What’s happening in wine and whiskey this week:

This Week’s Unicorn Review Stories

🥃 Gina Pace picked some of the best aged tequilas for whiskey drinkers, from single estate expressions to anejos aged in wine barrels to a reposado matured in Japanese mizunara oak.

🍷 Alissa Bica Raines took a deep dive into the world of New Zealand’s Central Otago region, exploring its world-renowned Pinot Noir and highlighting a range of white wines that are worth collecting.

New Bottle Releases

TX Whiskey Texas Straight Rye Whiskey Full Proof ($40)

This is the 16th edition of TX Whiskey’s Experimental Series, which highlights the Fort Worth distillery’s use of different mashbills and maturation techniques. This rye whiskey was aged for seven years and bottled at 120 proof, an attempt to showcase how the specific climate in Texas affects a whiskey’s flavor. Look for notes of toasted oak, cinnamon, molasses and caramel, along with a healthy dose of spice.

Jack Daniel’s Halo MK1 Tennessee Whiskey ($600)

Jack Daniel’s partnered with the Formula 1 McLaren Racing team back in 2022, and has released special edition bottles every year since. Those have basically been the same whiskey as you’d find in a bottle of Old No. 7 with different label designs, although sometimes the proof has been bumped up. But the latest release is something totally different—Halo MK1 is a $600 bottle of whiskey aged in barrels made from staves that were seasoned for much longer than usual, and the liquid was bottled at an impressive 117.4 proof. Look for notes of caramel, chocolate, pipe tobacco, and baking spice.

Unicorn Whiskey Pick of the Week

Glenmorangie Harrison Ford Limited Edition ($100)

There are a lot of celeb-backed booze brands out there, and most of them fall into the tequila category. From George Clooney’s Casamigos to Kendall Jenner’s 818 to The Rock’s Teremana, there’s a face and persona for everyone looking for an agave spirit. The whiskey world doesn’t have quite as many examples, but there are a few of note. Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley’s Brother’s Bond is one of the best, and it’s a brand that the two actors seem to be quite actively involved in. More recently, Willem Dafoe partnered with smoky scotch distillery Laphroaig. Concurrently, Harrison Ford embarked upon an ad campaign with Highland distillery Glenmorangie called “Once Upon a Time in Scotland,” and the corresponding whisky has finally arrived. It’s aptly called Glenmorangie Harrison Ford Limited Edition, and it’s a classic example of a single malt that you might expect from this distillery, with or without Ford’s name attached to it.

Of course, the official line is that Ford “co-created” the whisky, and there might be some truth to that, but it’s always good to take it with a grain of salt. The reality is more likely that director of whisky creation Dr. Bill Lumsden MBE and his team did most of the heavy lifting. He’s often called the mad scientist or Willy Wonka of whisky, but we are not going to do that here because it’s a total cliche. What we will say is that he’s been responsible for some very unique and innovative whiskies from both Glenmorangie and its sister distillery Ardbeg over the years.

This new whisky might not fit that bill as far as going to the extremes of barley varietal or maturation experimentation, but it’s still a very nice version of Glenmorangie’s house style that has been given a cask finish. In other words, this is a non-age statement single malt that was initially aged in bourbon barrels and then given a secondary maturation in toasted Portuguese red wine casks. It’s bright and zesty with notes of honey, maple, cherry, vanilla, spiced apple, orange marmalade, and dark chocolate on the palate, with a bit of heat slowly lingering beyond your final sip.

Like Laphroaig’s collab with Willem Dafoe, Glenmorangie Harrison Ford Limited Edition stays true to the distillery’s core character, but just gives it a little boost, a bit of a spin, a wee twist. This single malt is not the most interesting whisky Glenmorangie has ever released, but it’s a very satisfying sipper that fans of the distillery’s honeyed, citrusy, vanilla-infused character will certainly enjoy.