https://spiritandcask.com/A fine spirits journal: whisky, cognac and armagnac, rum, agave, craft, collecting, culture.en https://spiritandcask.com/articles/queensland-rum-consortium-2026/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/queensland-rum-consortium-2026/Sun, 18 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000For the fourth Queensland Rum Day, six distilleries across 2,000 kilometres blended their rums into The Rum Consortium 2026: 5,280 bottles, 40 percent, no added sugar, $119. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/old-forester-tribute-series-2026/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/old-forester-tribute-series-2026/Sun, 18 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000The new annual series opens with a 12-year-old bourbon at 115 proof and $299.99, batched from mature stocks across the rick houses and bottled in a decanter modelled on the brand's mid-century holiday releases. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/bowmore-devils-casks-returns/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/bowmore-devils-casks-returns/Sun, 18 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000More than a decade after the original trilogy, the series returns as a Whisky Shop exclusive: a sherry-cask 10-year-old at £70 from 16 October, and a 22-year-old at £380 that buyers of the first bottle can ballot for. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/remy-martin-xo-diwali-limited-edition/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/remy-martin-xo-diwali-limited-edition/Sun, 11 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000The House's new Diwali limited edition is a $199.99 packaging statement, not a new blend: a red coffret with gold rangoli-inspired illustrations, built for the festival gifting season. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/macallan-timespace-sherry-cask/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/macallan-timespace-sherry-cask/Sun, 11 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000The third TIME:SPACE entry is a 20-year-old single malt at 44.8 percent, finished in the first 200 casks seasoned with The Macallan's own Valdespino sherry. RRP £1,100. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/last-drop-release-43-foursquare/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/last-drop-release-43-foursquare/Sun, 11 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000Richard Seale's Signature Creation is the oldest rum Foursquare has ever released: 566 bottles at 53 percent, finished three years in old Port pipes. SRP $1,700. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/king-of-kentucky-2026-single-barrel/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/king-of-kentucky-2026-single-barrel/Sun, 11 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000Ninety-nine barrels, a ten-proof spread, and a $399 price tag: Brown-Forman's ultra-premium bourbon is back for 2026, and the canister tells you exactly which barrel you own. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/kingsbarns-cambo-collection-first-edition/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/kingsbarns-cambo-collection-first-edition/Sat, 03 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000The Cambo Collection opens with a 10-year-old STR-matured autumn bottling: 640 cases, £65, on sale 8 October. Each year will explore a different side of the estate. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/diageo-agave-lawsuit-dismissed/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/diageo-agave-lawsuit-dismissed/Sat, 03 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000A federal judge dismissed the “100% agave” class action against Casamigos and Don Julio. In the same season, both brands posted their worst US sales declines on record. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/dalmore-cigar-malt-18-year-old/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/dalmore-cigar-malt-18-year-old/Sat, 03 Oct 2026 08:00:00 +0000The new Cigar Malt Signature Reserve is a permanent five-cask addition to the Principal Collection: 18 years old, 46 percent, on sale 19 October at £299. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-cask-index-first-reading/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-cask-index-first-reading/Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000A new quarterly benchmark for the whisky auction market, built on public saleroom results only. Here is the methodology, the first dataset, and every limitation we know about. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-2026-auction-year-in-whisky/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-2026-auction-year-in-whisky/Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Karuizawa casks at £4.25 million, a record charity sale, and a Sotheby's series that proved Japanese whisky still commands the room. What twelve months of saleroom results actually show. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/how-to-buy-at-auction/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/how-to-buy-at-auction/Fri, 25 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Hammer price is only the beginning. Premiums, VAT, provenance checks, and the questions to ask before you raise a paddle. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-angels-share/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-angels-share/Thu, 24 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Every year in the warehouse, part of the whisky leaves through the wood. The numbers, the climate science, and the economics of what disappears. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/peat-explained-without-romance/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/peat-explained-without-romance/Thu, 24 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000PPM, phenols, and the chemistry of smoke: what the numbers on peated whisky actually measure, and what they do not. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/wood-is-the-second-distillery/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/wood-is-the-second-distillery/Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Char levels, oak species, and the sherry-cask economy: everything the barrel decides about a whisky before the distiller gets a vote. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-new-distillery-architects/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-new-distillery-architects/Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000A vertical distillery in a working harbor, a repurposed smokehouse on Loch Lomond, a longhouse in Inverclyde: Scotland's newest distilleries are being designed like statements. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-coopers-century/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-coopers-century/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Edrington now owns half a Spanish forestry group. Scotch whisky's great sherry-cask hunt has turned the industry's biggest player into a timber company. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-celebrity-tequila-reckoning/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-celebrity-tequila-reckoning/Sun, 20 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000The category's boom years are over. Tequila is slowing, the shelves are crowded with famous names, and the brands that survive will be the ones built on distilling, not distribution. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/spirit-of-speysides-record-may/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/spirit-of-speysides-record-may/Sun, 20 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Ticket sales passed £500,000 for the first time, more than 60 percent of buyers came from overseas, and 60 events sold out within hours. Inside whisky tourism's biggest week. