By Richard Thomas Single malt whiskies, with their distinct and individual identities and rich-yet-sophisticated characters, have always been a drink withdrawn from my shelf from late Spring to early Autumn. Between living in sweltering DC, steamy Asia, sunny Portugal and now also-sweltering Kentucky, my adult years have been marked by summer climates that were too hot to enjoy most malts ...

By Richard Thomas The brand of Old Fitzgerald dates back to the post-Civil War era of the bourbon business, introduced in 1870 and marketed to passenger railways, steamboats and private clubs.Who exactly John E. Fitzgerald was–insofar as historians and not marketeers are concerned–is a murky question, and the brand was originated by a rectifier based in Milwaukee named Herbst. Old ...

By Richard Thomas One of the topics I sometimes hear discussed by the whiskey fandom in America is how variable the flavor profile of a cask strength brand can be. Note that this is a peculiarly American subject, not because there aren’t so many cask strength Scotch whiskies in regular release, but because Americans seem to be much more in ...

By Richard Thomas No sooner was the craft distilling boom a clear phenomenon in the United States than certain pundits began to wonder aloud and in print “when is the craft spirits bust coming?” That line of thinking wasn’t necessarily hostile, seeing as how the boom and bust cycle of business is an axiom. It’s a fair question. Indeed, it ...

By Richard Thomas If you have been a whiskey enthusiast for a long time, then you have watched as the world’s whiskey boom keeps on gaining momentum. Even the coronavirus pandemic seems to have been little more than a hiccup. The newcomers from a decade ago are now well-entrenched fixtures, more newcomers (both individual distillers and entire countries) have kept ...