Appleton Estate

Rum
Purchase Price: $21 (1.75 Liter)
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 7.8

I can't find much fault with this but it's still not one of my favorites. It lacks a certain punch, one could say, but I still believe it could work wonders in a Planter’s Punch of the type sold at a Friday’s or Bennigan’s restaurant. Which makes me think. Wouldn’t it be funny to be on a first date at a Ruby Tuesday’s or Ground Round and then get so drunk on four or five huge goblets of Appleton Estates-based Planter’s Punch that your date no longer trusts you to drive home and so calls a cab? But then takes that very same cab to your place so they can have sex with you? I wonder if that’s ever happened.

Old Overholt

Rye
Purchase Price: $14 (1 Liter)
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.5

I love rye, but most people don’t even know it exists or think that it has something to do with bread or something. Balderdash. It exists and it’ll scuff your nose and box your ears if you don’t afford it some of that proper “old school” respect. Rye used to be the number one drink in the nation, back when the world was recorded in black and white and men wore hats everywhere and to me, Old Overholt will always be the classic rye—sharp and spicy and liable to bite if you so much as even look at it sideways. And believe me, that is a hearty endorsement. For a long time, I thought it was George Washington on the label, a misconception bolstered by the fact that the label itself appears as if designed in George Washington’s time. This is priced within reach of just about everybody, including people with squares of cardboard lashed to their feet with pilfered twine, which has given this brand a bit of a downscale reputation over the years. Don’t let this dissuade you from warmly welcoming a bottle into your home. It’s a classic American tipple!

Sylk

Cream Liqueur
Purchase Price: $8
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 2.2

The people up at Drambuie decided to mix together their flagship brand with some Irish Cream. Why? Ask them. Then they gave it the same exact name as a product that, and I quote from their website, “is a natural sexual enhancement product to help women who suffer from vaginal dryness.” Nice synergy there, laddies!!

As for me, I've never liked Drambuie so it makes perfect sense that I would buy something in which said liqueur is a prominent ingredient, right? It must have been the eight dollar asking price. This tastes strange in a bad way, like milk from last Christmas and now it’s April Fool’s Day. In fact it’s such a “foolish” product I could see it being used as the bait some practical joker might serve you while cameras whirred to see you spit it up for the delight of a television audience on a show like “Punk’d” or “Candid Camera.” Do yourself a favor and don’t sign the release form.

Hankey Bannister

Blended Scotch
Purchase Price: $12
Place of Purchase: The Bottle Shop - Catskill, NY
Rating: 7.5

I found this on a dusty shelf in Catskill, NY (where a young and feral Mike Tyson used to train!) for something like $12. I had never heard of it, but as always, I wanted to try something different and 12 dollars wasn't exactly the down payment on a house. It turned out to be what I expected, not quite as bad as accidentally drinking the contents of a Sterno can, but nothing you'd want to serve your rich neighbors if they dropped by to have a chat about gardening and golf handicaps. “They” (meaning Wikipedia) say that this was Winston Churchill’s favorite Scotch. I don’t know, it somehow doesn’t seem worthy of that great statesman. But what am I gonna do, argue with him about it?

Zyr

Vodka
Purchase Price: $27
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.2

Zyr is a worthy addition to the endless explosion of super-premium vodkas going on all around us. But it is pricey and although Zyr's sleek bottle is always going to be a handsome addition to your liquor cabinet, there are still plenty of vodkas giving just as much drinking pleasure for $10 a bottle less. But, if you must have a super-premium, this holds its own against better-known rivals like Belvedere and the always overrated Grey Goose. Plus its name is completely meaningless! I can’t wait to taste this distillery’s Ryt gin or Qbu bourbon. It’s going to be great!

Bacardi 8 Year

Rum
Purchase Price: $19
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.3

To me, the name Bacardi conjures up plenty of drinking adventures from my youth. Just about every liquor cabinet in the neighborhood had a bottle of their signature white rum, so there was plenty available for the taking by us “little ones.” We’d mix it with whatever was at hand--Coke, Frosty root beer, Mello Yello, Lawson’s “Big O” orange juice and maybe even Funny Face Goofy Grape for all I know. Now that I’m all grown up and drink rum by itself on the rocks, my tastes have turned towards darker rums, relegating the clear and carefree rum of my youth to the dim halls of history. But I needn’t part ways completely with Bacardi’s trademark bat just yet. Their eight-year aged rum is a real winner, smooth as a sealskin bathmat and priced to please. Can’t go wrong with this one.

