Review: Rhum Clement Premiere Canne, Vieux Agricole VSOP, Cuvee Homere, and XO (2008)
The celebrated Rhum Clement hails from Martinique, where just about everything seems to have an extra letter in it. I managed to get a small sip of the company’s top-shelf Clement XO at the recent WhiskyFest San Francisco, and the company was kind enough to fill me in on the rest of the line which…
Review: Connemara Peated Single Malt Irish Whiskey
Connemara wears that “peated” slug right on its sleeve. If the name of the spirit didn’t tip you off, this is a rarity for Irish whiskeys, which are traditionally not peated at all. The smoky peat in this 80-proof whiskey (which carries no age-statement) is immediately at the forefront on the nose and the palate.…
Is Your Pint Glowing?
Unscrupulous manufacturers are apparently using radioactive waste in consumer products, and hiding the junk in old beer containers: Abandoned medical scanners, food processing devices and mining equipment containing radioactive metals such as cesium-137 and cobalt-60 are often picked up by scrap collectors and sold to recyclers, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s…
Review: (ri)1 Rye Whiskey
Just so I can get it down, officially, the full, official name of this product is (rî)¹. Actually, that’s a cheat, because there’s no symbol for a “long lowercase I” — an i with a horizontal bar instead of a dot — that the web can render, at least not that I know of. So…
Review: 2006 M.J. Vincent Juliénas Domaine le Cotoyon
Grown near the village of Juliénas, the Beaujolais wines from this region are as full-bodied and big as the region’s namesake, Julius Caesar. Fruitier than wines from Morgon, M.J. Vincent’s Juliénas offers peppery notes atop fresh fruit — berries and lightly tannic cherry flavors. The trademark youth of Gamay — which manifests as a light…
Review: Maui Platinum, Dark, and Braddah Kimo’s Da’ Bomb Extreme Rum
After my report on Sgt. Classick‘s Hawaiian-based rums, the good folks at Haleakala Distillers responded to remind us that Classick isn’t actually distilled on the island, and that its products are. In fact Haleakala is the only distillery on the island of Maui, and produces a selection of fine rums. None of these rums are…
Review: Bunnahabhain 18 Years Old
One of the most-fun-to-say spirits names in the business, Bunnahabhain is situated on the north end of Islay. This 18-year Scotch is a moderately smoky spirit, heavy on salty, seaweed-infused phenol and light on the sweets (a caramel note is there somewhere in the finish, but it’s just a hint, really). Flowery notes are more…
Know Any December 5 Birthdays?
Many catches, but there’s up to $75 in it for ya… We’re offering a $75 bounty for a Bay Area resident turning 75 on Dec. 5, 2008, and a $25 bounty for a local turning 21 on the same day. You see, Dec. 5 is the 75th Anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition. Yes, it…
