Month: December 2022

The holiday shopping season is upon us. If you’re looking to really make someone happy this season, liquor is always a good idea. It’s easy, fun, and generally hits every price point you’re looking for. To that end, we’ve assembled a handy spirits gift guide with our favorite bottles of booze, kits, books, and even bar gear. It’s a one-stop shop for pleasing any imbiber on your shopping list.

For this year’s spirits gift guide, we’re breaking down the gifts by price category. The cheap gifts are up top and the crazy expensive ones are down at the bottom. In between, you’ll find everything from special bottle collections to great cocktail kits to silly whiskey-themed holiday gear. Some of it is for the very serious alcohol aficionado and other gifts are for the passive drinker. It’s a wide net, is what we’re getting at, and we’ve made sure to tell you exactly who each item is perfect for.

Let’s dive in and find you that perfect spirits-related gift!

Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months

• We Put A Whole Bunch Of Bourbons To A Giant Blind Test And Discovered Some Absolute Gems
• The Affordable Vs Expensive Blind Bourbon Bottle Battle
• We Blind Tasted Classic Bourbons And Were Shocked By The Winner
• The Best-Known Basic Bottles Of Bourbon, Blind Tasted And Ranked
• The Single Best Bottle Of Whiskey From Each Of The 50 States

The Budget-Friendly Stuff (Under $50)

Filthy Martini Kit

The Gift:

This is a great pack of ingredients. Filthy leans into non-GMO and sustainable practices while making a killer set of bar/cocktail garnishes, mixers, and accouterments. In this set, you’ll find: three pouches of Filthy Olive Brine, one Filthy jar of 12 olives stuffed with Wisconsin blue cheese, one Filthy jar of 12 olives stuffed with Spanish pimento pepper, and four Filthy stainless steel cocktail picks.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is great for the burgeoning home cocktail mixer who’s looking to really up their game with the good stuff to mix with. These are refined and tasty garnishes that’ll really amp up any martini from good to great.

Twist: Your Guide to Creating Inspired Craft Cocktails by Jordan Hughes

The Gift:

Jordan Hughes — better known as the High Proof Preacher on social media — just dropped his first book. The tome to at-home cocktail culture offers just over 75 recipes that range from classics to “create-your-own” riffs on modern craft cocktails. The book takes an easy approach that slowly builds your skills and bar cart as you learn along with the book.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is a great book for starter at-home cocktail lovers that also works nicely for those who’ve mastered an old fashioned but want to go deeper. There are great recipes for making your own ingredients and integrating commonly learned kitchen skills into your home bar as well, which is a fantastic level-up for anyone’s home bartending game.

Asbach Dark Chocolate Squares with Brandy

The Gift:

These are classic and really hit a nostalgic spot for anyone looking for a little bit of booze in their holiday candy. The dark chocolate squares are filled with premium German Asbach brandy made with wine grapes along the Rhine River. The squares are dusted with sugar before getting individually wrapped up in gold foil.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is a really good gift for anyone with a sweet tooth on your list. The dark chocolate offers the perfect counterbalance to the brightly-hued and dried fruit vibes of the brandy. It’s like taking a bite of bitter dark cacao and then getting hit with a burst of soft and boozy brandy with a hint of sugary sweetness tying it all together.

Cardenal Mendoza Solera Gran Reserva Gift Set

The Gift:

Sticking with brandy, Cardenal Mendoza Solera Gran Reserva is one of the best holiday brandy pours out there. It has a delightfully deep character (and color) that leans into holiday spice cakes, brandy-soaked raisins, and plum puddings next to sticky toffee pudding with a hint of nog spices underneath.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is for the brandy/cognac lover in your life. This is kind of like cognac taken up a notch to thick and juicy heights with a true holiday vibe from top to bottom. Check out our tasting notes here.

12 Days of Cocktails Cocktail Syrup Advent Calendar

The Gift:

This gift contains 12 unique cocktail syrups — for the 12 days of Christmas — and a 32-page cocktail book full of recipes for those syrups. Some of those syrups include wassail, cucumber lemon balm, tonic, and roasted pineapple with chili peppers. Each bottle of syrup makes about four cocktails, giving you about 48 total to enjoy over the holiday season.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is what you get for the cocktail lover in your life. It’s an easy way to amp up any cocktail with a unique and very tasty bar syrup that’ll help any spirit shine.