Ezra Brooks

Bourbon
Purchase Price: $9
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 7.6


Ezra Brooks has long haunted the lower shelves of liquor stores across the country, flashing faux-Jack Daniels plumage and an eye-catching single-digit price tag. Considering how laughably little it costs to leave the store with a bottle of this tucked under your arm, I’m happy to report that this is not quite the caramel-colored turpentine one would expect. A bottle of this and a two-liter bottle of store-brand cola could make a Monday night disappear right quick, I reckon. And for a completely coordinated evening you could even wear an old paint-spattered Brooks Brothers sweatshirt and some Brooks tennis shoes gone green from mowing the lawn while you’re drinking it!

Fris

Vodka
Purchase Price: $14
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.2


Fris used to have one of the coolest bottles in the business (pictured). It has since changed to something quite less radical and I don’t know why. The vodka itself is smooth as polished ice but it won’t send you head over heels like polished ice unless you let it. Remember, we should always drink in moderation unless we are in the mood to get drunk. Seriously. One of the best things about Fris is that it is one of the most reasonably priced quality vodkas on the market. This is a potable with a pedigree--I've been told by employees of a Danish book and video store I sometimes frequent that the King of Denmark drinks this on a daily basis. Yes, a real king who rules an entire country. It sounds like the stuff of fairy tales...but it exists today in 2008. As Sarah Purcell might say, That’s Incredible!

Speyburn 10 Year

Single Malt
Purchase Price: $18
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 7.7

One of the most inexpensive single malts ever and not to be scoffed at. It's not going to be one of those mystifying malts that keeps you up nights wondering just how mere mortals could create something so divine, and then go so far as to bottle it up and distribute it around the world for the use of any bum with twenty dollars in his pocket, but if you’re on a budget at any given moment due to job loss, the high price of gas, a recent mugging, etc. this will soothe that single malt urge most satisfactorily.

Seagram's Extra Dry

Gin
Purchase Price: $13
Place of Purchase: Struthers Beer and Wine - Struthers, OH
Rating: 8.1

I freely admit to being really snobbish about any domestic liquor that falls outside of the brown Bourbon/Tennessee Whiskey/Rye universe. When it comes to clear drinks like Gin, Vodka, and even light rums, I tend to dismiss American products as the low-grade barroom mixers most of them are, but I really like this gin! I’ve only used it to make Gin and Tonics, but in this regard it performs just fine. In short, this gin is not quite as cute as Pikachu, but every bit as innocuous and it will take to the tonic water you feed it like a pre-teen boy does to Lindsay Lohan internet pics. Which is to say—with unbridled enthusiasm!

Canadian Mist

Canadian Whisky
Purchase Price: $15 (1L)
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 7.8

Canadian Mist was always laughed at when I was growing up (and this in a region of the country where most of the adults routinely drowned their despair and celebrated milestones with gallon upon gallon of the nigh undrinkable Black Velvet) and it probably wasn't fair. Perception is everything and I don't think the big newspaper ads in the sports section touting $5.99 fifths (as they were called then) helped perpetuate a desirable brand image for Canadian Mist. Factor in how easily Mist rhymes with "piss" and you can imagine the fun all the teen and pre-teen alkies I knew had with this poor brand. Well, forget all that. If you need a reasonably-priced drink to serve to the .002% of the general population that still drinks Canadian whisky, this is a prime candidate. It's as mild and affable as one of those old Michael J. Fox/Nancy McKeon romance movies.

Vox

Vodka
Purchase Price: $22
Place of Purchase: Warehouse -New York, NY
Rating: 8.4

One of the all time great bottle shapes (look, it's a little cricket bat!) and some great vodka inside it. Slightly minty, clean like melted snow and before you know it, you're staggering. Also, when you order a "Vox on the rocks" at your local bar, you can, for just a few fleeting seconds, pretend you're Dr. Seuss!!! I’ve seen a close friend drink this stuff until he fell down trying to manhandle another man's wife at an "80's" theme party during a the middle night of a three-day holiday weekend. Later he blamed his reprehensible but quite amusing behavior on the vodka because it was “too smooth.” Of course.

