Last year Jefferson’s Bourbon conducted a wacky experiment involving aging barrels of bourbon at sea to see if the air and water quality had an effect on the final product. As the resulting product was so limited in quantity, few people got to taste the results and final verdict of this project. Along these lines, Mira Winery is about to retrieve four cases of its 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon from a three-month stay in the Charleston Harbor. Their mission? To determine whether or not light, tides, waves and temperature have an effect on the chemical breakdown of wine. They are slated to raise the wine on May 21, wherein they’ll announce the second phase of this experiment. We’ll bring you the latest as soon as news is delivered to us. Stay tuned. [PR Newswire]

The Bourbon backlash has begun! Charleston City Paper makes a case for switching from bourbon to rum when getting your next summer cocktail. Columnist Robert Moss dissects the current bourbon trend, reviews some new rums and samples some new cocktails. From our perspective, there should never be a superior spirit over another. Love all equally.

Good news for Irish whiskey drinkers: the Spirits Business is reporting that two more distilleries have been approved to open in Northern Ireland. No doubt in a move to compete with Scotch and Japanese whisky, a microdistillery in Portaferry and a full scale distillery in Kircubbin are slated to open soon. This news comes on the heels of a £15 million distillery in Londonderry receiving operations approval earlier this week. The world needs more Irish whiskey, so these events can only be viewed as positive for drinkers and distillers alike. [The Spirits Business]

In a predictable move forecasted by nearly everybody, the Beer Trade associations, lobbyist organizations, and the American Beverage Institute have all come out in strong opposition to the latest move by the National Transportation Safety Board; which would lower the legal blood alcohol content level from 0.08 to 0.05. BeerPulse has the latest, including some video testimonial from yesterday’s hearings. [BeerPulse]

And finally today, in a bit of “inside baseball” news, we marked our 2,500th post on the site with our review of Hillrock Estate Solera Bourbon. Normally these milestones are celebrated in private, but we’d like to take this opportunity to celebrate and — most importantly — thank YOU for visiting, commenting, contributing, arguing, trolling, and generally consuming our work. We appreciate your audience, and hope you stick around for post number 5,000 (probably arriving in 2017). [Drinkhacker]

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