Category Archives: reviews

Cherry Bomb Whiskey

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cherry bomb whiskey

Cherry Bomb from Eastside Distilling in Portland is one of those unique liquors that when I first heard about it, I was immediately dying to try it. Now I’m really excited to have it in my liquor cabinet.

The bottle contains a rich, maroon, murky liquid – part of Eastside’s vow that real Oregon cherries are actually in there. When you open the bottle, you smell whiskey, and this surprised me as I imagined something more candy-like, I suppose. Here’s the important thing though: this isn’t cherry liqueur, it’s cherry whiskey, and it’s not sweetened by anything other than the cherries themselves.

When you take quality aged whiskey and seep fresh local cherries in it, this is what you get: a very flavorful, sweet, and smooth drink. I imagine this is probably a great opportunity to make some simple cocktails with a cherry twist, but Cherry Bomb tastes so good on its own, I just keep drinking it that straight. This is a great choice for an after dinner tipple as it’s an alternative to a sweeter after-dinner liqueur. Cherry Bomb has a really familiar and comforting flavor, like a glass of whiskey served with a hot slice of cherry pie, a little bit tart and a little bit sweet.

Cherry Bomb will run you $24 for a 375ml half-bottle and it’s available online, at many places in Oregon, or at the distillery in Portland’s Distillery Row.

Zacapa 23 Rum

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zacapa 23 rum

A while back, I asked the Cigar Smoking Man what he likes to drink when he’s smoking a cigar, and he mentioned Zacapa.

Zacapa 23 is from Guatemala, a blend of rums that have aged in barrels from 6 to 23 years at 7,500+ feet above sea level. This rum is comparable to a fine bourbon or scotch, and Zacapa recommends drinking it straight or with a large ice cube to cool it slightly.

The scent of this rum is sweet initially, but as you drink, you’ll taste barrel-aged richness and spice. Because rum is distilled from sugar cane, it can be a lot sweeter than a whiskey or brandy, but Zacapa is not so sweet. I found it to be strong and smooth, with faint traces of sugar, spicy chocolate, and toasty wood. I drank it neat – no ice – and found it to have a great and palatable flavor. Zacapa 23 is a quality aged rum that’ll run you about $45. Older brother Zacapa XO, a richer and more elegant variety, is $99.

Templeton Rye

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templeton rye

Happy birthday Al Capone! One of the original gangsters, Capone would have been a very old man if he was still alive today. What better way to celebrate than with Al’s favorite booze, Templeton Rye?

Templeton is distilled in Iowa according to the prohibition-era recipe that made it infamous at that time. As a rye whiskey, you get the liquid-cinnamon spice that you’d expect, but there are a couple of surprises in the taste. First, the 40% alcohol gives this whiskey less of a throat burn than other ryes. Second, there are traces of fruit in the flavor, like orange and coconut. These two elements make Templeton an incredibly smooth liquor.

While Templeton makes great Old Fashioneds and Manhattans, I imagine I’ll be drinking this neat most of the time. I’m really trying not to gush here, but this $40 bottle of rye is tremendous, and a fitting toast on Al Capone’s 114th birthday.

Cathead Vodka

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cathead vodka

Cathead is a moderately priced vodka from the state of Mississippi. One dollar of every bottle is given to foundations that support live music, and right on the label it says “Support Live Music.”

Cathead is very smooth and tasty with no alcohol burn, and being U.S. made and very well-priced, it’s a great choice for the liquor cabinet. Cathead’s available primarily in the South for about $20 a bottle, though they’ve recently started distributing to Colorado as well. I used Cathead in a Vodka Sour (pictured above), and you can make it at home:

Vodka Sour

  • 2 oz vodka
  • 1 oz lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp of powdered sugar
  • shake with ice and strain into a glass
  • garnish with a lemon wedge and cherry

I was surprised at how much I liked the Honeysuckle variety of Cathead, too. It’s slightly lower proof than the standard vodka, and there’s a trace of sweetness to it (which is pretty normal with flavored vodkas). I just had the Honeysuckle on the rocks, all by itself, and it’s a really wonderful late-night or dessert drink. The flavor is fresh, clean, and very natural, all of which make it a welcome contender to a way-too-crowded flavored vodka game.

