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…
Tasting Virginia’s Best Wines, 2021 Releases
We’re back for our third round with the Virginia’s Governor’s Cup Gold Medalists — a selection of the best wines from the state’s annual wine competition. As has been the norm for the past two years, it’s a well-mixed collection of whites, reds, and dessert bottlings. Let’s dig in. 2014 Trump Sparkling Brut Reserve Monticello –…
Review: Dirty Devil Vodka
Dirty Devil Vodka has a curiously unique selling point: It’s the world’s first hyper-oxygenated spirit, “a patented process that yields water with five times the oxygen of ordinary water.” Wazzat? Here’s what the company says: “We start with a super purification system that produces the highest quality of water,” explained Daniel Sdicu, Biologist/Chemist, Dirty Devil…
Review: Mossburn Blended Malts – Speyside and Island
Established in 1992, Mossburn is a bottler of a range of whiskies, most of them sourced from other distilleries around Scotland. (It also operates Torabhaig, which is tiptoeing into its own distillates as we speak.) While Mossburn bottles a variety of single vintage whiskies from other distilleries (much like any independent bottler), what you’re more…
Review: Kooper Family Single Barrel Bourbon
The latest whiskey release from Kooper Family is a single barrel bourbon offering, Indiana/MGP-sourced spirit that is 4 to 5 years old (depending on the barrel), aged in #3 char barrels at Kooper’s place in Fayette County, Texas. Though each bottle is drawn from a single barrel, bottles are not denoted with barrel identification information,…
Review: Paul John Mithuna
Goa, India’s Paul John is back with another single malt. Mithuna, and this one swings for the fences, touting right on the box that it is “the 3rd finest whisky in the world,” which is apparently something Jim Murray has decided. It’s the second whisky in Paul John’s Zodiac series, Mithuna being the Indian equivalent…
Review: Kasama Rum 7 Years Old
Kasama Rum is a new brand being produced by Alexandra Dorda – the daughter of Tad Dorda, who co-founded Belvedere and Chopin Vodka in the early ’90s. Now the Filipino-Polish entrepreneur is here to bring a rum featuring both of her cultures to the masses. It’s distilled in the Philippines and bottled in Poland, after…
Review: Pluma Negra Mezcal, Complete Lineup
Pluma Negra is a new mezcal brand out of Oaxaca’s San Juan del Rio, where the Hernandez family has been producing mezcal for 45 years. Maestro Mezcalero Rodolfo Hernandez is “a third generation Mezcalero who uses time honored traditions to create Pluma Negra — animal drawn tahona to crush the maguey, pine barrel fermentation, and double…
