OAK

Paul McLaughlin
Owner of Kelvin Cooperage
Kentucky, United States

When whisky crossed the Atlantic to reach America, Scotch became bourbon. Paul made the same voyage; today he runs Kelvin Cooperage.

TRADITION.

The name of our company comes from our roots, the River Kelvin that flows through Glasgow in Scotland, where our family founded a cooperage on the banks of the Kelvin in 1963. In 1991, my brother Kevin and I decided to cross the ocean to create a workshop in Louisville, Kentucky: the land of bourbon! This brought us closer to the large forests of American oaks, the raw material of our casks.

Our craft is quite unique in that while we use state-of-the-art machines, it essentially remains artisanal, based on time-tested traditional techniques. It’s this relentless quest for authenticity that brings Finbarr and I closer together, despite the ocean between us!

If you respect wood, you can’t work any other way. Once the wood becomes a barrel it will diffuse notes of toasted hazelnuts: scents that sometimes remind me of the smell of toast when I was a child.