Editor’s Pick: Crystal Head Limited Edition Pride Bottle

The Gift:

Dan Akroyd’s vodka is as Canadian as the comedian himself. The vodka is made from Peaches and Cream Corn in Newfoundland. The distillate is filtered through a crystal known as a Herkimer diamond. The vodka is then cut with glacial water from Newfoundland and is bottled in a bespoke crystal head, colored with a rainbow to celebrate Pride worldwide.

Who It’s Perfect For:

Whether it’s the pride bottle or new Aurora bottle, these bottles are a statement piece and soon become the center of any stylish bar. Better still, the conversation point isn’t just about the bottle — the vodka itself has fared wonderfully in Uproxx’s blind taste tests. You’re getting a quality product in a bottle that grabs eyes, that’s a hell of a gift and a wonderful way to connect with new friends at any holiday party.

The Mid-Range Gifts ($50-$100)

Bevridge World Whiskies Collection

The Gift:

The second edition of the Bevridge whisky box set hit shelves just in time for holiday shopping. This edition has five whiskies (in 50ml sampler bottles) from around the world, representing every major whisk(e)y style. The whiskies in the mix are Benromach Organic Single Malt Scotch Whisky, Limavady Single Malt Irish Whiskey, Balcones Lineage Texas Single Malt Whisky, Frey Ranch Bourbon, WhistlePig PiggyBack 100% Rye Whiskey.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is a wonderful box for anyone looking to expand their spirits and whiskey knowledge/palate. The Benromach sample is worth the price of entry alone since it’s usually over $100 easily these days for a full bottle.

Eagle Rare Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey with The Glencairn Whisky Glass Set

The Gift:

This is a very straightforward gift. It’s a bottle of Eagle Rare 10-Year-Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey (our review) with a set of two Glencairn crystal glasses, which are the best sipping/tasting glasses money can buy.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is a foolproof gift for the bourbon lover in your life. If the giftee truly loves a good pour of the brown juice, then they’ll love this, especially since this is a semi-hard-to-find bottle (in some regions) that comes with the perfect glass to experience it with.

Boulevardier Kit

The Gift:

The Boulevardier is the bourbon-y sibling of the gin-y Negroni. It’s a little subtler and sweeter and doesn’t hit the same hard bitter and botanical notes of the latter cocktail. This kit is a simple assembly of Wild Turkey 101 Bourbon, 1757 Vermouth di Torino Rosso (1-liter bottle), and classic Campari.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This really works for the cocktail lover in the now or someone just starting out. The flavors are bold. So there may be a little palate adjustment if Negronis aren’t already beloved. That said, this is an equal-part cocktail that needs little to no effort to make, making it easy on the novice home mixer.

Casamigos Cocktail Gift Set

The Gift:

This kit is a dailed-in set of mixers and flavored salts for making some great tequila cocktails at home. The mixers are Casamigos’ Blackberry Basil Smash Cocktail Mixer and Signature Margarita Cocktail Mixer with two salt canisters, Salty Sweet Orange Cocktail Rimmer and Pink Himalayan Salt Rimmer.

Who It’s Perfect For:

It’s always time for a light and fruity tequila cocktail, especially during the doldrums of winter when we wish we were on a sunny beach. This kit really helps the at-home cocktail wannabe amp up their game with quality ingredients that help them create truly refreshing tequila cocktails.

Jefferson’s Wood Experiment Collection

The Gift:

For this rare collection of bourbons, Master Blender Trey Zoeller worked on 13 different maturation experiments. Zoeller tinkered with char levels of oak casks, integrating wine casks, adding wood staves and cubes to barrels of whiskey, and other treatments to find something truly unique. The results were these five experimental whiskeys from Jefferson’s Bourbon.

The five bottles are:

• Experiment No. 3: “Crème Brûlée” – Aged in New American oak wine barrels with a low, deep impact toast profile which gives off a vanilla nut finish and smoky undertones.
• Experiment No. 4: “Chocolate Caramel” – Aged in new, standard whiskey barrels with a medium char, infused with heavily charred American oak cubes that exert flavors of mocha, dark chocolate, and caramel with hints of tobacco and leather.
• Experiment No. 6: “Vanilla Smoke” – Aged in new standard whiskey barrels that have a light-medium char and infused with lightly toasted American oak cubes that emit smoky honey and vanilla flavors.
• Experiment No. 10: “Southern Spice” – Aged in a custom French & American hybrid wine barrel with a low, deep impact toast profile that presents big, bold flavors of burnt caramel, plum, black pepper, and maple.
• Experiment No. 12: “Cinnamon Apple” – Aged in the original bourbon barrel with oak inserts that have been toasted over a long period of time to exert flavors of caramelized apples and plums with a bold cinnamon finish.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is the gift you get for the whiskey drinker who’s always looking for something new and different. These whiskeys offer the gift recipient a chance to taste how various oak applications can greatly alter the final product, which is a great learning experience for any whiskey admirer.

