Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2024 i American Whiskey Magazine

On this first day of culinary school in 2009, Miguel Perez met (his now wife) Katie Pettit and happened to mention that he was looking for a gig. “And she was just like, ‘Hey, my parents happen to have a restaurant…’” says Perez. Katie’s parents, Bob and June Pettit, owned Port Aransas Brewing Company. “Actually, we were in Texas Monthly’s top 50 hamburgers list back in 2009,” Bob Pettit proudly mentions. “We were making beer for seven and a half years, selling burgers that everyone loved, and that’s where we learned the ropes of brewing. We made a lot of beer — sometimes eight different beers on tap at the same time — but we always felt there was more we could do.” The family’s brewing days were the foundation…

It was quite a scene at Christmas dinner when Robert Likarish announced that he did not want to be a lawyer. “I was getting ready to graduate from law school, and I had gotten burned out by working at law firms, as many, many people do,” says Robert. “And I’m going to retire from this right now.” His brother, Jonathan Likarish, says, “Robert always chooses his battles very carefully, and I think he thought that Christmas dinner was the best time to drop big news like that, because I think he thought he could get in the least trouble with it.” “I’m a little old fashioned,” says their mother, Marcia Likarish. “I would always do the big sit-down dinners at Christmas with the tablecloth, the good fine china, the glasses…

“As Prohibition was coming to an end, Bill Samuels’ grandfather, Leslie Samuels, wanted to get back into the business and revive the family brand, TW Samuels. His partner was my grandfather, Bob Block. The partnership eventually led to Maker’s Mark being founded from the proceeds from the sale of TW Samuels.” It was holiday time and all of my assignments had been turned in for the year when I got an email from my friend Tom Block. Block’s grandfather was Isaac Wolfe Bernheim, the 19th-century bourbon baron and founder of the IW Harper brand. His other grandfather was a Block, another 19th-century bourbon dynasty that I had always believed went completely out of the bourbon business during Prohibition. “When I retired, I did some genealogy work, and I tried to…

Texas was late to the game. Distilling in Texas didn’t even start (post-Prohibition) until Tito did his thing 25 years ago, and the cocktail bar scene was even further behind. In 2009, Bobby Heugel opened Anvil Bar & Refuge in Houston, setting a new standard for Texas cocktail bars and becoming a pivotal figure in the American craft cocktail movement. But for years, that was it. Whenever I’d mention I was from Texas at national events, the response was often, “Oh! Do you know Bobby? I love Anvil.” While great, it became a little old. Texans, known for Southern hospitality, typically don’t ruffle feathers, but credit where credit is due. Half Step opened in Austin on Rainey Street in January 2014 and this caused a bit of a stir in…

Though Balmorhea may sound like a warm inviting castle in which to hide from bleak Scottish winters, it is quite the opposite. It is truly an oasis. Amid seemingly endless, flat, hot, dry miles of the Chihuahuan Desert, San Solomon Springs gushes about 20 million gallons (76,000 cubic meters) of crystal-clear water a day into Balmorhea State Park. Cool water filtered through limestone flows underground about 30 miles (48 kilometers) down from the Davis Mountains, emerging like a river. Bands of Jumano, Mescalero Apache, and Comanche people watered horses there and farmed crops of corn and peaches. Big game hunters frequented the spring 11,000 years ago. Rare and endangered species, unique to the Trans-Pecos region, thrive in the marshes downstream. “It’s a Texas treasure,” says Dan Garrison, founder of Garrison…

This Whiskey Shelf will help you build your library with a couple of recipecentric books by James Beard Award-winning authors and chefs. This selection is set to inspire to you at home, to drink and eat deliciously. Toni Tipton-Martin is one of America’s most respected, awarded, and knowledgeable food writers. Her specialty is the restoration of African-American foodways into the story of American cuisine. One of her previous books, Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, was honored with a James Beard Foundation Award. As she explains in the introduction to her most recent compendium, she points out the double standard toward the attitude of alcohol consumption in black and white communities as depicted in the media in the first half of the 20th century. “Some of the…

In 2025, Whisky Live London marks a major milestone. The flagship whiskey show will celebrate its 25th anniversary of bringing together whiskey lovers from all over the globe. Whisky Live London will take place on Friday, March 28 and Saturday, March 29, 2025, making its much-anticipated return to the Fireworks Factory at Woolwich Works. Attendees to the silver-jubilee event will have the chance to sample an unlimited array of drams — from limited-edition releases to rare and exceptional whiskeys. They can also visit the World Whiskies Awards 2025 stand, which offers all ticket holders the chance to taste whiskeys from around the world. Premium Experience ticket holders will also have two tokens to redeem at the World Whiskies Awards Premium Stand, which includes rare and limited entries and award winners.…

Fall is the time we celebrate the harvest, from corn to apples. It’s also a great time of the year to modify your favorite cocktails with fall flavors. There are lots of options for bringing the flavors of fall into your cocktails, from adding fall fruit brandies to different kinds of bitters, fall flavor syrups, and even dried fruits and fall citruses. Whiskey is a great cocktail base for the fall because it pairs so well with so many different flavors and it already has a warm spiciness. Just about every cocktail, classic or otherwise, can be modified with the addition of simple fall flavors. Check out these cocktail recipes for some inspiration! OLD FASHIONEDS Old Fashioned cocktails are very simple in their basic form — it’s just whiskey (or…

