There’s a certain amount of auto-induced eye-rolling whenever a musician, actor or miscellaneous celebrity gets involved in the worlds of food and drink. “What on earth do they know about it?!” we bemoan, only mildly envious that, seemingly at the drop of a hat, they’re able to make a few million from a vineyard in the south of France.
Or indeed a whisky — or whiskey — distillery. It seems after Pitt, Minogue and Malone offered us a glut of rosé, whisky has become the next drink du jour to tap into.
Some of these have been around for a minute. David Beckham backed Haig Club for some time — although he’s no longer involved there — with Irish troubadours the Pogues launched their own eponymous Irish whiskey back in 2015. But there are some newer kids on the block.
This year Beyoncé announced a new partnership with Moët Hennessy for her inaugural drink, SirDavis, and while the project was announced back in 2022, Keifer Sutherland’s Red Bank only hit UK shelves earlier this year.
While the demand for all things celebrity-tagged clearly shows no signs of relenting, one question remains: are any of these any good?
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There’s a lot of story here: Beyoncé reportedly is a huge whiskey drinker (though her website uses the Scotch and Canadian spelling of whisky, oddly) and her paternal great-grandfather was a moonshine runner, who was said to have hidden bootleg whisky across the south. Moët Hennessy, long time partners of the Knowles-Carter family (see Armand de Brignac, Tiffany) produced a 51 per cent rye and 49 per cent malted barley spirit, becoming the first ever spirits brand developed in its entirety by Moët Hennessy in the U.S.A.
The drink? It’s best described as a delayed fuse of a spice bomb. There’s actually not much going on initially, and then spice arrives with an enormous wallop. It’s a sensation that shocks you awake with pepper, aniseed, cardamom and clove, and has all the subtlety of a town crier. This indiscreet womp of spice makes way for a largely alcoholic aftertaste, though the finish is mercifully short (just long enough, though, to make you wish you’d ordered something else). SirDavis is likely fine when diluted with something else, or mixed into a drink, but at £80 this can only be for drinkers who want to evoke a little Beyoncé magic in their own lives. Oh well; there’s a little horse on the bottle and that’s something, I suppose.
Points for: The beautiful bottle, even if it is a little nightclub-adjacent
Points against: What’s inside that beautiful bottle
Would we buy?: Not unless you really, really love Beyonce
Kiefer Sutherland’s Red Bank
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The last time Kiefer Sutherland was in the mainstream conversation was at the height of his TV show 24, in the mid-Noughties. In recent years, though? Who knows, but he’s certainly had plenty of time to make some whisky. Canadian whisky tends to be — how to put this delicately? — cheap. It’s a burger-and-fries kind of drink: affordable and gets the job done. Canada hasn’t had the inclination to produce fine spirits that have penetrated the wider consciousness of whisky drinkers in the same way Americans, Scotch and Irish have. Will Red Bank change the game?
In a word: no. Red Bank is light and pale and gives nothing away on the nose. It’s a mystery that isn’t exactly unpleasant to unveil but leaves you wanting quite a bit more: you might panic, as the Standard’s David Ellis did, that your nose is on the blink. Tastebuds, too: this really tastes of very little. The smooth finish is long and lingering, but aside from a few notes of vanilla and caramel, it’s flat and uninspiring. Unfortunately, it tastes — how to put this delicately? — cheap.
Points for: A wallet-friendly option to explore Canadian whisky. It makes for a good mixer, though.
Points against: A bland performance and a lingering cheap aftertaste.
Would we buy?: Not unless we had just 24 hours to save the President
Bob Dylan’s Heaven’s Door
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Adorned with silhouettes of Dylan’s own metalworks in Los Angeles, the bottle of Heaven’s Door evokes a sense of Americana that these brands often aspire to get across. It’s the oldest brand of the lot, with Heaven’s Door around since 2018, and certainly everything looks and feels quite mature.
It also, unlike the others, tastes rather good. Better than good, in fact: it’s delicious. Notes of oak and toasted grains and dark caramel — maybe this is the effect of sampling a few not quite so good drams beforehand, but blimey, that’s not half bad. It’s inviting, it’s complex, it’s got a good mouthfeel and body. The long finish doesn’t overwhelm with an ethanolic hit (despite being well overproof at 50 per cent ABV) this is immensely quaffable stuff.
Points for: A rich and smooth taste, with a mature and settled finish
Points against: You might find better value closer to home, or in a bottle without a star involved
Would we buy?: Yes, this is leagues ahead of its other celeb-back rivals