Whiskey Lore Journal

One of our members in the Whiskey Lore Whisky Community (Facebook Group) posted a link to a distillery's membership club. This sparked an idea. How about a list of all of the best distillery loyalty clubs and ambassador programs.

Two distilleries located in the Speyside region of Scotland, but not claiming it for some reason. Both feature nice fruit, but in different ways.

Recently a Macallan whisky was announced to hold a $58,000 per bottle price tag.

There are a lot of reasons a 67 year old whisky will cost an incredible amount.

The first is the rarity of it. It is actually very difficult to have a whisky live for 67 years in a cask. In Scotland, 1 to 2 percent of the whisky in a barrel evaporates per year. A ten year old cask will likely yield around 200 bottles of whisky. By the time a cask gets over 50 years, you’ve basically got maybe 10–15% of the barrel with liquid still in it. By 67 years, you’re likely getting just a few bottles of whisky out of a barrel. So, part of the cost is to make up for all of the loss through evaporation.

This is an interesting match up between a Campbeltown single malt whiskey aged 15 years and a corn whiskey from Ireland Teeling Single Grain.

Time to do some high proof tasting. Thanks to my Instagram buddy Todd Ritter (a great fan of the show) I had the opportunity to blind taste 5 different bourbons. All were great, one blew me away.

The tale of two Texas whiskey's. No, these aren't a perfect match - Balcones is 46% ABV and Ironroot Harbinger 115 is 57.5% ABV but both are corn forward whiskeys created in pot stills (one a Kentucky pot still, the other from Speyside Scotland). But my main objective was to give you an idea of the diversity of spirits coming out of the Lone Star State.

For having said I wanted to avoid putting a bourbon vs a scotch, it seems that Beam Suntory teased me into trying it out - since they were so willing to collaborate between Japan and Kentucky. And Dalmore 12 seemed like an interesting scotch to pair it up with.

Okay, trying something that I said I am not a big fan of - blind tastings, because I think branding is part of the overall enjoyment of a whiskey experience.

It's time to take a historic brand and put it up against what sounds like a historic brand. Two Tennessee Whiskeys with similar characteristics but much different flavor profiles.

In a bonus episode, I open my "Big In Japan" Flaviar tasting box. Japanese whisky is still a bit of a mystery to me and this box actually gave me a chance to double up on my palate experience. Tasting boxes provide a chance to dip your toe in the water and see which whiskies you might be interested in investing in.

Driving through the hills of East Tennessee, a variety of craft distilleries reveal themselves. What is surprising is how many of them are choosing bourbon over Tennessee whiskey. But maybe it's not so surprising.

Watch the Video

The tale of two historic brands of whisk(e)y. Both have been languishing near or on the bottom shelf for quite some time, but are they bottom-shelf quality? And what are the stories behind these two bourbons? One made its mark in a moment of pop culture promotion and the other came from a Beam, went to Brown-Forman, and now has people a little nervous about its availability due to a move to Sazerac.