Review: Midleton Very Rare 2019
While Midleton flexes its experimental muscle with limited editions like Dair Ghaelach, their most well-known and widely available limited release is the bluntly named Very Rare. Midleton has been releasing Very Rare annually since 1984, but somehow, we’ve never gotten around to reviewing it. Before we finally cross this one off our list, here’s a…
Review: Old Forester 150th Anniversary Bourbon
As you might have read during our review of this year’s Old Forester Birthday Bourbon, the good old OldFo brand is now 150 years old. That’s quite a legacy from the distiller that lays claim to creating the world’s first bottled bourbon and is one of the country’s oldest bourbon brands. (Pretty much everyone makes…
Review: 2018 Quinta de Santiago Alvarinho-Loureiro
Monção e Melgaço is one of the 9 subregions of Portugal’s Vinho Verde, one of the greatest value regions for white wines anywhere in the world. Considered to be “the birthplace of Alvarinho/Albarino, Monção e Melgaço is actually two medieval towns in this microterroir along the Minho River, which separates the area from the more…
Review: Four Gate Rye Batch 7 River Kelvin Rye
Our friends at Louisville’s Four Gate Whiskey are becoming well known for their micro-batch bourbons, and for their 7th release, they’re making the obvious jump to something new for the first time: rye whiskey. Four Gate Batch 7 is MGP-produced straight rye made from a mash of 95% rye and 5% malted barley, with a…
Review: New Belgium Voodoo Ranger 1985 IPA
Everything old is new again, as New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger line takes a trip back to a time 30-some years before hazy IPAs were invented… with a hazy IPA. I don’t get it either, but at least the design on the can is appropriately retro. Flavored with Citra, Simcoe, and Cascade hops, it’s flavored with…
Review: Glengoyne 10, 12, 15, and 18 Years Old (2020)
We have not enjoyed the privilege of a proper deep dive into the lineup of Glasgow’s Glengoyne in a decade. As such, with the assistance of some friends, we culled together a sample set and went about with a re-visitation of their core range, circa 2020. The results were as enjoyable, consistent, and eclectic as…
Review: Tarnished Truth Fourth Handle Gin
When we reviewed their high rye bourbon last year, we told you that Virginia’s Tarnished Truth Distillery was located inside a historic Virginia Beach hotel, The Cavalier. Apparently that hotel was quite the place, like something out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. So decadent were the amenities that bathrooms had a “fourth handle” on…
Review: Equiano Rum Original
While I’ve had rum from both Africa and the Caribbean, Equiano bills itself as “the world’s first African and Caribbean rum.” Equiano (now billed as Equiano Original) is distilled at Gray’s distillery in Mauritius, then matured in ex-Cognac casks for 10 years. From there, it’s blended with rum from Barbados’s Foursquare distillery, which is aged…
