Month: January 2022

Look, we get it. That suspiciously stuffy nose is giving you anxiety. Have you really lost your sense of smell? Maybe it’s just congestion? You start kicking yourself. Was the grocery store trip to get Haagen Dazs really worth it?

To ease the worry, you do the next responsible thing: you get tested. Hooray! It’s negative! Your instinct to announce the good news to the world is both urgent and insistent.

However, that negative test result you post to social media might have some less-than-positive outcomes.

A warning has been issued that negative test results posted online are being used to supply fake COVID-19 passes. And doctoring them is quite easy.

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One man reported to a local British newspaper (the Lancashire Telegraph) that he was given a negative test by a friend, and then it was only a matter of changing the name and birthdate before that COVID-19 test passed as his own. Even the date can be edited to better reflect the required time limit.

“People are doing this as you can’t get a Covid test if you have to travel to Pakistan in case of an emergency. It is difficult to get one unless you are a key worker,” he told the Telegraph.

For some, this is an attempt to avoid the exorbitant prices being charged for legitimate tests through private clinics.

Shabaz Ilyas, who paid to have an authentic PCR test, told the Telegraph:

“This is in addition to the extortionate prices the airlines are already charging…As usual, a mini industry has been created to exploit people. This is just another example of discriminating against the poor, who are already facing financial problems.”

These counterfeit tests have become the new fake IDs — sold for somewhere around £50 (about $68) in the U.K. — and can be used to enter venues and, as mentioned, travel. Which, of course, defeats the purpose of getting tested in the first place and risks the safety of those in close proximity to the person using the black market results.

Shahzad Ali, CEO of security training platform Get Licensed, marked the use of fake COVID-19 passes as “inevitable” according to Wales Online, saying that “there is obviously going to be a market…because there will be people who want to go about their life like normal and not have to take Covid tests for things they didn’t have to before.”

And it’s not like similar situations haven’t been happening already. Stories of fake vaccination cards made from social media posts have been making headlines since early 2021. Though it’s a disappointing aspect of humanity, this is certainly nothing new.

“Whilst grossly unethical and potentially very dangerous, it is also illegal to use/supply/distribute fake Covid passes and could see you rack up a fine of £10,000 should you be caught,” he added.

In order to avoid this “new complication,” Ali’s advice is, of course, to avoid posting on social media. Not as cathartic, perhaps. But infinitely safer.

Forbes also shared that another travel solution in the near future might be using an app called CommonPass, which gives users a secure digital health pass, including a private COVID-19 test status.

Forbes writes:

“After downloading the app, a traveler can get a Covid-19 test at a participating lab and pull the results right into the app. The traveler can also complete any additional screening questionnaires required by the destination country. Finally, CommonPass confirms that the traveler is compliant with all entry requirements and generates a QR code which can be scanned by airline staff and border officials.”

As always, social media can be a force for good and for ill. As this pandemic continues, so too does the motto, “stay safe.” That includes online.

“Trending” bourbon whiskey probably doesn’t mean much to the average consumer. To us, it’s an insight into what’s headed our way — or exciting people — in whiskey as 2022 comes into focus. To help us figure out what the new year brings, we turned to the brand new Drinks International Annual Brand Report.

While that name sounds super inside baseball, bear with us. Drinks International is really about what you’re drinking, according to people who own and manage the world’s best bars. The yearly brand report asks the owners, managers, and head bartenders from the World’s 50 Best Bars to list the three brands they’re both selling the most of and also see trending according to what their consumers are ordering more often.

Or, as Drinks International puts it, “the Trending lists offer an indication of the brands that are hot right now.” Easy enough, right?

To that end, we’re listing the top ten trending American whiskey brands of 2022 — we’ll get to the best selling stuff next. All of them are bourbons. So we decided to reach into our archives and call out our favorite bottles from each brand to help you find the whiskey that drinkers like you are apparently ordering with more common frequency at the bars right now.

Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of 2021

• The 50 Best Bourbon Whiskeys Of 2021, Ranked
• The Single Best Bottle Of Whiskey From Each Of The 50 States
• The Best Bottles Of Bourbon Whiskey For Under $20, Ranked
• Our Favorite Bourbon Whiskey From Every Price Point Between $10-$200
• All 19 Brands From The Buffalo Trace Distillery, Ranked

10. Jim Beam — Jim Beam Bonded

ABV: 50%

Average Price: $23

The Whiskey:

While this doesn’t come from only one percent of Jim Beam barrels or go through a special secondary aging cycle, this bourbon is Jim Beam’s high watermark when it comes to Kentucky bourbon. The juice is aged in a bottled-in-bond facility for four years where it’s also bottled at 100 proof with no bullshit.

This is the standard Beam bourbon mash bill but there’s just something extra happening that makes this expression shine.

Tasting Notes:

This bourbon beckons you in with notes of toasted oak, red cherry, and vanilla. That leads to fresh honey, sweet caramel corn, rich toffee, bold vanilla, crisp apple, more of that red cherry, peppery spice, and a note of fresh mint. With a little water, the dram edges towards bitter dark chocolate with a nice billow of pipe tobacco while holding onto the mint, toffee, and vanilla oakiness. The end is long, meandering, and full of warmth, fruit, spice, and bourbon goodness.

Bottom Line:

Jim Beam is a classic for a reason. It delivers every single time and is amazingly well priced. What could be “hotter” than that?

9. Heaven Hill — Heaven Hill Bottled-in-Bond 7-Year

ABV: 50%

Average Price: $60

The Whiskey:

Heaven Hill makes a lot of whiskeys. This expression has been a touchstone bottled-in-bond since 1939 and remains a go-to for many bourbon lovers. The juice is very low rye (only ten percent) mash bill that’s left to age for an extra three years.

Tasting Notes:

The nose on this is like a vanilla ice cream scoop that’s been drizzled with salted caramel and then dipped in dried honeysuckle petals inside an old leather pouch. That caramel and dried floral honey feel drive the taste towards a somewhat dry graham cracker maltiness with a touch more of that leather and a whisper of toffee tobacco. The end leans into an eggnog spice mix with more of that sweet and buttery tobacco and a final note of sweet cherry and old cellar beams.

Bottom Line:

Heaven Hill’s brands are vast and varied. It feels like the distiller of bigger names like Larceny, Elijah Craig, and Rittenhouse is starting to get plenty of love for their own brand-name whiskey from whiskey drinkers. It’s easy to understand why with an outstanding bottle like this bottled-in-bond.

8. Jack Daniel’s — Jack Daniel’s Sinatra Select

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $172 (1-liter bottle)

The Whiskey:

Frank Sinatra was one of Jack’s biggest fans. So much so that the crooner was buried with a bottle. The actual juice in this expression is a throwback to how Jack was made in Sinatra’s day. They use special “Sinatra Barrels” that have concentric grooves carved into the newly charred oak, giving the whiskey more surface area to do its thing. Once the juice is aged, it’s blended with traditional Old No. 7 and proofed at 45 percent, as it also would have been back in Sinatra’s heydays.

Tasting Notes:

Peach cobbler, apple pie with a buttery crust and caramel drizzle, vanilla pods, old leather, and a hint of cherry tobacco inside an old wooden box build on the nose. The sip leans into the fruit next to woody spice and soft leather that mellows dramatically towards a soft vanilla cream along with a very distant echo of cherry tobacco chewiness. The mild spice (think nutmeg) arrives late and is tied to a cherry syrup vibe that just touches on dry wicker, faint almonds, and a touch more of that tobacco. Ultimately, the leather returns and builds towards a silken finish with just the right balance of woody apple, cherry tobacco, and oaky spice — all touched by the softest note of vanilla bean.

