By Richard Thomas An inside joke in the booze writing trade is how made-in-America single malt whiskeys have been the “next big thing” for …., oh, the last several years. Don’t get me wrong: American-made malts have become a vibrant part of the national whiskey scene, and I for one applaud how it is a …
By Richard Thomas When the legendary Master Distiller Barry Crockett hatched the idea for Midleton Very Rare in 1984, I doubt he knew it would be the start of a truly seminal brand, one of the earliest examples the modern class of annual limited edition whiskeys. New Midleton Distillery had only been in operation for …
By Richard Thomas Whenever I want a short explanation for the roots of modern whisky-making, I say it originated with the Irish and Scots, and was carried by immigrants from those places to the United States and Canada. That covers four of the five major whisky-making countries.The Japanese, on the other hand, don’t fit into …
By Richard Thomas If you are as lucky as I am, you get two Father’s Days. Because my child lives abroad, he marks the occasion on their calendar; I mark it on the American holiday. That way, I get to celebrate it twice, and the second round is coming up, because in the United States, …
Buffalo Trace Has Kept Its Prices Artificially Low For Years. Has It Helped Or Hurt Consumers? By Richard Thomas Although the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection (BTAC) and Pappy Van Winkle have enjoyed such demand that one needed to put their name on a waiting list to get a bottle as far back as 20 years …
By Richard Thomas My first round-up of bargain bourbons was in 2016, and how things have changed since then. That was before the Trump trade war rocked commodity markets and started the supply chain disruption; before pandemia sparked a run on the liquor store and disrupted world logistics even more; long before shortages and recovery …
By Richard Thomas The bourbon boom was well underway when Deputy Editor Kurt Maitland and I paid a visit to Vendome Copper & Brassworks in mid-2014, but it continued to accelerate year on year in the almost eight years since then. Blanton’s was still reliably on store shelves and the so-called bourbon shortage was on …
By Richard Thomas A few years ago, I coined the phrase “Craft Whiskey 2.0” to describe new and evolved features that defined small whiskey-makers relative to what they were in 2005 or 2010*. However, I never codified everything I meant by that anywhere, not even in my book American Whiskey, preferring to focus on the …
The Whiskey Reviewer does not hold an annual awards panel. Yet we are also focused on all things whiskey, have a team of contributors, and because of those three points we have an unusual way of doing what are our de facto awards. Instead of handing out medals or drawing up a conglomerated list, every …
The Problem Isn’t The Secondary Market Anymore. It’s The Retailers. By Richard Thomas Whenever the subject of the spiraling cost for limited edition whiskeys has come up during the last decade, someone always curses “the secondary market.” Lately, it has even become the villain for why brands like Blanton’s are no longer available on store …
