Services/Retailers
Our services and retailers category covers online and offline shops and other sellers of alcohol products. Primarily it consists of reviews of subscription boxes, including by-mail cocktail kits, “spirit of the month clubs,” and various wine clubs.
One of the best whisky retailers in the world is The Whisky Exchange — and one of the retailer’s best product lines are its “Perfect Measure” sampler sets, which consist of numerous 30ml bottles of whiskies that you will likely have a hard time finding in any format, anywhere. Recently the company sent me a…
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Last month, our friends at Garrison Brothers Distillery launched a cocktail competition to unearth the very best cocktail made using their unique Texas bourbon. The winner was crowned: Albert Pero III from New York. (New York!?), the founder and creator of Spirit for Spirits, “a bartending battle YouTube show that highlights all the amazing things…
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“One part community, one part content, one part tasting” — here comes another whiskey kit, albeit this one is not being sold as a subscription. Bevridge is a collaboration with Whisky Live, and at present it offers a single kit, a $249 collection of ten 50ml samples of American single malt whiskies. The big sell…
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As high-end cocktail subscription service Shaker & Spoon notes, “Over the years our boxes have featured countless drinks to enjoy while twirling away in the twilight hours—so now it’s time for a slight change: three options primed to become the belles of your next brunch.” This installment of S&S’s box attempts the impossible: Making vodka…
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Blind tasting whiskey is lots of fun… but it’s awfully hard to do alone. I mean, you bought the bottles, so you know what they are. Blind Barrels solves that problem with what it calls the first blind whiskey tasting subscription kit. I’d suggest that Flaviar was there first, but there’s room for both of…
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Wine clubs are a dime a dozen — or, more to the point, $59.99 per month with a 12 month commitment. All too often these clubs feature tired, bulk wines that have been hastily repackaged and had a new label slapped on them. That’s not to say you can’t find value in some of these…
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Vicarious isn’t just a brand of wines — a sub-brand of Napa’s Modus Operandi — it’s a wine-tasting “experience.” Vicarious comprises four Napa/Sonoma bottlings, each backed up by online video that walks you through the winemaking and tasting process. I’m not sure I buy the economic argument that $65 for four 4-ounce sample bottles and…
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There’s a million mail-order cocktail kits on the market these days. Liquor Lab is the latest to join the fray, and while it’s a very gimmicky affair, I can see how it might appeal to some drinkers. First: Liquor Lab is a place (there are locations in Nashville and Louisville), and while I’ve never been…
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WhiskyEDU is a Whiskies of the World spinoff — a nonprofit, actually — that is focused on, you guessed it, whisky education. Its latest trick is an ambitious tasting series whose goal is singular: To sample product from 162 Scottish distilleries — nearly every single distillery in the country in existence after World War II.…
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Nine months ago there was a more optimistic tone to reuniting in public spaces. In an article published at the time, I intonated a foolish sense of optimism that folks would be congregating in large spaces safely without having to worry about catching anything that could potentially land them on a ventilator. Thankfully we are…
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