Bottom Line:

This is the best-selling American whiskey in the world. That success has caused a lot of the so-called “cool” kids to dismiss it for way too long. With Chris Fletcher and Lexie Phillips guiding the distilling and blending process these days and dropping some of the most interesting new releases in the game, Jack Daniel’s is primed for a massive renaissance.

Just taste a little of this Sinatra Select and you’ll be convinced.

7. Elijah Craig — Elijah Craig Barrel Proof

ABV: 61.8%

Average Price: $84

The Whiskey:

This expression is all about finding the best barrels in the Heaven Hill warehouses and letting that whiskey shine on its own. These are released three times a year and have been winning award after award. The whiskey in the bottle is generally at least 12 years old and bottled with no cutting down to proof or filtration whatsoever, thereby letting the barrel shine on its own.

Tasting Notes:

This is all about the red, tart, and sweet berries in vanilla cream with a clear sense of the berry brambles — think leaves, stems, seeds, thorns, and even a little dirt. That vanilla drives the palate with a hint of light green pepper spice that gives way to a mid-palate that’s a medley of fresh blackberry, blueberry, and raspberry. Those berries take on a dried rose note as a rich berry-laced and slightly spiced tobacco drives home the sip.

Bottom Line:

Heaven Hill’s Elijah Craig is killing the game right now with their barrel-proof releases. Each one is unique and delicious in its own right. There’s no way this brand is losing any heat anytime soon.

6. Wild Turkey — Wild Turkey Rare Breed Barrel Proof Bourbon

ABV: 58.4%

Average Price: $52

The Whiskey:

This is the mountaintop of what Wild Turkey can achieve. This is a blend of the best barrels that are married and bottled untouched. That means no filtering and no cutting with water. This is a classic bourbon with nowhere to hide.

Tasting Notes:

Crème brûlée greets you with a nice dose of Christmas spices, mild pipe tobacco, orange zest, and a distant hint of fresh mint sprigs. There’s a pine resin nature to the woody flavors on the palate that accents the orange oils, spices, vanilla, and sweetness. The sip takes on a Christmas cake-feel late, with a velvet end that is just the right amount of everything you want from a bourbon.

Bottom Line:

Wild Turkey went through a similar fate as Jack Daniel’s where it took a lot of shit for being ubiquitous, thanks to Wild Turkey 101. That was always bonkers. Turkey has consistently been putting out stellar juice for decades and the pinnacle of that is their Rare Breed Barrel Proof.

One sip of this and you will be hooked for life.

5. Maker’s Mark — Maker’s Mark 101

ABV: 50.5%

Average Price: $42

The Whisky:

This is Maker’s Mark classic wheated bourbon that’s bottled at “a higher proof” to bring about a “richer flavor.” Well, that’s what the label says anyway. Beyond that, this was a “Traveler’s Exclusive” up until the pandemic. Now, you can find it on most shelves, making this one finally accessible to the masses. This is classic Maker’s that’s treated with a little less of that limestone water to let the barrel techniques shine a bit more while still holding onto the Maker’s vibe.

Tasting Notes:

This is a bowl of stewed apple over vanilla ice cream that’s been drizzled with extra caramel. The taste really focuses on that caramel, with hints of oak next to roasted almonds, cinnamon, nutmeg, dry wicker, and a drop of soft mineral water. The end lingers while it fades through salted caramel apples towards a mellow floral spiciness with a dried reed finish and a touch of vanilla tobacco chew.

Bottom Line:

Maker’s will always be hot shit. There’s a shine to this wheated whisky’s image that’s supported by excellent bourbon in the bottle that helps it stay relevant from generation to generation.

4. Bulleit — Bulleit 10-Year Bourbon

ABV: 45.6%

Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

This is classic Bulleit Bourbon that’s aged up to ten years before it’s blended and bottled. These barrels are hand-selected to really amplify and highlight the classic flavors that make Bulleit so damn accessible in the first place.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a lot going on with butter and spicy stewed apples, maple syrup, Christmas cakes full of nuts and dried fruit, and a hint of savory herbs all pinging through your olfactory. The palate brings about smooth and creamy vanilla with plenty of butter toffee, sourdough crust, more X-mas spice, cedar bark, and a hint of dried roses. The finish is long, warming, and really embraces the toffee and spice.

