This Round's Mine

A collection of 38 posts

This Round's Mine

How Honey Took Over Whiskey: A Short History and 56 Bottles To Explore

What you’re about to see is my compilation of honey‑whiskey releases over the years, assembled after far too many late‑night searches and e-mail inquiries asking brands what kind of honey they used in their releases.

This Round's Mine

Happy 15th Anniversary!

Mostly, though, this one's a thank you. To everyone who's read something, shared something, emailed me, become a member, or just kept showing up.

This Round's Mine

How Do You Like These Apples? — A Cautionary Tale for Brands Who Can't Handle Honest Reviews

So no, we're not keeping this one quiet. When someone drags one of our people through the mud in front of an audience, we're going to respond. Not out of spite. Not to manufacture drama. But because staying silent has a cost too, and we've already paid it once.

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Did Wild Turkey Just Pull A Springsteen?

Here's the thing about Wild Turkey. The brand has always meant something. Not just good whiskey — accessible good whiskey. Wild Turkey 101 is one of the best values in bourbon, full stop.

Stave & Thief Society

The First B&B Associate Bourbon Steward Class Is in the Books

Twenty people walked into B&B HQ on Saturday morning. All twenty are now Certified Bourbon Stewards. That's a 100% pass rate, which I'll take — though I'll also admit I was rooting hard for everyone in that room.

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Lower Prices, Lower Proofs: The New Trend Bringing Bourbon To The Masses

With the bourbon base pulling back from purchasing, brands need to expand to wider audiences to continue growing. To do that means coming to market with more approachable products.

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Before Bourbon & Banter, There Was Bourbon Club

October 2008 to now is nearly a third of my life. That's a weird sentence to sit with. A joke about Don Draper's bar cart set off a chain of events that became a business, a community, a podcast, a content platform, tastings across the country, and whatever comes next.

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Life’s short, so drink your whiskey wisely, and have fun

Full abstinence from alcohol isn't essential, says Feldhaus. An occasional consumer of beer and wine in the company of friends and with food, he balances alcohol’s drawbacks and its benefits.

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This Round's Mine

Your High-Proof Habit Might Be Wrecking Your Palate

This Round's Mine

Fourteen Years of Not Selling Out

So tonight, wherever you are and whatever's in your glass — raise it. We made it fourteen years. That deserves at least a few pours.

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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?

Members only

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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

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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.”