Review: Eastside Distilling Burnside Bourbon and Marionberry Whiskey
We’ve covered Portland-based Eastside Distillings’s masterful Burnside Double Barrel Bourbon before. Today we’re looking at a couple of its other products, including the 4 year old straight bourbon which Double Barrel is based on. Thoughts follow. Eastside Distilling Burnside Bourbon 4 Years Old – Youthful, but not brash or underdone, this is a fruity example…
Review: 2010 Donelan Syrah Knights Valley Obsidian Vineyard
Another classically structured California Syrah from Donelan, this Knights Valley offering a thickly smoky, mushroomy, and pine forest-focused nose — with undergrowth terroir reminiscent of old Burgundy. On the palate, the wine offers more of this savoriness, bringing grilled meats and wet forest floor to the forefront. What’s lacking here is much fruit — just…
Review: Lake Champlain Milk Chocolate Apple Cider Caramels
Whiskey chocolates? Been done. How about chocolates studded with caramel and apple cider? Lake Champlain Chocolates’ latest concoction brings in apples from Happy Valley Orchard and cider from Citizen Cider to create an all-Vermont seasonal confection sensation. These dense caramels start with silky milk chocolate and burst open to reveal intense apple pie flavor inside,…
Review: Caffe Borghetti di Vero Espresso Liqueur
Caffe Borghetti — or just “Borghetti” if you’re hip — is an espresso liqueur made in Italy — you know, where espresso was invented. Made from real, brewed espresso, the base beverage is made from “a blend of 70% Arabica beans grown at a high altitude in South America and 30% Robusto beans from Africa is…
Review: Tequila Herradura Coleccion de la Casa Cognac Cask Finished Reposado, Reserva 2013
Herradura expands its nascent Coleccion de la Casa line of specialty cask-finished tequilas with this 2013 release, which is polished off in Cognac barrels. This release spends 11 months in American oak before being finished for another three months in Cognac casks. This expression doesn’t reach the heights of 2012’s Port Finished tequila, starting off…
Book Review: Whiskey Women
One of the more problematic challenges of historical books is their inability to provide truly holistic, objective testimony on actual events. There will always be omitted perspectives, conflicting stories and incomplete narratives. Facts and figures may contradict oral histories and withering records may not fill in cracks the way one would hope. When it comes…
Review: Mission Brewery El Conquistador and Shipwrecked Beers
Forget your 25.4-ounce Foster’s “oil can.” San Diego-based Mission Brewery is putting its craft brew into 32 oz. “cannons,” enough for two full pints of suds. So grab a friend, because you’ll need ’em to polish off a full quarter gallon of beer. Of course, Mission also does beer in bottles and kegs, but these monsters…
Review: 2012 Assembly Old Vine Zinfandel Lodi
Assembly makes a handful of wine in the Lodi AVA of Northern California. Here’s a quick look at the company’s latest zinfandel release. This is a tough wine, with a tobacco nose and echoes of beef jerky. The body is dense and chewy, with blackberries at the core alongside menthol, leather, and hickory smoke notes…
