Who makes casks and barrels?
Barrel and "Cognac type" . Modern barrels and casks can also be made of aluminum, stainless steel, and different types of plastic, such as HDPE. Someone who makes barrels is called a "barrel maker" or cooper. Barrels are only one type of cooperage. Other types include, but are not limited to: buckets, tubs, butter churns, hogsheads, firkins, kegs, kilderkins, tierces, rundlets, puncheons, pipes, tuns, butts, pins, and breakers. Barrels have a variety of uses, including storage of liquids such as water and oil, fermenting wine, arrack, and sake, and maturing beverages such as wine, cognac, armagnac, sherry, port, whisky, and beer.
Forest of Tronçais is Dominique Laurent, who makes what are widely regarded as some of the world's finest barrels. These have been nicknamed "magic casks", by wine taster Michel Bettane. Laurent goes into the Tronçais forest to select the trees (typically around 300 years of age) and transports them to the cooperage himself, thus guaranteeing provenance. He uses the top section of the trunk, the staves are split by hand and air dried for 52 months. Due to hand splitting, the staves have a thickness of compared to commercial barrels at . The barrels were developed for Dominique Laurent, and Tardieu Laurent's top