Topical story, when released, about whiskey (10)
I believe the answer is:
newsworthy
'topical' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives. Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'story when released about whiskey' is the wordplay.
'released' indicates anagramming the letters (letters released from their original order).
'about' is an insertion indicator.
'whiskey' becomes 'W' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'story'+'when'='storywhen'
'storywhen' is an anagram of 'nesworthy'.
'nesworthy' enclosing 'w' is 'NEWSWORTHY'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for newsworthy that I've seen before include "Interesting to journalists" , "of interest to public" , "Likely to get media attention" , "Of interest to the media" , "hitting the headlines?" .)