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The Bourbon Fox & Hound

Blends & Whiskey

Beyond the bourbon lane.

Straight bourbon and straight rye are the home address. Everything else lives here. Blended whiskeys. American single malt. Finished whiskeys. Scotch, Irish, Japanese, Canadian. Light whiskey when it shows up. World whisky when it surprises us. The Hound does not pretend to be a Scotch authority. The Hound listens, takes the pour, writes down what is true.

Still learning — and that is the point

Why this exists

Honest drinkers do not stay in one aisle.

The journal started as a bourbon journal. It still is. But a journal that pretends the rest of the whiskey world does not exist is a journal lying by omission. The Hound has been handed a Mizunara-finished bourbon by a friend with better taste and written it up. The Hound suspects there are American single malts that hold their own against bourbon costing twice as much, and proper blends — not bottom-shelf well pours — that outperform their straight cousins. The Hound has not poured enough of either to make that claim a finding yet. The entries will be honest about which is which.

Pretending otherwise would be dishonest. So this section exists.

The standard is the same as the bourbon coverage. The Hound is still learning. Every claim has to be true. If the Hound has not poured it, the entry says so. If the category is one the Hound is new to — and several of these are — the entry says that, too.

What this covers

The categories the Hound tracks here.

Blended American Whiskey

1 entry on the ledger

Proper blends, not the bottom shelf. Sourced blenders like Barrell, High West, Found North, Lost Lantern. Component-driven work. Where the blender is the artist and the casks are the palette.

See entries on the ledger →

Finished Whiskey

2 entries on the ledger

Bourbon or rye that finishes in a second barrel — Mizunara, port, sherry, cognac, rum, sauternes, maple. When done with restraint, finishing adds. When done loudly, it covers. The Hound tries to tell the difference.

See entries on the ledger →

Canadian Whisky

2 entries on the ledger

A category often dismissed by American drinkers. The good Canadian work — Lot 40, Pike Creek, Forty Creek, Crown Royal limited editions — deserves the same patient nose as anything else.

See entries on the ledger →

What this is not

A pivot away from bourbon.

Bourbon is still the lane. The Barrel Ledger, the Drops & Intel feed, the Lodge dispatches — all bourbon-first. This section is the wider notebook. The bottles a serious drinker eventually reaches for. The categories worth knowing before someone hands you a glass at a dinner and you have to know what to say.

The Hound's promise stays the same. No paid placements. No claims without a source. No tasting note written from a bottle the Hound did not pour. When the Hound is out of depth — and on Scotch, Irish, Japanese, and world whisky the Hound often is — the entry says so before it says anything else.

Every claim on this page is something the Hound believes is true. If you spot one that is not — write. intel@bourbonfoxhound.com.