WhiskyCast

Phil Steger distills his single malt in the Scottish tradition at Minnesota's Brother Justus Distilling, but he's an outlier in the American Single Malt community. That's because he believes the TTB's proposed standards for American Single Malts would keep him from making his whisky the way he thinks is best. He'll tell us why on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth, and he'll also explain his unique p...

September is Bourbon Heritage Month, and while Bourbon can be made anywhere in the U.S., Kentucky is known as "the state of Bourbon." Bourbon makers generate millions of dollars annually for the state's economy, and their taxes help pay for local services and public education. The unprecedented growth of the industry hasn't come without its growing pains, though...and we'll look at some of the iss...

The Scullys of County Cork have been farming the same land for nine generations over 350 years, but only in the last few years have they started distilling whiskey from their own grain at Clonakilty Distillery. While their whiskey has now reached three years of age, it'll be a couple of more years before that whiskey sees a bottle. We'll talk with Sean Scully and head distiller Oisin Mulcahy on th...

Actors Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder discovered their friendship and a mutual love of Bourbon on the set of " The Vampire Diaries " television series. Once the show ended, they decided to launch their own Bourbon brand, Brother's Bond, and it's become one of the fastest-growing new Bourbon brands on the market over the last 18 months. While Wesley's acting career now has him portraying the iconi...

Andrew Welford is described as a "truffle hunter" for whisky history, but his best find to date didn't sell for a penny. In fact, he donated an original John Walker & Sons shares ledger from 1944 that he found on eBay to Diageo's corporate archive in Scotland. We'll talk with him and Isabel Graham-Youll of Whisky. Auction, who helped bring together the book with its new home. In the news, the Kent...

Scotland's Isle of Islay is known for its distilleries, and construction will begin soon on the island's 12th distillery near the shores of Laggan Bay. The Islay Boys, Donald MacKenzie and Mackay Smith, plan to build the new Laggan Bay Distillery across from Islay's airport on the site of a former RAF World War II barracks. MacKenzie and Smith also own the island's lone brewery, and plan to make I...

Forty Creek master blender Bill Ashburn celebrated his 35th anniversary in the whisky business this week, and he's one of those blenders content to stay out of the spotlight most of the time. Ashburn and John Hall put Canadian Whisky on a new course in 2000 when they released the Forty Creek Barrel Select and Three Grain whiskies, and Ashburn's whiskies have won countless awards since then. He'll...

Alcohol has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries, even when the healers of history didn't always know they were distilling alcohol when they made their potions. Some of those potions even sound a lot like today's cocktails, and drinks writer Camper English has been studying the links between alcohol and medicine for his new book Doctors and Distillers . We'll explore some of that history...

Jackie Zykan could have kept the security of her corporate job as the master taster for Brown-Forman's Old Forester whiskies, but she decided the time was right to spread her wings and fly. She's leading the team behind the new Hidden Barn whiskey brand, and their debut Bourbon hits the market this week. She'll explain why she made the move...and why she's nervous about it...on this week's WhiskyC...

We all have our own whisky stories to tell, and author Shelley Sackier is sharing hers in the new book "Make It a Double." She's gone from hating that first sip of whisky to becoming director of distillery education at Virginia's Reservoir Distillery over the years, and the book combines serious whisky knowledge with her own unique sense of humor. She'll tell us what that first dram was and how sh...

The whisky industry depends on quercus alba , the American White Oak, for hundreds of thousands of whisky barrels each year, and that makes preserving White Oak forests a key priority for those concerned about the industry's future. Climate change and other factors are threatening the long-term sustainability of prime White Oak forests in the Midwest, and the White Oak Initiative is bringing toget...

How do our noses help us enjoy whisky? Turns out the nose has a major role to play in our enjoyment of whisky, food, and life in general. The average nose has around 400 receptors that process aromas, and they're far more sensitive than our tongues are. Dr. Paul Wise is a sensory researcher at Philadelphia's Monell Chemical Senses Center, and his work focuses on how the nose and our other senses p...

The Sazerac is one of whisky's oldest cocktails, and it's also the official cocktail of New Orleans. They're celebrating the history of the Sazerac all this week in New Orleans with Sazerac Cocktail Week, and we'll visit the home of the Sazerac on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. Sazerac House is a free cocktail museum with its own microdistillery producing small amounts of Sazerac Rum and Peychau...

