Texas distillery blue corn whiskey barrels need homes.
5 Gallon - $99 - 5 Gallon Used Whiskey Barrel
dang, quite the mark up from the $50 balcones charges huh?
I guess if you only need one though… does that include shipping?
Website says no free shipping.
Shipping to Maryland looks like $30.
Our club is doing a group buy from Woodinville Whiskey Co. for their 8-gallon bourbon and rye barrels. Their volume price (11 or more barrels) is $95 plus shipping (about $35 per barrel from Seattle to Maryland).
I would venture a guess that if Balcones charges $50/each the homebrew shop had to pay for shipping on all the barrels on top of that. I believe Balcones usually only sells by the pallet now which might be cheaper shipping in bulk but probably still $20-30 per barrel. They probably aren’t making as much off the barrels as you think. On the other hand, people are so desperate for barrels 100% markup would not surprise me.
our club did a bulk buy fro balcones. it was 52 including shipping but we did have to buy a pallet full. I’m not knocking the shop for marking it up. just commenting and providing alternative options for people capable of putting together a bulk buy
Well if it was $50/each with shipping then yeah, that’s an immense mark up.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. We pushed a sale price out at $89 and dropped shipping to a flat $25. Hope this helps for those looking for barrels. Let me say the profit on these barrels for us is very minimal after freight from the distillery, shipping/packing supplies, etc.
Sorry to bust your B***s. I really didn’t mean to imply that you were marking them up too much. If I was in the market for another and didn’t have access to 15 or 20 other folks that wanted some at the same time I think your price is pretty good. They are great barrels, I did not get the blue corn, I got the rumble but it is great and others in my club got the blue corn and made some very tasty beers with them.
I actually think the price is pretty competitive with the other barrels I’ve checked out.
I’ve had no luck getting a hold of Balcone’s directly and don’t have the network to organize a bulk purchase, so from that perspective this price ain’t too bad.
However, you can get a lot of chips, cubes, or spirals for that price, too. So for now, I’m sticking with those. Unless Santa brings me a barrel…
These are back in stock, for those looking…
morticaixavier,
How many barrels to a pallet? I might try to organize a group buy for some of the local clubs here.
I honestly don’t remember exactly. it was around 20 I believe. Balcones, at least at the time was sending them with a stand.
Depending on volume, a 100% markup is not all that unusual for a small retail shop. Just looking at the Morebeer site, they sell domestic 2-row for $1.29/lb. X 50 = $64.50. If they get the same price as I get from Country Malt group, they are paying less than $25 for a sack.
and I’m guessing they get a slightly better price than you do. I figure morebeer is likely ordering 100X what you do, if not 1000X.
I never intended to imply these guys were being in anyway unfair or dishonest. They have to get a profit out of it. 200% or even 300% markup is not unusual in a retail setting.
LOL, you are right. I would guess they spill more grain in the milling process, than I actually get into the mashtun.
Thanks, I dropped them a line and am waiting to hear back.
Nice people at Balcones, quick response to my questions. Will be putting in a club order for about three dozen at a great price, and drive up to pick them up when they’re ready.
cool! enjoy. I got one of the Rumble barrels and did a couple really nice barley/wheat wines in it. I also did a pretty low alcohol rye stout in it for a few weeks and that turned out amazing. Mine is now a sour barrel.
Overall I think I ran 3 batches through mine clean and then put the sour beer in and started a solera project. works out to < 20 bucks a batch if you don’t count the solera.
Contact details for Balcones?? Much thanks!!