Stories

Buying, drinking and choosing: the practical guides.

Guide · 2 Nov 2026How to Pick the Perfect Christmas Whisky for YouForget the gold label. Work out what you like first, sherried, soft, creamy, spicy, smoky or light, then pick the bottle to match, from £26.Guide · 2 Nov 2026Best Whisky Advent Calendars (2026)Seven whisky advent calendars for 2026, from £59.99 to a showpiece, with the cost per dram worked out so you can see what you are really…Guide · 2 Nov 2026Best Whisky for Christmas Gifts (2026)Twelve bottles we have actually tasted, sorted by budget from under £30 to a proper splurge, with UK prices and the sort of person each one…Guide · 31 Oct 2026Why Jack Daniel’s Gets More Hate Than It DeservesJack Daniel's has achieved something rather extraordinary. It has become one of the most recognisable whiskey brands on the planet, built an international business around a…Guide · 18 Oct 2026A Beginner’s Guide to Johnnie Walker: Every Colour Label, DecodedRed, Black, Double Black, Green, Gold, 18, Blue — the Johnnie Walker range is a ladder, and each rung means something specific. Here's what every label…Guide · 18 Oct 2026A Beginner’s Guide to Glenmorangie: From The Original to the Private EditionGlenmorangie has the tallest stills in Scotland, a wood-obsessed whisky maker and a range that runs from a gentle 10 Year Old to experiments in oak.…Guide · 18 Oct 2026A Beginner’s Guide to Jameson: What’s Actually in the Range Beyond the Green BottleJameson sells more than every other Irish whiskey combined, and most people have only ever tried the one in the green bottle. The range above it…Guide · 18 Oct 2026A Beginner’s Guide to Jack Daniel’s: Old No. 7, Single Barrel and Everything BetweenMost people know Jack Daniel's as the square bottle behind the bar. The range above Old No. 7 — Gentleman Jack, Single Barrel, Bonded, the rye…Guide · 18 Oct 2026A Beginner’s Guide to Japanese Whisky: Suntory, Nikka and the NewcomersJapanese whisky went from curiosity to cult in a decade, and the shelf is now a mix of century-old houses, new distilleries and bottles that aren't…Guide · 18 Oct 2026A Beginner’s Guide to Irish Whiskey: Pot Still, Single Malt, Grain and Blended ExplainedIrish whiskey went from four distilleries to more than forty in twenty years. Here are the four legal styles, the houses that matter and the bottles…Guide · 18 Oct 2026A Beginner’s Guide to Islay Whisky: Ten Distilleries, One Island, Infinite SmokeIslay is three hundred square kilometres of peat bog and sea air with ten working distilleries. Not all of them make smoky whisky, and the ones…GuideGuide · 18 Oct 2026A Beginner’s Guide to Rye Whiskey: America’s Original Spirit, RevivedRye was America's whiskey before bourbon, nearly disappeared in the twentieth century, and came back on the strength of the cocktail revival. Here's what it is,…GuideGuide · 18 Oct 2026A Beginner’s Guide to Highland Whisky: Why “Highland” Means Almost AnythingThe Highlands are Scotland's largest whisky region by a distance, and the whiskies made there range from light and floral to heavy and smoky. The label…GuideGuide · 18 Oct 2026A Beginner’s Guide to Bourbon Bottled-in-Bond: The 1897 Law That Still MattersBottled-in-bond is the oldest consumer protection law in American food and drink, and the words on a label still guarantee four specific things. Here's what they…

Head to head: which bottle wins, and why.

Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Johnnie Walker vs Jack Daniel’s: What Actually Separates the World’s Two Biggest WhiskiesOne is a Scottish blend of dozens of malts and grains. The other is a single Tennessee distillery's charcoal-mellowed whiskey. Here is what the difference means…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Jameson vs Bushmills: The Real History Behind Ireland’s Oldest RivalryOne from Dublin, one from Antrim; one a blend, one a malt specialist. The Jameson–Bushmills rivalry is older than most countries, and the real story is…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Jim Beam vs Jack Daniel’s: Bourbon, Tennessee Whiskey and the Charcoal DifferenceThey look alike, they're priced alike and they're often shelved side by side. But one is a bourbon and one is not, and the reason comes…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Glenfiddich vs Glenlivet: Why Speyside’s Two Giants Taste Nothing AlikeThey're the two best-selling single malts in the world, they're twenty miles apart, and they're routinely confused. The differences in water, stills and wood explain why…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Macallan vs Glenfarclas: Two Sherry-Cask Houses, Two Very Different PhilosophiesBoth built their names on sherry casks. One became a luxury brand with a £140 million distillery; the other is still run by the same family…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Laphroaig vs Ardbeg vs Lagavulin: How Three Neighbours Make Such Different SmokeThe Kildalton coast of Islay has three distilleries within three miles of each other. All use heavily peated malt from the same maltings. All taste completely…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Maker’s Mark vs Woodford Reserve: What “Wheated” and “High Rye” Really MeanTwo premium Kentucky bourbons, two different ideas about what should sit alongside the corn. The wheat-versus-rye question explains more about bourbon flavour than any other single…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Yamazaki vs Hakushu: Suntory’s Mountain and Forest Distilleries ExplainedSuntory built Japan's first malt distillery in 1923 and its second fifty years later, deliberately in a different climate. The two make a matched pair that…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Chivas Regal vs Johnnie Walker: Inside the Blended Scotch Arms RaceThe two biggest spirits companies in the world each own a flagship blended Scotch. The rivalry between Chivas and Walker is the rivalry between Pernod Ricard…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Buffalo Trace vs Eagle Rare vs Blanton’s: One Distillery, Three Cult LabelsThree of the most hunted bourbons in America come from the same distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. The differences are in mash bill, warehouse, age and selection…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Crown Royal vs Canadian Club: Canada’s Two Giants and the Whisky Nobody Takes SeriouslyCanadian whisky outsold every other kind in the United States for most of the twentieth century, and its two biggest brands are still everywhere. Here's how…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Redbreast vs Green Spot: Single Pot Still’s Two Flag BearersBoth come from the same distillery and the same style, and both were kept alive by wine merchants when the industry had given up on them.…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Wild Turkey vs Four Roses: Two Kentucky Distilleries, Two Ideas of BourbonTwo famous distilleries a short drive apart in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. One defends a single house style with monastic stubbornness; the other makes ten bourbons from two…Comparison · 18 Oct 2026Talisker vs Highland Park: The Islands’ Two GiantsOne from Skye, one from Orkney; one peppery and maritime, one honeyed and heather-smoked. The two best-known island malts share a label category and almost nothing…

