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 – […]
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 […]
Every year like clockwork March stumbles in from the cold and delivers Irish Stereotype Reinforcement Day to warm the cockles of your projectile vomiting heart. St Paddy’s Day in North America has as much to do with Ireland as Chinese food in North America has to do with China – as in maybe a immigrant […]
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 […]
Another border hop, another duty free… uh, find? Doesn’t seem like the right word here. This is like something out of Dungeons & Dragons, a ceramic jug of curses & concentrated goblin farts. Platte Valley 100% Straight Corn Whiskey. Straight in this case meaning distilled not higher than 80 proof and casked for a minimum […]
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 […]
Ah yes, the great Victoria Day long weekend, known as May 2-4 by people still drinking crap beer by the crate. “We here at iScotch only drink the best!” – a lie, best exemplified by what we did to ourselves for you, loyal reader. We put ourselves back through the Jack Daniel’s product stack to […]
Happy week after St Patrick’s Day! Hey, either we make it a thing or this review sits on the shelf for a year. And by then, who knows? Maybe Red Bush will refer to brigades of aw shucks volunteers fighting under George W’s Veevay La Revolutseeon banner in the Second American Civil War, battling alongside […]
BAM. Perfect timing. Because the key to a good whiskey review is all in your calendar alignments. Paddy Old Irish Whiskey, ON St Paddy’s Day. Could you ask for anything more? Ever? No I think not. …This review was maybe done in November. Here are some “fun” facts: Paddy’s is in the Pernod Ricard stable […]
Quick little review with the family while I’m on the road in Vancouver. My sister bought a pre-St Paddy’s Day treat, Innis & Gunn Kindred Spirits Tullamore DEW Barrel Aged Stout for my brother in law and I to try (she did smell it and pronounced it “coffee I wouldn’t drink”). We’ve had Innis […]
Aw yiss a new aged Irish whiskey – West Cork 10y! A new one for us, anyway, West Cork has been around for about 15 years. West Cork likes Bourbon casks – the entire range spends some amount of time in used American oak. Even their select sherry, rum and port special 12y expressions all […]
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 […]
Editors note: I was introduced to Daniel through Instagram algorithm, weirdly, but it turns out we share some interests, including photography and whisky, so it seemed natural to offer a guest spot. Fortunately, he said yes! Enjoy: Happy Anniversary My kind of party I’ve always been a fan of Bushmills. The Irish blend […]
One of the stars of a recent tasting, I thought it might be a good idea to take a quick second review of this longtime favourite: Bushmills Black Bush. We’re Bushmills fans, and specifically Black Bush, which we tried for the first time five years ago last week. So it seems like the timing is […]
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 […]
The day after St Paddy’s Day is the perfect time to drop these little Scottish/Irish gems. Innis & Gunn Kith & Kin, the first Innis & Gunn to use (or reveal) the name brand whisky barrels used to age their beer. In this case, it’s Teeling whiskey, a great Irish distiller. We’ve had a Teeling […]
Jameson Caskmates Stout Edition. A bit more title than necessary, since this is the only version of Caskmates available at the moment, or mentioned anywhere on the internet, but whatever. Aging beer in whisky barrels is one of our favourite tricks at iScotch and aging whisky in the used barrels of other liquors is only […]
A slightly odd bottle this time. Some Jameson Black Barrel arrived in a covert container on the doorstep, a sample from somebody’s stash. Thanks, generous stranger! Jameson is an Irish whiskey we’re familiar with, having tried the White Label and Select Reserve in the past. The Black Barrel this time refers to the charring of the […]
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 […]
Now here’s something we haven’t had in a while – a new Irish whiskey! Teeling has been showing up in my Twitter feed a lot lately, so it was a nice coincidence that Dan picked up a bottle. Here’s something weird. If you Google for “teeling”, the first hit (paid advertising) is their competition Jameson, […]
Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey. This is essentially an American Highland Malt – clean river water & mountain grown barley make it sound like it could come from a loch as easily as a ranch. Stranahan’s is Colorado’s first craft distiller, coming from a combination of volunteer firefighter, craft beer brewer and barn fire. Colorado in general […]
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 […]
Jack Daniel’s. You know it, you’ve had it. But you may not have had this. As the name suggests, this is bottled from a single barrel of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey. Okay, so why is that interesting? Because coming from a single barrel limits gives us the best indication of what Jack Daniel’s whiskey […]