Death’s Door Gin

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death's door gin

Death’s Door distills gin, vodka, and white whiskey in Wisconsin – their gin winning a silver medal at the 2012 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. This is one of the “cool new American gins,” and I’ve heard great things about it lately.

In contrast to gins which tout their long list of botanicals, Death’s Door uses only three: juniper, coriander, and fennel, all distilled in a wheat base. The bottles are labeled with the particular juniper harvest that goes into the bottle – mine’s 2010. Death’s Door is a London Dry, so juniper is the king in this gin. It’s very straightforward, serious, and unapologetically tied to its short ingredient list, I’d call it the London Dry-est London Dry I’ve tried.

If you prefer softer, complex gins like Hendrick’s, Aviation, or Bluecoat, you may want to pass. This is not a citrusy gin or floral gin, though the straight-ahead juniper makes it a pretty great cocktail base. Try this drink with Death’s Door:

Gentleman’s Club (pictured above)

  • 1 1/2 oz gin
  • 1 oz brandy
  • 1 oz sweet vermouth
  • 1 oz club soda
  • combine in an old fashioned glass, on the rocks

Sub Rosa Saffron Vodka

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sub rosa saffron vodka

Unfortunately, the sweet (sometimes creepy) flavored vodka category is the #1 seller at the liquor store nowadays. Aside from the philosophy attached to this, let me remind you that vodka is still a legitimate cocktail ingredient, and occasionally, vodka flavors are great additions to the liquor shelf.

Exhibit A: Sub Rosa Saffron Vodka. Distilled and infused at a small Oregon distillery along with a tarragon vodka, it escapes all the trappings of modern “flavored” vodkas, aligning itself more with gourmet cooking than with Katy Perry’s bra.

Sub Rosa has designed a beautiful and simple bottle to showcase the electric-yellow saffron vodka within. Saffron is the world’s most expensive spice at $500-5,000 per pound, and this vodka is rich, aromatic, and savory. Intense flavor like this is usually found in gins, not vodkas. On first taste, I thought about potential cocktail partners for such a unique flavor, and both lemon and olive came to mind. A martini variation is a good start:

Saffron Martini (by Greg Mays)

  • 2 oz Sub Rosa Saffron Vodka
  • 1/4 oz lemon juice
  • 1/2 oz olive juice
  • shake with lots of ice, double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass
  • olive garnish

Crater Lake Gin

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crater lake gin
Crater Lake Gin is a straw-colored gin from Bendistillery in Bend, Oregon, who also makes several varieties of vodka. While its label calls it “Handcrafted American Gin,” one of those words can be misleading: American.

I’ve said before that my personal gin preferences lie with London Dry gins, though I love nearly all gins I encounter. American gin, or “western gin,” as it’s sometimes called, usually has another botanical flavor that’s supreme over the juniper that London Drys are known for.

Not so with Crater Lake. For my personal taste, this gin makes the best-tasting martini I’ve ever had. It’s a juniper-lovers gin, with a bit of spice in the finish. It’s silky and smooth, and I’ve nearly drunk half the bottle making strictly martinis. Tasted neat, the spice is more obvious, and the gin is a bit more potent when it’s not ice-cold.

Crater Lake, which was known previously as Cascade Mountain Gin, and can be found throughout the U.S. at retail, or online for about $30. Make it in a martini like this:

Martini

  • 2 1/2 oz gin
  • 1/2 oz dry vermouth
  • olive garnish
  • stir with lots of ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass

KGB Naranjo, Bourbon, and Absinthe

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KGB Naranjo, Bourbon, and Absinthe

KGB Spirits in northern New Mexico has some new releases in their spirits catalog: Naranjo Orange Liqueur, Taos Lightning Bourbon, and Brimstone Absinthe.

