A gent in the UK is working hard to keep some of the old ways alive and when he posted this nice collage, I thought it was a perfect illustration of why tradition, heritage, and culture are so very important.

I know a lot of people think that doing things “the old way” is a trivial thing, a cutesy pastime or something that entertains people at the local fairs.  But how many actually stop to think about the bigger picture?  How many of us have taken a minute to think outside the box and really consider what happens when you do, or don’t, keep to the Traditions?

Hedgerows and Tended Woodlots have been a part of our history for more years than we can imagine, but we weren't doing such things just because it struck our fancy. No, we did it because the woods and hedges served our needs just as we served their needs. It was a symbiotic relationship until it was rent asunder only a short while ago.

Of course, by that time, most people had completely forgotten all that the hedgerows did for them, they’d long since taken it all for granted.  The fancy good coming from the giant factories seemed simply too good to pass up.  Too cheap.  Too “affordable”, they said.  

Sadly, it's not that life is all the poorer for having fewer coopers and bodgers around, but because of the opportunities lost. Lessons of life learned by our youngest as they build skills and confidence in themselves. Pride in their people, in their accomplishments and abilities, developed over long hours spent listening to the old men grumble and groan while working under a small roof.

That's what's lost when the Traditions are abandoned.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, let this collage from a gent in the UK speak to you. We can speak of the benefits of revitalizing the hedgerow or thinning the woodlot. We can wax poetic about the benefits of a "lower carbon footprint" that you get by using a wooden rake rather than a mass-produced plastic and steel contraption.

However, the true value is there in that boy's eyes. It's the pride in himself and his family, in the memories he'll make and the tales he'll hear. It's the skill and the patience which, now learned, he can carry with him for the rest of his life.

The Cooperage, Clerkenwell, London, Uk,

THERE’S NO WHISKEY WITHOUT THE BARRELS (WHISKYCAST EPISODE 660: SEPTEMBER 24, 2017)

It’s often said that wood is responsible for most of a whisky’s flavor, and if that’s the case, then the people who make the barrels for maturing whisky have a major impact on the whiskies we drink. Independent Stave Company’s cooperages dominate the market for new Bourbon barrels, and those barrels then get used for decades to mature other whiskies around the world. Brad Boswell’s great-grandfather founded the company in 1912, and he took over for his father as Independent Stave’s CEO earlier this year. We’ll talk with him about the cooperage side of the whisky business, along with the potential impacts from climate change and government regulation, on this week’s WhiskyCast In-Depth.