Review: Kilbeggan Single Grain Irish Whiskey
Kilbeggan Single Grain Irish Whiskey was released July 2017. Single grain Irish whiskey hints at an Irish whiskey made from a single grain, but the single grain designation refers to whiskey made in a single location using malted barley and at least one other ingredient. Kilbeggan Single Grain Irish Whiskey is made from a mash bill of 94% meticulously sourced corn, and 6% malted barley. It is double distilled in a copper-lined still at the Cooley Distillery. Kilbeggan Single Grain is first aged in ex-bourbon barrels, and then finished in a marriage of ex-bourbon barrels and fortified wine barrels. Read more 
Review: Mighty Swell Spritzers
Mighty Swell Spritzers were launched with three flavors including Grapefruit, Lemon, and Peach in Texas, May 2016. Mighty Swell is currently available in 10 states in four different flavor varieties. The current flavor lineup includes Head Over Heels Watermelon Mint, Goin For It Grapefruit, Let’s Play Peach, and Shall We Mango. These flavor names bring back memories of the Pillsbury Funny Face drinks. With flavor names like Loud Mouth Lime, Jolly Olly Orange, Freckle Face Strawberry, and Choo Choo Cherry these drink mixes tried to compete with Kool-Aid. Sean Cusack came up with the idea for Mighty Swell Spritzer. He partnered with Clayton Christopher, the founder of Sweet Leaf Tea, and Co-Founder of Deep Eddy Vodka, and David Barnes, the founder of Treaty Oak Distilling Company. Each 12 oz. can of Mighty Swell weighs in at 120 calories with 5% alcohol. They are made with 11% real fruit juice, orange wine, natural flavors, and pure cane sugar. No high fructose corn syrup, artificial flavor, sodium benzoate, or red dye #3 are added. Fruit and vegetable juice is added for color. Mighty Swell Spritzers are sold in 4 packs of 12 oz. cans and 12 pack variety packs. So how do they taste? Read more
Review: Space City Vodka
Space City Vodka is crafted at Whitmeyer’s Distilling Co. in Houston Texas. I picked up a bottle on a recent trip to Houston. If you have ever been to Houston you know just how space proud Houstonian’s are. Their Major League baseball team is the Astros, and their NBA basketball team is the Rockets. The Space Center in Houston hosts more than one million visitors annually. Travis and Chris Whitmeyer founded the distillery with money raised from family and friends in 2012. This was the first legal distillery in Harris County since prohibition. They also produce several whiskeys, gin, and moonshine. Space City vodka is made from corn, distilled six times, and filtered through activated carbon. Read more
Review: G4 Blanco Tequila
G4 Blanco Tequila is crafted by Master Distiller Felipe Camarena, and named for the four generations of Master Distillers in Felipe Camarena’s family. They have produced tequila legally since 1937. G4 is made from their own estate grown 100% blue agave, and a blend of 50% rainwater and 50% spring water. G4 is distilled at their family owned El Pandillo Distillery, which was built in 2011. El Pandillo was the name of Felipe Camarena’s grandfather’s favorite bull. The agave is chopped with machetes to determine the sex of the plant. The male parts are removed prior to going into the oven. Doing this removes bitterness. The sliced pinas are slow cooked in traditional ovens for 22 hours. These ovens have been built with an extra steamer to cook both the top and bottom equally. The cooked agave is crushed using a custom built recycled steamroller. The juice is fermented with natural yeast and double distilled in traditional copper stills. Read more
Review: Plantation Xaymaca Special Dry Rum
Plantation Xaymaca Special Dry Rum was launched September 2018. Xaymaca was the name given the island of Jamaica by it’s first inhabitants, the Arawaks, and translates to the land of wood and water. Xaymaca Special Dry is made from 100% pot still Jamaican rum. When Pierre Ferrand purchased the West Indies Rum Distillery they also acquired 1/3 ownership of the Long Pond and Clarendon Distilleries. Xaymaca Special Dry is a blend of rums distilled in the old John Dore pot still at Long Pond and the Vendome pot still at Clarendon. Two rums from each distillery are selected. Each rum is aged for 1-3 years in Jamaica in once used bourbon barrels. After blending, the rum is shipped to Southwest France where it is further matured for one year in cognac barrels. Read more
Review: Black Cow Vodka
Black Cow Vodka was launched in 2012. It was created by Jason Barber, a farmer running his own dairy farm with 250 cows. The Barber family has been making cheese and producing milk for over 200 years. Black Cow is made entirely from the milk of grass grazed cows. The milk is separated into curds and whey. The curds are used to produce cheese. The whey is used to craft the vodka. A proprietary yeast is used to ferment the whey. The spirit is distilled in a copper still made in Germany by A.G. Holstein. Doesn’t it seem appropriate that a Holstein still is use to produce a milk based vodka? After distillation the vodka is triple filtered. Read more
Review: Frankly Organic Grapefruit Vodka
Frankly Organic Grapefruit Vodka was launched June 2018 by Be in Good Spirits Co-Founders Philip Rock and Kent Croutcher. It is one of five organically produced vodkas they craft in Texas. The vodka base is made from organic corn sourced from family farms and is distilled five times and filtered twice. Frankly Organic Grapefruit Vodka appears to hit all of the latest vodka trends. No refined sugars, no gluten, no GMO’s, and no artificial colors, are added. It’s certified organic by Oregon Tilth, its made with real fruit juice, and organic fruit and vegetable juice is added for color. Frankly Organic Grapefruit Vodka even prints their entire ingredient list on the bottle. That list reads organic corn vodka, organic ruby red grapefruit, organic apple, organic lemon juice, organic Ceylon cinnamon, organic maca root, organic grade A maple syrup, and natural flavors. Read more
Review: Cole Swindells Pre Show Punch
A bottle of Cole Swindells Pre Show Punch has been sitting on my back bar for a month now as I’ve anxiously waited for it’s release. Pre Show Punch will start arriving on store shelves Friday January 18. It is produced and bottled by Sugarlands Distilling Company in Gatlinburg Tennessee. The neutral spirits base is made from Tennessee white corn milled onsite. The milled corn and pure cane sugar are combined with back-ins from the prior batch along with yeast and pure Smoky Mountains water. The fermentation process takes 4-5 days. Once fermented, the mash is transferred to a copper pot still for the first distillation. The spirit next moves through a copper distillation column where it condenses and is redistilled 5 more times. The heads and tails of the liquid are separated leaving only the heart. Natural flavors and certified colors are added before bottling at 50 proof. Read more
Review: Pinkertons Coconut Rum
Pinkertons Coconut Rum was released March 2017. It joins Pinkertons Platinum Rum and was followed by Pinkertons Gold Rum. Each rum starts with a base made from Texas grown cane sugar molasses from the Rio Grande Valley, water, and yeast. The molasses and yeast ferment for a week. Distillation follows in a still designed and built by Founder and Master Distiller Lucas Pinkerton. Once reduced to proof, coconut essence and natural flavors are infused. The spirit is redistilled before bottling at 60 proof. Read more
Review: Embajador Platinum Tequila
Embajador Platinum Tequila is made from 100% Weber Blue agave grown for 8-10 years on their estate located in Atotonilco, in the Highland Region of Jalisco. A portion of the agave is slow cooked in adobe ovens for 30 hours and then rested for 12 hours. Another portion is steam baked in autoclaves. The agave is first shredded. Rollers then squeeze out the juice. The extracted juice ferments in open steel vats for three to five days and is double distilled in traditional pot stills. The spirit rests for 40 days in steel vats before bottling. Read more