By Richard Thomas The major story in the whiskey news last week was how bourbon production in Kentucky had passed its previous high water mark, set during the 1970s. Kentucky distillers filled more barrels in 2013 than they had since 1970, the previous record year, and inventory of warehoused barrels has just topped five million for the first time since ...

By Richard Thomas American history and whiskey are inextricably intertwined, starting with George Washington’s white rye-making distillery and The Whiskey Rebellion, or perhaps even further back with the roots of Bomberger’s Distillery and Elijah Craig if you believe the legends. Whiskey is such a constant fixture in the American story that getting away from it is nearly impossible, especially if ...

By Richard Thomas If you mention the term “fake whiskey” in American whiskey circles, more likely than not you’ll find yourself in a conversation about labeling issues and so-called “Potemkin distilleries.” Yet to a broader set of whiskey fans, the term might refer to a far more disturbing trend, that of the rise of truly questionable and in some cases ...

An Interview with Dry Fly Co-Distiller Kent Fleischmann By Richard Thomas Distilling and whiskey-making has spread all around the United States in recent years, sometimes to surprising locations. One region where the craft boom has gone that should surprise no one is the Pacific Northwest, where craft beer-making got a foothold as far back as the 1970s. An increasingly familiar ...

By Richard Thomas In American whiskey circles, few if any companies elicit the same level of suspicion as Templeton Rye. Take the company’s recent marketing exploit in turning their spent mash grain into hog feed to create “whiskey pigs.” The claim was met with a storm of derision in the blogosphere, with some questioning whether the grain in question was ...