This Week on WhiskyCast

A First for Craft Distilling (Episode 846: November 22, 2020)

Craft distillers dream of not only having their whiskies alongside those of the major global brands, but outselling them. For the Quint family of Iowa’s Cedar Ridge Distillery, that dream has become a reality. Earlier this month, Iowa’s state liquor agency released sales data showing that Cedar Ridge Iowa Straight Bourbon was the top-selling Bourbon in the state over the previous 12 months – beating the big Bourbons for the first time. We’ll talk with Murphy Quint, who was a teenager when his parents opened Cedar Ridge 15 years ago and is now head distiller. In the news, time is running out for Congress and the Trump Administration to extend a critical federal excise tax cut for distillers. We’ll have that story and the rest of the week’s whisky news on this edition of WhiskyCast!

Ending the Whisky Trade War (Episode 845: November 15, 2020)

There’s a lot of political turmoil these days, and European Union leaders threw gasoline on the fire with this week’s decision to impose new import tariffs on American-made rum, vodka, brandy, and vermouth to go along with the existing 25% tariff on American whiskies. The Trump Administration had previously pledged to respond with additional tariffs on European goods, and that could mean more whiskies are under the threat of new tariffs – in a dispute between allies that has nothing to do with the spirits industry.

Could the incoming Biden Administration take a different approach that reduces the rhetoric and leads to the removal of whisky tariffs on both sides of the Atlantic? We’ll discuss that with Distilled Spirits Council CEO Chris Swonger, who’s been trying to persuade U.S. and European leaders to do just that for more than two years. We’ll also have the rest of the week’s whisky news, including distillery construction in Scotland and the latest on new whiskies…including one that won’t leave you feeling blue!

Join us each Friday night for our live #HappyHour webcast on the WhiskyCast YouTube channel, our Facebook page, Twitter, and Periscope. This week, we’ll have another one of our popular roundtable discussions with a panel of whisky writers and journalists!

Colin Scott recently joined The Last Drop Distillers after a long career as master blender at Chivas Brothers, and he joined us on Friday night’s #HappyHour webcast live on location at Sagamore Spirit Distillery in Baltimore.

If you have an idea for a guest you’d like to see on one of our webcasts or a way that we can help you learn more about whisky, just use the contact form or catch us on social media. We’d love to hear from you!

We are humbled and proud to have won the 2020 Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Award for “Best Broadcast, Podcast, or Online Series.” The award was announced September 21 during the kickoff of this year’s virtual Tales conference, and while the award was given for overall excellence, the episode we submitted for judging was our show this past February with Dewar’s Malts brand ambassador Una Green as she was preparing to return to work after beating breast cancer. We want to thank Una again for trusting us to share her story with you. We’d also like to congratulate our colleagues at Difford’s Guide, Happy Hour History, and The Speakeasy on being named finalists, and encourage you to give their podcasts a listen!

Each month, we honor a whisky club as our Whisky Club of the Month, and the club receives two dozen WhiskyCast Glencairn glasses to use at their club tastings thanks to our friends at Glencairn Crystal. Congratulations to November’s winning club, the Nichada Bangkok Whisky Club in Bangkok, Thailand! The club is made up of expats from 10 different countries…and growing!

If you’re in a whisky club and would like to nominate your club, just use the contact form to get in touch with us and tell us about your club. If your club has a web site or is active on social media, we’ll also be glad to add a link on our directory of Whisky Clubs around the world so other whisky lovers can find you. You only need to nominate your club once, since we carry over entries from month to month.

We’re celebrating another milestone!

Our very first episode of WhiskyCast dropped on November 12, 2005, and thanks for joining us each week as we celebrate our 15th anniversary as the world’s longest-running whisky podcast series!

Each week, veteran journalist Mark Gillespie brings you the latest whisky news, in-depth interviews, tasting notes, and much more. Each podcast features brand-new content, and unless there’s a special occasion, we don’t do “best of” shows.

If you’re just discovering us for the first time, here’s a bit of our own story. WhiskyCast pioneered the genre of whisky-focused podcasts back in 2005, when most people had never heard of podcasting! Since then, we’ve produced hundreds of hours of original – and free – audio and video content for whisky lovers like you around the world. Our community spans the globe, and we’ve done stories on whiskies made in the far north of Scandinavia all the way to the tips of South Africa and Australia – and everywhere in between. We’ve met many of you at whisky festivals and while visiting distilleries, and hope to meet many more of you over time.

Please explore the website. We’ve collected all of our past episodes here, and post the latest whisky news as it happens – often several days before the next episode of WhiskyCast. All of our web content is free, including Mark’s database of more than 3,000 tasting notes for whiskies from around the world and our calendar of upcoming whisky festivals and tastings.

We’re able to do this thanks to the support of our advertisers – both past and present. They advertise on WhiskyCast knowing that they will never have any say over our editorial content, and may even have their ads running next to features on their competitors. They recognize the importance of independent, fact-based journalism devoted to telling the stories of whisky in a creative, yet ethically sound way focused on helping you learn more about whisky. If you’re interested in finding out more about our advertising packages, please contact us!

Slainte!

The WhiskyCast Team

Mark Gillespie’s Whisky Photo of the Week

How do you handle a special distillery-only release in a pandemic? Sagamore Spirit Distillery in Baltimore turned to a curbside pick-up service Saturday for its second annual Penny’s Proof Rye preview release, and people started lining up four hours in advance.