A bourbon tasting turns into a sharp look at pricing, packaging, and bottle-room theater.
The Bourbon Show keeps its focus on the practical romance of bourbon: what is in the glass, what catches a buyer's eye, and what helps a bottle move.

Bourbon shop talk with industry roots.
The Bourbon Show follows bourbon culture from the shelf outward: new bottles, old favorites, events, student projects, and the business around them. Its panel style keeps the talk loose, practical, and comfortable with both insider terms and everyday tasting-room banter.
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The Bourbon Show is a long-running bourbon conversation with deep roots in the everyday culture around American whiskey. It is not just about tasting notes. The show spends as much time on releases, labels, events, retail behavior, distillery relationships, and old bottles as it does on what is in the glass. Recent Pint Size episodes point to that range clearly. Peerless' first 10-year bourbon gets treated as release news. The University of Kentucky Wild Cask #2 brings education, student distilling, and institutional bourbon programs into view. Sweet mash becomes a practical topic about process and why some producers prize it. A country music episode turns whiskey into a cultural question, then lets the room wander through bottles, memories, and jokes without losing the thread. The longer interview episodes add industry access. Freddie Noe appears in a best-of interview from early in his Jim Beam career. Kyle McGinty of Blackout Racing Group brings in a bourbon-adjacent partnership lane. Sam Lacey speaks from the Bourbon Capital Alliance around Bardstown National Bourbon Week. Stephen Beam of Limestone Branch Distillery gives the show another direct line into brand and distillery history. The format is conversational and panel-driven. It likes a pour. It likes a cork pop. It likes the kind of side story that starts with a bottle on a retail shelf and ends with a broader point about value, packaging, or hype. The tone is warm but not breathless, knowledgeable without turning academic. Listeners hear people who know bourbon stores, events, brands, and consumer habits from the inside. The sponsor blocks can run long, so the opening minutes may feel more commercial than the body of the episode. Past that, the show settles into a clubby, practical rhythm. It is best for bourbon fans who want context, opinions, and industry names alongside casual tasting-table talk.
Made for: Built for bourbon and whiskey fans who care about new releases, industry people, bottle value, events, and the culture around the shelf. It also works for curious drinkers who want plainspoken context without a formal tasting-class tone.
What sets it apart: The show blends interview access with lived retail and enthusiast-culture perspective, so a bottle can be discussed as liquid, object, price point, story, and social signal. Its loose panel rhythm makes industry detail feel like table conversation.
The Bourbon Show discusses the latest in bourbon news, up-coming and recent releases, in-show bourbon reviews, upcoming events and interviews with people from around the bourbon and whiskey industry. Each month there are two shows featuring interviews from individuals from the world of bourbon (airing on the 1st and 15th) and four "Pint Size" shows featuring discussion of bourbon-themed topics.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
The Bourbon Show makes bourbon choices legible by connecting proof, price, production, packaging, and industry conditions to candid group discussion.
The Bourbon Show treats whiskey as a subject for argument, comparison, and practical judgment. Its Pint Size conversations weigh high proof against low proof, modern bottles against vintage ones, purchase price against perceived value, and enthusiasm against claims that the…
Bottle price, proof, and Bourbon Trail sprawl face the questions you would ask over a pour.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A bourbon tasting turns into a sharp look at pricing, packaging, and bottle-room theater.
The Bourbon Show keeps its focus on the practical romance of bourbon: what is in the glass, what catches a buyer's eye, and what helps a bottle move.
A calm answer to bourbon doom-and-gloom, grounded in numbers and media context.
The Bourbon Show takes up a practical question: how to respond to non-bourbon friends who think the category has fallen off. Steve Akeley and Rene Howe keep the focus on numbers, media coverage, and everyday consumer behavior, which gives the conversation a grounded,…
A bourbon-trail discussion that stays focused on how 10 new stops fit into real travel plans.
The Bourbon Show follows 10 new stops on the bourbon trail with Steve Vankley and Rene Howe, keeping the focus on where the additions land and how they may shift the way visitors move through Kentucky.
A clear-eyed look at where bourbon buyers start to hesitate.
The Bourbon Show keeps its attention on a simple but useful question: what price makes bourbon buyers stop, trust their judgment, and decide a bottle belongs on the shelf.
Rush Creek's local grain and limestone water story keeps the focus on place and process.
The Bourbon Show shifts to Rush Creek Distilling and a question that looks simple until the details start to matter: what actually sets one distillery apart from another.
A concise Pint Size bourbon discussion centered on Wild Cask 2 and its University of Kentucky tie-in.
The Bourbon Show uses this Pint Size segment to stay close to Wild Cask 2 and its University of Kentucky tie-in. That focus gives Steve Akeley and Rene Howell a clear lane after the opening cheers and quick break, and the conversation benefits from having a specific release to…
A bourbon conversation that finds its flavor in proof, texture, memory, and the freedom to prefer the pour that works.
Proof gives the episode its shape, as the speakers weigh high-proof bourbon against softer pours and start to frame a vintage-versus-modern whiskey debate.

Bourbon talk, barrel stories, messy good pours.


Bourbon reviews with memory, candor, and community.



Everyday life, thought through together.
Hosts Steve Akeley, Renee Howe, and Jeremy Mischel debate high-proof versus low-proof bourbon and vintage versus modern whiskey on The Bourbon Show Pint Size #450.
The Bourbon Show Pint Size #460 discusses the University of Kentucky's second release of Wild Cask, a bourbon created by students in the James B.
The hosts of The Bourbon Show discuss their personal bourbon journeys and experiences in the spirits industry.
The Bourbon Show #244 marks the show’s 10-year run by bringing back Christine Riggleman, its first guest and the founder of Silverback Distillery.
This episode features a classic interview from 2017 with Freddie Noe, the eighth-generation distiller from Jim Beam, discussing his early career and insights into the bourbon industry.
This episode of The Bourbon Show discusses Peerless Distillery's first-ever 10-year-old bourbon offering, featuring hosts Steve Akeley and Rene Howell.
This episode discusses the University of Kentucky's second release of Wild Cask bourbon, created by students in the James B.
This episode features an interview with Kyle McGinty, founder of Blackout Racing Group, discussing his background in racing and connection to the bourbon industry.
This episode features an interview with Sam Lacy, Executive Director of the Bourbon Capital Alliance, discussing Bardstown National Bourbon Week and bourbon-related topics.
This episode of The Bourbon Show explores sweet mash bourbon, discussing why it's rarely used but highly valued by enthusiasts.
This episode features an interview with Stephen Beam of Limestone Branch Distillery, discussing his distillery and the bourbon industry.
The Bourbon Show episode asks why country artists sing about whiskey so often, then ties that question to Chris Stapleton, Hank Williams Jr., Willie Nelson, and Matthew McConaughey.
Steve Akeley and Rene Howe spend the episode circling a simple but loaded question.
Steve Vankley and Rene Howe dig into ten new stops on the bourbon trail.
The hosts spend the episode circling one practical question: what price point makes bourbon drinkers stop and actually weigh a purchase.
Steve Vankley and Rene Howe host guests from Rush Creek Distilling and dig into what really makes a distillery stand apart.
This episode of The Bourbon Show features a debate comparing high-proof versus low-proof bourbon and vintage versus modern whiskey to settle which is better.
The hosts reflect on the major events and trends in the bourbon industry during 2025.