Catoctin Creek's Scott and Becky Harris were honored with the Dave Pickerell Memorial Craft Member of the Year Award during last Thursday's Distilled Spirits Council awards luncheon in New Orleans. The Harrises have been leaders in the craft distilling movement for more than a decade, and are perfectly placed to explain the issues many small-scale distillers face in today's crowded marketplace. We...

More than 100 Irish farmers grow barley exclusively for Waterford Distillery, but Trevor Harris is one of a handful using biodynamic techniques on his farm. Biodynamics takes organic farming to the extreme, using naturally-based soil supplements instead of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. We'll visit Trevor Harris's farm and the distillery on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, U.S....

This week's webcast features guests Greg Swartz and Ian Logan. Greg's Scotch Whisky film "The Water of Life" is headed for PBS stations around the U.S. this month, and Ian is the senior director of whisky for Duncan Taylor & Company with a lifetime of experience in the Scotch Whisky industry. We'll also have part of Mark's interview for this week's WhiskyCast episode with country music superstar B...

Brad Paisley has entertained millions of people with his music over the years. Deep down, though...he's a whiskey geek just like the rest of us. From "dusty bottle" searches on his concert tours to hauling around a trailer full of whiskey for his American Highway Reserve Bourbon, he's learned to enjoy a dram over the years. He'll talk music and whiskey with us on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth, a...

Whisky lovers are making the pilgrimage to Islay for the first time in two years as the Islay Festival of Malt and Music gets underway later this week. There have been a lot of changes at the island's distilleries since the last in-person festival in 2019. For instance, it'll be the first Fèis on the island for Julieann Fernandez as master blender at Bunnahabhain Distillery. She'll join us on this...

The "Whisky Sponge," Angus MacRaild, joined us on the latest Happy Hour Live webcast. Not only is he known for his outspoken blog on the Scotch Whisky world, but he's also become an independent bottler as well as a collector. We'll discuss his views on the world of whisky, his disdain for NFT's, and answer some of your questions, too. 

Lexie Phillips grew up around Lynchburg, Tennessee watching generations of her relatives go to work at the Jack Daniel Distillery. Now, she's leading the family - and the distillery team as Assistant Distiller alongside Master Distiller Chris Fletcher. She's been in the role for a little more than a year, and has become a role model for other women working at the distillery. We'll meet Lexie Phill...

Photographer Ernie Button's new book, "The Art of Whisky," was published this week, and he joined us on last Friday night's #HappyHourLive webcast along with whisky writers Kyle Swartz of Beverage Dynamics and The Whiskey Wash's Nino Kilgore-Marchetti. You can catch our live webcasts on Friday nights at 5:00pm New York time on the WhiskyCast YouTube channel, our Facebook page, Twitter, and Twitch.

Blue Run Spirits has only been around for a couple of years, but its whiskies have already found their way into the hearts of whiskey lovers. Of course, it helps to have a Bourbon Hall of Fame distiller like Jim Rutledge as part of the team. The latest Blue Run Bourbon release, Reflection, is out now. We'll talk with co-founder Mike Montgomery and Blue Run's new director of whisky, Shaylyn Gammon,...

Mathew and Julie Cooper built Fannys Bay Distillery next to their home in Tasmania, and their small-scale whiskies are just now becoming available in the United States. The Coopers joined us on our latest #HappyHourLive webcast along with Holly Seidewand of First Fill Spirits and Her Whisky Love, who persuaded them to export their whiskies for the first time. We'll also get the first look at two n...

Two years ago, we brought you the story of Jonathan and Cindy Bray. The Canadian whisky importers were arrested by Idaho State Police on charges of illegally selling whisky out of their storage unit in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and spent 24 days in jail until they were released and allowed to return to Calgary. Last September, they pleaded guilty to a reduced misdemeanor charge and were sentenced to si...

Back out on the road again for our first whisky festival since the pandemic started! While we were in Las Vegas for The Nth, Richard Paterson and Craig Bridger joined us for a special edition of the Happy Hour Live webcast, and you'll hear part of our conversation on WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, the human resources departments at several distilleries are busy with new hires, and we'll have th...