Review: WhistlePig PiggyBack 100% Rye 6 Years Old
WhistlePig is known for its very well-aged rye whiskeys, but its latest release is this 6 year old bottling, a 100% rye that will forever, sadly, be known as the final product Dave Pickerell created for the company, one with which he’s had a lengthy relationship. It’s all sourced whiskey from Canada, bottled at a…
Review: Barrell Bourbon Batch 19
Barrell’s one-off bourbon empire has been booming of late, with expansions into rum, single barrel releases, higher-end whiskeys, and innovations like the Barrell Infinite Barrel project. Despite all of that, the bread and butter of the brand remains its Barrell Bourbon line, which is now nearing 20 different small batch releases. Barrell Bourbon Batch 19,…
Review: Bertoux Brandy
Bertoux is a new brandy developed by Jeff Menashe. Made in San Francisco, the spirit is a solera-style blend of pot-distilled California brandies aged 3 to 7 years old, aged in French and American oak. Consultants on the brand include bartender Jeff Bell (PDT and Legacy Records) and sommelier Thomas Pastuszak (The NoMad). As the…
Review: Wines of Geyser Peak, 2019 Releases
Geyser Peak recently rebranded with strikingly different new labels, and to celebrate, the winery sent us a selection of recent releases. Thoughts follow. 2018 Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc California – A standard bottling of from-all-over-California sauvignon blanc, showing a sharp acidity, moderate to heavy tropical character, and a hint of ammonia on the back end.…
Review: Endless West Glyph 85H “Molecular Whiskey”
If you haven’t already heard the kooky story of Endless West and Glyph, well, pull up a chair. Glyph 85H is a whiskey unlike any other. How so? It is designed to look and taste like aged whiskey, though it never sees a barrel. No, this doesn’t involve an accelerated aging system like Lost Spirits.…
Review: Bacardi Lime Rum
Bacardi has introduced all kinds of flavor infusions throughout the years, many of which have been confusingly exotic, like Dragon Berry or Rock Coconut. Now along comes a simpler offering that seems like it should have been in the stable all along, Bacardi Lime. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s a little surprised…
Review: Whiskeys of Sonoma Distilling – Bourbon, Rye, Cherrywood Rye, and Smoked Bourbon (2019)
We’ve covered the whiskeys of Sonoma Distilling several times (see reviews from 2016 and 2015) — but it’s challenging to keep up with the company because it keeps tweaking things here and there. Given that, we felt it was time to do a full roundup of the company’s products — which have now settled into…
Review: Cotswolds Single Malt Whisky (2019)
Deja vu? You bet. We encountered Cotswolds Single Malt — part of the tiny English whisky industry — only last year, and now the distillery is out with a new release of the same expression. Why are we reviewing this again? The bottles may look almost identical but the barley used in this spirit is…
