Review: Absinthia Blanche and Verte
Absinthia — formally known as Absinthia’s Bottled Spirits — is a woman-owned absinthe producer based in Oakland, California (though the product is produced in Fresno). What else could the owner, with a name like J. Absinthia Vermut, produce but an American take on the green fairy? Absinthia uses vintage Swiss recipes, natural ingredients, and no…
Review: Old Forester Birthday Bourbon 2021 Edition
The first big release of fall whiskey season — Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, which celebrates the birthday of founder George Garvin Brown on September 2 — has arrived. This year’s release is a batch of 119 barrels which were distilled on April 16,2009, making it a 12 year old expression. It’s bottled at 104 proof…
Review: NV Cockburn’s Porto Branco
Summer is made for mixing up cocktails with white Port — just add tonic and an orange slice if you have it. Cockburn’s nonvintage Porto Branco offers an approachable, if innocuous, way to explore some of the charms of this unique wine — at a very reasonable price. It’s a classic example of the style,…
Review: Amaro Alta Verde
Italian distillery Antica Erboristeria Cappelletti is best known for its eponymous aperitivo — but it makes a variety of bitter liqueurs, including this one. Amaro Alta Verde is a truly unusual amaro, pale green in color and flavored primarily with Assenzio, a variety of wormwood. “A complementary blend of alpine herbs, citrus and spice frame and…
Review: Pallini Limoncello, Peachcello, and Raspicello (2021)
Exclusive to the Amalfi coast, Sfusato lemons are prized and in high demand for the intensity of their flavor and serves as the main ingredient in Pallini Limoncello, which we last reviewed in 2009. We recently sampled the flagship expression in Pallini’s range along with two additional flavors, right in time for the heatwave of…
Review: Laphroaig 10 Years Old Sherry Oak Finish
The marriage of sherry and peat can prove to be a challenging equation to balance. Some distilleries manage to figure it out with elegance and style. Others have birthed mutations best forgotten, relegated to the island of misfit bottles. Thankfully this Laphroaig does not fall in the latter category, but sadly neither does it rise…
Understanding Bordeaux’s Crus Bourgeois – Tasting the 2018 Vintage
In Bordeaux, there are basically two primary worlds of wine: Crus Classes, those “classified wines” that were first established in 1855, and Crus Bourgeois, which reflects wines from across the Medoc region which are one step down. There have always been many highly regarded wines in the Cru Bourgeois classification, and the classification has been…
Review: Dos Primos Tequila Blanco
Fancy paint-accented bottle with a leather-wrapped neck, fabric label with signatures attached, a promise of “100% slow roasted Weber blue agave grown right in the heart of tequila country” … that, alas, is about all we know about Dos Primos Tequila, a new spirit which is clearly swinging for the fences — but which is…
