The Bible tells us that everything is cyclical, but frequently we refuse to listen. In Kentucky, the bourbon industry is now worth $8.5 billion annually, and no end appears to be in sight. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being invested to expand distilleries.

All this hysteria ignores a familiar cycle of boom and bust that has haunted brown spirits for nearly a century. “If you look at the history of the industry, we’ve shot ourselves in the foot so many times that we’re lucky to be here,” declared Max Shapira, president of Heaven Hill distillery. The year was 2011. I was in Bardstown, Kentucky, interviewing him for my first book, Iconic Spirits: An Intoxicating History. Shapira was remarkably sanguine, despite the fact that consumer whims had nearly destroyed his family’s business a number of times. In a long post last week, we looked at the odds of the bubble bursting once again.

Speaking of industries: global sales of Prosecco surpassed Champagne about five years ago, and continue stronger than ever. Certainly, you can buy three or four bottles of Prosecco for the price of a single bottle of NV Brut Champagne. But what do you get if you sell out $20? See out review of Mionetto’s flagship bubbly from the Cartizze hill, the “Montrachet of Verona.”

Finally, in our weekly roundup of the web’s most interesting stories, we looked at 7000 chickens stopping traffic on the autobahn, the U.S. government christening warships with sparkling Moscato, spending $4K on a fake bottle of 1947 Krug Collection, and the ultimate case of Delhi belly.

Here are last week’s posts:

Bourbon: When Will the Bubble Burst?

Glass Half Full: 7/12/2017

Quick Sip: Mionetto Prosecco Cartizze DOCG