By Richard Thomas Louisville has long contested Bardstown’s claim as “The Bourbon Capital of the World,” but it hasn’t always had much of a case to press in that department. There was a stretch of a few years back in the 1990s where just one big distiller was operating in the Louisville suburb of Shively, and neither of those distilleries ...

By Richard Thomas If any part of world whiskey is booming bigger than bourbon, it must be Irish Whiskey. When I started The Whiskey Reviewer, there were still just four distilleries in Ireland (and that only if you count the North as part of Ireland; in whiskey terms, we always do): Bushmills, Cooley, Kilbeggan and Midleton. By the end of ...

By Kyle Doran Moonshine has been making a significant comeback over the last decade. Traditionally, the drink has held the stigma of the peasantry, the work of rural farmers and mountain people set to quickly turn corn into a good time and a cash product. However, that stigma has receded in recent years. Rich with fascinating history, hipsters and connoisseurs ...

By Richard Thomas The meteoric rise of craft whiskey distilling in America has yielded many fruits, and among the most talked about have been the spirit of innovation and (recently) the emergence of American single malts. While the novelty of experimental techniques or unexplored styles have their attractions, I think most drinks writers are missing something important by focusing on ...

By Richard Thomas Whiskey is a quintessentially American drink, a connection that becomes clear when one sees how interwoven it is with American history. The story of American Whiskey is the journey of a rough, unaged distilled spirit made by farmers because it was cheaper to move than grain or flour growing and maturing into today’s modern, multi-billion dollar industry ...