Barillio Bartender Travel Bartender Kit Bag with Bar Tools

The Gift:

This is just cool. It’s a travel bartending kit that has everything you need for a home bar too. Plus, it comes with a Boston cocktail shaker, which is what the real pros use. Moreover, you can use all of this stuff at a home bar and then pack it up for easy transportation to that winter cookout, summer camping trip, out on a boat, etc.

The kit includes:

• 18/28 oz. Boston shaker
• European mixing spoon
• Muddler
• 3 pourers
• 0.75/1.5 oz jigger
• Julep strainer
• Hawthorne strainer
• Fine mesh strainer
• Zester
• Citrus squeezer
• Peeler
• Corkscrew
• Tongs
• Tweezers

Who It’s Perfect For:

This has the benefit of being great for a beginner or pro. The gear is legit and transportable in a slick aged canvas roll (like a knife roll that chefs use). At the same time, this is a really solid starter kit as it has everything you really need to get a start at making cocktails at home … or on a boat, at a campsite, in the woods, in your backyard … anywhere.

High-End Gifts (Under $500)

Jameson Whiskey Table-Top Tree

The Gift:

The Jameson tree is back, baby! This a small table-topper holiday tree made from empty Jameson bottles. To keep this from being just a decoration, this year’s tree comes with a bottle of Jameson Black Barrel Irish Whiskey to sip on as you light your Irish whiskey tree this year.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is a prop, sure. But it’s a fun prop, especially for anyone looking to get that dorm-life vibe in their living room or kitchen this year. Or maybe you know someone who’s ride or die for Jameson. If so, get them this. They’ll probably keep it up all year or for the rest of their life in their basement whiskey bar.

Johnnie Walker Collection

The Gift:

You can never go wrong with giving the gift of Scotch whisky. This set includes four of the most iconic blended Scotch whiskies, well, ever. The set includes four 200ml bottles of Johnnie Walker Black Label, Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve, Johnnie Walker Platinum, and Johnnie Walker Blue Label.

Check out our review of each of them here.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is for the regular Scotch whisky drinker in your life. A true diehard would probably prefer single malt whisky, but an easy-going Scotch drinker will appreciate these. That said, this included Johnnie Walker Blue Label which every whiskey drinker will like, it’s that good.

Knob Creek Small Batch Bourbon Humidor Gift Set

The Gift:

Cigars and whiskey are old partners. The tobacco flavor notes of a higher-proof whiskey often complement the spicier notes of a fine tobacco product almost too well. This set includes a full bottle of Knob Creek Small Batch 9-Year-Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey with an Ebony Humidor and a set of five cigars from five different tobacco houses across Central America and the Caribbean.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is for anyone for whom the whiskey isn’t quite enough. The added humidor and cigars make for a great sharing gift if you’re into that as well.

Holiday Entertaining Collection from Reserve Bar

The Gift:

This gift falls into the ol’ “kill two birds with one stone” column. This is an instant home bar filler that’ll get someone’s bar cart on the right path.

The bottles/gear included are:

• Kavalan Classic Single Malt
• Dingle Artisan Vodka
• H by Hine
• Caorunn Gin
• Hirsch Bourbon Whiskey
• Denizen Aged White Rum 3 Years Old
• Pike Creek Canadian Whiskey
• Luxardo Original Maraschino Cherries
• 4 Markham Marquis by Waterford Double Old Fashioned Glasses

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is great for someone who always talks about getting a home bar set up but never really has invested the time (or money) to do so. In one fell swoop, you’ll have gifted someone with booze they’ll need to get mixing and pouring immediately.

Artingstall’s Brilliant London Dry Gin With Limited Edition Cocktail Kit

The Gift:

This set, from director Paul Feig’s gin company, is a classy AF gift. This feels (and looks) bespoke. There’s a gilded edge that works with the heavy wooden box, black velvet, and quality gear and gin.

