Walk into any serious whiskey bar these days and you’ll hear the same conversation: guys arguing over which finished bourbon or whiskey actually improves on the original. Most of the time the finish feels like a gimmick. Sometimes it works. And every once in a great while something comes along that

For a lot of guys who’ve been chasing good bourbon for the last twenty years, the words “six-year-old single barrel at cask strength for seventy bucks” sound like something from a different decade. Back when you could still walk into a liquor store and find Pappy 15 gathering dust on the shelf for

I was reading a whiskey-tasting interview the other day, and the expert made one simple point: palate cleansing can help, but only in the right moments. That stuck with me, mostly because I’ve heard guys argue about this like it’s a matter of national pride. When It Actually Helps Here’s the

Deep in Clermont, Kentucky, where the air smells like charred oak and time moves a little slower, the Beam family has been making whiskey the same way for over two hundred years. Most folks know the big name — Jim Beam — but inside the distilleries and among the men who actually run the stills, the

If you’ve hung around bourbon folks lately, you’ve probably heard the word Amburana tossed around like it’s some kind of secret handshake. A few years back, most of us couldn’t have picked the wood out of a lineup. Now it feels like every craft distillery in America is stuffing barrels with the s

Every man reading this has at least one skeleton in his liquor cabinet. That bottle you bought because it was on sale, or your brother-in-law swore it was “just as good,” or you were in a hurry and grabbed the wrong label. Mine was a plastic-handle Old Crow I picked up the week before Christmas las

Bourbon lovers know the ritual: a well-chosen bottle, a proper glass, a quiet moment to enjoy the corn-sweet richness, vanilla, caramel, oak, and that long, warm finish. Now imagine taking a perfect sip right after a bite of ghost-pepper wings or extra-hot Nashville chicken. What happens next is no

If you’re a whiskey lover like me, you’ve probably wondered if it’s cheaper to buy your favorite bottle straight from the distillery. I mean, cutting out the middleman sounds like a no-brainer, right? But is it really a steal, or are you just falling for the charm of those rustic barrel rooms? Let

Every year the spirits world throws a big fancy party in San Francisco where the real heavy hitters show up — master distillers, buyers, writers, and a few hundred folks who just love a good drink. They blind-taste thousands of bottles, argue late into the night, and finally hand out the awards tha

Most guys who love basketball and a good pour remember Cliff Hagan as the slick-shooting, hook-shot master who helped the St. Louis Hawks beat Bill Russell’s Celtics for the 1958 NBA title. What a lot of folks don’t realize is that long after the final buzzer, the man they called “Li’l Abner” never