Here’s some advice that may help you if you’re new to the world of podcasts…

Q: What is a podcast?

Think of podcasts as radio shows that you can listen to whenever you want. You probably already have a podcast player on your smartphone or tablet, and you can also listen with home smart speakers or on a desktop computer with Apple’s iTunes, Spotify, or other audio software. Just open the app, find the search button, and enter WhiskyCast – it’ll take you to the links for our podcasts, and you can take it from there. You’ll also find thousands of other podcasts on almost every imaginable subject, and we encourage you to explore and check out other podcasts, too.

Q: Why do I need to subscribe, and how much does it cost?

First of all, it doesn’t cost anything to listen to episodes of our podcasts – or most podcasts in general. There are some podcast producers that place “premium” episodes behind a paywall, but that’s not how we work. “Subscribing” to a podcast doesn’t work like a magazine or newspaper subscription that you pay for. In podcasting, subscribing just tells your app to refresh our RSS feeds and automatically download any new episodes that have been released since the last time it refreshed the feed. That way, you can binge-listen without having to wait for new episodes to download or when you might not have access to an Internet connection.

Q: I clicked on your “Click the link to subscribe” button, and my web page was full of gibberish. What gives?

What you’re looking at is the raw data from the RSS feed mentioned above. That’s the computer code that tells your aggregator whether there’s a new feed, and yes, we found it confusing at first, too. The important thing to remember is to take the address from that page, highlight it, then copy and paste it into the receiving software of your choice. Most web pages now translate the gibberish into something readable, though, and may even offer you a way to subscribe to the feed.

If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to use the contact form here on the website and ask us. We’ve been doing this for many years, and are always glad to help other people discover podcasts!