By Richard Thomas As soon as the Tennessee whiskey law wrangle was out of the news, it was replaced by “The Great American Whiskey Shortage.” Sparked by an announcement from Buffalo Trace that they wouldn’t be able to meet demand for the foreseeable future, the storyline has been flogged in the mainstream media for a month now. Much like the ...

Or How Just A Little Knowledge Becomes A Sad Thing… By Richard Thomas One of the bedrock conceits taught at journalism school is that a trained journalist can take on any topic and write an intelligent story. That might be true in theory, because in theory a writer can spend the time to become sufficiently educated on a subject so ...

By Richard Thomas Small business is as American as apple pie, so it might seem strange to ask who doesn’t support the very idea of a craft whiskey sector. After all, even the harshest criticisms of the new micro-distilleries haven’t gone so far as to condemn the sector wholesale. Clay Risen probably came closest with his claim to have never ...

By Richard Thomas The most speculated upon aspect of Diageo’s attempt to gut Brown-Forman’s 2013 Tennessee whiskey law is the provision that would allow Tennessee whiskey to be made with used barrels. Rather than seek to repeal the provision of the law that enshrines the Lincoln County Process, or drip-filtration through maplewood charcoal, Diageo has taken the tack of trying ...

By Richard Thomas Irish whiskey is booming, so much so that it seems a week doesn’t pass without a new distillery breaking ground or a new expression launch making a splash. This boom is a golden age in Irish whiskey for American drinkers in particular, since so much of what is going on in Ireland has the American market firmly ...