By Richard Thomas Rating: B- As always, part of the fun with these Barrell Bourbon bottlings is looking at the stats and trying to connect the dots. Barrell Whiskey Batch 003, distinct from Barrell Bourbon in all probability because it was aged in ex-Bourbon barrels rather than new barrels, was made in Tennessee. Read into that what you will, but ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: C+ Seeing as how I was in the middle of working on a few different selections from seminal upstate New York micro-distillery Tuthilltown and had a pending review with distillery founder Ralph Erenzo and news just broke that William Grant & Sons had finally completed their 2010 acquisition of the Hudson brand by adding the distillery ...

By Randall H. Borkus Rating: B- Widow Jane Distillery is the specialty distillery out of Red Book, Brooklyn, owned by chocolate-makers Cacao Prieto.  Cacao Prieto, in turn, was founded by Daniel Prieto Preston, an inventor and aerospace engineer, whose family heritage goes back 100 years of farming organic cacao in the Dominican Republic. Their spirit expressions are largely not distilled ...

By Father John Rayls Rating: A Have you ever heard of a “marketing faux pas?” Beam Suntory recently experienced this when they underestimated the blowback from their passionate, loyal following concerning a near doubling in price for Booker’s Bourbon beginning in 2017. The tidal wave of criticism and threatened product rejection apparently gave the company pause. After reconsideration, a more ...

By Emma Briones Rating: B+ From the new range of experimental whiskeys created by Irish Distillers comes Method and Madness Single Malt Irish Whiskey. This is the second expression of a new range that, according to Irish Distillers, pushes the boundaries of Irish whiskey by mixing the experience of Midleton’s whiskey masters with the fresh talent of its apprentices. Method ...