“I think the one thing I’ve been loving, particularly recently… is the family feel with Texas more so than than a lot of other states or countries… that I’ve spoken to. There’s this real togetherness.” There is no denying the tight-knit community that encompasses the Texas whiskey industry, but an integral part of that growing feeling is thanks largely to Jake Clements, the co-founder of the Texas Whiskey Festival. The idea for the festival first came in 2017, when Clements was networking at the South by Southwest event in Austin, Texas. The topic of Texas whiskey came up, and the question of an event featuring only Texas distilleries was posed. After much research, Clements received encouragement from his girlfriend at the time (now wife) to pursue the idea. Around the…

Whiskey drinkers have their own set of unwritten beliefs. While some of them are absolute lies like “95 per cent of bourbon comes from Kentucky” and “Tennessee whiskey is not bourbon”, others are a bit more colloquial. When it comes to aging whiskey, eight years in Scotland is like four years in Kentucky. And four years in Kentucky is like two years in Texas (maybe even one.) Everyone knows that, right? But… why? There’s a long-held belief that warmer climates can simply fast-track the aging process, but is that true? That’s the kind of question that gets the whiskey world buzzing — and it’s exactly the kind of question Gabe Richarde, blending manager at Balcones Distilling, wanted to explore. “You hear all these things in the bourbon world, and they…

Widow Jane Distilling was first launched in 2012, sourcing barrels while waiting for its own stocks of whiskey to mature. One of the ways it found to differentiate its products in the marketplace was to use limestone water from a nearby well, which was trucked in. The next focus was grain, which was a considerably more difficult and involved project. “We immediately were obsessed with the quality of materials,” says Widow Jane vice president Michelle Clark. “We had brought in some private barrel stocks that we were releasing as single barrels and had access to a really unique limestone water from upstate from Rosendale that we were bringing into proof all of our whiskeys. As we started to look at what the most important component of making our own whiskeys…

“This ain’t Texas/Ain’t no hold ’em/So lay your cards down, down, down, down,” sings global megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter on the international chart-topping single, “TEXAS HOLD ’EM”, from her latest album, Cowboy Carter. So, what does Beyoncé’s lyrical metaphor using Texas Hold’em have to do with whiskey and the release of her debut premium spirit in partnership with Moët Hennessy, SirDavis Whisky? Everything. When playing a game of Texas Hold’em, players can’t see their opponent’s cards until the hand ends. So, players can bluff and play the hand as if they have better cards than they have. So, when Beyoncé sings “lay your cards down”, she’s encouraging the teasing love interest to show their real intentions — and therein lies our objective as whiskey connoisseurs and journalists: embracing authenticity. So, when…

I grew up around cigar smokers. Both my dad and my godfather smoked cigars daily. It was the cigar boom of the 1990s and even the cast of the popular television show Friends spent a few episodes smoking cigars. Cosmo Kramer regularly smoked cigars on Seinfeld. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jack Nicholson, and even Michael Jordan often graced the covers of magazines with cigars in hand. Perhaps one of my favorite instances of cigar smoking in popular culture at the time was Elaine Benes at her desk at the J Peterman Catalog, feet propped on her desk, cigar in mouth, hands behind her head celebrating a job well done after filing the latest catalog. The ethos of cigars was changing. Once associated with cartoon villains and wealthy industrialists, cigars were becoming more…

Embark on a celestial adventure as the twinkling stars light your path across a North American desert to the magnificent Sangre De Cristo Mountains, where the enchanting city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, awaits. Nestled in the foothills of the Northern Rio Grande Valley at the southern tip of the majestic Rocky Mountains, Santa Fe sits at an elevation of over 7,000 feet, proudly claiming the title of America’s highest capital city and the third highest city in the nation. Santa Fe is home to a hidden gem, As Above, So Below Distillery, manifested by distiller and founder Caley Shoemaker. Shoemaker began her career in craft spirits in 2009 at Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey. As she advanced, she immersed herself in all aspects of the spirits production process, including grain selection,…

Peggy Noe Stevens is a master taster, whiskey reviewer, and competition judge. She is known for her super palate in the industry, as well as her founding innovations connecting whiskey and food pairing styles and methods. This month we feature the following brands and the inspiration for creating unique profiles and food pairings. The following is a guideline to discovering the ultimate food pairings for your guests: How to pair Balance is when you complement a predominant note in the whiskey and balance the flavors so one does not dominate over the other. It creates harmony. Counterbalance is when opposites attract and you fire up a food flavor, only to have the flavors of the whiskey tame and neutralize any spikes of difference. Explosion is almost too much of a good thing, when…

Over the past decade, Houston, Texas, has evolved into a world-class culinary destination. The city’s robust food and beverage scene has long been an attribute that’s made locals beam with pride — and understandably so. Whether you’re in the mood for a delectable Vietnamese fusion dish, or a delicious Old Fashioned crafted with Texas-made bourbon, there’s something flavorful for everyone. Among some of the hotspots making waves in the bar space is Reserve 101. In October, Reserve 101 celebrates its 15th anniversary. The bar closed briefly to accommodate a drastic remodel before reopening in March, unveiling a fresh, minimalist chic-meets-industrial interior makeover and a renewed commitment to being the city’s authority on whiskey. “The old Reserve 101 was very much a neighborhood bar. We didn’t lose the culture and warmth…