By Kurt Maitland Ratings: B Troy & Sons are a new distillery located in at the foot of the Blue Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. Their whiskey expression is based on an almost extinct heirloom white corn grown at the nearby Peaceful Valley farm. The combination of this rare corn and Troy & Sons focus on a making a premium ...

By S.D. Peters Rating: B- Death’s Door White Whiskey: is this whiskey fit for consuming in a death rattle? Or will it put start the rattle? The well-worn tales of blinding raw moonshine do come to mind. Let’s face it, there’s a particular base of consumers (mostly male, I’ll wager) who’ll read a challenge into this name, which might well ...

By S.D. Peters A Moonshine Romance “Moonshine” – a word that’s worth a thousand pictures. Whether sepia-toned, awash in cinematic midnight or muddled with shadows, those pictures evoke a giddy infatuation for Appalachia’s hills & hollers or a longing nostalgia for Chicago’s speakeasies in the hearts and minds of those who have never tasted moonshine, never visited Hazard or Harlan ...

By S.D. Peters Rating: B Finger Lakes Distillery, in scenic upstate New York, has established quite a range of products – more than we’ve seen for other micro-distillers.  Of their 14 spirit line, six are whiskeys.  The Whiskey Reviewer had the opportunity to try their McKenzie Rye Whiskey and McKenzie Bourbon Whiskey, and these reveal that Finger Lakes’ Master Distiller ...

By S.D. Peters Rating: B I previously tried FEW Rye Whiskey for The Whiskey Reviewer, and rather enjoyed it.  As mentioned in that review, I also took a certain vicarious pleasure in FEW Distillery proprietor Paul Hletko’s choice for the name: Frances Elizabeth Willard, the famous (or, from our perspective, infamous) leader of the Women’s Temperance Union in Evanston, Illinois, ...