By Father John Rayls Rating: B+ Braddock Oak Single Barrel Rye Whisky (spelling is a nod to their Scottish heritage) is distilled and bottled by Catoctin Creek Distilling in Purcellville, Virginia. Scott and Becky Harris founded the distillery in 2009 and produce various ryes, brandies, gin and even an unusual rye white dog. They pride themselves on using all organic ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B- As always, part of the fun with these Barrell Bourbon bottlings is looking at the stats and trying to connect the dots. Barrell Whiskey Batch 003, distinct from Barrell Bourbon in all probability because it was aged in ex-Bourbon barrels rather than new barrels, was made in Tennessee. Read into that what you will, but ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: C+ Seeing as how I was in the middle of working on a few different selections from seminal upstate New York micro-distillery Tuthilltown and had a pending review with distillery founder Ralph Erenzo and news just broke that William Grant & Sons had finally completed their 2010 acquisition of the Hudson brand by adding the distillery ...

By Randall H. Borkus Rating: B- Widow Jane Distillery is the specialty distillery out of Red Book, Brooklyn, owned by chocolate-makers Cacao Prieto.  Cacao Prieto, in turn, was founded by Daniel Prieto Preston, an inventor and aerospace engineer, whose family heritage goes back 100 years of farming organic cacao in the Dominican Republic. Their spirit expressions are largely not distilled ...

By Father John Rayls Rating: A Have you ever heard of a “marketing faux pas?” Beam Suntory recently experienced this when they underestimated the blowback from their passionate, loyal following concerning a near doubling in price for Booker’s Bourbon beginning in 2017. The tidal wave of criticism and threatened product rejection apparently gave the company pause. After reconsideration, a more ...