Whiskey@Work

A bakery, a bucket of paint, and a horse cart. Those three things somehow explain the Irish whiskey in our glasses this week. We got into Green Spot Château Montelena, and the story behind it wanders a lot further than the pour. There's a family shop that's kept one whiskey alive for seven generations, a handshake deal that saved it from disappearing for good, and a crew of Irish exiles who wound...

We've mentioned Eagle Rare on the show plenty, but we'd never sat down and asked the obvious question. Why does this bourbon even exist? Turns out it wasn't some heartfelt heritage project. It was built on purpose, with a target in mind, and the strategy behind it is honestly kind of genius. Then there's what it grew into. A ten year bourbon people actually hunt for, sitting around forty-five buck...

Allisa Henley and John Lunn talked every single day for twenty years. Two stills, two personalities, one whiskey that fit together the way the two of them did. Then John was gone before he ever got to taste the finished blend. This week we're sitting down with Allisa, master distiller behind Sazerac's first Tennessee whiskey. She didn't take the usual road in, no chemistry degree, a business backg...

Ninety-eight point six. The number's been stamped on every Blood Oath bottle since the line started, and there's a strange little reason why. We poured the Pact Nine and the brand-new Pact Twelve for our first crack at this series, and somewhere between a German doctor with a foot-long thermometer and Houston's backpack full of medical gear, we got into what makes these blends so hard to walk away...

Two New Riff bourbons that are identical down to the mash bill, with one exception: one aged four years, the other eight. So we turned it into a blind taste test. One of us poured, the other guessed, and guess who walked away mad? We also get into why a year in a Kentucky rickhouse counts like dog years, the fifty-two-year-old bottle of Jack we once cracked open, and the one rule New Riff had to b...

We've reached part three of our Colorado run, and this week it's Breckenridge Bourbon, the bottle sitting on every liquor store shelf around here. We get into the founder's story, a radiologist pulling brutal hours who was standing knee-deep in snowmelt one day and walked away convinced he should bet his house, his savings, and a chunk of his kids' college fund on a whiskey hunch. We talk about wh...

This week we're sipping Tin Cup Fourteen, the Mount Sneffels release, and following a thread that ties straight back to last week's pour. Same Colorado founder, a different bottle, and a story that wanders from a ghost town saloon at ten thousand feet to a Jules Verne novel that somehow ended up on a Colorado license plate. There's a high-rye mash bill aged fourteen years, a tiny splash of single...

Mark heads to Colorado and comes back with a bottle of Stranahan's Distiller's Experimental Series: Cherry Soda, a three-cask finish you won't find on most shelves, with only 1,400 bottles made. The backstory behind Stranahan's involves a volunteer firefighter, a physicist who liked dynamite a little too much, and a barn fire that somehow turned into one of America's best-selling single malts. Rob...

A Highland warrior in 1544 leans off his horse, plucks a tiny white flower, and tucks it into his bonnet. His clan wins the battle. Centuries later, that same lucky bloom ends up on a bottle in our glasses. This week, Rob and Houston pour White Heather 15, the blended scotch resurrected by Billy Walker (the guy who turned Glenallachie into a legend). Three casks, two countries, one Highland fairy...

It's Cinco de Mayo, so Rob and Mark are skipping the bourbon and drinking tequila their boss brought back from Mexico while admittedly day drunk. He wanted them to find out if he got taken. He probably did. The Campo Segrado añejo smells amazing and tastes like a mint julep, which sends them down a rabbit hole on the four additives that can legally go into a tequila bottle without showing up on th...

Proper No. Twelve has a wild origin story and it involves the Mountain from Game of Thrones, a UFC fighter with a handshake deal, and a buddy who walked away from millions out of loyalty. We cover the whole messy saga before cracking open the brand new Proper 12-13, a 13-year Irish single malt that's either a redemption arc or a sixty-dollar disappointment depending on who you ask. Hosted on Acast...

You're standing in a liquor store, staring at a wall of bottles. You have no idea what to grab. That feeling? That's exactly why pourmore.com exists. This week we sat down with Greg Cohen, the marketing guy at Pourmore, a subscription spirits club that ships hand-selected bottles straight to your door. We're talking tequila-finished bourbon, American single malt, and a cask strength rye that Greg...

George Dickel isn't a name you hear as often as his neighbor Jack, but maybe it should be. The guy was a German immigrant, a cobbler turned whiskey salesman, who landed in Nashville in the 1840s and decided limestone water was his whole personality. He never distilled a drop himself, but he staked everything on the quality of what came out of Cascade Hollow. His wife Augusta kept the whole thing r...

