believe as well, the the tankards that we're making, it's that sensory experience. 01:15:35.760 --> 01:15:51.760 I'd love, I'd love for you to have one to just to smell it because the second before the beer even hits remote, you're having a sensory experience by your nose, and all of the staves, all of the chair, the whiskey that's soaked into it, plus the beer interacting, it changes that sensory experience to a point. 01:15:51.840 --> 01:15:52.720 I can't explain it. 01:15:52.880 --> 01:15:56.960 I can't explain this until you have the experience yourself, you know. 01:15:57.119 --> 01:16:08.880 And and it's about that, it's about learning from a tumbler to a flute glass to a plastic cup to a wooden vessel, it's bringing us back to something that we came from, and it's and and we're feeling it's sensory, I think, you know. 01:16:09.359 --> 01:16:11.279 I think that's that's really cool. 01:16:11.520 --> 01:16:17.199 I'm thinking I need to get one of those and put the Irish Snug uh logo on it. 01:16:17.520 --> 01:16:18.239 Do you know what? 01:16:18.399 --> 01:16:24.880 What a great time to say that because what I'm looking at is a laser engraver that I just set up in the last few days. 01:16:25.119 --> 01:16:25.680 There you go. 01:16:25.840 --> 01:16:28.560 So we are going customising heads. 01:16:28.640 --> 01:16:32.079 Um, either the the bottom, we can do the bottom of a tankered. 01:16:32.159 --> 01:16:39.520 Um, so you can lift it up, you get the logo there, but also what we'd like to do our logos on the back here, OMCC, OM Handy Craft Cooperage. 01:16:39.680 --> 01:16:49.279 These two litres are quite small, and the tap is in the way to put logos there, so we might need to increase to the five litre or the ten litre for the customisation, but it's a hundred percent. 01:16:49.439 --> 01:16:58.720 I'd like to see the Irish snug barrel, I'd love to see the local pubs with their logo, the local rugby club with its its logo and its um crest and all that. 01:16:58.880 --> 01:17:05.359 One of the things I've talked uh about to publicans is bring your own drinking vessel to the pub day. 01:17:05.600 --> 01:17:12.479 And everyone I've talked to is on board, not with the one litres, they said legally they can't serve that and don't bring it in. 01:17:12.560 --> 01:17:23.039 But if you can make the point size tankards and anyone that brings one in, all we have to do is pour water, pour that it's a point, measure it, and we can pull away in that tankard for the day. 01:17:23.199 --> 01:17:27.279 So, what I'd love to see is tankards coming back into the pub scene, too. 01:17:27.520 --> 01:17:31.920 That would be great, and be it customized with other snug on the bottom, and that'd be great too. 01:17:32.079 --> 01:17:33.279 That's right, that's right. 01:17:33.439 --> 01:17:39.840 Yeah, well, uh, is there anything else that you'd like to add to the the podcast? 01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:41.279 No, I did the podcast here. 01:17:41.359 --> 01:17:42.720 I think we hit amazing. 01:17:42.960 --> 01:17:43.359 A lot. 01:17:43.439 --> 01:17:47.199 We covered so much there in an hour and a half or whatever, but I appreciate the time. 01:17:47.279 -->

01:17:52.079 I'd like the and I think of hit, like I only did a few notes there, but deleted all of them because we've hit them. 01:17:52.239 --> 01:17:54.159 So fair play, a lovely conversation. 01:17:54.239 --> 01:17:57.199 And it is much, it's not, it doesn't feel like this is an interview. 01:17:57.279 --> 01:17:59.359 We're having a conversation about cool things we like to talk about. 01:17:59.520 --> 01:18:00.880 So I appreciate that setting. 