Review: Metaxa Greek Spirit 5 Stars and 7 Stars
And you may ask yourself: What exactly is Metaxa anyway? A staple of every liquor store in the country, it sits there untouched in its odd-shaped bottle. The stalwart shopper who picks it up finds only that it hails from Greece before setting it back down. The only hint on the bottle: “Greek Specialty Liqueur.”…
Book Review: The Quotable Drunkard
For some reason, I get a kick out of reading quotations, and I expect I’m not alone, explaining why so many books of quotes are on the market. Steven Kates turns to a natural topic – the bottle – for this themed book of musings, and for the most part it’s a solid one. Split…
Review: Simply Naked Wines, 2010 Vintage
Wine and wood go hand in hand, but Simply Naked’s experiment takes the oak out of the equation. All of these wines are fermented and aged in stainless steel. For some of these wines, like Pinot Grigio, that’s normal. Chardonnay: OK. But Merlot and Cabernet? Interesting experiments. Here’s how the wines — all budget bottlings…
Review: Bloom Gin
Bloom is a real enigma: Born from the distiller of one of the world’s first London Dry gins — parent company Greenall’s celebrates its 250th anniversary this year and is the producer of Bombay and Bombay Sapphire for Bacardi — Bloom is a brand new gin with a modern twist. It is designed for women,…
Review: Spring44 Vodka, Honey Vodka, and Gin
Spring44 (aka Spring 44) is a new line of vodka and gin out of Colorado. All are distilled five times from a multi-grain blend of wheat, rye, and corn (much like whiskey), filtered through a coconut husk filtration system, and blended with water from a 9,000-foot-high source. We checked out all three of the distillery’s…
Book Review: Exploring Wine
Every wine drinker needs one (and only one) book like this: A magnificent, encyclopedia-sized tome that tells you everything you can possibly want to know about wine in a single book. Or tries to, anyway. As such a subject is basically unmasterable, the goal with a mega-book like this is to be as comprehensive as…
Review: Craft Distillers Mezcalero Release #2 San Baltazar Guelavila
First a primer on how most mezcal makes it into the U.S.: Some American gets on a plane and road-trips through Oaxaca, Mexico, tasting his way through artisan distilleries until he finds something he loves. That American then becomes an importer, and in the case of really good mezcal, sometimes only a few hundred bottles…
Review: Germain-Robin Apple Brandy
Not your father’s Applejack, Germain-Robin’s artisanal apple brandy is not cloyingly sweet but rather a fruit-tinged brandy, just as good fruit brandy should be. Dry and smooth, the nose offers vanilla and light chocolate notes, and really little more than a hint of apples. That’s right: The apple orchard takes a back seat to the…
