Last week, Cardi B announced the arrival of her third child with estranged husband Offset. Unfortunately, their celebration of this joyous occasion has been interrupted by litigation.
According to TMZ, both Cardi B and Offset are being sued in connection with the “Like That (Freestyle)” music video. In the court documents obtained by the outlet, the owner of the Beverly Hills, California mansion featured in the visual accused the pair of not paying the rental fee.
However, shortly after the exclusive report was published Cardi B slammed the nonpayment allegation. In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Cardi shared receipts (viewable here) to the contrary including a conversation with Offset (the video’s director) about the rental fee and a screenshot of $4,500 payment on March 13.
“We paid those people $10,000 IN CASH to rent the property for a whole 24 hours that same day 6 am to 6 am the next morning,” she wrote. “We went over by ONE hour which we paid overage fees to the realtor for in March. There were cameras all over and both the realtors and the owners were there the ENTIRE time. I got pics and videos of them on set!”
Cardi then addressed the claim that her team lied about their intended use of the space, writing: “Now they wanna finesse us trying to say we told them it was a TikTok video when that was nowhere in the contract and like they didn’t hear the whole song playing and see how long we were shooting. Why would it take us 24 hours to shoot a TikTok? The problem is people wanna find loopholes and get over but IRON YOUR BEST SUIT B*TCH I’ll see you in court!!!!”
The evidence Cardi B posted alleged that they agreed to a $10,000 rental fee with an additional $500 cleaning charge.
Industry‘s third season aired an intensely volatile episode this past weekend with Harper (Myha’la) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela) hurling the most damaging words imaginable at each other after Harper’s betrayal and subsequent head-exploding session from Eric (Ken Leung). Additionally, viewers finally learned what happened to Yasmin’s horrific father, Charles (Adam Levy), which turned out to be a watery end that began by his own hand and did not find any rescuing hands from his daughter.
Believe it or not, the more-addictive-than-Succession series still has more in store for viewers before the drama winds down for the season, but if you are keeping up with the episodes in real time, you’ll want to know about Industry‘s adjusted airtime for the next few weeks.
According to an HBO press release, Season 3, Episodes 7 and 8 — which will air on two consecutive Sundays, Sept. 22 and 29 — will still premiere on Max during its usual time slot, which is 9:00pm EST. However these two episodes will shift their linear time slot back an hour to 10:00pm EST on HBO to make room for The Penguin‘s premiere episodes (taking over the earlier slot) starring Colin Farrell. So, you can watch one time slot or the other, or you could even get a little crazy and watch both of them. The choice is yours. Ain’t TV great?
When it comes to the names that defined rap music in the 1980s, many are obvious: Public Enemy, LL Cool J, EPMD. But some names that are perhaps equally important, yet not often as easily recognizable, are those of the unsung heroes who helped make those names the legends they are today. That includes graphic designer and art director Eric Haze, who perhaps literally helped make those names and others legendary with his distinctive logos and art direction. Long before tablets and smartphones let designers build projects in the palms of their hands, Haze made a name for himself with the tools of the trade he honed bombing graffiti on New York City subway cars and attending the School of Visual Arts.
He’s since applied those skills on designing memorable album covers for the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J, iconic logos for the likes of EPMD and Tommy Boy Records, and more recently, updating the branding for Blink-182 — which he also did, once upon a time, for Public Enemy, in a story that has since been garbled. He set the record straight in an expansive Zoom call with me to discuss his Uproxx Sound + Vision Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as telling some of his favorite stories behind these iconic designs and his first-of-its-kind installation at The Sphere in Las Vegas. If you didn’t know Haze before, it’s time to get familiar with him and his 45-year mission to bring hip-hop sensibilities to the world of design.
We’re here to talk about some of your most iconic logo work, design work, and you have so much of it. I’m almost tempted to ask you where do you want to start, but I know where I want to start. So we’re going to start with my favorite logo, which is the EPMD logo
Truth is, when asked, I always say that I do not play favorites with my work and my logos. They’re all my children. I try and love them equally, but EPMD is the one. To me, EPMD is the one, and it’s the one for a handful of reasons, mostly because it was from scratch off the dome. That’s not a typeset, that’s not typeface. It’s been reinterpreted by a handful of other designers after me. If you look at some of the later album covers, people tried to recreate it with typefaces and it ain’t it.
I always looked at Run-D.M.C. as the quintessential hip-hop logo, and EPMD really represented me saying, “How do I take that foundational vibe, look, strength, oldness, and push it to another level, and perhaps, ideally, a more original and unique way?”
Eric Haze
Obviously, this next one is very near and dear to my heart. As much as this organization has been a frustration to hip-hop fans for the last several decades, that Tommy Boy logo is untouchable. You could take any particular element out of it and you would know it was Tommy Boy.
Tommy Boy was one of the last logos I did prior to the Macintosh and having my own desktop tools to create typesetting. So the actual typography was still created on what was then an IBM Linatronic typesetting. So typesetting was still IBM based. That said, it was also one of the last significant pieces of identity design I did in New York before pulling the plug and moving to California.
So Tommy Boy was ’89, ’90, and there’s some interesting backstories, which is that Tommy Silverman himself reached out to me, and in all fairness, I redesigned and updated the logo from the wimpy press type version that had predated me. There was a Tommy Boy logo with three dancers. If you go back and look at the early 12-inch sleeves or iterations of it, it’s all press type. But the characters all had afros and bell-bottoms, and they were straight press type physical characters. So I re-imagined the typography and the lettering and the central identity of the type itself. And then I set about hand tailoring the characters to not being so dated. I think I spun them in different directions and placed them differently. So again, in all fairness to history, I was handed a deflated ball and I pumped some air back into it.
The other thing that’s very significant in my evolution was up to that point, again, everything was sort of, you didn’t have the kind of one-stop shopping and command over everything that Mac eventually gave you in the nineties. I had to send out to one source for type setting. I had to send out photo stats, and it was a physical process. When I delivered it to Tommy himself, he said to me, “Look, great job. I’m happy with the result, but I want to pull your card on something, which is that you’re charging me for your time, not just the result. Clearly, there’s a type setting bill, you’re charging me for the effort it takes to get the result. Well, the good news and the bad news is the computer is about to eliminate and explode the notion of time and you will no longer be able to charge for your time, just the results that the computer will allow in a more efficient way. So I advise you to get with the computer before the world passes you by.”
I did not own a Mac yet, and I took it to heart, and he was absolutely right. It was a year or two later when I arrived in California that I got my Quadra 700 and set about trying to do in Quark [QuarkXPress desktop publishing software] and the clunky-type suitcases, what I had done the hard way prior to the Mac. So it was that bit of advice that suited me well at that era of transition.
Eric Haze
I could talk about this all day, trust me. Let’s talk about LL. LL Cool J.
If EPMD was pushing a pre-existing thing, pushing the envelope of trying to build on something that I felt was strong already, LL was a much different scenario. And it predated EPMD by a year, if not more. The Bigger And Deffer album cover wasn’t my first album cover, but it was the first one I was given total autonomy for — where I was the art director and the designer, and responsible start to finish for delivering it, from meeting with LL to delivering it to CBS. The most key thing about that, that is so obvious I barely have to say it, was that I don’t even know if it was called “hip-hop” yet, it was just rap music. And rap music had made its bones and set its foundation on sampling.
Rap music was the true post-modern essence of “reappropriation to recontextualize.” And through that process to where we once were outsiders throwing stones at the castle, now we were incorporating the machinery and methodology of the power structure to shift the power structure and take some of these things back home with us.
LL was the first true high-level embodiment of my desire to find a visual parallel to what I understood happening on a sonic level.
