Transparency, full disclosure, and honesty. Those are the values that I brought to hunting and outdoor sporting equipment reviews for the last seven years, and I’m bringing those same values to the whiskey and spirit reviews we post on this site.
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I was visiting Seattle on a work trip a couple months ago and, as usual, I was looking for a good place to grab a drink. Much to my surprise, I found that there was a fully operational distillery located within walking distance of the Pike Place Market. They didn’t have any tours that day, but pretty much the entire facility (including their stills) can be seen from the tasting room where I tried their unique take on malt whiskey.
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Winter is coming! In honor of the last season of Game of Thrones, the Diageo company (who owns a good chunk of the distilleries in Scotland) has decided to put out a series of scotch whisky bottlings branded with the emblems of each of the major houses of Westeros. Today we’re drinking the House Stark edition from Dalwhinnie and mentally preparing ourselves for the Battle of Winterfell.
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Recently, I was in Orlando, Florida for a work-related conference and had an afternoon to myself. I thought about going to Disney, but one look at the wait times for the rides (and all of the screaming kids) and I decided that a nice quiet smoke was the better option.
After a quick Google, I found a cigar lounge near Orlando that boasted its own bar and a large selection of cigars. Sure enough, I walked in the door to find pretty much every stick I could ever want at my fingertips. From Montecristo to Acid and everything in between — it was all there.
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I’m sure when we think of whiskey regions, New York isn’t the first place that comes to mind. But when we were recently in Westchester, NY for our bar takeover, we had the opportunity to work with the folks at Good Shepherd Distillery (a family owned distillery in Mamaroneck) and taste their latest creation: a single malt whiskey that’s 100% New York. And if their product is any indication, we’ve been sleeping on the NY whiskeys.
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To me, Knob Creek is best known for their gun range and semi-annual machine gun shooting extravaganza. The area is also well known for distilleries, but I didn’t know a whole lot about the production of the Knob Creek bourbon that has been on liquor store shelves for a while now. Reasonably priced and attractively bottled, it seems like a good option. But of course I needed to test for myself.
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Since day one, Johnnie Walker has been all about the blend. They don’t actually “make” anything, but they do grab a selection of other distiller’s work and slap their own label on it. If sales are any indication, they’re damn good at it as evidenced by the red label version taking the title of best selling scotch in the world. But do sales alone mean that the Red Label is actually the best one? Or is their Black Label better? Let’s find out.
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I was walking through the liquor store attached to a Wal-Mart in Orlando, Florida looking for something to keep me occupied during a week long conference. As I was looking through the smaller bottles on the shelf one caught my eye that I hadn’t seen before, a small batch Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. I was intrigued and brought it back with me for some… additional research.
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Probably best known as the favorite spirit of Parks and Recreation star Nick Offerman, Lagavulin is one of those Scotch Whiskys that you either love or you hate. A departure from the traditional flavor profile of other local whisky their distinct flavor makes it an interesting specimen.
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There’s news this morning of an unlikely cooperation between rival spirits companies — Diageo owned Lagavulin has struck a deal with the Sazerac owned Fireball Whisky to be the sole supplier of the base spirit used in their cinnamon flavored spirit.
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