The box includes:

• 2 gleaming martini glasses
• Matching cocktail shaker with strainer
• A golden bar spoon
• A stylish pocket square
• A beautiful cut glass decanter filled with hArtingstall’s Brilliant London Dry Gin

Who It’s Perfect For:

This gift is for the stylish cocktail drinker in your life. If you know someone who wears a chic suit regularly (and not just for work), this is the set for them.

Sagamore Spirit Collection Gift Set

The Gift:

Rye whiskey and American craft distilling are great partners in creating some seriously good rye whiskey these days. At the forefront of that movement is Sagamore Spirits. This kit includes three of their iconic bottles — Sagamore Spirit Signature Rye Whiskey, Sagamore Spirit Cask Strength Rye Whiskey, and Sagamore Spirit Double Oak Rye Whiskey — with a four-piece set of Markham Marquis by Waterford Double Old Fashioned Glasses.

Who It’s Perfect For:

If you know someone who really digs craft whiskey, then this is the play. Sagamore Spirits always delivers a great product that takes rye whiskey well beyond the “spicy notes” that it’s been known for since the 1990s.

The Premium Whisky Advent Calendar

The Gift:

This is a pretty expensive and awesome whiskey/spirit gift. This advent calendar is filled with 24 handmade wax-sealed 30ml bottles of whisk(e)y from Scotland and Ireland.

The incredible pours in this advent calendar are as follows:

• Balvenie 21-Year-Old Portwood Finish
• Caol Ila 18-Year-Old
• Glenfarclas 21-Year-Old
• Johnnie Walker Blue Label
• Talisker 18-Year-Old
• Dalmore Cigar Malt
• Singleton of Dufftown 18-Year-Old
• Glen Scotia 18-Year-Old
• Ledaig 18-Year-Old
• Loch Lomond 18-Year-Old
• House of Hazelwood 18-Year-Old
• The Glenrothes 18-Year-Old Soleo Collection
• Mortlach 20-Year-Old
• Tamdhu 15-Year-Old
• The Perspective Series 21-Year-Old, Berry Bros. & Rudd
• Jura 21-Year-Old Tide
• Arran Master of Distilling II, The Man with the Golden Glass
• J.J. Corry Anfa
• Whisky Works Quartermaster 11-Year-Old
• Crabbie 15-Year-Old
• Gulliver’s 47 10-Year-Old
• Egan’s Centenary
• Teeling 18-Year-Old The Renaissance Series 3
• Glenallachie 12-Year-Old 2009 (cask #5551) Drinks By the Dram Exclusive

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is the gift you get for the true, hardcore, deep-in-their-soul whisky devotee in your life. The pours in this advent calendar are spectacular. The Mortlach 20, Talisker 18, and Dalmore Cigar Malt alone are worth the price of entry, and then you still have 21 more truly great pours to go over with this one gift.

“Sky’s The Limit” Gifts ($500 and Above)

Bozal Mezcal Advent Calendar

The Gift:

Speaking of crazy good advent calendars, this one kind of takes the cake. The calendar is populated with 24 200ml (that’s just above a 1/4 bottle size) of super rare, limited, and refined mezcals from the much beloved and lauded Bozal. The advent calendar also comes with two hand-made tasting copitas and two tealight candles for lighting when you’ve finished the calendar’s contents on the last day. This is to honor the mezcaleros who made this smoky spirit.

Who It’s Perfect For:

This is a great gift that will impress someone who knows their shit when it comes to booze. There’s a serious wow factor here that transcends the highest echelons of spirits knowledge and takes it somewhere new.

Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Lineup Collection Bundle

The Gift:

This is the whole Pappy line in one box. That’s wild, rare, and probably the best spirits gift on the planet right now — well, at least in American whiskey circles anyway.

That means the gift box will have the following bottles:

• Old Rip Van Winkle 10 Year
• Van Winkle Special Reserve 12
• Pappy Van Winkle 15 Year
• Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye 13 Year
• Pappy Van Winkle 20 Year
• Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve 23

Check out our reviews of each bottle here.

Who It’s Perfect For:

The whiskey investor or drinker. These bottles will increase in value, so there’s that. They’re also goddamn tasty, so there’s that too. This really is the ultimate bourbon gift that you can possibly buy in 2022.

