Review: NV Billionaires Row Champagne Les Roses
Good news, billionaires. There’s more than Cognac out there for you, there’s also a tax-bracket-friendly Champagne from the good folks at Billionaires Row: a rose Brut made from 20% pinot noir, 64% chardonnay, and 16% pinot meunier. The grapes are all premier cru, grown in the communes of Chigny-Les-Roses, Rilly-La-Montagne, and Ludes. The pricey Champagne…
Review: Buffalo Trace Experimental Collection – Baijiu Style Spirit
Here’s something you don’t see every day. Buffalo Trace, makers of many bourbons you want but can’t find, recently launched the 24th release in their Experimental Collection, and it’s easily the strangest one yet. It isn’t a bourbon. It isn’t really even a whiskey. It isn’t even a spirit familiar to the Western world. It’s…
Review: Jim Beam Canned Highballs – Classic and Ginger
Jim Beam has jumped into the ready-to-drink canned cocktail scene with highballs to go. Their angle? To solve for “beer boredom” and provide alternatives for all-day “sessionable” summertime sipping. These to-go varieties are inspired by the classic highballs made with “chilled Jim Beam bourbon, ice, and ice-cold, highly carbonated soda water or ginger ale.” Seems…
Review: Dirty Sue Whiskey Cherries
Dirty Sue (best known for its bottled olive juice) sent us their cocktail cherries after our big cherry blowout, so naturally we felt we needed to take a fresh look at these filthy little fruits, which are preserved in a mix of sugar, cherry juice, and red currant juice, plus a hint of star anise,…
Review: Alberta Premium Cask Strength Rye (2020)
If you’re drinking a rye whisky that was made in Canada, there’s a good chance you’re drinking whisky from Alberta Distillers, which is essentially the MGP of the north. Alberta makes vodka and blended whisky, but its best known for its rye whisky, which is made from a 100% rye mashbill and is bottled here…
Review: NV Alois Lageder BLA BLA 2
You have to dig pretty far into the internet to figure out what BLA BLA 2 is. Turns out it’s a blend of two vintages (2017 and 2018) of 100% blatterle grapes, an unheard-of varietal from South Tyrol. The wine it makes is a funky, ultra-dry expression that offers a slightly astringent sherry-like quality with…
Review: Schlafly IPA, Hazy Grapefruit IPA, Low Cal IPA, and West Coast IPA
St. Louis’s Schlafly Beer recently dropped a new variety pack called Hoptic Visions, featuring four different IPAs — one a standby, three new, experimental releases. Let’s review each of them! Schlafly IPA – This is the year-round OG, and I have to say I really like it. The approachable brew balances east and west coast…
Review: Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Tasters’ Selection – “Twin” Blend
This 7th entry in JD’s Tennessee Tasters’ Selection is one of its simplest concepts: Tennessee Whiskey (a type of bourbon) blended with Tennessee rye. 50 barrels total were used for this release — 30 rye, 20 Tennessee whiskey. All of them were distilled on May 19, 2014 (14E19, per the code on the label), then…