Bottom Line:

Bulleit topped this list in the past but has fallen only slightly in recent years. Still, this ten-year bourbon remains a fantastic sourced bottle that really shows the wonderful things to come from the brand as they start putting out their own juice from their massive new distillery.

3. Buffalo Trace — Buffalo Trace Bourbon

ABV: 45%

Average Price: $34

The Whiskey:

This is the whiskey that heralded a new era of bourbon in 1999. Famed Master Distiller Elmer T. Lee came out of retirement to create this bourbon to celebrate the renaming of the George T. Stagg distillery to Buffalo Trace when Sazerac bought the joint. The rest, as they say, is history — especially since this has become a touchstone bourbon for the brand.

Tasting Notes:

Classic notes of vanilla come through next to a dark syrup sweetness, a flourish of fresh mint, and a raw leather that veers towards raw steak. The palate cuts through the sweeter notes with plenty of spices — like clove and star anise — next to a hint of tart berries underneath it all. The end is long, velvety, and really delivers on the vanilla and spice.

Bottom Line:

People love Buffalo Trace Bourbon. It’s easy to see why. It’s generally findable, though allocated. It’s also still affordable compared to a lot of the other offerings from the legendary distillery. Oh, and it’s pretty damn easy to drink. Though, I like to use it more for cocktails than sipping.

2. Woodford Reserve — Woodford Reserve Double Oaked Bourbon

ABV: 43.2%

Average Price: $60

The Whiskey:

This expression takes the standard bourbon above and gives it a finishing touch. The bourbon is blended and moved into new barrels that have been double toasted but only lightly charred. The juice spends a final nine months resting in those barrels before proofing and bottling.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a welcoming aroma of marzipan, blackberry, toffee, and fresh honey next to a real sense of pitchy, dry firewood. The taste drills down on those notes as the sweet marzipan becomes more choco-hazelnut, the berries become more dried and apple-y, the toffee becomes almost burnt, and the wood softens to a cedar bark. A rich spicy and chewy tobacco arrives late as the vanilla gets super creamy and the fruit and honey combine on the slow fade.

Bottom Line:

Woodford Reserve feels like Maker’s Mark in that it’s an OG classic that will always be great. The great part of this whiskey — and this expression, in particular — is that you can easily find and afford it while not sacrificing anything in the taste department.

This is a delicious sipping whiskey that makes killer cocktails. That’s all you really need.

1. Michter’s — Michter’s Single Barrel 10-Year Bourbon

ABV: 47.2%

Average Price: $209

The Whiskey:

The juice in this bottle is a little under wraps. Michter’s is currently distilling and aging their own whiskey, but this is still sourced. The actual barrels sourced for these single barrel expressions tend to be at least ten years old with some rumored to be closer to 15 years old (depending on the barrel’s quality, naturally). Either way, the juice goes through Michter’s bespoke filtration process before a touch of Kentucky’s iconic soft limestone water is added, bringing the bourbon down to a very crushable 94.4 proof.

Tasting Notes:

The nose opens with subtle notes of soft wood and worn leather next to light touches of dark berries, orange oils, egg nog spice, a slight toffee sweetness, and a touch of marshmallow. The palate starts off equally soft with something more akin to maple syrup sweetness which then leads into a rush of berry brambles. The mid-palate hits on a bit of dark spice, vanilla tobacco, and dark cacao leading towards espresso bitterness. The finish leans into a dry-yet-almost-sweet oak with a touch of an almond shell and dry grass coming in at the very end.

Bottom Line:

It’s not surprising to see Michter’s atop a trending list of whiskeys in 2022. This is the darling of high-end bars and whiskey aficionados alike. It helps that the juice in their wide range of expressions tends to be some of the best in the biz — like this bourbon. This bottle is the bourbon that a lot of distillers are chasing right now, and it’s easy to see why once you take a sip.

