One of the more confused topics when we talk about the history of the American whiskey world is the topic of rectifiers. I really wish there was a way to […]
What Should a “Pennsylvania Rye Whiskey” Category Look Like Today?
This has been an ongoing debate for a while now…even if it should have been a debate that took place in the 1930s. (Hindsight is 20/20 they say…) The question […]
The Halloween Tragedy that Relocated a Distillery
On Halloween night, just outside Connellsville, Pennsylvania, a man was violently murdered for the gold in his pockets. Mystery surrounded the event, and for years the townspeople spun tales and […]
How Canada Quietly Changed the American Whiskey Drinker’s Palate
The last few weeks have been spent trying to find my way back onto social media platforms. I was kicked out on October 1st when I crossed our northern international […]
The Old Monocacy Creek and Her Distilleries
I was recently asked about distilleries that would have once existed in a specific area of eastern Pennsylvania. Why not, right? It seemed a good time to post about a […]
Where Did All Those Whiskey Terms Come From?
I have been thinking a lot lately about labeling terms for whiskey that we take for granted in the United States. Bottled-in bond, straight whiskey, bourbon, pure rye, fine old […]
The British Connection to America’s “Bottled in Bond” Whiskeys
What connects “bottled in bond”, a term we tend to associate with American whiskeys, to English investments? Let me explain… I am so VERY curious about the history of American […]
When Bottled in Bond Was Not Actually “Bottled in Bond”
The Bottled in Bond Act is something that most whiskey enthusiasts can recite the basics on fairly easily. A whiskey that’s bottled-in-bond is a 100 proof, four-year-old whiskey that’s been […]
Do We Romanticize Pre-Prohibition Whiskey?
The question is inevitably asked whenever a discussion about pre-Prohibition American whiskeys comes up: “We we romanticize pre-Prohibition whiskey?” Industry folks tend to be very skeptical about “the old methods.” […]
From 1925 to Repeal: How the Medicinal Whiskey Makers Changed Everything
We’ve discussed the early 1920s, so let’s address what came next. We tend to think of Prohibition as the heyday of bootlegging and speakeasies…a vague, lawless period of time where […]