By Richard Thomas Rating: A- It’s a good time to be drinking in America, with decades-long interest in craft beers, fine wines, and good spirits spurring small, high-end producers across the country. The days when your choices were “Mass Market Product A,” “Mass Market Product B,” and “Subpar Product #1” are long gone. One way in which these parallel developments ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: F Few entries into the whiskey market have ever been as misnamed as Kentucky Gentleman. Certainly Imperial whiskey is anything but, yet the concept of empire is a vague one, meaning different things to different people. The phrase “Kentucky Gentleman” implies a certain Southern genteelness, and frankly, no one possessed with such grace and class would ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: C+ When I picked up my Jack Daniels chocolate bar, I also acquired the Famous Grouse bar by the same company: Goldkenn of Switzerland. Naturally, this Scotch bar follows the same logic as the Tennessee whiskey bar: a whiskey-syrup locked up in chocolate capsules, with a crunchy chocolate candy on the inside to lock up the ...

Updated January 14, 2015 By S.D. Peters Rating: C+ If you’re an old timey, back in the day Rye drinker, you probably know all about Jim Beam Straight Rye already. The Straight Rye with the yellow label is one of two whiskeys that were what you meant when you said “I’ll have a Rye.” “Beam or Overholt?” You preferred one ...

By Jake Emen Rating: B+ New to the market in 2012 was a whisky which combined two distinct flavors which aren’t new at all – Canadian rye whisky, and maple syrup. The name stems from the art of syrup tapping, which dates back at least to the mid-1500s in the province of Quebec, and the three, five and seven year ...