It sometimes gets confused for bourbon or overshadowed by its top rival, Jack Daniel’s, but George Dickel ranks as the second-largest manufacturer of Tennessee whiskey. Lodged in a rustic corner of Tennessee, 77 miles southeast of Nashville – closer to Chattanooga and nearer still to Jack Daniel’s hometown of Lynchburg – Dickel produces whiskey much […]
“It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!” lamely jokes the guy in your office who thinks he’s being naughty for having a light beer at a 3:30 p.m. offsite meeting. Today his coworkers might snicker at his so-called transgressiveness. Yet for most of history, drinking before 5:00 p.m. was perfectly acceptable, if not necessary. Many people drank in […]
What’s on your mind when you sip your favorite Scotch, bourbon, or whiskey? Politics, maybe? Philosophy? A funny Tweet you read on your phone just now? Few of us spend cocktail hour contemplating wood, but it’s impossible to overstate its importance in the production and taste of brown spirits. Dan Szor, CEO and founder of […]
Tiki, that all-American fantasia of faux-Polynesian flavors and decor, is among our most enduring cocktail movements. Now a new gang of tiki drinks is sweeping American bars, and they’ve swapped rum for whiskey. But don’t worry — they still have those tiny umbrellas. Cynics without a spiked coconut in their hands might argue that the […]
What if I told you a new, limited-edition bourbon was hitting the market soon. Eighteen years old, 99 proof, finished in Fussigny Cognac casks. There are only about 5,000 bottles available. What would you pay for that? What if I told you the bottle itself was in a French crystal decanter, delicately acid-etched with the […]
When it comes to whiskey, the first place that comes to mind is Kentucky. The Bluegrass State has been producing some of the tastiest whiskeys for centuries — in addition to other American whiskey powerhouses like Tennessee, and even Virginia. Now there’s a new breed of distillers emerging in an unexpected place. Garrison Brothers. Whitmeyer’s. […]
For those of us who set Google Alerts for whiskey auction sales (ahem: guilty), these are boom times. Last month, a Yamazaki 50 Year Old sold for around $300,000. Before that, in September 2017, a bottle of Dalmore 62 Year Old went for nearly $130,000. There’s money in whiskey collecting, and collectors multiply by the […]
Negronis hold a special place in the hearts of many drinks professionals. Boulevardiers, their dark-featured cousins, are making inroads as Americans’ love affair with whiskeys continues to grow. (“American Whiskey is on Fire” Fortune.com declared in 2017, heralding the $3.1 billion sales of brown spirits the year prior.) As with Negronis, the Boulevardier rubric features […]
Close your eyes and imagine a distillery making exceptional, single malt Scotch. You might envision gray Islay or scenic Speyside. Or perhaps the fecund woods of Kyoto, where Yamazaki is made. A cooler climate locale, certainly, where distillers wear wool sweaters to brave the chill. India probably does not immediately come to mind. But that […]
