Is this cask cute or not?

So, many years ago I was a student of archaeology who ended up volunteering in a lab helping out with analysis of casks from a shipwreck for the better part of a year. From then on, my life has been warped by too much knowledge of casks and a pedantic annoyance at the very silly ways they are depicted in video games, tv series, etc., to the fond annoyance of my friends and family.

I was kicked over the edge into actually making this blog by watching "The Mighty Nein" episode 2 with my brother and laughing as different illustrators clearly worked on different locations within the same scene, based on the accuracy of the casks, and so I started yelling out "good cask!" and "bad cask!" as they switched between them. And then I thought, I bet tumblr would enjoy this, too.

So, in the longstanding tradition of tumblr rating the accuracy and appeal of various niche interests (and the encouragement of friends), I bring to you a side blog to rate casks. Enjoy!

This is not just a good cask, it's a great cask.

Witcher 3 in general has excellent casks, but this one was exemplary: the wood looks nice, the hoops are in the right place, and the head hoop has been removed so that the staves can separate enough to remove the head, which is just fantastic attention to detail. The two other casks show there isn't just one cask asset, too, which is very nice to see. (in fact, there are at least four, but they'll be seen later, when I want to cheer myself up).