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There's a lot of science behind the time-honored tip.Whiskey aficionados are known for having strong opinions about, well, most things. They quibble over the concept of terroir in whiskey, turn their nose at bottlings that are chill-filtered, and debate whether age is indicative of quality. The list of contentious whiskey-related subjects is seemingly endless, but one tasting-related topic that divides enthusiasts is whether or not to add water to a glass of whiskey to open it up, and if one decides to do so, where that water should be sourced from, as well as how pure it should be. Before...

A fact to nail down right off the bat when finding the dividing line between these two spirits is that ... all bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon. To explain — whiskey is a catch-all term for spirits distilled from fermented grain mash; this can include any combination of grains — think corn, rye, barley, and wheat. Bourbon is a subcategory of whiskey with distinctive details. According to the American Bourbon Association, for whiskey to earn the bourbon label, it must contain at least 51% corn in its grain mix. Additionally, it needs to be: distilled to...

A bottle of Scotch whisky barreled in 1926 and bottled in 1986 sold at auction for over $2 million, shattering records for spirits of its kind. The bottle of Macallan 1926 sold for a staggering $2.1 million on Saturday, far surpassing organizers' expected selling price. Sotheby's, the historic auction house that oversaw the sale, originally expected the bottle to sell somewhere between $934,000 and $1.4 million. At that price point, the whiskey is worth approximately $131,000 per shot. Only 40 bottles of Macallan 1926 have ever been produced, and they are not for sale. Instead, the 40 luxury bottles of...

Whiskey is for drinking, not hoarding.Regrets, I've had a few, not limited to consuming drugstore sushi, most of my high school class photos, and buying a small quantity of Ethereum (which I regret to inform you is cryptocurrency) in the spring of 2021. Not on the list: drinking every last drop of my bottle of LeNell's Red Hook Rye, which now lists for up to $100,000 on the open market. I would like to state for the record that I did not spend the equivalent of a Porsche 911 on this bottle of whiskey (maybe if I'd picked up that...

NATIONAL REPEAL DAY On December 5th, National Repeal Day commemorates the day Prohibition ended in the United States. #NationalRepealDay Prohibition grew out a practice of moderation rooted in the Protestant churches in America. By the 1830s, consumption of alcohol, especially hard spirits, was affecting the nation. Most participants were male. Those who supported who joined the Temperance movement saw alcohol as the root of all evil. The movement took hold at a time when women had few rights, and the country was debating slavery. Ethics and mores were changing. The Temperance movement shifted the view on alcohol use from moderation...

The Supreme Court is going to the dogs. The high court on Monday said it would hear a dispute between Jack Daniel’s and a company that sells a parody dog toy that mimics the whiskey brand’s iconic bottle. Jack Daniel’s had asked the high court to hear its case against Arizona-based VIP Products, which manufactures the Bad Spaniels dog toy. The toy resembles the Jack Daniel’s bottle and label, though the wording is different. The parody label reads “The Old No. 2 on Your Tennessee Carpet,” while the original reads “Old No. 7 brand” and “Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey.” Other...

It was last used when whisky was measured in hogsheads and production of the water of life was moving from an often-illicit farmyard enterprise to a thriving national business.Now the secrets of whisky production from 200 years ago are being uncovered by archaeologists probing the remains of a distillery which ceased production in 1824.Fire pits which would once have heated copper stills, tasting glasses, bottles and the timber-lined vats which held gallons of the amber nectar have all been unearthed at the National Trust dig on the old site of the Glenlivet distillery.During the past two weeks the archaeology team...

The Macallan keeps its streak alive as the most coveted Scotch brand on the planet.If you forget about a $20 bill in your coat pocket and find it 30 years laters, it's still worth $20. But the same cannot be said for rare whisky. If you forget about a cask of Scotch you bought for $6,275 in 1988, three decades later, it may be worth nearly $1.3 million. A cask of The Macallan distilled in 1988 is laying claim to the record for most expensive whisky cask ever sold at auction after fetching $1,295,500 on Sunday from an unnamed American...

The cask, originally filled on May 5 1988, had been held in bond at the Macallan Distillery in Moray for almost 34 years. It was bought on a whim by an expat who then forgot about it for more than three decades until they were reminded by Macallan that it was still maturing in the warehouse. Daniel Milne, co-founder and managing director of Whisky Hammer, said: 'When this cask was listed in our auction, we knew it had the potential to make history 'To come across a cask of this age, quality and size is extraordinary in itself, enhanced by...

