F. Paul Pacult

Wallkill, NY
Journalist, author, educator, lecturer, consultant

As the world’s most honored spirits authority, F. Paul Pacult has been the publisher/editor of F. Paul Pacult’s Spirit Journal since 1991. Today, F. Paul Pacult’s Spirit Journal is recognized as the foremost source of spirits reviews and evaluations. He is also the creator of the groundbreaking, highly successful iWhiskey App. Through Spirit Journal, Inc., he and his wife/partner Sue Woodley consult to the beverage alcohol industry. He also hosts the celebrated monthly tasting series in New York City, the Masters Series at Keens Steakhouse, now in its 16th year.

Paul is a founding member of the award-winning spirits and mixology training company Beverage Alcohol Resource, LLC (BAR) and is likewise a founding member of the innovative beverage competition company Ultimate Beverage Challenge LLC.

Paul is the author of five best-selling books: Kindred Spirits 2: 2,400 Reviews of Whiskey, Brandy, Vodka, Tequila, Rum, Gin, and Liqueurs from F. Paul Pacult’s Spirit Journal 2000-2007 (Spirit Journal, Inc., 2008); A Double Scotch: How Chivas Regal and The Glenlivet Became Global Icons (John Wiley, 2005), the best-selling American Still Life: The Jim Beam Story and the Making of the World’s #1 Bourbon (John Wiley, 2003), as well as Kindred Spirits (Hyperion, 1997) and The Beer Essentials (Hyperion, 1997).

From 1982 to 2009, he contributed to scores of national and international publications, including Playboy, Wine & Spirits Magazine, Cheers, Connoisseur, MarketWatch, Travel & Leisure, Men’s Journal, Beverage Dynamics and many others.  Most prominently. for 17 years he wrote for the New York Times Magazine, was the Delta Sky wine columnist for 13 years and for 9 years was Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s spirits columnist/spirits tasting editor.

He produced and co-hosted two nationally syndicated radio shows, The Happy Hour with Paul Pacult and Gary Regan (1997-1999) and Paul Pacult’s Good Life (2000) and has appeared in two landmark History Channel documentaries. For a decade starting in 2000, he was judging director of the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Paul won the award for wine journalism excellence in 2001 from The Academy of Wine Communications. He is the only journalist worldwide to concurrently be a life member and Master of Keepers of the Quaich whisky society (Edinburgh, Scotland), a life member of Kentucky’s Bourbon Hall of Fame, and a life member of France’s Company of Armagnac Musketeers. In September 2011, the Bureau National Interprofessional du Cognac (BNIC) in France honored Paul as the Cognac Personality of the Year for 2011.

Paul lives with Sue in the Hudson Valley, New York.

F. Paul Pacult’s Spirit Journal: Independent, Unbiased, Truthful
Since 1991, F. Paul Pacult’s Spirit Journal has been the most trusted newsletter on spirits, wine, and beer in America. Published quarterly, F. Paul Pacult’s Spirit Journal does not accept advertising and, as such, renders unbiased reviews and ratings that are considered the gold standard within the alcoholic beverage industry. To subscribe to F. Paul Pacult’s Spirit Journal, log on to www.spiritjournal.com.