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James Beauregard Beam was distilling bourbon well before Prohibition, and when Prohibition ended, he was eager to do it again. At the news of Repeal, Jim Beam (as he was commonly known) turned to his son Jeremiah, his brother Park Beam and Park’s two sons, Carl and Earl, and said, “boys, time for us to get back to work.”...

The beginning of every new hobby goes something like this: figure out you like something, seek more information, become overwhelmed with jargon, take a step back. In industries as old and technical as whiskey-making, lingo abounds — mashbill, small batch, barrel pick, high wine, high rye, distillate and so on. But at least these words have firm definitions...

There was a time when drinkers thought spending more than $50 on a bottle of bourbon was pretty insane. This was before the bourbon boom, mind you. Nowadays people buy rare bottles that cost as much as a used car. But the hesitation remains: there are so many great bottles of bourbon that cost $30 or $40 that it seems a tough sell to spend twice that on anything at all.

We understand that to some of you, the idea of mixing a well-made bourbon into a cocktail is borderline blasphemy. The thought of not slowly sipping on that long-aged, hand-crafted spirit is just too much to handle. There’s a case to be made for that, but we also love bourbon-based cocktails. And we’d rather not have ours made with bottom-of-the-shelf well swill...

The constantly-flowing stream of new whiskey releases covers all categories, from bourbon and scotch to American single malts and Mexican corn whiskeys. But one thing these releases have in common: a penchant for finishing spirits in barrels that previously held wine, port, sherry, rum and beer...

So, you want to spend more than $100 on a bourbon. Great! This is your right. (If you haven’t tried the army of great bourbons for less than $50 or $25, you should probably start there first.) There are loads of “high-end” bourbons to choose from. Since the bourbon boom in the early 2000s...

Jim Beam will pay the state of Kentucky more than $700,000 because of a bourbon spill that killed fish in the Kentucky River and Glenn’s Creek last summer. The spill happened after lightning struck a warehouse on McCracken Pike in Woodford County in early July, causing a fire. The warehouse collapsed, destroying about 40,000 barrels of bourbon and contaminating the nearby creek, which flows into the river...

Al Young, the senior brand ambassador for Four Roses Bourbon, died on Christmas, the company announced Thursday. "The Four Roses family is in mourning," the company said in a statement shared on its website. "Husband, father, grandfather and friend, Al was an integral part of Four Roses’ legacy and history, having been with our distillery for more than 50 years...

There are more barrels of bourbon in Kentucky today than at any point since the 1970s. According to the Kentucky Distillers’ Association, there are more than 7 million barrels of bourbon aging in Kentucky — a state with only about 4.5 million people. Host Jeremy Hobson revisits his travels to Kentucky last May...