Category: Reviews

Westward American Single Malt – Oregon Stout Cask

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Regular readers of the blog will be familiar with my admiration for the growing category of American Single Malt. While Westward (not to be confused with Westland) is a core component of this movement, they are not my favorite producer. Still, I’m always up to try something new, and here’s an American Single Malt finished in a cask that previously held Oregon stout (beer). For more background on Westward, see my review of their flagship American Single Malt.

George Dickel Bottled In Bond Tennessee Whiskey (Fall 2008, 11 year)

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I love the variety of American whiskey expressions that have graced the liquor store shelf in recent years. No longer is it just five or six old stalwarts and 1 or 2 fancy special editions, now you can get vintage-dated, age-stated, cask-finished expressions from a wide range of both sourced and distillery-owned brands. I love this, but I also hate trying to review them all. As soon as one new interesting whiskey pops up (say, George Dickel’s first bottled-in-bond release), I blink and now there

Arran Single Malt (18 year)

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There was a time when what existed of the whisky social media “scene” was focused on the Arran distillery, as it was the first and only new distillery in Scotland since the “whisky loch” of the 70s and 80s saw so many distillery closures. (Kinivie opened several years prior, but I just decided it doesn’t count because it’s actually part of Balvenie.) There was much fanfare when Arran released its first 10 year-old single malt and joined the pantheon.

Leopold Bros. Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon

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Leopold Bros. Distillery in Colorado has been flying under the “craft distillery” radar since before people knew what a craft distillery was. The brothers established a micro-distillery in Ann Arbor, Michigan after the turn of the century and then relocated to their current location near Denver in 2008. They were forced by customer demand to expand operations in 2014. Leopold Bros. distills in excess of 20 different spirits (their Apertivo is, in my opinion, the best on the market and way better

Mackinlay’s ‘Shackleton’ Blended Malt Scotch Whisky

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Anyone who was around the whisky blogosphere back in 2011 can’t have avoided the media fervor surrounding the discovery of several crates of antique scotch whisky preserved beneath the Antarctic heritage site of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated ‘Nimrod’ expedition base camp. Three bottles were air-lifted to Scotland for analysis before being returned to the site, and a limited re-creation of the whisky (blended by Whyte & Mackay master blender Richard Paterson aka ‘The Nose’, himself) was sold

Smoke Wagon “Uncut Unfiltered” Bourbon

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Many years ago I had the insane delusion that I would someday taste whisky from every distillery on the planet. Then, the microdistillery industry took cues from the microbrewery industry and now it seems I would have to taste a dozen new whiskies a day just to keep up with the onslaught of new labels on the market. I suppose if nothing else it took the pressure off.

The Ardmore Legacy

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This is usually the spot in a review like this where I expound on the joys of discovery and talk about that crack of a new bottle (or sample) from a distillery that you’ve never tasted before. Let me give a little word of advice on the topic: Don’t repeat my mistakes; if there’s a distillery’s whisky that you’ve never tasted before then try not to choose the cheapest, bottom-shelf, no-age-statement, entry-level bottle to be the first. I’m sure there are exquisite independently-bottled well-matur

The Balvenie (21 year) PortWood

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I generally don’t review single malts in excess of $150 a bottle. I made that decision back in 2011 (when my limit was actually $100) because I didn’t want this blog to devolve into a collection of reviews of high-end and out-of-reach bottles. I figured that went against the grain of the “Scotch for the Noob” ethos of this site. Still, sometimes a Noob’s gotta splurge.