Life in the Judean Hills is filled with informal social clubs—poker players, football watchers, even ladies who lunch. But my group is different. About once a month, we get together with a bottle of bourbon and a box of cigars. We sit on the porch, light the stogies, and watch the smoke float and dissipate through the air. The smoke mixes with the scent of bourbon, creating a magnificent aura that reminds me how good it feels to be alive. It is a night like this when I am sit

The Ella Valley is green. I inhale deeply, sensing the faint smell of wine fermenting at the vineyard nearby. I can picture the corn that will soon be growing here and the future Legend’s Distillery that will transform that corn into American-style whiskey. I think back to the journey that brought me, an American-Israeli, to the precipice of building that distillery here in Israel. I am standing with my family at New York’s Kennedy airport, anticipating my first trip to Israe

Noam Cohen and Alan Cohl are confident that their new brand of American-style Whiskey will echo Israel’s success in making the desert bloom. They are creating Israel’s first American Whiskey distillery, hoping to trail blaze the Israeli whiskey palate and bring an added level of sophistication to the Israeli cocktail culture just starting to take off. Cohen and Cohl, Israeli immigrants from New Jersey and New York, respectively, are confident that their brand, Legends Distill

Bourbon, America’s native spirit, has experienced resurgence in recent years, and is now enjoying unprecedented popularity in Europe and Asia as well. In the United States, distributors and retailers are struggling to keep up with burgeoning demand, scampering for additional offerings, even from regions beyond American borders. In response, many small, “boutique” bourbon distilleries have begun operating across the country. In Kentucky alone (the traditional birthplace of “bo

Located in the Judean Hills, about 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem lies Ella Valley. Ella Valley is one of those delightful places where biblical texts come alive. The Biblical story of David and Goliath, as told in the Book of Samuel, took place here. In that battle, David the shepherd boy, years before he became the mighty King David, killed the giant Philistine Goliath with a single stone – from his slingshot. As famous for wine as for the battle of David and Goliath, Ella

In what Fortune Magazine is calling “The billion-dollar bourbon boom”, bourbon sales are showing significant growth over the last decade. The connection between Jewish culture and bourbon is deeply rooted in U.S. history. In the distilling business, the best known Jewish producers were the Bernheim Brothers who produced the I.W. Harper brand. Here’s the full article: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/05/the-jewish-origins-of-kentucky-bourbon/392408/. At Legend