Buy It Now

Our Buy It Now category digests wine and spirits which you can purchase directly through one of our affiliates. You’ll find the “buy it now” link after the rating and price of the product.

Review: Larceny Barrel Proof Bourbon Batch B524 (May 2024)

By Christopher Null | September 12, 2024 |

  The 2024 halfway mark of Larceny Barrel Proof releases has arrived: B524 coming in at 62.7% abv, but otherwise refusing to mix up this well-worn equation. (Wheated bourbon, cask strength, no age statement.) As a side note, Larceny recently changed up its standard edition, 92-proof label design (see photo, right). Here’s how the brand…

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Book Review: In Fine Spirits: A Complete Guide to Distilled Drinks

By Rob Theakston | September 11, 2024 |

The pull quote on the back cover of Joel Harrison and Neil Ridley’s In Fine Spirits declares “The culture of enjoying quality spirits and liquors is in a new golden age.” While economic reports from Discus and crisis clickbait headlines from major media outlets would suggest otherwise, the appearance of new distilleries and breweries (macro-…

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Book Review: One Thousand Vines: A New Way to Understand Wine

By Rob Theakston | September 10, 2024 |

This translation of Pascaline Lepeltier’s One Thousand Vines is dense (the original French edition was released in 2022). Every chapter is its own college course part of a larger, self-taught degree in oenology, every sentence is worth re-reading and committing salient details to memory in the event they reappear when explaining concepts deeper into the…

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Review: Bulleit Rye 12 Years Old (2024)

By Drew Beard | September 5, 2024 |

Bulleit will forever be remembered for the role it played in popularizing rye whiskey, particularly in the craft cocktail space. With more than a little help from MGP, it introduced the world to the infamous 95/5 recipe, a style that today has many imitators in addition to the dozens (maybe hundreds?) of labels offering their…

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Book Review: Spirits Distilled

By Jacob Kiper | August 29, 2024 |

For generations, consumers didn’t put much thought or concern into the ingredients of food and beverage. It’s only been relatively recently that consumers have taken a real interest in what makes up our culinary experiences. In generations past, imbibers didn’t care to know every minute detail of how their favorite brandy or whiskey was produced.…

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Review: Laphroaig Cairdeas Cask Favourites 10 Years Old 2024

By Christopher Null | August 28, 2024 |

It’s greatest hits time for Laphroaig with its latest Càirdeas special edition, a whisky which celebrates 30 years of the Friends of Laphroaig program by revisiting two beloved Laphroaig releases from the past: 2019’s Triple Wood and 2021’s PX Cask. It is “married together by Master Blender, Calum Fraser, as an aged statement [10 years…

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Review: Hennessy Master Blender’s Selection No. 5

By Christopher Null | August 25, 2024 |

Hennessy’s Master Blender’s Selection releases have been arriving at haphazard intervals since their 2016 launch. We reviewed Nos. 2 and 3, but missed out on No. 4. Now Master Blender’s Selection No. 5 is here — the first release in three years — so we’ll have to make up for lost time. This time out,…

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Review: Holmes Cay Single Cask Rum – Venzeuela 2007 and Barbados 2012 Port Cask

By Christopher Null | August 23, 2024 |

Holmes Cay says that its latest two offerings “are about us growing up as a company,” offering a retail bottling from a “mystery distillery” and round two of a previous hit. Details and tasting notes follow. Holmes Cay Single Cask Rum Venezuela 2007 15 Years Old – Officially anonymous, this 15 year old expression of…

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Review: Maestro Dobel 50 Anniversary Series Tequilas – 1968, 1969, and 1970

By Christopher Null | August 19, 2024 |

In 2022, Maestro Dobel dropped a rare extra anejo tequila dubbed Dobel 50 1967, named in honor of its founder’s birth year. Now Dobel is back with not one follow-up but three, collectively dubbed the Anniversary Series — Dobel 50 1968, Dobel 50 1969, and Dobel 50 1970. While 1967 was finished in sherry casks, the…

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Book Review: The Whiskey Rebellion

By Jacob Kiper | August 13, 2024 |

Whiskey history is simply history. Due to lingering Prohibitionist sentiments, we don’t learn much about the role that alcohol has played in American and world history, but the history still exists. In 1791, the fledgling United States of America was still trying to establish an identity and was ripe with debt accrued from the Revolutionary…

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