Spirits
Spirits are beverages made by the process of distillation. The “Spirits” category is not commonly used at Drinkhacker because the vast majority of reviews we publish fall into this category. It is used only occasionally to help organize our category list (and mainly gets clicked by accident).
Heaven Hill’s Grain to Glass Series is barely two years old, but the annual whiskey trio produced from locally grown corn is already getting a line extension with the recent release of the new Specialty Barrel Series. For the inaugural releases in that series, Heaven Hill used the same corn varietal that featured in the…
Back in 2008 we had our first (primitive) encounter with Cognac producer Delamain and its Pale & Dry offering — an XO that stands at the beginning of the operation’s range. The expression dates back to 1920 and is made exclusively from eaux-de-vie of Grande Champagne, matured in 350-litre barrels of old Limousin oak. In…
Jacob did a fine job setting the stage for Ben Holladay Distillery with his review of its Soft Red Wheat Bottled-In-Bond Bourbon and Bottled-in-Bond Missouri Straight Bourbon Whiskey in his prior reviews of the Missouri-based operation. Consider this an addendum, reviewing the Soft Red Wheat Bottled-In-Bond expression but at “rickhouse proof,” aka cask strength. It’s…
The American whiskey marketplace is crowded with non-distilling producers who purchase whiskey and release it under their own labels. For some, sourced stock is a temporary bridge while their own distillate ages quietly in the background. Others have no intention of ever firing up a still. Within that latter group, the approaches vary widely. A…
When Elijah Craig launched its Barrel Proof lineup in 2013, we had no expectation that it would continue all these years and ultimately take a place as one of the most revered and anticipated bourbons to hit the market at a regular clip. The whiskey began life as a 12 year old expression, then changed…
Heaven Hill is 90 years old this year, and it’s celebrating the occasion — how else? — with new whiskey. Heaven Hill Distillery’s 90th Anniversary 9-Year-Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey is made from the distillery’s traditional bourbon mashbill of 78% corn, 12% malted barley, and 10% rye, bottled at its typical “special edition proof” of…
The latest semi-experimental Scotch from Glenmorangie‘s “A Tale of…” series is, on the surface, an obvious one: Spice notes are endemic to single malt Scotch, so it makes sense that Dr. Bill Lumsden would try to amp them up with this offering, the sixth bottling in the long-running collection. Designed to mimic a spice market.…
While 30 year bourbon isn’t exactly a novel concept, it’s exceedingly rare. In the past few decades, only a handful of brands have bottled bourbon that’s hit or eclipsed the three-decade mark, among them Final Reserve (45 and 42 Years), Redemption Whiskey (36 Years), I.W. Harper (34 Years), and Jefferson’s Bourbon (30 Years). So while…
Ha! You thought Little Book‘s “The Infinite” was the end? Joke’s on you, loser! That’s why they called it Edition 1! (Or Edition I, we aren’t entirely sure. It’s Roman numerals now.) The Infinite returns this holiday season with The Infinite Edition II, which is even more infinite than the last Infinite. As with Infinite…
Hacienda de Chihuahua has been producing sotol in the desert of Chihuahua since the 19th century, using a non-industrial process that seems to be unchanged for much of its existence. The distillery offers a surprisingly large portfolio of aged and unaged sotol, even a pair of sotol-based cream liqueurs. Today we’re taking an initial look…