Those familiar with single malts will recognize the tiny, wild island of Islay as the birthplace of Scotland’s most heavily peated whiskies. Once home to over 20 distilleries, Islay (pronounced “eye-lah”) now hosts just eight, but the few remaining are some of the most recognizable names in Scotch whisky—from Laphroaig and Lagavulin to Bowmore and Ardbeg. With a well-documented love for the more mellow side …
Over the past decade, Absolut became more synonymous with college parties and dance club bottle service than with its artistically-inclined, sustainably-minded Swedish roots. This shift in reputation is undoubtedly a repercussion of its ubiquitous worldwide popularity, which reached a fever pitch when Absolut became the discerning bartender’s vodkaif not spiritof choice in the late ’80s and remained so throughout the ’90s, shortly after it was …
Between 50-year-old whiskey and 19th-century curaçao, vodka has a tendency to fall by the wayside in our hunt for sipping spirits, but a recent encounter wtih Oola‘s flavored vodkas has certainly changed that. Oola, a micro-distillery in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, operates under a “grain-to-glass” mantra—a selling point that comes through in the rawness of the spirits, which in the case of vodka …
