Dominion City Brewing in Ottawa does a lot of interesting stuff, but Davey and I couldn’t agree on whether this was one of them. As stouts go, it’s great for people who don’t like stouts. Whether it’s for you is yours to discover, here’s what we thought: nose Davey – 70% dark chocolate, acai Simon […]
Quick review this week, Wild Turkey Longbranch Bourbon! Small batch bourbon made with weird woods! How much do you trust the “small batch” label from a large distiller tho? I dunno. Here’s what we thought: nose Davey – spicy tomato sauce Simon – caramel pie crust, sweet corn, bbq, candy necklace candy neat Davey – […]
This one is going to be a very short review. We had this beer with Christmas dinner (not quite 6 months ago), so we weren’t able to take traditional notes. I was hoping for something that might cut the savoury with enough structure and flavours of its own to compete. The Collective Arts Bourbon Barrel […]
It’s been an interesting spring, and May 2-4 weekend found yours truly ping-ponging around The Drive-Thru Province, traditional home of the Irving family, land of seafood, craft beer and more seafood, New Brunswick. My local fixer Hillary, political ninja and tour guide to the stars, planned several days of family and friends, seeing sights like […]
BattleScotch! Tomatin Second Edition. Or the TwoMaytin Edition. You know what that means! It means we’re almost done this month & can go back to our regularly scheduled random nonsense. This second edition pitted the 12y v 14y v Cask Strength, here are the results: nose Dan – 14y Simon – 14y neat Dan – […]
May is Twomatin month, or the second Tomatin month, which I guess we could have also called ToMaytin now that I think about it a little bit longer. No worries, they’re both terrible names but this we’ve been doing this thing a while so. TOMATIN! Previously seen in: The 12y Spanish Sherry, the 15y, and […]
Aw yeah, another whole month with the same whisky, and a second time! May is Tomatin Month 2, come on back every Saturday for the same superficial analysis and redundant flavour words you’ve come to expect from your ninth-favourite bastion of GenX halfassery: iScotch. #tasteslikewhisky
Another Heaven Hill bourbon to add to the wall – Larceny Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. You know what’s cool? Crime. Crime is cool. Name things after crimes. This bourbon’s distinction is that it swaps rye for wheat in the mash – bourbon has to be 51% corn but the other 49% can be any other […]
Most completistisming going one here. We had the VP01. So therefore we must have Innis & Gunn’s Vanishing Point VP02 or how will we know.. anything? How will we know we even exist unless we experience two similar things and observe their subjective differences over linear time? I ASK YOU. Last year’s beer was only […]
This one’s going to be a little messy. Steph, Dan & I reviewed the Founder’s Original – Dan discovered he does not like Old Fashioneds and bowed out of the Barchef review – fair dinkum. Steph suggested we have some people by – these things are made for parties. So we invited some interesting Ottawa […]
A border-crossing friend snagged this.. um.. testament to budgetary discretion. Dr James Crow’s Old Crow Kentucky Bourbon is available at Duty Free shops and still manages to only be $8usd. Which is made further amazing when you find out that it’s the same mash as Jim Beam, just aged less. That’s a little shocking. Other […]
Innis & Gunn are known for trying stuff, different combinations, interpretations etc. They’ve launched a new line called Vanishing Point, which is: the point at which the skills and passion of our brewers converge with our ambitions to create exceptional beers that define us as a company. Which is guess is cool as long as […]
A new budget bourbon appeared on the shelf at the LCBO and we had to try it. Weller Special Reserve, The Original Wheated Bourbon. Despite being “wheated” (which sounds like a Saskatchewan hazing ritual), this is still marked as a Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. The requirements for KSBW are just that the mash be 51% […]
Knob Creek, purveyors of fine Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. This is their Single Barrel Reserve, aged nine years and bottle at 60%. It’s not often a distiller can pull off a high-powered whiskey without a lot of collateral damage in the flavour and face burning departments, but Knob Creek manages to do it and still […]
This week’s bottle is Jim Beam Bonded, courtesy of Dan’s Laura. Thanks, Laura! Bonded is a whiskey term we’ve seen before. To jog your memories, the whiskey meets an external government standard – the product of one distillery in one distilling season, aged 4 years in a government facility, bottled at 100 proof. Why submit […]
Innis & Gunn Bourbon Cask Dark Ale! A potentially new bottle from the Holiday 4-Pack. Why potentially? Well, because we’re having another classic Innis & Gunn “have I had this before?” moment. We had the Irish Whiskey Finish/Cask discrepancy, and the (Winter) Treacle Porter pair, and now we have this Bourbon Cask Dark Ale v […]
66 Gilead Wild Oak, a new Ontario whisky from Prince Edward County. Yay for whisky from within 300 kilometres from home! Thanks to Brad for picking this up on a recent trip. The Wild Oak is a corn, rye and wheat bourbon-style whisky aged in charred oak, and it does taste like a rye bourbon. […]
Corner Creek Kentucky Bourbon, the first bourbon bottler we’ve sampled. Same as with scotch, some companies distill, some buy and blend, and some buy and bottle. This is the latter. To be more correct, we’ve had bourbon bottled by people other than the distiller – that rash of 90% plus ryes from bourbon makers we […]
How do you like that, it’s Kentucky Derby Day & we’re reviewing Old Forester, the Official Bourbon Of The Kentucky Derby! Had no idea of either, this is a complete fluke. I used to ride horses, too, this is sort of embarrassing. A couple interesting facts about Old Forester: it’s the longest running bourbon available, […]
TINCUP American whiskey! It comes with a tin cup on the top! We’ve been enjoying the wider American whiskey movement. Kentucky Straight Bourbon, moonshine and Tennessee Sour Mash are great, but if they’re all you know of continental distillation, you are missing out. Colorado whiskeys are a nice blend of rye & bourbon tastes, coming […]
In the course of running a blog, you lose shit. If, like me, you’re a photographer first and foremost, you don’t lose photos, but you do lose slips of paper. Especially when those slips of paper were last seen at some point in a late night analysis of the subjective qualities of grain-based intoxicants. But, since I […]
Evan Williams Kentucky Straight Bourbon Extra Aged. What is it with bourbons and using their full name? Must be an American thing. There’s another Evan Quentin Williams the fourth or whatever bottle at the LCBO right now, a White Label that is “bottled-in-bond”, which I have discovered is kind of a weird thing. Bottled in bond […]
Hat-tip to Colin for pointing me in the direction of Dead Crow Bourbon Beer. Not necessarily a ringing hat-tip, but a good lead nonetheless. Dead Crow Bourbon Beer is a… drink from a UK beverage company in Gloucester called SHS Drinks, whose motto is “a thirst for creating great brands”. Not “drinks”, “brands”. There’s no […]
Gotta love Twitter. I saw a promo for the Bourbon Pale Ale from Innis & Gunn’s UK account, so I tagged the Canadian account and asked if there were any samples available in Ontario. A couple of direct messages later and we received these two bottles express shipped. They’re not available in Ontario yet, but they […]
