Barrel Inventory

Placing a Barrel into Rack Storage, circa 1948; 96.X1.26.

"During that period [of maturation] you have to make sure you know where all the whisky is and where it's going, and you have to know where it is to take it out and, of course, when they're producing the whiskies, "Crown Royals" and "V.O.s", they're all different ... formulas. You just don't go to a warehouse and get a hundred barrels, you get ten barrels of this one ... and five of that, according to the formula, you have to go and collect.

This is quite a job to keep track and in those days, we didn't have computers, we were doing it all by hand. I never lost a barrel. And a good thing too, because if you lose barrels ... the government charges you the duty that would have had to been paid on the alcohol. We were very careful about that ... I had a million barrels in inventory and I knew where every barrel was and I knew what was in it. I knew what was in it before we had filled that barrel ... Records had to be exact. You're talking quality ... it's a science to make good whiskies."

Peter Melrose, Waterloo warehouse supervisor, 1952 to 1955.