Wine barrels, barrel brokers, and tariffs

 Wine barrels are traded and reused internationally.

The Guardian has the story:

Stained, warped and terroir rich: the global and shockingly sustainable lives of wine barrels
Wood barrels circle the world and can be used for more than a century. They tell a story, but they’re imperiled by tariffs  by Kiki Aranita

"In the alcohol industry, when ageing liquor can easily take decades, the vessels that house them can also become more covetable over the years. In an age of disposable materials and dire news of plastics polluting our environment, reused wooden barrels exist in stark contrast. The lives of barrels are long, shockingly sustainable and currently imperiled by trade war.

"Many circumnavigate the globe and end their days in distilleries in remote corners of the world, originating in the forests of Hungary and moving from mountain towns in Canada to distilleries in the Caribbean and Mexico. At Hamilton, new American oak barrels hold fresh distillate, alongside the dinosaurs: French cognac barrels that show their age

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“We think of barrels as teabags. It gets used first for bourbon, like the first steep of a teabag. You get a lot of color and flavor from the barrel quickly. If you use the barrel again, it’ll take longer to impart, so maybe it’s used for scotch, which sits and ages longer. You mute the barrel’s flavors along the way.”

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"The international use of barrels is part and parcel of the global liquor industry. Large conglomerates like LVMH, Brown-Forman and Suntory have multiple spirits brands in their portfolios, and barrels make their rounds internally. A Kentucky-made barrel might end up in Scotland to age scotch because Brown-Forman owns both the Jack Daniel’s and Glendronach brands.

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"Distilleries that aren’t owned by large conglomerates enlist the help of a barrel broker who can source unique barrels. Mara Smith sources old pinot noir barrels from France through a broker, as they give her Inspiro tequila a rosy hue and flavors like “berries, some nuttiness, a floral [aroma] on the nose”.

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"Rizzo outlines a Laws Whiskey barrel’s typical lifespan. “We age our Four Grain Bourbon and send those used bourbon barrels [after four to 10 years] to a local apiary, Bee Squared, in Berthoud, Colorado. They age their honey in those used barrels for 90 days to produce a glorious local barrel-aged honey. We then get those barrels back and put more bourbon into them to make a natural honey-aged bourbon [which takes a year and a half of ageing]. One went to our friends at Lady Justice Brewing, who aged a honey bock beer in the honey barrel. Once that was finished in six months to two years, they put malted barley grain inside the barrel for another six months to two years to flavor the grain to produce another beer. And then the barrel is made into furniture.” These barrels had seven lives.

"Recent tariffs are making the very aspect of manufacturing barrels, distilling alcohol and selling its finished product more expensive. In American winemaking, particularly in California, French oak barrels will be affected by the EU’s retaliatory tariffs. Since barrels are essentially an ingredient in any given type of alcohol’s recipe, a winemaker would not be able to easily switch out a type of wood they have used previously for something available domestically."