Murder by Death Spread the Joy of 'National Whiskey Day'

"That's a holiday my friend Zach and I invented 10 years ago because there's no actual National Whiskey Day," Turla tells Spinner. "Among our friends in town, it's basically the big rager -- the social gala of the season. Everybody buys the fanciest bottle of whiskey they can afford, puts it on a table and everyone just drinks. We dress up, play dice games and there's usually a dance party involving Prince."

For the 10th anniversary, held in December, Turla made the most of Bloomington's proximity to Kentucky and purchased a 23-year-old bourbon. "We live right on the Kentucky border, [cellist] Sarah's from there and a lot of our friends live there, so we prefer bourbon because you can get any bottle you want where we live," he says.

On tour, Turla actually sticks to only drinking whiskey to maintain his powerful baritone. "I don't drink beer on tour because it's not good for your voice," he says. "I try to be more responsible so I can put on a better show every night so I just drank whiskey straight. My favorite is Bulleit. You can't always find it, so I tend to drink a lot of Jameson's because everybody has it and it's good for the price."

In the end, Turla and company hope that their made-up holiday spreads to others. "That's kind of where we're going with the whole thing," he says. "We're trying to get people to be like 'Oh, whiskey, I love that s---.' We want it to catch on."

Murder by Death's fifth album, 'Good Morning Magpie,' is due out April 6 by Vagrant Records.