Craft Distilling: A Taste From The Past

The History of Whisky Distilling

Making whisksy dates back to Irish monks in the 1300s. Over time, the craft has matured and expanded across the globe. The article “A Word About Whiskey” in The Whiskey Road explores this tradition and tells you why whiskey may be spelled with, or without, the “e” at the end.

Minnesota’s Brief Craft Distilling Tradition

Local, small batch, craft, whiskey making has a much shorter, but still quite interesting story. It started in the 1920s and continued for only around a decade. This was that infamous period known as Prohibition. When Prohibition ended, so did small batch whiskey making – at least for a while. Eighty years later, in 2011, it was revived when Panther Distillery started operation under newly revised state laws. Many other new artisinal distilleries followed along, but less than half took up the whiskey tradition. Interestingly, a somewhat rebellious monk was a central figure in the early days of Minnesota whiskey making.