Very cool, indeed. I read a book about Bourbon Whiskey a few months ago (actually, I listened to a book since I spend about 2.5 hours a day in my car commuting to work, and I go through a lot of audiobooks). The author wrote that, in the 1930s, the U.S Government came to the rescue of the wood barrel industry by proclaiming that for a whiskey to be designated as Bourbon, it had to be aged in a *new* barrel. Thus removing the possibility of Whiskey distilleries reusing old barrels, and requiring the continued manufacture of new ones for Bourbon. For what it's worth, many of the used barrels are exported for use in aging of other whiskies, such as Scotch.