By Father John Rayls Average Rating: B If you’ve been living under a rock for the last 5 years, you might not have noticed that the world of whiskey has been undergoing some dramatic changes. The record demand for all-things whiskey has brought about an unprecedented explosion in new distillery startups, and there have been new innovations and experimentation from ...

By Randall H. Borkus Rating: C+ Widow Jane Distillery is the specialty distillery located in Red Book, Brooklyn, owned by Cacao Prieto, the maker of “beans-to-bar” fresh chocolates. Many of their expressions are sourced from other distilleries in Kentucky and maybe Indiana, but Widow Jane Distillery has their own still and are now beginning to age their own small batch whiskeys. ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B- It’s been a while since we’ve touched on Jura single malts (several years for me in particular), so I think a little reintroduction is in order. Jura is an island in the Inner Hebrides, north of and adjacent to Islay. It’s a mountainous and boggy island, and it’s main claims to fame are having more ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B/B As much as Buffalo Trace is known for its commitment to experimenting with whiskey-making (witness Warehouse X), for a steady stream of interesting twists on the production process one should turn to their Sazerac stablemate, Virginia’s A. Smith Bowman. The most recent example is the latest release from the Abraham Bowman Sequential Series. The purpose ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ It’s becoming a thing to put an identifying theme on batch-driven releases nowadays, a trend best exemplified by Booker’s adopting individual titles for its batches after two decades of doing without. Four Roses may be starting to go this route too, which is fine, since it really is a handier way to identify individual releases. ...