Bowing to the brands: a not-very-professional review of Tincup Whiskey

Disclaimer: This was not a paid advertisement. I paid for a whole bottle of this myself while out and about. I even took a photo of the receipt as proof.

Okay, so I’m sure you’re already wondering what the hell a hockey news blogsite is doing reviewing Whiskey at all instead of say...pairing hockey players to a kind of alcohol like a good christian website might do at the end of a tortuously long bye week.

Some context is necessary for this.

In NESN’s line of commercials they run throughout the season, one spirits company has made it a point to push their product harder than any of the more local, established brands in the area. More than Astraluna, Bully Boy, Damnation Alley, even more than local staples like Downeast or Sam Adams that probably don’t need much introduction to it’s target audience of “hey. drink your alcohol local, stupid.” is one Tincup Whiskey from...well...Tincup Whiskey. It’s inescapable. Almost every commercial brake has the same group of twenty-to-thirty-somethings climbing a mountain to only enjoy the real rocky mountain high of getting loaded off of your gourd on whiskey.

I personally prefer to get my intoxication at sea level where it’s more of a challenge on my less-than-fit body that prefers larger meals, but who am I, the guy who looks like Silent Bob’s ugly cousin, to judge people’s hiking-and-drinking habits?

D’you think those same group of guys go up and down the same mountain every day just to not talk and drink?

So, due to the near constant droning from well-built advocation from the advertising agency that sent a bunch of models up on a hiking trip with naught but everything they could possibly need plus a bottle of whiskey, I’ve decided to do something almost everybody else in the whiskey-drinking world has done and come up with a review of it so that, if nothing else, you finally know whether or not you should plonk down the money for it. You see enough of it to get sick of the concept anyway while watching Bruins games.

The Product Hype:

One would wonder why a product bottled in Colorado wouldn’t be inundating Altitude Sports broadcasts with it’s he-man-manifest-destiny-”real men do x”-esque commercials, but I guess maybe folks out in Denver might not be as receptive to the idea. Or maybe they’re all already in militias and don’t want to cross the streams.

The most obvious bit of hype? The included shot glass packaged with the bottle made from tin. A cup of tin, if you will. If nothing else, get enough of these and develop a taste and you could really work out some slick replacements for your post-college life!

The Product’s Packaging:

It certainly exists.

By which I mean, it’s a bottle of alcohol with a label on the almost top.

The advertising and the bottle seems to suggest that the whiskey was made in the fires of some Rocky Mountain distillery, but every other review on-market points out that Tincup is happily outsourcing their goods from the grand Lawrenceburg, IN factory that seems to make all micro-distiller product these days. That sounds like a harsh critique of them selling out but...I regret to inform you, that is in fact how the game is these days. They straight up tell you on the back of the bottle. Most craft whiskey is outsourced, so maybe it’s probably better to just think about that nondescript herd of beardy white guys hiking up a nondescript mountain somewhere rather than a bunch of fat factory workers complaining about how Jim Irsay needs to go while hauling generic brand whiskey and bourbon into a truck.

I for one, do not care where my whiskey was made, only that it does not blind me upon drinking it and it doesn’t taste like paint varnish. Underneath the cup that’s lashed to the bottle is a pull-cork with a logo on it in case you forgot what you were drinking, which I dig. So props there!

That said, let’s drink this four ways from Sunday.

The Product itself:

• Shot

It’s...Just Bourbon. Not even Bourbon with much of a bite, either. Smooth and keeps all the flavor. For all the talk and advertising I was...I dunno.

Maybe I expected more resistance from something that prides itself on the tin cup.

• Cut with “Rocky Mountain Water”

It really stresses I do that, on nearly every other surface and on the website, but I don’t know where I’m even gonna get that at this hour. Maybe I can jus-

...Yeah, to hell with that. I’ll save myself the gas and just use a little tap water.

And I stress a little because in spite of having a 42% content, it’s so smooth it almost made me think I’d diluted it entirely on the first go. I had also used the tin cup for this experiment so I was not thinking very clearly about ratios. I’m not

So yeah. Still just a smooth, general bourbon-y bourbon drink, but now diluted even further. Not recommended.

• Mixed with Cola

Not gonna lie, this is probably how you’re gonna wanna do this if you ever get it. It barely announces itself in a mixed drink by way of sheer bite so if you ever wanted to make a cocktail with bourbon and were afraid of mucking it up, this is the one for you.

• From the Bott-

Call your sponsor, Lionel.

The Price Point:

Where I got it? $30. And that includes the cup. Which as far as I’m concerned? Ended up being pretty solid for what you’re getting.

The Verdict:

Of all the whiskey I have imbibed, from the Glenmoril Inn’s finest to the terrible, plastic bottle stuff you get when you’re too young and in college to know better...There has never been a more “fine” beverage. And not like fine as in “quality, should be worth more, nectar of the gods” sense. It’s just...y’know...fine.

For the near-omnipresence of their advertising, the reality is that it’s merely an okay, kinda sweet brown alcohol that pairs well with soda. It’s a pretty entry-level hard liquor that isn’t gonna satisfy anybody other than bourbon enthusiasts, and has been largely inflated in scope thanks to their gimmick. I’d recommend it on price and the souvenir alone.

The cup’s still pretty nice, though! Definitely keeping that.

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Join us next year when some other commercial NESN plays near constantly and drive people mad and I end up getting a DCU card or an F-150 or something.