I asked the same question of a professional brewer buddy of mine who works exclusively in barrels. Here's the response I got:
"OK, so your starting off with a "clean" barrel as it still has spirit in it. Make sure the barrel is hard bunged with wood or has a solid bung, wedged in tight in the bung hole. Don't remove it to smell the barrel no matter how much you want to... or try not to too much at least. Since it has spirit in it, that spirit is sitting down in the bottom not protecting the other parts. The spirit and keeping the barrel sealed is the best protection for now. You want to keep that spirit character, so you don't want to clean just maintain how it is now. Roll the barrel around every few days so that you are evenly dispersing the spirit around keeping the barrel soaked and the spirit everywhere to stop any bugs that may have fallen inside the barrel when the barrel was emptied and at any other time during its usage and transport etc...
Try to maintain the barrel like this and get it filled with beer as soon as possible. After brewing each batch depending on how many it takes to fill the barrel, transfer from the fermenter to the barrel. don't let any transfer hose or device touch any part of the outside of the barrel. Transfer the beer quick, be sanitary using 70% rubbing alcohol to spray parts, use gloves spray the alcohol around surfaces before and after and then spray the bung before you put it back into the barrel bung hole with alcohol as well. Also this all presumes the beer is bacteria free as well. So when you brew, chill the beer quickly in a well cleaned and sanitized fermenter and don't remove the airlock at any time to allow surrounding air in. "
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Put me on the list for a rum barrel kind sir.
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