WhiskyCast

  Greg Metze spent years making whisky near the banks of the Ohio River, but he never really got the recognition he deserved because his distillery was on the northern side of the river in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. After 38 years at what started out as the Seagram's distillery, then became LDI and finally MGP, Greg retired last year intending to focus on consulting work. Curt and Nancy Richardson fir...

This week, the New York Times marked the anniversary of the end of Prohibition with a special event at one of America's few women-owned distilleries, Republic Restoratives in Washington, DC. "Women in Whiskey, Sisters in Suds" featured a discussion of the role women play in distilling and brewing - both today and in history. We'll talk with Republic Restoratives co-founder Rachel Gardner and bring...

Colorado's ski resorts wish they had lift lines as long as the one that stretched down Kalamath Street in Denver Saturday morning, when hundreds of whiskey lovers lined up for the annual release of Stranahan's Snowflake single malt whiskey. The line actually started on Wednesday morning when three people arrived from Wisconsin to claim "first in line" honors - beating out the longtime "Strana-Fan"...

Pulteney Distillery manager Malcolm Waring wasn't born in Wick, Scotland, but there's no place he'd rather be three decades after getting his first job at what was then the northernmost distillery on Scotland's mainland. There's plenty of rain, plenty of wind, and fortunately for Malcolm...plenty of whisky to keep track of at the distillery. He leaves Wick a few times a year to meet with whisky lo...

This time around, we're on location at the New Brunswick Spirits Festival in Fredericton, New Brunswick...and if you think we get around a lot, spare some sympathy for Distell's Andy Watts. He spent 38 hours traveling to Fredericton from his base in South Africa, where he oversees production and quality control for Distell's whisky distilleries in South Africa and Scotland. Earlier this year, Andy...

  The very first episode of WhiskyCast was on November 12, 2005, and twelve years later, we've been around long enough to have an age statement! Back on that first episode, the idea that someone would invest $150 million to build a new Bourbon distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky probably would have been good for a few laughs, since the Bourbon boom was in its infancy. Now, that $150 million dollar d...

  In 2015, Brown-Forman acknowledged what had been an open secret around Lynchburg, Tennessee for generations - that Jack Daniel's distilling mentor was Nathan "Nearest" Green, a slave on the farm owned by Dan Coll until the end of the Civil War. After the war ended, Jack Daniel hired the newly-freed Nathan Green to be the head distiller at his new distillery in Lynchburg. Green's sons and grandso...

Distillers from around the United States gathered at Virginia's Mount Vernon this week to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the restoration of George Washington's Distillery at his historic estate, and of course, they celebrated by making some whiskey. The restored distillery has been producing rye whiskey using Washington's original recipe to raise money for Mount Vernon's educational programs, i...

  Managing a whisky warehouse is sort of like running a day care center...but a lot quieter. Corby's Donald Campbell is responsible for 1.3 million barrels of maturing whisky at the Hiram Walker Distillery's warehouse campus outside Windsor, Ontario. Just like the kids at a day care center, each of those whisky barrels is developing each day - and some tend to spring a leak every once in a while,...

  Christmas came a couple of months early for some Scotch Whisky lovers with word that the iconic Port Ellen, Brora, and Rosebank distilleries will be reopened over the next couple of years. Diageo will invest $46 million to bring Port Ellen and Brora back to life, while Ian Macleod Distillers has acquired not only the old Rosebank site, but the rights to the Rosebank name and its remaining whisky...

This week, we're in Ireland for the annual release of Midleton Very Rare from Irish Distillers. There's something different about the 2017 edition, though...it's made with some of the oldest casks ever used in Midleton Very Rare. We'll talk with Midleton Master Distiller Brian Nation about this year's release and the new Midleton Cask Circle club, which will give collectors and investors the oppor...

This week, we're in London for the annual Whisky Show at Old Billingsgate on the banks of the River Thames! We'll catch up with a lot of friends from around the world, including Whyte & Mackay's Richard Paterson as he winds up his 50th anniversary tour of worldwide whisky tastings. We'll also look at plenty of new whiskies introduced over the last few days here in London and other shows in Europe....

It's often said that wood is responsible for most of a whisky's flavor, and if that's the case, then the people who make the barrels for maturing whisky have a major impact on the whiskies we drink. Independent Stave Company's cooperages dominate the market for new Bourbon barrels, and those barrels then get used for decades to mature other whiskies around the world. Brad Boswell's great-grandfath...