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-agave-map-tequila-mezcal-and-everything-between/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-agave-map-tequila-mezcal-and-everything-between/Sat, 19 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000The permanent explainer: what the labels guarantee, what the NOM numbers mean, and where the rest of Mexico's agave spirits fit. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/california-grows-agave/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/california-grows-agave/Sat, 19 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000A state law set the machinery for a California Agave Commission in motion. The industry cannot agree whether it wants one. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/mezcals-tax-fight/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/mezcals-tax-fight/Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000A 53 percent excise tax is strangling Mexico's artisanal distillers. The industry wants the tax redesigned around how the spirit is made, not how strong it is. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/caribbean-rum-map/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/caribbean-rum-map/Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Jamaica, Barbados, Martinique, Guyana: four islands, four traditions, no stereotypes. What actually distinguishes the great rum origins. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/cane-to-cask-rum-production/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/cane-to-cask-rum-production/Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Fresh juice or molasses, hours or weeks of fermentation, pot or column. The production choices that decide what is in the bottle. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/a-million-visitors-the-irish-whiskey-trail/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/a-million-visitors-the-irish-whiskey-trail/Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Irish whiskey distilleries passed a million visitors in a year, spending €41.6 million on site. The trail is now one of Ireland's biggest tourist attractions. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/rum-definitions-no-single-rule/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/rum-definitions-no-single-rule/Thu, 17 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Martinique's AOC is law. Barbados's GI was a proposal. Everywhere else is custom. Why the world's most diverse spirit resists one rulebook. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/independent-rum-bottlers/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/independent-rum-bottlers/Thu, 17 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Distillery, still, cask, age: the details conventional labels omit. A small group of bottlers is dragging rum into the light. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/small-producers-charente/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/small-producers-charente/Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Beyond the big four houses, a generation of family estates is bottling the Charente on its own terms. Four names worth knowing. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/premium-rum-growth/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/premium-rum-growth/Wed, 16 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Super-premium-plus value rose 5.5 percent globally. Value-tier volume fell from 52 to 42 percent of the US market. Both things are true. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/vintage-cognac-auction-guide/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/vintage-cognac-auction-guide/Tue, 15 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000€93,000 for a bicentenary demijohn. £118,580 for a bottle filled in the 1840s. Reading the auction results with the premium stripped out. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/cognac-versus-armagnac/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/cognac-versus-armagnac/Tue, 15 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Two French brandies, two rulebooks, one shared grape country. The age grades look alike. The details do not. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/us-craft-distilling-contraction/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/us-craft-distilling-contraction/Mon, 14 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Active craft distillers fell 25.6 percent in a year. Volume, value, and exports all fell. The 2025 Craft Spirits Data Project reads like a casualty report. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/cognacs-hardest-year/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/cognacs-hardest-year/Mon, 14 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Travel retail down 6 percent, forecasts down again for 2026, tariffs on two fronts. The brandy category is fighting the trade war on every border. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/how-to-read-a-bourbon-label/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/how-to-read-a-bourbon-label/Sun, 13 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000The federal rules behind the words: 51 percent corn, new charred oak, and the two-year line that separates bourbon from straight bourbon. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/edrington-portfolio-strategy/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/edrington-portfolio-strategy/Sun, 13 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Wyoming sold, Famous Grouse gone, profits down 28 percent. The Macallan's owner is concentrating on fewer, more expensive bottles. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-sherry-cask-explained/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/the-sherry-cask-explained/Sat, 12 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000The most expensive barrel in whisky is not a leftover. It is purpose-made, sherry-seasoned, and the subject of a quiet corporate land grab. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/karuizawa-cask-market-record/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/karuizawa-cask-market-record/Sat, 12 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Two casks, £4.25 million. One bottle, US$625,000. The closed Japanese distillery keeps resetting the auction ceiling. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/how-to-read-a-scotch-label/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/how-to-read-a-scotch-label/Fri, 11 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Every word on the front is regulated. The youngest age, the protected region, the banned phrase. A field guide to what the law guarantees and what it does not. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/ardgowan-luss-lerwick-new-scotch/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/ardgowan-luss-lerwick-new-scotch/Fri, 11 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000A whisky distillery, a visitor destination, and a northern frontier. Three different answers to the same question: what does Scotch expansion look like now? https://spiritandcask.com/articles/us-tariff-ledger-scotch-cognac/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/us-tariff-ledger-scotch-cognac/Thu, 10 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000Scotch is free of US duties again. Cognac and Irish whiskey are not. Two estimates, one deadline, and the fine print behind both. https://spiritandcask.com/articles/heaven-hill-springs-bardstown/https://spiritandcask.com/articles/heaven-hill-springs-bardstown/Thu, 10 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0000US$200 million, 150,000 barrels a year, and the return of Heaven Hill distilling to Bardstown for the first time since 1996.