It’s normal to space out while buying groceries. We’ve all done it: at a certain point, you’re just going through the motions. But have you ever been so out it buying groceries that you accidentally spend over one grand on cucumbers? One TikToker, @rebeccaofsunnybrookfarms, was this person. Inflation, which DJ Pauly D knows all about, has made the simple task of buying groceries a harrowing experience but this TikToker who was not paying attention during checkout accidentally paid $1700 for cucumbers at Whole Foods. Whole Foods is expensive, but not that expensive. Inflation is bad, but not that bad (yet).

The victim (a very generous word) described the incident in a video shared on TikTok with the caption, “definitely always look at the total before checking out, I was bagging my stuff and didn’t notice this 1000 dollar mistake.”

Upon getting to their car, the TikToker realized that they were charged for 593 cucumbers. They were too busy placing their groceries in bags to notice the erroneous charge. The cashier accidentally punched in 593 as the number of cucumbers being purchased, and must have not realized anything was out of the ordinary since the shopper didn’t notice anything, either.

“Whole Foods almost got me,” the TikToker said in their video, which showed the receipt. “I didn’t realize until I was looking at my receipt in the car and I was like, ‘I didn’t buy this much stuff? I didn’t buy 644 items.’ I did get my money back, though.” Over $1700 is an awful lot of money to spend without realizing it. If they never looked at the receipt, would they even know?

Lesson learned: pay attention to how much money you are being charged when you are buying things, even cucumbers. Thought this was obvious, but apparently not.

GloRilla’s meteoric rise to fame just became more inspirational. Like all of us, until her dreams came to fruition, the Memphis rapper worked a regular job. Recently a clip surfaced online where the rapper can be seen taking orders while working the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant.

Earlier this week, a TikTok user named primeape09 shared a throwback video of Big Glo on Instagram Live while taking orders at the drive-thru. In the footage, we can see a young GloRilla, before the fame, joking with the people watching her Live before clapping back at someone who tried to make a joke about the gap in her teeth.

“‘What’s up, gap?’ Boy, you better get your ugly ass back before I block your little ugly lame ass,” GloRilla said before quickly switching over into professional mode to talk to a customer.

Before her rap career took off, the “FNF” rapper revealed that she worked at Checkers in Memphis throughout her senior year of high school in 2016.

“A lot of people think ts happened for me overnight, not knowing the hard work & passion I been putting in for years to get here!!” she wrote in an Instagram post this past June. “I went thru humiliation, no support allat! I done cried so many nights in my pillow because i felt like I wasn’t elevating but I never gave up !!”

A lot has changed since her drive-thru days.

Since then, GloRilla has dropped her debut album, Anyways Life’s Great… and snagged two of the top songs from the year with “FNF,” earning a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance, and “Tomorrow 2” featuring Cardi B.

Recently, the rapper made her debut performance at the 2022 American Music Awards alongside Cardi B.

You can watch the video of GloRilla working the drive-thru at Checkers above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

One of the best players in all of college football will miss out on the remainder of the season. Michigan running back Blake Corum, who has been instrumental in the Wolverines’ undefeated regular season and berth in the Big Ten championship game, will need to undergo surgery to fix a knee injury that he suffered during the team’s win over Illinois last month.

The news of Corum’s surgery was reported by Ian Rapoport of NFL Network and confirmed by Bruce Feldman of The Athletic.

Corum, a junior running back for the Wolverines, attempted to play during the team’s blowout win over Ohio State last week, but was only able to take the field for five snaps before he spent the remainder of the afternoon on the sideline. Corum has been perhaps the best running back in the nation this season, as he has 1,463 yards and 18 touchdowns on 247 carries for the No. 2 team in America.

With Corum out entirely, Michigan will likely lean heavily on former 5-star recruit Donovan Edwards, who ran for 216 yards and two scores against the Buckeyes last week. The Wolverines will play Purdue in the Big Ten title game on Saturday, where they will look to earn the title of the conference’s best program for the second year in a row.

LeBron James spoke to the media on Wednesday night after the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 128-109. Before it had the chance to wrap up, James, who frequently receives questions on topics that go beyond his play and whatever is going on with the Lakers, posed a question to members of the press about an ongoing controversy centered around Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

“I was wondering why I haven’t gotten a question from you guys about the Jerry Jones photo,” James said. “But when the Kyrie thing was going on, you guys were quick to ask us questions about that.

