Rated B
Reviews of spirits, wine, and beer (and various errata like mixers and garnishes) comprise more than 80% of the content at Drinkhacker, and the B rating is used for products that are good but which we don’t exactly love — and which we can provide with a qualified recommendation. On a five-star scale, these products would score 3 stars. On the traditional 100-point scale popular with many wine and spirits graders, these products would merit scores of 83 to 86 points.
7 Leguas or Siete Leguas (“Seven Leagues”) was the name of Pancho Villa’s horse. How does such a moniker bode for the tequila named after him? Well, I guess I’d rather drink tequila named after a horse than something named after Pancho Villa himself. (Really, think about it…) 7 Leguas offers the three traditional (all…
Read More
Even old New York was once New Amsterdam. However, New Amsterdam gin is made in good old Modesto, California (not Constantinople). It’s also a surprising twist on gin as you might know it now. Why they changed it, I can’t say. Maybe they like it better that way. OK, enough tomfoolery. New Amsterdam has the…
Read More
I find that tequila creates the strongest difference of opinion of any straight spirit. While people tend to agree on what makes a good gin, a good vodka, or even a good bourbon, when it comes to tequila, opinions on a given bottle tend to fall all over the map. One case in point is…
Read More
For three years now, the good folks at Gallo have hunted for the best artisan foodstuffs to pair with their wines. This year, seven winners were chosen, and the company was good enough to send some samples along with a bottle of their 2006 Gallo Family Sonoma Reserve Pinot Gris as a pairing. Both snacks…
Read More
Another entry into the organic spirits universe, Rain (a product of Kentucky’s Buffalo Trace Distillery) is a widely available vodka that few will have trouble finding on store shelves. Pull that eye-catching blue stopper from the raindrop-shaped bottle and a sweet, perfumy aroma fills the air. Rain’s odor gave me much promise, but the taste…
Read More
Mexico’s answer to Amaretto (and no, I didn’t know there was a challenge that needed answering either) is Almendrado, a tequila-based liqueur flavored strongly with almonds and bottled at 60 proof. If you’re the type of person who can handle Amaretto on the rocks after dinner, you’ll have no trouble with Reserva del Señor Almendrado.…
Read More
Continuing on the summer theme here at Drinkhacker we turn to this unique summer beer, a pre-mixed shandy! Leinie’s Summer Shandy is a Weiss beer mixed with lemonade (or at least, per the bottle, “with natural lemonade flavor”), and it doesn’t take long to find both flavors in the bottle. The beer side is very…
Read More
Premixed cocktails are usually a mixed bag. In fact, they’re hardly cocktails at all but rather heavily carbonated malt liquor, watered down to about 6 or 8 percent alcohol and flavored with a variety of components that can be either reasonably tasty or very nasty. Bacardi (which makes it share of the aforementioned malt liquor…
Read More
You’re a famous 19th century composer. What are the odds that someone is going to take your good name and turn it into a vodka 150 years later? Well, someone did: Polmos Siedlce and Millennium Import, of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The connection is Poland, where Chopin lived and vodka was (allegedly) born. Chopin is a traditional…
Read More
My first challenge in this review is not how to describe what saké2me tastes like. It’s how to categorize it in this blog. saké2me is a blend of sake, natural flavors, and sparkling water. It comes in ready-to-drink bottles 187ml in size and weighs in at a beer-like 7% alcohol, comparable to malt liquor-based beverages…
Read More
