By Richard Thomas World whisk(e)y has three fundamental production models. The first and most familiar to the global audience is the Irish-Scots model, based making malt whiskies with pot stills and grain whiskies with column stills. These whiskies are usually, but not exclusively aged in used barrels. This is the method adopted and then adapted by the Japanese, so three ...

By Richard Thomas As a drinks writer, one of the mainstays of my news alerts, inbox and correspondence with my colleagues is the partial conversion of the distilling industry from making booze to making hand sanitizer. It’s reminiscent of the World War Two experience, when spirits-makers largely switched to producing industrial alcohol for the war effort. In the 1940s, making ...

By Richard Thomas As I type this, America is headed into lock down so as to arrest the spread of coronavirus, and my half of my social media shows pictures of the pours of whisk(e)y being trotted out as people adopt social distancing. For my part, I’m keeping in mind that the Chinese faced a substantially worse outbreak, managed to ...

By Richard Thomas As an apostle to the “find what you like and drink that however you want it” school of whisk(e)y enthusiasm, I have little use for snobbery. In fact, if I call someone a snob of anything, I’m de facto labeling that person as a hater, not a lover; snobbery is the act of defining your love for ...

By Richard Thomas In the last few years, the release calendar for hot ticket, limited edition American whiskeys has become something of a predictable pattern. Mid-to-late autumn is the peak period, and has been for much of the Bourbon Boom. Some other releases can be counted upon later in December, to coincide with Christmas shopping.  That is followed by the ...