Charred Tennessee Whiskey Barrel Bentwood Ring

We spent two years working on designing the strongest, best looking whiskey barrel ring possible. This is the result of our efforts...

The Challenge

The standard whiskey barrel ring that you find from most artists is carved directly from solid wood. We offer them too, and they are cool looking. There are two design flaws in those rings.

First, they expose end grain across half the surface of the ring. While this grain has character, is lacks strength. That makes solid wood rings most appropriate for occasional wear only. What if you wanted one as a wedding band?

The second design flaw is in the charring that most sellers offer. Whiskey barrels are charred so the wood interacts better with the alcohol during aging. That charring is on the surface of the barrel staves, but you lose most of it during the creation of a ring. Artists will use fire to char their rings to recreate that whiskey barrel look. The problem? Fire changes wood. It can further weaken the ring. It's not a problem on a full-sized barrel because the wood is so thick. With a ring, which is only a few millimeters thick, it can have consequences.

Our mission was to overcome these design flaws and create a ring that not only looked amazing but was made to last.

The Solution

The first decision was an easy one to make - design this as a bentwood ring. Bentwood rings are not carved from solid wood. They are made using thin strips of wood that are layered on top of each other as you bend them around a form. The result is a composite-like material that's incredibly strong. You have to really work hard to break a bentwood ring.

The challenge is taking a full-sized barrel and getting consistent strips of wood out of it. The strips of wood we need are only 1/48 of an inch thick, and the barrel staves are bent, not straight. We perfected a method to get this done, and we are the only artists that are now making a fully bentwood whiskey barrel ring.

The second decision was that we wouldn't use fire to char our rings. Again, fire weakens wood. We went through hundreds of ideas and tests and finally settled on a chemical aging process that we developed in our shop. Since we came up with the process we can't give out the details, but we use it to create the dark lines of char that flow around the surface of the ring. The best part? It doesn't alter the strength of the wood at all, and it's permanent.

The Final Product

You can see it for yourself in the photos. A stunning ring that looks like no other whiskey barrel ring on the market. And best of all, it's stronger than all the others too! For only a few dollars more than what you pay elsewhere you can have the best possible whiskey barrel ring. Oh, and we'll give you a laminated certificate of authenticity to show that it's genuine Jack Daniels barrel wood too.