How whisky actually works, without the fog.

Explainer · 31 Oct 2026The Problem With Whisky Snobs Is That They Make Drinking BoringI love a good whisky. Give me an interesting bottle, a comfortable chair and an evening with nowhere particularly important to be, and I'm perfectly happy.…Explainer · 31 Oct 2026I Don’t Care How Old Your Whisky Is. Does It Taste Any Good?There's a peculiar sort of person in the whisky world who can tell you exactly how old a bottle is, what it costs and how many…ExplainerExplainer · 18 Oct 2026Single Malt vs Blended Scotch: The Difference Nobody Explains Properly"Single" doesn't mean one cask and "blended" doesn't mean inferior. The five legal categories of Scotch explain what's really in the bottle, and why the price…ExplainerExplainer · 18 Oct 2026Sherry Cask vs Bourbon Cask: How the Barrel Writes the FlavourMost whisky is matured in one of two kinds of cask, and the choice shapes the result more than the distillery, the region or the age.…ExplainerExplainer · 18 Oct 2026Age Statements vs NAS Whisky: Does the Number on the Bottle Still Matter?Ten years ago the industry told drinkers that age was just a number. Now the age statements are coming back. What happened, what the number actually…ExplainerExplainer · 18 Oct 2026Whisky vs Whiskey: Where the “E” Came From and Who Uses ItScotland, Canada and Japan write whisky. Ireland and most of America write whiskey. The difference is a nineteenth-century marketing decision that became a rule, and it…ExplainerExplainer · 18 Oct 2026What Is a Mash Bill? Reading the Grain Recipe Behind Any American WhiskeyEvery American whiskey starts as a recipe of grains, and the proportions predict the flavour better than the brand name does. Here's how to read a…ExplainerExplainer · 18 Oct 2026Why Scotch Must Be Three Years Old: The Rules of Scotch, Bourbon, Irish and Japanese Whisky Side by SideFour countries, four rulebooks. The minimum ages, permitted grains, cask requirements and strength limits that define each whisky tradition, laid out in one place so the…ExplainerExplainer · 18 Oct 2026Is Older Whisky Always Better? What Age Actually Does in the CaskA 25-year-old whisky costs five times a 12-year-old and is not five times better. Sometimes it's worse. Here's what time in the cask does — and…ExplainerExplainer · 18 Oct 2026Why Is Japanese Whisky So Expensive? The Shortage ExplainedA bottle of Yamazaki 12 that cost £50 in 2012 costs £150 or more today, and the 18 is a collector's item. The reasons are a…ExplainerExplainer · 18 Oct 2026Is Jack Daniel’s a Bourbon? The Legal Answer and the ArgumentLegally, yes. By the distillery's own insistence, no. The question has a one-word answer and a hundred-year argument behind it, and both are worth understanding.

Where the bottles, brands and rules came from.

Who owns what, who makes it and who profits.

Industry · 18 Oct 2026Who Owns What: The Handful of Companies Behind the World’s Whisky BrandsA plain-English map of who owns what in whisky: the big groups, every Scotch distillery sorted by owner, plus Irish, American, Japanese and world whisky, and…IndustryIndustry · 18 Oct 2026The World’s Best-Selling Whisky Brands and What Their Numbers RevealThe best-selling whisky in the world is not Johnnie Walker. It is not Jack Daniel's either. The global sales table is dominated by brands most Western…IndustryIndustry · 18 Oct 2026The Rise of English Whisky: A New Category Finds Its FeetEngland had no whisky distilleries for a century. It now has more than fifty, a legal definition in progress and a style emerging from the barley.…IndustryIndustry · 18 Oct 2026How Tariffs Shaped a Decade of Scotch and Bourbon ExportsWhisky has been collateral damage in trade disputes about aircraft, steel and politics for most of the last decade. A timeline of the tariffs on Scotch…IndustryIndustry · 18 Oct 2026Scotland’s New Wave: The Distilleries Opened Since 2015 and Why They MatterMore than forty malt distilleries have opened in Scotland since 2015, the biggest building boom since the 1890s. The newcomers are small, transparent, experimental and now…