Rated D/F
Reviews of spirits, wine, and beer (and various errata like mixers and garnishes) comprise more than 80% of the content at Drinkhacker. This category is a catch-all for everything rated D+, D, D-, or F, our lowest rating. These products should be categorically avoided by everyone (and preferably discontinued altogether). On a five-star scale, these products would score 1.5 stars (for D+ ratings) or 1 star (for D, D-, and F ratings). On the traditional 100-point scale popular with many wine and spirits graders, these products would merit scores 68 or below.
No particular theme here, just two wines from along the route of Spain’s Duero River, including a white from Rueda and a red from Ribera del Duero. Thoughts follow. 2015 Beronia Rueda Verdejo – This verdejo is grassy and acidic, drinking a lot like a western sauvignon blanc, with crisp lemon notes up front, followed…
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Today, a trio of new releases from Robert Mondavi’s entry-level “Napa Valley” line. 2014 Robert Mondavi Pinot Noir Napa Valley Carneros – Smells fine — light but heavy with notes of tea leaf and cherries, classic pinot stuff — and then you take a sip. Ugh, here it reveals a funky, bitter, and entirely unpalatable…
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Today we’re ganging up two recent quarterly shipments of MashBox spirits samplers, one a rather random collection of recent releases, the other a trio of the same whiskey but finished in different barrels types. Read on for details from this outturn of the internet’s most interesting booze-of-the-month club. As a reminder, $99 a year gets your…
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The alcoholization of everything continues with the world of iced tea, courtesy of MillerCoors-owned Easy Tea Co. and its new Hard Iced Tea (Crisp Citrus Flavor) product. That’s a bold name for whatever is in this monster-sized can. Whatever it is, it isn’t tea, which doesn’t appear anywhere in the list of ingredients (water, corn…
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This new brand of supermarket-friendly wines comes from John Anthony and Michele Truchard — and together they are JaM Cellars. If that isn’t catchy enough, the names of the wines — Toast, Butter, and Jam — and black-plus-one-primary-color labeling are likely to stick with you. JaM may wear its obviousness on its sleeve — or, on its…
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A septet of new releases from our friends at FFC. Quality on this round is literally all over the place… 2014 Francis Ford Coppola Sofia Blanc de Blancs Monterey County – The cellophane wrapper should connote luxury, but to me it always comes across as scary. This wine — vintage blanc de blancs! — smells…
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Dark Corner Distillery in Greenville, South Carolina is the home of a number of youthful whiskey products, including an unaged moonshine and a series of flavored whiskeys bottled under the Whiskey Girl (aka Whiskeygirl) brand. All of this is distilled and bottled at Dark Corner’s Greenville operation. Four reviews — the aforementioned moonshine and three flavored…
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Mexican sodas (aka frescas) are one of life’s little pleasures. Naturally someone had to try and improve on them by adding alcohol. Hard Frescos are, as is common in this category, not really sodas but rather malt beverages with flavoring added. However, while it says malt beverage on the label, Hard Frescos are actually made primarily from…
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I have never asked for Midori. Midori has only sought me out, squirreled away in cocktails, usually the kind served blended into a slushie and handed out in a locale where the sunset is meant to be admired over anything else. Midori is, surprisingly, owned by Japan’s Suntory and made exclusively in Japan from its…
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Despite the science, the “gluten-free” movement still refuses to go away, so that sea of footnotes indicating glutenlessness continues to mar restaurant menus, and gluten-free alternatives to regular products continue to line grocery shelves. Including gluten-free beer. Beer is traditionally made from barley, which is loaded with gluten, so making a beer without gluten presents some thorny…
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