Awesome Drinks

Walsh Whiskey’s triple-distilled Writers’ Tears is an ode to the golden era of Irish whiskey – and to Joyce, Shaw, Wilde and other literary giants inspired by their favorite dram. Their eight-whiskey portfolio recreates the centuries-old method of blending malt and still whiskeys distilled in copper pots.

For 99 years, Cazadores has made tequila with 100% Blue Weber agave from the highlands of Jalisco, Mexico. Their sustainably produced reposado is double distilled and double fermented, then spends months resting in new American oak barrels before bottling. The melded flavors yield high-quality cocktails without a high price.

Cometeer offers a fresh take on coffee with its frozen coffee pucks. After brewing top-tier beans from boutique roasters, they freeze them at -321ºF to lock in the flavor. Simply melt the capsule with water or milk, stir, and enjoy. The recyclable aluminum capsules are also Keurig compatible. Sold in 32 capsule packages.

Portland has a reputation for keeping things weird, and Raven’s Manor is up to the challenge. The downtown lounge has a haunted mansion theme, loaded with creepy secrets to discover. Its cocktail menu includes bubbling, smoking, and flaming concoctions in fruity and “spirit-forward” varieties to please all palates.

Firstleaf is a wine club that caters its shipments based on your individual flavor preferences. This special offer gets your first six bottles for under $5 a bottle and includes quality wines from Napa and Sonoma County, California. Continue with a six-bottle subscription for $15 per bottle, shipped every 1, 2, or 3 months.

The canned cocktail craze makes drinking convenient but generally leaves us wishing for fresher flavors without an aluminum aftertaste. Williams Sonoma and Woodford Reserve whisky come to the rescue with a trio of premium bottled cocktail mixers – Old Fashioned, Whiskey Sour, and Mint Julep – especially for brown liquor lovers.

Whether you prefer your martini shaken or stirred, with gin or vodka, one sure way to upgrade the quintessential cocktail is with a top-shelf, extra dry vermouth. Made with Italian wines, 1757 Vermouth di Torino Extra Dry from Cinzano is enriched with a botanical bouquet of Mediterranean herbs, particularly Piedmont wormwood.

Celebrate your love for Scotch whisky with Pop Chart’s cartographic catalog of Scotland’s deliciously drinkable export. This 24″ x 36″ print explores the nation’s Scotch-producing regions, maps their distillery’s locations, and lists their various expressions in a detailed table below.

Cutwater Spirits’ third tequila release is Tequila Añejo, joining the award-winning Reposado and Blanco in Cutwater’s 20+ spirit lineup of gin, vodka, rum, whisky, mezcal, and canned cocktails produced in San Diego. The versatile distiller makes tequila in – naturally – Tequila, Mexico, using 100% blue agave that’s slow cooked in traditional brick ovens then double-distilled.

Most single malt whiskies insist on being sipped neat. X by Glenmorangie, by contrast, was created to stir it up with a myriad of mixers. Glenmorangie reimagines single malts by making X sweeter and richer with aromas of pear and vanilla distilled in extra-tall stills to allow more space for the taste to bloom.

We had no idea that people were packing their spirits and mixers into fuel canisters, but we found a number of artists over on Etsy doing just that. Each one features a hinged front to access your drink supplies, while some have wooden dividers or elastic straps to keep things organized. There’s a DIY guide on Instructables too.

This delicious dark roast coffee is made by placing Colombian arabica beans in barrels used to age whiskey, then roasting them. The result is a deep and rich flavor with earthy and vanilla notes. Sold in 1 lb. bags. and also available in Bourbon and Rum barrel versions.

We’re loving Mezcal Amaras Verde’s label series by artists from Chicago, LA (our pal Chaz), Seattle, Berlin, Argentina, and Mexico. Even better is the naturally fermented mezcal, and the distiller’s initiatives to pay 20% over market for labor and materials, and to reforest Oaxaca with 10 agave plants for every one harvested.

