Review: Dragon’s Milk Origin Small Batch Bourbon

New Holland and its flagship Dragon’s Milk bourbon barrel-aged stout is, and was, a beer that always felt a step or two behind its pseudo-mass market, craft contemporaries in Founders’ KBS and Goose Island’s Bourbon County. Despite a mid-2010s distribution deal with Pabst, KBS and Bourbon County won the races in accessibility, visibility, accolades, and…

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Review: Wines of Avaline (2024)

A partnership between actress Cameron Diaz and entrepreneur Katherine Power, Avaline is a wine brand positioning itself as a clean, transparent option offering a full range of wines including white wines and rosé, most of which are being re-reviewed here with their slightly updated branding. Throughout their website and marketing campaign, Avaline emphasizes organic farming…

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Review: Hunting Creek Rye Whiskey

We’ve been following the evolution of North Carolina’s Southern Distilling Company for a while now. It’s a craft distiller that seems to have achieved the enviable transition from quality sourced whiskey to superior house-made whiskey. That’s not always an easy jump to make, for a variety of reasons. When last we looked in on Southern,…

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Review: 2019 Sapaio Toscana IGT

Podere Sapaio’s eponymous Supertuscan is a standout from the moment you open the bottle. (The name comes from Sapaia, a very old Tuscan grape variety.) A blend of 70% cabernet sauvignon, 20% petit verdot, and 10% cabernet franc, the wine spends 18 months in barriques and 12 months in bottle before release. The opulence of…

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Review: Freeland Spirits Old Tom Gin

Old Tom gin was popular in the eighteenth century and appears to be making something of a comeback today. That stated, there is no clear definition of what Old Tom gin actually is. It typically describes a gin that has added sugar or sweeteners and can spend time aging in wood. For their version, Freeland…

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Review: Tequila Pantalones Blanco

You’ve seen the ads. You know the couple behind it. There’s nothing left to do here but toss out an “está bien, está bien, está bien” for Matthew and Camila McConaughey’s tequila, which is named in honor of the pants you are bound to remove upon cracking open the bottle. This is McConaughey’s second foray…

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Review: Maen Japanese Whisky, Complete Lineup

Shaw-Ross International Importers is bringing a new Japanese whisky to U.S. shores: Maen (pronounced “Mi-en”), which means “perfect circle” in Japanese and is evoked by the calligraphed circle presented on the label of all three expressions of the product. While plenty of production details can be found below, little else is known about the whiskies,…

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Review: The Botanist Islay Gin – Cask Rested and Cask Aged

Forever there has been only one expression of The Botanist gin. The bottle has changed, but the recipe hasn’t, and the line extensions that other brands have undertaken haven’t ever come to the Islay operation (which is part of the Bruichladdich family). Hell, Botanist doesn’t even have a navy strength version. That changes today, as…

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