Drinking in Scotland relieved me of some of my aversion to peaty whiskeys. It changed my associations of that smoky flavor from cadavers to Scottish glens. We were on vacation, staying at the Balmoral Hotel (where J.K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter) and I was paging through the massive binder detailing their whiskies in the…
Israeli whisky has arrived in America. The Golan Heights Distillery from the mountains on the Syrian border is younger than Tel Aviv’s Milk and Honey — its domestic rival — but its finished product arrived in New York on or around Bastille Day (July 14), about a year ahead of the promised competition (whose three-year…
American whiskey producers are banding together to distill the definition of an American single malt whiskey. Scotch single malts are clearly and legally defined as whisky made from 100% malted barley that is the product of a single distillery, and aged in used wooden casks for at least three years. There are some more small…
Other people’s kids: You see them born, you see them grow, you write reviews of them. That’s how I feel about the fifth-annual Whisky Jewbilee that took place on June 15. I was there at its birth — the only national correspondent in attendance at the first Whisky Jewbilee in 2012 as it opened in…
No one apart from Hallmark actually cares about Father’s Day. It’s on the calendar as a toothless Title IX quid pro quo so that dads don’t whine about Mother’s Day. But that’s okay, according to the way the patriarchy has it set up, we men have it easier than our female counterparts. So we expect…
Who? Canadian Jewish rapper Drake, of “Hotline Bling” fame, has released a new bourbon whiskey, called Virginia Black. NOT Virginia Black the columnist for the South Bend Tribune. Though she, too, may be “Rich. Decadent. Smooth.” What? Virginia Black (the whiskey) is a young bourbon blend of 2 year old, 3 year old and 4…
God bless Eric Asimov and Blair Bowman. Two lions stand In front of Japanese temples one with mouth open, one with mouth closed. Tradition has it that one is modeling the start of the Om chant, the great exhalation and opening of self to universe. The other lion, it is said, is ending the chant…
Whiskey doesn’t seem like an agricultural product. But as we celebrate (or pray for) the rebirth of nature on Tu B’Shvat it’s good to bear in mind that what the Irish call “the brown” comes from fields of waving grain. Or maybe we had made that link, but just forgot because, you know, too much…
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