violet hour house rules The Violet Hour, Chicago’s acclaimed lounge owned by One Off Hospitality Group, has launched its own line of bottled cocktail bases under the brand name Violet Hour +. The first is called Batch No. 1 and comprises scorched demerara sugar, Tahitian vanilla, wormwood-bittered cane sugar and gentian herbs (from the Himalayas). It’s priced at $13.70 a 250-ml. bottle and is available at Violet Hour’s bar and sister restaurants, with retail distribution expected to follow shortly. Two more cocktail bases are planned: a house tonic made of lemongrass, quinine and lime and an aqua de flor made of hibiscus flower, vanilla bean and fresh ginger.

download Blauvelt, New York-based Duggan’s Distillers is bringing Scotland’s NB Gin to the U.S. market. Produced at the DB Distillery in North Berwick, the small-batch gin is made from British grain spirits and a blend of eight botanicals—juniper, coriander seed, angelica root, grains of paradise, lemon peel, cassia bark, cardamom and orris root—in a London dry style. NB Gin initially will debut in the New York on-premise market, retailing at $50-$56 a bottle.

download (1) Compass Box is set to debut a new upscale blended Scotch offering, This Is Not A Luxury Whisky, in the U.S. market in November. Bottled at natural cask strength of 53.1% abv, This Is Not A Luxury Whisky is launching in a limited rollout of just under 5,000 bottles, which depict its brand name scrawled in large letters. The new product includes 19-year-old whisky from Glen Ord, two separate parcels of 40-year-old grain from Girvan and Strathclyde and some 30-year-old malt whisky from Caol Ila.

download (2) Pernod Ricard is adding to The Glenlivet’s Nàdurra portfolio with a new cask-strength offering finished in peated casks. Launching in the U.S. this month, The Glenlivet Nàdurra Peated Whisky Cask Finish is bottled at 61.5% abv and retails at $89. The new whisky, which joins Oloroso and First Fill Selection variants in the Nàdurra line, is billed as having a subtle, smoky taste profile due to finishing in American oak casks that previously held heavily peated Scotch whisky.

download (3) William Grant & Sons is extending its larger Glenfiddich label with a 14-year-old expression.  Launching today, Glenfiddich’s 14-Year-Old Bourbon Barrel Reserve is aged in American oak ex-Bourbon casks and retails at $50 a 750-ml. The newcomer, which dovetails with a trend toward Bourbon-influenced Scotch whisky innovations, will be a core member of the Glenfiddich range.

download (4) Copper & Kings American Brandy Co. is launching a new offering, Butchertown American Brandy. Named for the Louisville neighborhood in which Copper & Kings is based, Butchertown is a copper pot-distilled brandy, matured in 75% Kentucky Bourbon barrels and 25% new American oak. It’s bottled at 124 proof and retails at $60 a 750-ml.

download (5) Boston-based Bully Boy Distillers is launching its first-ever limited edition bottled cocktail offering, The Old Fashioned. With Bully Boy’s American Straight Whiskey as its base, the recipe includes muddled raw sugar and Angostura bitters, and is suggested to be complemented with muddled orange and a Maraschino cherry for serving. The Bully Boy Old Fashioned (34.5% abv) will be available during the cold months at a suggested retail price of $34.99 in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire.

download (6) Brown-Forman has officially launched Jack Daniel’s Sinatra Century, honoring the legendary entertainer’s 100th birthday. Only 100 barrels of the 100-proof whiskey are being released, packaged in individually numbered 1-liter bottles that come enclosed in a luxury gift box along with a selection of previously unreleased Frank Sinatra tracks. The set retails at around $500. This is the second Sinatra commemorative offering from Jack Daniel’s, which introduced a 90-proof Sinatra Select whiskey in 2013.

All information courtesy of Shanken News Daily


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