This oak barrel care guide covers everything you need to get the best from your Heritage Glasses oak ageing barrel, from curing it on day one to keeping it healthy for 8 to 10 years. Follow the curing steps before you add any spirit: an uncured barrel will leak and soak up your whisky or rum.
The golden rule of barrel ageing: never let your barrel dry out.
Before you start
When your barrel arrives, you may notice small gaps between the staves or loose hoops. This is normal. Our barrels are handmade from natural oak, and changes in temperature and humidity during transit make the wood shrink. Curing will swell the wood, close the gaps and tighten the hoops.
Never nail or screw the hoops into place, as this will damage the barrel.
Before curing, tap the spigot firmly into its hole with a rubber mallet so it sits tight.
Curing your barrel
Curing means soaking the barrel in water until the wood swells and stops leaking. It does two jobs: it seals gaps and tightens the hoops, and it fills the wood with water so it absorbs less of your spirit.
Curing usually takes a few days and can take up to a week. Every barrel is different, because every piece of oak is different. Leaks during curing are completely normal, and finding them now is the point.
How to cure your oak barrel
- Rinse the barrel 3 times with water to remove loose charcoal. Pour water in through the top and let it run out through the spigot.
- Fill the barrel to the very top with warm water and insert the bung. All of the inside wood must be in contact with water.
- Stand the barrel on a drip tray in a cool place, out of direct sunlight.
- Check for leaks regularly. Press a little barrel wax into any leaking spot until it stops.
- Top up the water as the wood absorbs it.
- The barrel is ready when it holds water for at least 3 hours without leaking.
- Empty the barrel and rinse it 3 times.
- Fill it with your spirit straight away, or within a few hours at most. Don’t let the wood dry out again.
Fixing leaks
Most small leaks close up by themselves as the wood swells. Barrel wax seals any that don’t. If a large leak appears later, during ageing, empty the barrel and cure it again.
Ageing your spirits
Filling the barrel
Use a funnel so no spirit runs down the outside. Fill the barrel to the very top and push the bung in firmly. The less air inside, the better the ageing.
How long to age
There’s no fixed time: it depends on your taste and on the barrel size. Small barrels age spirits much faster than distillery casks, because far more of the spirit touches the wood. As a rough guide, 1 month in one of our barrels is similar to 1 to 1½ years in a 200-litre cask. The smallest barrels work fastest.
Taste your spirit every week from the spigot. A small dram glass is ideal, so you’re not tempted to drink the whole batch. Small barrels work quickly, so it’s easy to over-age a spirit if you don’t check.
Each batch in the same barrel will age a little more slowly than the last, as the wood gives up its flavour.
Decanting
When it tastes right, empty the barrel into glass bottles. This stops the ageing. A few charcoal bits are normal; pour through a fine strainer to catch them.
Rotating the barrel
Give the barrel a quarter turn now and then. As a little spirit evaporates, the top staves can dry out; turning the barrel keeps all the wood wet. With small barrels and short ageing times this matters less, but it’s a good habit.
Ageing rum and spiced rum
Rum is one of the best spirits to age at home. A young white or golden rum picks up vanilla, caramel and toasted oak quickly, and the sharp edges soften into something closer to an aged sipping rum. Start tasting after 1 to 2 weeks.
You can also use your barrel to make your own spiced rum. Start with a bought rum, then add spices such as a vanilla pod, cinnamon, orange peel, cloves or allspice, either in the barrel or in the bottle after ageing.
A few things to know before you spice:
- Use a dedicated barrel. Spices and any added sugar flavour the wood for good, and later batches will taste of them.
- Go easy on spices. Small barrels work fast, and cloves and allspice can overpower a batch within days. Taste every 2 to 3 days.
- Spices in the bottle are easier to control. If you want one barrel for everything, age the rum plain and add the spices to the bottle afterwards.
For recipes and step-by-step instructions, see our spiced rum guide.
Looking after your barrel
Storage during ageing
Keep the barrel somewhere cool with a steady temperature, out of direct sunlight. A cellar or cupboard on an inside wall is ideal. In a warm or dry home, wipe the outside with a damp cloth once a week so the wood doesn’t dry out.
