Weekend roundup: June 17

--Can Ireland Become The Center of the Whiskey World? The Daily Beast weighs in: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/06/11/can-ireland-become-the-center-of-the-whiskey-world.html

--If interested in the above story, try the history of Why Scotch Boomed while Irish Whiskey Wilted, our own well-research writeup on the topic. http://www.aswdistillery.com/crafted-with-characters/why-did-scotch-succeed-while-irish-whiskey-wilted

--Booze and The Bizarre have always found common ground, a trend in no way limited to the US. As the Associated Press reported earlier this week: Ukraine Says Border Guards Found Bootleg Alcohol Pipeline. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ukraine-says-border-guards-found-bootleg-alcohol-pipeline-n587156

--Interested in investing in whiskey. There's a new way to do so, through the first Whiskey-based Exchange Traded Fund. Business Insider on the scoop: http://www.businessinsider.com/whiskey-etf-2016-6

--Nice roundup of the 14 best craft distilled whiskeys under $50, incl. Wasmunds / Copper Fox & Catoctin Creek, from the ever-prescient Eater http://buff.ly/23dO50U

--“New [craft] malteries might use a combination of box-malting and floor-malting techniques” - A Whiskey Wash article on the ascendance of malteries as whiskey has grown by leaps and bounds http://buff.ly/21oiS9P

--“Disarming preconceived notions of what rum is, or ought to be (aside from a sugarcane distillate ), turns out to be a decidedly difficult task: rum, in fact, exists as one of the most conceptually-loaded liquors in all the Seven Seas.” http://www.eater.com/spirits/2016/6/10/11903514/whiskey-scotch-bourbon-rum

--If interested in whether rum can become the next bourbon, in face off the odds described by the Eater article above, check out our send-up of the subject from last week: http://www.aswdistillery.com/crafted-with-characters/is-rum-the-next-bourbon