Food pairings can elevate any drinking experience, whether you are tasting as a group or enjoying a dram on your own. Cheese is a good choice, with a wide array of styles offering a multitude of pairing options. Get started with our guide to matching whisky and cheese and see which combination works best for you.
If you’re looking for a new whisky to crack open, we have plenty to choose from this week. Old Forester Birthday Bourbon is back, this time with an online lottery; Ross & Squibb unveils the latest batch of its Remus Repeal Reserve series; and Jefferson’s adds a new wheated bourbon to its Aged at Sea series. For scotch lovers, Ardbeg is out with the fourth edition of Traigh Bhan, its 19 year old annual release. Meanwhile, for collectors, we also have all the details on the new Littlemill bottling, as the lost Lowland distillery releases its oldest whisky ever. Read on for full details.
It doesn’t feel that long ago we were struck with the news of the deadly Western Kentucky tornados. Now, The Bourbon State is dealing with its second natural disaster in less than a year as the Eastern Kentucky Region was ravaged by late July’s devastating flooding. The death toll is near 40 people, with some […]
It doesn’t feel that long ago we were struck with the news of the deadly Western Kentucky tornados. Now, The Bourbon State is dealing with its second natural disaster in less than a year as the Eastern Kentucky Region was ravaged by late July’s devastating flooding. The death toll is near 40 people, with some still missing nearly 3 weeks later. Countless families have lost their homes and all possessions. It’s not good. Buffalo Trace Distillery wants to help.
To provide aid relief, Buffalo Trace Distillery is offering an online auction of rare collectible whiskies. Six extremely rare and unique whiskey packages, including a VIP tour of Buffalo Trace Distillery. The auction started Aug. 18, 2022 at 9 am EST and will run through Aug. 25, 2022 at 7:00 pm EST.
Up for bid are a complete set of Pappy Van Winkle whiskies, (including Van Winkle Rye), a complete set of Buffalo Trace’s Antique Collection, including a 2020 George T. Stagg, Blanton’s, Double Eagle Very Rare, and other exclusive offerings.
“The loss of lives, housing, infrastructure, and even basic necessities most of us take for granted is devastating,” said Mark Brown, chief executive officer, Buffalo Trace Distillery. “We hope our bourbon community, who we know can be very generous, really shows its support and we’re able to raise an unheralded amount of funds for Eastern Kentucky disaster relief.”
It’s This Week in Bourbon for August 19th 2022. The Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame will induct six new individuals.King of Kentucky packs two new 15 and 18year old releases. Old Forester Birthday Bourbon Allocation Goes Into A National Sweepstakes
Show Notes:
Rally is selling 2,000 shares at $7 each for a six-bottle collection of Pappy Van Winkle
Beam Suntory has double-digit net sales growth for the first half of 2022
Wigle Whiskey sells to the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates
Hard Seltzer and RTD shares increase in 2022 from IWSR
The Scottish government will review if the angels’ share has health and environmental impacts
The Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame will induct six new individuals
Ross & Squibb Distillery announce Remus Repeal Reserve Series VI Straight Bourbon Whiskey
King of Kentucky packs two new 15 and 18 year old releases
The Southern Star Distillery is located in Statesville, North Carolina. In November of 2019, I visited the distillery with Ken Bernardo. The owners, Pete and Vienna Barger, gave us a personal tour and tasting. I had a chance to taste… Continue Readin…
The Southern Star Distillery is located in Statesville, North Carolina. In November of 2019, I visited the distillery with Ken Bernardo. The owners, Pete and Vienna Barger, gave us a personal tour and tasting. I had a chance to taste... Continue Reading →
When I was a child, a soda was a treat. Even if it was in the refrigerator, you had to ask to have one and often times the answer would be no. As I grew older, soft drinks became a bigger part of a young person’s life. I still remember when the first soda machine was put into my high school cafeteria. I remember that the old folks grousing: “what’s next, a McDonald’s instead of healthy food?” To my knowledge a McDonald’s was never brought in.
Of course when I was older I had soda all the time. If one could binge drink soda, I did. Eventually, I decided to get healthy and gave up almost all soda. Though a Diet Pepsi was my breakfast most mornings until I quit going into an office. These days, instead of soda being a treat, it’s what I have when there is nothing else to be had. Most of my soda consumption comes on road trips from small gas stations with even smaller beverage selections.
