By Richard Thomas Rating: B Seattle’s Westland Distillery has staked itself out as a leader in the rising category of American Single Malts, placing a major emphasis on adapting the model to their home in the Pacific Northwest. That includes harvesting local peat for use in making their peated malts, and for five years now they put the spotlight on ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: A- Only just a few limited editions from small distillers have risen to the hype that greets the titans of Kentucky’s annual autumn release season, that time when most of the hot ticket limited releases come out. Although born of far more humble origins than the big distiller stuff, Stranahan’s Snowflake has come to match them ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Introduced in 2017, Stranahan’s Sherry Cask is the latest offering in regular release from the Colorado distillery, and they didn’t spare the flub-dubs in making it. They started with their four year old single malt and gave it a finish in properly seasoned (four decades) Oloroso Sherry butts. None of that “Sherry casks made for ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B One of the signatures of the Virginia Distillery Company is blending their in-house malt whiskey with imported Scottish Highland malt whisky. Another is their reliance upon Virginia sources for finishing casks. Thus, the distillery reached out to Potter’s Craft Cider and acquired some of their used casks for a first batch of Cider Cask whiskey, ...

Mad River Distillers of Warren, Vermont and 14th Star Brewing Company of St. Albans, Vermont have teamed up again for their third annual release of Mad River’s Hopscotch Vermont Single Malt Whiskey. The whiskey was distilled by Mad River from a wash of 14th Star’s Tribute Double IPA, barrel-aged in charred American oak barrels for over two years in Mad ...