Daily Podcasts Video Research

In the beginning was the word — and the word was whisky

JL;DR SUMMARY Noah Rothbaum's "The Whiskey Bible" is a comprehensive guide to whisky, exploring its historical evolution from an American immigrant industry to an international bestseller, largely influenced by Jewish participation. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

Jewish HistoryJewish ImmigrationProhibitionJewish ContributionWhiskyNoah RothbaumUncle Jesse TheoryAmerican WhiskyPhylloxeraWhisky Bible

Places mentioned

Kentucky, United States
"In all these little towns in Kentucky and the Midwest, Jews are a tiny percentage of the population, Rothbaum says."
Warsaw, Mazovia, Poland
"Looking back, part of my family ran a restaurant in Warsaw and others in the Ukraine ran a boardinghouse"
Ukraine
"Looking back, part of my family ran a restaurant in Warsaw and others in the Ukraine ran a boardinghouse"
Scotland, United Kingdom
"Rows of Islay Whisky barrels stacked by the waterfront at a Scotch Distillery on the island of Islay, Scotland, UK."
Poland
"Looking at POLIN: Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Poland you can see how Jews were disproportionately represented in the hospitality trade."
New York City, New York, United States
"As Rothbaum recently told a crowd at the 92Y, everything through the lens of whisky is more fascinating."
New Jersey, United States
"Hes Scottish, his wife is Jewish and from New Jersey."
Glenmorangie, Scotland, United Kingdom
"I myself had bumped into the deep connection between Jews and whisky in North America when I noticed in 2010 that Glenmorangie was getting an Orthodox Union hecksher to prove it was kosher and set out to investigate."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 71237
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-12-25 05:30:58 UTC
Curated 2025-12-25 08:31:36 UTC