So yes, the LL Cool J logo had beg, borrow, and stole from the Cool Cigarettes logo, which was a hood staple — but most importantly, I was trying to put under the light the notion that there could be a visual sampling that complemented the audio sampling. LL was the first big league opportunity I had to apply that in the market, the real world, and on cultural capital that was bigger than either LL or myself individually.
Eric Haze
I wonder if you said this particular train of thought to him at any point. Because if you did, that would explain LL’s iconic Gap FUBU commercial. Because that’s a moment that defined my generation’s attitude towards all this. Like, get in and make them do things our way, instead of trying to prove ourselves to them. Walk in the front and kick open the back door for the homies.
Well, I’ll share one of my most magic hip-hop moments, which I know I told (Uproxx co-founder) Jarret (Myer) and these guys. When LL first came to my studio, we didn’t know each other, but he knew I was a graffiti artist. He said, “Come on Haze, I know you could hook up some dope graffiti shit.” And my response was, “Come on, L, this ain’t a breakbeats album, we got to come harder than that.” That was the low-hanging fruit of hip-hop. I was on a personal mission as a typographer and logo designer to show and prove I could reinvent the wheel in a more sophisticated, site-specific fashion. But when I first put the album cover in front of him and Def Jam, when I swiped it from CBS drawer, he gave me the ultimate hip-hop compliment I’ve ever gotten in my life, which was, “Yo, this looks like getting paid, son.”
So Jarret’s going to kill me if I don’t ask about it, because he was like, this is a chance to clear it up. You know exactly where this was going.
Real simple, and I always go out of my way to say this. I’ve never once in my life taken credit for the original design of the PE logo. It was my first album cover art direction. And I met with Glenn and the group, Chuck gave me his original loose sketch of the logo. I had a proof sheet, photographs. From there, I was the art director. I chose and cropped the photo and I typeset the logo. I took Chuck’s rough sketch and great idea, and I executed it in a professional fashion.
I cleaned up the target and the guy, and I had the military typeset again on IBM Linatronic. I still have the type galley with Public Enemy on it, dated, client, Eric, 1987. However, I have been miscredited with the design of the logo throughout my own career. I have never had a conversation with Chuck about it. I’m sure he probably thinks that I have claimed something that I didn’t. His original design is in the Smithsonian.
And that’s not worth unpacking at an award ceremony, that’s just for you and me. The truth, the punctuation I will give to that, is that you’ve never heard me talk about the Public Enemy logo in the last 30 years. It’s not in my portfolio, it’s not on my website. I have erred to the side of caution, taking no credit for something I had a lot to do with to avoid any controversy. Because, frankly, I got more fucking feathers in my cap than I could wear at any given time, even without Public Enemy.
Getty Image
Let’s get into something a little more recent. You redesigned the Blink-182 logo.
I did. You know what? Travis called me up last year and said, “Yo, will you do our album cover? I just want your shit, man. I want your unfiltered hand style, no frills, no bells and whistles, just the basic.”
So for a long time I considered being an art director my primary function. I’m a designer, but I’m an art director. You come to me to help you build your identity for your project and your market. It’s not fundamentally about me. I may get some fingerprints and I may get off on it somehow, but the gig isn’t about me. The gig is servicing your identity. When the Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head was all you’d see on bumper stickers and shit, and it put my handwriting on the map. People would ask me all the time, “Yo, can you do it in Beastie Boy style?” And I’d say, “No.” Why would I play my client myself by repeating myself?
It was only the last 10 or so years that my studio manager and I said, “Wait a minute. You know what? Not only was it so long ago in time now that’s a pointless sentiment, but you know what? Actually, this is my style. This is my hand lettering that I blessed them with.” And I’m not the art director anymore, trying to be everything to everyone and switch it up every time. Now, I’m an artist who does that stuff, but this is my core style. And if people are coming to me for my core style, that’s great. Let’s lean into it and stand on it. Instead of feeling like it’s some antiquated shit we can’t revisit.
Once I hit that switch and I was like, “Yo, we use it for my brand. If that’s what you want for your brand. Everybody knows where it comes from. And it’s my signifier. It’s not their signifier.” So we’ve been doing that for my brand and our collabos and product and Haze brand for long enough that when Travis said, “Yo, I want the Beastie Boys style.” We were like, “Bet. You want my shit. You got it.” Frankly, I get to charge 100 times more than I did 30 years ago. And what felt like a choice and an effort to make it look that way in the Check Your Head era in ’91, 30 years later that’s just my shit. I can do it standing on my head.
I guess I will qualify it with this, which is that I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t a fucking A-list banger. I’m not going to play myself by putting my magic dust in a shitty meal nobody’s going to eat. I know Blink 182, motherfuckers are going to eat it up, we’re going to knock this out the park, and I just play my position and hope for the best. I guess what I’m saying is: the Travis Barker thing is at a stage that feels much different to me, where I am doing these things because they’re a great fit. I’m working with people I like and respect, who like and respect me, and we’re both bringing something to the table. So the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It’s the same job, but it’s a collaboration now. It’s not a service.
Then of course you get to do your thing on probably the biggest canvas any graffiti artist has ever had. Las Vegas, baby. The Sphere. So what does that mean to you as an artist, as the representative of a brand, as a culmination of 30 years of professional building to have something that nobody else would even have had this opportunity for?
First of all, yes, you were right. It takes 45 years to be able to knock something out in 45 seconds. It’s what I always call a shooter’s mentality. “Give me the ball, coach. Put me in, give me the ball. I want to take the shot.” But the fact is, if you’re not practicing that shot for 10 years before, nobody’s going to even throw you the ball, let alone allow you to take the shot. I got thrown the ball to take the shot. And to your point, it must say something about where I’ve arrived at that somebody like that gives me the first shot.
I got a call sitting in bed on New Year’s Day asking me if I was up for The Sphere, delivering it in six days. New format, new medium, new technology, new clients, working with a programmer, needing NFL approval. And I leaned away. I was like, my first instinct was, “You know what? I don’t even know what I’m getting into here, and I’m not sure I want to start the first morning of the first day of the year with my pants on fire for this.” My assistant was like, “Yo, you don’t fucking get it. This is huge.” And I was traveling and all this stuff, and I was like, “You know what? Fuck it. Let’s do it. Let’s just not embarrass ourselves here.” Really. I was like, “Let’s catch this check and not embarrass ourselves. We’re taking the gig.”
And we worked flat on a flat screen with programmers. It never looked right to me. I kept saying every day, “Yo, it’s flat. It needs more layers, it needs more depth, it needs more motion.” I had something in my head. And all I kept hearing was like, “Yeah, well, we will do that. You’ll see that next time and you’ll see that next.” And I swear, 48 hours before it went live, I wasn’t happy with it.
Faith in the unknown is one of my gifts. It came together and I was beyond pleasantly surprised. To be honest, I just didn’t want to drop the ball. I wasn’t focusing on setting the world on fire. And I got more love and likes and response from that than I got from the US ski team. I did the fucking Olympics. My fucking logo was on USA, United States of America, Worldwide TV. That was a much bigger moment to me personally than a tech flip for a week in Vegas. But it just hit the zeitgeist on the fucking nose.
Obviously, my last question that I love to ask, this is my favorite thing to do every time, because as a journalist, I know I got to ask artists of all stripes, the same questions that they hear all the time. They got to tell the same stories. You got to answer all the same questions. So my thing is I like to go, if you had a question, if you got to be the one making up the questions, if there was something you wanted to hear you talk about that you never get to talk about, that is way more interesting to you than any of things anybody’s ever asked you, what would that thing be? What would you want to talk about?