“When I watched Kyrie talk, and he says, ‘I know who I am, but I wanna keep the same energy when we’re talking about my people and the things we’ve been through,’ and that Jerry Jones photo is one of those moments that our people, Black people, have been through in America,” James continued. “And I feel like, as a Black man, as a Black athlete, as someone with power and a platform, when we do something wrong, or something that people don’t agree with, every single tabloid, every single news coverage, it’s on the bottom ticker, it’s asked about every single day. But it seems like, to me, the whole Jerry Jones situation, photo — and I know it was years and years ago and we all make mistakes, I get it. But it seems like it’s just been buried under, ‘Oh, it happened, we just move on.’ And I was just kinda disappointed I didn’t receive that question from you guys.”

The photo to which James is referring shows Jones, then a sophomore in high school, as one of several students blocking and harassing six Black students attempting to desegregate North Little Rock High School in 1957. It was published last week by the Washington Post. Irving, a former teammate of James’ with the Cleveland Cavaliers, was recently suspended by the Brooklyn Nets for his refusal to “disavow antisemitism when given a clear opportunity.” He has since returned to the team after completing a series of action items laid out by the Nets.

Netflix’s latest smash hit Wednesday is a fun and creepy show based on those familiar Addams family characters, starring Jenna Ortega as the titular teen and directed by Tim Burton in his first-ever TV series.

While many were excited that the series chose to honor Charles Addam’s original characters by casting a Latina in the title role, others are upset about the alleged undertones in the series. Most of the Black actors in the series portray bullies or villains, like Wednesday’s school rival Bianca Barclay or Lucas Wilson, the son of the corrupt mayor. The mayor, a Black man, also owns “Pilgrim Land” in the series, which was definitely a…choice.

Unfortunately, Burton has been criticized before due to the lack of diversity in his films. The director has made over 35 movies, though Wednesday is the first to have a person of color as the lead. Samuel L. Jackson confirmed that he had spoken to Burton about his casting choices when he appeared in 2016’s Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children.

“I had to go back in my head and go, how many black characters have been in Tim Burton movies?” Jackson said at the time. “And I may have been the first, I don’t know, or the most prominent in that particular way, but it happens the way it happens. I don’t think it’s any fault of his or his method of storytelling, it’s just how it’s played out.”

(Via CBR)

For a brief moment, Alex Jones actually looked like the reasonable person in the room. While hosting an unfiltered and unhinged Kanye West on his Infowars show, Jones actually refused to get in bed with Kanye’s wild proclamations that he loves Nazis and “sees good things about Hitler.” It was a startling display of West’s aggressive descent into full-blown anti-Semitism. It also didn’t help that he did the whole thing while wearing a mask and doing impressions of Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu. It was that bad.

As for Jones, he looked the voice of reason by comparison. Naturally, the conspiracy theorist made remarks about the “Jewish mafia” and joined in West’s odd rants about pornography. But unlike Kanye, Jones flat-out said he doesn’t do Nazi stuff and tried to hold some sort of line, as problematic as it may be.

However, after the break, Jones appeared onscreen wearing a lizard mask and joked that he’s one Kanye’s “enemies.” If the interview wasn’t completely off the rails already, it was now. The episode was already blowing up Twitter with West declaring his love for Hitler and accusing anyone who watches porn of being a pedophile, but no one was prepared for Jones adding to the chaos by breaking out his lizard people mask.

You can see some of the reactions below:

In the meantime, celebrities are already starting to speak out against West’s anti-Semitism, which he has aired on Twitter and Instagram.

“It’s not what Kanye West says that scares me,” Josh Gad tweeted. “It’s that he has 30 million followers who listen to his insanity on top of a cheerleader in the form of the current owner of this platform. No one who says “I love Hitler” should be allowed any oxygen on any social platform (period).”

(Via Josh Gad on Twitter)

By this time next year, outgoing Madison Cawthorn will be the answer to a trivia question about which disgraced former North Carolina congressman was best known for his love of wearing ladies’ lingerie and randomly claiming that octogenarian Republicans are desperate for him to attend their regular coke- and Metamucil-fueled orgies. But for right now, he’s just that loser who spent one term in congress and is clearly pretty bitter about it.

