Review: Don Chelada Michelada Mix and Cups
Don Chelada is all in on micheladas, that classic combination of Mexican beer and spicy chiles that is Mexico’s answer to the bloody mary. Don Chelada offers two ways of making a michelada at home. First, rim a glass with spices, pour in your beer and add a couple of ounces of Don Chelada’s liquid…
Review: La Luna Mezcal Cupreata
La Luna is a new mezcal brand, hailing from Puente International Spirits, based in Etucuaro, Michoacán. Mezcal has been made here since 1910 by the Perez Escot family, where cupreata agave is grown and smoked over white oak to make this spirit. La Luna is reportedly made with a significant attention paid to the farmers…
Review: Rogue 10 Hop IPA
Rogue’s 10 Hop IPA is less a celebration of hops and more a celebration of the number ten. Ten kinds of hops. 10.10% alcohol. Even 10 degrees Lovibond (a color measurement). All the hops come from Rogue’s own farm in Independence, Oregon: Liberty, Newport, Revolution, Independent, Freedom, Rebel, Yaquina, Alluvial, Adair, and Keven varieties, plus Rogue…
Review: Virginia Distillery Chardonnay Finished Virginia Highland Malt Whisky
Following on its Port Cask Finished Highland Malt comes Virginia Distillery Co.’s next installment, finished in Chardonnay casks sourced from local wineries, including Grace Estate Winery, Michael Shaps, Virginia Wineworks and Paradise Springs Winery. As with the Port Cask, this is a blend of Scottish Highland single malt and Virginia-distilled whiskey (from a 100% malt…
Review: Allagash Two Lights
Allagash Brewing Company keeps innovating, experimenting with new combinations of yeasts, malts, hops, and more (reviews of other recent innovations can be seen here, here, and here ). Their newest offering, Two Lights, is designed to be a summer beer: “brewed with sauvignon blanc must fermented with lager and champagne yeast.” The name, “Two Lights,”…
Why Are Some Spirits Rested in Stainless Steel?
In our recent review of Charbay’s Double Aged Rum, reader Taylor Fox inquired as to the point of the first round of that double aging. The rum spends five years in stainless steel tanks, then three years in oak barrels. Well, what’s the point of that? We’ve long been told that stainless steel tanks are…
Review: Allagash Little Brett
Portland, Maine-based Allagash is best known for their Belgian-inspired wheat beer, but they don’t shy from experimentation with their broad portfolio of limited releases. A good example of this is Little Brett, which relies exclusively on the uncommon (and, for some brewers, unwelcome) Brettanomyces yeast, Allagash’s 2-row barley blend, and a healthy dry hopping of…
Review: Revel Avila Blanco Agave Spirit
When is tequila not tequila? When it isn’t grown in Jalisco, for starters. Mexican law states that all tequila must come from this state (though Guanajuato, Michoacán, Nayarit, and Tamaulipas have a minor exemption). Agave spirits that come from elsewhere in Mexico are typically classified as mezcal. Until now. Revel isn’t tequila or mezcal (or sotol…