I would want to talk about how coming from the mean streets of New York that I grew up on, and the culture of graffiti and hip-hop that I grew up on, we were never taught to play nice in the sandbox. And that generosity of spirit was something that came to me late in life. What I came to understand was that I spent 50 years focused on being a great artist and chasing the word “yes,” and I had an awakening in my 50s. I got married when I was 50 and finally had a spiritual center and a partner, and a home, and an ability to start looking at myself and deciding that the icing on the cake of being a great artist was to be a great human being too.
I began focusing on being a better person and unpacking the parts of myself or my habits or my mentality or my character that, you know what? It wasn’t too late to change if I didn’t like them or if there was plenty of room for improvement. That just because I had become an arguably great artist, didn’t mean that there wasn’t still a lot of room for improvement as a human being. And once I had that revelation and also realized that when you build a brand, you’re also building an island.
I started to understand that people’s perception of my success created distance and that it was on me to close the distance, not on them. That yes, I had built a great island called Haze, but that I wanted to make sure that everybody knew they were welcome on my island and that I hope they invited me to theirs too. And that sentiment of generosity and connectivity was what allowed me to take my whole shit to another level as an artist brand and human being, hand-in-hand.
Heroes aren’t born, they’re made. But the story of Aaron Hernandez, an unnaturally talented professional football player whose championship-winning legacy was tainted by two separate murder cases – one a double homicide – proves that monsterscan be made too. At least, that’s what the latest installment of Ryan Murphy’s true crime anthology, American Sports Story, argues.
The 10-episode FX series chronicles Hernandez’s rise to infamy, from high school standout to collegiate superstar to starting tight end for the New England Patriots during the height of the Tom Brady / Bill Belichick era. For every win on the field, there’s a stumbling block off: early concussions that contributed to a neurodegenerative disease the real Hernandez was posthumously diagnosed with, an abusive father, a culture of homophobia that forced him to remain closeted, drug use, toxic family ties, and a system that failed to hold athletes accountable at both the university and professional level. Tackling just one element of the tragedy that was Aaron Hernandez, who died by suicide at just 27 years-old, is a test of an actor’s ability, but Josh Rivera is tasked with covering such an expansive part of Hernandez’s descent.
In conversation, Rivera has an easy charm about him. He’s contemplative and thoughtful when speaking about Hernandez’s troubles, and the victims who suffered because of his poor decisions. But he’s just as quick to joke about his own experience on the gridiron – he played high school ball before changing course to theater – and his surprisingly normal private life, one far removed from the one Aaron Hernandez led.
We spoke with Rivera about his intense transformation for the role, his earnest appeal to football fans who might be watching, and how he leaves weightier work like American Sports Story behind with some help from D&D.
What intimidated you most about saying ‘yes’ to this show?
First of all, everybody knows about it. It’s something that a lot of people already have an opinion about. It’s something that a lot of people were following closely. And then, this is a nonfiction person. This is a real person who left behind real victims and real tragedy in his wake. I don’t personally love being in the center of controversy. I’m pretty quiet on social media. I don’t really make big statements. I like my little quiet, private life. So that sort of makes me a little bit nervous, in terms of what that does. I feel like even just saying yes to something like this is taking some kind of stance. I wanted to be really sensitive and I wanted to do right by the people that were left behind. And I just tried to do my best with the resources that I was given and acted as honestly as I could.
If everyone already knows this story, what did you intend for the show and your performance to add to it?
Something I’ve been bringing up that I think is important to keep in mind is, all of this is possible because of our consumerism. On a societal level, there is some share of culpability that we have in enabling things like these. Because a person wouldn’t be able to get away with anything if not for our need for content and entertainment, and the desire to see people that we like win, because that makes money and we give money to people who keep winning, regardless. I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind while watching the show.
Hernandez never publicly shared his sexual orientation, but the show dives into that facet of who he was and how repressing that part of himself may have affected him. How did you make sure you treated those scenes sensitively?
Fortunately, very early on, we addressed that. We were working with a queer-friendly association, GLAAD, that was helping us with the kinds of pitfalls to avoid in terms of telling a story like this. And something that we were trying to avoid is the connection between not being out of the closet and being really frustrated and mad all the time, being violent. Because the reality is that there were so many layers that made this a ticking time bomb. And that’s without including the CTE of it all, which was, I’m sure, a propelling factor.
But it’s important to include it because it’s a big part of his formative years; that he felt like he didn’t belong. He felt like there were really big pieces of himself that he had to hide from others, which I think added to his isolation and those sorts of qualities that he eventually developed.
I’m thinking of the locker room scenes specifically when I ask this next question: Do you think football fans might be surprised by the atmosphere, the environment of the NFL?
I think that there’s a Venn diagram in terms of sexual fluidity and locker room behavior with the fellas. If somebody who was not on the team or was an outsider walked into a locker room during a game celebration or something, they might raise an eyebrow or two. And I wonder how many people are going to recognize that as far as their experiences go. It can be a real pillar of guy humor, at times, and there’s something really interesting, psychologically, about that. There’s something there. It’s a strange niche, cultural thing that hyper-macho men have developed with one another that I find very interesting.
So much of this show is heavy, how do you separate yourself from it at the end of the day? Really, I just want to know what a Dungeons and Dragons jam session is.
[still laughing] Okay, so my D&D friends are five of my really close friends from high school. We still keep in touch. They are all musicians, and I would sing with them every so often. And now when we all get together, everybody will get on their instrument and they will just do whatever beat that comes to their head, and I’ll sing something, and I’ll just make it up. And we’ll make up these songs. So it wasn’t specifically a jam session about D&D. But it’s a jam session with people that I play D&D with.
So you’re not soundtracking your adventures.
We have made some great songs about our D&D sessions, yeah. There’s a character that we wrote a song about. His name is Gravy Jones, and it’s just very absurd and ridiculous stuff.
Where’s the album?
You know what? I always had dreams of being a pop star and all that stuff. I would learn how to moonwalk, and I would moonwalk on stage. I would have liked to get really good at audio engineering, because now that’s the kind of thing that I find really interesting.
[In school] I wanted to learn how to be a producer and produce my own music and perform it. And now I feel a little bit more vulnerable with that. My voice feels so personal to me now, that it’s actually harder for me to sing in public than it used to be. I have to have some level of irony or else I get really embarrassed, which is kind of strange. I’ve got to figure that out, because I would eventually like to do something with music. It is very important to me. But yeah, I guess I would’ve just written music and either sold it or sang it myself and written it for my friends. And maybe I would’ve done a comedy band, too, on the side, and we’d have a name.
Me and my D&D buddies, we performed at each other’s weddings. I think the last time our band name was M. Night Sing-Along, and we’d just do covers of wedding crowd-pleasers. It’s good stuff.
Shannon Sharpe had a wild week last week when he accidentally went on Instagram Live while having sex with a woman, with his phone capturing the sound while facing the ceiling. Sharpe ultimately issued an apology on his “Nightcap” show with Chad Johnson — originally, one of Sharpe’s assistants claimed it was the result of a hack, but Sharpe deleted that and decided to tell the truth.
Some have questioned how much of an accident it was, as it takes a number of steps to start an IG Live and on his apology show he did an ad read for male enhancement pills, but in any case, it caused quite the stir. Sharpe avoided the same fate at ESPN as Paul Pierce after his ill-fated IG Live from a party cost him a gig on NBA Countdown. As such, he resumed his normal work on First Take, but no one has forgotten about what happened last week.
That includes Domonique Foxworth, who couldn’t resist the opportunity to slip a joke about Sharpe’s escapades into Tuesday’s First Take after Sharpe said he could play tight end for the Carolina Panthers if his hips could hold up.
Foxworth quietly joked “I think your hips are fine”, which neither Sharpe nor Stephen A. Smith seemed to notice — or just ignored. It’s good work by Foxworth, because you can’t just let that opportunity slide, to the point that he felt compelled to tweet this out so no one missed it.
