This Round's Mine

A collection of 28 posts

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This Round's Mine

What the Four Roses Sale Actually Means

This isn't a disaster. It's not a guarantee of greatness either. Gallo has the resources and distribution muscle to make Four Roses bigger. Whether they make it better depends on how much they meddle.

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Which of the two Four Roses Barrel-Aged Beers is Our Favorite?

Created in 2007 as a "secret" holiday gift for staffers, the "secret" got out quickly enough that it became a commercial line extension in 2008. When offered a 16-ounce sample of it this year, I didn't hesitate to accept.

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A Conversation with Kaveh Zamanian on Luxe Bottles, Coming Price Drops

Is (the price of such bottles) going to get better over time? Absolutely, because when we move to our own distillate, it's going to get much better from a business standpoint. I think that benefit is going to get passed on to consumers as well.

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Garrard County Distilling foreclosure not a product of industry softness

$250 million committed and in just 14 months, it’s bankrupt! So what caused this rapid collapse? Soft sales in American whiskey? Over-extension on its investment? Hubris? Ignorance?

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Top Bourbon Resolutions for 2025

I am declaring 2025 the year of the Big Bottle Share. Bottle shares are a cornerstone of the whiskey community, but with so many folks stocked to the gills with bottles hoarded from the pandemic and subsequent bourbon boom...

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8 Bourbon Trends We Want Gone (or to Stay) in 2025

If you've never visited Punch.com, it's a great booze-centric website with great info, stories and cocktail recipes. The site's crew did a running commentary of which drink trends should disappear next year, and we thought it so good that we decided to do

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Will U.S.-based Stoli Group’s bankruptcy ground Kentucky Owl?

Recent releases of Kentucky Owl and Wiseman whiskies weren’t building brand confidence either. What made the Kentucky Owl bourbon created by founder Dixon Dedman and partners Mark and Sherri Carter so fantastic were deep stocks of rare, old and high-quality sourced barrels. Either those dried up...

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Marketing genius, powerful pricing and misguided tequila thieves in the news

Apparently, the black-market value of Santo Tequila, a celebrity spirit backed by rocker Sammy Hagar and TV food personality Guy Fieri, has a far higher value than I’d give it. But to at least someone, it’s worth risking prison time for stealing lots of it.

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MGP to slow whiskey production; potential Trump tariffs; what's their impact on U.S. drinkers?

If the biggest, best-connected bulk supplier in the market is turning away from that portion of its business, does that open the door for other contract suppliers? Or are they also facing excess inventories that will force them to slow down?

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Tequila takedowns, cask finishes, and BTAC pricing...oh my!

This week, Buffalo Trace announced the release of its Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. Of the five bottles in the group, none exceed $149.99. You read that right. MSRP is $149.99.

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Will the whiskey slump end soon? Depends on who you ask.

Smaller producers, NDPs especially, are more concerned. Whiskey shelves at liquor stores are crowded, and getting attention for their brands is more difficult than ever, especially when powerhouse producers can reduce prices to keep sales moving.

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What is moderate drinking?

Back to the evolving data on what defines moderate drinking. It seems researchers are wisely reconsidering the long-held rule of two for guys and one for gals each day. Viewed through a new lens, it appears some of past researchers’ methods look a bit unreliable...

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Are popular whiskey festivals a good gauge for bourbon’s ‘health’?

But does such enthusiasm truly reflect the health of the bourbon category? Are events like the Bourbon Festival and WhiskeyFest and myriad other whiskey-centric events around the country truly indicative of the category’s health?

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Is Wood All You Got for Uniqueness?

In the past decade, American distillers have turned to unique cooperage to differentiate their whiskeys. In some cases, it’s worked wonderfully, especially when real experts in the management of maturate and blending are pulling the levers.

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Hobby Distilling Should Be Legal in the U.S.

On a small, hobbyist scale, the practice is simple, safe, and rewarding for those who have the patience to do it. A common statement made was, “It’s just fun to sit around with friends and make whiskey, sip what you made last time and look forward to what’s in the still.”

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Bourbon Blunder Down Under?

“We do not believe that our spirit contravenes U.S. law, as our production process adheres to the legal requirements set forth under the Australia-U.S. free trade agreement..."

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Whiskey Market Analysis: Are Distilleries Overproducing?

Really? We know that strategy isn’t fool proof. Remember all those single barrels we picked which were 12-15 years old? They got that old because letting the whiskey sit was the only option. That idea also doesn’t take into account all the taxes on those barrels.

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Barton 1792 Distillery Awards Demonstrate Sazerac's Deep Bench

At least single-barrel picks are better at Barton. My first pick ever happened there on a frigid winter day; the outdoor temp was 18 degrees and I was wondering why anyone thought this was fun.

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Alcohol’s Impact Increases With Age, So Drink Wisely, Friends

None of the researchers quoted in the article recommended swearing off alcohol given complications as one ages. One even pointed out that drinking is a social convention, and socializing is a huge part of mental health.

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Who Has the Better Palate – Women or Men?

It’s not some battle of the sexes thing for me, it’s just a question: Upon what grounds do you base a claim that women have better palates than men?

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Stagg Wins 'Best Bourbon'—In Other News, Water is Wet

To be fair, at least this is a great whiskey winning the top prize. However, given the number of awards won by the whiskey named after a suffer-no-fools distiller, these competitions are boring for everyone except Buffalo Trace.

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A Private Barrel Pick at Four Roses Bourbon Is One of a Kind

“Oh, we’ve had people argue about it for sure,” Mandy Vance, manager of the Private Barrel Selection process at Four Roses, told me a few years ago about a pick. They generally work it out, though, because they’re having fun.”

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Rye Isn't All That Spicy, Experts Say

Immediately, I thought of Heaven Hill’s bourbons, which have only 10 percent rye in the mashbill but come off as nicely spicy in the glass. Then Veach cited Old Fitzgerald, a wheated bourbon that has terrific spice notes despite having no rye.

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Many National Bourbon Day Cocktails in Kentucky Aren’t Worth Celebrating

Last year at a high-level Kentucky whiskey industry event I requested a Manhattan. When the genial “bartender” merely poured me bourbon on the rocks, I asked about the vermouth and bitters. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “Can you tell me what to put in?” I settled for whiskey on the rocks.

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Sourcing Whiskey: Good or Homogenizing?

But after tasting hundreds of bourbon iterations in my career, the consistency of them many is becoming as concerning as comforting. Some days, I wonder if too many are just too similar, especially when I see so many parallels in my tasting notes (and others’) for reviews and barrel picks.