By Richard Thomas For a couple of years now, malt whiskey has been the great up-and-comer of the American Whiskey Boom. The buzz that it was the “next big thing” proved to be overblown—after two years of hype, American Malts are definitely a thing, but hardly big—yet the malt whiskey scene in America has grown steadily, gaining depth and maturity ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Few individual expressions have the kind of production story about them that Maker’s 46 has built up. The expression was Maker’s Mark first major brand extension, using a finish based on seared French Oak staves inserted into the middle of the barrel. This was an idea first employed by the independent Scotch blender-bottler Compass Box ...

Corrected February 20, 2018 By Richard Thomas If anyone outside of the booze trade has heard of Diageo, it is probably in regards to some move the drinks mega-corporation made that was so certain to irritate consumers that one wonders how it cleared their PR experts. A case in point is last month’s news that the company was floating ideas ...

By Emma Briones He may spend a lot of time traveling around the world promoting new Jack Daniel’s expressions, but Master Distiller Jeff Arnett does not look over his shoulder and worry about how things are going back in the distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee. That is because he is confident that everyone back there is working hard to make the ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B- Battle Cry is one of the beer-inspired American Malts coming from Rhode Island brewstillery Sons of Liberty. It’s billed as a single malt, but it’s a bit more interesting than that. Technically, a single malt is 100% malted barley and made at a single distillery. Battle Cry doesn’t quite qualify because it used a little ...