By Richard Thomas Rating: A- At an early stage this year, Woodford Reserve released a third round of its whiskey at batch proof as part of its annual Master’s Collection. So, doing a batch proof release is now an annual, limited edition thing and part of the continuing Master’s Collection. In all respects except the proof statement and the bottle ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: A- Right off the bat, I must call attention to this article being about the flagship, small batch 10 Year Old Widow Jane, not the single barrel version. Widow Jane is a small distillery in Brooklyn, started in a disused chocolate factory by Daniel Preston and Vince Oleson. In recent years they were one of a ...

By Andrew Graham Grade: A- Angel’s Envy has now released the second bourbon in its Cellar Collection, and this one’s an eyebrow-raiser. It’s a 10 year old bourbon—the oldest bourbon the distiller has ever made available for sale—finished for 10 months in tawny Port wine barrels. The first Cellar Collection release was their Oloroso Sherry cask finished bourbon. I got ...

By Randall H. Borkus Rating A-  “Taconic,” (/təˈkɒnᵻk/) was once transliterated as the Taghkanic or Taughannock, meaning “in the trees,” and used as the name of a Lenape chieftain. Taghkanic is still used in eastern New York, as in the name of a small town in the region, for features within and outside the Taconic Mountains. The founders of Taconic Distillery, Gerald Valenti and Paul ...

By Emma Briones Rating: A- Each year, Diageo launches a series of rare whiskies under its “Special Releases” collection. The collection is made up of single malts that are rare and quite special, due to their limited availability, high quality and, some times, strange characteristics. One of the latter is an unpeated version of an Islay classic: Caol Ila Unpeated ...