Innholdsfortegnelse for September 2025 i American Whiskey Magazine

Kentucky native Walter Zausch met his wife Dana when they were both students studying architecture at the Univerisity of Kentucky. Upon graduation, she was offered a job in Los Angeles (“She’s smarter and more talented than I am, so she got the job offer.”) and they moved west. Zausch discovered he wasn’t keen on a career in architecture and for the next 15 years worked for Apple and then Microsoft. But the couple had always wanted to come back to Kentucky, so he took a position with a start-up tech company in Lexington. Zausch had always been a self-described passionate bourbon fan. “I was a Maker’s Mark ambassador in Los Angeles when there were no Maker’s Mark ambassadors anywhere. You know, counting down the days to when my barrel would…

The United States’ history is beautiful, problematic, fascinating, and ever changing. As we continue to uncover our past, we learn more about ourselves, our place in time, and how to honor and preserve the stories of the places where we live. The story of Virginia State has a unique place in American history. George Washington’s Mount Vernon Distillery is in Jamestown, Virginia, established in 1607, and was the first permanent English settlement in North America. Virginia’s nickname ‘Old Dominion’ reflects Virginia’s status as one of the oldest and most influential colonies. We learn so much about ourselves when we uncover evidence of how people ate, drank, and lived throughout history. Unless you’re Native American, you’re an immigrant to this country and that fact has created a cultural melting pot unlike…

Freddie Johnson is a man who needs no introduction. He’s been a fixture at the Buffalo Trace Distillery for more than two decades, and the number of tours he’s given in that time has to be in the thousands. He’s the third generation of his family to work at the distillery — his grandfather worked with Colonel Blanton — and his own grandson, Osiris, has been present at two of the last millionth barrel celebrations, another long-standing family tradition. Johnson was inducted into the Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame in 2024. On a recent trip to Rothes Glen in Scotland Johnson was able to show his grandson his image on the Hall of Fame wall, and on that same trip while changing planes in Paris Johnson was recognized as “that…

NEAT BOURBON BAR LOUISVILLE 1139 BARDSTOWN RD. LOUISVILLE, KY 40204 NEAT BOURBON BAR BARDSTOWN 110 W STEPHEN FOSTER AVE. BARDSTOWN, KY 40004 When Neat Bourbon Bar and Bottle Shop opened in 2022, the focus was on vintage whiskey. Guests can try vintage whiskeys by the pour, and next door in the bottle shop they can buy vintage whiskeys by the bottle. But today not only are cocktails about half of the bar’s business, but it has also been so popular that it’s opened a second location in Bardstown. The success of the bar’s cocktail program is thanks to bar manager Dante Wheat, who has worked at several celebrated Louisville whiskey bars including Butchertown Grocery and Michter’s Fort Nelson. After a decade behind the pine, Wheat knows his way around a…

The art of finishing whiskey in exotic casks is nothing new. There are tons of great whiskeys out there finished in port, sherry, or even Tequila casks. However, using Armagnac casks is still relatively niche. Odds are, the average whiskey drinker has never heard of Armagnac, but the creator of WhistlePig is looking to change that with his latest ventures, BHAKTA Spirits and Hogsworth whiskeys, two emerging brands built on rare vintage French Armagnac casks. Whiskey maker Raj Bhakta, who helped launch the premium rye whiskey revolution with WhistlePig, lives by the ethos that life is too short to be bored with your booze. The goal is simple — disrupt the whiskey market with his blending process that creates whiskeys with more age, more complexity, and more fun, courtesy of…

While Bardstown, Kentucky may have trademarked the “Bourbon Capital” name, Kentuckians all know that Louisville is the center of the bourbon universe. Louisville’s historic Whiskey Row, which was once nearly torn down and was saved by Marianne Zickuhr’s Preservation Louisville, was once considered the “Wall Street of Bourbon” because so many of Kentucky’s distilleries housed their business offices there. Now Louisville is home to the Urban Bourbon Trail and more than a dozen distilleries as well as some of the best whiskey bars in the world. Because of this, many brands have chosen to open tasting rooms and visitor centers on Louisville’s Whiskey Row on Main Street. Michter’s was the first to announce a distillery and visitor center on Main Street, but the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience was the first…

Bubbling up from below the ground, spring water appears on the mountains and moors above the Spey valley. It filters naturally through the hard granite rock of the Cairngorms, but as it embarks on its journey towards the Moray Firth, some of it is chosen for a different fate: whiskey. Our English word is descended from the Gaelic ‘uisge beatha’, famously meaning ‘water of life’ in the languages of Ireland and Scotland. But for many enjoying a dram or a cocktail, it’s easy to overlook the ingredient that started it all. After all, we almost take water as a fact of life — it is a ubiquitous presence in our glasses. We might not think about it, but the grand whiskey regions of the world all share the common denominator of…

Distilleries are finally starting to embrace good cigars and reject the cutting room floor rejects sprayed with artificial whiskey flavorings, but not fast enough. Back when I worked at a liquor store and smoke shop, Derby week was always a big week for selling cigars. That made it a big week for cigars that I’m told tasted like blueberry pancakes that were sold in a glass tube sealed with dripping wax. And honestly, if you aren’t a cigar smoker and you’re going to be six Mint Juleps deep before you light up, take a few puffs, and then forget you even have a cigar in your hand, that’s fine. Plenty of people celebrate the Kentucky Derby that way. But there have been too many whiskey events that featured cigars that…

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…