On Wednesday, congress opened the House floor to outgoing politicians to say their final farewells, and mostly expected to hear people thank their colleagues and offer support for the future. Cawthorn, however — who once threatened a “Dark MAGA” takeover (whatever that is) tried to turn it into a spectacle (despite the fact that C-SPAN was probably the only place even filming it) and went full Tyler Durden on his soon-to-be former colleagues. Or, as The Recount put it, Cawthorn ranted “about men being taught to be a ‘soft metrosexual.’”

Here’s just a sampling of the inanity:

It used to be a rite of passage in this country for young men to be punched in the face when they did something stupid. Our nation used to believe that there was strength and purpose in taking the hits, learning from your mistakes and growing through the adversity.

America is weak. Her sons are sickly, and her daughters are decrepit. Our country now faces the consequences of enabling a participation trophy society. We’re no longer the United States. We’ve become the nanny state. Our young men are taught that weakness is a strength, that delicacy is desirable, and that being a soft metrosexual is more valuable than training the mind, body and soul.

I ask the young men of this nation a question: Will you sit behind a screen while the storied tales of your forefathers become myth? Or will you stand resolute against the dying light of America’s golden age? Will you reclaim your masculinity? Will you become a man to be feared? To be respected? To be looked up to? Or will you let this nation’s next generation be its final generation?

The only thing that would have made Cawthorn’s speech, which he seemed to be reading from index cards, any more like a third grade book report would have been if he kicked it off with “Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘masculinity’ as…”

We look forward to Cawthorn’s next act as a Cracker Barrel busboy.

(Via The Recount)

ASAP Rocky isn’t a fan of lowbrow comedy. He prefers highbrow art and fashion, though he also watches cartoons and voiced a car horn for Need For Speed Unbound. In late October, Rocky and Rihanna made their first red carpet appearance since becoming parents at the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever premiere. That was a big night for Rih because she returned to music by contributing two songs to the Wakanda Forever soundtrack. Meanwhile, today (December 1) is a big day for Rocky’s artistic pursuits.

The 34-year-old rapper announced Hommemade through a limited-edition collaboration with Gufram. “I’M PROUD TO PRESENT TO YOU MY NEW DECOR LINE @hommemade AND OUR FIRST COLLABORATION WITH @gufram !!!” Rocky wrote on Instagram. Hommemade is officially dubbed a “furniture interior design studio.”

Rocky’s first Hommemade piece is a reimagining of Gufram’s Cactus, celebrating its 50th anniversary at Art Basel in Miami (as noted by Complex), called “Shroon Cactus.” Gufram posted to Instagram that “there are only 9 of them in the whole world.”

“From mid-century modifications, to contemporary collaborations, they have established themselves as a unique brand and therefore a perfect brand collaborator,” Rocky said of Gufram in a statement shared by Complex. “This is the first collaboration from my HOMMEMADE decor studio, and since I’ve always advocated for mushrooms, it was only right that we made a cactus with them.”

Rocky previously founded AWGE, a creative agency, in 2017. “This sh*t is more than just rap for me,” he told GQ in 2021. “I’m into design, I’m into detail, I’m into elevated taste value.”

It’s been one heck of a year for jazz-hop duo Domi & JD Beck. Their debut album, Not Tight, which features high-profile collaborations with Anderson .Paak, Herbie Hancock, Mac DeMarco, Snoop Dogg, and others, was nominated for the Best Contemporary Instrumental Album award at the 2023 Grammys. Not only that, they were also included in the field of Grammy nominees for the Best New Artist award. Now with their first headlining tour under their belt, they appeared last night on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, performing the song “Two Shrimps” with Mac DeMarco on vocals.

DeMarco was front and center of the stage, rocking a DIY Dolly Parton t-shirt, torn jeans, and his signature slacker hat. It could have been quite the juxtaposition compared to the jazz prodigies behind him if you didn’t know anything about Domi & JD Beck’s whimsy. Beck tapped away on his drums, as zoned in as ever, while Domi tickled the keys sitting atop an ornate toilet seat. In fact, Domi told Uproxx earlier this year that they’ve even been known to conceive some of their music while sitting on the toilet… how fitting. The trio’s tongue-in-cheek musical mastery was on full display in front of cherry blossom trees, with Domi even reading sheet music off of tattered scraps of paper taped to her keyboard.

Watch DeMarco join Domi & JD Beck for “Two Shrimps” on Fallon above.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.