Hammer time in Speyside

A visit to Oakwood Cooperage in Keith, Scotland

There’s a smell inside a working cooperage that makes you straighten up. Sweet oak. Warm steam. And hard graft. Oakwood Cooperage sits in Speyside, whisky’s busiest postcode.

I’m with co-founder Graham Hamilton at the biggest independent cooperage in the United Kingdom to look at the ancient craft of coopering (making and repairing casks) as a living trade.

We cover a lot. Oak, energy, repairs, reuse. What stays, what shifts, what gets defended. This one has noise, nuance, and a few home truths in the grain.