I picked up a bottle of America’s best-selling Blackstone Merlot because the price was right. You can easily find it for $8 or $9 a bottle. There are a lot of wines out there in this price range, but there’s a reason this is the best-selling merlot.
This is a wine almost anyone can enjoy. The [...]

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One of the better indicators for a quality of vodka is its price. Sure, there are some $30 bottles that fall short of expectations and Smirnoff costs about twice what its worth. But Sobieski vodka is a jewel because its quality is head and shoulders above its price.
At around $10 for a bottle, I expected [...]

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Some beers are patient and wait to be tasted. Others pop in your mouth to announce their presence. The Retro Red from Fort Collins Brewery is of the latter persuasion.
This beer looks unlike any I’ve seen before. It poured with very little head. Its deep red color was so dark that it almost appeared opaque. [...]

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I was in the market for a good red zin, and Ravenswood Sonoma County Zinfandel seemed like it would satisfy my appetite. The grapes are culled from old vines in the prolific California region.
To say that the old vine zinfandel’s taste wasn’t complex would be a mistake. There is a complexity to it, but it’s [...]

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I picked up a bottle of Hebrew Messiah Bold because of its great packaging. After all, how could I turn down “The Chosen Beer?”
But the only thing I would choose this beer for is an award for the most foul beer I’ve ever had. While the almond aroma was slightly alluring, there was something a [...]

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The Francis Ford Coppola line of wines is something of a paradox–it has a unique selling point because of its label, and several wine drinkers have also told me that the actual vino is quality stuff, too. I picked up a bottle of the Diamond Series Pinot Noir for an intimate celebration.
This wine definitely satisfied [...]

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Remember when you were young and you had that one puppy until one day when your parents took it to the vet and came back with an empty car? You know the void it leaves where you imagine what it’s like to have that loyal companion.
Luckily, Louisiana-based Abita has brewed Turbodog to help fill that [...]

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The 90 Shilling Ale from O’Dell’s brewery in Fort Collins, Colo., comes with a pretty good story behind its name. This Scottish ale calls back to the tradition of taxing beer with the British coin.
But this beer is a lot more than a historical gimmick. It had a pleasant hoppy aroma out of the bottle [...]

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You’ve got to be careful with some vodkas that claim to be ultra-premium because they come in a fancy bottle. But Quadro Vodka’s spirit is on par with its packaging.
The square bottles are stackable and are supposed to represent the Renaissance period of architecture. I don’t know if the square shape stokes your “fertile imagination” [...]

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When boozebuzz hero Luke Thompson brought over a bottle of Saranac Caramel Porter, I could barely wait to drink it. It had come as part of a beer-of-the-month club selection and promised good things.
The porter was off to a good start. It had a pronounced nose on it, with an aroma of caramel popcorn that [...]

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