Have you ever made a resolution to be more active, engaged, and goal-oriented in the new year, perhaps starting a new gym membership, and then — just a few weeks into January — you’re already feeling exhausted? The reason is simple, a lack of balance. You have to remember that wellness as a two-way street. If you’re going to ask your body to put in extra work, you need to make sure you are putting just as much effort into helping it recover, or you’re setting yourself up to fail.
Conquering your goals — physical, mental, or spiritual — can feel impossible when you are starting the journey sore or sleepy. Self-care isn’t just a buzzword. It’s essential!
Below, we have a list of great gear for anyone looking to level up their recovery practices. As always, everything you see featured has been road-tested by the crew here at Uproxx and given our stamp of approval. Enjoy!
EDITOR’S PICK: HYPERICE VYPER 3
Courtesy
Price: $200
The Company Line
Built with your body in mind. The Vyper 3’s contoured design helps avoid pressure on your spine and other sensitive areas for a more comfortable roll. Prime your body with a powerful vibrating massage. The Vyper 3 accelerates your warm-up speeds and recovery time and keeps you moving better.
Pair the Vyper 3 to the Hyperice App for pro advice, guided sessions, and to monitor your progress from your phone.
Why You Need It:
Want to know what an embarrassing nerd I am? I bring this to work with me and roll it under my feet at my desk. I also use it for full-on warm-up and cool-down sessions. It’s just so incredibly helpful — combining this thing that your chiropractor insists you use, a foam roller, with a high-frequency vibrating massage.
Until literally this year, I just didn’t have a clear idea and understanding that massage could help my body warm up for an activity. Now I find that process absolutely essential. And this device is so quiet that you can use it while watching a show and not annoy anyone else in the room.
Perfect for people who carry tension in the lower or upper back.
The OOFOS story begins with the original Sandal a combination of sleek design and OOfoam recovery technology that laid the groundwork for all future OOFOS styles and models. Our revolutionary OOfoam technology absorbs 37% more impact than traditional footwear foam materials to reduce the stress on your feet, joints & back. Research shows OOFOS reduce load, decrease compressive forces, and support foot mobility when compared to traditional footwear.
Why You Need It
For those of us who are looking to better ourselves through weightlifting or running, there is a lot of thought goes into what we are wearing when working out. But what are you wearing for the other many, many hours in the day? OOFOS provides a comfortable and stylish option to your everyday footwear at home and on the move.
The patented footbed is designed to reduce stress on your feet and legs so you can go further with your daily chores or harder in the gym.
The Normatec Go by Hyperice delivers targeted massage for fresh legs on-the-go. Backed by the same science that powers the original Normatec system, the Normatec Go is completely portable and delivers dynamic air compression to the calf muscles to increase circulation and reduce pain and tension in the legs. These lightweight wearables are TSA approved and feature new intuitive user controls to help you keep moving.
Why You Need It
One of the brands that high-performance athletes swear by has made major moves to make their gear more accessible to the everyday athlete. The Normatec Go is a great way to heal up your legs after your morning run or evening bike ride, and can be worn while you do other activities in the home. It’s like having an at-home leg-specific masseuse in your living room. Designed to reduce inflammation and increase circulation in your lower body using air compression, the low-profile unit is easy to take on the road.
The Ostrich Pillow Eye Mask is the first truly 3D ergonomic eye mask. Its design adapts to the three-dimensional features of the face. It fits perfectly on all head sizes and face types, providing one hundred percent blackout experience in total comfort. The mask is developed with six layers of high-quality materials that ensure maximum comfort and functionality, making it perfect for sleeping. And it is machine washable, so it feels like new — night after night.
Why You Need It
So often the reason that we don’t feel truly recovered is simply that we aren’t getting enough high-quality sleep. Our schedules are busier and under attack now more than ever, so it’s important to grab that shut-eye when we can. Having a truly effective and comfortable eye mask available is a must-have for anyone struggling to secure their rest. The complete blackout experience and ergonomic design make it great for travel or at home when there is artificial light seeping in.
This mask comes with a carrying pouch, which is good because you aren’t going to want to leave it behind.
Enjoy faster recovery and fresh feet when you work out, in everyday life, and when you travel. CEP’s Allday Merino Compression Socks, comprised of heat and moisture-regulating merino wool, are specifically designed for the purpose of keeping your feet fresh, cool and comfortably dry while accelerating your recovery. The innovative blend of materials with merino wool and synthetic fibers perfectly regulates heat and moisture for comfortable feet. The anatomical design guarantee maximum comfort, and no more slipping.
