Presenting a very old, very rare American Light Whiskey, distilled in 1992 and bottled in extremely limited quantities, exclusively at Bitters & Bottles. Don't sleep on it.
Getting back into rum production after a 45 year hiatus, the Worthy Park distillery first began releasing rum again under the Rum-Bar label in Jamaica in 2007. Although the US has gotten hints of what they've been up to through independent bottlers (if you've had Hamilton Jamaican, The Funk, or Doctor Bird, you've had Worthy Park), the company was waiting for their first premium bottling to mature before they made their official debut.
Have you ever had that moment, when you look back at your family’s history and think about how far we’ve gotten from their hands-on work, and how much of the knowledge held by our grandparents and great grandparents has been lost? Guillermo Sauza saw his great-great-grandfather Cenobio’s tequila empire whittled down to the family’s agave farm and the mothballed La Fortaleza distillery, turned into a literal tequila production museum. Meanwhile the Sauza brand and distillery continued to grow in the hands of an international conglomerate. So Guillermo decided to do something about it.
"Craft whiskey" has finally evolved beyond the semi-meaningless small batch, artisanal, hand-crafted tropes that it created for itself and Oakland's own Wright & Brown's Rye and Bourbon Whiskeyis case and point. This is objectively good whiskey - local, small batch (fewer than 800 bottles), artisanal, hand-crafted be damned.
Our new arrivals are just as news-worthy as an extra-terrestrial arrival, but without that "will they harvest my organs?" conundrum. Here are our top picks of hot new bottles to sip this weekend.
Distillery 291 is a true grain-to-barrel-to-bottle producer crafting distinctly Colorado-imbued whiskies in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. They’ve been distilling in Colorado Springs for six years now, and in that time they’ve managed to nail a whiskey that is kind of the holy grail of craft – as easy to enjoy as the stuff put out by the big boys, while pulling out flavors that are absolutely unique. Named People’s Choice at the Breckenridge Craft Spirits Festival in 2014, 2015, and 2016 – it’s clear they’re on to something big.