Whiskey

What do you get when you select four James Beard-nominated chefs from across the country, fly them to a Vermont distillery, and give them a fully immersive lesson in whiskey blending? According to online craft spirits club Flaviar.com, you end up with a lot of dad jokes and a few axes thrown toward a bonfire. But the chefs also learned enough to blend a limited-edition, bespoke rye whiskey for WhistlePig.

If talk of a potential recession has got you down, don't worry: Here's another story about a collector spending an insane amount of money on whiskey to prove that at least some people have money to burn. A complete set of Hanyu Ichiro's "Card Series" whiskies sold in Hong Kong for $917,000 today, breaking the record for money spent on a single collection of Japanese whiskey, according to auction house Bonhams.

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At most hotel bars in London, you’d expect to be able to get a decent glass of whisky: The U.K. capital is an upmarket place and not too far from the home of Scotch. But one whisky bar in the city is going the other way around: Their whisky service has proved to be so successful that they’re expanding their bar into an entire whisky hotel.

For non-fans, the metal group Slipknot could easily be dismissed as “that band with the crazy masks.” But Slipknot is immensely popular: All five of their albums have been certified gold, and they’ll likely land a sixth when We Are Not Your Kind is released this August. When that record drops, Slipknot will be getting into a new venture as well: whiskey.

Last November’s Camp Fire disaster was the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in California history. So even though plenty of businesses, organizations, and individuals immediately stepped in to help, there’s still plenty more than can be done.

Technically speaking, British Airways — under the name it’s known today — wasn’t founded until 1974 with the merger of the British Overseas Airways Corporation and British European Airways (exciting!). But as the only saying goes, never let the truth get in the way of a good centennial.

In February, one of the world's most well-respected chefs joined forces with one of the world's most well-respected distilleries to craft a bottle of something very expensive: The Dalmore L’Anima Aged 49 Years, a collaboration between The Dalmore's master distiller Richard Paterson and chef Massimo Bottura.

Most of us weren’t at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival to see Bob Dylan rile up the crowd by playing an electric guitar, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still catch Bob Dylan as he tours around the country. Along the same lines, most of us will never have the chance to sit down and enjoy a whiskey with Dylan, but pretty soon, you’ll be able to visit his massive new distillery.

Asked to list the biggest names in whiskey, clichéd answers like Jack Daniels or Jim Beam are sure to be on the tip of most people’s tongues — but when it comes to distillers who have influenced modern whiskey in the United States, few names are as important as Dave Pickerell.