Traditionally, a
cooper is someone who makes
woodWood is an organic material; in the strict sense wood is produced as secondary xylem in the stems of trees . In a living tree it transfers water and nutrients to the leaves and other growing tissues, and has a support function, enabling woody plants to reach large sizes or to stand up for themselves...
en
stavedA staff is a large, thick stick or stick-shaped object used to help with walking, as a status symbol , as a component of traditional barrel making, or as a weapon....
vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads. Examples of a cooper's work include but are not limited to casks,
barrelA barrel or cask is a hollow conical container, traditionally made of vertical wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. Traditionally, the barrel was a standard size of measure referring to a set capacity or weight of a given commodity. For example, a beer barrel was originally a 36...
s,
bucketA bucket, also called a pail, is a watertight, vertical cylinder or truncated cone, with an open top and a flat bottom, usually attached to a semicircular carrying handle called the bail. Their main purpose is the carrying of water, but they may also have other purposes...
s, tubs, butter churns,
hogsheadA hogshead is a large cask of liquid . More specifically, it refers to a specified volume, measured in either Imperial units or U.S. customary units, primarily applied to alcoholic beverages such as wine, ale, or cider....
s,
firkinA Firkin is an old English unit of volume. The name is derived from the Middle Dutch word vierdekijn, which means fourth, i.e. a fourth of a full-size barrel.Nor need you mind the serial ordeal
Of being watched from forty cellar holes
...
s,
tierceTiercé is a commune in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France....
s, rundlets,
puncheonPuncheon is a tool or instrument for piercing or punching, such as those used for impressing designs onto coin dies. The "barrel" meaning is thought to derive from the fact that it would have been marked by use of a punch to denote its contents....
s, pipes,
tunTun may refer to:* Tun , an antiquated British measurement of liquid volume, especially wine casks* Tun shells, large sea snails of the family Tonnidae* Tun, a tardigrade in its cryptobiotic state* Lauter tun, a vessel used in brewing...
s,
buttsThe butt or pipe is an old English unit of wine casks, holding two hogsheads . A hogshead varied in size but today is most commonly 63 US gallons The butt (from the medieval French and Italian botte) or pipe is an old English unit of wine casks, holding two hogsheads (approx. 475 to 480 litres)....
, pins, and breakers. The word is derived from
Middle DutchMiddle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects which were spoken and written between 1150 and 1500...
kūpe, "basket, wood, tub" and may ultimately stem from
cupa, the
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
word for
vatVat or VAT may refer to:* Value added tax, a consumption tax levied on value added* Vát, a village in Hungary* Vodka tonic, a mixed drink* Virtual Allocation Table, a component of the Universal Disk Format...
http://www.bartleby.com/61/39/C0623900.htmlhttp://www.bartleby.com/61/36/C0623600.html. Everything a cooper produces is referred to collectively as
cooperage. "Cask" is a generic term used to describe any piece of cooperage containing a bouge, bilge, or bulge in the middle of the container. A barrel is technically a measure of the size of a cask, so the term "barrel-maker" cannot be used synonymously with "cooper." The facility in which casks are made is also referred to as a cooperage.
Traditionally there were four divisions in the cooper's craft. The "dry" or "slack" cooper made containers that would be used to ship dry goods such as cereals, nails, tobacco, fruits and vegetables. The "drytight" cooper made casks designed to keep dry goods in and moisture out. Gunpowder and flour casks are examples of a "drytight" cooper's work. The "white cooper" made straight staved containers like washtubs, buckets and butter churns, that would hold water and other liquids, but did not allow shipping of the liquids. Usually there was no bending of wood involved in white cooperage. The "wet" or "tight" cooper made casks for long term storage and transportation of liquids that could even be under pressure, as with beer.
Sometimes—in more modern times—the profession of the cooper is specific to wineries, where the cooper would look after the
aging barrelAn aging barrel is a barrel used to age wine, distilled spirits such as whiskey, brandy, or rum, or Tabasco sauce.When a wine or whiskey/whisky ages in a barrel, small amounts of oxygen are introduced as the barrel lets some air in...
s in which the wine is stored.
While plastics, stainless steel, pallets, and corrugated cardboard have replaced most wooden containers and largely made the cooper obsolete, there is still demand for high quality wooden barrels, and it is thought that the highest quality barrels are those hand-made by professional coopers. Examples may be seen in the cooperage at Seguin Moreau, a cooperage which was incorporated into the House of Rémy in 1971 for the express purposes of providing barrels made of Limousin oak. Limousin oak is renowned for the rich vanilla-like flavor it imparts to cognac.
Rémy MartinRémy Martin is a cognac and champagne cognac originally produced by Rémy Martin, a French winemaker, who founded the company in 1724...
will then produce Rémy Martin Grand Cru in these barrels with a retail cost well in excess of USD $1500 per bottle.
http://cognac.com/there-is-a-cognac-for-everyone-cognac-prices/ Therefore, a single barrel may be expected to hold nearly a quarter of a million dollars worth of cognac, thus providing an insight into the value of a professional cooper.
Sometimes, rarely today,
coffinA coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of deceased remains – either for burial or cremation.-Practices:Any box used to bury the dead in is a coffin...
-makers are known as coopers.
Cooperage as a namesake
Much like the profession of
smithingA metalsmith, often shortened to smith, is a person involved in the shaping of metal objects.In pre-industrialized times, smiths held high or special social standing since they supplied the metal tools needed for farming and warfare.- Etymology of smith :The word smith is cognate with the somewhat...
has produced the popular
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
surnameA surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases a surname is a family name; the family-name meaning first appeared in 1375. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name". It is also known as a "last name". In some cultures, the surname may...
SmithSmith is the most common family name in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States, representing more than 1 out of every 100 persons in each of these countries. It is also the fifth most common surname in Ireland...
and the
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
name
SchmidtSchmidt may refer to:* Schmidt * Schmidt , a crater on Mars* Schmidt , in Kamchatka* Schmidt camera, an astronomical telescope designed for photography* Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, a version of the Schmidt camera...
, the trade of cooperage has also given the English name
CooperCooper is an English surname meaning maker of barrels and may refer to many people.- A :* Afua Cooper, Jamaican-Canadian poet and academic* Alan Cooper, creator of Visual Basic* Alexander Cooper, English painter* Alfred Cooper...
,
DanishDanish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the...
name Bødker,
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
names like Faßbinder (literally
barrel binder),
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language.
"1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language...
names like
KuiperKuiper is a common Dutch language surname which means "cooper" in English: it may refer to:- People :Kuiper*Adrian Kuiper , South African Cricketer...
or Cuypers, the
HungarianHungarian is a Uralic language unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries...
name Kádár, Bodnár,
PolishPolish is a West Slavic language and the official language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds basically to the Latin alphabet with a few additions...
names such as Bednarz, Bednarski or Bednarczyk, the
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian. - Official status :Czech is widely...
name
Bednář-People:*David A. Bednar , American member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints*Franz Bednar , Austrian bobsledder who competed in the mid 1930s...
, the
RomanianRomanian or Daco-Romanian is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, Republic of Moldova, and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia...
names Dogaru and Butnaru,
UkrainianUkrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses the Cyrillic alphabet....
familiy name Bondarenko, Ukrainian/
RussianRussian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe...
name Bondar, the Jewish name Bodner and the Portuguese names Tanoeiro and Toneleiro.
External links