For the past few years, much of Future’s output as a rapper has revolved around collaborative projects such as his and Lil Uzi Vert’s Pluto X Baby Pluto, and We Don’t Trust You and We Still Don’t Trust You with Metro Boomin. He’s also gotten a bit more expansive and experimental on projects like I Never Liked You, so it’s easy to see how one might feel he’s gotten away from the core creativity that made him such a star in the first place.
Enter Mixtape Pluto, which clearly aims to reboot the trap star’s rap career, judging from the tracklist he shared today. The album contains 17 tracks, and with no features listed on the actual artwork, it appears that he’s going to go all the way solo on the project, giving fans their first unfiltered, unassisted dose of Future since 2016’s Purple Reign. It was Future’s two-year run from 2014’s Monster to Purple Reign that elevated his profile to its current superstar status, as his three tapes with DJ Esco (Monster, 56 Nights, and Purple Reign) and Beast Mode with Zaytoven proved his athletic work ethic and ability to remain compelling for an extended string of solo tracks.
You can see the full tracklist below.
Mixtape Pluto is due on September 20 via Freebandz. You can find more info here.
01. “Teflon Don”
02. “Lil Demon”
03. “Ski”
04. “Ready To Cook Up”
05. “Plutoski”
06. “Too Fast”
07. “Ocean”
08. “Press The Button”
09. “MJ”
10. “Brazzier”
11. “South Of France”
12. “Surfing A Tsunami”
13. “Made My Hoe Faint”
14. “Told My”
15. “Oath”
16. “Lost My Dog”
17. “Aye Say Gang”
We’re in the heart of Bourbon Heritage Month and that means the world’s best celebrations of America’s Native Spirit are officially on.
The Kentucky Bourbon Festival just wrapped this past weekend, and it featured well over 6,000 guests, 62 participating distilleries, and an unfathomable amount of whiskey available for festival-goers to enjoy. The annual festival, which has been growing in size since its inception in 1991, takes place in Bardstown, Kentucky, otherwise known as the Bourbon Capital of the World, for three days of fun where brands introduce new products, pour some of their most beloved bottles, and bring out the founders, brand ambassadors, and master distillers of America’s biggest brands.
Throughout the festival, enjoying its third consecutive sold-out year, tents feature brand reps pouring special bottles, and some brands made the experience even more attractive by offering limited-edition expressions to try or even buy during limited times. A large part of the fun was exploring all of the booths, either in the main area or in the craft village where nascent brands were grouped, but don’t discount the value of going off the beaten path. To wit, some of the best pours we tasted over the weekend were only available at adjacent events at nearby distilleries, like Heaven Hill, or local bars like Mr. Tubs.
To truly get the most out of your festival experience, the only way to unlock all of those achievements (or at least try to) is to talk to people. Making new friends at KBF is often as enjoyable as trying all of the new whiskeys that distilleries roll out for the event, and it’s a true pro tip for elevating your experience.
That said, some of the whiskey on this list wasn’t available through traditional channels but was instead part of the festival’s choose-your-own-adventure spirit. So don’t feel bad if you were in attendance and missed out on one or two. That just means you have to make more friends, come next year!
There’s no need to rank the whiskeys on this list (and no way to do it; the pours were coming fast and furious!) because the idea is to introduce consumers to these great brands, so we’re continuing that mission below.
Here are the best bottles of whiskey at 2024’s Kentucky Bourbon Festival!
Angel’s Envy Cask Strength Bottled in Bond Bourbon
Angel’s Envy Cask Strength Bottled In Bond Bourbon is a distillery exclusive that showcases unfinished Angel’s Envy whiskey for the first time ever. Even more remarkable is the fact that through careful aging and blending, this bourbon meets all of the Bottled In Bond requirements without requiring water for proof, making it a barrel-proof Bottled In Bond bourbon, one of if not the first on the market.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Cherries, leather, and molasses rise out of the glass at first in a tightly fused ball that bounces from nostril to nostril with brown sugar and wheat bread joining as well. There’s also a distinct oak undertone to go with some milk chocolate, cardboard, and stewed rhubarb, making for an extremely expressive and impressive nose.
Palate: Brown sugar, allspice, raspberry jam, and leather are the most immediately recognizable flavors on the palate, but what’s most impressive is that even as you’re teasing those notes apart, you get a glimpse of a much larger whole. This is an extremely multi-layered pour, packed with flavors you’ll need extended consideration to get halfway through appreciating.
Finish: The finish sees hazelnuts, raspberry jam, and allspice taking turns at the wheel as it gently pulses over your tongue, hanging on for dear life before leaving your palate after a lengthy period.
Bottom Line:
This bourbon is vital to try because it checks several atypical boxes you can’t get elsewhere. The first Angel’s Envy expression that isn’t finished? Check. The first cask-strength bottled-in-bond bourbon? Check again. But Angel’s Envy Cask Strength Bottled In Bond Bourbon isn’t some curious oddity; it’s straight-up awesome.
Augusta Distillery is becoming well known for its high-quality sourced bourbon single-barrels at 8, 13, and 15 years old, but honestly, despite how good those are, the ten-year is the sweet spot. The single-barrel bourbon that they had on display for KBF exemplifies that.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose is robust with black cherry, stewed dates, peppercorn, and oak leading the way and hanging in the air for quite a while, giving it a full-bodied first impression that will beckon you in for an initial sip.
Palate: Once on the palate, those impressions hold true as the flavors match the nosing notes with a bit of cinnamon and vanilla added to the mix. The mouthfeel strikes that fantastic balance between oily viscousness and sprightly vivaciousness, which is what makes Buckner’s bourbon such a winner at ten years old. You truly get the best of both worlds.
Finish: The finish sinks its hooks in and has a lengthy extension with a faint touch of mocha and dark chocolate joining the oak and black cherry from the tasting notes.
Bottom Line:
If you’re looking for a justification for the price of these Buckner’s single-barrels, the best thing they have going for them is quality. The Augusta Distillery team has done an excellent job with barrel curation, and they don’t let any slouches slip through the cracks. Visit KBF for the all-included pours, and you’ll most likely leave with some stellar single-barrel bourbons like this one.
Bardstown Bourbon Company Origin Series High Wheat Bourbon
Bardstown Bourbon Company threw a mean Miami Vice-themed party at their distillery for folks looking to party late into the night on Friday after the festival, and the event’s welcome pour was none other than its Origin Series High Wheat Bourbon. We’ve previously rated this one highly but here’s the skinny if you missed it last time: 6-year bourbon with 39% wheat in its grain recipe. ‘Nuff said.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The aroma of this Origin Series High Wheat Bourbon begins with a ton of crème brûlée and strawberries before a touch of oak, wheat funk, and caramel comes through. There are also a few dashes of clove and lemon zest to round things out.
Palate: Once on the palate, the strawberries and custard notes play a major factor as the remarkably creamy texture of the liquid coats your palate and finds every corner of the mouth. Mellow oak tones, vanilla frosting, and flaky pastry flavors also enhance the bourbon.
Finish: The finish here is surprisingly lengthy, with the strawberry note going from ripe berries to the dried variety as a touch of nutmeg creeps in and the gentle oak vibes fuse with honey.
Bottom Line:
Bardstown Bourbon Company already has a wheated bourbon in their Origin Series, and it’s a rock-solid option with its fair share of admirers. That said, this High Wheat Bourbon is stunning, and not only does it one-up its wheated bourbon predecessor, but it also blows the rest of the stellar Origin Series out of the water. A pour of this bourbon is good enough to get any party started.
