By Richard Thomas Blended scotch is dominated by its big brand names, and most of those names are well-established, decades-old fixtures. Johnnie Walker, Dewar’s, Grant’s and several others besides have been on store shelves for more than a century now, and while single malt scotch saw new activity from the 1980s onwards, blended scotch continued to be the province of ...

By Richard Thomas News that Japanese drinks company Suntory bought Beam Global in a $16 billion deal was met with a decidedly mixed response in the United States, both in the press and among whiskey fans. Some mourned the end of the “Beam family business,” while others fretted that Japanese ownership of Beam would somehow mean a loss of identity ...

The Whiskey Reviewer doesn’t have any formal awards to give out, at least not yet. However, that does not mean that we don’t have our opinions. Our staff comes across plenty of noteworthy whiskey during the year. Our purview extends to embraces all types of whiskey, from bourbon to moonshine to scotch; covers whiskey from around the world, from Australia ...

By Richard Thomas Jim Murray, the Englishman who pens the annual Whisky Bible, stirred up enormous controversy in whiskey circles last week when he was quoted by The Telegraph as saying scotch whisky was now being outdone by American whiskey. “Generally speaking, bourbon … has overtaken scotch” said Murray. “The best whisky is coming not from Scotland any more, but ...

By Richard Thomas As the Managing Editor here at The Whiskey Reviewer, part of my job is to stay well-informed about what is going on in the whiskey trade. That means following whiskey in the news, and one result of that is being aware of just how much bad whiskey writing makes its way into major media websites. Examples range ...