By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Lexington Brewing & Distilling’s Town Branch 7 Year Old Single Malt is a product of brewstilling synergy. Whether the whiskey was made with the distillery’s pot still is unknown, but what is known is that it was aged for seven-plus years in old Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale barrels. That drink, in its turn, is the ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: C- In introducing the new drinks line in early 2023, Jim Beam declared that, come summertime, Kentuckians like to drink lemonade or fruit punch with bourbon on their front porches. Well, I’m a born and bred Kentucky horse farmer’s son, and I prefer to make mules with our native Ale-8-One or mint juleps, but I won’t ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: A- Bourbonola is a nod to the long history of the Lexington Brewing Company. By that, I don’t mean the modern company, which was established in 1999 and is very much a creation of the late period of the Craft Beer 1.0 era. There is an earlier Lexington Brewing Company, one that got its start in ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B- Although some folks think malt whiskey is a thing best left to the Scots, Irish and the rest of the world, and Americans ought to stay out of it, the American Single Malt is on the precipice of becoming a thing. The American Single Malt Whiskey Commission is now very close to seeing their vision ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ When Heaven Hill finally took the 12 year age statement off Elijah Craig Barrel Proof last year, several years after taking the Elijah Craig Small Batch no age statement in 2016, it was an even noteworthy for just how little comment it attracted. Sure, some croaked, but compared to the outrage that similar transitions sparked ...