Review: Midnight Moon Moonshines and American Whiskey
Junior Johnson was a major NASCAR driver — but before that, he was a moonshine distiller, and was actually convicted for it in federal court. (Ronald Reagan pardoned Johnson in 1986.) Before his death in 2019, Johnson teamed up with Piedmont Distillers in North Carolina to craft his moonshine recipe the legal way. Today, Midnight…
Review: 2015 Pacific Rim Winemakers Thick Skinned Red Mountain
Red Mountain AVA can be found in deep southern Washington, west of the better-known Walla Walla region. This wine is produced by Pacific Rim Winemakers, which markets wines from this region under at least four different brands. Thick Skinned is an unusual blend of 60.1% cabernet sauvignon, 33.1% malbec, and 8.8% petit verdot. Let’s give…
Book Review: Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2021
If there are matters we can count upon, as events have played out over the last several days, it is this: Jim Murray does not lie awake at night wondering what you think. Jim Murray quite clearly does not sit in front of a word processor agonizing over word choice in his reviews. Jim Murray…
Review: Bomberger’s Declaration Kentucky Straight Bourbon (2019)
Earlier this year we reviewed Shenk’s Homestead, one half of Michter’s very rare Legacy Series. Today we’re diving into the other oddly-named member of that duo, Bomberger’s Declaration (typically referred to as just Bomberger’s). It was named for another prominent figure in Michter’s long history, Abraham Bomberger, who purchased the original Shenk’s distillery in the…
Recipe: The Last Word
The Last Word feels like a super old-timey cocktail, because it is, getting its start in the Detroit Athletic Club in the 1920s as a speakeasy sipper. Later appearing in Ted Saucier’s Bottoms Up, it was rediscovered by Seattle’s Zig Zag only 15 years ago, at which point it re-entered the drinking zeitgeist. It’s super-simple…
Review: Angela Vineyards 2018 Chardonnay and 2017 Pinot Noir
Angela Estate was started in 2006 in Carlton, Oregon by Antony Beck — and renowned Oregon winemaker Ken Wright produced all the wines through the 2016 vintage. Since 2017, French winemaker Alban Debeaulieu has been in charge, with an eye toward “creating wines that showcase their individualities and essential pleasures, while treading lightly on the…
Review: Copper Fox Dawson’s Reserve Bourbon
Bourbon is often one of the first, if not the very first, whiskey a craft distillery strives to get on the shelf. That wasn’t the case at Virginia’s Copper Fox Distillery, which has focused since its founding in 2005 on producing the whiskeys owner and distiller Rick Wasmund likes best: rye and single malt. Limiting…
Review: Sprezza Vero Spritzes
Sprezza is a line of ready-to-drink cocktails from the folks behind Mancino Vermouth, which teamed up with Scrappy’s Bitters to create a canned version of the vermouth spritz (not to be confused with the Aperol spritz) — a simple, warm-weather cocktail that can be consumed straight from the can or doctored for more elevated sipping.…
