American standard barrels are the most commonly used, be it in the U.S. Who uses these: As the name implies, this barrel is made from American white oak and favored by American distillers for the flavors they impart, and their near-ubiquitous availability. But there are distilleries of various sizes that still use them-among them Laphroaig, which offers Quarter Cask, a single malt that’s first aged in bourbon barrels and then finished in quarter casks, as well as independent bottler Duncan Taylor. These days, quarter casks have fallen out of favor a bit, as they can quickly make a whisky over-oaked. Who uses these: Back in the 19 th century, quarter casks-so named for their size, being a quarter of the standard barrel-were the choice barrel type among Scottish and American distillers, as they were easy to transport on horseback, and allowed for shorter maturation time (the smaller barrel size means the whisky is subject to more wood contact, getting imbued with those heady oak flavors over an expedited period of time). Channeling our inner whisky nerd, we’ve put together the specifics on cask types used for whisky, and the vast differences between them, to help enhance your tasting pleasure. Either way, the mind sometimes zooms past all that and focuses on tasting the whisky. But how often do you really know what they mean? Or perhaps you learned it once and have since forgotten. You’ll hear a lot of different barrel names tossed about-quarter casks, hogsheads, barriques, butts, pipes, and puncheons. When distillers present their whiskies, the barrel is almost always the co-star of the show.
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