By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Bowmore is the oldest distillery on the famed Scottish island of Islay and the second oldest in Scotland, founded in 1779. Islay distilleries form a crowd of big, charismatic personalities, so it’s no easy task to stand out. That Bowmore has managed to do just this, and has a large and devoted enough fan following ...
Read More »Between $61 to $90
Balblair 2003 Scotch Review
By Richard Thomas Rating: B Balblair is one of a very select group of Scottish distilleries that releases their single malts as vintages rather than age statement or no age statement (NAS) expressions. It’s an odd way of going about doing things for a whisky, for while wine is very much influenced by how good the grape crop of a ...
Read More »Sneak Peek: Little Book Whiskey Review
By Richard Thomas Rating: B Rumors began circulating a couple of months ago that Jim Beam was making a new Booker’s style (i.e. uncut and unfiltered) expression, and the details have been coming out ever since. The new whiskey is Little Book, so named because it is the first product to come from Freddie Noe, son of current Beam Master ...
Read More »Barrell Rye Batch 001 Whiskey Review
By Richard Thomas Rating:B+ When Barrell Bourbon (or Barrell Craft Spirits, by the company’s lesser known, formal name) introduced a brand extension, it was not drawn from America’s second whiskey, rye. Instead, it was from the broad category of “American Whiskey,” which can mean a number of things. Not going with the popular, fast growing and still relatively open whiskey ...
Read More »Garrison Brothers 2015 Bourbon Review
By Debbie Shocair Rating: B+ As a gal who hails straight outta Texas, these Garrison Brothers have gone and made me proud. As it happened, completely randomly and in California no less, I ran into Charlie Garrison only days after having been told of Garrison Brothers and about Charlie himself. It was amusing, for as he introduced himself to me ...
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