I first tried Belgian Owl whisky, a single malt from, you guessed it, Belgium, in 2012. It was in a restaurant in San Francisco. The US Open golf was on at the Olympic Club, and I was with the marketing team from Rolex who had suggested that particular spot...

At first draw of the Bolivar Belicosos Finos, you find yourself walking through a park in the fall, kicking the neatly piled stacks of leaves on your way. Just under is a hint of floral sweetness that says sunflowers and the honey that bees produce from their pollen. When...

This Gurkha, unlike a number of others I’ve had, begins with a sweet note that on the cold draw, first stirs up the memory of wet mud. No, that’s not a bad thing. It’s just a rather unique taste that can’t be described as anything else. And yes, whether...

No, you’re not going to get a whiff of cordite from this delightful Irish gin. The name comes from the Gunpowder tea with which it’s infused. What you will get on the initial nose is a lovely light floral note, followed by sweet and sour citrus notes. Think of...

The cigar begins with a bitter note, but not one that’s unpleasant. More like taking a bite out of really bitter chocolate, one with 90 percent cocoa. That slight bitterness continues at the end of the draw down to the first one third of the cigar, accompanied by the...

Sundays used to be simple. Afternoons called for a beer. Or if adventure beckoned, a Bloody Mary. One Los Angeles bar I frequented in my youth made their Bloody Marys with beer. Which might explain why it no longer exists. But those were the choices a man needed to...

To add to the single malt whiskies from India we already have, a new label, Kamet Single Malt, joins their ranks on bar shelves. Peak Spirits, which introduced their gin to world markets earlier, has tied up with Picadilly Distillery to produce a whisky named after the third highest...

It has nothing to do with envy. Nor has it to do with size. It’s not that it’s cool. Or sexual. There is nothing about a long brown object in their mouths that most men find erotic. It’s about a smoke. That’s all there is to it. It’s about...

It’s hard not to think of sauternes cask finishes as anything but an after dinner drink, sipped in a pairing with dessert. Arran’s offering, perhaps because it’s bottled at 50 percent, brings a bit more of a kick to the table than you’d expect. Nose: An immediate hit of...

There are a number of reasons to like Dubai. Most of them centred around a shopping mall. But since it’s one of the few cities in the world where a man can sit in a bar with a glass in one hand and a cigar in the other, it...