Texas rising star Tobe Nwigwe had a breakout 2021 and looks to carry that momentum into the new year with his new video for “Passing Through.” Produced by Tobe himself as well as his longtime production partner Lanell Grant and directed by Nate The Director, who shoots most of Tobe’s videos, “Passing Through” features familiar imagery from throughout the Tobe Nwigwe cinematic universe — monochrome costumes, the mint-colored interior of Tobe’s home, the rapper’s family, which includes his wife Fat and his two babies, and picturesque scenes from around their Alief, Texas community.

Lyrically, the song focuses on Tobe’s spirituality — another common theme of his music — but strips down the blasting beats and his boisterous bars for a more contemplative, peaceful direction, which reflects the song’s subject well. “This world is not my home,” Tobe sings. “I’m just a passing through.”

Nwigwe’s busy 2021 included a long streak of videos as part of his Get Twisted Sundays campaign, which saw him collaborate with a number of his fellow indie rap vets such as Big KRIT, D Smoke, Lil Keke, Bun B, Trae The Truth, and even Fat, who contributed a verse to their final jam of 2021. That all culminated in Tobe’s first-ever late-night television performance and his addition to the 2021 Roots Picnic. Keeping that same energy, he’s already kicked off 2022 with his latest Get Twisted Sundays single and a new NFT which he’s auctioning off on January 16. Find more info for that here.

In a surprising win for Netflix, the third and final season of its Lost in Space reboot has now dominated the Nielsen streaming chart for two weeks in a row, making it the most streamed show from November 30 to December 12. The reboot starring Toby Stephens, Molly Parker, and Parker Posey dropped it’s final season on December 1, and that was enough of a runway for it take down stiff competition that included Hawkeye and the insanely popular children’s series CoComelon.

Via Deadline:

The exact tally was 1.018 billion, beating out runner-up CoComelon, which had 835 million viewing minutes across the preschool favorite’s 15 episodes.

Lost in Space‘s most-viewed episode among the 28 made available on Netflix was its Season 3 finale, according to Nielsen. Viewing overall held fairly steady from week to week, dipping from 1.2 billion to 1 billion. The show’s third and final season was added to Netflix on December 1. Marvel’s Hawkeye drew 527 million minutes of streaming to finish sixth.

Lost in Space‘s dominance at the top of the charts is surprising given the show received tepid reviews when its first season debuted on Netflix back in 2018. However, this writer can attest that the series evolved into a solid sci-fi romp in its second season that walked a fine line between family-friendly and overly gritty. By its final season, Lost in Space delivered a compelling interstellar drama that did what very few shows get to do: Stick a cohesive landing that expertly tied the whole series together.

(Via Deadline)

Dan Orlovsky, a former NFL quarterback who works for ESPN as a football analyst who is good for breaking down film in a way that even a dimwit like myself can understand, is known for saying some occasionally wild stuff on Al Gore’s internet about food (examples: “potato chips are gross,” “soup is gross,” “lobster is gross“). We’ve all shared a food take or two in the past that isn’t popular, as humans have their own unique palates and everyone experiences things differently. Ok, fine, it happens!

Having acknowledged that, Dan, my guy, we gotta talk. The Sicilians, centuries ago, came up with a really good dessert called “cannoli” that literally every single person I have ever met who can eat fried dough and cream enjoys. ESPN producer Dominique Collins had one for breakfast today, which, I’ve never done that but shout out to Dominique for this it sounds perfectly acceptable.

When you really think about it, cannoli and chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream have some similarities, so no harm in this, not even a little! Now we get to Orlovsky, who cursed my timeline with this:

Dan Orlovsky, what in the name of all that is holy are you doing. All this tells me, a person whose last name ends with the letter “o,” is that you’ve never had a cannoli by a person who knows how to make one, preferably one that is fresh. It’s a light, crispy shell stuffed with a sweet ricotta cream and has stuff like chocolate chips in it! This is very tasty! Seeing as how hard sheep’s milk cheese is a newer thing for Orlovsky, I would go as far as to say that he’s just never had really good Italian food, although previous statements indicate that is not the case, at least when it comes to chicken parmesan, even if I would quibble with that being “the best Italian dish ever gifted to us humans.”