This week, we're on the road at the annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown, Kentucky! We'll have highlights from the festival throughout this week's show, including the presentation of the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame's Parker Beam Lifetime Achievement Award to Bill Samuels Jr. of Maker's Mark and the induction of the Hall's Class of 2017. In the news, Brown-Forman will invest $45 million...

  Flavor, aroma, and taste. We all know what they mean...or do we? Gerry Nichols isn't so sure. He's a veteran judge in beer and coffee competitions, and has been studying the research of neuroscientists into the way our brains process flavor, aroma and taste. His conclusion: science knows how we process sensory information, but scientists do a lousy job of explaining it - and what's worse...they...

The concept of terroir is frequently discussed among wine lovers, but the whisky world has been more reluctant to discuss whether the place where a whisky is made or matured contributes to its final flavor. That's largely because many distillers get their grain from farms that can be hundreds of miles away, and also because there's much less variety among the grains used in distilling whisky than...

Around 6,000 people combined last Monday's total solar eclipse with whiskey - watching the celestial spectacle from the fields around MB Roland Distillery in Pembroke, Kentucky. WhiskyCast's Aria Gillespie-Smith was on hand, and we'll have her report on WhiskyCast In-Depth. We'll also details on the celebration at Scotland's Teaninich Distillery as it marks its 200th anniversary this month. In the...

  Since our first visit to Taiwan's King Car Distillery in 2011, its Kavalan single malts have arguably become some of the most-acclaimed whiskies in the world, winning top awards in multiple whisky competitions. As the distillery enters its second decade, there have been many changes, including the addition of a complete second stillhouse. We'll discuss those changes on WhiskyCast In-Depth with K...

Lindores Abbey has a unique place in Scottish history. In 1494, the abbey's Friar John Cor was responsible for the oldest known written reference to whisky distilling in Scotland when the Exchequer Roll listed him as receiving "8 bolls of malt" to make aqua vitae for the King. 523 years later, whisky distilling is returning to Lindores Abbey, and we'll take a look at the past, present, and future...

Whiskies are celebrated at festivals all over the world these days, but there's no place quite like Ireland when it comes to whisk(e)y. The inaugural Dublin Whiskey Festival kicks off this coming weekend with six days of tastings and events, and the organizers are planning to make it a nationwide event in 2018. John Burke is the festival's founder and the publisher of The Cask magazine, and he'll...

The Likarish family opened Ironroot Republic Distillery in Denison, Texas in 2013. Brothers Jonathan and Robert Likarish handle the distilling, while their mother Marcia serves as distillery manager. Even though they've only been open for four years, they've collaborated to make several award-winning whiskies, including the Texas Legation Bourbon for Berry Bros. & Rudd in London. We sat down for a...

Jim Boyko's career took him from the old Seagram's distillery in Waterloo, Ontario to the Canadian prairie in Gimli, Manitoba, and eventually around the world for Diageo. Once he got to Gimli, though, he and his family made the tiny town on the shore of Lake Winnipeg their home. Now retired, he shows up at the home of Crown Royal to lead the occasional tour for distillery guests. He'll share his s...

We've seen whisky and movie tie-ins before, but Old Forester's new Statesman Bourbon is a bit different. It's featured in the upcoming movie "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" with Jeff Bridges as the leader of Statesman, a secretive private espionage unit that just happens to make Bourbon in Kentucky and teams up with the London-based Kingsman to save the world. Old Forester President Campbell Brown a...

If you're looking for an excuse to take off from work and watch the total solar eclipse that will cross North America on August 21, there's no better place to observe it than at Kentucky's MB Roland Distillery. That's because Paul and Merry Beth Tomaszewski's distillery just happens to be located in Christian County, Kentucky, and astronomers calculated years ago that the total eclipse will last l...

When Raymond Davidson and his sons started marketing the Glencairn Whisky Glass in 2001, they thought the target audience was whisky blenders and industry professionals, and never imagined much consumer demand. Last year, Glencairn Crystal sold more than three million of its iconic and often-copied whisky glasses worldwide - up 22 percent from the previous year. Scott Davidson is Glencairn Crystal...