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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
A quick Round 2! today for the always excellent Innis & Gunn Irish Whiskey Finish. We first did this expression a little over a year ago, and it only appears to come out around St Paddy’s Day, hence the bare qualification for a “Round 2!” article. But it’s good stuff, and this year I can […]
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 […]
Round 2! Where we revisit bottles from the past for another taste and see how they stand up! I got this bottle for Matt’s housewarming… that I missed. But I made sure he got his gift and then drank some of it for him. Writer’s Tears has been one of my favourite Irish whiskeys since […]
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 […]
The second review from my business trip to Michigan! I was going to be pretty disappointed if I didn’t find something local in MI, USA. It’s a working state, and working people need good booze to keep them from thinking about how much work they still have to do. And let me tell you, Traverse […]
We haven’t had an Irish whiskey in a while (wait.. fact check…woah). We haven’t actually had anything from Ireland since May, and no irish whiskeys for a year and three days. To be fair, there’s not a lot of Irish whiskey options at the LCBO that we haven’t already reviewed – on that note, prepare […]
Gentleman Jack Rare Tennessee Whiskey. Why is it a Gentleman and what makes it rare? Let’s investigate! The main selling difference between Gentleman Jack and his dirt common cousin regular Jack Daniel’s is a second charcoal filtering. If you believe the marketing, this smooths it significantly, and is noteworthy because Gentleman Jack is the only […]
Blanton’s Single Barrel Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. This has been on the to-try list for a while now, so this was a great Christmas present. Great bottle. Good website. Excellent product placements on Bored To Death (a personal favourite), House Of Cards & Justified. A Sazerac brand related to the Buffalo Trace lineage, Blanton’s has […]
Welcome to 2015. This year will mark 3 years of iScotch, and there’s a good chance we’ll cross 300 posts and a million views this year too. And what better way to start another year of whiskey than with something good and weird? Koval is definitely unusual: from Illinois, organic, single Minnesotan barrel and made […]
