Whiskey Lore®: The Interviews

What the heck is Irish Poitín? This was a question I asked myself frequently before traveling to Ireland. Is it just Irish moonshine or just unaged Irish whiskey or is it something completely different?

After traveling the island, I found a handful of distillers who were bringing this long time illicit distilling into the light. Pádraic Ó Griallais and his family are on the forefront of distilling the legal version of poitín, but their family heritage is based in the illicit version. So in today's episode, we will dive in deep and learn all about this uniquely Irish spirit.

It is hard to overstate John Teeling's impact on the Irish whiskey industry. He took on an Irish whiskey monopoly and helped bring interest back into a dying industry.

Then after selling his distillery, he bought another and this one is fostering the growth of the modern Irish whiskey craft industry - supplying fine spirits to new distilleries looking to establish their brands before releasing their own spirits.

He is a legend with humble beginnings. Truly a self-made man, a gentleman, and a roll model for the industry. Here is his story in his own words.

The revival of Irish whiskey is real - I have seen it first hand. And after traveling the entire island of Ireland and Northern Ireland, I can see first hand the results of a country's passion for its lost heritage.

One of the men who was at the forefront of the new breed of Irish distillery owners is Jack Teeling. And Jack has been a part of two different phases of Irish whiskey's expansion beyond the one time monopoly of Irish Distillers, Ltd - first with his father John Teeling at Cooley Distillery and the second time as one of the new young guns of Irish whiskey when he opened Teeling Distillery in Dublin with his brother in 2015. Hear his story.

This week I conclude my interview with Laura Fields as we dive deep into Pennsylvania's pre and post-Prohibition history. We'll also talk about the difficulty of telling American whiskey history without using a Kentucky Bourbon lens.

In addition Laura will dispel some long held beliefs about who could distill during Prohibition and how many distillers had licenses to sell it. Plus we'll look at craft distilling in Pennsylvania and see if the industry is coming back.

Thanks to Steve Bashore of George Washington's Distillery, I had a chance to meet Laura Fields of the Fields Foundation and American Whiskey Convention. Her passionate devotion to recovering the lost history of Pennsylvania distilling is truly inspiring.

Before Kentucky, there was Monongahela Rye and it didn't die out long before Prohibition, instead, it died at the same time Kentucky did. But after Prohibition, Kentucky took over the narrative for American whiskey and Pennsylvania all but forgot its history. In this episode, we aim to change that as we go back to the very origins of Pennsylvania's distilling history.

A pretty bold claim! But W.H. McBrayer had well established his Cedar Brook brand as a quality brand and won awards in Europe for his efforts.

Hear the story of another lost distiller of the 19th century and hear how his decedent Bill McBrayer is honoring the legacy of the man who not only started his own distillery, but helped some of the more prominent names in Kentucky bourbon get their start.

It's hard to believe that in just 12 years, Ole Smoky has grown to become the most visited distillery in the world, seeing more than double the visitors in a year than all of Scotland's distilleries combined!

Ole Smoky has long had ambitions to get into the whiskey market, but for the longest time blends and flavored whiskey's or charred moonshine were all you could find. But that all changed last year when they introduced James Ownby Reserve Tennessee Bourbon - a whiskey named after one of the Overmountain Men who helped turn the Revolutionary War at the Battle of Kings Mountain.

Join me as I chat about this and the origins of Ole Smoky with its co-Founder Joe Baker.

For the first time since Prohibition, Jack Daniel's has a major release of a Bottled-in-Bond Tennessee Whiskey - and not just one, but two!

In this episode, I chat with Chris Fletcher about the concepts behind the new Bonded Series as well as doing tastings of Bonded and Triple Mash, and we also dive into Chris' experience growing up in Lynchburg and Sunday's with his grandfather, legendary distiller Frank Bobo.

And once and for all, we'll find out where that unique banana note comes from in Jack. Cheers!

Not long ago I had a chat with Jeff Arnett, who left the distillery that makes his favorite, Jack Daniel's to start his own Company Distilling. Around the time of that interview I heard the news that John Campbell was stepping away from Laphroaig after a 27 year career to move to the Lowlands.

Was I dreaming? Was this real? I caught up with John at his new distilling home of Lochlea and we talked about Robert Burns, Islay vs Lowland, and the importance of feeling you don't know all the answers.

When you think 19th century Tennessee whiskey distilling, you think Jack Daniel and George Dickel. But we've also uncovered the story of Charles Nelson of Nelson's Green Brier. So which is the biggest of the 19th century?

What if I said "none of them?" The real king of distilling in Tennessee may have been an Irishman named J.W. Kelly. I'll talk with Leslie Sampson who has done extensive research into a man who held many similarities to Tommy Dewar in terms of his energy, innovative spirit, and marketing prowess. Hear the story.