Review: Knob Creek Bourbon x Rye
It’s lately become fashionable to take bourbon and rye and blend them into a new product. And hell, why not? Two great tastes that go great together has been an American mantra since the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup ad campaigns of the 1970s and beyond. With the appropriately named Bourbon x Rye, Knob Creek is…
Review: 2021 Hillick & Hobbs Estate Dry Riesling Seneca Lake New York
Paul Hobbs is a globetrotting, California-based winemaking bigshot, so naturally you’ll find his most expensive and ambitious winery project to date… in New York’s Finger Lakes region. Hillick & Hobbs is a riesling (and only riesling) producer on the southeastern banks of Seneca Lake, where this grape thrives. We don’t get much New York wine…
Review: Highland Park Cask Strength Release No. 5
What initially felt like a one-off is now onto its fifth annual release: Highland Park, no age statement, at Cask Strength. HP has always been a little cagey about what goes into this undiluted bottling, but that’s in part because there’s so much going on. It also changes a little each year. For Release No.…
Review: Green River 1885 Bourbon
One thing the bourbon world needs more of right now are value pours. Not slow sipping bourbons with quality surpassing their MSRP (a real rarity these days) but bourbon that was always intended to be someone’s daily drinker or mixer and priced accordingly. Once upon a time, the industry catered almost exclusively to those customers.…
Review: Cierto Tequila Reserve Collection, Complete Lineup
Last year we encountered Cierto’s Private Collection tequilas and came away impressed. The price points are high, but from the blanco to the extra añejo, the tequilas showed a beautiful, bold character and complexity, and one of them made it onto our top tequila list for the year. This year, we are back with the…
Review: 2022 Damaris Reserve Chardonnay Sonoma Coast
A sub-label of Landmark Vineyards, Damaris produces just one wine — a chardonnay sourced from the Flocchini Vineyard in the Petaluma Gap AVA and the Kiser Vineyard in the Western Sonoma Carneros AVA. Damaris, incidentally, is the first name of the winery’s late founder, Damaris Deere Ford, the great-great-granddaughter of John Deere. We received a sample…
Review: Laws Bonded Bourbon, Rye, and Wheat Whiskey 7 Years Old (2024)
Denver’s Laws Whiskey House releases bonded versions of three whiskeys each year, and, interestingly, Laws has continued to let them get older and older. Our last encounter, in 2021, was a 6 year old bonded bourbon. Now the trio of whiskeys is up to 7 years of age. When will it end? Who knows? While…
Drinkhacker 2024 Wine Cheat Sheet / Vintage Chart
Peak wine season is upon us, and with it come some questions: Is the 2021 or the 2020 the better buy? We got you covered: Our annually updated “Vintage Chart Cheat Sheet” is back for your reading (and drinking) pleasure. In case you’ve missed the sheet’s prior iterations, the concept is simple: Refer to this…