01:18:01.600 --> 01:18:19.119 Obviously, there's questions, but I I I prefer it to be more like we were sitting in a snug, and I just I you're sitting there, and I'm like, I just met you, and for the first time, and I I'm like, I wanna I wanna learn, so let's sit here, have a beer, and and that's that's that's the only thing that's missing though, is a point and a drop fair out. 01:18:19.199 --> 01:18:21.119 You have to haul it out to cover as well. 01:18:21.359 --> 01:18:22.800 No, just contrast, man. 01:18:22.880 --> 01:18:25.920 Um there's a lot of people have had a big influence on me in my life. 01:18:26.079 --> 01:18:33.920 Mentors, Brain Tees in Scotland, John Carey, who's now in Australia, Ian Andrews was a man who was 72 years of age when I met him. 01:18:34.000 --> 01:18:41.279 He was a retired cooper, still making these miniature barrels, butter churns, gunpowder casks, recreations for ships. 01:18:41.439 --> 01:18:46.000 He's the guy that taught me a lot of the miniaturized version of the household coopering that I'm doing. 01:18:46.079 --> 01:19:01.279 There was even a guy, Joe Foley, who was a cooper from Cork, and the day he retired at 65, he could jump from the ground like a box jump up onto a Sherry butt, which is like 1.3, 1.5 metres tall at the age of 65. 01:19:01.359 --> 01:19:08.399 Like so the guys that I've learned from are like the best coopers in the world I've met are tapped, they're crazy, they're a little bit nuts, like you know. 01:19:08.479 --> 01:19:11.760 And if you're jumping, if you're box jumping at 65 at 1. 01:19:12.079 --> 01:19:13.760 like three metres, you're insane. 01:19:13.920 --> 01:19:17.199 But nice guys, but no, what I suppose the only thing is the contrast. 01:19:17.359 --> 01:19:25.600 We've talked about the history of where coopering was, where it came from, this hundred-year lull of devastation to crafts and heritage across the country. 01:19:25.840 --> 01:19:33.520 But just the contrast to where we are now, there is 12 lads in the wet coopering trade repairing distillery barrels across the country. 01:19:33.760 --> 01:19:37.760 There recently some news came out which is super cool. 01:19:37.920 --> 01:19:41.760 There's a crowd up in KBB, which is Kentucky Bourbon Barrel, Ireland. 01:19:41.840 --> 01:19:54.640 They have a Cooperage in Ireland, they have a Cooper up there, Ian Leonard, he's about the same age as myself, and they just rose the first Irish oak casks in Ireland by an Irish Cooper in something like a century as well. 01:19:55.119 --> 01:20:05.920 So you have 12 lads on benches, you have Irish Cooper's region, Irish casks, you have the first white or household coopering cooperage open in Ireland in over a century. 01:20:06.079 --> 01:20:07.920 These are all things that are happening now. 01:20:08.000 --> 01:20:09.520 This is where the trade is now. 01:20:09.600 --> 01:20:14.640 It's in a good place, it's on the upswing, and I'm very, very excited for the future of Coopering again. 01:20:14.880 --> 01:20:18.479 I'm really excited for you, and I'm I want to be able to help whatever I can. 01:20:18.640 --> 01:20:21.279 Hopefully, this podcast will um will help you out. 01:20:21.520 --> 01:20:23.439 And you know, much appreciated, man. 01:20:23.520 --> 01:20:31.119 And I think you know the ethos behind it, so any support and getting the word out there literally does the best I can for the trade who's looked after me and my family. 01:20:31.199 --> 01:20:33.119 So it means the world for you to have me on. 01:20:33.199 --> 01:20:35.439 And and Jor Devine was bang on. 01:20:35.520 --> 01:20:37.039 He was like, You're gonna love the podcast. 01:20:37.119 --> 01:20:39.520 Go listen to it, come back, and then he set up and got on. 01:20:39.600 --> 01:20:43.760 And then you know the boys in the Dublin Fire, they're nothing but sound like so. 01:20:43.840 --> 01:20:45.600 It's really nice to listen to all that stuff. 01:20:45.680 --> 01:20:47.039 So fair play for what you're doing. 01:20:47.119 --> 01:20:50.720 Thanks for getting Heritage Talk, Irish craft tradition out there, man. 01:20:50.800 --> 01:20:51.760 It's a really good thing that you're doing. 01:20:51.840 --> 01:20:52.239 So thank you. 01:20:53.119 --> 01:20:54.800 It was great having you on the show. 01:20:54.960 --> 01:20:59.520 Uh, and we'll we'll definitely uh you know keep in touch. 01:20:59.840 --> 01:21:01.760 Super Solana Wally, I guess get