It was Father’s Day weekend when I finally got around to reading Lew Bryson’s newest book. I’m really good at buying new whiskey books, but I’m really bad about reading them. Mostly because I’ve been learning about bourbon for quite awhile now and most books are geared towards newcomers.
Well, guess what? I’m a simple man. If Lew Bryson writes a book and it says that it is a Master Class on Whiskey… well, I’m going to read it. I was fully prepared for the term “Master Class” to be hyperbole. But even if it was, I knew I was going to learn something. Lew Bryson has been learning and writing about whiskey for longer than I’ve even been drinking the stuff. He was the Managing Editor for Whisky Advocate for many years. He is currently the Senior Drinks writer for the Daily Beast and is a contributor to Bourbon+ magazine. Let’s just say that this guy knows more than most.
And guess what? Even though I like to think I have a very broad knowledge about whiskey, including its history, its types, and how it is made, I learned something in almost every chapter. And my poor wife. I’d interrupt her reading of books and watching of videos with exclamations of the things I found interesting. And I did that a lot. (Proofreader’s note…this is his wife, he really did.)
This book truly is a Master Class on Whiskey. There is no hyperbole in the the title. This is going on the shelf with other whiskey reference books and I have a feeling it will soon be stuck full of scraps of paper and dog-ears to mark the most useful places. And don’t think that just because folks who know a lot about whiskey can learn stuff from the book, that it will be over the heads of the enthusiastic whiskey newbie. This is the type of book that I was looking for as I scoured libraries and bookstores for books on whiskey as I was starting out.
I highly, highly recommend this one to both people new to whiskey and to those of us who have become jaded by whiskey books. I really enjoyed it.
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