Except of course when I want a highball. Most of the time I use soda water, rum or gin and some citrus. But every so often a Rum and Coke, a Cuba Libre (basically a rum and coke with lime juice), or a Bourbon and ginger ale just sounds too good to pass up. It was with that thought in mind that I picked up the Fever-Tree Distillers Cola from my closest Total Wine. Though it was in shelved with the bourbon, it made me really want a rum and cola. So I tossed it in the cart with everything else.
Fever-Tree Distillers Cola
Purchase Info: $5.99 for a 4 pack of 200 ml bottles at Total Wine, Burnsville, MN.
Details: No artificial sweeteners or high fructose corn syrup.
Nose: Spicy and sweet. Notes of caramel and baking spice. It smells like a Cola.
Mouth: Sweet. Notes of citrus oils, caramel, and a touch of wintergreen as filtered through a cola base.
Thoughts: This is the most interesting cola that I've ever had. I know it was developed as a mixer, but I like it by itself. It's a big step up from a Coke. But since it is a mixer, we need to try a couple of spirits with it. Let's do the Plantation rum from Tuesday in a rum and cola, maybe we will even get fancy and make a Cuba Libre and then let’s mix this with bourbon as well.
To see how this fares when used as part of a highball I made four versions. Two used rum and two used bourbon. Each spirit was combined with either Fever-Tree or Coke. In both cases, the Fever-Tree was the winner when tasted blind. The Coke tasted artificial and almost chemically. I don't normally like bourbon and cola and the Fever-Tree was no exception. I do however like rum and cola and I like a Cuba Libre even more. This paired wonderfully with the Plantation O.F.T.D. so I will be using the rest of this four-pack in that way. I'm very happy with the purchase and this may be my go-to cola going forward.
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By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ A distillery in the Dewar’s portfolio, the regular line of Craigellachie is a relatively new fixture among Scottish malts, having been introduced in 2014. The malts have since become known for their meaty quality, something of a middleweight hitter on the spectrum of Speyside malts. Craigellachie 13 Year Old is …
By Richard Thomas
Rating: B+
Craigellachie 13 Year Old (Credit: Bacardi)
A distillery in the Dewar’s portfolio, the regular line of Craigellachie is a relatively new fixture among Scottish malts, having been introduced in 2014. The malts have since become known for their meaty quality, something of a middleweight hitter on the spectrum of Speyside malts.
Craigellachie 13 Year Old is drawn from ex-bourbon and ex-Sherry cask stock, and bottled without chill filtration at 46% ABV. Bottling at the upper end of the typical Scotch strength range (40-43-46%) helps contribute to its heft, and it’s the entry-level run of the Craigellachie line.
The Scotch Craigellachie takes a pale straw cast in the glass. While one is looking at it, another quality comes right out of the glass and greets you, because the malt is very aromatic. The ex-bourbon barrel vanilla leads, but it’s firmly backed by cinnamon, sandalwood and dry wood.
The flavor expands on that profile. The sweet side takes on a banana note; the spicy aspect continues to run strong with cinnamon and sandalwood; the dry end becomes leathery and takes on a tobacco note. The finish runs from the dryness, starting with leathery wood and tobacco, with the latter note fading first and leaving the wood to run on alone for a spell.
The Price In the U.S., this item is often available for about $53, but could fairly be priced as high as $60. The lower price is what one pays at Total Wine and other big box retailers. The numbers are similar in the UK and Europe, although the currency is different and the bottle 50ml smaller.
Lux Row Distillers launched Daviess County Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Lightly Toasted American Oak Barrels. This new, limited-edition bourbon is the first in a series of annually offered toasted-barrel finishes for the Daviess County…
Lux Row Distillers launched Daviess County Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Finished in Lightly Toasted American Oak Barrels. This new, limited-edition bourbon is the first in a series of annually offered toasted-barrel finishes for the Daviess County Bourbon brand family. Daviess County Lightly Toasted features its namesake brand family’s signature combination of ryed and wheated bourbon […]
Some people will say we are currently experiencing a bourbon shortage. However, if you go to your local store you will see it’s quite the opposite. There are walls of bourbon and with so many labels it’s hard to know where everything comes from. To help dig through this topic I’ve invited Chad & Sara from It’s Bourbon Night to join the show. We talk about how they met and how they’ve grown their YouTube channel into one of the premier places on the internet to get informative opinions on the latest whiskey releases as well as the favorite amongst many YouTubers, lists and top 10s.
