Looking for a new flavor? Need a little help making your next choice at your local bar or bottle shop? Dining and drinks writer and judge Virginia Miller combs through new craft spirits releases to taste, review, and recommend. Here are her top 12 picks of the month, rated on a scale of one to five.
My bottle review column (last month’s edition here) is about what is unique, standout, new and/or trending in spirits with my review ratings on a 1-5 rating scale. My 11 bottle reviews of the month:
RUM
Stade’s Rum Beach Vat No 1
https://news.maisonferrand.com/stades-rum
For the price ($26 SRP; 43% ABV), Stade’s Rum Beach Vat No 1 is a great value unaged white rum for cocktails. This Barbados rum has all the funky, banana notes I adore and chase in fresh cane rums, with some vegetal olive and fruity mango, melon, papaya depths, rounded out by spiced clove. It makes a lovely Daiquiri and other cocktails.
Taste Rating: 4.5
LIQUEURS
The Obscure Distillery Genepi
https://experience.theobscure.com
I’ve loved genepi/genepy, a French and Italian herbal alpine liqueur, for over 20 years. Whereas herbal liqueurs like Chartreuse might be more robust, depending on the producer genepi is often softer, more aromatic (thank goodness for restaurants like The Morris in San Francisco where you can sip a range of genepi and vintage genepi ). Los Angeles-based The Obscure Distillery just launched their own genepi, along with brandy, rum and a unique, chestnut-wood-aged whiskey. Working with bartenders and artists, head distiller Théron Regnier creates cocktail-friendly spirits and Three Fates Génépi Liqueur is such, using butterfly pea flower for a dramatic, but natural purple hue that will turn to blue as it louches over ice. While I wish for it to be a bit more vivid, it is a solid genepi.
Taste Rating: 3.5
SAKE
Horin Ultra Premium Sake
https://us.gekkeikan.com/product/horin
Horin (16.4% ABV; $50 SRP) is Gekkeikan’s flagship premium brand, made from two sake rice varieties — Gohyakumangoku and Yamada Nishiki rice — essentially known as the “king” of sake rice, blended during the brewing process. It’s fruity, silky and more subtly integrated than other sakes in their line. Common sake notes of pear, green apple and melon are certainly present, but there is also a riper, banana-like note and whispers of umami mushrooms in keeping with the bolder body of this Kyoto-produced sake.
Taste Rating: 4
RTDs (Ready-to-Drink/Canned)
Gardenista
https://drinkgardenista.com
Shelf-stable lime juice was an early challenge for RTDs and it still doesn’t quite taste like the real thing. But Gardenista (15% ABV) — just launched September 2024 — does a solid take on ready-to-serve cocktails lively with lime juice, green herbs, ginger and jalapeno. Only the spirit base changes with vodka, tequila and bourbon versions. The passion project of spirits and hospitality industry colleagues, it’s a bottled take on the popular Gardener cocktail from Matsuhisa restaurant in Aspen, Colorado. It’s low proof and crushable, with the vodka allowing the ingredients to shine given its neutrality. But tequila is my preferred version since the whole thing needs a bit more booze oomph and flavor as it’s already low-proof.
Taste Rating: 3.5 to 4
Hochstadter’s Slow & Low
www.drinkslowandlow.com
Hochstadter’s Slow & Low produces straight rye whiskey-based bottled and canned cocktails, known for their “Rock and Rye” Proper Old-Fashioned. They recently launched a Coffee Old-Fashioned (40% ABV) and limited-release 6-Year Old-Fashioned. Of the newcomers, I’ve only tried the coffee cocktail, available in cute mini-cans and made with Intelligentsia Coffee. It’s bracing and full proof, inspired by the great coffee-brandy New Orleans classic often served flaming tableside, Cafe Brulot. Instead of the classic brandy, they use rye whiskey, Intelligentsia Coffee, raw honey, demerara sugar, Angostura bitters and orange peel. It’s a bit sweet and quite bracing but would do well on a rock or with a touch of cream.
