Best Buys $10 And Under

93 points James Suckling
This has a lovely nose of cedar, grapefruit, lemon rind, apricot stones and tarragon. Salted butter. It's medium- to full-bodied, deliciously saline and creamy, with a long and elegant finish.

"The nose is sweet, almost violet-like, with underlying malt. Big and bold on the palate, this is an upfront yet very drinkable whisky. The finish is medium to long, warming, spicy, with slowly fading notes of sherry and fudge." Gavin D Smith, Malt Whisky Yearbook, 40% abv - Rich Fruit and Spice -

Speyburn 10 years old single malt is matured in a combination of American Oak ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks. Gold medal winner at the 2006 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, the Speyburn 10 is an easy drinking crowd-pleaser. Color: pale gold with amber highlights. Nose: fresh, clean with a hint of lemon. Taste: medium bodied with hints of toffee & butterscotch and a long, sweet finish. 43%abv - Malt and Honey -

"Okay, how many of you have walked past this one thinking the price is just too crazily low for the liquid to be any good? How many have started your whisky life with this and then set it aside? Time to rethink. Speyburn, one of the forgotten distilleries of Rothes, is a charmer. Sweet and fragrant with notes of blossom and a little red fruit on the nose, the palate shows ginger, cream, and rhubarb. (Value Pick)" Whisky Advocate.

Produced in our very own Brooklyn, New York, Barrow's Intense Ginger Liqueur takes its name from Manhattan's Barrow Street, the place where founder Josh Morton invented and perfected his recipe. Each batch of Barrow's Intense is created with a generous amount of fresh ginger, resulting in a bold, highly aromatic liqueur bursting with the distinctive flavor of spicy ginger. Although excellent neat or over ice, its balanced sweetness and concentrated, natural flavor adds the perfect amount of intensity to a variety of cocktails. Certified Kosher.

Teremana is a premium 100% Blue Weber Agave tequila grown in the Highlands of Jalisco, Mexico. Roasted in brick ovens, distilled in copper pot and aged in American whiskey barrels. The reposado is smooth and rich with notes of oak and vanilla. Gluten free. 40%abv

A truly remarkable English sparkling wine from a stellar vintage in the UK. A mouthwatering blend of 60% Chardonnay and 40% Pinot Noir, this has distinct minerality, exceptional fruit ripeness, floral lift, and a compelling textural complexity that comes from fermentation in large old 500l Burgundian barrels. 6 grams dosage.

Organic / Biodynamic

92 points Wine Enthusiast
Sourced from biodynamically grown grapes, this single-vineyard Chablis highlights penetrating white-peach and grapefruit flavors accented by wisps of smoke and incense. While concentrated and voluminous in mouthfeel, it's cut by steely edges of acidity and a zesty lime-pith finish. The wine drinks well young and should maintain peak through 2027.

96 points John Gilman View From The Cellar
The 2022 vintage of Daniel Bouland’s Morgon (Delys 1926) is a brilliant young Cru Beaujolais. The wine comes in at an even fourteen percent in this vintage and offers up truly stunning depth of fruit on both the nose and palate, as these ancient vines have dug deep into the subterranean water sources to keep maturity progressing flawlessly in this dry growing season. The wine wafts from the glass in a complex and sappy blend of sweet dark berries, black cherries, pomegranate, grilled pigeon, dark soil tones, espresso woodsmoke and a topnote of violets. On the palate the wine is pure, sappy and full-bodied, with a bottomless core of old vine fruit, fine-grained, buried tannins, great focus and grip and a long, seamlessly balanced and very complex finish. This is one of the greatest young bottles of Morgon I have ever had the pleasure to taste and it would be insane not to allow it at least some time in the cellar to unlock its secondary and tertiary layers of complexity.

Organic

Another great, great Lauer Kupp Kabi; soaring citrus and stone fruit, a muscular ten grams of acidity slicing open the wine to reveal a super-polished mineral core, salty like an ocean breeze. This is the Saar at its best. 7.5% abv

95pts Wine Enthusiast:
A versatile must-have for mixing cocktails, look for pleasing vanilla, maple and a hint of dried cherry. The finish is long and drying, with plenty of baking spice notes

93pts Ultimate Beverage Challenge:
Ripe apricot, orange marmalade and toasted oats open up for a delightful bouquet. Rich, slightly honeyed, with a touch of grainy sweetness balanced by toasted earth and ripe apricot. Toasted finish which lingers nicely on the palate..April/2014

Golden-bright and richly fragrant, this hazelnut liqueur has a sweet, pleasingly nutty flavor, finishing long. The moderate weight coats the palate without becoming cloying.

Japan- This clear gold spirit features aromas of basil, green apple, and honey. On the palate it highlights grapefruit, more green apples, peppermint, and thyme. Finishes subtly sweet and spicy with a hint of vanilla oak, white pepper, and ginger. Smooth and versatile overall.

