WhiskyCast

Scotland's legendary whisky island is getting yet another new distillery. Local officials have approved the plans for the new Elixir Distillers project just east of Port Ellen, making it the third new distillery to be built on Islay in the last five years and the 11th overall. Elixir Distillers co-founder Sukhinder Singh has been trying to get the project past the planning stage for nearly three y...

Mickey Heads retired recently after 13 years as Ardbeg's distillery manager and four decades of work at distilleries on Islay and Jura. Now, Ardbeg has released a special whisky in Mickey's honor, and the label for Arrrrrrrdbeg features him as a pirate! We'll catch up with Mickey Heads on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth and share tasting notes for his whisky, too. In the news, U.S. tariffs on sing...

Hong Kong has become a key center for the world's whisky makers, and we had more evidence of that this week. Gordon & MacPhail's new 72-year-old Glen Grant single malt won't hit the market until the end of March, but one bottle went on the auction block Friday at Bonhams in Hong Kong. We'll talk with Hong Kong whisky importer and retailer John Rhodes about that whisky and the growing role Hong Kon...

For the second straight year, Islay's biggest party of the year has been cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fèis Ile, the Islay Festival of Malt & Music, will be replaced this May by a series of virtual events because of the uncertainty created by the pandemic and travel restrictions within the United Kingdom. We'll talk with Ben Shakespeare of Islay's Fèis Committee about the decision to...

It's been a little more than three years since Billy Walker and his partners acquired Scotland's Glenallachie Distillery from Chivas Brothers. What had previously been single malts destined for blending use are now on store shelves and bars around the world...with Walker's own unique touch honed by years of making and blending whiskies. Now, the GlenAllachie team is turning to two legacy brands th...

Irish Whiskey makers once dominated the world with their single pot still whiskies, but the collapse of Ireland's whiskey industry a century ago   closed dozens of distilleries and consigned their unique recipes to history. Irish Whiskey historian Fionnán O'Connor has been working with Boann Distillery in County Meath to produce spirit using many of the recipes he's uncovered as part of his doctor...

Welcome to a new year, fans of the Water of Life! That's exactly what we'll be talking about on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. "The Water of Life" is a new Scotch Whisky documentary film that will debut later this month online after having its premiere delayed because of the pandemic. Director Greg Swartz joins us to discuss plans for the premiere, including tasting kits geared to specific parts...

2020 will not be remembered well by many people, but there have been a few bright spots for whisky lovers. One is the arrival of the first official distillery bottling from Kentucky's Castle & Key Distillery, the 3-year-old Restoration Rye. The historic Old Taylor Distillery had been closed since 1972 and left to fall into ruins when Will Arvin and Wes Murry bought the 113-acre site in 2014. Six y...

We have breaking news heading into the holiday week, as it appears the U.S. Congress will make a federal excise tax break for distillers permanent. The details are still tentative, and we have the latest as of air time. On this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth, Dr. Nick Morgan joins us to discuss his new book on the 200-year history of Johnnie Walker, "A Long Stride." We'll also have tasting notes and t...

85 years ago today, the five Shapira brothers and their partners opened Heaven Hill Distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky. The Shapira family is still in charge today, with second-generation company president Max Shapira leading the company. We'll talk with Max about Bourbon then and now, including the company's recent expansion into Canadian Whisky with last year's purchase of Black Velvet and its di...

With more people looking at rare whiskies as investments, more of the world's top auction houses are adding spirits experts to their in-house wine teams. That was just one of the moves Sotheby's made over the last two years after whiskies and other spirits started making up a larger share of bidding at its wine auctions around the world. Now, Sotheby's holds separate whisky auctions in London, New...

It's never been easier to buy an entire cask of whisky...at least in theory. While more distilleries are offering the opportunity to pick a special cask of whisky, the demand for casks far outpaces the supply - especially when it comes to casks of mature whisky from long-closed distilleries. Chris Ratcliff looks at the cask sales market on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, distillers p...

