MONTHLY PICKS
spiritual Highlights
Old Fitzgerald 7 Year
Heaven Hill's legendary wheated bourbon, now in a version you can actually find on a shelf. The mashbill runs 68% corn, 20% wheat, 12% barley — wheat in place of rye for a rounder, softer, sweeter pour — with seven years in level 3 char new oak bringing caramel, honeyed wheat, vanilla, and baking spice. Bottled-in-bond means one distiller, one season, and a straight 100 proof, no exceptions. Gold medal at the 2025 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, in a bottle that nods to the brand's 1950s diamond decanters
Hurst Knoll
Pablo Moix built Rare Character on bold barrel-proof releases, then went back to his bartending roots to make this one: a 7-year Kentucky straight rye bottled at 101 proof and built specifically for cocktails. He tested proof point after proof point before landing on 101 — the floor of what held up in a drink — and stress-tested it against acid, Bénédictine, vermouth, Campari, even espresso liqueur. The result is a citrus-forward rye with tart lime up front, caramel sweetness underneath, clove and white pepper on the finish. Manhattan, Old Fashioned, Boulevardier — this is the bottle that makes them all better, and it's fine neat too
The Fiddler Toasted Rye
Atlanta's ASW takes fully mature rye — a minimum of six years in new charred oak — and gives it a second life in toasted barrels, bottled at cask strength, non-chill-filtered, no color added. Char levels, toast levels, and finishing time all vary batch to batch, so every release has its own personality — and ASW lists the specifics right on the label. Expect elegant citrus, layered spice, toasted vanilla bean, and gingerbread, with a charred-maple foundation holding it all together. Gold medalist at the 2024 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
VODKA
Kastra Elion
A family-owned Greek vodka distilled from hand-picked olives, blended with grain and mountain spring water — but it's not olive-flavored vodka, and that's the whole point. The olives don't add flavor so much as texture; they're what give the spirit its trademark mouthfeel and weight. Expect a clean nose with vanilla and butterscotch, then mild fruit, citrus, and a whisper of pepper that builds and lingers. Named for the ancient castle watching over the olive groves of Nafpaktos, it's built for sipping on the rocks — and it makes the most Greek Dirty Martini you'll ever pour.
Holiday Vodka
An Italian vodka made from exactly two things: 100% soft Piedmontese wheat and alpine spring water, distilled at the historic La Canellese distillery by Giancarlo Mancino. Small batches, filtered through charcoal, quartz, and silica — no additives, no sugar, nothing else. Fresh grain, white flowers, and a light mineral note on the nose; round and velvety on the palate with clean cereal, a touch of almond, and a hint of sweetness. It picked up 94 points from Wine Enthusiast, and the bottle is one of the prettiest things on the shelf. Martini fodder, plain and simple.
Haku Yuzu Vodka
The first flavored expression ever released from Suntory's Haku line — and the first extension to the brand since it landed stateside in 2018. It starts with the same base: polished Japanese white rice, triple-distilled, filtered through bamboo charcoal for that soft, creamy texture, then infused with natural Japanese yuzu peel — a citrus that lands somewhere between lemon, mandarin, and grapefruit. The flavoring is deliberately light: bright citrus on the nose, an almost effervescent lemon-lime quality neat, with tartness rather than sweetness holding center stage. Gold at the 2025 IWSC. Vodka soda, highball, or a yuzu martini — it does the work for you.
Agave
Akul Cirial Joven Mezca
Cirial is a member of the karwinskii family that grows only in a small, arid, low-rainfall pocket of Oaxaca and takes 10 to 12 years to reach maturity — Akul hand-harvests theirs from their own land under a replanting program built to keep specific agaves from being overharvested into extinction. The pinas roast two days, get tahona-milled, ferment four days in open Sabine wood vats with mountain water, and are twice-distilled in copper alembics. Karwinskii's thick woody stalks go into the cook and the ferment, which is where the herbal, spiced, citrus edge and light tannin come from — expect real acidity, cilantro seed, and hints of pineapple and orange.
Tequila Ocho Barrel Strength
Ocho is the brand that proved tequila can express terroir the way great wine does — every release comes from a single estate and a single harvest year, so you're tasting a specific field in a specific season. Once a year, the team in Mexico tastes through the añejo stock and pulls only the most exceptional barrels; those are bottled undiluted, one of a kind. Twelve months in a barrel that held American whiskey once and tequila several times since means the oak stays light — this is agave-forward even at high proof, with cacao spice, butterscotch, and a long creamy finish. Additive-free, single barrel, cask strength. Not a mixing bottle.
