By Richard Thomas A recent scroll through my Instagram yielded a picture of a bottle of Old Barterhouse bourbon, which had been trotted out by the poster to share at a gathering of fellow enthusiasts. He declared it one of his favorite pours, whenever he can snag a bottle that is. I have a long memory, so that Insta post ...

By Richard Thomas When I broke into whiskey journalism, Irish Whiskey was on the cusp of its renaissance. The number of distilleries in Ireland had increased just a few years before from three distilleries to four. Since then, the count has increased ten fold. Nowhere has that distillery building boom been more in evidence than in Dublin. As Ireland’s whiskey ...

By Richard Thomas One of the idealized features of an artisanal movement–whether it be craft beer, craft whiskey or craft gin–is the spirit of independence. That ideal has existed more often in the imaginations of the imbibers than at the company making the booze, but it’s easy to understand how it got there: the little guy’s products are supposed to ...

By Richard Thomas More than a decade ago, I wondered in print that if Kentucky and Tennessee were America’s first and second whiskey states, who was the craft scene propelling to become number three. It took years for the issue to resolve itself, but by the time the Pandemic was clearing up, it had in a way that would stick: ...

By Richard Thomas The whiskey release calendar often sees a flurry of activity in the early and middle springtime, following the conclusion of the Holidays. Summers aren’t quite the doldrums the season used to be, but even so it is slower than what come before and what follows, the red hot autumnal period. So, here are five new whiskeys that ...