Rob and Houston crack open a bottle that's been sitting on the shelf way too long. Highland Park 12 Viking Honour. From Orkney, a tiny island ten miles off the northern tip of Scotland where the wind blows so hard you can tell what religion a guy is by his travel pants. The whole thing was started by a guy named Magnus, a church officer who hid barrels under the pulpit and faked a smallpox outbrea...

Rob and Mark crack open a bottle that's been sitting in the dark for a couple years in Houston's basement. This week they're pouring Driftless Glen Single Barrel Bourbon from Baraboo, Wisconsin. A double gold winner from the San Francisco Spirits Competition that most of the whiskey world still hasn't found yet. There's a geography lesson (Rob holds his own), a story about glaciers that somehow ma...

Rob and Mark sit down with Ray and Patrick from Johnson Brothers and Jason Dvorak from Mr. Liquor in Rapid City for something genuinely special. They're barrel picking a Two XO Gem of Kentucky, and if you know what that means, you already know why this episode matters. If you don't, they'll catch you up. Six barrels. One pick. And a unanimous decision that honestly surprised nobody by the end. Alo...

This one starts with a near heart attack… a very expensive bottle of Wild Turkey Master’s Keep almost takes a dive off the table, and somehow that sets the tone perfectly. From there, it turns into a laid-back deep dive into Wild Turkey’s surprisingly scrappy origin story, why the everyday stuff gets misunderstood, and what makes Master’s Keep feel like something a little different. There’s some r...

In this special bonus episode of Whiskey@Work , Mark Houston takes you inside the Mountain West Whiskey Festival at the historic Hotel Alex Johnson in Rapid City. Instead of the usual studio conversation, this episode walks through the festival itself, featuring conversations with whiskey enthusiasts, industry insiders, and newcomers discovering the spirit for the first time. Upstairs in the Presi...

This week on Whiskey@Work , the guys pour a few glasses and wander through the story behind one of the most recognizable names in Scotch. The conversation starts with the surprisingly scrappy origins of Johnnie Walker , a grocery store kid who blended tea before blending whisky, and the clever ideas that turned his family brand into a global icon. Then things get interesting on the tasting table....

On this episode of Whiskey@Work , Rob and Mark sit down with master blender Brad Benson from Little Round Still in Minnesota and dig into what happens when a small distillery decides to do things its own way. Brad walks through the unlikely path that took him from whiskey enthusiast to master blender, the challenges of making bourbon outside the traditional Kentucky map, and why Minnesota’s climat...

What starts as a casual catch-up turns into a full-on taste test showdown when Justin from Windsor Block crashes the studio mid-recording. On the table? A 20-year Canadian rye with a name you won’t forget and a flavor profile that sends the guys spiraling into childhood firecracker memories. Let’s just say not every “lost barrel” story ends in glory. Then, in true Whiskey@Work fashion, the crew pi...

This week on Whiskey@Work , we climb way past safe territory and straight into hazmat country. Rob and Mark post up at the Windsor Bar with Justin Henrichsen and crack bottles that most airlines would politely confiscate. We’re talking 140 proof and up. A Canadian cask strength that drinks suspiciously easy. A George T. Stagg that smells like a candy bar and hits like a freight train. And a 161 pr...

On this episode of Whiskey@Work , Rob and Marc pour a glass of Doc Holliday 7-Year Straight Bourbon and immediately realize something important… time matters. A lot. The conversation drifts through bourbon’s recent sales slump, the rise of canned cocktails, Four Roses changing hands, and why some whiskeys disappear only to come roaring back. Along the way, they chase tangents about Canadian grudge...

The Black Hills Stock Show is in town, so Rob and Mark cowboy things up with a bottle that feels ripped straight out of Tombstone. This week, it’s Doc Holliday Bottled in Bond from the World Whiskey Society, a whiskey built on story, character, and a whole lot of attitude. Along the way, they dig into who Doc Holliday actually was, dentist turned gunslinger, terminally ill, sharp-tongued, loyal to...

In this episode of Whiskey@Work, Rob and Mark sit down with Mitch McKeithan from the Alex Johnson Hotel to talk whiskey cycles, allocation games, and why relationships matter more than hype. They dig into how the bourbon world got here, where it’s headed, and why the Mountain West Whiskey Festival landing inside a 1920s landmark feels like fate. Along the way, there’s hotel history, celebrity run-...