By Andrew Graham Rating: B+ Bushmills released the second installment of its renowned Rare Cask series in May, nearly 20 months after the inaugural Rare Cask expression was released in October of 2020. It’s worth comparing the specs on this expression with those of the first Rare Cask installment. Whereas the first Rare Cask release was a 28 year old ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B If you like Scotch and have never heard of Auchroisk, don’t feel ashamed. This Speyside distillery was founded in 1973, making it one of those late 20th Century foundations. This is purely anecdotal, but I have often found that distilleries started in the late 20th Century lack both the hype of a recent publicity campaign ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: A- The Tomatin-Glenlivet Distillery is named for the village of Tomatin, plus the common practice 19th Century of tying the name Glenlivet onto things. If you making a study of distilleries in Scotland in 1897, when Tomatin was founded, you would have found quite a few this-Glenlivet and Glenlivet-that distilleries, and none of them had anything ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B Grain & Barrel Spirits, the company behind the revival of the Chicken Cock brand, and some of the sourced releases under that title have been quite excellent. In particular, I was quite fond of the Chicken Cock 15 Year Old Bourbon. The news that the company was bringing out a Canadian-sourced 20 year old rye ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: A- Charleston, South Carolina-based Grain & Barrel Spirits has added a middle aged, limited edition expression to their Chicken Cock whiskeys, the oldest bourbon yet for the brand. Chicken Cock was founded in 1856 in Paris, Kentucky, which today is known as the home of Hartfield & Co. and the last refuge of the blue-blooded, Bluegrass ...