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Speyside Cooperage, Craigellachie, Scotland

Speyside, for those not in the know, is home to a vast number of distilleries, so finding a Cooperage will be of no surprise.  Speyside Cooperage was certainly an interesting tour for us, but I think would be of interest to many.

Distilleries

Speyside Distilleries

Cooper at work

Cooper at work

It was of interest to see how coopers, who are still paid piece work (salary consists of being paid for each cask they make), go about their work using traditional methods and tools to make casks of varying sizes from American oak, whether new oak or dismantled bourbon casks.

Men at work

Men at work

The Acorn to Cask tour gives a history lesson on the life and skill of coopers over the centuries, then you are shown an informative 13min video about the work carried out at the cooperage.  After that you head to the gallery to watch the men at their work, and it is impressive to watch how quickly they can put the casks together – when we were there they were assembling bourbon casks from the USA – and how much graft is involved!

There is a sweet cafe area – although when we were there we were not tempted by its limited offerings… I assume that during busier times it is more well stocked.

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