Review: Samuel Adams Utopias (2011 Release)
Sam Adams is back again with its seasonal release of Utopias, the Guinness recordholder for the strongest commercially available beer. At 27% alcohol, Utopias continues to shock eyeballs and palates, not just with the wild, bold flavor, but with the price tag, too. I missed the 2009 Utopias, so it’s been a lengthy four years…
Tasting Emanuel Andren Chocolate Truffles
We don’t review much high-end chocolate here at Drinkhacker. Or rather, some (namely myself) would say we don’t review enough. While you’ve probably not heard the name, Emanuel Andrén is hardly a new brand. Founded in a small town in Sweden in 1868, this family business is devoted to producing ultra-luxe confections, which it promptly…
Review: Bacardi Oakheart Spiced Rum
It’s a little hard to believe, but the top-selling rum company on earth — in fact, one of the top-selling spirits brands in the world — did not, until now, have a spiced rum under its umbrella. That is finally changing, as Bacardi this month has launched Oakheart, its own “smooth spiced rum.” The emphasis…
Review: Col. E.H. Taylor Single Barrel Bourbon
Earlier this year our friends at Buffalo Trace released the first in a line of new whiskeys named for pioneering Bourbon-man E.H. Taylor. A second spirit is now ready to join that line: Colonel E.H. Taylor Single Barrel Bourbon. Aged 11 years 7 months, this is a nicely matured whiskey with plenty of wood going…
Review: Tatratea Liqueurs
Today we have the very good fortune to cover a new liqueur series from Karloff Tatra Distillery in Slovakia, all based on tea. Not sweet tea, so common in today’s flavored vodka universe, but hot, fermented tea: Brewed, black tea, spiced with herbs, and mixed with alcohol. Cane sugar is used for sweetening. Then Tatratea…
Review: The Bitter Truth Pimento Dram Liqueur
What a time it is in which we live. Just a couple of years ago, we had now way to add allspice liqueur — known in the Old Days as Pimento Dram — to a cocktail, leaving hundreds of recipes simply unmakeable, unless you wanted to do something horrible like substitute cinnamon schnapps for the…
Review: Masterson’s Straight Rye Whiskey 10 Years Old
100% rye: an oddity. 100% rye from Canada, blended with Colorado-sourced water, and bottled in Sonoma, California — a real oddity. Technically a Canadian whisky, this big rye is named after Old West lawman William “Bat” Masterson — a man who, somehow, has returned from the grave he entered in 1921 in order to put…
Review: Isle of Skye 12 Years Old (2011)
Ian MacLeod’s 12-year-old Isle of Skye whiskey — an upscale blended malt whisky — makes the move from Britain to the U.S. this month, following the 8-year-old version that arrived in 2009. This is an intriguing whisky on its production alone: Using (various) Island and Speyside malts, it is put back into cask after the…
