Missouri is a leader in the oak barrel production business worldwide. Buyers as far away as France buy barrels from Missouri to age their finest wines. And the state isnŐt going to lose that reputation any time soon.

If you're a wine drinker (or even if you sip stronger spirits) odds are better than 50-50 that your beverage was aged in a Missouri-made oak barrel.

That's pretty much true wherever the potent potables originate. California vintners prefer oak as storage for their fruit of the vine. Kentucky distillers depend on charred oak barrels to impart the amber color and characteristic taste of their bourbon whiskey. Even many French wine makers age their prize wines in Missouri-crafted oak barrels.

Cooperage (barrel making) is an ancient craft. Over the years, several steps have been mechanized, but considerable handwork is still required to turn wooden staves and metal hoops into watertight barrels.

The process begins with a white oak tree, preferably one that is straight-grained with few blemishes or knots. Trees are cut into logs of varying lengths and hauled to a stave sawmill. At the mill, logs are cross-sawed into blocks of the length needed for staves and heading, usually 17 to 46 inches.

The blocks are then sawed into four quarters or "bolts." The exception is French oak, which is split rather than sawed. After quartering, bolts are sawn to the thickness needed for staves, with cuts being made first from one face of the bolt, then the other. This method of sawing gives the most strength and liquid-holding capacity to the wood.

Rough staves are stacked and air-dried for 24 months or longer. After drying, staves are planed, jointed and edged to make sure staves fit together tightly when formed into a barrel.

The barrel is "raised" by hand. Staves of different widths are clamped together at one end, to form a 360-degree circle. The staves then are drawn together and bent by using water, steam or direct fire to make the wood pliable enough to bend. As the barrel is drawn into shape, temporary bands or hoops hold it together. Wine barrels have a 59-gallon capacity; bourbon barrels hold 53 gallons.

Then the assembled barrel is either toasted or charred. Wine barrels are slowly toasted over oak fires, usually burning chips that are produced during the stave-making process. Bourbon barrels are burned inside to produce charred wood.

"The difference is somewhat like marshmallows over a campfire," said Brad Boswell, president of Independent Stave Company. "You can hold the marshmallow near the fire and allow it to toast and brown, or you can let the marshmallow itself catch fire and turn black. That's sort of the difference between toasting and charring the inside of a barrel."

After toasting or charring, a barrel is fitted with heads and permanent metal hoops. Wine barrels, which often are used more than once, get galvanized steel hoops. Bourbon barrels, which can be used only once, are fitted with black iron hoops. Then each barrel is filled with water and tested for liquid-tightness with air pressure.

Winemakers often re-use barrels several times. For subsequent uses, barrels usually are renewed with toasted oak inserts. Vintners who store wine in stainless steels tanks also use oak-flavoring products to give their wines an aged-in-wood taste.

Wine barrels can cost as little as $150 each or up to $600 or more depending on the quality and craft of the vessel and the species of oak used.

Missouri started on its way to a world-leading barrel maker back in 1912 when T. W. Boswell started a cooperage in Missouri. Today that business is known as Independent Stave Company, headquartered at Lebanon, Mo., and is managed by T.W. Boswell's great-grandchildren. Brad Boswell is president; his sister, Amie Boswell Dewane, is vice president.

As parent company for several subsidiary enterprises, Independent Stave Company owns and operates five stave and heading mills, including mills in France and Bulgaria, and 15 log-buying yards in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas and Kentucky.

Two barrel production facilities, Missouri Cooperage at Lebanon, and Kentucky Cooperage at Lebanon, Ky., together produce about 4,000 barrels per day. The Missouri plant assembles and toasts wine barrels. Kentucky Cooperage manufactures charred whiskey barrels. In addition, Independent Stave exports American oak staves and heading to other barrel makers around the world.

Over the years, stave buyers have provided a major market for Missouri loggers and forest owners. Stave logs usually are bought by the board foot (the equivalent of a board 12 inches wide, 12 inches long and one inch thick), and prices vary with the size and quality of logs. Barrel makers look for slow-grown, straight-grained white oak.

In the first quarter of 2001, prices for Ozark-grown white oak ranged from 24 cents to 36 cents per board foot based on the International Log Scale. A top-grade white oak tree that measures 24 inches diameter at breast height (4.5 feet above the ground) and yields two 16-foot logs would be worth about $150 at the higher price.

It's unlikely barrel makers will run out of raw material anytime soon. In Missouri, white oak timber is growing about four times as fast as it is being harvested.