Rated A
Reviews of spirits, wine, and beer (and various errata like mixers and garnishes) comprise more than 80% of the content at Drinkhacker, and the A rating represents the cream of the crop — excellent products with only minimal flaws. On a five-star scale, these products would score 4.5 stars. On the traditional 100-point scale popular with many wine and spirits graders, these products would merit scores of 94 to 97 points.
At this point every whiskey drinker should be well aware of the angel’s share, the impact of heat cycling in the rickhouse, causing evaporation of whiskey from the barrels. With this release of The 117 Series, Old Forester investigates what happens when the angels get very thirsty. The selection is drawn from barrels of Old…
Canned/bottled Bloody Mary mixes are ubiquitous, with options both upmarket and inexpensive widely available. A UK-based entrant, Longbottom & Co., just entered the U.S. market with a distinct focus on the former, a premium product available in single-serve cans. Longbottom’s Virgin Mary — consumable directly from the can without added alcohol, I can attest —…
Kilkerran, like many other Campbeltown whiskies, owes its existence to the late Hedley Wright. The fifth-generation scion of the whisky-making Mitchell family resurrected the single malt’s parent distillery, Glengyle, in 2004 after nearly 80 years of absence. Of the many dead Campbeltown distilleries to bring back to life, why Glengyle? It probably helped that the…
If the name Ian Cauble doesn’t mean anything to you, you haven’t immersed yourself in the world of high-end sommeliers enough. He was a central figure in the 2012 documentary Somm, in which he swallows his pride and smiles genially as he fails the Master Sommelier exam — though he subsequently passed and made his way…
Denver’s Ratio Beerworks has been putting out brews for 11 years now. We’ve never sampled its wares until now, so we kick off our coverage with three of its offerings, all available in 12 oz. cans and in expanded national distribution. If you’re an artist in Denver, you’re in luck: Ratio donates 3% of its…
Not even the fine print of the old-timey Argonaut Brandy bottles will clue you in to who actually makes it, but it’s not a massive secret. Argonaut is a new brand produced by none other than Ernest & Julio Gallo, made in California from its own excess wine production. For decades Gallo has been distilling…
Two years ago Jack Daniel’s released its first age-statemented whiskey in a century — Jack Daniel’s 10 Years Old — and now it’s back with a second batch, plus a friend. Today we check out JD 10 Batch 2 as well as the first batch of an older sibling, Jack Daniel’s 12 Years Old. Both…
Jack Daniel’s has been making headlines for its latest bottling, the first whiskey with a 10 year old age statement in more than 100 years. (You can see an old bottling of JD at 10 years old in the photo above.) Most JD carries no age statement at all, of course, so it’s unusual to…
April 20, often called 4/20, has carried an association with cannabis since the early 1970s. The origin traces back to a group of California teenagers known as the Waldos, who used “4:20” as a code to meet after school and search for an abandoned cannabis crop. What began as a private signal gradually evolved into…
We hit Famiglia Pasqua‘s Mai Dire Mai Amarone in its 2012 and 2013 releases. We’re back again with a look at the 2015 bottling — now in current release. The 2015 Famiglia Pasqua Mai Dire Mai Amarone della Valpolicella DOCG remains a rich and raisiny experience, though this vintage feels more tart and racy than previous…