Reviews
Reviews of spirits, wine, and beer (and various errata like mixers and garnishes) comprise more than 80% of the content at Drinkhacker, and here you’ll find the entire Drinkhacker review archive in one place. Products are rated on a letter-grade scale that should be familiar to most, with F as our lowest, “failing” grade and the very rare A+ as our top score.
Top Reviews Posts:
Notes on Grading
How to Analyze, Score, and Review Whiskey
Maybe you’ve seen these guys at liquor stores: Squished, stretched-out bottles with fruit floating inside. You can’t help but pick one of 267 Infusions’ eight flavored spirits up. Though 267 will tell you it’s infused, not flavored. I’ve tried three of 267’s vodka-based spirits, orange and lemon infusions, and now Vodka Cranberry. Some thoughts on…
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Costa Rica (reportedly) has one brewery: Imperial. And if you like crisp and light Mexican beers, you’ll love Imperial. It’s sweeter than, say, Pacifico, but not so tangy as, say, Jamaica’s Red Stripe. It’s also got a curiously mild aftertaste, which I pegged as something like corn, or corn tortillas. Not bad at all with…
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I came to Wild Turkey’s latest bottling, American Spirit, with much excitement: It’s a 15-year-old bonded bourbon, 100 proof, produced in small batches, and limited to 24,000 bottles worldwide. What’s not to like? Unfortunately, there’s not much excitement once it hits the glass. This is an easy-sipping bourbon, but its vanilla, caramel, and woody flavors…
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It’s been years since I tried Tsingtao (also written Tsing Tao), but they were out of Sapporo last night, so I figured, why not? Pleasantly surprised, this crisp Chinese didn’t have the medicinal taste I’d recalled. Rather, it was light, slightly sweet, fragrant, and without a hint of “chemical” aroma. Some reports say that quality…
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I came to this Rhone-style blend with no real expectations. I don’t even know where the bottle came from. Color me surprised. Just sitting in the glass, three feet away, it fills the air around you with heavenly berry scents, cherry, raspberry, a precious hint of spice, and lush fruit. Blended from 44% Grenache, 40%…
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There’s a dearth of good, affordable rye whiskey on the market. While I swear by Old Overholt, I welcome competition in the form of Russell’s Reserve (from the same folks that make Wild Turkey), a rye that, at $25, isn’t as cheap as Overholt but isn’t in the stratosphere like some high-end bottlings. Russell’s is…
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One look at old standby Newcastle and you feel like you’re in for a treat. A nice medium brown but not too dark, frothy head, looks like it can’t miss, right? My latest encounter with Newcastle (reportedly the #2 imported beer in the U.S.) was hardly the experience I was hoping for. In lieu of…
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Hey, Chianti isn’t the only Italian wine out there, folks. Give Travaglini’s Gattinara a try. Even if you don’t like it, you’ll enjoy talking about the bottle, I promise. This wine is from Gattinara in Italy’s Piedmont region and is 100% Nebbiolo, the critical grape in Barolo wines. As with Barolo, Gattinara can be big…
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Chivas Regal is one of the old reliable names of blended scotches. You probably cringe when you see, oh, Cutty Sark on the bar at a private event, right? But Chivas, yeah, that’s a name you can can behind for a shot or two. This month, Chivas Brothers rolls out an ultra-high-end 25-year-old blend, inspired…
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When it comes to spiced rum, most people (including myself) pretty much know one brand: Good old Captain Morgan. Nothing wrong with that. The Cap’n takes boring old Bacardi and infuses it with a vague taste of the tropics and the nostalgia of, er, spice traders, pirates, and saucy wenches. The problem is that Captain…
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