By Richard Thomas Rating: A- San Francisco’s Old Potrero is part of a tiny class of distillers that I dubbed “craft whiskey before there was craft whiskey.” I say this because outfits like Old Potrero, St. George and Prichard’s were small distillers, starting out in an era when the whiskey industry as a whole was only just starting to rebound ...

Beam Suntory has released the second batch of Booker’s, the seminal cask strength bourbon introduced as part of the Small Batch trend of the 1990s. This batch has been dubbed “Apprentice’s Batch,” and refers back to Booker Noe’s entry into the bourbon industry. Booker started working at the Jim Beam Distillery in 1952, and shortly after, Carl became his mentor. ...

Woodford Reserve has released its annual limited-edition, high-proof expression — Woodford Reserve Batch Proof. At 124.7 proof, this expression –  part of the Master’s Collection series – celebrates the commitment to craftsmanship of Master Distiller Elizabeth McCall and Master Distiller Emeritus Chris Morris. Batch Proof showcases the flavor nuances created from the mingling different Woodford Reserve barrels into one batch ...

By Andrew Graham Rating: B I have become quite a fan of most of what’s in the George Remus portfolio. We’ve talked about Remus here before, but in short, it is one of two in-house brands of MGP, the distillery on the Indiana-Kentucky border that’s more commonly associated with large-scale contract distilling. What’s easy to miss about MGP is that ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ A few years ago, the folks in Lynchburg, Tennessee decided to do a special release of their relatively new rye whiskey (after a series of teaser releases, the flagship JD Rye came out in 2017) by taking it cask strength and single barrel. That was apparently well enough received that its now a permanent fixture: ...