I would like to formally invite Dan to join me in either Little Italy in Lower Manhattan or on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, where we will go on a bar crawl, only with cannoli. A cannoli crawl, if you will. I will fly to New York on my own dime to make this happen. God as my witness we will find you one (1) cannoli that Dan Orlovsky will enjoy.

The moment I knew I would love Yellowjackets, Showtime’s slow-burn piece of splatter art, was four minutes into the first episode when one of the main characters is listening to “Today” by the Smashing Pumpkins. The pilot also includes songs from Liz Phair (“Supernova”), Salt-N-Pepa (“Shoop”), Hole (“Miss World”), and PJ Harvey (“Down by the Water”). Yes, Yellowjackets is partially set in the 1990s, why do you ask?

Yellowjackets is an extremely good show with an equally good soundtrack, including an addictive theme song from Craig Wedren, the lead vocalist of Shudder to Think, and Anna Waronker, formerly of that dog. It’s not to the level of the Succession theme (what is?), but if you press Skip Intro while the song is playing, well, you know what happens in the first scene of the show? That’s where I’m going to throw you.

“For the theme, we aimed to channel our off-kilter ‘90s roots into something that felt like ‘then’, but could only have been made NOW, just like the show,” Waronker and Wedren told Brooklyn Vegan. “Our respective pedigrees as front-people for that dog. and Shudder to Think made it eaaaasy, like a nice warm bloodbath.”

You can listen to the theme song above, and the official Yellowjackets playlist below.

The Yellowjackets soundtrack comes out on Lakeshore Records on January 21.

While we’re not adherents to “dry” January, we do appreciate slowing things down a bit as the year resets. Enter the lower alcohol cocktails. And the absolute mountaintop of great lower ABV cocktails is the iconic Americano. It’s devilishly easy to make and packs a wonderful flavor punch.

The Americano is a Campari-based cocktail that pre-dates the Negroni by about half a century. The original mix of Campari, sweet vermouth, and sparkling water dates back to the 1860s and became a huge hit among American tourists in the early 1900s. That drink was so popular amongst those tourists, the barmen in Milan’s famed Campari bar renamed the drink after them in the 1920s.

Beyond the history, this drink is super easy to make. You don’t need any fancy equipment or skills really. You just need a little booze and a glass. So, let’s get into it!

Also Read: The Top Five Cocktail Recipes of 2021

• The Long Island Iced Tea Is Our Official Cocktail Of Summer 2021 — Here’s A Classic Recipe
• The Whiskey Smash Is A Summertime Dream — Here’s How To Make It
• It’s Time You Learn To Make A Real Old Fashioned — Here’s Our Recipe
• Here’s The Iconic Sazerac Recipe From Mads Mikkelsen’s Oscar-Winning ‘Another Round’
• The Black Manhattan Is Our 2021 Thanksgiving Cocktail, Here’s The Recipe

Americano

Ingredients:

• 1.5 oz. Campari
• 1.5 oz. sweet vermouth
• 3 oz. Sparkling water
• Ice
• Orange peel

This is pretty straightforward. You’re going to need some Campari, obviously. I’m using Carpano Antica sweet vermouth because that’s what I have in the fridge. I also have some San Pelligrino around, so that’s the water I’m cutting this with. That’s pretty much it.

What You’ll Need:

• Highball glass
• Jigger
• Barspoon
• Pairing knife

Method:

• Fill your glass with ice.
• Add the Campari and sweet vermouth then top with sparkling water. Stir once.
• Cut a thumb-sized section of peel from the orange and then express the oils over the drink.
• Drop the peel in the glass and serve.

