Featured

Featured posts represent reviews and other stories which we think will resonate particularly with readers, including especially topical stories (such as recipes themed to a particular holiday) or popular products just hitting the market. It’s important to note that the Featured category does not represent our top-rated products. You’ll find those on the sidebar to your right and in periodic features like our holiday buying guides.

Review: Milam & Greene Unabridged Volume 2

By Christopher Null | September 13, 2023 |

Milam & Greene’s Unabridged label gets its second installment, although this year there’s no mention of compadres Noah Rothbaum and David Wondrich having a hand in the blend. Master distiller Marlene Holmes says that there’s older stock in this release than in Unabridged Volume 1, but it remains a cask-strength blend of rare casks from…

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Review: Old Pulteney Coastal Series – Pineau de Charentes

By Christopher Null | September 12, 2023 |

Old Pulteney has launched a new range of whiskies called the Coastal Series, which is perhaps redundant on account of all of Old Pulteney’s whiskies are coastally born — but I promise there’s some logic here. The Coastal Series will comprise four different whiskies with different finishes, each from locations which are also coastal in…

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Review: Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey Red Wine Cask Batch 5 (2023)

By Christopher Null | September 10, 2023 |

It’s time for another experimental, Distillery Exclusive release from Stranahan’s. As always, this starts with Colorado single malt, this time finished for at least three years in red wine casks — a mix of Bordeaux and pinot noir. Total aging time is seven years in barrel, the first four years spent in a Level 4…

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Review: Ezra Brooks 99 Straight Rye and Bourbon Cream (2023)

By Christopher Null | September 9, 2023 |

Lux Row’s Ezra Brooks brand is getting the glow-up treatment, with new and reformulated versions  of two of its entry-level products, Ezra Brooks Straight Rye and Bourbon Cream. Both are changing proof, recipes, bottles, and labels, so let’s dig in and see if these changes are for the better. Ezra Brooks 99 Straight Rye (2023)…

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Marsh Mokhtari

America’s Gin Renaissance: Chatting with Gray Whale Founder Marsh Mokhtari

By David Tao | September 8, 2023 |

Aspiring distillers have been known to take big risks to get into the industry. For husband and wife team Marsh & Jan Mokhtari, that moment came in 2016, when they sold their house to finance Golden State Distillery and start a new gin brand. After hundreds of batches, they launched Gray Whale Gin with a…

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Holladay Soft Red Wheat Bourbon

Review: Holladay Soft Red Wheat Bottled-In-Bond Bourbon

By David Tao | September 7, 2023 |

Ben Holladay Distillery is keen on putting Missouri on the map among bourbon fans. Their Bottled-in-Bond Missouri Straight Bourbon Whiskey launched those efforts via their own distillate, which was then aged and bottled in Weston (population under 2,000). Now, they’re on the market with their second expression: Another bottled-in-bond bourbon, this time with soft red…

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Review: Hell House American Whiskey

By Jonathan Glover | September 6, 2023 |

In Clay County, Florida, along the swampy banks of the St. John River, exists a little bitty city known as Green Cove Springs, population 9,784. During the late ’60s, the members of Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, unable to practice in their hometown of Jacksonville, Florida due to noise complaints, would drive 20 miles down…

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Review: Parker’s Heritage Collection Cask Strength Rye 10 Years Old (2023)

By Christopher Null | September 5, 2023 |

We’re 17 years in on one of the most unicorny of whiskey unicorns, the Parker’s Heritage Collection. For 2023, you’re getting a 10 year old rye at cask strength, a vatting of distillate barreled in August, October, and December 2012, made from a mash of 51% rye, 35% corn, and 14% malted barley. Like the…

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Review: Bruichladdich Bere Barley 2013, Black Art 11.1, Port Charlotte PMC:01, and Octomore 14

By Christopher Null | September 5, 2023 |

Another fall is upon us, and that means Islay’s Bruichladdich is pushing out its biggest releases of the year. Normally we’d see these trickle out in bits and bobs, but for 2023, the distillery dropped a bomb on us all at once, with Bere Barley, Black Art, a new Port Charlotte, and the three Octomore…

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Crown Royal Golden Apple 23 Year

Review: Crown Royal Golden Apple 23 Years Old

By Frank Dobbins | September 4, 2023 |

Is the world ready to try a high-end, 23-year-old flavored whiskey? One brand is banking on the answer being “yes,” and thus Crown Royal Golden Apple was born. As the newest entry in Crown Royal’s Master Series, Golden Apple is a blend of Canadian whiskies aged for 23 long years that is flavored with golden…

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