Silver Oak has been creating elegant wines in California’s Napa Valley for over fifty years, making them the perfect collaborative partner for Bardstown Bourbon Company, founded in 2014, which envisions itself as the bourbon world’s answer to the posh wine region. For this creative marriage, the brands worked together to blend bourbon between the ages of nine and fourteen from various sources before maturing them in Silver Oak wine barrels for 17 months.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The warm aroma of freshly baked fruitcake, vanilla frosting, burnt sugar, nutmeg, and salted caramel fills the air above the glass once you pour this multi-layered bourbon. The aroma notes are rich, bordering on decadent, and they’re each distinct enough to appreciate on their own without becoming muddled and obfuscating any of the others.
Palate: The flavor of Brazil nuts, vanilla frosting, rich stewed plum, and brandied cherries greet the palate for an almost syrupy first impression. This whiskey is so meaty and has a richness that extends beneath the surface without listlessly sitting there. Cola nut and chocolate truffle flavors take root at midpalate, and the cherries come back in force as the bourbon transitions to the finish.
Finish: Clove, oak, and jammy red berries sit on the back end of each sip, where the Silver Oak cabernet wine continues its influence but deftly blends with the base bourbon for a medium-length conclusion.
Bottom Line:
This is a full-throated pour with remarkable balance and mind-bending richness that achieves its ends subtly yet effectively, which is indicative of Bardstown Bourbon Co.’s growing adroitness in the field of finishing. In short, this is an artful execution of secondary maturation in American whiskey — something BBC has a burgeoning reputation for achieving in atypical ways.
For this brand-new expression, Barrell Craft Spirits combines straight bourbon whiskeys from four different states and finishes them in Ice Wine casks. The blend components include 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, & 11-year-old bourbon from Indiana, 5 & 8-year-old bourbon from Kentucky, 9 & 15-year-old bourbon from Tennessee, and 9-year bourbon from Wyoming. Lastly, the atypical mash bill comprises 71% corn, 24% rye, 4% malted barley, and 1% wheat, bottled at cask strength.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose begins pretty floral with white grapes, cantaloupe, and creme brulee leading the charge aromatically. The scent of white peaches, candied ginger, and butterscotch also stands out.
Palate: The flavors of honey, golden raisins, apricots, and butterscotch announce themselves prominently on the palate, which gently warms and coats your tongue as each sip washes over your tastebuds. The mouthfeel is impressively dense, which provides plenty of depth texturally for those flavors to blossom fully.
Finish: The finish is lengthy and exhibits a ton of grip as the flavors hang on the edges of your tongue, with honeysuckle, white peach, and candied ginger chief among them.
Bottom Line:
As one of a dozen bottles Barrell was pouring at the festival, this is the one I was most excited to try, and it undoubtedly delivers. While you’d be forgiven for only making it a part of the way through the Barrell booth’s full lineup, this brand-new expression was certainly one of the can’t-miss offerings.
Binder’s Stash Bourbon 8-Year “Tommy Pitts” Single Barrel
Here’s the skinny: 8-year-old Indiana Straight Bourbon, aged in Kelvin Cooperage barrels, with a mash bill breakdown of 75% corn, 21% rye, and 4% barley. This bourbon was then bottled at cask strength, which came out to 107.3 proof with a 194-bottle yield. Any more questions?
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Fresh hazelnuts and cherry pie aromas come swirling out of the glass with this whiskey while dark chocolate and cinnamon tones simmer in the background, adding nuance.
Palate: Cinnamon and pie crust pop on the palate with this bourbon as vanilla, smoky mint, butterscotch, and dark chocolate flavors more gently emerge. The chocolate notes are reminiscent of Nestle syrup, with that difficult-to-describe chalky and nutty undertone that doesn’t quite veer into Nutella hazelnut spread territory but sends your tastebuds on their way searching for it.
Finish: The finish on Binder’s Stash 8-year bourbon is brief, but peanut brittle, vanilla candy and more chocolate notes make it an enjoyable send-off while the uptick of barrel char notes keeps the sweetness in check.
Bottom Line:
This is one of those side-quest pours that magically appeared alongside some of Binder’s Stash’s greatest hits at an informal afterparty hosted by Bardstown’s hottest bar, Mr. Tubs, just a short walk from the festival grounds. When tasting whiskey from a paper cup, you don’t typically expect to be blown away by well-developed flavors, and yet, with this robust bourbon, the effect is obvious.
Bulleit made a splash with their recent 12-Year Rye, but now they’re making waves again with this new, ongoing 10-Year version. Age ain’t nothing but a number, and so we knew we needed to taste this younger alternative at the festival to see if it deserves the same high praise.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: On the nose, Bulleit’s new rye begins with citrus and oak notes before candied maple and strong mint vibes start to supplant them and take over the aroma profile. It’s a well-developed bouquet that speaks to a promising tasting experience. Let’s dive in.
Palate: Well-rounded is the first thing that comes to mind after a sip of this one. It checks a lot of boxes (what Bulleit expression doesn’t?), and it escapes any accusations of being quotidian with a silky mouthfeel that belies its age and will surely be used to elevate cocktails.
Finish: The finish continues this whiskey’s balanced and solid trend without rocking the boat. It has a fairly succinct finish that ends with a sweet melange of mint, caramel, and orange zest.
Bottom Line:
While we’ll be sad to see Bulleit’s 12-Year Rye go (buy it while you still can), knowing that they’ve got this reliable, delicious 10-year version stocking shelves as an evergreen SKU definitely softens the blow. This isn’t just leftover juice; it’s a wholly new product that scratches a similar itch at an even lower price.
The Dowling Distillery was doing a lot of sourcing in the days when this 21-year-old dandy was lining liquor store shelves. That makes ascertaining the exact source of this liquid a bit of a mystery, but the joy isn’t in decoding its location but instead in opening the top of rare whiskey from a bygone era and seeing just how it holds up against contemporary pours. Let’s see…
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose is immediately decadent, with maple syrup, pipe tobacco, roasted hazelnuts, and dark chocolate forming its voluptuous body. Seriously, this is a bourbon with a broad bouquet of aromas that remain far more inviting than intimidating despite their understated robustness.
Palate: Once on the palate, those aroma notes ring true, but the nose was most indicative of how dense and oily this bourbon is. It’s remarkable, given the proof that the liquid itself could be so viscous and rich, but it coats your tongue akin to a syrup more than a spirit, making this one an absolute joy to chew and tease apart at length.
Finish: The finish is medium-to-long, and the fact that the liquid is so oily enables it to recede gently into your jawline while maintaining the delicate balance of flavors that make it so enjoyable. What a marvelous end to a magnificent pour.
Bottom Line:
This pour was definitely off the beaten path, but it highlights just how crucial it is to check out all of the panel discussions on the festival’s main stage. Neat Bourbon Bar & Bottle Shop owner Owen Powell initially displayed this bottle during his panel while discussing some of the best dusty bourbons he’s ever come across. Thanks to a quick conversation (and a little convincing), he graciously poured this special vintage bottle once he left the stage.
Made from Heaven Hill’s classic 78% corn, 10% rye, and 12% malted barley mash bill, this premium expression is a one-time deal as the 2023 entry into the brand’s Heritage Collection lineup.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The aromas of honey, lavender, and spiced cranberries come tumbling out of the glass on the first pass. With star anise, blackberries, and juicy clementines in tow, this whiskey is immediately surprising in that it smells much lighter than one would expect from 18-year-old bourbon.
Palate: On the first sip, a breathtaking dose of milk chocolate and mocha joins the fruit notes that the nosing experience initially primed the palate for. The flavor of clementines and caramel blend well into a touch of lavender, clover honey, and cinnamon. The mouthfeel is slightly dense, which works well in contrast to the brightness of the overall flavor profile.
Finish: The finish is full of caramelized sugar, a touch of leather, and a slightly floral aspect. With a medium-to-long climax, each sip feels like a fully formed journey — and one worth exploring repeatedly.
