By Richard Thomas Rating: A The revived brand King of Kentucky is the latest ultra-aged entry to enter the lists of the Autumn Release Season, the period when most of the prized annual editions are sent to market. This year, King of Kentucky enters its sixth edition. The modern rendition of King of Kentucky was conceived as a cask strength, ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Each member of the seminal Jim Beam Small Batch Collection is now the center of its own brand line-up, and three of the four have had rye whiskeys either as limited editions or regular extensions. But of those three, I think the most appropriate to have rye whiskey attached to its brand name is Basil ...

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 ...

By Alex Southgate Rating: B+ I am sure this is going to wrinkle a few noses out there, but as a rule I’m not a big fan of very smoky whiskies. I love a good Scotch just like the rest, but the heavy peaty aroma that comes with many expressions is something I find a bit off-putting. This being said, ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Many companies began in the whiskey business the way James E. Pepper did, building their brand using sourced whiskey. After establishing that brand and proving its viability, they then set out down the road of financing and building a distillery. In some cases, this begins a transition from reliance on sourcing to basing whiskeys on ...