Show Notes:
Above the Char with Fred Minnick (@fredminnick) talks about opening bottles prior to purchase for allocated bottles
When did you start your YouTube channel?
Do you remember your first video?
Are there some videos that never get published?
Have you figured out the formula to get the mosts views possible?
How have you been able to combat the negative comments that come on the internet?
Have you had to pivot on how you create content and find new audiences?
Have you started to see an overcrowding of brands on the market?
Is there such a thing as a “bad run” of MGP barrels?
Will MGP still be the go-to source in 5 or 10 years?
When production catches up, how do you determine who get space on the shelf?
What will hurt the bourbon market the most?
Are celebrity whiskey brands going to overcrowd the market?
Of all the factors that give whiskey its signature traits, maturation is arguably the most underappreciated. I suppose it’s a moot point for some distilleries, especially those that employ climate-controlled warehouses to age their products with uber c…
Of all the factors that give whiskey its signature traits, maturation is arguably the most underappreciated. I suppose it’s a moot point for some distilleries, especially those that employ climate-controlled warehouses to age their products with uber consistency. Sounds like a good thing, right? I suppose from a certain point of view it is. But […]
August 17, 2022 – Six inductees will join the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame next month in the first induction ceremony since 2019. The honorees were announced today, including the late Stephen Thompson of Kentucky Artisan Distillery, this year’s recipient of the Parker Beam Lifetime Achievement Award. Thompson passed away last year at the age of 79 following an accident. “He’s another one that everyone misses,” said Kentucky Distillers Association president Eric Gregory. “He was such a resource and an advocate for the craft distilleries…he had almost an encyclopedic knowledge of production facilities and what to do, and if you Read More »
August 17, 2022 – Six inductees will join the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame next month in the first induction ceremony since 2019. The honorees were announced today, including the late Stephen Thompson of Kentucky Artisan Distillery, this year’s recipient of the Parker Beam Lifetime Achievement Award. Thompson passed away last year at the age of 79 following an accident.
“He’s another one that everyone misses,” said Kentucky Distillers Association president Eric Gregory. “He was such a resource and an advocate for the craft distilleries…he had almost an encyclopedic knowledge of production facilities and what to do, and if you knew Steve, man, he was a straight shooter. He told you what was on his mind and he was very candid and that was a breath of fresh air in meetings that could sometimes get a bit stodgy.” Thompson will be presented for induction by another Hall of Fame member, longtime master distiller Jim Rutledge, during the invitation-only luncheon in Bardstown on September 13.
The rest of the Class of 2022 includes Andrea Wilson of Michter’s in Louisville. In addition to being the distillery’s longtime master of maturation, she was the first woman to serve as the KDA’s chairperson in 2009. Julian P. Van Winkle III joins his legendary grandfather, “Pappy” Van Winkle, in the Hall of Fame, along with Rabbit Hole Distilling founder Kaveh Zamanian and two retiring Kentucky political leaders, U.S. Representative John Yarmuth and Kentucky State Representative Chad McCoy. Both men were cited for their legislative work to help the Bourbon industry, with Gregory describing Yarmuth as a global ambassador for Kentucky Bourbon and McCoy as one of the most effective state lawmakers in recent years for his work on spirits legislation at the state level.
This year’s class will be the first since 2019, with no classes inducted in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic. The hiatus gave KDA leaders the chance to take a new look at how Hall of Fame members are selected, with an eye toward giving previous inductees more of a say in the process. As in the past, nominees were proposed by the KDA board and member distilleries, but instead of the board also voting on inductees, a new selection panel was given the final say. That panel included all four living recipients of the Parker Beam Lifetime Achievement Award: Jimmy Russell, Bill Samuels, Jr., Max Shapira, and Even Kulsveen. In addition, KDA chair Kevin Smith, KDA board member and Hall of Fame inductee Chris Morris, and Dixie Hicks, the former Bardstown mayor and also a Hall of Fame inductee, served on the panel.
“Once they started looking at all the nominees to the Hall of Fame, they went in depth and talked about the person and the personalities, and what it means to be in the Hall of Fame and what an honor it is,” Gregory said. “It was a three or four hour meeting…the process worked great, and I’m looking forward to continuing that in the future,” he said.
