Nine months after being named receiver of Uncle Nearest, Inc., Phillip G. Young, Jr., filed a non-binding letter of intent to sell the embattled whiskey brand this past Friday. The filing comes just three days after the case’s presiding judge denied founder Fawn Weaver’s motion to reverse the company’s receivership. Young will potentially hand all assets of the company — with the exception of…
Bourbon is facing a crisis of global proportions. Its domestic outlook is dim, as sales recede amid consumption declines and a serious oversupply problem. But internationally, the picture is downright bleak: According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, American whiskey exports cratered by 19 percent in 2025, due in large part to declines of 57 percent in Canada, 35 percent in…
Bourbon is a massive spirits category. So massive, it often makes sense to break it down into different subsections to appreciate its breadth. There are several ways to deconstruct the genre: by proof, mash bill, or region. But for both veteran and budding bourbon aficionados, perhaps the most entertaining way to slice and dice through bourbon’s enormous landscape is by separating the category…
Every weekday morning, between the hours of 9 and 11 a.m. ET, Rob Bralow sits down at the computer at his home in suburban Connecticut. He logs into a system called Proof, which is the online ordering system for Southern Glazer’s, the largest wine and spirits distributor in the United States. And, for those two hours, every 15 minutes, they offer a new allocated bottle to retailers and liquor…
Stitzel-Weller Distillery is releasing Stitzel Reserve 31-Year-Old Bourbon Whiskey, its oldest bourbon yet, the brand announced today in a press release. The 31-year-old bourbon is now available exclusively at the Diageo-owned Stitzel-Weller Distillery in Louisville, Ky., for $3,000 per 750-milliliter bottle, and, with only 176 bottles available, purchase is limited to one per person.
The…
Soon after Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., pioneered and popularized farm-to-table cooking in the 1970s, a movement began to take shape, and fine-dining restaurants around the world adopted the local-first style. Ever since, the commitment to regionality has become so pervasive that it has even infiltrated the spirits category. That’s where Frey Ranch in Nevada comes in: It touts itself as a…
Nowadays, there are plenty of ways to enjoy a bit of whiskey. From your preferred style of the spirit to whether you want to shoot it, consume it in cocktails, neat, or on the rocks, the options are seemingly limitless. Some of these methods even come with various nicknames, with monikers like a nip, a snifter, and, of course, a dram coming to mind. But as it turns out, a dram isn’t just a…
Getting into whiskey usually requires a gentle approach. We may have a friend who kicked off their journey with a bottle of Laphroaig 10 and immediately appreciated its pronounced smoke and Band-Aid notes, but these intrepid souls are an anomaly. It takes time and experience for most folks to develop an appreciation for whiskeys with funky, aggressive profiles. It also requires trying delicious…
Most of the rye whiskey produced in the U.S. today is made in Kentucky, but a village in rural Pennsylvania was once a major incubator of America’s rye scene. When Mennonite farmer Abraham Overholt established A. Overholt & Co. in West Overton in 1810, he started what would become one of the most historic, fabled distilleries in the country. The average whiskey drinker might classify the brand,…
In 2010, there were four distilleries in Ireland: New Midleton, Cooley, and Kilbeggan in the Republic of Ireland, and Bushmills in Northern Ireland. In 2020, there were 32. And as of late 2025, there were around 50, the result of both real category growth and the belief Irish whiskey can further expand its international appeal. (In some ways, one might compare it to America’s own bourbon boom of…
Trends in the spirits world move fast. One moment it’s all about cult Japanese whiskies or waiting in line to snag an ultra-rare, limited-release bourbon at the distillery. The next, people can’t get enough of hard-to-find, small-production mezcals or obscure regional liqueurs. It can make even the most dedicated drinker’s head spin. Since the buzziest bottles and spirits categories of any given…
With hundreds of millions of bottles produced every year, the global whiskey industry is enormous, valued at approximately $28 billion. While production is led by countries like Scotland and the United States — both of which produce whiskey in a number of styles — Irish, Japanese, and other world whiskeys are popular in their own right, and there are a lot of jobs required to uphold each…