Recent Rickhouse Articles

What Bourbon "Heat Cycling" Actually Does If you've spent any real time going down the bourbon rabbit hole — and if you're reading this, odds are you have — you've probably come across the term "heat cycling" at some point. Maybe a distillery guide dropped it during a tour, or you saw it on the ba

You've probably cracked open a bottle of Michter's or Woodford Reserve, poured a couple fingers, and thought — this is good. Real good. But have you ever stopped to wonder why it tastes that way? A lot of bourbon drinkers know the basics: corn mash, charred oak barrels, years of aging. Most peopl

Does Barrel Placement Really Change Your Whiskey? Most guys crack open a bottle of good bourbon and think about the grain, maybe the char on the barrel, or how many years it spent aging. What almost nobody thinks about is where that barrel was sitting inside the warehouse while those years ticke

Does Your Bourbon's Warehouse Actually Matter? Picture this: two bottles of bourbon, same distillery, same mashbill, same recipe, aged the same number of years. You pour them side by side, take a sip of each, and — wait, what? They taste completely different. One is rich and dark with deep oak and