There are more than 300 casks of whiskey aging in the Spirit Works Distillery barrel house, each uniquely crafted — different mash, different age, different American white oak barrels.

But there are 12 reserved in a different section of the room, stacked against a wall to the left of the entrance to the cavernous hall. Six have headphones stretched across their rounded sides, blaring music from playlists selected by Spirit Works’ employees. The other six, the “control barrels,” sit adjacent to them in silence.

These barrels are part of what the distillery has dubbed its “Music Barrel Experiment.” The idea is to find out whether the musical vibrations’ agitation of the whiskey — moving the liquid in and out of the porous oak barrel staves deeper and more frequently, gathering flavor — would make a difference in the spirit after it’s harvested.