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 is used for very good to exceptional products. On a five-star scale, these products would score 4 stars. On the traditional 100-point scale popular with many wine and spirits graders, these products would merit scores of 90 to 93 points.
For most whiskey fans, December marks the end of release season. For devotees of Colorado-based Stranahan’s (self-proclaimed “Strana-fans”), it’s time for Snowflake, the distillery’s most anticipated and acclaimed whiskey. Bottles go on sale following a week of branded festivities, with nearly all going to those who camped out to reserve spots in line. Whiskey, it…
Monkey 47‘s annual special edition for 2025 — wherein a 48th ingredient is famously added to the botanical bill — is focused on fleur de sel, salt from Camargue’s pale-pink salt marshes in the south of France. Given the connection between gin and briny olives, it’s a combination that makes immediate sense, unlike some prior…
When the story of American whiskey gets told, Kentucky and Tennessee still claim most of the pages. Lately, though, voices from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and a handful of other places have started pushing back, reminding everyone that distillation once thrived far beyond the Bluegrass and the Volunteer State. Even with that renewed attention, North Carolina’s chapter…
Hotaling & Co. is a San Francisco-based distillery that officially split from Anchor Brewing around 2017, an especially fortuitous turn given the latter company’s closing in 2023. (The brewery has since been purchased, though there’s no immediate sign it will restart operations.) But Hotaling’s history predates that legal separation by decades, and the distillery has…
Rum is often synonymous with tales of empire — sugarcane fields and island colonies ruled by Spain, France, and England. Yet the story of rum stretches far beyond the Caribbean. Today, this spirit of exploration is produced in more than 100 countries across the globe, making rum one of the world’s most diverse and expressive…
A remarkable thing about Oregon-based Sealionne — pertinent but wine-adjacent: how low-key yet highly functional their website is for a brand in 2025. It conveys only the most minimal of information without extravagant pageantry customarily found on branded wine websites. There are no long, drawn-out narratives or timelines about family history, or terroir. Absent are…
13 years after its founding (and 12 years after its first whiskey went into barrels), Wilderness Trail is launching a new series of single barrel whiskeys under the Family Reserve banner. These are all cask strength releases, non-chill-filtered, and created with a sweet mash instead of a sour mash. They are all aged in barrels…
On December 18, 2024, American single malt whiskey finally earned its long-awaited official status, receiving formal recognition from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) as a distinct category of American whiskey. For most producers, the newly established standards of identity were already familiar—many had been adhering to them voluntarily for years—so the…
Golf+whiskey mania continues this month with the arrival of a special release of Elijah Craig, designed to pay homage to the 2023 Ryder Cup. This isn’t just another spin on Elijah Craig Barrel Proof but rather quite a unique product, starting with fully-matured Elijah Craig Small Batch Bourbon that is then finished in, and I…
For nearly a decade now, Baltimore’s Sagamore Spirit (now just Sagamore) has been singularly focused on making their Maryland-style rye, at first from contract-distilled spirit and more recently with their own stocks of Maryland-distilled whiskey. Reviving the lost tradition of Maryland rye has been their bread and butter. So, it was something of surprise to…