Meet the Creators Who Make Craft Whiskey Possible
Heidi Korb and her father, Russ Karasch, provide craft distillers with custom barrels from Black Swan Cooperage. (Photo by Peter Garritano)
“Folks in the craft spirits industry are looking to make differentiated products,” says Dave Green, president and CEO of
Skagit Valley Malting in Washington. “You can’t do that with commodity ingredients.” Green supports small-scale distillers, valuing flavor over yield, with locally grown grains like Obsidian, an exotic barley variety originally from Egypt, and Skagit white club wheat, introduced to the Pacific Northwest from Spain in the 1700s.
Green’s customers include forward-thinking whiskey makers like
The Builder of Barrels: Black Swan Cooperage
Workers at Minnesota s Black Swan Cooperage transform oak trees into finished barrels, and offer customization options for individual distillers. (Photo by Peter Garritano)
Heidi Korb can’t remember a time when she wasn’t listening to her dad talk about oak or watching him build barrels. The second-generation cooper co-owns
Black Swan Cooperage, which she opened in 2009 under the tutelage of her father, Russ Karasch, a cooper of 30 years who continues to work with his daughter. Among his innovations is the patented Honey Comb stave. His Honey Comb Barrels and Honey Comb Barrel Alternative, a wood insert, are imprinted with a honeycomb pattern that increases the wood’s surface area, thus facilitating wood extraction and accelerating maturation. Even Black Swan’s standard barrel is impressed with a cross-groove for similar effect.