By Richard Thomas Rating: B Until the whiskey crash of the 1970s dealt a near death blow to what was by then a declining category, rye whiskey used to have three regional styles. On one end of the spectrum was the sweet Kentucky Rye, with it’s mash bill that just barely met Federal requirements (usually 51 to 54% rye). On ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B- Koval enjoys a prominent reputation in the craft whiskey scene, and in my opinion this boils down to two things. They were an early entrant for one thing, starting in 2008 as the first post-Prohibition distillery in Chicago. The second thing is what most whiskey geeks notice upon seeing their wares on a store shelf: ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: B+ Arguably the best decision made by the powers that be at Brown-Forman in recent years was to take Jack Daniel’s in new directions, allowing them to introduce twists on their extremely popular foundation whiskey, Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 (“Black Label”). One natural course for the Lynchburg distiller to follow was to tinker with their ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: A- Yesterday I was observing that even though craft whiskey has been a thing for at least a decade, there are almost no examples of a micro-distilled whiskey that is even several years old, let alone ten. In fact, the only one I can think of is Old Potrero Hotaling’s series, a periodic line of limited ...

By Richard Thomas Rating: A- Of all the whiskeys in the Michter’s line up, my favorite has become the 10 Year Old Single Barrel Rye. Some are better whiskeys, but also near impossible to get and dramatically more expensive. I have a short list of whisk(e)ys I’d be willing to pay $100 to $200 a bottle for to keep one ...