By Andrew Graham Grade: B+ Balcones is a Texas distillery whose expressions The Whiskey Reviewer has covered extensively, because they are consistently solid and the distillery’s methods are unique. Balcones uses 100% Hopi blue corn for some of its signature expressions, and they age their corn whiskeys in used 5-gallon barrels. Editor Richard Thomas reviewed its inaugural expression, Baby Blue, ...

By Douglas Fraser Rating: B- During the Christmas holiday, I was given a wonderful gift containing a box set of 3 whiskeys from a craft distillery in Philadelphia called New Liberty Distillery. If it were not for my girlfriend’s cousin, Brian, I might not have discovered these pleasant drams called Kinsey. New Liberty Distillery in Philadelphia, PA, is located just ...

By Richard Thomas As a drinks writer, one of the mainstays of my news alerts, inbox and correspondence with my colleagues is the partial conversion of the distilling industry from making booze to making hand sanitizer. It’s reminiscent of the World War Two experience, when spirits-makers largely switched to producing industrial alcohol for the war effort. In the 1940s, making ...

By Andrew Graham Rating: B Until recently, with the opening of the Sazerac House in the French Quarter, there were only two distilleries in New Orleans that made whiskey: craft distillers Atelier Vie and Seven Three Distilling Company. Both use Louisiana rice, and both of their drams are truly unique, as I discovered during a visit to New Orleans last ...

Food and soft drinks giant PepsiCo has taken action to block the Gatlinburg-area legal moonshine distiller Ole Smoky from trademarking “Ole Smoky Mountain Dew Moonshine.” “Mountain dew” is a dictionary synonym for moonshine, and Pepsi’s own Mountain Dew soft drink has roots in moonshing. The brand originated in the 1930s as a lemon-lime soda marketed for mixing with liquor that, ...