Tomintoul Master Distiller Robert Fleming is celebrating two anniversaries. 2024 marks his 50th year in the whisky business, while 2025 will be his 35th year as manager at Tomintoul. We’ll talk with the industry veteran this week on WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, hundreds lined up days in advance at three Texas liquor stores for a chance to buy rare Bourbons Saturday. California’s Redwood Empire Distillery is getting a new home, and Glenturret is getting out of the peated whisky market.

A new report from Noble and Co. shows the secondary auction market for whiskies turned in another poor year, and the retail market for whiskies isn’t doing much better. We’ll talk with Noble’s Duncan McFadzean about the report and its implications for whisky collectors and investors, as well as the wider whisky market. In the news, a Heaven Hill rickhouse worker was killed this week in a warehouse accident, while Diageo has been fined nearly $700,000 after a distillery worker was seriously burned in a 2021 accident. 

The tiny Holyrood Distillery in Edinburgh shocked the whisky world when it was named Distillery of the Year last week in Whisky Magazine’s Scottish Icons of Whisky Awards. Less shocking was Holyrood’s Embra single malt, which took top honors for Lowlands no-age-statement single malts in the World Whiskies Awards. We’ll talk with Holyrood co-founder Rob Carpenter about this unique distillery on this week’s WhiskyCast In-Depth. There’s a lot of news this week, starting with the TTB’s decision to enact an official definition for American Single Malts…we’ll have all the details and the rest of the week’s whisky news, too.

Waterford Distillery founder Mark Reynier isn’t giving up on his dream, even though the distillery went into receivership last week. As he tells us on this week’s WhiskyCast In-Depth, he’s putting together an investor group to bid on Waterford’s assets when they go up for auction in January. We’ll talk with Reynier about Waterford’s failure and where things went wrong on this week’s WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, Brown-Forman is taking pre-emptive steps to guard against the impact of potential trade tariffs, while Chivas Brothers has filed for planning permission to build a distillery on Islay. We’ll also have details on the latest holiday whisky releases and much more. 

Actors Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley have released their latest edition of Brother’s Bond Bourbon, a 7-year-old Bottled in Bond whiskey. It’s a release that shows the two are serious about their whiskies, and not just slapping their names on a bottle. We’ll talk with Paul and Ian on this week’s WhiskyCast In-Depth. It’s been a troubling week for the whisky industry with the bankruptcy of Kentucky Owl parent company Stoli Group USA and the collapse of Ireland’s Waterford Distillery, and we’ll have the details on both, along with President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, which could include Canadian whisky and Tequila.