An impressive sign made from a single bed headboard, metal stags head and cursive script reading, “Woody’s Goon on Tap”.

Woody’s on George Street

A goon, or bag in a box, or wine cask, was invented in 1965 by Thomas Angove, of Angove Family Winemakers from Renmark in South Australia. His son recalls when he first mooted the idea of a plastic bag full of wine in a box:

“I remember dad coming home with this sort of prototype of a plastic bag inside a cardboard box and I remember thinking to myself and I probably said it to dad ‘That’s crazy, nobody will buy wine in a plastic bag stuck inside a cardboard box’, but in his usual manner he persisted,” he said.

Angove’s wine cask by Innovation Australia CC BY SA

This image shows the original method for decanting the wine from the cask. This design was added functionality by Penfold’s in 1967 when they added a tap to the goon bag. Angove’s wine cask had it’s 50th birthday last April.

The goon is a more affordable means of buying wine, and has become a feature of drinking sessions – anyone partaken in a “goon before noon”?

Big wine cask by Pete Johns CC BY NC ND