Review: Hangar 24 Hullabaloo Winter Beer
Oktoberfest is gone, winter brews are new arriving. One of the first to hit is Redlands, Calif.-based Hangar 24’s Hullabaloo, a Scottish style ale made with European and American malts. It’s a rich and burly brew, driven by thick malt, coffee and cocoa powder notes, and bitter root notes. The overall impact: Relatively muted and…
Review: 2012 Wines of Portugal’s Monte Velho
This brand, from Portugal’s Esporao is now 40 years old. With a focus on ultra-cheap blends both red and white, Monte Velho’s packaging has been redesigned with a focus on environmentalism (the bottles are amazingly lightweight, at least when empty), while keeping costs to a bare minimum. That said, quality remains uninspiring. Thoughts on the…
Review: Camus Family Legacy Cognac
Camus Family Legacy arrived at Drinkhacker HQ with the most unfortunate typo. On our sample bottle, the price was listed as $12.99. That’s a mistake of two orders of magnitude. Camus’s latest is a full $1299 — the company’s entry into ultra-luxe spirits. The production process sounds impressive — five crus involved in an eight-step…
Review: Ivanabitch Vodka Complete Lineup
Made in the Netherlands, the Ivanabitch people have gone out of their way — way out of their way — to simultaneously give Ivanabitch an Old World back story (it involves a “half-mad” Russian in the 1600s named Dmitri Ivanabitch) and a hip/fresh look with a modern (or at least ’80s) bottle design and a name,…
Review: Martell Caractere Cognac
Martell recently launched this Cognac, a simple blend of brandies (in an admittedly snazzy bottle), with no age indication at all. In other words: This is entry-level Cognac, so let’s see how it tastes. On first blush it’s a clearly young spirit, somewhat brash on the nose, but tempered with notes of incense and, curiously,…
Review: Tributo Tequila – Reposado, Anejo, and Extra Anejo
Tributo, aka Tributo a Mi Padre, is a new tequila brand — 100% agave, of course — with a bit of the twist. It’s high-end stuff, with serious production values and heavy attention to detail (the bottles alone look fancy fancy if you know what I mean)… but with prices designed to move. When’s the last time…
Review: 2010 Ladera Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain Reserve
This is a classic Howell Mountain Cab, loaded with intense fruit, black cherries and currants all the way. Laced with notes of leather, chocolate, and menthol (particularly on the powerful nose), it offers a supple body and a balanced yet powerhouse finish that lasts for quite a while. This is a nice return to form…
Review: Quinta de Roriz 2010 Prazo de Roriz and 2011 Post Scriptum
Symington is one of Portugal’s premiere Port bottlers, but recently the company has been expanding into non-fortified wines from Portugal’s Douro region, many of which are made using the same grapes you’ll find in Port, thanks to a partnership with the Prats family which is a big name in Bordeaux. These wines, made under the…
