Good source for charred oak barrels?

[hotrod77]

Suggestions please? Any recommendations for buying or sourcing quality oak barrels would be appreciated. I'd like to start aging my spirits and the options are too numerous for me to sort out. If I were one of the big boys, I'd opt for an old Chardonnay barrel from a winery, a la Maker's Mark and other Bourbons, but don't have the production capacity for that. There are so many online "discount" barrel sources out there. Like most of us I want to save money, but I'm mostly interested in not corrupting my beautiful distillate. Ideally I'd like a few 1 gallon barrels, maybe even smaller but I like the idea of a full gallon, charred, to start experimenting with time/flavor, etc. Thanks in advance and apologies if this is covered elsewhere and I couldn't find it.

[garystarr22]

I am a commercial winemaker and get a lot of barrels from A & K cooperage in Mo.. Smallest they have is 60 gallon. I distillery here in Texas is using small 5 and ten gallon barrels from a place called barrel mill. They are pretty reasonable but you have to have the product to top them off. With small one gallon quantities try oak alternative. I would only use oak spirals or cubes. The toast is excellent , you can get different levels and the are much cheaper. Try STAVIN,but just search oak spirals and cubes . American oak especially from MO has heavy vanilla/spice and very sweet. I love um. Barrel Mill also has spirals. Hope this helps!

[Mud Mechanik]

I've had real good luck using http://oakbarrelsltd.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

They have good barrels at a great price.

[Rum Bum]

What I use are 5L barrels from http://www.thebarrelsource.com/moonshine.html and it's given my fine rum.

RB

[Bushman]

What I use are 5L barrels from http://www.thebarrelsource.com/moonshine.html and it's given my fine rum.

RB

Tried to buy some from another location but they did not get back to me so I just ordered 2-5 liter barrels from your source!

[Rum Bum]

Bushman, good investment in my mind. I'm going to reuse both of mine this coming summer, they have a lot of life left even after aging rum on them for 8 months.

RB

[junkyard dawg]

I can't say enough good things about Gibbs Brothers barrels.

not sure about their website tho...

[Braz]

I can't say enough good things about Gibbs Brothers barrels.

not sure about their website tho...

Yeh, the Google Fu sure throws up a lot of malware warnings about their site. If you have a customer relationship with them it might not hurt to give them a call and let them know. I doubt they actually want their site to be blacklisted.

[hotrod77]

Thanks everyone, I'll let you know what I figure on. Right now I'm looking around the neighborhood for any White Oak that might have come down in the storms. With a little luck someday I'll be skilled enough to fill an entire "big boy" barrel, right now I'm looking for the 5Ls or so. Thanks again, lovin' all the knowledge on this site.

[Rum Bum]

Are you planning on making a barrel out of fallen oak? haha that would be cool if you could pull that off. I've looked into it and realized "no thank you".

I'm trying to find sugar maple barrels now, I heard they're sweeter than the oak.

RB