WhiskyCast

For the second straight year, a Texas whiskey has won Best in Show honors at the American Craft Spirits Association competition. San Antonio's Ranger Creek Brewing & Distilling .36 Single Barrel Straight Bourbon beat a field of whiskies and other spirits from around the US. Ranger Creek co-founder Mark McDavid joins us this week on WhiskyCast In-Depth to share the story behind that whiskey and the...

It's Valentine's Day, and who better to explain his passion for making whisky than Rifino Valentine of Valentine Distilling. His Woodward Ltd. Bourbon is named after Detroit's legendary Woodward Avenue, which runs just a couple of blocks away from his distillery in the suburb of Ferndale, Michigan. Valentine is preparing to move from his original site to a brand-new facility in Ferndale, and is pa...

Ian MacMillan has been overseeing the whiskies from Deanston, Tobermory, and Bunnahabhain for years...but Cognac casks were one thing he hadn't experimented much with until the opportunity presented itself several years ago. The result is the new Deanston 18 Cognac Matured single malt that's being released in the US this month. We'll discuss Cognac casks with Ian on WhiskyCast In-Depth, along with...

Graeme Macaloney gave up a secure career in the pharmaceutical industry to pursue his dream of making whisky, and the Scottish expat is getting closer to realizing his dream. He's hoping to begin construction on the Victoria Caledonian Distillery in Victoria, British Columbia soon, and has already brought Dr. Jim Swan and former Diageo distillery manager Mike Nicolson as consultants. Graeme explai...

Kentucky's Four Roses Distillery announced this week that supply problems will prevent this spring's release of the annual Four Roses Limited Edition Single Barrel Bourbon. In his first interview on the subject, master distiller Jim Rutledge explains why dropping the limited-edition release will make more single barrel bottlings available to consumers, along with the prospects for bringing back th...

In the second of our two episodes from this weekend’s Victoria Whisky Festival, we'll catch up on more of the week's news - including more details on the $50,000 bottle of The Balvenie 50 stolen in a Montreal robbery Thursday and a Scottish newspaper report that several distilleries are in hot water with environmental protection officials over using too much water. We'll also get the latest on new...

We're on the road for the first time in 2015 this weekend, with the first of two episodes from the 10th annual Victoria Whisky Festival in Victoria, British Columbia. The weekend kicked off with the annual Canadian Whisky Awards presentation Thursday night at the Hotel Grand Pacific, including a special Lifetime Achievement Award presented to Forty Creek founder John Hall. We'll hear from John and...

On New Year's Day, David Perkins and his team at Utah's High West Distillery fired up the still at their new distillery for the first time. High West has been making whiskey since 2009 at its historic distillery and restaurant in the heart of Park City, and while the current distillery will continue, the bulk of High West's production will eventually come from the new facility located on a dude ra...

Irish whiskey will take another step in 2015 with the first exports of Yellow Spot to the US market, still the strongest market in the world for Irish whiskey sales. While Yellow Spot is produced by Irish Distillers at Midleton Distillery near Cork, the brand is owned by Dublin-based whisky and wine merchant Mitchell & Son. Robert Mitchell is the latest family member to head up the 210-year-old bu...

As we close out 2014, we'll hear from the man some might call "The Whisky Whisperer" for his ability to coax young distilleries into producing spirit that's mature after just a few years. Dr. Jim Swan's client list includes Penderyn, Kilchoman, and Taiwan's King Car Distillery, which took the top two spots in this year's Malt Maniacs Awards with Kavalan Solist single malts. He's also involved with...

Each year, the Malt Maniacs honor some of the world's best whiskies with the Malt Maniacs Awards. This year, for the first time, the overall winner didn't come from Scotland or Japan..but from Taiwan's King Car Distillery, which took the top two spots with Kavalan Solist sherry cask bottlings. Only four gold medals were awarded in the competition, and we'll discuss the results with Maniacs Peter S...

Amrut got whisky lovers used to the idea of single malt whiskies from India, and now, Paul John is challenging Amrut's standing as the leader in Indian single malts. John Distilleries has been making single malt whisky in Goa for the last 10 years, but only started exporting it to the UK and Europe in 2012. The Paul John whiskies have now arrived in Australia, and are expected to enter the US mark...

