Congratulations on the purchase of a very special and unique piece!
The barrel:
Your product was made from this cask:
- Dumbarton/Scotland
- I.W. Harper/USA
- Year: 1966 - First-Fill
- Cask number: 431145
One barrel with 2 imprints
This barrel has a special history. By working on the barrel, an imprint could be uncovered on the upper and lower barrel lid, and on one side an inscription could be seen under turquoise/green paint.
After removing the loose paint, a little cleaning and sanding, the lettering (on the right in the picture) was completely revealed.
The barrel was probably filled for the first time by the I.W. Harper Distellery Company from Louisville in Kentucky. According to the inscription, it was filled on 29 April 1966.
Nothing could be seen on the other side at first, but after cleaning, an imprint appeared here as well:
Dumbarton - Filled by I.D.V.. This means that the barrel was refilled in Scotland by Dumbarton after it was used for bourbon in the USA, and both Dumbarton and I.W. Harper have a very exciting history. There are interesting articles on the history of both distilleries on Wikipedia.
link to the Wikipedia article on Dumbarton
link to the Wikipedia article on I. W. Harper
Dumbarton barrel lid
From the Dumbarton barrel lid we were able to make a very nice one.
The unevenness was evened out and the lettering was preserved with our resin. For the feet we took 3 staves from the original barrel and built the feet from them, the height of the staves makes it perfect as a serving table.
The photo shows the table at the bottle market in Bremen. Dumbarton itself has never brought out its own bottlings. But some independent companies have bottled Dumbarton whisky. 4 of them can be seen in the picture...
I. W. Harper barrel lid