Mark Twain

Bourbon
Purchase Price: $9 (1L)
Place of Purchase: Chalet Premier Wines - North Lima, OH
Rating: 7.1

Mark Twain is one of those weird brands you see pop up every once in awhile that makes you pause for a moment. No marketing, no advertising, no "word on the street." It's just there, sitting on the bottom shelf saying "I'm 9 bucks for a liter!! Try me!! If you don't like me you can turn me upside down over the kitchen sink!! Try me!!" Standing half a mile away from the world-famous trucks stops on Route 7 in North Lima, Ohio, it was a siren call I couldn't resist. I lugged it back to NY and, well, not very surprisingly, Mark Twain dances across the tongue like a fistful of Red Hots—those cinnamon candies beloved by masochistic children except that Mark Twain doesn’t taste the least bit like cinnamon. More like ethanol. It's a one-dimensional "cheap licker" that can easily be used as a mixer or if you need something to clean the bottom of your shoes.

Isle of Jura Superstition

Single Malt
Purchase Price: $23
Place of Purchase: Ralph's - Indian Wells, CA
Rating: 8.0


I'm not sure what exactly the gremlins at Jura do to this, but there's no denying it is a strange concoction. Some brine to begin, then some honey, and then a pleasant, eventful finish that reminds me of a cookie store they once had at the mall that sold cookies the size of dinner plates. It’s like some mad scientist's experiment, but the results really aren’t that bad. A unique malt. I’ve seen this for 40 dollars and up in many places, so I was lucky to stumble upon an incorrectly priced bottle at a Ralph's supermarket in the California desert last summer. I was actually nervous when I brought it to the register and when the check-out lady called out to her colleague I thought she was about to call a price check. It turned out she just thought the metal ankh affixed to bottle was “cool” and felt her co-worker should know about it. I should have known better. How the heck would she know how much whiskies cost? The store had like 200,000 different items!

Finlandia

Vodka
Purchase Price: $15
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.0

Finlandia is one of the first vodkas I remember being a brand name. I always liked the "rocky" texture of the bottle, too, if you were ever blind drunk and needed just one more, there’d be no mistaking which bottle you’d wrapped your paws around. This brand seems to have faded from humanity’s collective consciousness of late, but who can ever forget the run they had in the 80’s when it seemed like every preppie in town spent the winter lounging around in one of Finlandia’s famous knitted sweaters with the red reindeer dashing across the front? Those were wonderful times--to sit in a well-appointed living room dumping a bottle or two of this into the eggnog while Wham’s “Last Christmas” played over and over in the background. This has always been a respectable drink, much better than Absolut and less expensive, too!

George Dickel No. 12

Tennessee Whisky
Purchase Price: $22
Place of Purchase: Warehouse - New York, NY
Rating: 8.3

Fire in the hole! Pie-hole that is…one of my favorite all time whiskies but please don't call it bourbon, as some people like to. It's Tennessee whisky (minus the ‘e’—just like they do in Scotland!) and this is the best they make. Rambunctious, fiery, it's damn near guaranteed to slap an "ugly face" on your mug the first time you drink it. But given time it will become a trusted friend. There is only one other Tennessee whisky on the market and that brand was once immortalized in the form of a bass guitar played by Michael Anthony. This is better. I even have a George Dickel T-shirt I wear with pride to places like church and the Mars bar.

Mount Gay Eclipse Rum

Rum
Purchase Price: $15
Place of Purchase: Empire Wine - Albany, NY
Rating: 8.2

I was 16 years old when I bought my first bottle of liquor. It was a “fifth” of Mount Gay Eclipse Rum, so maybe it is appropriate to open this blog with a review of that very same rum. (NOTE: I am not reviewing that actual bottle!) At that time, I lived in Ohio, where the drinking age was 18 (later raised to 19 in 1982 and not to 21 until 1987) and all alcoholic beverages were sold out of state-run liquor stores. These no-frills establishments were intimidating places with institutional green walls, ugly metal shelves and turnstiles that led to the registers. I had been accompanying my dad on his trips to buy gin since I was a tot, so I knew the layout and also knew that if you walked in there like you belonged, the always 70+ year old cashier probably wouldn't card. I played the part of nonchalant veteran to a “T” and got my rum. I walked out of that place with a feeling of empowerment most people would associate with passing a tough test or learning a marketable skill, but you have to take these feelings where you find them. I hid the bottle of rum in my room and mixed it with Coca-Cola at my leisure. I drink it straight these days, and it’s still a favorite, I especially like the aroma of gingerbread that wafts up when you peek your nose over the glass. A classic sipping rum!