Paladar Reposado
From one of the last independent founding families of tequila: 7-year Blue Weber agave off their own fields, slow-cooked in brick ovens, open-air fermented in pine boxes with wild and proprietary yeast, then twice distilled in a copper-and-steel pot blend. Four months in ex-bourbon barrels keeps it in the sweet spot — rested enough for softness, not so long the wood buries the agave. Salty cooked agave and light wood with a thick, round mouthfeel and a medium-long finish. Every bottle is hand-dipped in volcanic soil from the agave fields, which makes it one of the most striking things on the shelf.
RUM
Probitas Blended Rum
The dark answer to the white rum that redefined the category — same Foursquare–Hampden collaboration, but with more aged stock in the blend, a higher proof (57% vs. 47%), and a funkier, higher-ester Hampden marque. Color comes from caramel made by heating sugar in-house at Foursquare, a centuries-old West African practice that adds zero sweetness — no additives, no chill filtration, nothing hidden. Rich fig, fresh caramel, brown butter, and vanilla, with pineapple, orange peel, coconut, and overripe banana. Built for Jet Pilots, Jungle Birds, and Mai Tais — and it holds up neat.
Planteray Mister Fogg No.2
The product of five years of research by rum historian Matt Pietrek and Planteray's Alexandre Gabriel into 300 years of Royal Navy and London Dock rum. Sail No. 2 blends stocks from five countries — Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana, Jamaica, and Mauritius — all matured in ex-bourbon barrels in their home countries before shipping to Cognac Ferrand in France, where it finishes in used oak and large open wooden vats near the river, replicating the humid conditions of the old naval dockyards. Dried fruit, orange peel, and dark chocolate on the nose; smoked molasses, caramel, and vanilla on the palate, at 55.7% ABV — traditional navy proof. Neat, over a big rock, or in a Navy Old Fashioned.
Pompero Anniversario
Created in 1963 to mark 25 years of Pampero, and still one of Venezuela's great calling cards. A blend of 4–6 year old column-distilled Venezuelan rums, triple distilled and matured in a mix of whiskey and sherry casks. Deep mahogany in the glass, with toasted caramel, raisin, dark chocolate, vanilla, and a whisper of leather on the nose; the palate is silky and full, running through cocoa, toffee, pipe tobacco, coffee, and nutmeg. And yes — it comes in the leather pouch, which makes it one of the easiest gift bottles we sell. Sip it neat or over one big cube.
GIN
Marin Costal Gin
From Sausalito Liquor Co., a gin built around the collision of Marin's green hills and the cold ocean below — 11 botanicals including California orange and lemon peel, nori foraged off Bodega Bay, angelica seeds from Santa Rosa, and two different junipers. It's savory and salty on the nose, with black and white pepper, sage, and rosemary over a real earthiness, then brighter on the palate with clear juniper and citrus before a bitter lift of lime leaf and grapefruit peel on the finish. Gold medal at the 2023 L.A. Spirits Awards. A thinking-person's gin — and a knockout martini if you want one that tastes like the coast.
Song Cai
The first gin ever made in Vietnam, distilled in Hanoi by Daniel Nguyen, who spent years studying the biodiversity and ethnobotany of rural Vietnam before partnering with growers and foragers — today over 70 families across the northern highlands. Fourteen endemic hand-foraged Southeast Asian botanicals go in: green turmeric, jungle pepper, black cardamom, heirloom pomelo, and more, balanced according to the Vietnamese culinary philosophy of "hot" and "cold" energies and distilled in small hand-fed, direct-flame copper stills. Nothing else on the gin shelf tastes like this.
Leopolds Summer Gin
Todd Leopold distills every botanical separately, in its own batch, before blending — a slower method that lets each ingredient express itself fully instead of getting bullied in the still. The summer recipe is short and deliberate: juniper, Spanish blood orange, Australian lemon myrtle, and French immortelle flower, that last one bringing stone fruit, citrus, and dried tobacco. Lemon, blueberry, white tea, and orange peel on the nose, then a lush citrus-floral palate of lemongrass, candied orange, white peach, and lemon balm. Blended in small batches and released every summer — good enough to drink over a single cube, but it'll carry any cocktail you throw at it.