‘My tools speak to me every day and might end up in local museum where they will be preserved’

Ger Buckley, head cooper for Jameson Whiskey, was in Nigeria recently, for the second time on a working visit. In this interview, Ger, a fifth generation Midleton cooper, who uses the same methods and tools as his grandfather, shares with OBINNA EMELIKE, the secret of his craft, his rare tools, how choice of wood impacts whisky taste, his concerns, fulfillment, experience in Nigeria, among others. Excerpts:

What is your job as a cooper?

When I started my working life, I used to repair and make barrels. They would come in bundles. I would repair the barrels. There may be leaks. Some barrels may be broken. I would repair the big cherry casks. As time went on, I became the foreman- the head cooper and my responsibility included making sure that all the barrels in the warehouse are properly maintained and in good condition.

Every barrel that comes to Middleton is handled by a cooper and examined visually for any defects. What we don’t want is to put a barrel in a warehouse and have a leak. Wood is still wood. It can still break at any time. It can cave. We do get leaks but nothing compared to what we were getting when we started. The standard has gotten so high. We visited other cooperages where we got barrels from. We visited France, Spain and America and we would visit forests. We are very mindful of where we get our wood. So when we get new barrels, we want the farmer to be certified to ensure that the forest is sustainable and the wood is traceable, and it is from a healthy forest. And you maintain it properly. We plant more trees than we cut them to replenish. We don’t do that for American barrels that we bring into the UK.

How important is barrel in the whisky business?

Any barrel made from poisonous trees will make poisonous whiskey. We make barrels from palm trees, oak and we use different oaks for different flavours. You can only use the barrel once. We buy direct from the farms. The barrels are made directly for us in the cooperage and we supervise. They come back to Middleton and every detail is on top of the barrel. We are aiming to get all barrels from sustainable, traceable sources.

For Jameson, it’s either American barrel or cherry Spanish oak cask that gives the flavour.

We do a lot of onsite visits because we want everyone to understand we want sustainable forests. We went to the South of France in Bordeaux and lots of barrels were made there. It takes 250 years of planning and planting for the future. That started with Napoleon who said you can’t cut down all the trees to make ships. So, most of the forests in France are state-owned and sustainable and have been for many years.

Why does the choice of wood matter in whisky making?

You have to decide what types of woods you can use or not use because some woods are poisonous. The oak is the king of all the woods and the most valuable. It enhances the taste of whisky. About 75 percent of the taste is from the wood. Sometimes, when I open up a barrel and I invite people to smell it, it is a fantastic smell of the barrel from the whiskey. What you smell is the oak.

Lots of scotches double the distilling to give much more flavour. We get a lot of flavour from coopering. The main cask we use is the American barrel. One is Europe. They give different flavours. The American barrel is sweet. It gives vanilla flavour. It is something we use. The way we treat the barrel is different. When you make a barrel for the first time, you hit the wood to bend it.

We lay the fire inside and we heat the wood to bend it. We put a cage around the wood and that is called toasting the wood. That is the first cooking of the wood. It is really important that you cook.

What you are doing is to bring out the flavours in the oak. We set the fire to make the wood black and get a lot more sweetness. We come back a second time and we do it again.

Whisky making requires lots of warehousing, how do you do that?

Our warehouse programme is regarded as the number one cooperage management in the world. It is recognised in whisky magazines. Every time you use a barrel, you get less contribution to oak. At the third fill, you are going to get less. Third fill barrel is important. If you use a first fill in a whiskey, it will be too much oak; it will be overpowering. You want to use some older wood to blend it to get the balanced taste.

We know even before taking a cask what he should be like. Our controls are very advanced in warehousing, coopering and distilling.

How fulfilling is this job to you?

It is incredible. I will be on a tour. The tools speak to me every day. They are the same tools I started with almost 40 years ago. I have no new tools. The tools here with me are not the ones I use on a daily basis. I wouldn’t let those tools leave my shop. Those tools have sentimental value to me. My old tools belonged to my grandfather and they were passed on to me.

I have two daughters but maybe a grandson may come along. One is in Medicine and the other is in Law. I have trained two coopers over the last ten years and my latest qualified in March. It is not university training. There are few coopers in the world right now.

Most of my life over the last ten years, the first oak barrel made in England was made in the last 70 years. It is a unique trade. At other cooperages, I do masterclasses and I show them tools that have never been seen. I had to loan them the tools to make barrels. I loaned them for five months before I got it back.

Looking back to see the young coopers do the same work that I have done for many years is gratifying. It is a long journey to get to where I am today. I have been in cooperages in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Romania, and they do things differently from the way I do them. But they still end up with the barrel. All my tools are in my workshop and I try to maintain and make sure that they are sharp. A lot of them might end up in the local museum where they will be preserved properly. A lot of craft persons lose their tools when they are no longer there to keep it. These are not just hand tools.

Maybe, someone can come along and take up the trade. That company may be anxious to see someone in my family take up the coopering. That would be seven generations.

Is coopering a male-dominated industry?

The trade is male-dominated, but you can have women coopers now. I would have no issue having a woman as the next cooper because there are a lot of machines that can be used now for coopering. It is still physical but it is not beyond the bounds of a woman cooper. The funny thing is that the craftspeople that I have met that are women are better craftspeople, more meticulous, more careful and I think the same will happen if we have a woman cooper.

In the past, Cooper’s hand used to be swollen, bruised and cut. When a copper goes out to have a few drinks, he could dress up in a beautiful suit but you couldn’t see his hands because he would fold them. If you saw his hands, you would know how hard he had worked with them. But the hands always gave them away.

What endeared you to the craft for this long?

When I first started, I was 16 years old. My mother’s family members were all electricians. I was 16 turning 17 when there was an opening for a cooper. My father said that I have to go for the interview. He was a former cooper and was very influential. He just came to the company and said you are hiring my son. So, I did one interview. I didn’t have to do a CV. I have only ever held a job. It is a satisfying job. If I wasn’t a cooper, I would have been a carpenter. I love working with my hands. I love wood. It is probably in the family genes. I had mindfulness all my life because I work with my hands, fixing things. I never had to take a course on mindfulness. I have always been satisfied working at my job. I never had the ambition to do a different job and earn more money.

I am really happy with my work. My work is never boring because every barrel is slightly different from the other.

You can work on one barrel one day and the next day, everything goes wrong. Everyone is different though they look the same. Each has a different challenge. You have to know all the little tricks and techniques to get through the challenges.

I make furniture from my barrels. I made this for my granddaughter. I made toys from barrels. I made chairs, tables, and candleholders from barrels. It is good for fencing and floors. I have made floors out of barrels. There is no waste for the barrels.

Being your second time in Nigeria, what are you excited about?

The people are friendly and amazing. Nigerians are really good-looking people, which makes me feel really small. The last time I was here, the guy staying with me at the hotel was Anthony Joshua. He was really friendly. His arms are like three sizes of my legs. He is about six foot six. I wish I looked like that.

If Nigeria has the infrastructure that you have in the US, they will dominate many fields.

What would you be doing while you are here?

I will be on Jameson tours, seminars and tasting whiskeys.

Are beer and whiskey cousins?

That was something that started off by accident and then became our signature taste worldwide. Sometimes you stumble on something that would be great.

The first thing you do when you make a whiskey in the morning is to make a beer. When you make a beer, you distill the beer. The Egyptians have been distilling for thousands of years to make perfumes. It was tradition to make beer, whiskey in Europe, but it was found in Egypt. The natural yeast in the air can cause fermentation. We are looking to create a sweeter, more sophisticated Jameson whiskey. The barrel is the next step up. Jameson Black Barrel is that product.