Craft distillers dream of not only having their whiskies alongside those of the major global brands, but outselling them. For the Quint family of Iowa's Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery, that dream has become a reality. Earlier this month, Iowa's state liquor agency released sales data showing that Cedar Ridge Iowa Straight Bourbon was the top-selling Bourbon in the state over the previous 12 month...

There's a lot of political turmoil these days, and European Union leaders threw gasoline on the fire with this week's decision to impose new import tariffs on American-made rum, vodka, brandy, and vermouth to go along with the existing 25% tariff on American whiskies. The Trump Administration had previously pledged to respond with additional tariffs on European goods, and that could mean more whis...

Marianne Eaves had a bright career path in her future as the first female master distiller at a Kentucky Bourbon distiller when she suddenly decided to leave Castle & Key Distillery 18 months ago - a year before the first whiskies she made there would be ready for bottling. It was a leap of blind faith, and now, she's living in Oregon with her young family, consulting with makers of whiskies and o...

OK, we're not going talking about politics this week, but whisky has been made in and around Washington, DC for 400 years, including a distillery owned by George Washington himself. There may not be quite enough local whisky available to calm the nerves of politicians awaiting the results of Tuesday's presidential election, but it's a good start. We'll talk with Sid Dilawri of the appropriately-na...

Very few Bourbon brands can claim much of a pre-Prohibition heritage, but Brown-Forman's Old Forester can. George Garvin Brown created Old Forester in 1870 in the same way many of today's whiskey entrepreneurs got started - by buying bulk whiskey from several distilleries and blending them together to create his own unique flavor. His great-great grandson Campbell Brown is the managing director of...

John Glaser and his team at Compass Box Whisky Company are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year. While Glaser has had his disagreements with the Scotch Whisky establishment over the years, he's gone from being a rebel to being one of the industry's most respected whisky makers. He'll join us on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth to discuss the last 20 years of challenging hidebound traditions...

England's modern whisky scene only goes back to 2006, when the English Whisky Company started distilling at St. George's Distillery in Norfolk. Since then, it's grown by leaps and bounds, and the first-ever English Whisky Festival will take place this coming weekend online featuring 13 different distilleries. We'll look at not only the growth of England's whisky scene, but how Covid-19 has affecte...

Whisky is a universal drink, a pleasure that can be shared by all regardless of gender, color, national origin, disability, age (as long as one is legally old enough to drink), and so on. The trouble is, too many people still hold the stereotype of whisky drinkers as older, male, and White - and that includes some people within the whisky industry. While the recent Whisky Bible controversy brought...

There are literally hundreds of old distillery sites around the eastern half of the United States dating back to the early colonial days. While their stories have largely been lost over time, bits and pieces still exist - and Nicolas Laracuente's mission is to uncover the artifacts, the stories behind them, and put them together in historical context. The "Bourbon Archaeologist" specializes in Ken...

Every distillery is unique, but there's one in Australia that could redefine your concept of "unique." Belgrove Distillery is on Peter Bignell's farm near Kempton, Tasmania, and he not only grows the grain that goes into his whiskies - but he built the distillery himself, too. There's no other distillery quite like it, and we'll visit Belgrove on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, U.S....

Yeast is one of the three main ingredients in whisky, along with grain and water. While we understand what grain and water contribute to the taste of a whisky, yeast's contributions are far more mysterious. In fact, people were distilling whisky from fermented mash hundreds of years before scientists even figured out that yeast exists, let alone how it works. After our deep dive into the science o...

Whisky and other alcoholic beverages are some of the most regulated consumer products in the world, and let's be honest...not all of those laws and regulations make a lot of sense. In fact, some of them might make you want to pour yourself a dram. Jarrett Dieterle of the R Street Institute in Washington, DC has compiled some of the finest examples of legislative legerdemain and matched them up wit...

There are hundreds, if not thousands of species of trees around the world. Why is White Oak - whether from America or Europe, the preferred wood to use for whisky barrels? What makes it so special, and how do we protect the resource for future generations of whisky lovers? Forestry scientist Tom Kimmerer, PhD. is one of the leading experts on White Oaks, and was a guest on our #HappyHour webcast e...