Naranjo is a high proof orange liqueur, 45% ABV where most other triple secs are only about 20%. This means it’s not too sweet and Naranjo works well straight up, as a digestif. Naranjo’s orange flavor is very subtle, though, and you should think twice if you’re considering dumping this into a pitcher of margaritas. The color is pale orange, and the scent of citrus is very muted, but it’s all there on your taste buds.

Taos Lightning Bourbon shares it’s name with KGB’s Ryes-a historical throwback to 1800’s western whiskeys-and it’s sweet, spicy, and smooth. I found myself thinking about it all day after tasting it. Taos Lightning Bourbon is very balanced in it’s flavor, and the expected toasted-wood spice finishes it off.

Finally, Brimstone Absinthe has two unique qualities: first, KGB uses a potato base in their distilling process – just like their vodka and gin, which adds a minty, earthy flavor. Second, Brimstone is bottled at a pretty low proof, the lowest proof I’ve ever seen for an absinthe. Absinthe is typically known for it’s high (60-70%) proof, but Brimstone is a mellow 45%. Because of this, you can actually drink Brimstone on the rocks with no water or sugar added. The lower proof makes it a more viable cocktail ingredient, too.

KGB Spirits are available at retail shops around New Mexico.

Jack Daniel’s Unaged Rye

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Jack Daniel's Unaged Rye

Arriving in an inconspicuous box, I got to have my first taste of Jack Daniel’s Unaged Rye Whiskey, slated for a limited release in early 2013 for $50 a bottle.

This crystalline liquid is significant because Jack Daniel’s has not modified the ingredients in their whiskies for the past 100 years. Jack and its sub-brands like Gentleman Jack all contain exactly the same recipe of corn, barley, and rye, with the only difference in the varieties being their aging or filtering processes. But that changes now as the distillery has come up with an 80% rye recipe, some of which they’re bottling unaged as a “distillers run.”

Rye is a popular whiskey nowadays, and with unaged “moonshines” also on the rise, you can’t fault Jack for jumping on the bandwagon. Unaged ryes are not very common, however, especially those with the distribution level that Jack already enjoys. Drinkhacker talks about this being a stopgap and buzz-building release as the “real” Jack Rye (or whatever it’ll be called) sleeps in barrels until 2015.

As for the flavor, there’s a sweet, fruity aroma to Jack’s Unaged Rye. As wood aging imparts spice to booze, and rye itself is spicy, it’s a surprise to experience sweetness in there. There is also a pungency and grittiness to the flavor, which also tend to fade with barrel aging. Think about the difference between a silver and an aged tequila, and you get an idea what I’m talking about.

This is a rye to try as it has a huge historical significance, plus it’s a limited release.

Don Quixote Brandy

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Don Quixote Brandy

Spirit de Santa Fe Brandy is family distilled by Don Quixote, along with many other tasty products, in Northern New Mexico. Brandy is the result of distilling wine and along with cognac, which is simply brandy from a specific region in France, it’s the most popular companion to a lit cigar.

Don Quixote is proud that their products are all-natural, without added color: “We do not add any chemicals, flavorings, or coloring to our spirits after distillation. At Don Quixote, we give you what God and nature provided us.”

Spirit de Santa Fe Brandy is available at retail in New Mexico and from the distillery for $35 and it’s a tasty, natural, smooth spirit that you’ll enjoy after dinner. Straight, brandy is usually served in a snifter (see photo above), so your hand can warm the spirit slightly as you drink. The most popular brandy cocktail is a Sidecar:

Sidecar

  • 2 oz brandy
  • 1 oz triple sec (orange liqueur)
  • 1 oz lemon juice
  • shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass
  • garnish with a lemon wedge or rind