Review: Camus Ile de Re Cognacs
Most (myself included) think of Cognac hailing from a small region in France just north of Bordeaux. But did you know that you can make Cognac (legally) on an island off the coast of France? To be fair, Ile de Re isn’t far offshore — it’s connected to the mainland via a bridge — but…
Review: Col. E.H. Taylor Rye
Buffalo Trace’s Col. E.H. Taylor, Jr. brand continues rolling along with this fifth expression, a bottled-in-bond rye. The mashbill is interesting and unusual: Only rye and malted barley, no corn. The proportion of each isn’t disclosed, but it’s definitely heavy on the rye. At 100 proof (like all bottled-in-bond whiskey is), it’s surprisingly hot. I…
Review: Scotch Malt Whisky Society September 2012 Outturn
Another outturn from SMWS, this one including my first grain whisky sample from SMWS, covering September 2012. SMWS Cask 2.81 – 15 year old Glenlivet from Speyside – Blazing Glenlivet that’s turned out from first-fill sherry butts. (It’s unclear how long the whisky spends in the sherry casks, but based on the deep Bourbon-brown color,…
Review: Kahlua Iced Coffee Grab & Go Cocktails
You can pour your Kahlua into coffee, or you can get it in one-stop format, thanks to Kahlua’s new “grab & go” canned cocktails. (I’m not sure where you’re supposed to be “going” with one of these in hand, but that’s another story.) Each of these pre-mixed cocktails are fairly self-explanatory, and each includes 100%…
Review: Buffalo Trace Giant French Oak Barrels Experiments Bourbons
With all the hubbub over small whiskey barrels going on, it almost went unnoticed that Buffalo Trace released a whiskey that went the opposite direction: Aged in oversized French oak barrels for a long, long time. To be sure, the 135-gallon barrel (likely a “puncheon” as terminology goes) is not the largest wooden barrel out…
Review: The Arran Malt Devil’s Punch Bowl
Best whisky name ever now goes The Arran Malt, whose new Devil’s Punch Bowl single malt is seductive and devilish — and comes with packaging to match. Named for a glacial hollow called Coire na Ciche on the Isle of Arran, the boggy hill sits in the distillery’s backyard. The whisky inside is drawn from…
Review: Cu Dhub Black Whisky
How do you turn Scotch whisky black as stout? Well, the secret isn’t as fantastical as you might have hoped: Cu Dhub is colored (heavily) with black caramel. Cu Dhub, pronounced “kaddoo,” is actually a very loose recreation of a whisky called Loch Dhu, which was bottled for only a few years in the ’90s…
Review: White Lion VSOA
Billed as the “world’s oldest naturally fermented, single ingredient spirit,” VSOA is a beverage that defies description or easy categorization. VSOA is part of a group of spirits called arrack, which can can be made from just about anything (the better-known Batavia Arrack is made from sugarcane, like rum). This version (VSOA stands for Very…
