Banter Chill Filtration: What You Need to Know If you’ve ever left a bottle of whiskey in a car trunk on a cold winter night, chilled it in a refrigerator or poured it over ice and seen strange, opaque bits appear in the glass, you’ve experienced whiskey flock.
Banter Featured Bourbon & Banter Anniversary – 11+ Years And Counting Eleven years ago today, I published the first post on Bourbon & Banter titled, “Welcome, Fellow Bourbon Lovers.” A mere seven months before, we started the Bourbon & Banter Facebook page, the first digital property associated with a bourbon club I started at work with a few colleagues.
Banter Wyoming Whiskey: Well Worth the Lone Prairie Journey The discussion to create a distillery was born of Kate Mead’s pitch to her husband to build a winery. Her notion was, in common spouse-dismissal fashion, prompt and pointed. According to co-founder David DeFazio, “Brad thought she was crazy and told her, ‘No one grows grapes out here.’”
Banter Bourbon Heritage Month 2022 – That’s A Wrap! Bourbon Heritage Month 2022 may be over, but I’m personally still recovering from its effects. I’m not just talking about the physical impact of completing the #30DaysOfBourbon Challenge.
Banter Your Guide to the Proposed American Single Malt Standards of Identity On July 29, 2022, the Trade and Tax Bureau (TTB) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would give American Single Malt a formal, legal definition in American whiskey. These are also called the Standards of Identity (SOI).
Banter Bourbon Heritage Month 2022 Bourbon Heritage Month has arrived! It’s that time of year again, and whether this is your first year celebrating Bourbon Heritage Month or you’re a seasoned pro, we’re thrilled to have you join us for the next 30 days.
Banter 30 Days of Bourbon Challenge: Are You Ready? The rules are pretty simple: This is a Bourbon challenge. No Rye, Scotch, Irish, Indian, Taiwanese, Canadian, Japanese, Australian, yadda, yadda, yadda. If it ain’t Bourbon, it doesn’t count.
Banter The Truth About Crab Trapper Whiskey Since I’m always up for an adventure, of course, I wanted to try Crab Trapper Whiskey when offered a sample. It’s a 4-year-old bourbon steeped with 90 pounds of green crabs and seasoned with spices reminiscent of a low-country boil. Crazy, right? But I was up for it.
Banter RTD Cocktails Are Fine, But Not Yet Great Such people are the ideal audience for ready to drink cocktails, a.k.a. RTDs. My friends enjoy variety in flavor and spirits, but more importantly, they like it delivered by someone else.
Banter O.H. Ingram Whiskey Proves River Aging Is a Delicious Thing River barges don’t seem large until you’re about to enter one. The vessel before me is 200 feet long, 24 feet wide and 24 feet tall: not diminutive by any stretch. (That a barge pilot and towboat can link together 35 of these and squeeze the lot through a river canal lock is just beyond me.)
Banter Jeff Arnett To Innovate with Finished Whiskeys at Company Distilling Contrary to what some have suspected, Jeff Arnett didn’t leave because he disliked the master distiller’s post at Jack Daniel’s. Even after 12 years in the high-stress role as the person in charge of whiskey making at the world’s most prodigious whiskey plant.
Banter BBC’s Nally ponders slowing down after 50 years in distilling Seeing Steve Nally in a suit and tie is unusual. Six-foot-four and broad-shouldered, the master distiller at Bardstown Bourbon Co. (BBC) has as good a frame for fine couture as any 71 year old.
Banter OH, BROTHER! TALES OF THE COCKTAIL ADDS NEW SPIRITS COMPETITION Drinkers need another spirits competition to tell them what to buy about as much as spirits makers need these medal-fests to tell them their products are great. Yet despite having several of these competitions annually, we’re getting another.
Banter Bourbon Crusaders & STRAW Announce Four Horsemen Kentucky Straight Bourbon As first reported in Episode 23 of the Bourbon & Banter Podcast, the Bourbon Crusaders are partnering with the Society for Transparency in American Whiskey (STRAW) for a release that can only be described as a bourbon nerds dream. Fred Noe, Jimmy Russell, Jim Rutledge & Chris Morris got together.
Banter Rigorous testing is the norm for every Maker’s Wood Finishing Series Referring to a pair of upcoming Wood Finishing Series fall 2022 releases, Jane Bowie, the brand’s director of innovation says, “These whiskeys will be further away from our normal taste profile than before. … With what we’ve done in the past, I believe we’ve earned the trust of consumers..."
Banter The Bourbon Blues: Life with Post-Covid Anosmia When my wife tested positive for Covid in November of 2020, she bounced back from it quickly. So, when we suspected our kids might have it 10 months later, I assumed that any fight would be equally brief.
Banter Maybe it’s time to ditch the term ‘craft distillery’ If you’re a whiskey drinker who likes variety and isn’t hidebound to a single notion of what “bourbon should taste like,” then I’d love to pour you some whiskeys you probably haven’t had. Ryes and bourbons from distilleries making a 2,000 to 3,000 barrels a year—or less.
Banter Heads & Tails: “Back in the Grave” Edition In Chuck Cowdery’s early 2022 edition of his quarterly print piece, “The Bourbon Country Reader,” he says MGP should kill off the George Remus brand and find another name for the otherwise good bourbon created for that SKU.
Banter Heads & Tails: Are Single Barrels Illegal Edition That’s the growing concern at Kentucky distilleries, where thousands of whiskey fans sample whiskeys from thousands of barrels every year.
Banter Whiskey Writer, Steve Coomes, Named Editor of Bourbon & Banter Patrick “Pops” Garrett, founder of Bourbon & Banter, has appointed Steve Coomes editor for BourbonBanter.com. The global top 10 whiskey-centric website includes a podcast and virtual bourbon club for its nationwide membership.
Banter Whiskey Advent Calendar Scam Christmas is over, the New Year is here, and you may have received a whiskey advent calendar that you ordered online after seeing multiple ads. The sales were terrific, and dammit, this was just a super-cool idea! You clicked on the ad.
Banter Bourbon 101 – A Primer for Bourbon Novices If you’re new to the world of bourbon, this post is for you. This post is written with the novice-to-intermediate bourbon drinker in mind, so please read on for a primer. It is essentially a condensed and compiled list of information I was curious about at the start of my own bourbon journey.
Banter 13 Must Haves for the Perfect Bourbon Bar When the Urban Bourbon Trail was created in Louisville, Ky., in 2008, member bars were required to list at least 50 bourbons. Is 2021, does 50 sound like too few to have at a dedicated bourbon bar? I don’t think so. Then what is the ideal number?
Banter Buffalo Trace 2021 George T. Stagg Non-Release Review Every year, I wait longingly for the release of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, praying to snag just one bottle. This set of five ultra premium, highly prized whiskeys from Buffalo Trace garners a wild-eyed, cash-throwing frenzy from bourbon collectors and flippers alike.
Banter Top 5 Most Overrated Bourbons Top 5 Most Overrated Bourbons – Now that Bourbon Heritage Month is in the rearview mirror, the fall release season will be picking up steam and we are sure to see email announcements, raffles, charity auctions, and lawn chair tater lines wrapped around liquor stores across this great land.
