Rums You Need To Try! Whiskeys You Need To Try! And... Is That $4,300 Single Malt Worth It?

I’m writing this on the last day of August, the week before Labor Day, which is the day before what I consider the second saddest day of the year. It’s the day everyone goes back to work and school is about to start and the days are getting noticeably shorter and football is starting and pumpkin spice everything is back and the frenetic activity that leads up to the complete bedlam of the holiday season kicks off and it’s more difficult to get restaurant reservations and NYC is more crowded and I hate it. I hate it all. Thank you, this has been my TED Talk.

Anyway… my busy autumn kicked off a little early, and I’m at the tail end of one of the busiest months I can remember. Not exactly the way I intended to spend the dog days of summer, but as a freelancer, I’m just happy to be working. And here, dear reader, are some of the more recent fruits of my labor.

Rum is a subject near and dear to my heart, and my liver — if I could drink but one spirit for the rest of my days, rum would be it. “Are you kiddin’?!” some of you might be saying. “Rum is sweet! Rum is what you put in crappy frozen drinks! Rum is coconut-flavored!” And so on. I could refute all that garbage here, but why don’t you read my article about eight of my favorite recent rummy releases in Forbes and realize that the really good stuff is in fact not Malibu or Bumbu but in fact the nectar of the gods. Link is -> HERE <-.

Fortunately, nobody is putting a gun to my head and making me choose one spirit above all others, so I can enjoy ‘em all — including American whiskeys, seven of which I tasted, loved, and endorsed with the less-than-thrilling headline, “7 New American Whiskeys To Try Now.” But hey, if that’s a good enough headline for the folks at Alcohol Professor to go with, then it should be good enough for you too. It’s a nice mix of new expressions from brands you’ve likely heard of plus a couple of noteworthy newbies. Dare I say it’s worth a read? The link is above or -> HERE <-.

And lastly, the second in what I hope is going to be an ongoing thing for the kind humans at Alcohol Professor: “Is It Worth It?” In which I discuss a bottle that’s worth a not-insignificant chunk of change and explain why you should go ahead and spend all that loot on it — or not, as the case may be. In this case, it’s a special Macallan bottling commemorating the royal nuptials of Charles & Diana back in 1981. A few of them have popped up at auction recently, fetching in excess of $4,000 each time. What’s in the bottle? How rare is it? Has the whisky aged better than the ill-fated Royal couple? All that and more is answered in my article, so have a glance! Link is -> HERE <-.