I wasn’t sure if I was going to mark the occasion of The Casks 400th post with something special, just another review, or…I don’t know, a video of me sabering a bottle of vintage Pol Roger Brut while doing an ancient clog dance last performed by a bunch of drunk Jacobites in Killiecrankie. My impulse was not to go overboard and try something fancy because, lord knows, it’s been tricky enough just to get another review out lately. Then again, I thought, that’s precisely why I should single out the occasion.

Certainly there are many other blogs out there with far more posts, posting with far more regularity, and regularly being far more in touch with the whole whisky scene, but that’s beside the point. When I started this thing, five and a half years ago in 2010, I didn’t really have any expectation as to its longevity or any sort of relative popularity. The blog has always been mostly a way to catalog my experiences with the whisky world and partly a half-baked, mostly pointless social media experiment. I’m happy to report that the social media experiment part has more or less ended without generating any conclusive conclusions. The cataloging part rolls on, though. I don’t drink as much whisky as I used to, and I don’t leap out the door every time I get wind of a tasting, but I still enjoy exploring the booze and all its related history…especially the related history. I recently discovered that I own twice as many books about whisky as I do bottles of whisky. Granted this was after trimming my “collection” down to a few dozen bottles, but still, it’s telling. All those books have been opened, by the way, I can’t say the same thing about the bottles.

The best and most unexpected by-product of having this blog has been meeting all the good people in and around the whisky industry/community. It has been great fun to watch (with a twinge of envy, too) several of the writers and bloggers who befriended and supported me early on, turn their passion in to their livelihood. Equally, it’s been a pleasure to forge relationships within the industry that, through their generosity and expertise, have helped me expand my own experience. I would never have guessed that grabbing a domain name and using a free blogging platform would have introduced me to so many great people and places. The stats for The Casks show that over the years, it’s been read by people all over the world…that is astounding to me and humbling.

Will I make it to 500 posts? I have no fucking idea, that’s the main reason why I thought it best to celebrate 400 posts. Thank you, sincerely, for coming along on this ride.