By Richard Thomas The bourbon boom was well underway when Deputy Editor Kurt Maitland and I paid a visit to Vendome Copper & Brassworks in mid-2014, but it continued to accelerate year on year in the almost eight years since then. Blanton’s was still reliably on store shelves and the so-called bourbon shortage was on everyone’s lips (the Bizarro World ...

By Richard Thomas A few years ago, I coined the phrase “Craft Whiskey 2.0” to describe new and evolved features that defined small whiskey-makers relative to what they were in 2005 or 2010*. However, I never codified everything I meant by that anywhere, not even in my book American Whiskey, preferring to focus on the specific issue at hand. It’s ...

By Richard Thomas St. Patrick’s Day 2022 is now about a month away, and the mix of pandemic fatigue and omicron still spiking hard means folks will both celebrate at home and out in bars. No matter, because the best way to celebrate Hibernian identity is still to hoist a dram of fine Irish whiskey, and one of the best ...

Glasses The secret to enjoying a whisky is having the proper glass to serve it in. A glass can make or break a drink, so why not treat your whisky drinker friend to a set of brilliant whisky glasses. From the classic Old Fashioned style to Glencairn glassware, there are plenty of options to choose from with each having their ...

By Richard Thomas Even though Japan is routinely listed as one of the five traditional whisky-making regions/countries (along with Ireland, Scotland, Canada and the USA), the sheer quality of its whiskies remained under the popular radar for decades. That came to an end in the mid-2010s, but something interesting came hand-in-hand with the craze for Japanese whiskies: a stronger interest ...