By Father John Rayls Rating: B In 1927, The Hilhaven Lodge was created as a remote recreational retreat for its owner outside of nearby Hollywood. Former owners have included Ingrid Bergman and producer Alan Carr, and the current owner is director and producer Brett Ratner, best known for his Rush Hour films. Ratner partnered with Diageo to produce The Hilhaven Lodge Blended ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: A- WhistlePig’s Boss Hog has become another of annual limited edition series, and representing as it does aged cask strength rye whiskey, it should be a new fixture on any bottle hunter’s list of things to think about acquiring. This is especially so because compared to say, Thomas H. Handy Rye, it’s not as famous and ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B Barrell Bourbon had already released a handful of their signature cask strength bourbons when they released their first “American Whiskey.” Writing up Barrell Whiskey Batch 001 had been on my to-do list for a while, so much so that I actually got to the Sherry cask-finished Batch 002 before writing up the original. The result ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B Scotland’s tradition of independent bottling offers whisky connoisseurs a variety of choices they wouldn’t ordinarily have were they limited only to the brands owned by the companies that actually owns the distilleries. This is true not only of crafty blenders, such as Compass Box, but also in the realm of single malts. Take this Gordon ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B The history of whiskey is replete with distilleries that are not merely shuttered, but actually lost. In Ireland, Scotland and the U.S., a combination of economic tumult, Prohibition, wars and plain bad business practices shut down, many of them so long ago that even the very building is gone, and the names of these places ...