Welcome to Nice Sipper
Sagamore Spirit Rye
Continuing July 4th weekend rye tastings with Baltimore’s own, Sagamore Spirit Rye Whiskey. Sagamore is a relatively newer distillery that focuses its efforts on Rye, a hearty grain that the early Maryland settlers were able to grow in the subpar soil conditions as forests were cleared for farming during colonial times.
Russell’s Reserve Straight Rye Whiskey 6 Year Old
Kicking off July 4th weekend with some new rye reviews. Today we will be sipping a Russell’s Reserve Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey aged for 6 years. As the namesake brand of father/son master distiller duo, Jimmy and Eddie Russell from Wild Turkey, I am expecting great things from this release. Will it live up to the expectations?
The Sassenach Blended Scotch
This next Exclusive Content Review will feature a celebrity brand in the blended Scotch category, The Sassenach. The celebrity attached to this brand is Sam Heughan, the co-start of the Starz original series, Outlander. This will be the first time that Nice Sipper reviews a blended Scotch as well as the first review of a “celebrity” whisky. Is this a money grab by Sam? Or is this the real deal? Let’s find out….
Trader Joe’s Kentucky Bourbon
Private labeled Buffalo Trace or 1792 Bourbon? Or just another internet tinfoil hat theory? Today we sip the very affordable Trader Joe’s Kentucky Bourbon to see if what people are saying is too good to be true or not.
100th Review Celebration
This past review marked the 100th posted to Nice Sipper since starting this site a little over a year ago. To commemorate, I have compiled a montage video to relive all the reviews in a mere 90 seconds. Thank you for being a part of this journey, I look forward to posting the next 100!
Bowmore 15 Year Old
This next Exclusive Content Review will feature Bowmore 15 Year Old Single Malt Scotch from the Isle of Islay. Since we had our first official snowfall of the year up by me yesterday, it seemed like the proper time to open up a bottle of peated single malt to warm up….
Penelope Architect Build No. 2
French Oak finished and/or aged whiskey seems to be my preferred picks, does Penelope Architect Build No. 2 meet the standard?
Weller Special Reserve
After quite a bit of a hiatus, Nice Sipper is back with a review of the much hyped (and price inflated) Weller Special Reserve. Is it worth all the fuss? If so, at what cost?
Old Forester 100 Proof Bourbon
Not only will we be talking about the Old Forester 100 proof today, but we also have a special Halloween video titled “The Sipper: The Death of Value Bourbon” that was a lot of fun to make, so we hope you enjoy it!
Hazelburn 10 Year
Hazelburn is one of three brands of Scotch from the Springbank Distillery. While the other two, the Springbank and Longrow have medium and heavy peat profiles, the Hazelburn is the unpeated, triple distilled version within their portfolio of whiskies. Let’s check out this Hazelburn 10 Year together….
Buffalo Trace Bourbon
Buffalo Trace Bourbon is a staple bourbon for many people. It used to be readily available at nearly every liquor store that sold any other bourbon besides Jim and Jack, but then demand spiked ahead of the supply build up and this little gem got put allocation. Let’s see if this old faithful holds up.
Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel
Elijah Craig Toasted Barrel is a limited release which puts the base Elijah Craig Small Batch bourbon into a second barrel for additional aging, except this one is a toasted barrel instead of the Level 3 char used for the Small Batch. A lot of distilleries have a Toasted Oak release these days, but are they worth the extra money?
Thomas S. Moore Bourbon Finished in Cabernet Sauvignon Casks
We will be tasting another release from Thomas S. Moore, this time the Cabernet Sauvignon finish. These bourbons were first aged for 5-6 years in the traditional American Oak casks and then underwent an “extended cask finish” for up to 4 additional years, making the unofficial age statement in the 9-10 range (plus or minus). I liked the Chardonnay Cask Finish, but thought it was a little overpriced, let’s see how the big bold Napa Cab interacted with the core 1792 bourbon.
The Balvenie 16 Year French Oak Finished in Pineau Casks
For this next Exclusive Content Review, we will visit The Balvenie’s most recent release, the French Oak 16 Finished in Pineau Casks. In addition to sampling the new single malt scotch, we will also sip on some of the fortified wine that The Balvenie chose to finish its whisky in as well as sipping on The Balvenie’s 15 Year Sherry Cask Single Barrel and the DoubleWood 17 in an attempt to figure out how this new cask finishing influenced the core product. Buckle up….
Maker’s Mark Private Selection
Next up is Maker’s Mark Private Selection by @TheWhiskyGuys of Gordon’s Wine. The private selection program at Maker’s allows you to pick a combination of 10 staves from 5 different stave groups. This creates 1,001 possible combinations of staves….click to read more about this alchemy….
Sam Houston 15 Year Bourbon (Release 7: Batch MA-2)
Our second Exclusive Content review will finish up our two-part series comparing aged bourbons. For this review, we’ll be sipping Sam Houston 15 Year old from Release 7 Batch MA-2. After seeing iterations of this bottle on the shelves for a while, I decided to break down and take the plunge. Let’s see how it tastes….
Knob Creek 9 Year
Knob Creek 9 is, what I would refer to, the higher end entry level bottle for the Jim Beam Small Batch Collection. At 100 proof, it’s a also affordable. But does it taste good? Let’s find out….
Remus Repeal Reserve V
Our first Exclusive Content review will the the first part of a two-part series comparing aged bourbons. The second part to come later this week will review Sam Houston 15 Year.
Cardhu Gold Reserve Single Malt Game of Thrones: House Targaryen
In honor of this past weekend’s debut of House of the Dragon on HBO, we have a special review for one of the bottles from the Diageo Game of Thrones Scotch series, which came out a few years ago. This, of course, is the House of Targaryen bottle, a Cardhu Gold Reserve. Warning, this review may be combustible…
Penny Blue XO Rum (Batch #2)
Summer’s coming to and end, but that doesn’t mean that rum season is coming to and end, especially with this versatile Mauritian Rum. Today we will be reviewing Penny Blue XO Batch #2….