As we reported on our last episode, Balcones Distilling founder Chip Tate has accepted a buyout agreement from the majority owners of the Waco, Texas distillery. Tate will not return to the distillery he built in 2009, and sold his 27% ownership stake in Balcones for an undisclosed amount. In this bonus episode of WhiskyCast, we'll have complete interviews with Tate and Balcones chairman Greg Alle...

In the first of this week's two episodes of WhiskyCast, we'll travel to Sweden to look at two of the country's whisky distilleries. Mackmyra is Sweden's oldest distillery...even though it's only 15 years old, and matures its malts in a former mine 50 metres underground. The Box Distillery has just released its second single malt four years after beginning production in a former power plant, and bo...

Irish Whiskey has been leading the global growth in whisky sales for the last several years, posting double-digit gains every year. That growth is being reflected in the number of new distilleries under construction or being planned in Ireland, and distillers from both sides of the border have come together to form the Irish Whiskey Association. Peter Morehead of Irish Distillers was elected the a...

Dewar's has focused on its Blended Scotch whiskies for generations, with the limited exception in recent years of single malts from Aberfeldy. However, a team within Dewar's has been working quietly for the last six years to change that focus, and the result is the Last Great Malts series. The new range made its debut earlier this year with redesigned packaging for Aberfeldy, and new whiskies from...

Stuart Harvey has been the master blender for Inver House for nearly 11 years, and he's living proof that you don't have to be born into the industry to become a master blender. He started out making beer, but made the switch to whisky and never looked back. He'll join us for this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth to discuss the art of blending, and how it's just as much of a challenge to create a Single...

This episode marks the end of our 9th year, and we'll hear from two of the more outspoken voices in the whisky world on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. Simon and Phil Thompson run the family-owned Dornoch Castle Hotel in the Scottish Highlands, and their hotel's bar was named Scotland's Whisky Bar of the Year this week by the Scottish Licensed Trade News. The Thompson brothers are almost as well-...

The battle between Scotland's illicit distillers and the excisemen known as "gaugers" is the stuff of which legends, books, and now, a movie have been made. Filmmaker Mike Dziennik's "Peat Reek" will be shown this coming weekend at the Inverness Film Festival, and tells the story of a young gauger sent to the Highlands to shut down the whisky makers and the local minister who helps him see the lig...

This week's episode comes from Whiskey Live Dublin, and we'll be focusing on Irish whiskies this time around with some of the winners from Thursday night's Irish Whiskey Awards ceremony at Kilbeggan Distillery. We'll also get the details on the most expensive Irish whiskey ever released, the Midleton Very Rare 30th Anniversary Pearl Edition...as well as the upcoming US debut of Yellow Spot. It won...

Finland has a love-hate relationship with whisky. Finns love it, and the Finnish government hates it. Distilled spirits advertising is banned, and regulators went so far as to force the organizers of a Helsinki beer and whisky festival this coming weekend to drop "whisky" from the event's name or risk losing their permits. It's still legal to make whisky in Finland, though...and we'll find out mor...

This week, we'll look at the growth of craft distilling through the eyes of Darek Bell and James Rodewald. Bell is one of the co-founders of Corsair Artisan Distillery, and has just published his second book. "Fire Water" looks at ways of producing uniquely smoky whiskies. Veteran drinks writer James Rodewald studied the boom in craft distilling for his new book "American Spirit." We'll also look...

This is a special episode of WhiskyCast - not only is it the 500th episode, but it's the second of two episodes this weekend from The Whisky Show in London! We're packing a lot into this episode, with news on new whiskies from Girvan, Kilchoman, and others, a re-start of production at Sweden's Mackmyra Distillery, and a look at some of the new whisky books just being published. Our main focus, tho...

This is the first of two episodes this weekend from The Whisky Show in London, and we'll be looking at some of the new whiskies that made their debut this weekend at Vinopolis, home of The Whisky Exchange. Some of the newest whiskies are actually very old whiskies, including four special Gordon & MacPhail Private Collection single malts to celebrate the transition of the family-owned business to a...

With all of the issues being raised over whisky labeling in the US and a new lawsuit challenging claims on Templeton Rye's labels, we'll hear this week from an attorney who's become an expert in the US regulatory process as both a lawyer and distillery owner. David DeFazio is one of the co-founders of Wyoming Whiskey, and has been through the TTB's maze of red tape on several occasions. He'll expl...