Thursday, May 29, 2014

Blog of the Month: The Coopered Tot


Josh Feldman, the blogger who writes The Coopered Tot, is a true whiskey enthusiast, with the emphasis on enthusiast.  The guy is enthusiastic about nearly everything.  He loves whiskey, the people who make it, bottle it and sell it.  In the whiskey blogosphere, he's the guy who's president of the PTA and chairman of the neighborhood welcome wagon, bringing the whiskey equivalent of a basket of cookies to new readers and bloggers. He's gracious and always willing to look at other points of view. 

It's not just enthusiasm though, Josh writes some great stuff, including a recent post looking at representations of race, gender and  sexuality in old whiskey ads.  He's done some fun treasure hunting, digging into obscure old whiskeys, and looking into the downfall of a once great label. He's thorough and creative.  He zeroes in on his subjects like a dog with a particularly meaty bone that he won't let go of until he's done.

I've joked that The Coopered Tot is the Moby Dick of whiskey blogs, because the posts are really long and tend to go off on long tangents, and sometimes I worry that Josh gets too cozy with the industry he's writing about (a weakness that he himself has acknowledged), but his blog is always an interesting read, providing you can put aside the time to read it.


7 comments:

Josh Feldman said...

Honored, touched, and touché-ed. You totally get everything about what makes my blog good and what makes it suck! I'm motivated, Sku: motivated to work on brevity, integrity, getting some skepticism and cynicism one of these days... and... maybe just get some content out there at all!

Seriously, making Sku's Blog of the Month is the best whisky thing to have happened ever (except maybe winning the first Dramming.com blind tasting). Is there some kind of logo I can put on my blog? An "approved by Sku" seal? I'm going to add some good extra things to the group of dram samples I've owed you for months...

Peter said...

Uh huh...Josh "owes" Sku samples? Now I see how this works.

Josh Feldman said...

LOL! Sku's a straight arrow. If anything I should be graded down for taking samples and not giving any back for a long time... Remember that about me if we trade.

sku said...

Peter, I'm deeply offended that you think I could be bought off by a few samples. Everyone knows that I only take cash.

Anonymous said...

Oof even Josh's comments needs a 'tl;dr'.

Keep up the good work.

Peter said...

Sorry Sku, my mistake, I did know that, not sure what came over me. While we're on the subject, what was the amount again? Just want to send that to you ahead of August's BotM.

Ok, seriously though, great choice. I've long been a fan (and jealous) of Joshua's fanatical, historical, research tendencies. His latest posts on advertising were fantastic, he deserves all the exposure he can get.

DavindeK said...

SKU, finally, someone who agrees with me. Ishmael was way too close to the whaling industry to write about it objectively.

Good call on Coop! Love the guy.