Recent Articles

While an old American tradition can help home distillers understand the processes involved in distilling, there’s no approximating the bureaucracy and red tape of going pro. A recent court ruling may lead to a clearer pathway.

Citrus is a crucial part of gin. It’s also an opportunity to innovate and differentiate.

This ACSA Innovation Award–winning shochu brings the Japanese-style spirit into a cocktail-focused range with higher ABV and lighter flavor profile.

Understanding the whys and hows of cleaning is crucial to quality and consistency in the distillery.

Take your juniper seriously, consider flavor compatibility, keep safety in mind … and never be afraid to experiment.

Understanding a spirit’s flavor matrix can help distillers fine-tune their product by adding, subtracting, or enhancing what’s already there.

Using the barrel to get a more intense oak presence or caramel-forward flavor into your whiskey may not be as straightforward as you think. Sydney Jones, supervisor and lead distillery technician at Heaven Hill in Bardstown, Kentucky, lays out some recent findings on char and toast—plus, some tips on finishing whiskey in spirit casks.

The growing segment of “good for you” consumables can help a distillery tap into a different customer base—but there are key legal considerations to know.

The sour cocktail is a time-honored approach that offers a universe of variations to explore.

Because you get only one chance to make a first impression… In an increasingly competitive environment, craft distilleries should consider premium packaging options to pair with their small-batch products.

Much of whiskey’s flavor comes from maturation on oak. Sydney Jones, supervisor and lead distillery technician at Heaven Hill in Bardstown, Kentucky, explains why—and how both climate and entry proof can dramatically affect that impact.

Gin production begins with a complex series of questions, and it only gets more interesting from there. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure path that can lead to countless variations.

Explore ways your distillery can improve sanitation processes and tank-cleaning performance to produce the highest quality spirits.

This Asheville producer is mining a history of local folk medicine and foraging to produce spirits inextricably linked to their place.

There’s more to whiskey than grain alcohol and a barrel. Fermentation can do more than create ethanol—it also creates flavors that will be further developed by the still and the wood. Sydney Jones, supervisor and lead distillery technician at Heaven Hill in Bardstown, Kentucky, explains the process and the wider potential.

For distilleries that are proud of their product, standard operating procedures are the way to ensure it gets made the same, every time.

We can nudge the classic tomato-based cocktail in countless directions, and it deserves more than a cursory nod on the brunch menu.

Just because the spirit made it into the bottle doesn’t mean it’s across the finish line. Proper care and handling upstream are important to ensuring it retains the proper color and flavor all the way into the consumer’s glass.

Sydney Jones, supervisor and lead distillery technician at Heaven Hill in Bardstown, Kentucky, isolates the components of whiskey-making, zooming in on all the many decision points that a distiller can use to affect whiskey’s flavor.

Higher-proof spirits can unlock new levels of flavor potential—but how do you get there with balance while avoiding the pitfalls?