Into to Liquor: Celtic Crossing

Celtic Crossing is an interesting liqueur, made by Castle Brands, a distillery specialising in high quality spirits. Known for making Boru Vodka, Celtic Crossing is another excellent piece of their portfolio.

Celtic Crossing is a combination of Irish Whiskey, Cognac, and honey. It's every bit as smooth as the ingredients suggest. Despite being 30% alcohol by volume, the alcohol is barely noticeable. This makes it an excellent secondary spirit mixer for high alcohol content drinks. It also makes the drink enjoyable on its own, served neat, or on the rocks.

Speaking of on the rocks, distilleries that decide to add a cocktail booklet to the bottles of their spirits need to hire some bartenders to come up with a decently interesting drink. Not every company does this, my bottle of LeBlon Cachaca came with a dizzying array of drinks that you could make with it, but a lot seem to just mail it in on these things. The worst I've seen lately was on a bottle of Jose Cuervo Black Medallion Tequila. The booklet came with two recipes, Cuervo Black and Cola, and Cuervo Black on the rocks. On the rocks is not an independent cocktail! It's a method of serving the drink. Adding ice does not make you a bartender.

Castle Brands does this right. There's a decent booklet attached to the bottle, but the real tool is their recipes list on their website. There you can peruse their extensive list of cocktails, and search based on spirit used, glass served in, color, or even by holiday it celebrates. Good job.