Darren Lange's guest appearances

Darren Lange

Drinks Adventures - Wine, beer, whisky, gin & more with James Atkinson

Grow A Small Business Podcast

David Vitale

Sam Reid

Yuri Elkaim

Bob Moesta

Harold McGee

Julie Mathers

Ingrid Thompson

Maynard James Keenan

David Wise

Firestone Walker

Matt Brynildson

Andrew Jones

Rob Samuels

Yaro Starak

Jeremy Miller

OwlTail

In this episode, I interview Darren Lange, the founder and managing director of the Tasmanian Cask Co., one of the leading suppliers of casks to the Australian whisky industry. His entrepreneurial journey started in 2010 after 20 years in the wine industry and aged 41. He decided to go out on his own and form a company called Master Cask, which was on-selling casks coopered overseas solely to the wine industry in Australia. A cooperage manufactures the wooden casks or barrels that wines or spirits are aged in. A 3000+ year craft, it is still a very manual process to date.  Starting out with one full-time employee, his mum soon joined him to help with the business administration and now his three businesses have a team of around 30, with just over 20 of those being expert coopers. In 2014, he formed the Tasmania Cask Company and a few years later acquired a customary competitor in South Australia now named Australian Coopers. He got money to fund his business from the 3Fs (Friends, Family, and Fools) until an investor bought into the business in 2015. That investment helped propel sales from 80 casks in 2012 to more than 20,000 in 2019, with 90% of those sold in the spirits industry.  Darren admits that excellent communication, a kick-ass team, and an investment in R&amp;D and innovation are at the heart of managing the three businesses’ success. He believes the hardest thing in growing a small business is cashing in on people, and the advice he would give himself on day one is, “Not to be hard on yourself. Take the time to celebrate the wins and celebrate them with the people around you. Remember when starting out, the bigger opportunity, the harder it will be.”   This Cast Covers:  The first whisky in the Southern hemisphere to win the Best Single Malt whisky in the world and the impact that had. From representing coopers from around the world to owning his own cooperage producing barrels for various distillers of wine, whisky, and more. The age factor in starting his own business and his business ownership backstory. The cyclic nature of the wine industry, the challenge it presented for cash flow, and how he overcame that. Their current cask output: Growing from 80 barrels a year to over 20,000 barrels just for spirits. Investing and committing to continuous innovation in order to add a huge amount of value to the industry. Funding the business through support from family, friends, trade credit, and investors. Working with distillers to provide just the right application of oak in the maturation process to produce a great and effective product. The challenge of investing in oak in terms of holding up capital for long periods of time. Building the cooperage skill set in modern Australia and how the spirits industry helped in that. The importance of communicating with the staff on how the business is doing and making sure they share in the dream. Cash flow: The one thing that Darren enjoys the least about managing fast growth. Understanding the numbers and not being too hard on yourself. Darren’s hiring tips and advice on how to build a kick-ass culture.  Music from https://filmmusic.io "Cold Funk" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com). License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this episode, I interview Darren Lange, the founder and managing director of the Tasmanian Cask Co., one of the leading suppliers of casks to the Australian whisky industry. His entrepreneurial journey started in 2010 after 20 years in the wine industry and aged 41. He decided to go out on his own and form a company called Master Cask, which was on-selling casks coopered overseas solely to the wine industry in Australia. A cooperage manufactures the wooden casks or barrels that wines or spirits are aged in. A 3000+ year craft, it is still a very manual process to date.  Starting out with one full-time employee, his mum soon joined him to help with the business administration and now his three businesses have a team of around 30, with just over 20 of those being expert coopers. In 2014, he formed the Tasmania Cask Company and a few years later acquired a customary competitor in South Australia now named Australian Coopers. He got money to fund his business from the 3Fs (Friends, Family, and Fools) until an investor bought into the business in 2015. That investment helped propel sales from 80 casks in 2012 to more than 20,000 in 2019, with 90% of those sold in the spirits industry.  Darren admits that excellent communication, a kick-ass team, and an investment in R&amp;D and innovation are at the heart of managing the three businesses’ success. He believes the hardest thing in growing a small business is cashing in on people, and the advice he would give himself on day one is, “Not to be hard on yourself. Take the time to celebrate the wins and celebrate them with the people around you. Remember when starting out, the bigger opportunity, the harder it will be.”   This Cast Covers: <ul> <li>The first whisky in the Southern hemisphere to win the Best Single Malt whisky in the world and the impact that had.</li> <li>From representing coopers from around the world to owning his own cooperage producing barrels for various distillers of wine, whisky, and more.</li> <li>The age factor in starting his own business and his business ownership backstory.</li> <li>The cyclic nature of the wine industry, the challenge it presented for cash flow, and how he overcame that.</li> <li>Their current cask output: Growing from 80 barrels a year to over 20,000 barrels just for spirits.</li> <li>Investing and committing to continuous innovation in order to add a huge amount of value to the industry.</li> <li>Funding the business through support from family, friends, trade credit, and investors.</li> <li>Working with distillers to provide just the right application of oak in the maturation process to produce a great and effective product.</li> <li>The challenge of investing in oak in terms of holding up capital for long periods of time.</li> <li>Building the cooperage skill set in modern Australia and how the spirits industry helped in that.</li> <li>The importance of communicating with the staff on how the business is doing and making sure they share in the dream.</li> <li>Cash flow: The one thing that Darren enjoys the least about managing fast growth.</li> <li>Understanding the numbers and not being too hard on yourself.</li> <li>Darren’s hiring tips and advice on how to build a kick-ass culture.</li> </ul> Music from <a href="https://filmmusic.io" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://filmmusic.io</a> "Cold Funk" by Kevin MacLeod (<a href="https://incompetech.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://incompetech.com</a>). License: CC BY (<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</a>

Quit 20 years in the wine industry in 2010 with 1 FTE, now across 3 cask businesses has a team of 30, with 20 of those coopers. Grew from 80 casks initially to 20,000+ in FY19, while pivoting from 100% wine to now 90% spirit customers (Darren Lange)

Master Cask

A podcast for lovers of wine, beer, liquor (incl. whisky, whiskey, bourbon, gin, vodka, tequila etc) and cocktails, Drinks Adventures hosts wine makers, brewing and distilling experts, sommeliers, bartenders &amp; more.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.

A podcast for lovers of wine, beer, liquor (incl. whisky, whiskey, bourbon, gin, vodka, tequila etc) and cocktails, Drinks Adventures hosts wine makers, brewing and distilling experts, sommeliers, bartenders &amp; more. 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.

Oak maturation trends in wine and spirits, with Master Cask's Darren Lange