Bottom Line:
Wandering into the VIP tent offered a bounty of riches at this year’s Kentucky Bourbon Festival. It had the best food on the festival grounds (outside of the food trucks), featured a fun spin-the-wheel game from CaskX which presented the chance to win a pour of Lot B from the Van Winkle lineup, and at the premium pours bar they even had this coveted release from Heaven Hill. It predictably disappeared almost as quickly as it was opened.
Hemingway 11-Year Rye Whiskey Call Family Original Test Barrel
For this commemorative release, Hemingway Rye takes some of their oldest barrels, now aged 11-years, and finishes them in rum-seasoned Oloroso sherry casks for over three years to honor Ron Call’s 50th anniversary in distilling.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: On the nose, this whiskey comes across incredibly complex as the mature rye notes of sassafrass, dark chocolate, honeyed mint tea, black pepper, and nutmeg combine with rich raisins and sweet tobacco courtesy of the finishing casks.
Palate: In the mouth this whiskey is immediately mouth-coating and substantive, with a supple texture that gives it an alluring approachability that opens the door for its remarkable complexity. Layers of honeyed mint, gooey caramel, and sweet oak crest and recede to allow mocha, clove, and black pepper to wash over your tongue.
Finish: Once you reach the end of each sip, the whiskey causes you to begin salivating as the spices become slightly more prominent and the savory notes of dense oak and bacon fat begin to trickle along the sides of your mouth for a lengthy, delicious finish.
Bottom Line:
Hemingway Rye at 102 proof has become one of the best-kept secrets in the American whiskey world, so much so that the self-assured gentleman at their booth openly encouraged guests to compare their flagship offering against any legacy distillery rye before comparing it to any in the craft village. I think their gumption is warranted. With this festival exclusive 11-year, cask-strength offering, however, the ante is upped significantly higher.
Michter’s has been releasing a fun, new toasted whiskey annually for ten years now, and in 2024, they decided to return to where it all started. To create this release, Michter’s takes their award-winning bourbon recipe and subjects it to secondary maturation in an 18-month air-dried wood stave barrel that’s toasted but not charred.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Marshmallow, brown sugar, and cinnamon toast aromas come wafting out of the glass at first. There’s some chocolate ganache and Cafe au lait with the faintest hint of mint in the mix as well. Initially, the marshmallow takes a strong lead, but in time, the aromas balance out and present themselves with magnificent balance.
Palate: It’s slightly smoky initially, with cinnamon, smoked caramel, marshmallow tones, and toasted oak splashing across the palate. Then, a faintly savory undertone helps to push the whiskey’s honey sweetness to the fore. The texture is rich and almost syrupy, which is a true credit to Michter’s filtration process because I’m in awe that they can wring so much viciousness out at such a modest ABV.
Finish: The medium-length finish has a gentle kiss of ripe orange, and an elusive touch of bananas fosters flavor that cedes to the faint barrel char and toasted oak tones.
Bottom Line:
Michter’s kicked off the toasted bourbon party, and they’ve still got the crown. This year’s Michter’s Toasted Bourbon delivers exactly what you’re looking for in a toasted barrel whiskey, but it pushes your palate into unfamiliar territory courtesy of a delightful balance that sees cinnamon, maple candy, and caramelized banana notes join the expansive palette this whiskey has to paint with. Festival pro tip: if you see Michter’s Master of Maturation Andrea Wilson walking around with a protruding branded tote bag, inquire about it…she might have this bottle inside.
NULU has been releasing cool experiments for years now, and not only is their base whiskey improving with age, but their blending and finishing are also becoming elevated through experience. Their new Maple Brûlée Bourbon showcases both qualities at once with (7.5-year-old) whiskey finished in toasted maple barrels.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose unsurprisingly opens with maple syrup notes, but they’re coy, and you have to actually go searching for them a bit while vanilla extract, wood sugars, and brioche bun aromas elbow them out of the way for your attention.
Palate: On the palate, the maple syrup notes are much more pronounced, and the high heat of this bourbon prickles your tongue a bit. It has a bold, slightly oily texture that’s punctuated by black pepper spice and ethanol, but once pricked, you’ll find that vanilla and maple sweetness on your tongue like a balm after a burn.
Finish: The medium-length finish persists and continues the balancing act between prickly spice and sweet, approachable vanilla, oak, and maple tones. This is a seriously tasty pour.
Bottom Line:
While the experiment might seem gimmicky at first, who can ignore the allure of maple syrup-drizzled pancakes? You may be surprised to discover that this one isn’t anywhere near as cloying as Aunt Jemima’s finest (or other maple-finished bourbons, for that matter), but by eschewing overt sweetness and taking a more nuanced, decidedly bourbon-forward tack, NULU succeeds in artfully marrying their solid bourbon base with surprisingly satisfying secondary maturation casks.
Full disclosure: Old Carter American Whiskey Batch 14 isn’t even out yet, but both that batch and Batch 15 are in the final stages of being blended for production. That information comes directly from brand founder Mark Carter, who was kind enough to share both unreleased batches at an informal post-festival shindig hosted by Mr. Tubs.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Rich, robust butterscotch notes with an almost smoky undertone and a lot of dense oak notes that give it a stable backbone to build more sweetness off of. The butterscotch aroma feels freshly made, with some flaky pastry notes covered in burnt sugar as well.
Palate: The palate is darker than the nose indicated, with the butterscotch aroma becoming more of a caramel flavor on the tongue while waxy plum notes and cinnamon simmer underneath it all. The texture has no sharp edges, which is always impressive with American whiskey, which can cause some spiky notes to form if the components aren’t well blended.
Finish: The finish just keeps on going. I mean, I took a lap around Mr. Tubs, saying hi to friends new and old, and by the time I sat down in front of my glass (erm…paper cup) again, I could still taste the caramelized sugar and oak.
Bottom Line:
This bourbon was another paper cup special, plucked straight out of Mark Carter’s trunk prior to an ad hoc tasting at the popular local haunt Mr. Tubs. Like all of Old Carter’s whiskey, this one is double oaked, bold, and flavorful, but though it follows a familiar track, this American whiskey release proves that the brand’s blends still have plenty of horsepower under the hood. Let’s hope that this one is released soon.
Old Louisville is a rising brand brought to you by founder Amine Karaoud. Rock-solid rye, bourbons, and light whiskey are released under the Old Louisville banner, so it’s tough to pick a favorite, but their bourbon is a surefire bet.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Some bourbons offer the appearance of boldness, usually courtesy of imbalanced oak tones that take over every other note, and then there are bourbons like this one that offer a matrix of tightly coiled aroma layers from red berries and toffee to milk chocolate and Brazil nuts. You should take the latter every time.
Palate: The palate on this Old Louisville 11-Year Bourbon doesn’t disappoint either, as the densely packed flavor profile carries everything from the nose to your tongue and sizzles the center of it while those juicy red berry notes blossom on the periphery. The wood sugars are restrained, and that allows darker, sweet notes to be enhanced by the oak rather than trampled by it.
Finish: The finish is what will make you do a double take at the proof, as it lingers far longer than you would normally expect from a 106-proof bourbon. While you’re waiting for it to end, take note of the almond extract and sweet nuttiness that emerges.
Bottom Line:
Old Louisville’s 11-year offering is a surprising, full-flavored bourbon, which explains why the brand’s booth had so many repeat visitors throughout the weekend. While many people were stuck waiting in line for the legacy distilleries’ most allocated items, Old Louisville and others in the craft village were busy winning fans one pour at a time.
Peerless has been producing fantastic bourbon since filling its first barrel in the modern era back in 2015, and its finishing program has been spreading its wings in recent years. For this brand-new expression, they’ve taken their base sweet mash bourbon, which is always non-chill filtered, and finished it in premium cognac barrels for an undisclosed period of time.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The cognac is well integrated on the nose, with dates and mocha modifying the bourbon slightly and elevating the toffee pudding and stewed apple notes. There are also aromas of raisins and sweet tobacco contributing to the overall pleasantness.
