Review: Muzeo Treats Poeme Pates de Fruit
Normally we don’t cover confectionery here, but if there’s anything I enjoy alongside a glass of dessert wine (especially Sauternes) it’s pates de fruit — better known perhaps as fruit jellies. This box of jellies from Laguna Beach-based Poeme includes three slabs of fruits, 15 pieces each, each in a different flavor: Morello cherry, Williams…
Review: Angel’s Envy Cask Strength Bourbon (2026)
If it seems like we just visited Angel’s Envy Cask Strength Bourbon, you’re not taking crazy pills. The 2025 batch dropped around November, and not even six months later, we’ve got a new release. Indeed, along with a new (age-stated) rye, this year’s bourbon is part of a double-header that coincides with the company moving…
Review: NV Riunite Lambrusco and Zero Red Semi-Sparkling
Riunite is one of those names that has existed long enough to become cultural furniture: familiar, faintly nostalgic, and impossible to dismiss, even if it has spent years making the case that “approachable” can also mean “just pour another glass and stop talking.” Building its international ascendancy largely around Lambrusco, it helped turn a once-regional…
Review: Oban 15 Years Old Port Cask Finish
Hot on the heels of its 15 year old Cask Strength edition, Diageo has launched another Oban expression… and it’s another 15 year old. While the Cask Strength release was finished in sherry casks, this one’s done in Port (though at 52.1% abv, it’s not far from the proof of the cask strength expression). Turns…
Review: James Gin, Complete Lineup (Updated 2026)
The James of James Gin is James May, that noted host of Top Gear and, it turns out, a whole bunch of cooking- and travel-related TV shows. He also owns a pub in the English countryside, and he makes gin — with five expressions currently under his belt. I know all this because May explained it…
Review: 2020 Frescobaldi Tenuta CastelGiocondo Brunello di Montalcino
By the time Brunello di Montalcino was taking shape in the 1800s, Tenuta CastelGiocondo was already on the ground as one of the first estates involved, so the Frescobaldi-owned estate has been there from the beginning in a way that counts. The label, lifted from a Simone Martini fresco, only sharpens the point: this is…
Review: Fords Sloe Gin
Fords Gin (not Ford’s Gin, btw) is beloved by bartenders, which makes it all the more surprising that there’s never been a line extension in more than a decade since its launch. That changed a few years ago, not with the navy strength expression you might be expecting but with a relative rarity: Fords Sloe…
Review: Wines of Mezzacorona Ventessa, Spring 2026 Releases
No less than ten months after our last round, we return to Mezzacorona’s Ventessa line with an introduction as minimal as the wines themselves: low-calorie, low abv wines that are vegan, gluten-free, clocking in at 90 calories, and shockingly still affordable while everything else seems to be skyrocketing in price. 2025 Mezzacorona Ventessa Vigneti delle…