Oak maturation trends in Australian craft spirits, with Master Cask's Darren Lange

If you're a regular listener to the show, you'd recognise that we spend a lot of time talking about oak.
Oak plays a vital role in the production of wine and spirits, and increasingly in beer. In this special episode, we're going to delve into it more deeply with Darren Lange, founder of leading oak supplier Master Cask.
Growing up in the Barossa Valley, Darren has spent his life in and around the wine industry.
He has a technical winemaking background and the last 20 years of his career have been focused specifically on oak, initially as an employee of a leading importer and distributor of French and American oak wine barrels.
Darren founded Master Cask in 2010, realising a vision to assemble his own portfolio of cooperages.
He was instrumental in establishing the Tasmanian Cask Company in 2014 and purchasing SA Cooperage in 2017.
These cooperages are producing increasingly specialised barrels for the emerging Australian spirits industry, and it's that area of Darren's expertise that we spend most of our time discussing today.
Drinks Adventures will be returning properly for 2020 in the next few weeks, so stay tuned for what promises to be a ripper season five.
In the meantime, this is a special episode of the podcast made possible by the support of Master Cask.