The "47" in Monkey's name refers to the whopping 47 botanicals sourced from Germany's black forest that are used in formulating this ultra premium gin. It may be the most expressive and complex gin on the market. Look for aromas and flavors of blackberry, clove, ginger, cranberry and elderflower, with pine and wood notes on the finish. 47abv. Gold Medal - World Spirits Award;
"The greatest gin I have ever tasted" - Robert Parker

"Firm, fresh and complex, with an array of glazed apricot, ginger, maple and cream flavors. Features notes of truffle and mineral on the crisp finish. Drink now. 200 cases imported." Wine Spectator

93 points Wine Advocate
Packaged with its distinctive black label, the Mastroberardino 2018 Taurasi Radici offers impressive complexity with a long succession of aromas that includes dried blackberry, cherry liqueur, tarry smoke, campfire ash, sweet baking spice and cinnamon. The bouquet is also heavy on bramble, rosemary sprig and forest floor. It is all smoothed out by soft tobacco. This wine shows robust fruit weight and equally balanced oak spice. The tannins are well managed and Radici is long in persistency.

Organic / Natural

95 points Wine Advocate
The old-vine white 2021 Vinhas Velhas Branco was produced with the fruit from some 15 small plots of old vines aged between 60 and 130 years of age and planted with a myriad of old varieties (Síria, Bical, Fernão Pires, Encruzado, Arinto, Cerceal and Malvasia Fina) on slopes with granite soils. It's inspired by the natural vinification of some Burgundy wines. It fermented with indigenous yeasts and matured in 500-liter barrels for 12 months and a further 10 months in stainless steel. It has moderate ripeness and alcohol (12%) with a pH of 3.33 and 5.29 grams of acidity. It has an incredible nose that is nuanced, complex, elegant and changing, with notes of herbs, wild flowers and earth. It has a very tasty and saline palate that is subtle with great purity of flavors, clean and precise. It reminds me of some whites from Ganevat. 7,900 bottles produced. As always, it was bottled with full malolactic, unfiltered and unfined. It was bottled in April 2023.

94 points Wine Advocate
Even the 2022 La Vizcaína La Vitoriana shows the effect of the warm and dry year with a darker color and higher ripeness and alcohol. It has notes of dark cherries and plums. It's under 13% alcohol, but the sensation of the wine is of higher ripeness. It has a juicy and velvety palate with fine tannins. 10.000 bottles produced

Color: shades of gold to light amber. Taste: bold rye spiciness with undertones of vanilla and oak. Aroma: expansive notes of herbs and rye with nuances of oak. Finish: warm and smooth with spice throughout. 50%abv.

Four Pillars Rare Dry Gin is a rare specimen indeed. It is distilled with whole oranges. Further, Four Pillars Rare Dry Gin establishes itself as quintessentially Australian with its use of some local ingredients. Tasmanian Pepperberry (also appears in Botanic Australis and Never Never's Southern Strength) adds a warmth and spice. Again, lemon myrtle makes an appearance as a stand in for traditional lemon. The rest of the botanicals includes several contemporary style gin standbys, like cardamom and lavender. All are distilled on a base of local grain spirit and diluted with local Yarra Valley water. - The Gin is In

43.8%abv

France - At palate entry the intensely bitter taste of anise both enlivens and cleanses the palate; at midpalate the zest of rooty/woodsy botanicals make for memorable imbibing. Finishes elegant and smooth.

Notes of caramel, toffee, vanilla, walnuts, cinammon and other spices, as well as a mouth filling sensation on your first sip, tell you that this is Rye Whiskey kicked up a notch. Produced from local ingredients in Bethel NY.

With flavors of dried figs, apricots and crushed hazlenuts, this tawny port -- a blend of mostly old vintages with a few more recent annums blended in to liven things up a bit -- manages to purport richness on the palate, but with a fresh, fine finish that feels deliciously bright instead of weighty. We love this with a post-meal plate of salty, nutty cheeses and nuts, or served slightly chilled for a pre-dinner appetite rev. -- PJ

What: Pedro Ximenez

Where: Sherry, Spain

Why: Because for the money this is one of the most intense PX?????s we?????ve ever tasted. Why? Lets start with honeyed raisins, oranges and almonds. Then there?????s chocolate and coffee and figs. But that?????s just the sugar talking. After those candied notes hit you they give way to salt, herbs, coffee grounds, tar and licorice. The flavor show does not stop... ever.

93+ points Wine Advocate
The 2013 Viña Bosconia Reserva even in a cooler and rainier year, like 2013, has a rounder body and still 13.5% alcohol. They also insisted that "remember that we can use 15% of wine from another vintage, and perhaps we topped this one up with wine from 2015. We want consistency year after year." This matured in barrels for five years and was bottled unfiltered but fined with egg whites. It's expressive, elegant and subtle, clean and complex, with polished tannins and very good acidity (pH 3.3 and 6.7 grams of tartaric acid per liter of wine).