InterviewKorean cooper crafts new vision with Scottish tradition

Inside a workshop, wooden shavings fly through the air as the rhythmic sound of hammering fills the room. For Jeon Chang-hyun, this demanding environment is where he finally found his true calling.

Jeon, a graduate of Hongik University’s Department of Woodworking and Furniture Design and a former product developer at Hanssem, Korea’s largest furniture and home furnishing company, took an unusual path for a Korean craftsperson as he moved to Scotland to become an apprentice cooper.

Now back in Korea, Jeon launched Wee Branch Cooperage in Yeongwol, Gangwon Province. The name combines the Scots word "wee," meaning small, with the English word "branch," symbolizing a small Scottish branch taking root in Korean soil to craft wood.

"I wanted to do a job that felt entirely my own," Jeon told The Korea Times at a cafe in Seoul, Friday. "At a big company, I was doing meaningful work, but I was just a small piece of a huge project. During my university years, I was used to handling every stage of a project from concept to final creation. I realized I needed a craft where I could take full ownership from start to finish."

Sweat, hammering, accomplishment

His journey into coopering began with a conversation with a friend planning to open Hwasimjujo, a local craft distillery. Knowing Jeon’s woodworking background, the friend recommended that he learn coopering, the craft of making and repairing wooden casks for aging spirits.

Intrigued by the craft and foreseeing the growth of Korea's premium spirits market, Jeon took advantage of working holiday visa age limit extensions for the U.K. and headed to Scotland. There, he earned an apprenticeship at Lowland Cooperage, becoming what is believed to be the first East Asian apprentice cooper in the region.

"Coopering is undeniably physical 3D work (dirty, dangerous and difficult)," Jeon said. "A standard bourbon barrel weighs between 50 and 60 kilograms, and repairing just one requires hundreds of hammer swings. In your first year, it’s common to accidentally hit your own hands or bruise your legs. By the end of the day, charcoal dust fills your nose and face."

Despite the physical toll, Jeon found deep satisfaction in the grueling labor. Over his time at Lowland Cooperage, he personally repaired 2,301 casks, ranging from bourbon barrels and Scotch hogsheads to sherry butts.

"It’s a job where you get instant feedback on your work," he explained. "When you carve a replacement stave to fit perfectly into an old cask and it passes quality inspection, all the physical fatigue transforms into a sense of accomplishment. It makes you feel like you are living every moment without regret."

Currently operating temporarily in Yeongwol, Jeon is preparing a mobile, on-site cask repair service for local distilleries and breweries.

"Right now, Korea has no industrial-level cooperage or trained coopers capable of repairing oak casks properly," Jeon pointed out. "Distilleries import expensive casks, but when a barrel gets damaged or loses its flavor profile, they often have to abandon or discard it because there's no local technician to fix it. It’s like buying imported cars but having no auto repair shop in the country."

Jeon compares casks to tea bags, saying that even older casks can be restored and reused by repairing the inside. By establishing a professional maintenance service, he hopes to help local distillers reduce production costs while driving resource circulation in the industry.

"Repairing casks is not just an operational necessity. It is an effective way to practice eco-friendly resource management," he emphasized.

"Instead of constantly importing new wood or discarding usable barrels, repairing them saves timber and reduces carbon footprints. It contributes directly to sustainability in the spirits industry."

Handmade in AI era

In an era increasingly driven by artificial intelligence and automated manufacturing, Jeon firmly believes manual coopering remains irreplaceable. While major global liquor companies and cooperages rely heavily on automated systems to manufacture new casks, the repair process requires human touch.

"We are living in an age where robots work in factories, and I questioned whether I could make a living doing this," Jeon said. "Making new casks can be automated because cutting timber to standard sizes is straightforward. But wood is a natural material that warps, cracks and drops knots over time. Automation is difficult when it comes to repairing because you never know where a defect will appear. When I visited cooperages in Portugal and Spain, production was mechanized, but the repair section was still done manually by people swinging hammers."

Looking ahead, Jeon plans to expand his business beyond cask maintenance into full-scale manufacturing, using native Korean oak trees.

"Korea’s second most common tree species is oak," Jeon said. "Just as Japan built a global brand, Korea has immense potential to craft its own unique premium casks and export them to the world.”