Bottom Line:

This is everything I want right now. It’s light yet bursting with flavor. It’s slightly bitter in the sense of dry botanicals next to a floral sweetness that’s bright and delicious. There’s a plummy fruit depth that’s nice, with the orange really adding a bright counterpoint.

There’s also a smoothness at play that just works wonders right now. You feel like you’re drinking something substantial without a massive alcohol kick. It’s an eye-opener that really takes the edge off, kind of like an average-ABV beer. Which, I’d argue, is just right for January sipping.

Roddy Ricch is fresh off the release of his second album, Live Life Fast, which debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. So, it’s only right that he is also Saturday Night Live‘s first musical guest of 2022, helping to kick off the remainder of the season when the show returns on January 15. The show will be hosted by Ariana DeBose, who was recently nominated for a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Anita in Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of West Side Story.

While Roddy is only weeks removed from the release of his latest album, it doesn’t look like he wants to rest on his laurels at all. He’s already begun promising that a new mixtape, Feed The Streets 3, will be released sometime this year as well. However, that may not come soon; he’s still promoting Live Life Fast, for which he’s released only a handful of singles, including “Late At Night,” which dropped last summer, and “25 Million,” which followed up the release of the album. Roddy’s known for slow-playing his rollouts — the video for “The Box” didn’t come out until weeks after it had dominated the charts — so fans will have plenty of opportunities to revisit the new album before the mixtape drops… including, of course, his performance on next week’s SNL.

Plant-based burgers have officially made it. It’s been a little over a decade since the world was introduced to the Beyond Burger but in 2022 the idea of a plant-based burger appearing on fast food menus feels less like an experiment and more like common practice, with fake burgers slotting right alongside milkshakes and chicken sandwiches nationwide.

Plant-based chicken on the other hand? The jury’s still out on that one.

There is a reason for that, it’s not quite as easy to make a convincing chicken product. The texture of ground meat and sausages is easy to mimic (I say that simply as a person who loves food, not as an engineer who understands the science of mimicking meat), but whole meat products are another story. Burgers also have the benefit of layers of toppings that can help to mask the ways plant-based meat differs from the real thing — you have sauces, juicy tomatoes, lettuce, and cheese all competing for your attention. Fried chicken is a lot more… naked. Once you bite into it you have only the flavor of breading before you hit the texture of meat, and texture is the biggest hurdle plant-based meat brands face.

Leave it to KFC to attempt to figure it out. Over the past two years, KFC and Beyond Meat have been working on a plant-based chicken product that replicates the same familiar flavor we’ve all come to expect from KFC in a plant-based product that actually looks, tastes, and chews like real fried chicken. Over the years the two brands have attempted multiple test launches in select cities to great success, but now they’re finally at a point where they’re ready to bring the KFC Beyond Fried Chicken nationwide.

Beginning Monday, January 10th, KFC’s new Beyond Fried Chicken will be available at all KFC locations nationwide for a limited time. The chicken was created to mimic the taste and texture of whole muscle chicken, but how well does KFC deliver on that promise? We headed to an early tasting in Hollywood California to find out if KFC is about to drop a game-changer on the world or if this misses the mark.

KFC Beyond Fried Chicken

If you’re already a fan of the Beyond brand or other plant-based meat products, you’re probably scratching your head at what makes KFC’s Beyond Fried Chicken any different, but as we mentioned, this was a project that took multiple years of research and development to pull off. The goal here was to create a product that didn’t just taste or look like chicken, but create something that actually pulled apart like real meat.

Many plant-based chicken products suffer from a chunky “put-together” quality that makes them come off as, well, artificial. I’m happy to report that the Beyond Fried chicken is the closest product to actual chicken that I’ve yet to experience. Once I bit through the nugget I marveled at the stringy layered texture that actually looked like a piece of white meat chicken. Now take that with a grain of salt — and a whole bunch of additives *wink wink* — because KFC isn’t giving us something that will replace a piece of their Original Recipe fried chicken, the Beyond Fried Chicken is essentially a chicken nugget. Having said that, it’s one of the best chicken nuggets currently on the fast food market, real or fake.

