Castle and Cairn

First released in 1997 by New Holland Brewing out of Holland, Michigan, Dragon's Milk has been a favorite of beer enthusiasts for decades, introducing many to the Imperial Stout style. While New Holland has grown to more than 400 employees, it's craft roots are as strong as ever and they continue to put new and interesting product on shelves nationwide. In this post, we'll explore the history of Dragon's Milk and how New Holland has deftly elbowed it's way back into my fridge. Dragons Milk - The Flagship Black as midnight, the original Dragon's Milk is a high-gravity imperial stout aged in first-use bourbon barrels for three months. The malt bill includes significant proportions of Munich malt, chocolate malt, and roasted barley which leaves enough residual sugar to help cut down any abrasiveness from higher final alcohol content or tannin extraction from the barrel. Barrels used are recently emptied of bourbon or "wet" which means that there is plent...

Barton 1792 out of Bardstown, KY is part of the Sazerac family of businesses which also includes Buffalo Trace. 1792 is their current flagship brand which also comes in Full Proof, Cask Finish, and Sweet wheat iterations. Full Proof has been almost impossible to find since Jim Murray named it his 2020 World Whiskey of the year, but I have started to see it somewhat regularly and demand seems to have fallen enough that big players like Costco are able to get in on the action, moving some single barrels at lower than SRP. Costco has a very strong relationship with Barton as the latter bottles the white label Kirkland Small Batch , Bottled-in-Bond , and very elusive Single Barrel. As opposed to store picks, a single barrel program of this magnitude likely required Costco to rely on the distiller to pick the barrels against a target profile, potentially sending a tasting team to workshop that target and then letting Barton replicate to similar casks in their barrel management system. ...

Introduced in 2026, Old Fitzgerald 7-Year Bottled-in-Bond is an attempt by Heaven Hill to make use of expanded Larceny/Wheated stocks and get consumers access to the Old Fitzgerald brand at a lower price point and wider distribution. The Old Fitzgerald Decanter series is a bi-annual premium release featuring higher age stated bourbon in a beautiful bottle. They retail for more than $100 and are quite hard to find. On the other hand, this 7-year edition is intended to be a year-round, permanent flagship for the brand. With the tagline "Your Key to Hospitality", Old Fitzgerald 7-Year features a quite lovely bottle that harkens back to the decanter styling albeit at 700mls and a more slender footprint for behind-the-bar or sidebar use in cocktails. The Old Fitzgerald brand was previously the flagship offering of the legendary Stitzel-Weller distillery before it's closure in 1992 and purchase of the offering by Heaven Hill in 1999. Fitzgerald himself was actually a Treasury A...

Chattanooga Whiskey 91 is the signature offering of its namesake distillery and showcases their signature "high malt" style, requiring at least 25% of the mash bill to be specialty malted grains. Chattanooga Whiskey is the first producer within city limits since before prohibition and its founders were heavily involved in getting Tennessee State and local laws changed to allow for distillation outside of the traditional three distilling counties, "Vote Whiskey". While they originally sourced whiskey from MGP, they have been producing whiskey at their downtown location since 2016 and the larger riverfront facility since 2017. The Tennessee High Malt style is a bread baker's approach to whiskey, showcasing the character of the grains, often from bespoke varieties and sources. This results in less of a focus on wood flavors with the upshot that Chattanooga bottlings tend to be younger, dumped before the barrel character can drown out the mash.  It is basically imp...