Kirk Miller

Is vermouth the next tequila? Is a particular tequila the next tequila? What's with farm-to-bottle spirits? Can an Islay whisky be the base for my favorite new summer drink?

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Where it's from: Located in La Vergne, TN, this marks the first release from the AJ Bond Distillery and the first Tennessee Whiskey from drinks giant Sazerac.

You can indirectly thank the British for our country's love affair with whiskey.

I've been writing about whiskey for nearly a decade and drinking it for much longer. I'm quite familiar with WhistlePig, Old Overholt, Jack Daniel's and Stranahan's. But High Bank, Lost Woods, The Notch Nantucket and O.K.I.? A few of those I know by name but couldn't tell you a thing about their liquid.

What we're drinking: Two expressions of Shāng Whiskey , a potential new spirits category they're calling “baijiu whiskey”

“Whiskey has gotten boring and lacks real innovation. Blending, on the other hand, brings us to places we've never gone before.”

Welcome back to our monthly guide to all things whisk(e)y. Check out more in-depth looks at new whiskey releases here

“The level of meticulous detail that goes into planning the most important gathering of the cocktail world is incredible,” says Charlotte Voisey, the executive director of Tales of the Cocktail (TOTC), which returns to New Orleans July 19-24. “Kudos to the team for having done that for so many years.”

It's May, and I'm sitting in a barrel-aging cellar with Carlos Camarena at Tequila Ocho 's new(ish) Los Alambiques distillery in Arandas, about two hours outside of Guadalajara, Mexico. As the co-founder and maestro tequilero of Ocho, Camarena is leading a tasting of six different expressions of his tequila with a small group of friends and media. The distillery dog, Ocha, is nuzzled under my seat.