By Richard Thomas If you are reading this, you are probably a whiskey fan, and if you are a whiskey fan like me, you enjoy seeing articles about whiskey appear in your favorite periodicals. Enjoy them, that is, until it becomes obvious that the author of the article knows next to nothing about whiskey. This is not about small slip-ups ...

By Richard Thomas The Holidays are usually a quiet time for news, with most stories focusing on human interest stories, last minute shopping, post-Christmas deals, and New Year’s Eve events. This year had some real news, mostly stemming from the so-called “Fiscal Cliff” negotiations in the United States, but whiskey lovers had a little something extra all their own: a ...

By S.D. Peters A Moonshine Romance “Moonshine” – a word that’s worth a thousand pictures. Whether sepia-toned, awash in cinematic midnight or muddled with shadows, those pictures evoke a giddy infatuation for Appalachia’s hills & hollers or a longing nostalgia for Chicago’s speakeasies in the hearts and minds of those who have never tasted moonshine, never visited Hazard or Harlan ...

By Richard Thomas Wine Enthusiast, one of the wine industry’s leading lifestyle magazines, stumbled badly this year by naming Michters Whiskey as its 2012 Distillery of the Year. In so doing, the popular magazine named a company without an actual working still as the leading distiller of not just the whiskey trade, but the entire spirits industry. Michters Whiskey isn’t ...

By Kurt Maitland As I have learned more about whiskeys (or “whiskies”), especially how they are made and how each manufacturer can turn what is a simple set of basic ingredients into a staggering array of complex tastes, I have found myself evaluating the individual qualities and factors that each one brings to the table. Over time, my standards and ...