The lifespan of a whiskey barrel can be a long and interesting evolution. After its primary use to age and mature spirits, a whiskey barrel moves to the secondary market for reuse in aging other spirits, wine, and beer, and is often transformed into furniture. Those are all great uses, but we think the transformation of an Adirondack (ADK) Barrel into an electric guitar is the best evolution!
George Davis, a resident of Batavia, NY and avid craftsman, took up guitar making. In June of this year, George contacted us to let us know that he had gotten one of our barrels, used, from a distillery in Upstate New York and made a guitar out of it! How cool! This barrel’s evolution is especially cool because it’s from Iron Smoke Distillery whose founder/owner is rockin’ guitarist Tommy Brunett.
Tommy is a singer, songwriter, showman, and entrepreneur. His band, Tommy Brunett Band, have opened for such acts as ZZ Top, Ted Nugent, Cracker, Marshall Tucker, and Kellie Pickler. Tommy has performed on local and national stages, including the Today Show and Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and was the touring guitarist with the British rock band Modern English in the late 80s – early 90s. (You know the song, “I Melt With You.”)
From left to right: Tommy Brunett, George Davis, Kelly Blazosky, Joe Blazosky
Iron Smoke Distillery is located in Fairport, NY and is a long time customer of ADK Barrel. They have sourced premium crafted American White Oak barrels for their barrel-aging program since 2016 from Joe Blazosky, Master Cooper and founding partner of Adirondack Barrel Cooperage located in Remsen, NY. George needed a quality barrel for his transformational guitar project and we are honored he chose to work with an ADK Barrel.
This was a special project because George is a competitor in the Scratch Built category of the 2022 Great Guitar Build Off! He used the head of the barrel to create the body of the guitar and incorporated the original ADK brand on the back of the headstock. She’s a real beauty! George began making guitars to honor the memory of his daughter after losing her to cancer four years ago.
On left: Joe Blazosky, George Davis. On right: Tommy Brunett playing guitar
Start the music! In July, Tommy agreed to play the guitar at the annual Tommy Brunett Birthday Bash at Marge’s Lakeside Inn in Rochester on the sandy beachfront of Lake Ontario. It was a packed house (beach) on a sunny Sunday afternoon. The perfect setting for cocktails and a concert. Tommy played an awesome rendition of Johnny Cash’s classic hit I’ve Been Everywhere on George’s ADK Iron Smoke Barrel Guitar. The guitar sounded amazing! The crowd loved it! Tommy recognized the craftsmanship of both George and Joe and shared the evolution of the project from whiskey barrel to guitar.
We hope you enjoyed this story. We thought it was a cool collaboration and wanted to share it. Winners of the 2022 Great Guitar Build Off hobbyist categories will be announced November 5, 2022 in a live stream event on the Crimson Guitars YouTube channel.
Good luck George! Rock on!