Palate: The flavors of port wine, chocolate, and sweet tobacco stand out on the palate which further underlines the influence of the cognac cask. It has a velvety mouthfeel that goes a step beyond the very clean and lean texture of Peerless’ typical bourbon which makes this one well-worth consideration.
Finish: On the finish the whiskey has moderate length and the toffee and red raisins persist along with dense oak tones, adding to the savoriness of each sip.
Bottom Line:
Peerless bourbon just keeps getting better, even without the benefit of a finishing cask. That said, the way they’re able to artfully combine their baseline bourbon with these assertive Cognac casks without allowing either participant to overpower the other deserves a ton of credit.
Pensive Distilling Co., based in Newton, Kentucky, has graduated from a popular restaurant and Kentucky Bourbon Trail destination to a fledgling distillery. While their impressively nuanced 100-proof, four-year offering is the pride and joy of brand ambassador Jeff Cole, it’s the nine-year, barrel-proof expression that will raise the eyebrows of most contemporary bourbon enthusiasts.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose is lush and expansive, and it actually gives the impression of a slightly older bourbon. With chestnuts and caramel meeting earthier tones of oak, this is a nosing experience that will surely draw you in.
Palate: Once on the palate, you first notice the incredibly creamy mouthfeel, which gently coats the front of your tongue and becomes even oilier as it rolls to the back of your palate. The flavors are well-developed and work harmoniously with one another to create a cohesive tasting experience.
Finish: The lengthy finish is just as impressive as the viscous texture of this whiskey, with some of the sweeter tones of burnt caramel and wood sugars standing out, along with a touch of barrel char.
Bottom Line:
The remarkable creaminess across the palate of this bourbon, along with its long-lasting finish, are its two most attractive qualities. The fact that Pensive is putting out incredibly well-made bourbon that drinks well above its age statement is the brand’s most attractive quality.
Pursuit United’s Double Oaked Bourbon is the latest line extension from Kenny Coleman and Ryan Cecil, the guys behind the world’s most popular bourbon podcast, Bourbon Pursuit, and one of the most well-received upstart whiskey brands in the last few years: Pursuit United. The dynamic duo put together this blend and then subjected it to secondary maturation using custom 36-month seasoned French oak medium-toasted staves.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: With an initial whiff of butterscotch and marshmallow notes, this whiskey immediately gives off campfire vibes as the lighter, sweet notes control the overall impression of the nose.
Palate: With one sip, Pursuit’s Double Oaked Bourbon confirms the nose’s suspicions as the campfire vibes continue thanks to honeyed graham cracker, marshmallow, and butterscotch with a touch of grilled peach and youthful oak bringing it all together.
Finish: The finish does bring a bit more stone fruit notes while cinnamon and vanilla custard carries through giving it moderate length with a lovely sweet and spice balance.
Bottom Line:
While Pursuit United’s Sherry Revere ryes have always been my jam, their work on the bourbon side has quickly left the realm of curious novelty to become a high-quality option for discerning drinkers. Make no mistake: Kenny and Ryan are as committed to their craft as anyone in the industry, and the rising star in their portfolio, this Double Oaked Bourbon, is ready for its close-up.
Russell’s Reserve 15 is Wild Turkey’s latest age-stated release, and it’s gotten a lot of bourbon of the year hype. This expression is non-chill filtered, and given their track record, one can safely assume there’s bourbon even older than 15 years in this blend.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Dark oak tones and rich leather seize the room, along with medicinal cherry notes and milk chocolate. Woah, this is unmistakably well-aged bourbon whiskey. Burrow a little deeper into the glass, and your nose will bump into clove and cinnamon as the aroma of vanilla pod begins to blossom before a milk chocolate influence crests yet again. There’s also a faintly floral note reminiscent of roses to be found if you search hard enough.
Palate: Black cherry covered in chocolate truffle dust hits the palate at first. This is distinctly different than, say, cherry cordials as there’s a ripeness to the fruit and an almost chalky textural component to the chocolate that sets it apart. On the second sip, one finds nougat, caramel, vanilla, and rich oak. While the nose gave the impression that this would be significantly over-oaked, the palate greatly alleviates those concerns as each of the calling cards of hyper-aging has its say without speaking over one another. A third sip invites a bit of herbal tea and allows you to appreciate the fluid mouthfeel of this whiskey.
Finish: The finish displays more black cherry, and now clove can be found in spades. The chocolate truffle dusting is more mute than it began on the palate, but it’s still present, and the ABV works perfectly here, serving to sizzle and lead to lip-smacking without ever overpowering or distracting you from the flavor every sip contains. It’s lengthy, balanced, and delicious.
Bottom Line:
With temperatures hitting 90 degrees at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, sipping on this high-heat delight from Russell’s Reserve was one way to fight fire with fire. This delicious treat was available courtesy of the BAXUS booth, where the gentlemen behind the table were offering rare pours, including some Wild Turkey from 1986, Blanton’s Green Label, and this contemporary classic.
Wenzel Whiskey, hailing from Covington, Kentucky, is a small outfit putting out bespoke blends of bourbon and rye whiskey with unique twists. Their four-grain bourbon was a standout pour from the festival but this more traditional rye might just be the brand’s best.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: On the nose, you’re getting prototypical Indiana rye notes with some smoky mint, a bit of cedar, honey, and barrel char, contributing to the well-refined and welcoming, familiar aroma profile.
Palate: On the palate, what stands out is how well-developed each of those notes is, displaying a fair bit of maturity compared to your typical youthful Indiana rye blends. The mouthfeel is gentle and absent any off notes, and by the time a spot of honey develops at midpalate you’re already smacking your lips in anticipation for the finish.
Finish: The finish is fairly succinct, but the sweet and mint notes are joined by black pepper spice and a touch of caramel, which helps this one go down smoothly.
Bottom Line:
After being impressed by Wenzel’s creamy four-grain wheated bourbon, I had doubts that their rye could keep pace. Color me surprised. It’s no secret that rye has a tendency to develop richer flavors at a younger age than bourbon (particularly wheated bourbon) but with a high bar set thanks to that first expression, it was all the more enjoyable that Wenzel managed to clear them thanks to this tasty bottle of The Rectifiers 2 Rye.
Wilderness Trail Master Distiller Selection Single Barrel Pick
Wilderness Trail Distillery is one of the pioneers of sweet mash bourbon and they’ve been showcasing how stellar their distillate can be with fantastic blends, but more pertinently, the single barrel program. For this particular selection, made available at the bourbon festival, they bottled a single cask that was selected by founders Shane Baker and Dr. Pat Heist and aged for four years and eight months.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: On the nose, it has a smoke-brushed caramel tone that draws you in while stewed apples, toasted Manuka honey, and vanilla beans emanate in the background. Given a few swirls, the whiskey opens up a bit and becomes a bit lighter, with apricots emerging in prominence.
Palate: The first sip from this bourbon welcomes the dense combination of stewed apples, toasted Manuka honey, and vanilla bean on the palate, with the flavors closely intertwined and melded well. The texture is fairly rich while remaining spry enough to easily roll over the tongue, making this one a sipper more than a bourbon you want to chew.
Finish: The moderate finish welcomes an uptick of nutmeg and black pepper spice while gently pulsing the sides of your mouth with ethanol-enhanced caramel notes.
Bottom Line:
In a festival full of stellar single-barrel selections, this gem from Wilderness Trail made quite an impression, and that comes as no surprise. Not only is Wilderness Trail single-barrel bourbon almost invariably delicious, but when you’ve got the two men who are most familiar with its distillate making the selection, you’re clearly set up for success.
