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For those who surf, the number of innovations in recent years has resulted in a glut of choice. There are now numerous electric powered boards on the market, the latest being the Awake Rävik, there are "modular boards" such as the whimsically named 2PRT, where a former senior designer at Apple created a two-piece design so surfers can pack the board down for travel and connect differing tails for different conditions.
Even Tesla has got in on the trend to create the perfect wave rider. Built in collaboration with Lost Surfboards and famous shaper Matt "Mayhem" Biolos, the carbon fibre Tesla Surfboard available earlier this year was limited to just a couple of hundred examples, all 200 sold out in less than a day (but you can still grab one on eBay at twice the original price).
In what appears to be a return to more traditional materials and construction methods, yet adding the eco-innovation of using material that would have been traditionally discarded, the latest surfboard collaboration sees whisky-makers Glenmorangie join forces with Grain Surfboards to produce an exclusive number of limited-edition wooden surfboards using reclaimed staves from Glenmorangie casks.
That's right - surfboards made from whisky barrels. Glenmorangie and Grain will produce a limited number of limited-edition wooden surfboards partly using old whisky casks.
Grain Surfboards of Maine, New England, have been crafting hand-built wooden surfboards since 1999 aimed at environmentally conscious, cash-rich surfers. Here the white oak casks will be hand-finished and “bookmatched” (to showcase continuous wood patterns) to produce the £5,150 Grain Glenmorangie Original surfboards.
Each board will use a combination of both Grain’s signature material, Maine-grown northern white cedar alongside reclaimed western red cedar and wood from 12 Glenmorangie oak staves. This means surfers owning a board will be riding the waves on approximately "half a cask".
As both New England and the Scottish Highlands offer some of the best cold-water surfing in the world, the connection between the two companies runs to more than just working with wood.
The limited-edition Grain Glenmorangie Original surfboards are available to order from grainsurfboards.com.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
