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).
Chicago was the beating heart of America’s bootlegging underworld during Prohibition — a city swimming in “giggle water” while the rest of the nation went dry. During the so-called Noble Experiment, the Windy City’s reputation for hooch-running became inseparable from its most infamous crime boss: the one and only Al Capone. But while Capone’s empire…
Crown Royal recently dropped two new expressions, one a finished whisky (rum barrels), and one a heavily flavored one (chocolate). We got ’em both. Thoughts follow. Crown Royal Marquis Review Crafted for “the next era of nightlife” — which I thought was “staying home” — Crown Royal Marquis is a blend of Canadian whiskies finished…
Back in 2023, Beam launched a trilogy of bourbons designed to show the impact of location on aging. The Kentucky Series of Hardin’s Creek looked at warehouse terroir by presenting identical distillate aged at one of three different Beam campuses: Clermont, Frankfort, and Boston. The results were eye-opening, and I had some distinct preferences among…
In 1964, Congress declared bourbon a “distinctive product of the United States,” cementing its place as America’s native spirit. While distillers may choose from a range of secondary grains to shape its flavor, bourbon remains, at its core, a whiskey born from corn. Ask someone to name the state most closely tied to bourbon, and…
Bourbon is often called America’s native spirit. Baseball, of course, is America’s pastime. Both are born of the same soil — stitched into the fabric of a growing nation that found its rhythm in the mid-1800s, when railroads, steamboats, and telegraphs began to connect small towns and big dreams from coast to coast. As whiskey…
Bunnahabhain introduced a cask strength version of its flagship 12-year-old single malt back in 2021. It started life as an annual release but then took 2024 off. Now it’s back and slated for regular, yearly appearances, or so we’re told. Bunnahabhain is the most northerly distillery on Islay, the island best known for its peaty…
We tasted plenty of great tequila this year — and lots of good mezcal, too. For 2025, we’ve got three mezcals on our list of the top agave spirits released this year, a record since we started compiling this top 10 list in 2019. No lime and salt required today, but a hearty snack won’t…
It’s hard to believe, but Angel’s Envy has never put out an age-statemented release before now, and they’re coming out of the gate hard, with a 10 year old version of the long-running Cask Strength Limited Edition Bourbon.. Fans of the brand know that Angel’s Envy puts out a Cask Strength edition each year around…
You may have noticed more offerings on the shelves lately from Loch Lomond. That’s because the brand reportedly renewed its focus on the U.S. market in 2025 after a brand refresh in 2022. We were quite impressed with the results for the entry-level, 12-year-old expression reviewed earlier this year. A rarer, 18-year-old release is also…
Brooklyn-based (and Heaven Hill-owned) Widow Jane is back with its seventh iteration of The Vaults, a 15 year blend of straight bourbon whiskeys finished in a changing lineup of secondary casks. As usual, the base liquid is a mix of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana-distilled bourbons. No surprise there, but when it comes to secondary maturation,…