Review: Azteca Azul Plata Tequila
Azteca Azul Plata Tequila is produced at Tequila Supremo, commercially known as Casa Camarena. I have also seen this tequila sold as Azteca Azul Silver Tequila. Owned by La Familia Camarena, the distillery was founded in 1938 by Augustin Camarena in 1938. This distillery also makes tequila for the Camarena, and Maracame brands. Azteca Azul Plata is made with 100% blue agave that is cooked and cooled in traditional brick furnaces in a process that takes 48 hours to complete. The distillery has developed a process known as Zero D which ensures the distillery emits no waste. Read more 
Review: Redds Raspberry Ale
Redds Raspberry Ale was released March 2017. It is one of four ales currently featured on the Redds Apple Ale home page. I believe this is a year round flavor but Redds has had flavors come and go since the brand was launched in 2013. This division of Miller-Coors also makes several 8% alcohol flavored ales under the Redds Wicked Ale label. Raspberry is the 13th Redds variety I’ve sampled so far, and I will be posting my 14th Redds review later this weekend. Like all of their previously reviewed varieties, Redds Raspberry is brewed as a beer. Caramel color and natural flavors are then added. Read more
Review: Marble Gingercello Reserve
Marble Gingercello Reserve is one of four spirits currently produced at the Marble Distilling Co. A whiskey and bourbon are currently aging and will be available soon. The distillery is a family and friends owned business that includes a tasting room that features a marble bar, cut from two 9000 lb. blocks mined from the Yule quarry in nearby Marble Colorado. The bar back is made from bricks, from the historic stable originally built on this land. The distillery also has the worlds only inn housed within a working distillery. With a background in the pharmaceutical business, co-founder and head distiller Connie Baker attending distillery school at The Dry Fly Institute in Spokane Washington. Yes she transitioned from drugs to liquor. What’s next firearms? After graduating January 2011, she worked with her husband Carey to build the worlds only zero waste artisan distillery, on land she and friend Michelle Marlow had purchased as a long term investment. The distillery opened June 2015. The equipment used to craft their spirits is 100% American made. Marble Gingercello Reserve is made from a 60% ABV corn distillate. This spirit is redistilling in a 250 gallon Vendome copper pot still with vapor transferring through a botanical basket filled with fresh cut Brazilian ginger. There is macerated ginger in the belly of the still as well. The now 80% ABV ginger infused vodka rests for several weeks with lemons zested by hand. A light simple syrup made from beet sugar grown in Wyoming is blended with the ginger lemon vodka. The spirit is then rested in bourbon barrels once used to age Colorado Straight Bourbon at the Peach Street Distillers in nearby Palisade Colorado. Read more
Review: SpikedSeltzer West Indies Lime
SpikedSeltzer West Indies Lime is one of four hard seltzer flavors first produced in five gallon batches in founder Nick Shields garage. Nick’s Great Great Grandfather was Rudolph Haffenreffer who founded Haffenreffer Brewery in 1870. Now owned by Anhueser Busch the other SpikedSeltzer flavors include Velencia Orange, Cape Cod Cranberry, and Indian River Grapefruit. West Indies Limes are also known as Mexican limes and Key limes. Spiked Seltzer West Indies Lime is made exclusively from purified water and natural ingredients. Natural lime flavor derived from cold pressed citrus essence is then infused. Read more
Review: Three Olives Cucumber Lime Vodka
Three Olives Cucumber Lime Vodka was just released. Three Olives Fresh Watermelon Vodka was also launched. Cucumber is a surprisingly popular vodka with over a dozen cucumber flavored vodka’s already on the market. Lime is clearly cucumbers favorite dance partner as Three Olives is the forth cucumber lime flavored vodka. At one time Three Olives made over 30 flavored vodka’s. A lot of these flavors can still be found at major liquor stores. It is unclear as to how many of these flavors are still made, but the recently updated Three Olives website only shows 12 varieties. Read more
Review: Three Olives Fresh Watermelon Vodka
Three Olives Fresh Watermelon Vodka was just released along with their other new flavor, Cucumber Lime. At last count Three Olives had 32 flavors in their lineup. It is unclear as to how many are still made as their website no longer displays their available offerings. Three Olives Fresh Watermelon Vodka is made from English winter wheat and demineralized water from Lake Vyrnmy. It is distilled four times and triple filtered. The vodka base is shipped to Lawrenceburg Indiana where natural flavors and certified color are added. This is not Three Olives first watermelon flavored vodka as they released one in 2006. That version was made with imitation watermelon flavor. Read more
Review: J Wray Silver Rum
J Wray Silver Rum was launched June 2016. It is made at Jamaica’s number one rum producing distillery in the oldest continuously operated rum distillery in the Caribbean. Rum has been made at this site since 1749. J Wray Silver Rum has replaced Appleton White Rum in the Campari America product portfolio. I have been told J Wray Silver is not just a change in name and packaging. The rum is crafted using a different recipe. J Wray Silver is made from molasses created from sugarcane grown on the New Yarmouth Estate located on the Vere Plains of Clarendon. J Wray Silver is a blend of pot still rums and column still rums that are aged and then slowly filtered through special charcoal filters. Read more
Review: High Noon Original Vodka
High Noon Original Vodka is one of three vodka’s produced for E&J Gallo by the Holladay Distillery, the makers of 360 Vodka in Weston Missouri. High Noon Ruby Red Grapefruit and High Noon Lemon are the other two varieties. All three are currently only available in Madison Wisconsin, Denver Colorado, and Charleston South Carolina. Production details are limited, but High Noon is made from Midwest grown corn. For the record, E&J Gallo has a very successful history of building new spirit brands including New Amsterdam Vodka, and Gin, Camarena Tequila, Shellback Rum, and Rum Haven Coconut Rum. Read more
Review: Fitz’s Hard Key Lime
Fitz’s Hard Key Lime is the second hard soda collaboration between Fitz’s and The O’Fallon Brewery. The first was Fitz’s Hard Root Beer. Fitz’s Root Beer first appeared in St. Louis at a local drive in restaurant in 1947. After disappearing for several years the brand was revived and is made according to the original recipe. Fitz’s currently produces over a dozen soda’s including Key Lime and Cardinal Cream, a red cream soda named for the local baseball team, and Kaldi’s Coffee Cola, a natural sugar cane cola blended with genuine Kaldi’s freshly brewed espresso roast coffee. The building that houses Fitz’s was build in 1928 for the West End Bank. The space became a Chinese Restaurant in the 1980’s. Fitz’s Key Lime is brewed as an ale at the O’Fallon Brewery with the same distinctive flavors of tart key limes and natural pure cane sugar found in Fitz’s Key Lime craft soda. The O’Fallon Brewery opened in 2000 and was sold in 2011. Since then they have built a new brewery and added their own bottling line. They currently craft over 30 year round and seasonal beers. Read more
Review: Stolichnaya Vodka
Stolichnaya Vodka sometimes referred to as Stoli Red label or Stoli Original was launched in 1938. It was first imported in the US in 1972 when PepsiCo was granted exportation rights to Stolichnaya Vodka in exchange for importation of Pepsi Cola into the Soviet Union. Stolichnaya controls every aspect of making its vodka from the planting and selection of the wheat and rye grains grown on the company owned Rapuga farms in Tambov Russia, to harvesting, distillation, and bottling. The wheat and rye grains are fermented for 60 hours, and then triple distilled. Artesian water is blended with the spirit before it is filtered four times through Russian birch charcoal, quartz, sand, and woven cloth. Read more