By Randall H. Borkus Rating: A Bardstown’s Preservation Distillery has previously released fabulous-but-sourced whiskey sourced from Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee and Canadian. Recently, they departed onto the well-trod path of blending those sourced stocks their own distillate, produced in their pot still in Bardstown. Just months ago, Preservation was ready for the next step. In …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ The thing about Michter’s Legacy Series is one could be forgiven for forgetting it exists. This is because from its inception, the series has consisted of two brands: Bomberger’s and Shenk’s. Both of those have been around for years, with the pair being spins on the company’s bourbon and sour …
By Richard Thomas Rating: A+ All through the Bourbon Boom, the Jack Daniel’s company men in Lynchburg and Louisville were resistant to the idea of putting age statements on Mr. Jack’s whiskey. That was despite the historical fact that Jack Daniel himself released age statement whiskeys in his day. Why is not exactly clear, and …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B Hybrids remain one of the great sleeper categories in American Whiskey. Defined as a blend of two or more major types of whiskey, the granddaddy was Wild Turkey Forgiven. That defunct expression is now more than a decade in the past, predating Eddie Russell succeeding his father as Master Distiller …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ The 13th installment of Old Fitz Bonded is now out, and this time it’s a mature, but relatively young bourbon. The current offering of Heaven Hill’s Old Fitzgerald brand is a bottled in bond version of its wheated bourbon, but always far older than minimum four years required by the …
By Richard Thomas Rating: A- One of the things to come out of the Japanese whisky explosion a decade ago was the introduction of many whisky enthusiasts to Japan’s Mizunara oak. Whiskies finished in this wood have been appearing in a steady trickle ever since, often as limited editions. Mizunara is a scarce wood (the …
By Kenrick Thurston Wilcox Rating: B+ If anyone has wanted to try their hand at being a blender, infinity bottles are an interesting way for consumers to do so, with many articles on websites how to start your own at home blend. With its roots in the wine world via the solera aging system, the …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Bruichladdich (pronounced “bru-kla-dee”) is one of the distilleries that bucks against the popular image of Islay, the island of peat, or at least they do with one foot. They are one of the whisky-makers on the island that doesn’t do nothing but peated whisky, but that isn’t to say they …
By Richard Thomas Rating: C- Although the company was notionally started earlier, it’s been more than a decade since WhistlePig 10 Year Old Rye was first released. The product was very much a creation of opportunity and moment. Raj Bhakta, a former investment banker, Apprentice contestant and Congressional candidate, wanted to start a whiskey company. …
By Richard Thomas Rating: B- Uncle Nearest almost instantly became a well-known whiskey brand thanks to two points. First, it’s named for and honors the legacy of Nathan “Nearest” Green, the slave who is known to have worked as distiller and taught Jack Daniels the whiskey-making trade in the 1850s. Second and related, it’s a …