For the ninth year, thousands of bars, restaurants, retailers and Negroni fans will celebrate the popular three-ingredient cocktail to raise funds for charities. Campari – Italy’s iconic red aperitif – kicks off Negroni Week 2021 (Sept. 13-19) with a $100,000 donation, joined by MiniBar, Shaker & Spoon , and Imbibe Magazine.

The most important ingredient in Brazil’s beloved Caipirinha cocktail is Cachaça, a rum-like spirit made from fermented sugar cane. Novo Fogo has perfected Cachaça distilling with an array of rested and barrel-aged expressions, all of which are USDA organic and carbon neutral, absorbing more CO2 than the process emits.

Run by firefighters and veterans, Fire Dept. Coffee donates 10% of its net profits to help support injured and disabled first responders. They also make these sweet and aromatic brews inspired by donut flavors like vanilla sprinkle, red velvet, blueberry cake, and double chocolate. Dip your favorite donut for bonus points.

Zignum Mezcal’s Joven, Reposado, and Añejo spirits are pleasantly smooth versions of tequila’s smoky cousin, with the latter two benefiting from 8-18 months in oak casks. The Oaxacan distillery’s eco-friendly initiatives include solar heating, water recycling, and a nursery where Espadín agave is grown from seeds.

In the 1800s, Benedictine monks created a pleasantly bitter elixir of herbs thought to possess therapeutic properties. It became known as Averna when Salvatore Averna acquired the recipe and won approval from King Umberto I, the liqueur’s first superfan. Two centuries later, the timeless Italian ritual of drinking Amaro Averna remains.

Feeling good without feeling tipsy is the aim of alcohol-free Three Spirit. Nightcap, Livener, and Social Elixir botanical drinks are designed to reduce stress, improve mood, and make imbibers feel more social. Ingredients like cacao, turmeric, ginger, black pepper, and green tea come from plants used in remedies for centuries.

Best of Show. Best of Class. Double Gold… Mezcal Amaras Cupreata keeps collecting top international medals. Proving that there’s a biodiversity of agaves yielding a wide range of flavors, Cupreata strikes gold by focusing on the distinct herbaceous notes from wild agaves harvested from the high-altitude slopes of Guerrero, Mexico.

Bottled in Michigan, American Liquor Co. Vodka is blended like whisky. Every budget bottle mixes vodkas made from four classic ingredients – wheat, rye, potato, and corn – from American distilleries: Middle West Spirits, Stumpy Spirits, Yahara Bay, Grand Traverse Distillery, Valentine Distilling, and Proof Artisan Distillers.

Four Roses’ Kentucky distillery combines two mash-bills with five proprietary yeast strains to create 10 distinct bourbon recipes. Once they’ve matured, they blend four of these for gold-medal-winning Four Roses Small Batch, a mellow 90-proof spirit to serve straight-up, on the rocks, or in a flavorful cocktail like The Sweet & Spicy.

Barr Hill Gin is getting buzz for going beehive-to-bottle with its honey-enhanced spirit. The premium American gin uses 150,000 lb. of raw honey each year, sourced in close proximity to the solar-powered Vermont distillery. They’re planting 500,000 sq. ft. of bee habitat, yielding enough honey for 50,000 Bee’s Knees cocktails.

The black bottle hints that this small-batch vodka from a “small ass facility” in Oregon is pretty badass. Confirming that are Blood x Sweat x Tears Vodka’s rescue pittie, Mr. Pickles, and heavily tatted owner/distiller, Ben Green, a self-taught renegade who sources Pacific Northwest wheat for BST’s slow-distilled, freeze-filtered vodka.

Go back to the 1990s and pucker up for Artisanal Brew Works‘ Warheads-inspired adult beverages. They come in extreme sour flavors like black cherry, watermelon, blue raspberry, and lemon. They’re available at Artisanal’s Saratoga Springs, NY taproom and from select retailers in NY, MA, NJ, southern CA, and eastern PA.

Italian icons Campari and filmmaker Federico Fellini collaborated on an ad in 1984. Thanks to artificial intelligence, the late director has contributed to another pioneering short film, Campari Red Diaries 2021: Fellini Forward. AI tools created dream-like images drawing from Fellini’s work and input from his family and crew.