Are NFTs the next big thing for high-end whisky collectors? Two entrepreneurs that were behind a record-breaking $2.3 million sale of a 1991 The Macallan cask earlier this month certainly think so. The double-size cask, a first-fill sherry butt distilled at The Macallan, which currently holds about 600 bottles of 30-year-old whisky, was sold at auction. It included a digital asset from artist Trevor Jones called “The Angel’s Share,” which is an uncompressed scan of Jones’ oil painting as well as an animated component. The sale was a partnership between Origin Protocol, a company that drops NFTs, one-of-a-kind digital assets...

Jack Daniel's Whiskey is a brand of Tennessee whiskey and because it is the top-selling American whiskey in the world, we thought we'd get a selection of the various types of JD and see what our TRYers had to say about it! The Tryers featured in this video: Dermot Ward, Justine Stafford, Lolsy Byrne, Martin Angolo, MC (Mary-Claire), Ciara O'Doherty.Irish People Try Jack Daniel's Whiskey [video (language)]

It’s been a day of good news for the Scotch whisky industry. Following the announcement that the U.K. government wouldn’t raise taxes on alcohol, the U.S. has announced that it is suspending tariffs for four months on a number of goods produced in the U.K., including single malt Scotch whisky. The Scotch whisky industry had lost £500 million ($700 million) in business from the tariffs and exports had plunged to a 10-year low, so understandably this is a big relief for the industry.

Across the world there are now 200,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 - but a herd of elephants in China found a very fun way to make the most of people putting themselves in self-isolationSNIP And at one farm in the Yunan province, elephants too full advantage of the situation. The herd of 14 majestic beasts broke into a village in a bid to find food. However, they got a cheeky extra for their efforts when they came across a huge 30kg of corn wine. After drinking the lot the elephants were somewhat the worse for wear. Two males passed out,...

Boris Johnson has personally lobbied Donald Trump to scrap tariffs on single malt whisky that threaten thousands of Scottish jobs after facing demands to intervene. The Prime Minister used a phone call to the US President on Wednesday evening to express his "disappointment" at the decision to impose tariffs on a series of UK exports next week, including Scotch.

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Two barrel warehouses at a Jim Beam aging facility burned for hours overnight in Kentucky. WKYT reports the facility caught fire at around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. One warehouse caught fire, which then spread to a second warehouse. Roughly 45,000 barrels of bourbon were in one of the burning warehouses. Officials said it’s possible the fire was caused by a lightning strike. VERSAILLES, Ky. (WKYT) - Multiple crews are on the scene of a major fire at a bourbon warehouse facility. Massive fire at a Jim Beam warehouse facility in Woodford County Woodford County Emergency Management Director Drew...

After more than 111 years of living, the nation's oldest veteran was treated to an unexpected first: a trip on a private jet. On Saturday, Austin's Richard Overton was flown to Washington, D.C., for a tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The trip was made possible by billionaire Austin businessman and philanthropist Robert F. Smith. Last Friday, Smith spent a couple hours visiting Overton, believed to be the oldest man in America, at Overton's home. Overton mentioned that one day, he'd like to visit the museum, where Smith donated $20 million. The next morning, Overton...

The famous Maison du Whisky liquor store in Paris was targeted thieves who looted some €673,000 worth of vintage bottles including one that cost nearly €200,000. When the thieves broke into the Maison du Whisky - one of the French capital's most famous liquor stores on Sunday night they knew exactly what they were after. After smashing their way through the metal shutter and the door of the store located in the on Rue d'Anjou in the plush eighth arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Elysée Palace, the thieves headed straight for the most expensive bottles. According to Le...

Scotland has called for Scotch to be defined in U.K. law so its vital whisky industry can be protected after Brexit. Scottish Economy Secretary Keith Brown has written to officials asking for strong legal protections for the industry, which is worth around £4 billion ($5.3 billion) in exports. A European Union definition of whisky currently protects sales from substandard products — but EU laws will no longer apply to Britain after the country exits the bloc in 2019. …

A rare bottle of whisky signed by US president elect Donald Trump has sold for £6,000 at auction in Glasgow. The 26-year-old GlenDronach single malt whisky was bottled in 2012 to mark the opening of Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeenshire. A Canadian bidder paid more than twice the estimated price to secure the bottle at the auction of rare whiskies.

Who invented whisky, the Scots or the Irish, is a debate as old as time, but one thing is for sure, the old Bushmills distillery in Northern Ireland is the world’s oldest official whiskey distillery, going back to 1603. The word whiskey itself is derived from the Gaelic word uisce (or uisge in Scotland), meaning “water”. Simply put, Irish whiskey is whiskey that is distilled and aged in Ireland, regardless of whether it’s the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland. It is distilled from a yeast-fermented mash of cereal grains (ranging from malted barley, corn, wheat, rye and so on),...