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).
By now the “Slow Food” movement (get it?) should need no introduction. But for the uninitiated, the idea is to eat local, sustainable, organic, and unprocessed food, as much as possible. They’re big on veggies, biodiversity, and all that other good stuff. Hey, I’m all for it. Lord knows I need no more high fructose…
Junipero is old school. Sipping it takes you back in time. You can imagine Churchill pulling down this stuff while trying to decide what to do about those friggin’ Nazis. Junipero makes a really perfect gin martini: The juniper, as you’d imagine from the name, is up front yet not overpowering. But it’s more spicy…
I haven’t tried this yet, but it does sound awfully good. Recipe courtesy Leblon. Leblon-Lychee Popsicle 1 1/2 oz. Leblon Cachaça 4 oz. Coconut water with the pieces of young coconut meat 1 oz. simple syrup 3/4 oz. fresh lemon juice 1 oz. Boiron Lychee Puree Add all ingredients into a shaker tin. Pour contents…
If the Anheuser-Busch distributor who dropped off a bottle of Cape North at my house last week is even remotely serious, you won’t be seeing Cape North on a shelf near you any time soon. (The company distributes muchc more than just beer.) According to him, obtaining samples was a truly Herculean effort. Imagine how…
So here’s a first on Drinkhacker: A second review of a spirit, four months after our initial coverage. The folks at Zyr vodka thought I was off base with my original review — which was a lofty A- rating — but which ZYR felt should be even higher. They sent a new bottle. Who am…
Complicated and heavily spiced liqueurs are always a difficult bag. They tend to blend poorly with other spirits and on their own can be imbalanced. Put it this way: No matter how much you like spiced rum, when’s the last time you had it mixed with anything other than Coke? Mekhong is an unusual spirit…
Hardly a household name, Glayva’s another spin on sweetened-Scotch-as-liqueur, much like Drambuie. Sorry, did I say “sweetened?” The 70-proof Glayva is damn sweet. Dripping with honey, cloves, and cinnamon, you could put this on French toast if you wanted. It’s quite overpowering on its own when served on the rocks, even as the ice starts…
Tomorrow (August 16) is National Rum Day, so what better way to celebrate than to sip a little Mount Gay, the first commercially produced rum (per the company), continually produced since 1637 (though the bottles say 1703). They even say George Washington drank this stuff on a stopover in Barbados (my favorite island, by the…
Leblon was the first cachaça I ever tried and it remains a perfectly acceptable introduction to the beauty of the spirit. The company was kind enough to send a fresh bottle, and it remains as charming a cachaça as ever. You won’t miss that gigantic green bottle on the shelf (it barely fits in my…
Like Russian Standard Imperia before it, Orzel is an old vodka brand which is invading America, with a huge marketing push targeted at the glossy magazines. I can’t turn a page without seeing another ad for Orzel, and I finally nabbed a bottle to give it a try. Orzel tastes old. It’s old school vodka…