WhiskyCast

One of the most-discussed topics at this weekend's Victoria Whisky Festival was a National Post feature on whisky questioning the future of vintage whiskies, and whether the whisky boom has already reached its peak. One of the whiskies mentioned in the story was The Glenlivet's Founders Reserve, which is replacing The Glenlivet 12 in many markets around the world. We'll get the reaction from The G...

This week, we're on location with the first of two episodes from the Victoria Whisky Festival in Victoria, British Columbia. For the last several years, the Victoria Whisky Festival has had at least one tasting session reserved for women only, and this year's tasting featured Canadian Club's Tish Harcus...one of the pioneers in leading tastings geared to women. We'll talk with Tish and Julia Ritz...

America has a love-hate relationship with alcohol, and it's fair to say that drinking has changed the course of American history - for better and for worse. Susan Cheever explored that relationship for her new book "Drinking in America: Our Secret History" and joins us on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, 28 purloined Pappy Van Winkle bottles may not receive the reprieve many Bourbon f...

David Stewart will need new business cards soon, though the longtime master blender at William Grant & Sons is far too modest to ask for them. That's because he'll soon be able to add the initials "MBE" to his name, now that he's been named a Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth. Stewart was included on the Queen's New Year's Honours List released by Buckingham Palace this...

There are a lot of issues facing the world of whisky and spirits these days, and we'll discuss many of them on this week's WhiskyCast. During the recent New Brunswick Spirits Festival in Canada, WhiskyCast's Mark Gillespie moderated a panel discussion with Glenfiddich's Ian Millar, Dr. Kirstie McCallum of Burn Stewart Distillers, Angostura Rum master distiller John Georges, and The Glenlivet's Ala...

This week, we'll look at the business behind the whiskies we drink - and investors hope to profit from. More investors are looking seriously at the whisky business...they're not just looking to invest in rare bottles, but something even rarer...the distilleries that make whisky. We'll talk with Frank Lampen, one of the co-founders of Diageo's in-house venture capital unit, Distill Ventures. This w...

This week, we'll give you a glimpse at something rarely seen...the very first still run at a new distillery. This week, the stills at Ireland's Waterford Distillery came to life - 24 years after they were last used at the old Inverleven Distillery in Scotland. Like a lot of pieces of the Waterford story, those stills spent some time on Islay at Bruichladdich, but like the old Guinness brewery in W...

Every once in a while, you might want to step outside of your comfort zone and try something besides whisky. A WhiskyCast listener asked for suggestions along those lines after hearing our October episode about Armagnacs, and we turned to Jeff Cioletti for answers. He's the author of the new book "The Year of Drinking Adventurously: 52 Ways To Get Out of Your Comfort Zone" and editor-at-large for...

This week, we'll be talking about whisky and education. Not teaching people how to drink whisky, but how to make it! There aren't many university-level programs in distilling, but the University of Kentucky has now started offering a certificate in Distillation, Wine, and Brewing to undergraduate students who complete a series of courses in chemistry, engineering, and other subjects. Dr. Seth DeBo...

This week, we're at Canada's oldest whisky festival...the New Brunswick Spirits Festival in Fredericton, New Brunswick. The festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and draws visitors from all over Canada and the northeastern United States. This year, festival attendees also celebrated the 2016 Whisky Bible's naming of a Canadian whisky as the World Whisky of the Year. We'll get rea...

As we begin the 11th year of WhiskyCast, we're taking a look back this week to catch up with some of the friends we've made over the last ten years...people who are now making their own way in the whisky world. We'll hear from a Kentucky sheriff's deputy starting his post-police career as a Bourbon distiller, a couple from New Zealand who gave birth to a whisky distillery and a baby son at the sam...

Scotland's Glenturret Distillery celebrated its 240th anniversary this week by gathering 240 people at The Famous Grouse Experience for a toast, and by announcing the debut of the distillery's first range of single malts in many years. Stuart Cassells heads up Glenturret, and was instrumental in making those single malts possible. He'll join us on WhiskyCast In-Depth to discuss the history and the...

Popular, yet controversial in many ways, WhistlePig Farm's distillery has finally opened after a series of lengthy delays and disputes. Founder Raj Peter Bhakta spent around $250,000 in legal fees battling Vermont regulators over whether WhistlePig Farm qualifies as an "agricultural operation" under the state's unique laws protecting farms from commercial development. Even though whiskey distilled...

