Review: Plymouth Honey Gin
This is one I sure didn’t see coming. Plymouth‘s new gin expression is infused with, well, you already figured it out — honey. Originally a limited release in the UK in 2023, it’s dropping in the U.S. for summer 2026, complete with a Bee’s Knees cocktail kit from Cocktail Courier that includes lemon and honey…
Book Review: The Tequila Bible
There is a particular kind of book that doesn’t just crowd shelves at home or in the food section of your local bookshop. It coats the tongue and makes you wonder if you are the kind of person deserving to be gently lowered into a vat of mash and left there until you agree that…
Review: Rums of Spinnaker, 2026 Releases
As far as I can tell, Spinnaker is the only rum company based in Austin, Texas (it’s also the smallest), where Drinkhacker HQ currently resides. It’s not a distiller, mind you, but an independent bottler, very much in the vein of Holmes Cay and LM&V. Spinnaker has a clear focus, taking single barrels of premium…
Review: Sagrantino Wines of Messina Hof, 2026 Releases
Sagrantino is a grape that genuinely humbles. Not in a pretentious, wine-clown kind of way, but more like the way a long hike in midday July heat humbles: you think you’re prepared, and then somewhere around mile three, there’s an epiphany that in no way do you have business being out there. That’s Sagrantino: dense,…
Review: El Tequileno Reposado Gran Reserva
What makes a reposado and reposado gran reserva? El Tequileno‘s latest repo is aged for at least 8 months in American oak and is blended with a small amount of anejo. That’s distinguished from the distillery’s standard reposado, which is aged for 3 months, and its Reposado Rare bottling, which spends 6 years in a…
Review: FreeAF NA Espresso Martini
On a surface level, FreeAF Espresso Martini can be interpreted as either a promise or a dare. Freedom from alcohol, but also from whatever joyful, slightly disreputable physics making the real thing such a classic cocktail. This is a drink that, in its original form, rests squarely at the center of need and impulse: a…
Review: Talisker Magma 47 Years Old
The use of barrels toasted with hot volcanic rocks are, believe it or not, not a new idea, as Dewar’s dropped a magma-toasted barrel bottling last year. That’s not going to dull our enthusiasm for this release from Talisker, though, which at 47 years of age is the oldest distillery release to date and one…
Review: This Life Wines, 2024 Vintage
There is a version of celebrity wine, and celebrity anything really, existing purely as a licensing deal: a label slapped onto something bulk-produced and mildly unremarkable. It is the vineyard equivalent of a perfume “partnership”, with the celebrity’s name performing the heavy marketing lift while the liquid inside does as little as possible. You, savvy…