Taste Rating: 4
GIN
Hush & Whisper Original Gin
www.hushandwhisper.com/our-spirits
A London dry-esque gin coming unexpectedly from Bryan, TX, roughly equidistant from Houston and Austin, Hush & Whisper Original Gin doesn’t so much stand out as unique, but it is a balanced, well done, classic-style gin. Here, juniper and coriander blessedly come through, with a touch of citrus and candied sweetness. Nice and herbaceous, it’s a good cocktail gin.
Taste Rating: 4
TEQUILA
Loca Loka
https://localokalife.com
Launched by co-creators, actor Rana Daggubati and Spotify musician Anirudh, Loca Loka goes for a mashup of India and Mexico, distilled at NOM 1588 in the Highlands of Jalisco, Mexico, from 100% highland agave. The focus is amped-up spice, expressing both Indian and Mexican cuisines. The Blanco ($49.99 SRP) is thankfully agave-forward, if a bit hot for only 40% ABV. But it stands up in cocktails with cooked, sweet agave. The Reposado ($57.99 SRP), aged for 4-6 months in French and American oak barrels, veers a bit too tannic and hot. Yes, it exudes some spice but the agave is more masked.
Taste Rating: 4 (Blanco), 3 (Reposado)
CREAM LIQUEURS
Five Farms Irish Cream
https://fivefarmsirishcream.com
For Irish cream liqueurs lovers, Five Farms Irish Cream ($24.99) is a standout farm-to-table liqueur produced with ingredients from local farms in County Cork, Ireland. It’s blessedly not too sweet, doesn’t clot or coagulate like some small batch cream liqueurs do and exudes those caramel, vanilla, waffle-type notes that make a proper Irish cream sing.
Taste Rating: 4.5
IRISH WHISKEY
The Muff Irish Whiskey
https://shop.themuffliquorcompany.com/irish-whiskey/muff-whiskey-new-bottle-pre-order
CEO/founder Laura Bonner’s The Muff Liquor Company produces affordable Irish spirits in County Donegal, Ireland, since 2018, recently launching in the U.S. They make an Irish vodka, gin and a triple distilled, five-part blend peated Irish Whiskey (ABV 43%; $34.99 SRP). The whiskey follows in the spirit of big Irish whiskies like Jameson in terms of “smoothness,” but adds some layers of soft peat and Irish malt. A crowd-pleasing, universal Irish whiskey.
Taste Rating: 4
AMERICAN WHISKEY: BOURBON
• Holladay Soft Red Wheat Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon
https://holladaybourbon.com
Holladay Soft Red Wheat Bottled-in-Bond Bourbon ($69.99 SRP) is produced in Missouri’s oldest distillery, The Holladay Distillery, since 1856. The whiskey is a blend of barrels aging on different floors of a seven-story rickhouse, chosen to meet a precise flavor profile. There are the usual bourbon and barrel notes of vanilla, toffee caramel, thankfully balanced by dry baking spices, a touch of char, cherry and walnuts. It’s a small batch whiskey that reflects Missouri’s long whiskey tradition and the history of the Weston-bsed distillery.
Taste Rating: 4
• Michter’s 2025 Barrel Strength Rye
https://michters.com/us-1-barrel-strength-rye
Michter’s US*1 Barrel Strength Rye (SRP $110) annual release just came out in March 2025 near the 10th anniversary of the barrel strength rye’s 2015 debut. As only one batch has been approved for release, it’s quite limited per usual, from the Kentucky-based distillery. Master distiller Dan McKee and master of maturation Andrea Wilson’s mashbills are famously secret, but corn and malted barley accompany and round out the rye. The 2025 bottling’s 55.25% ABV means it is bracing with spice, fruit and woody, vanilla notes. But it’s not as rye spice-forward as some editions past. It feels more rounded, potentially with a higher dose of corn and barley? In keeping with Michter’s ryes of yore, it is another whiskey sure to please rye and Michter’s fans.
Taste Rating: 4.5
Ready for another round? Visit Virginia’s website http://www.theperfectspotsf.com/wp02/for last month’s edition, plus personal recommendations on the best spots in cities around the world.
