Pappy Van Winkle 23: Tasting the Unicorn
I’ve written about Pappy Van Winkle 23 before. Not about tasting it of course — I mean, realistically I never thought I’d get a chance to. The hype surrounding this [in]famous bourbon is such that mere mortals with laughably puny bank balances are rarely afforded…
Dalwhinnie 15 Year Old Scotch Whisky: Win the Scotch Gift Gamble
We’ve all experienced the scotch gift gamble. You want to get a special bottle for the discerning sipper, but perhaps you’re not familiar with their favourites or worse, you don’t know much at all about scotch and are reliant on the ramblings of bloggers for advice…
Sipping With Stogies: What Whisky to Pair With Your Cigars
Whisky and cigars have a long and glamorous history together. You’ll be hard pressed to watch an old movie featuring high society without a scene where dinner jacket-clad men repair to an opulent room to sip scotch and puff on a stogie. It’s something many…
Forty Creek Barrel Select Whisky is Worth Rediscovering
I had forgotten about Forty Creek Barrel Select. Sure, I’d occasionally still go in for the quite-good Copper Pot (when it was on sale), but I can’t even recall the last time I picked up a bottle of Forty Creek’s flagship. It’s not that I don’t…
Woodford Reserve Sonoma-Cutrer Finish: My Dream Bourbon Come True
“It will be mine. Oh yes… it will be mine.” Anyone who’s seen Wayne’s World is familiar with this line, a promise Wayne makes to one day purchase the guitar of his dreams. I uttered a very similar phrase, except it wasn’t targeted at a guitar,…
Pike Creek Double Barrel Whisky Doubles Down on Sweetness
I am loath to write a negative review of a novel Canadian whisky at least trying to break the stereotype of Canadian whiskies being universally bland and relegated to ginger ale-based beverages. So I hope you all appreciate how it pains me to say Pike Creek Double…
The Balvenie Caribbean Cask is a Sweet, Complex Speyside
When whiskies get a lot of hype, I get a little worried. Will they live up to it, or disappoint me? Am I buying a decent dram or simply buying into a successful marketing campaign? Of course there is another alternative — it exceeds the…
Norlan Whisky Glass: A Review
Just to make it perfectly clear, I don’t Kickstart things often. But when I took a look at what Norlan had planned for a whisky glass, I simply couldn’t resist — especially when my backing would net me two glasses when the project came to…
Touring Talisker: A Behind The Scenes Look as Skye’s Whisky
When I went to Scotland, I decided to make it a priority to visit the distillery which made my (currently) highest rated scotch. That distillery was Talisker, and that whisky was their unbelievably good 57 ° North, a NAS, cask-strength beast of a dram. It…
Basil Hayden’s Bourbon: Good for Bond, Not for Me
When you think of James Bond’s drink, you think of – well you know what it is. But it’s not simply agitated vodka drinks the suave spy goes in for – it’s bourbon too. In the 2011 Bond novel Carte Blanche, James keeps Basil Hayden’s…