By Kenrick Thurston-Wilcox Rating: B Inspired by the bootstrap ambitions of Western frontier settlers, Deerhammer strives to put it’s own mark on the whiskey world, having started with a single malt when most of their peers were making bourbon. They have since moved on to make other whiskeys, including a rye, a four-grain bourbon and …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B What to write about Elijah Craig Barrel Proof that I either haven’t written before or merits restatement? It’s worth looking back and recalling that 2023 kicks off the 11th year for the expression, and this is the second strongest bourbon in the entire series at 125.6 proof. Also, Heaven Hill …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Ever since Barrell Craft Spirits added Barrell Bourbon New Year to their line-up, some of my colleagues have made a point of posting a write up of the whiskey on New Year’s Day. Well, it’s still the first week of the new year, so I do not feel as if …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ With it’s sour mash whiskey, Michter’s harks back to its brand roots in southeastern Pennsylvania, and especially so with Shenk’s Homestead. Michter’s Sour Mash disappeared in 1989, one of the late casualties of the 1970s world whiskey bust. “New Michter’s” reintroduced it in 2012, as one of those expressions that …
By Kenrick Thurston-Wilcox Rating: B- Introduced in 1997, Chivas Regal 18 Year Old is a blend of malt and grain whiskies from all around Scotland. Chivas owns the oldest continuously operated distillery in Scotland, Strathisla, which is at the heart of the Chivas Regal blends. The 12 Year Old blend, being woody and fruity, was …
By Kenrick Thurston-Wilcox Rating: C Released at the same time as Batch 44, this whiskey is distilled from Fritz barley, which was grown in Skagit Valley, WA. It was then aged a minimum of 36 months in charred, new American Oak barrels, with a small percentage of the finished product being aged exclusively in used …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ A decade ago, Utah’s High West was a fan favorite, instantly earning a reputation for transparency at a time when a handful of whiskey bloggers led an often trollish obsession among enthusiasts with the sometimes shady marketing employed by non-distiller producers. High West was unusual in not only did they …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ It would be fair to say Pennsylvania whiskey begins and ends with its rye, and Pittsburgh’s Wigle Distillery is as good an example of how that works in practice as one is likely to find. Rye isn’t the only whiskey–nor whiskey the only spirit–they make there, but their rye footprint …
By Richard Thomas Redwood Empire Whiskeys comes from the Sonoma-based Graton Distillery, who created and inaugurated the brand with the release of three expressions in 2019: Pipe Dream, Emerald Giant and Lost Monarch. They followed up on that last year with the start of a bottled in bond brand extension, with two redwood forest themed …
By Kenrick Thurston-Wilcox Rating: C+ Established in 2013, Copperworks was founded by 2 men, Jason Parker and Micah Nutt. Both possessing a background in craft brewing, they decided to try their hand at distilling once it became legal in Washington state. They chose to start with a craft beer wash instead of a normal distillers …
