Is the barrel shortage the reason?

[callmeox]

The thread title isn't "let me take potshots at other members" so I recommend that we steer it back where it belongs quickly.

[Phil T]

Let's put it this way:

9/10 times I see an unwarranted, snobbish, snarky, dare I say, "c*nty" remark from someone on this forum, and I take the time to glance to the left to see who the offender is, it's Cowdery. So if Squire, probably the forum's most friendly and welcoming fellow, feels the urge to bust his chops now and then, I'm all for it

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It's one thing to bust his chops when he's being snarky or unfriendly. ..but entirely different and unwarranted when he's being called out for giving us "The Facts"

[cowdery]

If you think I'm wrong or my facts are bad then counter them, but attacking me and my motives, or my source's motives, is ad hominem and specifically forbidden by SB.com rules because it is "a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument."

But I guess this is just me being arrogant what with my fancy book learnin' and all.

[TunnelTiger]

It's getting to the point that I regret starting the thread.

Mods - can the enitre thread be deleted?

[p_elliott]

It's getting to the point that I regret starting the thread.

Mods - can the enitre thread be deleted?

[TunnelTiger]

Back on point driving north this morning on I75 I passed a log truck with humongous oaks on the trailer and Independent Stave on the cab.

Help is on the way.

[proof and age]

Interesting subject, have to believe it is a combination of increased demand and desire among most bourbon producers to increase production now, in the busiest and most agreeable season to produce whiskey. There are agreements that are like contracts, where each producer agrees to an allocation of barrels. As has been pointed out here, the wood requires some period of seasoning, so the cooperages are not able to increase allocations in the short term unless another producer of whiskey is willing to give up some of their allocation of barrels. Puts the cooperages in a situation where they get to decide who can get more (if more even exists). Also, makes having your own barrel production capacity a very valuable thing.

[tmckenzie]

In talking with my barrel supplier, weather has been a fact or, but main reason as stated by others is this. Nobody to run a power saw. The old guys are retiring, or dying out. The young guys are two damn sorry to get on the business end of a power saw. I was trained to log in high school. I learned how to fell trees with a saw. That was back when young men would work. You have to be smart as well, no clear cutting when cutting oak for barrels. Trees are selected, you have to go in there, cut the tree, make it land where you want it soot don't hang up, link it, buck it and I imagine in the case of oak for barrels, carry the wood out by hand. Hard work folks. That is a thing of the past. There should be good money in it, I wish I was in an area where there was white oak to market and was able, I'd make me some money.

[Harry in WashDC]

Granted, my comment is based on anecdotal evidence (several years of working for fun in a woodshop along side the masters who did it for a living), but - the young guys who ARE interested in crafting in wood are making high end custom furniture. Cutters haul in the logs (some seasoned, some not) which the crafters pick through, and depending on the general needs of the shop and the commissions the professionals had accepted, the rough boards would be stacked and marked as "for sale" or "touch and you die". Some of the pros hated "12 chair sets" because they were boring. Imagine, then, scraping, shaping, bending, and fitting, nothing but staves 8 hours a day. A few of them liked the repetitive work because they said they could zone out and, when they woke up, the job was almost done.

Different strokes, I guess. As I posted above, I think I fall into the zone group.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Harry in WashDC