Not that long ago, before packing peanuts and standard intermodal freight containers and corrugated cardboard, our world ran on barrels. They weren’t just used to store wine and spirits; those ingenious, cylindrical wooden containers held everything: sauerkraut, lobsters, cooking oil, paint, ball bearings. If it was a commodity, the odds were good that it came in a barrel (and, often, a specially made barrel of unique size and dimension). It was a time when there were cooperages in every port, when you could buy a Nantucket hoop driver next to the shovels and trowels, and when the manufacturing, assembling,…