Review Posts

Hiver – The Honey Beer

Ahh, honey beer. As with other beer flavourings – ginger being the prime example – the secret to a successful honey beer is walking that impossibly thin line between overwhelming the beer and tasting more like an alcopop, and being so subtle as to be lost and tasting like plain beer. That balancing act is ...

The Lost Distilleries Blend – Batch 4

Blended whisky has a bit of an image problem. Thanks to some brilliant marketing over the decades by the Scotch Whisky Association and others, consumers have "learned" that the really good whisky is the pure single malt (the older, obviously, the better) and that blended whisky is really only good for the servants. This is, ...

Cherizena Fairtrade Guatamalan

Guatemala is one of those countries that challenges my geographical knowledge. In my mind, it sits in the same, vaguely defined "South American" zone occupied by places like Guyana and Nicaragua – although my brain still refuses to believe that Suriname isn't in Asia somewhere. In fact, Guatemala is in the middle of Central ...

Waitrose Islay 12 Year Old Single Malt

I shall never understand why own-label bottlings are so often deliberately vague about who actually produced the whisky. I assume it's a restriction imposed by the distillery, but I've never been able to work out why they feel the need for secrecy. This is particularly puzzling, because the bottlings nearly always come with heavy hints ...

Alma De Cuba

When I think of Cuba, several products come to mind. Music. Cigars. Rum. Nuclear missiles. But not, curiously, coffee. Historically, Cuba was a big coffee producer; in the 1950s, exports were exceeding 20,000 tons. Post-revolution nationalisation took it's toll, and these days Cuba actually imports twice as much coffee as it produces – small wonder, ...

Fourpure Brewery Tour-At-Home

Edit: It's probably worth reading this in combination with On Ageing...; in short, the issues I mention below were age and/or condition related - in a good state, the beer is excellent! Fourpure are one of the Bermondsey Breweries; that strange cluster of beermongers nestling under the railway line out of London Bridge. They're a little ...

Hotel Chocolat Cocoa Beer

Chocolate and beer have a long history together. I confess that when I wrote that statement, I was thinking of the long history of chocolate stouts. Traditionally, the 'chocolateyness' of such stouts has come from the roasted malts used to make them rather than actual chocolate, although some modern versions actually add chocolate products ...

Marley Lively Up!

Marley Coffee was founded by Bob Marley's son, Rohan. All their coffee is organic and, as you might expect, they have their own estate in the Blue Mountains, in Jamaica. However, they also source beans globally from Ethiopia and Central America which makes it unclear precisely what goes into each of their three blends. This ...

Jameson Twitter Tasting

It's St. Patrick's Day today, so what better way to celebrate than with some fine Irish whiskey. I've been lucky enough to be included in tonight's Jameson Twitter Tasting, hosted by the marvellous folks at The Whisky Wire. I've tasted Jameson's original level whiskey before (and rather liked it), so I'm eager to explore some of ...

Cherizena Banoffee Pie Flavoured

I am not, as a rule, a big fan of flavoured coffee. Actually that isn't strictly true – it's just that I always steer clear of flavoured coffee beans. I'm not entirely sure why this is the case; my drink of choice in Starbucks (yes, I like Starbucks – I accept this may ...