Have you ever wondered why barrels are almost exclusively made from oak species? It's easy to assume that it's because oak taste great as an alcohol aging medium, but that's actually not the case. (To be fair, it does taste great!) Oak, especially American white oak, is one of the few species of wood that is: strong, plentiful, and water tight. That's why they made ships out of it along with oak's European cousins.
If you were to make a barrel out of most other woods, the liquid inside would slowly leak out through the wood, making for a worthless barrel.
One of the many benefits of working with staves instead of barrels is that you no longer have to worry about how strong a wood is, or if it's watertight.
This leads to one simple question: Out of the hundreds of species of trees, what are the odds that the few oak species suitable for barrel and ship making also happen to taste the best?
That is why we offer cherry wood staves (and for a limited 3 day weekend peach wood staves November 22, 23, & 24th), and are working on expanding the variety of aging wood available to everyone.
Plus, with American white oak trees dwindling in our forest due to over harvesting, by expanding the variety of tree species used to age alcohol, we are actually helping to preserve our American white oak forests.
Here is the link to the bundle: