Master cooper Andrew Young, Seppelstfield – Oz Whisky Review
Making whisky is a fairly straightforward exercise. You take three of the cheapest ingredients available to us, cereal grains, water and yeast, create a beer from them, distil that, fill the resulting spirit into casks, and wait for time to work its magic.
And yet, it’s that last part, the years of maturation in casks, that most obsesses distillers, whisky lovers and anyone engaged in selling and marketing whisky.
How influential is the cask to the final flavour of a whisky? And what does the wood type and the previous liquid inhabitant add to the equation?
For over 2000 years, we’ve been learning about these intricacies as casks have been used to transport and, ultimately, flavour wines and spirits. But it wasn’t until the end of the 1800s that the first laws appeared mandating the use of cask aging for spirits like whisky. Distilling industries and governments began to recognise the critical role maturation played in removing unwanted volatile alcohols and immaturity in the spirit, while, at the same time adding the flavours we’ve come to love in complex whiskies.
Australia has serious form here. Ever since the Excise Act 1901 was introduced, it’s been law in Australia that any whisky produced here must be ‘matured by storage in wood for at least two years’ – a stipulation that predates similar regulations in the UK by almost two decades.
Since that time, and even well before, whisky has been matured in every type and style of cask in Australia. But with the recent rekindling of the local spirits industry, Australian distillers have been taking things to another level.
One man, in particular, has been critical in helping distillers to up their game. Darren Lange is the founding director of Master Cask, the largest supplier of oak barrels to the Australian spirits industry. He has over 30 years experience in the wine industry, over half of those in barrel supply, and with Master Cask Lange is looking to bring a more sophisticated approach to whisky maturation in Australia.
Darren Lange (left) – Master Cask
‘We don’t just focus on selling a cask. Selling a cask is probably the smallest part of what we do,’ says Lange. ‘The most important part of what we do is sourcing and understanding the characteristics of that source. That tells us what we need to do in the cooperage, and then, ultimately, how the distiller is going to apply that cask in the maturation process.’
Lange believes that up to 80 per cent of the overall flavour of a whisky comes from the cask it’s matured in. Of course, when you’re the guy supplying the casks, you’re going to emphasise their importance. But beyond that, Lange is determined to help Australian distillers produce world-leading whiskies by using what we have in our own backyard – Australian ex-wine casks.
‘I come from a wine background, and I’m trying to bring the nuances and complexities that we understand in building complexity in a wine to whisky maturation.’
Over the last ten years, Lange has been sourcing and re-coopering casks for Australian distilleries that previously held tawny, apera, topaque and muscat, some of them for 60 to 80+ years. In collaboration with wineries, Master Cask have also developed patented cask treatment programs to ensure Australia’s iconic fortified wines remain a part of the journey as old cask supplies dwindle.
‘M.P’ Mariposa treated casks developed by Master Cask
‘Look at Scotland, they don’t have a wine industry,’ says Lange. ‘They’re completely reliant on sourcing casks from somewhere else. And that’s the exciting bit for me going forward. Utilising the incredible flavours we have in our fortified wines, inserting that influence into the cask, and helping Australian distillers to be recognised internationally for innovation and outstanding quality.’
Starward, Australia’s leading producer of wine cask matured whiskies, are fully on board with Lange’s direction. However, they’re predominately focused on a slightly different style, ex-red wine casks, for the bulk of their whisky maturation. The distillery also went a step further than most and brought winemakers into their distilling team to better understand how to use these casks.
Starward’s head blender Jarrad Huckshold trained as a winemaker in South Australia before moving to Melbourne to join the distillery. He says it was a risk for Starward to move so firmly into wine cask maturation, but the gamble has paid off.
‘When I started in 2015, it was still kind of unknown as to how it would pan out and what the long term product would look like,’ says Huckshold. ‘We don’t really let on how challenging it was for us in the early days of wine cask maturation, because we were still doing a lot of guess work and it was a steep and fast learning curve.’
‘But there was a degree of confidence right from the get go that it would work. And I think there was also that excitement to try something different from the standard Bourbon or sherry cask path.’
Jarrad Huckshold – Starward Whisky
Once you’ve got your hands on these quality wine casks, how do you ensure they’re going to produce great whisky? Huckshold says that Starward’s learnings on that front have increased significantly in recent years.
‘We employ a lot of different methods, because they give you different flavours. With fresh wet fill casks you get more of the juicy red fruits. With shave/toast/rechar casks you get more of the oak coming through and a brighter spirit with that Starward tropical note.’
‘When we’re blending, for instance, we use different ratios of wet fill to the charred casks for different advantages. With Fortis, for example, we use a lot more charred casks in the final blend compared to Nova where we use a lot more fresh wet fill barrels. We love both methods.’
Another winemaker in the Australian whisky industry is singing the same tune. Heather Tillott, the award-winning head distiller of Sullivans Cove Distillery in Hobart, started her career as a winemaker before making the switch to distilling. Now, she utilises that experience to select only the best casks for maturing Sullivans Cove spirit.
‘I spend a lot of time on the road talking to winemakers and handpicking casks, because we endeavour to show the greatest respect to both the producers and the barrels we mature our spirit in.’
Sullivans Cove’s incredible win at the World Whiskies Awards in 2014 was a watershed moment for the Australian industry. But what’s often left out of the story is the single cask that matured the famous winning malt. The HH0525 cask that the champion whisky was aged in came from one of Australia’s oldest fortified wine producers, McWilliams Wines, who were recently bought out after entering voluntary administration in 2020 ending 141 years of family ownership.
Heather Tillott. Photo – Natalie Mendham, Sullivans Cove Distillery
‘We’ve got casks out there that have been close to 100 years with tawny in them,’ says Tillott, referencing the ‘old timer’ casks from wineries like McWilliams. ‘The timber is so saturated and there’s reactions that go on between the timber and the wine. Sometimes there’s this beautiful dankness that you can only get from a cask of that era. And the richness of the spirit that comes out the other end is second to none.’
Tillot says the provenance of the barrel, the specific type of wine it’s previously held, and whether it hails from Tasmania, the Riverina or the Barossa, can also determine everything from the cut points in a spirit run to how that barrel might be toasted or charred.
‘It’s all about the relationship and respecting the history and the importance that these casks represent. Ultimately, we’re doing the same thing as winemakers but with slightly different ingredients, so there’s so much room for synergy and partnership moving forward.’
More recently, established heritage wine companies like Morris and Angove Family Winemakers have taken things a step further and entered the whisky market on their own terms. The Angove’s, in particular, are no strangers to the distilling game, producing St Agnes, one of the world’s most awarded brandies, since 1925.
Earlier this year they released their first foray into whisky, unveiling the Camborne Single Malt Whisky brand. Fifth generation winemaker Richard Angove instigated the whisky project, running beer wash through the old St Agnes brandy pot stills that were originally installed in 1910.
Today, St Agnes have an entirely in-house cask program to mature their spirit, and Angove sees enormous potential in educating consumers about Australian wine history as those flavours are brought forward in their whiskies.
‘We’re so lucky to be able to manage our own casks internally before they see whisky. Whether they’ve held red wine, white wine, rare fortifieds or brandy, we’re able to know the exact history of each cask. For instance, we can go back and say this cask has seen our own single vineyard McLaren Vale Shiraz for six years. It’s then been washed with St Agnes XO for eight years and moved into our whisky program.’
Richard and John Angove and head distiller Ben Horley – St Agnes Distillery
He also believes that we’re only at the start of the collaboration between the industries as distilleries continue to pop up in wine regions around the country.
‘What were once wine tasting regions with wine tourism routes are now also spirit tasting routes, and so I think collaboration is certainly going to be important. There’s so many nuances in whisky maturation on the sensory side of things, which is why people are so interested in the process.’
You sense this is just the start. Australia, like other new world whisky producers, is finding its own way with casks that are unique to this country. Some of the results are already in, while other experiments will take years to reveal their secrets. Either way, there’s plenty of new discoveries to look forward to.
A version of this article was originally published by Kaddy Community.