Not the best, but one of the best for sure.

The texture here is totally on point. Chewing through the nugg gives a bite that falls in line with the other top of the line chicken nuggets (think more Chick-fil-A than the McDonald’s McNugget) housed in a batter that tastes distinctively like the flavors you’ve come to expect from Kentucky Fried Chicken. Black pepper, salt, onion, and garlic powder, it’s all here, and you’re able to take multiple bites of each nugget without the breading detaching from the “meat” like a sleeve, which is a real unappetizing problem that other plant-based fried chicken products suffer from.

Once you dop this in one of KFC’s dipping sauces (I go KFC sauce every time), it’s essentially identical to chicken. I’m excited to try this in a blind taste test but won’t be at all surprised if it trips me up.

It’s worth mentioning that I had the benefit of eating these “chicken” nuggets piping hot and prepared fresh from a Beyond Food truck in the middle of a slow January afternoon. I realized that this won’t be everyone’s experience, so decided to give this chicken a timed test to see how it holds up to a 20-40 minute delivery or drive.

Sadly, once my nuggets cooled down a bit (exactly 20 minutes) they took on a density that wasn’t present when they were hot. I wouldn’t say that it tasted any less like actual chicken, but the denser more laborious chew I had to give each nugget was a dead giveaway that I was eating fake meat. That’s a problem that I think is remedied with a healthy dip of your favorite sauce, but you definitely don’t want to let these nuggets sit in a bag for very long if you want the best experience. It’s not a big enough issue that I think KFC and Beyond Meat need to head back to the lab, but it’s the next problem plant-based meat needs to solve if it truly wants to replace people’s preference for the real thing. (That said, real-life nuggets aren’t great when cold either — no fried fast food is.)

Finally, it should be mentioned that technically, because KFC fries its Beyond Fried Chicken in the same oil they use for their regular chicken pieces, the Beyond Fried Chicken isn’t prepared in a truly vegan/vegetarian manner. It won’t be a deal-breaker for everyone, but some people will definitely take issue with that. If this dish is a mega-hit — which it very well could be — I think they might just move to separate fryers for these (they could be fried in the same oil as fries, obvs).

The Bottom Line:

The closest any fast food brand has come to capturing the magic of fried chicken in plant-based form. The KFC Beyond Fried Chicken isn’t the best chicken nugget in the entire fast food universe, but it comes pretty damn close and competes from a flavor standpoint to other real chicken offerings out there. In fact, it beats many of them.

While even die-hard Donald Trump supporter like Ted Cruz have denounced the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol building as a “violent terrorist attack,” Republican representatives Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are taking a different approach by proudly embracing their actions during the failed insurrectionist plot. During a Thursday appearance on Steve Bannon‘s podcast (of course), Gaetz and Greene did not look back on January 6 with regret, but instead, with a swell of pride for championing Trump’s Big Lie.

Via The Hill:

“We’re ashamed of nothing. We’re proud of the work we did on January 6th to make legitimate arguments about election integrity,” Gaetz said during an appearance Thursday on Bannon’s podcast. “We’re actually going to walk the grounds that patriotic Americans walked from the White House to the Capitol, who had no intent of breaking the law and doing violence.”

Naturally, Gaetz and Greene’s view on January 6 clashes significantly with that of President Joe Biden who delivered a fiery speech on the one-year anniversary of the attack. While refusing to call Donald Trump by name and simply referring to him as “the former president,” Biden blasted the MAGA rioters for their assault on democracy and the police officers they claim to care so much about.

“To state the obvious, one year ago today, in this sacred place, democracy was attacked — simply attacked. The will of the people was under assault,” Biden said on the steps of the Capitol. “A crowd that professes their love for law enforcement assaulted those police officers. Dragged them, sprayed them, stomped on them.”

But, hey, nothing to be ashamed of says two of Congress’ best and brightest.

(Via The Hill)