By Richard Thomas Rating: C- In introducing the new drinks line in early 2023, Jim Beam declared that, come summertime, Kentuckians like to drink lemonade or fruit punch with bourbon on their front porches. Well, I’m a born and bred Kentucky horse farmer’s son, and I prefer to make mules with our native Ale-8-One or mint juleps, but I won’t ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: C+ Before there was a Town Branch Distillery or even a sourced brand, there was a Lexington Brewing Company, with the distillery erected on the property of the original brewery. Today’s joint Lexington Brewing & Distilling Company isn’t quite what most people imagine when they think “brewstillery,” because the brewery and distillery aren’t under the same ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: C- Triple Dog Irish Whiskey is certainly packaged to catch your eye from the shelf: its modern, sleek design and red and black colors will stand out amid a cluster of just about any potential mixture of whiskey bottles. Although I find the studded collar on the neck of the bottle to be on the garish ...

By Douglas Fraser Rating: C+ Smokehead Islay Single Malt Whisky is a peat bomb for lovers of smoky whisky. The brand belongs to Ian Macleod Distillers, and its source on Islay is undisclosed and one of the company’s best kept secrets. Rumors point to Lagavulin and Caol Ila, but those are just rumors. This is not the only example of ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: C- As the craft whiskey boom really took off in the early 2010s, many small producers were on the look out for techniques to reduce maturation time or bypass it all together. The classic was to age in small or tiny barrels. The best examples of this tailored their production process to make a better new ...