School of Wine & Spirits

All Reviews

755 curated reviews

All Bourbon Gin Irish Whiskey Red Wine Rum Scotch Whisky Tequila White Wine

Scotch Whisky

Aberlour A’Bunadh

Pernod Ricard (Chivas Brothers)

A’Bunadh is Aberlour’s love letter to the sherry butts of Jerez.

~$100~120 (varies by batch; cask strength, typically 59–61% ABV) proof

Red Wine

Bodega Norton Reserva Malbec 2021

Bodega Norton (Swarovski family)

Bodega Norton Reserva Malbec is the taste of a grape that found its true home six thousand miles from where it started.

~$1814.5% proof

White Wine

Kumeu River Maté’s Vineyard Chardonnay 2021

Kumeu River Wines (Brajkovich family)

Kumeu River Maté’s Vineyard is the definitive proof that great Chardonnay can migrate from Burgundy to the Southern Hemisphere without losing its soul.

~$8013.5% proof

Bourbon

Rabbit Hole Dareringer

Pernod Ricard

Rabbit Hole Dareringer is the flavor of migration itself. Kaveh Zamanian’s journey from Tehran to Louisville mirrors the bourbon’s own passage through Spanish PX sherry casks—each crossing adding layers that neither origin could produce alone.

~$8093 (46.5% ABV) proof

Rum

Clément VSOP Rhum Agricole

Groupe Bernard Hayot (GBH)

Clément VSOP is the most eloquent argument for rhum agricole’s place among the world’s great aged spirits.

~$4580 (40% ABV) proof

Irish Whiskey

Slane Irish Whiskey

Brown-Forman

Slane is the story of what happens when a 150-year-old American whiskey company migrates its cooperage expertise to Ireland.

~$2880 (40% ABV) proof

Tequila

Maestro Dobel Diamante

Proximo Spirits / Beckmann Family

Maestro Dobel Diamante didn’t just create a tequila—it created a category.

~$5780 (40% ABV) proof

Gin

Ki No Bi Kyoto Dry Gin

The Kyoto Distillery (Pernod Ricard)

Ki No Bi is what happens when the London dry gin tradition migrates to Kyoto and is rebuilt from the ground up with Japanese materials and philosophy.

~$7791.4 (45.7% ABV) proof

Red Wine

Austin Hope Cabernet Sauvignon Paso Robles 2022

Hope Family Wines

Paso Robles is a region forged by fire — and not just metaphorically. Daytime temperatures that soar past 100°F followed by dramatic nighttime drops create a thermal intensity that forces the vines to concentrate their sugars and develop deep, complex flavors.

$5514.5% proof

Gin

Tarquin's Cornish Dry Gin

Southwestern Distillery (Independent)

Tarquin's is among the very few gins in Britain still distilled over naked flame — and you can taste the difference. Direct-fire distillation gives the distiller less control than steam-heated stills, but rewards the skilled hand with a richer, more textured spirit.

$3484 (42% ABV) proof

Bourbon

Maker's Mark 46

Beam Suntory

The 46 is a masterclass in what fire can add. Those ten seared French oak staves — Stave Profile No. 46, the one that gave this bourbon its name — transform a familiar wheated bourbon into something richer, spicier, and more complex, without losing the soft, approachable character that made Maker's Mark famous in the first place.

$3094 (47% ABV) proof

Scotch Whisky

Kilchoman Machir Bay

Kilchoman Distillery Co. (Independent)

Kilchoman is what happens when someone decides to do everything the hard way — and gets it spectacularly right. Anthony Wills didn't just build a new distillery on Islay; he built one that grows its own barley, malts it over its own peat-fired kiln, and distills in tiny copper pot stills.

$5592 (46% ABV) proof

White Wine

Benanti Etna Bianco 2022

Benanti Viticoltori

If fire built these eight bottles, then Benanti's Etna Bianco was built by the most patient fire of all — the volcanic eruptions that have been depositing mineral-rich ash and sand on the slopes of Mount Etna for thousands of years.

$3013% proof

Irish Whiskey

Glendalough Double Barrel

Glendalough Distillery (Mark Anthony Brands)

The double barrel treatment here is a study in how fire shapes wood, and wood shapes whiskey. The first-fill bourbon barrels — charred by fire before they ever held spirit — give the Glendalough its vanilla and caramel backbone. The Oloroso sherry casks — toasted to a different specification — add dried fruit and chocolate complexity.

$3084 (42% ABV) proof

Rum

Smith & Cross Traditional Jamaica Rum

Hayman Ltd. (UK)

Smith & Cross is rum with its gloves off. Bottled at a scorching 57% — the old British proof strength — the point at which spirit-soaked gunpowder would still ignite, a benchmark used by the Royal Navy to verify their rum had not been watered down.

$28114 (57% ABV / Navy Strength) proof

Tequila

Espolòn Reposado

Campari Group

Espolòn is proof that applied heat, carefully controlled, separates good tequila from great tequila. Cirilo Oropeza's decision to quarter the piñas — doubling the surface area exposed to the autoclave's heat — extracts more sweetness and complexity from the agave than conventional methods.

$2580 (40% ABV) proof

Gin

Nolet's Silver Dry Gin

Nolet Distillery (Nolet family, 11th generation)

Cocktail — The Rose Garden Martini: 2.5 oz Nolet's Silver · 1/2 oz dry vermouth · 1 dash rose water · Stir over ice, strain into a frozen coupe, garnish with a single rose petal.

Perfumed Turkish rose, white peach, raspberry, subtle juniper, coriander, witch hazel, and cassia — floral before herbal95.2 (47.6% ABV) proof

Bourbon

Baker's 7 Year Old Single Barrel

Beam Suntory

Baker's 7 is the bourbon that proves the Beam family's small batch experiment was not a marketing exercise. While Knob Creek went for age, Booker's for barrel proof, and Basil Hayden's for approachability, Baker Beam chose texture — a uniquely full-bodied, oily mouthfeel that feels like liquid velvet at 107 proof.

$60107 (53.5% ABV) proof