Storage between batches
An empty barrel dries out within days, so always store it full.
- Fill the barrel with water and barrel storage tablets (follow the tablet instructions for quantities).
- Keep it somewhere cool with a steady temperature.
- Empty and refill with a fresh solution once a month.
- When you’re ready to use it again, empty it and rinse 3 times with warm water.
Cleaning
You only need to clean the barrel when you switch to a different spirit. If you age the same spirit batch after batch, there’s no need to clean between batches; every couple of years is plenty. Cleaning removes some of the char and shortens the barrel’s life, and even then it won’t remove every trace of the last spirit. That’s why we recommend one barrel per spirit.
Wine, beer and other low-alcohol drinks are the exception: clean after every batch.
Use a barrel cleaning kit (cleaning tablets, neutralising acid and sterilising tablets) and follow its instructions. The usual steps are:
- Fill with cleaning tablets dissolved in warm water and leave for 24 hours.
- Empty and rinse 3 times.
- Fill with neutralising acid dissolved in warm water and leave for 15 minutes.
- Empty and rinse 3 times.
Re-charring
The char slowly loses its effect, so later batches age more slowly. Re-char every 2 to 3 years to keep the barrel working well.
- Remove the bung and spigot and let the barrel air-dry for 3 hours.
- Insert a flexible-neck butane lighter (sold for barbecues and campfires) through the spigot hole.
- Light it and slowly turn the barrel until the inside has a fresh char.
- Rinse out any loose charcoal.
- Fill with sterilising tablets dissolved in water, leave for a few minutes, then empty.
- Rinse 3 times, then cure the barrel again before use.
Take care with an open flame: work outdoors or in a well-ventilated space, away from anything flammable, and never with spirit residue still in the barrel.
If your barrel dries out
A dried-out barrel can often be saved, but not always.
- Sterilise it with sterilising tablets and water, as bacteria can build up in dry wood.
- Cure it again from step 1. Expect it to take longer than the first time.
- If it still leaks, submerge the whole barrel in warm water for a couple of days. This can mark the outside, but it’s the best chance of saving it.
About our barrels
American white oak. All our barrels are handmade from American white oak, the classic wood for whisky. It gives toasty vanilla, caramel and coconut notes and a mellow finish.
Medium char (level 4). The inside of each barrel is burned for around 55 seconds. This is known as an “alligator char”, because the surface cracks like alligator skin. Charring caramelises the sugars in the wood, opens up the surface so the spirit can reach the flavour, and creates a layer of charcoal that filters and smooths the spirit. Most distilleries use char levels 1 to 4.
No glue, paraffin or nails. Glue and paraffin would affect the flavour, and nails could split the wood and cause leaks. Once cured, the swollen wood holds the barrel together by itself.
Lifespan. Looked after well, your barrel can last 8 to 10 years.
Frequently asked questions
What can I age in an oak barrel?
Whisky and bourbon are the classics, but rum, brandy, tequila, port and sherry all age well. Spirit-based cocktails such as an Old Fashioned or a Negroni are fun to barrel-age too. Some people age wine, beer, vinegar or hot sauce, but these have different needs, and our medium char isn’t normally used for wine.
Why is my new barrel leaking?
That’s normal before and during curing. The wood swells as it soaks up water and closes most gaps. Seal any that remain with barrel wax.
What is the angel’s share?
The small amount of spirit that evaporates through the wood during ageing. A well-cured barrel kept somewhere cool and damp loses less.
What is the devil’s cut?
The spirit that soaks into the wood itself. Curing reduces it. It also flavours your next batch, which is why some people deliberately reuse a barrel for a different spirit, much as distilleries finish whisky in sherry casks.
What is the sticky residue on my barrel?
Sugars left behind as a little spirit evaporates through the wood. It’s harmless and even helps seal the barrel. Wipe it off with a damp cloth if you like.
There are black bits in my spirit. Is that normal?
Yes. They’re small pieces of charcoal from the charred inside of the barrel. Pour the spirit through a fine strainer when you decant it.
My barrel arrived with loose hoops. What should I do?
Nothing yet: cure the barrel as described above. The wood swells and the hoops tighten up. Don’t nail or screw them in place.