Review: Woodford Reserve Distillery Series – Sweet Mash Redux and Double Double Oaked (2015)
This year, Woodford Reserve takes a page from the Buffalo Trace playbook and is launching a series of one-off, limited release whiskeys for our fun and enjoyment. They aren’t quite as “experimental” as the BT Experimental series, but they are also not as unique as Woodford’s annually-released Master’s Collection whiskeys (which remain a separate entity).…
Review: Four Kings Rye 2015 Craft Collaboration
Last year, four craft distillers got together and made a collaborative bourbon by vatting together their own craft spirits into one mega-craft bourbon called Four Kings. (Don’t go searching for a review, we didn’t sample it.) This year, the quartet is back at it but is producing a rye instead. The four distilleries include Corsair Distillery in…
Review: Four Roses Single Barrel Private Selection from SF Wine Trading
Wow, another Four Roses Single Barrel Private Selection offering in the space of a month and our third to date. This one hails from the San Francisco Wine Trading Company, which I bet you can guess the location of. SF Wine Trading’s Four Roses bottling is an OESK (20% rye with a lightly spicy yeast component)…
Review: West Sixth Heller Heaven Double IPA
West Sixth brewing (aka: the guys that fought with Magic Hat over their logo) have been on a winning streak with seasonal offerings (I’m already counting the days until this year’s Christmas ale), and Heller Heaven is pleasantly no exception. Lots of summer on the nose with an abundance of citrus, a little bit of pine and…
Review: Vov Zabajone Cream Liqueur
Primary colors on the label. A name in quotes — “VOV” — and all caps, at that. Opaque, white bottle. What the hell is Vov? Vov looks like something a clown would have to nurse to get through his next birthday party, but in reality, it’s an exotic Italian cream liqueur. This “traditional Italian Zabajone…
Book Review: You Suck at Drinking
Hey Matthew Latkiewicz — if that is your real name! — who are you to tell me I suck at drinking! Oh, you write for McSweeney’s. I suppose that gives you some McThority on the topic of the proper treatment of hooch and hooch consumption. Kidding around aside — which is hard to do when discussing…
Book Review: The Book of Wine
If you’re a rank novice when it comes to wine — I mean, you really know absolutely nothing — then Jackson Meyer’s primer, The Book of Wine, is as good a place as any to start — short of dropping in on your local wine bar, that is. In a breezy 220 pages, Meyer covers, as…
Review: Gordon & MacPhail Imperial 1995
This was my most prized purchase in Edinburgh, where I nabbed the last bottle from Royal Mile Whiskies. Imperial was a Speyside distillery, opened in 1897 and shuttered in 1998 (and demolished in 2013), making this one of a dwindling number of bottles still available. Bottled in 2014, this is 19 year old Imperial, which…
