Bourbon Whiskey Reviews Ben Holladay Bottled-In-Bond Bourbon Review So, in March, when Noelle Hale reached out to me to tell me all about Holladay Distillery in Missouri, I expected more of the same. Of course, it all begins with a story, doesn’t it?
On The Road Nashville Barrel Company Redefines the Honey Barrel A gourmet chef, a beekeeper, and a brewery owner walk into a bar… Waiting for them are Mike Hinds and James Davenport, the two gentlemen behind the meteoric rise of Nashville Barrel Company.
Book Reviews Pappyland Book Review “Maybe whiskey is so fragile because once the cap comes off, the past rushes out of the bottle and is gone forever,” Wright Thompson explains in one of his incredible passages that captures what makes bourbon so transcendent.
Banter Back To Where It All Began It all makes sense now. When I got into chasing down bourbon a little over a decade ago, the limited releases were annual and still fairly easy to obtain. My local Hy-Vee grocery store always had Elmer T. Lee and every Weller on the shelf (which at the time were a mere three expressions).
Banter How To Train Your Senses For Whiskey Tasting The legendary Parker Beam once said, “People say they taste mangoes and leather. I don’t put mangoes or leather in the whiskey. I put in corn, and I age it in oak barrels and that’s what I taste: corn and oak!”
Bourbon Whiskey Reviews Revisiting Distillery 291: Bad Guy and HR Whiskey Reviews Back in 2017 I covered the amazing journey of Michael Myers from east coast photographer to Rocky Mountains distiller. At the time, Distillery 291 was winning medals and garnering praise from a couple influential whiskey figures, but was still an off-the-radar craft distiller.
Banter Double Gold / Double Blind: Results From Our Annual Blind Tasting For the past 3 years, my friend Andy and I have helped curate and host a Spring blind whiskey tasting at Spirit World in Omaha. Laurie Hellbush loves her whiskey customers and she is kind enough to allow us to curate some fun experiments for them.
Rye Whiskey Reviews Wilderness Trail Settlers Select Rye Review In a field of what ended up being six rye whiskies, two stood out above the rest. The ultimate winner was Booker’s Rye, currently an $850 bottle. The consensus runner-up was a 3-year rye from a then-relatively unknown new distillery called “Wilderness Trail”.
Book Reviews The Whiskey Rebellion Book Review William Hogeland’s ‘The Whiskey Rebellion’ was published in 2006, well before the Bourbon Boom, and well before Lin Manuel Miranda had children rapping about Alexander Hamilton as a hero. Brilliant though Hamilton was, he was tone-deaf and out of touch with the people.
Book Reviews Bourbon & Bullets Book Review I am comfortable admitting that I likely wouldn’t have read Bourbon & Bullets: True Stores of Whiskey, War and Military Service if John Tramazzo hadn’t sent me a copy of it.
Banter How The Bourbon Crusaders Determined the Best Bourbons on the Shelf What may have been overshadowed by the shocking and magical live auction at “Willett To Be Cured” was the months-long, massive blind tasting to determine the best bourbons that can still be found on most store shelves.
Book Reviews Bourbon Justice Book Review It’s also a dusty hunter’s dream. I finally learned the origins of some pre-prohibition whiskeys I’ve tried, including Old Jordan (found in a 3-gallon glass carboy in a pharmacist’s office!), as well as a bottle from The American Medicinal Spirits Corporation.
Bourbon Whiskey Reviews Russell’s Reserve 2002 Review I still feel that blind tasting is the best way to evaluate a whiskey, though my convictions are softening on that stance.
Industry News Introducing Rising Tide Spirits with Ed Bley In today’s Bourbon landscape, where certain private barrel picks are coveted more than major limited edition releases, Ed Bley stands atop the mountain. He’s selected more than 200 individual whiskey barrels for a single store in just under 4 years’ time.
Gear Duke Cannon Big American Bourbon Soap Review Some people just can’t get enough Bourbon. There are candles you can light to fill your room with the magical scents of the rick house. There are Pappy Van Winkle barrel fermented cigars you can smoke that have literally been paired for you.
Banter Bourbonomics: Taking Advantage of Human Nature Mark Twain wrote that Tom Sawyer “had discovered a great law of human action, namely that in order to make a man covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.”
Rye Whiskey Reviews Barrell Rye Batch #2 Review Five years into Joe Beatrice’s foray into the independent bottling business, his Barrell brand has not taken its foot off the creative pedal.
Banter Gordy Hue and the Greatest Bourbon Story You’ve Never Heard If you found your way to Bourbon & Banter, then you’ve undoubtedly heard of Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon. And if you’ve heard of Pappy Van Winkle then know it’s coveted by everyone from aficionados to the people who cut their hair.
Banter Brett Atlas’ Best of 2017 The most important thing I’ve learned in 2017 is that taste is an argument that cannot be won. You may find your friend’s wife annoying or ugly, but you’re not likely to express that on Twitter.
Banter Taste More, Listen Less In a Louisville hotel room overlooking the Haymarket whiskey bar, my friend Brian had arranged something special. As I entered the room, I instantly spotted three rows of semi-filled glasses, each row dead-ending at an amber bottle marked with the letters ‘X’, ‘Y’ and ‘Z.’ “Oh, hell yes!”
American Whiskey Reviews Old Baldy Batch 1 Review Dave Perkins from High West once told me that whiskey drinkers want two things: (1) Something they’ve never had, and (2) Something they can’t get.
Rye Whiskey Reviews Kentucky Owl Rye Batch #1 Review “This unique offering is produced from a collection of barrels blended and brought to proof to accentuate both the delicate profile and the full-flavored body of the whiskey.
Events Parker’s Legacy of Hope Join emcee Fred Minnick and other legends of the industry at Mint Julep Tours Headquarters (1631 Mellwood Avenue) in Louisville to reminisce about Parker, enjoy food, fun and of course a complementary tasting of several extraordinary Bourbons.
Banter My Mount Rushmore of Reliable Bourbons I present to you my Mount Rushmore of Reliable Bourbons. These are the bottles that I could buy at any time and be perfectly content. These are not the best Bourbons I’ve ever had, but they are ones that I keep backed up at all times.
On The Road You Need to Meet… Ed Bley from Cork ‘N Bottle e’s been called “The Nicest Guy In Whiskey,” and my very first experience with Ed Bley, Spirits and Beer Manager for Kentucky’s Cork ‘N Bottle (CNB), certainly supports that title.
