By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Ever since Barrell Craft Spirits added Barrell Bourbon New Year to their line-up, some of my colleagues have made a point of posting a write up of the whiskey on New Year’s Day. Well, it’s still the first week of the new year, so I do not feel as if I am late in getting ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ With it’s sour mash whiskey, Michter’s harks back to its brand roots in southeastern Pennsylvania, and especially so with Shenk’s Homestead. Michter’s Sour Mash disappeared in 1989, one of the late casualties of the 1970s world whiskey bust. “New Michter’s” reintroduced it in 2012, as one of those expressions that isn’t quite bourbon or rye, ...

By Kenrick Thurston-Wilcox Rating: B- Introduced in 1997, Chivas Regal 18 Year Old is a blend of malt and grain whiskies from all around Scotland. Chivas owns the oldest continuously operated distillery in Scotland, Strathisla, which is at the heart of the Chivas Regal blends. The 12 Year Old blend, being woody and fruity, was a little weak in the ...

By Kenrick Thurston-Wilcox Rating: C Released at the same time as Batch 44, this whiskey is distilled from Fritz barley, which was grown in Skagit Valley, WA. It was then aged a minimum of 36 months in charred, new American Oak barrels, with a small percentage of the finished product being aged exclusively in used Manzanilla Sherry casks. The Whiskey ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ A decade ago, Utah’s High West was a fan favorite, instantly earning a reputation for transparency at a time when a handful of whiskey bloggers led an often trollish obsession among enthusiasts with the sometimes shady marketing employed by non-distiller producers. High West was unusual in not only did they frankly admit that their whiskeys ...