*Bonus* The Barrell Seagrass Slushy
ABV: ?? Average Price: Free with entry!
The Slushy:
The Barrell Seagrass Slushy is slowly becoming the stuff of legend for attendees of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, offering a great opportunity to cool off and beat the heat amid all of the fiery cask-strength pours and 90-degree weather. Imagine Barrell Seagrass, which blends American and Canadian rye whiskeys that are finished in Martinique Rhum, Madeira, and apricot brandy barrels in a superb-for-summer semi-frozen stasis, and you’ll begin to understand the allure. Of course, the only way to “get it” is to get it.
Ever since The Walking Dead‘s “Cherokee Rose” episode, Daryl Dixon and Carol Peltier have been forging their platonic soulmate status. Sure, fans ‘shipped them for much of the flagship series’ run, but they were destined to be friends, albeit friends who have the most memorable hugs in TV history:
Seriously as well, “friends” seems like the better deal for longevity and survival purposes in a post-apocalyptic world. Remember, Carol married King Ezekiel, and Daryl had (something with) Leah, and neither of those relationships lasted while Daryl and Carol’s friendship kept riding.
Heck, ever since we learned that The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon‘s second season was subtitled as The Book Of Carol, it became clear that Carol will cross a damn ocean for her best friend. The season debuts in late September, and showrunner David Zabel has fielded a ‘shipping question to SFX Magazine/Games Radar, and sorry, Caryl devotees, it’s not gonna happen:
“The obvious thing to do, and the easier thing to do would be, ‘Okay, now they’re falling in love and they’re a couple.’ But I always felt like that would be a mistake, because it would feel like you were going into the TV book of tricks. To me, there was never a question that [their connection] was something other than what it is, and what it seems to want to be, and why it works so well.”
However, Zabel does confirm that, as suggested, a different type of “connection” has been developing between Daryl and Isabelle, and “[a] lot of season two is about the development of that and where that relationship goes, and that little surrogate family of Isabelle, Daryl and Laurent.” Norman Reedus was on board to see where this goes in the second season:
“Norman and I talked about this, that we wanted to draw a mature, adult relationship between a man and a woman and see where it went. Let’s just put these two characters, who are very different in very interesting, intriguing ways, force them together by the story facts, and then see what happens.”
Hey, as long as Isabelle (or Laurent, who seems to want plenty of attention, judging from the spot he put himself in during the first season finale) doesn’t interfere with the most beautiful friendship in The Walking Dead history, this should go fine.
AMC’s The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon: The Book Of Carol debuts on Sept. 29.
Hints about a Constantine sequel have been dropping for years, though it never seemed like a huge priority due to Keanu Reeves being busy with John Wick, a Bill and Ted sequel, and everything else he has done after the 2005 antihero thriller hit theaters. Over the years, Constantine became a cult favorite, and eventually rumors and reports of a sequel became real.
In 2011, director Francis Lawrence expressed interest in a sequel. In 2020, Peter Stormare seemingly confirmed a new installment. Then in 2021, Reeves claimed he “tried” to get the project moving, but seemed discouraged. Finally, in 2022, Warner Bros. confirmed the sequel is in the works with Reeves attached to return along with Lawrence. Slowly but surely, this movie is happening, and here is everything we know so far.
Plot
In Constantine, Reeves plays the titular exorcist who travels between Earth and Hell in order to track down demons living on Earth. He helps a detective (Rachel Weisz) prove that her twin sister’s death was not a suicide. Despite his best efforts to finally die, Constantine is still alive at the end of the film, and presumably he’s ready to keep hunting down the bad guys in a sequel.
While we don’t have exact plot details, the good news is that a script exists! We just don’t quite know what it’s about yet. Earlier this month, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura seemingly confirmed that a script is completed, he just needs to read it. “You know it’s in my inbox right now. Funny enough, I’m too scared to read it, though,” he told Comic Book. “I want it to be good so bad. I probably read it in the next few days. When I get on an airplane.”
In 2023, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman said that a sequel would expand on the themes introduced in the first film. “The character is very much Keanu [Reeves] and the way he and Francis [Lawrence] saw the world of good and evil, and the wonderful and authentic noir where there is a world behind the world of good and evil coexist with our world right up close,” Goldsman said. “Beyond that, we are still discovering it as I am writing the script.”
While Constantine is based on a DC character, it’s unlikely that he will have anything to do with James Gunn’s DC revamp beginning in 2025.
Cast
Constantine starred Reeves alongside Weisz, Shia LaBeouf, Peter Stormare, Tilda Swinton, and Djimon Hounsou. For now, all we know is that Reeves is on board for the sequel.
Last year, Rachel Weisz said she “hadn’t heard anything” about returning to the sequel, and neither had Tilda Swinton. LaBeouf’s character doesn’t make it out alive of the first movie, though there is a chance his character could return as an angel. Stormare was seemingly involved back in 2020, but official casting news will likely come closer to the start of production.
Release Date
There is no release date yet, but for fun, we can map out a general timeline (which could be very wrong). Reeves will be busy later this year with his Sonic 3 duties, then early next year he will reprise his role of John Wick in John Wick Presents: Ballerina . He also has a role in Aziz Ansari’s directorial debut due out next year. Assuming he has a break afterward, Constantine 2 just might be able to film in late 2025 for a potential 2026 release. It’s a little too soon to tell.
Trailer
While there is no footage yet, here is the trailer for Constantine to hold you over. You can also stream the film on Amazon Prime.
With the NBA finally getting its new media rights deal done that will bring in $76 million over the next 11 years from ESPN, NBC, and Amazon, the next major change coming for the league is expansion. Adam Silver says it was not a topic that was formally discussed at the Board of Governors meeting earlier this month, but it is not exactly a secret that expansion is on the horizon and something the commissioner has said is on the to-do list once the new TV deal was finalized.
The reason for that is the league needed to get its financial future secured because adding two more teams further splits the pie for revenue sharing. However, that is offset to a large degree by the expansion fee that gets divided among the current owners, on top of the increased footprint of the NBA that brings the potential for more revenue. There are two cities that are considered the heavy favorites for new teams: Seattle and Las Vegas (where LeBron James is expected to be part of an ownership bid). Seattle has been campaigning for a team since the SuperSonics were moved to Oklahoma City (and nearly swiped the Kings from Sacramento more than a decade ago), while Vegas has become a frequent host of NBA events like Summer League and the NBA Cup semifinals and final.
A Vegas team would be a completely new entity, but the people of Seattle (and general NBA fans, as well) wouldn’t want a new name. The good news is, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN explained in a lengthy piece covering what expansion could look like, the Sonics would indeed be making a return without any fight from the Thunder.
The deal between Thunder ownership and the city of Seattle resolving a lawsuit over the team’s arena lease and allowing the move to Oklahoma City stipulated that the name SuperSonics and all associated logos, colors and trademark would be transferred to the owner of a new NBA team approved to play at a renovated KeyArena at no cost.
That agreement laid out the terms of shared ownership of Sonics history, including the team’s 1979 championship trophy and retired jerseys. Officially, the NBA combines the history of the two teams. For example, the league recognizes Payton as Oklahoma City’s career leader in games played.
Windhorst adds that the Thunder don’t even use Sonics history for their own record books, and that a new Sonics franchise would be able to reclaim the team’s history from before 2008 — as happened when Charlotte rebranded to the Hornets and New Orleans rebranded to the Pelicans.
While there are still plenty of hurdles to clear towards expansion, it’s expected the NBA will have two new teams on the court by 2027. Seattle may not be on that list in ink just yet, but it’d be shocking if the Sonics weren’t part of it and happily there wouldn’t be any issue restoring the franchise’s name and history to Seattle.
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