It was the autumn of 2015. Brown leaves performed their crispy symphony under our feet. Grey skies informed us that winter was keenly awaiting his turn on the calendar. Meanwhile the wind was doing her part to bat the last bits of foliage off the trees. But there was spring in our hearts. LeAnne and I were freshly graduated Whiskey Sommeliers. Our heads were full of ideas, and our hearts full of hope. What would we do with our new degree? We quickly decided a whiskey blog would be a good place to start. What kind of content would we create? Mulling this question over we came to two conclusions; what we would focus on, and what we wouldn’t.
We choose to focus on the why’s and how’s of whiskey. What don’t we focus on? Writing whiskey reviews. Why? While we might write a review, it won’t be very often because there’s already a lot of great people handling that need. Great people like John and Zeke.
Who are John and Zeke?
John and Zeke are two friends who love bourbon and the people that surround it. Now that they each have a baby of their own, instead of going out, they go online. Equipped with passion for bourbon and a strong sense of community, they built dadsdrinkingbourbon.com, one of my favorite whiskey review websites.
On dadsdrinkingbourbon.com you’ll find realistic views of whiskey, an open invitation for guest contributors, and my favorite rating system to date. When I asked John about their rating system he said, “I think sometimes people get caught up in a number that is all subjective to the reviewer. Honestly, people just want to know if it's worth getting or not.”
So how does their rating system work? Like this:
Sip it: This means you should try this before you buy it or we think the bottle is overpriced so you should enjoy this by trading samples with a friend or sip it at a bar rather than buying a whole bottle.
Buy it: This one goes without saying. We think this one is good enough that you should buy a bottle. However, if we use “buy it” we are saying that it’s easy enough for you to go down to the liquor store to get it.
Hunt it: We think this one is good enough that you should buy it, but we realize that it won’t be easy to just walk into a store and ask the nice person where to find the allocated whiskey. This one may take some work.
I’d Take it: I mean we’re never going to say no to whiskey… We may not sip it, buy it, or hunt for it, but we’d take it if you gave it to us. I mean at the end of the day, all whiskey is whiskey! It’s just whether or not we think it’s good enough to spend money on. This all depends on pricing vs. taste. For example, Booker’s at $40-$50 would be a “buy it”, but Booker’s at $100 would be an “I’d Take it..."
The rest of their site contains the same personable, everyday style. Besides being some of the nicest people you could talk to, John and Zeke are real. They understand some key things like; everyone won’t always agree on a whiskey, and we want the most bang for our buck.
So for your whiskey edification, we’ll keep bringing you the why’s and how’s. For relatable honest whiskey reviews, check out dadsdrinkingbourbon.com and follow them on Instagram @dadsdrinkingbourbon.
You won’t regret it.
— Zac Smith