Review: Wild Turkey Master’s Keep One
Six years in to the Master’s Keep series we have the arrival of Master’s Keep One, a (sorta) complex blend of bourbons designed to celebrate the melding of Jimmy Russell and Eddie Russell’s two distinct styles into a single spirit. Master’s Keep One [combines] Jimmy’s love of mid-aged bourbons (8 to 10 years) with Eddie’s…
Recipe: Fancy Free
For this recipe, we’re going back in time to the heady cocktailing days of the 1940s and the pages of Crosby Gaige’s Cocktail Guide and Ladies’ Companion. In my humble opinion, this book needs to rank up there with the best vintage cocktail guides if only for its fantastic illustrations. The cocktail recipes are also…
Review: Lawson’s Finest Liquids Triple Sunshine
Vermont’s Lawson’s Finest Liquids goes big with Triple Sunshine — available for a limited time — a whopper of a triple IPA that pushes into double-digit abv territory — as well it should. It’s unctuous with notes of flamed pineapple, vanilla custard, mango lassi, and a torched marshmallow note, touched with just a hint of…
Review: Barrell Bourbon Batch 30
Barrell Bourbon Batch 30 has arrived, marking yet another milestone for the bourbon blending behemoth. At this point, we could fill a whole bar with only Barrell Bourbon batch releases (maybe we already have), and we honestly wouldn’t complain about the selection, despite almost all of these releases being some mix of bourbons from Kentucky,…
Review: Wines of Veramonte, Ritual, and Primus, 2021 Releases
Chile’s Veramonte has numerous sub-labels, including Ritual and Primus, all of which we have reviewed extensively in the past. Today we look at a bottling from each of these brands, all of which are made with 100% organic ingredients. Let’s dive in. 2019 Veramonte Cabernet Sauvignon – Organic or not, this is cheap cab, underdeveloped…
Book Review: On California: From Napa to Nebbiolo… Wine Tales from the Golden State
The late Steven Spurrier amassed a legacy of wine writing to which only a select few rival. Perhaps one of his most enduring contributions to wine writing is not the writing itself, but the establishment of his Académie du Vin Library, a publishing house whose operation is twofold: to carefully curate new titles highlighting the…
Review: Southern Grace Distilleries Conviction Double Oak 1929 and Conviction Naranja
In 2018, we took you behind bars at Southern Grace Distilleries’ “Whiskey Prison” when we checked out their Conviction Small Batch Bourbon. It was a surprisingly well-built whiskey to be so young, never mind the fact that it was fermented in 50-gallon drums and distilled one gallon at a time on a pot still constructed…
Review: Kentucky Owl The Wiseman Bourbon
Kentucky Owl began life in 2014 as a small batch, boutique whiskey brand whose ultra-limited bourbon releases quickly attained near Pappy-like levels of adoration, complete with ridiculous secondary valuations on top of already generous SRPs. In 2017, the brand broke into the broader market with a series of small batch, well-aged rye releases (see Batch…
