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Bullitt, it turns out, is a county in Kentucky. Founded in 1797, the county is also the home of Jim Beam whiskey: the land was purchased by Jim himself during Prohibition. It’s not the reason behind the the name Bulleit Rye, but we thought you might want to know. The name actually came from Augustus Bulleit, the great great grandfather of Tom Bulleit, the man behind the Bulleit Brand. Augustus was a bar owner back in the 1830′s and a lover of whiskey, and decided to create his own and share it with the world. The story goes that after perfecting his recipe and aging a few barrels, he was transporting his creation to New Orleans for sale when he disappeared. No one ever found him, or heard from him ever again.

Tom decided, 150 years later in 1987, that this …

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Mezcal is trending right now, no doubt about it. Edgar Martinez has one, they are showing up in craft cocktails, and more than ever before people are open to the idea of the cousin of tequila. There are an equal number of people, we would argue, that tried a mezcal at some point and decided that it tasted like crap and they will never go back. Much like tequila.

Much like tequila, all mezcal also isn’t created equal. Some of it indeed tastes like poo. And perhaps those who really love tar-like, smokey mezcal won’t fall in love with Fidencio, but for those of us who really thought all mezcal tasted like burro droppings, this is a breath of fresh air, so to speak.

We suppose some back story is in order for those of you who don’t really know what mezcal …

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About 11 years ago Martin Miller decided to add to his long list of accomplishments (entrepreneur, hotel owner, publisher and photographer) the title of distiller. Advertised as something of an eccentric, the story is told that he was sitting in a bar with his mates, not enjoying his gin and tonic, and the idea hit him like a squeeze of lime to the eye: he wanted to make the perfect gin: Martin Miller’s Gin.

Being that he is English and from the auspicious Notting Hill, naturally London Dry is the style he wished to perfect. He set about gathering his ingredients from the corners of the earth. Juniper from Tuscany and India, Cassia bark from China, Angelica from France, etc. He was meticulous in his methods: only traditional ones will do. Small batches, made in a pot still he calls Angela, …

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If you browse the website for Whistle Pig Straight Rye, you will find an interview between Master Sommelier Fernando Beteta and Master distiller Dave Pickerell. In that interview Dave mentions that when he started the Whistle Pig project, the intent was to find out what a true rye, a 100% rye, can taste like. Admittedly, we here at DrinkGal have a tendency to enjoy rye more than other whiskey types, but to hear that this is a 100% rye that has been awarded the highest rating ever given to a whiskey (96 points!) by Wine Enthusiast Magazine… excited doesn’t cover how we felt to get a bottle.

Pickerell, as some of you might know, worked for Makers Mark for 14 years, establishing himself as a Master Distiller and a heavy hitter in the spirits world. He left in 2008 to focus …

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If you are like us, your souvenirs aren’t snow globes or tacky t-shirts, they are usually of the boozy variety. Thanks to a few wackos, you can’t carry them on the plane anymore, and you always leave a little room in the checked bag for delicious liquid finds. But as you are carefully packing your bottle of Amontillado  that you found at this amazing place in Barcelona, you start to panic a little. Is your treasure going to make it back? Are your skivvies going to be floating in a sherry soup?

Enter the Jet Bag. It boasts that it will contain an entire broken or leaking bottle of a standard size, saving your unmentionables and you from curious looks from TSA. We put it to the test, sealing up a leaking bottle inside and leaving it overnight to see what …

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We couldn’t make this up if we tried: Ron Jeremy made a rum. There might be a few of you who don’t know who Ron Jeremy is. Well, he’s a star… of the porn variety, and that’s all we have to say about that. We are here for the rum, crafted by Master Distiller Francisco “Don Pancho” Fernandez and aptly named Ron de Jeremy, not the porn, so let’s get our mind out of the gutter, shall we?

So, we received Ron de Jeremy in the mail, and we were a little surprised at the size of the bottle. Honestly, we thought it would be bigger. No matter, size isn’t everything, and the rum sample size was adequate enough to get a good taste. We didn’t have enough to mix into a cocktail, but usually straight up is the best way …

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When most people think of cachaça, they think of Caipirinhas and very little else. As a bartender, for years we would have the same lonely bottle of cachaça sitting on the shelf for months, and when a patron would ask “what do you use that for?” I would pull it down and mix up a Caipirinha, explaining its fame (the national alcoholic drink of Brazil) and that cachaça is a cousin of rum, made from sugar cane instead of molasses.

Most cachaça has a smoky, gasoline-like quality that would be considered charming to some in a caipirinha, but one would be hard pressed to find another drink where the spirit would add anything that a good rum couldn’t do better. For the life of me I didn’t have another recipe to offer anyone interested in the Brazilian rum cousin.

Enter Novo Fogo, …

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Like Iron Chef with a bottle of whiskey, the Gourmand Award winning Kentucky Bourbon Cookbook can turn almost anything that could come out of your kitchen into a delicious barrel-aged treat.

Ironically, author Chef Albert W.A. Schmid isn’t a lifelong bourbon lover. Allergic to corn, he avoided bourbon for years, thinking that (as bourbon is mostly made of corn) a whiskey drinker he was never to be. In 2002, talking with the master distiller of Brown-Foreman, he discovered that the distilling process removed the allergen, and was delighted to discover that he could indeed sip the stuff to his hearts content.

Schmid was already a chef and a wine and spirits educator and had his first book under his belt, so he set about collecting recipes and educating himself about using bourbon in food. And now you can hold the fruits of …

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Last week, we were lucky enough to get to try the brand new line of Corrido Tequila at a luncheon at Chantanee in Bellevue. Just back from a trip to Las Vegas Tequila Fest 2010, we were still in the tequila spirit (so to speak) and ready to sample some award-winning tequila.

Our host, the lovely Yuri Kato (also the author of Japanese Cocktails), started us off with a history lesson. A “corrido”, she told us, is similar to a ballad. It is a Mexican musical style that is poetic, came into existence during the late 1800′s and was popularized during Prohibition along the U.S/Mexico border. These ballads often glamorized stories of tequila smugglers that would risk their lives bringing hooch to thirsty Americans in border towns. A guitar pick on a leather strap is slung around each bottle of Corrido: …

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It finally happened. Maker’s Mark made another bourbon.

Unlike a lot of distillers, Makers Mark has historically focused all it’s energy on one product instead of succumbing to the urge to to flood the market with product, making 87 different flavors or types to increase market share. For the last 52 years, they have made only one thing: Maker’s Mark Bourbon, and they have done just fine with one, thank-you-very-much. One could say that all this focused attention and singularity of purpose has created a brand identity that is one of the most easily identifiable in the liquor industry, and one that is synonymous with good taste.  Why mess with a good thing, right?

Off and on over the years there were rumors and attempts for a cousin for Makers Mark to play with, which yielded various results. A few years back, …