Andy Cant has been a Scotch Whisky nomad for nearly four decades, working at distilleries and maltings all over Scotland. He's done everything from making grain whisky for blends to running a maltings and multiple malt whisky distilleries from Islay to the Highlands. These days, you'll find him at Cardhu Distillery in Speyside, but we caught up with him recently at Mount Vernon in Virginia, where...

George Washington's Scottish distiller never made single malt whisky at Mount Vernon in the 18th Century, but Scottish distillers John Campbell, Bill Lumsden, and Andy Cant did in the spring of 2012. They returned to Virginia this week to bottle that whisky for charity, and the first set of two bottles sold at the Spirit of Mount Vernon gala for $26,000. We'll hear from the distillers on the chall...

It's rare that we talk about spirits other than whiskies on WhiskyCast, but with many people complaining that rising prices for single malts are forcing them to seek alternatives, it's a good time to take another look at Armagnacs. We first looked at the French spirit back in 2007, and while whisky prices have been rising sharply, prices for vintage Armagnacs have been rising much more slowly. Flo...

Earlier this year, Japan's Nikka Whisky announced plans to replace many of its age-statement single malts with new no-age-statement versions. The company's past projections of estimated demand couldn't have forecast the current boom in Japanese whisky sales, and Nikka didn't lay down enough whisky to meet today's demand. We'll discuss the situation with Nikka's chief blender, Tadashi Sakuma, on th...

In this special bonus episode from Whisky Live Paris, we'll have more highlights from one of Europe's top whisky festivals. We'll look at the recent controversy over a legal definition of France's Breton Whisky, and hear from an American making single malt whisky in England...the very idea might make some heads explode in Scotland! In the news, Taiwan's award-winning King Car Distillery is startin...

This time around, we're in Paris for the first of two episodes this weekend from Whisky Live Paris! Each year, Whisky Live Paris draws whisky fans and whisky makers from all over the world, and this year, that includes a record number of American distillers as Europeans discover a taste for US-made craft whiskies as well as their larger counterparts. We'll talk with several US distillers who made...

Sam Mead is a fifth-generation rancher, but never had any interest in distilling...until he came back home to work at Wyoming Whiskey, the distillery his parents founded in 2006. He started at the bottom milling grain, and eventually discovered the distilling bug within him. After a series of changes at the distillery, he wound up being the head distiller (and won't allow people to call him a "mas...

The Glenrothes was one of the first Scotch Whisky distilleries to label its single malts with wine-style vintages instead of age statements. While the Berry Bros. & Rudd-owned brand remains committed to vintages, it's re-launching its entire range of vintage-less whiskies known as The Glenrothes Reserve Collection. Luke Tegner of Berry Bros. & Rudd was in New York City this week to introduce the n...

Louisville isn't just famous for Bourbon...it's also becoming a popular city for culinary connoisseurs, and the foodies are flocking to Chef John Varanese's restaurant specializing in New American cuisine. The menu at Varanese also gets a lot of inspiration from Bourbon, and we'll kick off Bourbon Heritage Month in Kentucky by talking whisky and cuisine with Chef Varanese on this week's WhiskyCast...

Kieran Folliard is a native son of Ireland, but calls Minnesota his home now. While running a group of Irish pubs in Minneapolis, he and his staff decided they should sell their own special Irish whiskey. Two Gingers became so successful in the pubs that Folliard decided to sell his stake in the pubs to his staff and make a go of Two Gingers, which was named for his mother and aunt back in Ireland...

Many American craft distillers produce single malt whiskies, but Seattle's Westland Distillery is one of the few that only produces single malts. The distillery in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood also produces one of the few peated American single malts, and while Westland is currently importing peated malt from Scotland, that's about to change. The distillery has exclusive rights to one of the only h...

The "Bourbon Boom" has led to a corresponding boom in the publishing industry, with almost as many new Bourbon books as there are Bourbons on the market. Fred Minnick's second whisky book, "Bourbon Curious" not only shares some of the history behind many Bourbon brands, but breaks down many of them by flavor characteristics to help new Bourbon fans find the whiskies they're most likely to enjoy. F...