By Richard Thomas Rating: B One of the best outcomes of American whiskey becoming a truly national industry, with distilleries producing coast to coast for the first time in our history, is the creation of so many regional styles and appellations. One such is Empire Rye, a New York State appellation created by a growing …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ The latest batch of single cask bottlings from Lost Lantern includes some real lovelies, and among them is the bourbon from Boulder Distillery. That Colorado distillery was started by Scotsman Alastair Brogan, who brought Scotch-style whiskey-making to the Rocky Mountains, complete with a Forsyths-made copper pot still. That Scottish style …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Cask finishes figure highly in the annual limited edition game, but enthusiasts usually think only of the major and mid-sized distilleries. However, craft distillers do regular, annual releases too, and some of them are merit more attention than they get. A fine example of that is Laws Whiskey House Cognac-Finished …
By Randall H. Borkus Rating: B Alberta Premium Cask Strength Rye is a Canadian rye whisky made with 100% Canadian rye and spring water from the Canadian Rocky Mountains by Alberta Distillers Limited in Calgary, Alberta. There is not much detail on their website, but my online research asserts the whiskey is aged for at …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B Grain & Barrel Spirits, the company behind the revival of the Chicken Cock brand, and some of the sourced releases under that title have been quite excellent. In particular, I was quite fond of the Chicken Cock 15 Year Old Bourbon. The news that the company was bringing out a …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B- As a distillery located amid the various state and federal parklands preserving redwood forests, Redwood Empire draws heavily on forest imagery in naming its whiskeys. Their bonded rye was named after a famous redwood tree, Rocket Top; their bonded bourbon is named for North America’s biggest bear, the grizzly (this …
By Douglas Faser Rating: B+ Bib & Tucker is a 19th Century term used for one’s best clothes. In modern times, this language is not really used, but Deutsch Family Spirits has brought it back as the name of their small batch bourbon line. Bib & Tucker is a sourced, six year old Tennessee-made bourbon. …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B The second in the new Benriach “Season” series whiskies is Malting Season, so named because Benriach is one of just seven Scottish distilleries still engaged in on-site, in-house floor malting. Indeed, Benriach itself only resumed the practice in 2012. For this particular single malt, the wort was made using Concerto …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B These last few years, it seems like everybody (even slightly) famous thinks they can start up a spirits brand or merit having an expression named after them. At this point, I am so sick of seeing adds for Proper Twelve that I would gladly watch Floyd Mayweather whup his ass …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Newport’s New Riff Distilling is riding more waves of novelty than just those names. The distillery is part of a new class of medium-sized distilleries in Kentucky, and is also part of the group that followed Old Pogue in bringing bourbon-making back to Northern Kentucky. New Riff has also become …