Why You Need It
For most people on the move, the feet take a lot of punishment throughout the day, during their training or daily responsibilities. The areas that connect our lower body to the ground take a lot of beating, which can lead to stress on the ankles and foot pads. These socks are specifically designed to take care of those areas in tandem with your footwear or on their own at home. The brand also makes great compression knee braces for anyone who experiences swelling during runs or training sessions. Everyone should have a few great pairs of compression socks that can keep swelling down and your feet dry when walking around in rain or snow.
Power and versatility work together to make the Hypersphere convenient and efficient, the perfect blend to enhance your warmup and recovery routine. The high-powered vibrating Hypersphere can be used for trigger point release on your tightest muscles so you can recover faster and move better. Three speeds plus intense core vibration help loosen muscles, enhancing athletic performance. The textured rubber exterior targets vibration for more localized therapy
Why You Need It
This is like the “put a tennis ball under your shoulder” advice, taken up to an 11. I use this product literally every night, because I carry so much tension in my shoulders. It releases trigger points and leaves me feeling truly and deeply rejuvinated. I also use this under the hips. That upper glute carries so much tension and holds it all too well. Learning how to release that, via this magic ball, has been an absolute revelation.
Like the vibrating roller, don’t sleep on this as a foot massager, either. It’s excellent to have between your feet while working, watching Tv, etc.
The Infrared PEMF Mat combines two powerful healing technologies to create the ultimate recovery tool. PEMF grounds you in earth’s magnetic field for a full-body reset, while Infrared’s deeply penetrating heat doubles your DOSE. Hit the mat to ease chronic pain, recover from workouts, deepen your meditations, or experience total-body relaxation. No set-up or clean-up is required.
Why You Need It
I have enjoyed visiting the revitalizing HigherDOSE infrared saunas at their New York location a few times in the past, so I can vouch for the benefits. I was drawn in to the pulsed electromagnetic field, or PEMF, therapy by the fact that astronauts use it to recover from space missions. This mat combines that therapy with their familiar deep heat. This is a great piece for anyone who wants to get into these techniques but don’t have room for a whole sauna at home or would like to avoid paying for every session at a spa.
Our revolutionary Cold Plunge uses powerful cooling, filtration, and sanitation to give you cold, clean water whenever you want it. Sports medicine has utilized cold water therapy for years, to help the active recovery of your muscles. Cold plunging has also shown the ability increase your baseline dopamine, the molecule in our brain and body that is linked to motivation. The Plunge is safe for indoor or outdoor use and we’ve made installation truly plug-and-plunge.
Fill your Plunge up with a hose, turn it on, set your temperture, all the way down to 39F degrees, and get ready to change your life!
Why You Need It
In the ever-evolving world of fitness, cold water therapy has recently become one of the most talked-about recovery modalities, though it has been around since the very beginning. Studies have shown that submerging yourself in cold water for a few minutes can decrease muscle soreness after an intense training session. But the benefits go beyond the physical, with practitioners like Wim Hof sharing the immense mental benefits that come with the practice. This unit is not an impulse purchase though, it is for those who have made a decision to make cold water part of their weekly recovery routine.
For those ready to take that step, this unit perfectly combines aesthetic style with functional design.
When “Kai,” the quickly-dubbed “hatchet-wielding hitchiker” went viral in 2013 (“smash smash suh-MASH“), it was a story near and dear to my heart. Probably that’s a corny thing to say about anything that goes viral, which clearly touched people all over the world in similar ways, but that’s how it felt.
Kai was just that kind of story. The kind that in those days made me drop everything and write up a post, regardless of how much it actually fit my beat. For one thing, it happened in Fresno, the city where I’ve long told people I’m from and now actually live. For another, there was just something fascinating about “Kai.”
Quickly famous for stopping a potential mass killing in progress by bludgeoning the perp with a hatchet and then giving an interview that careened from uplifting to hilarious to unhinged, Kai (real name: Caleb Lawrence McGillvary) went on to get Milkshake Duck‘d in record time. This before the term “Milkshake Duck” had even been invented. He’s currently doing time for murder (spoiler alert kinda but not really).
Even at the time it felt like there must be more to this story, and yet it sort of just went away — from viral sensation to Jimmy Kimmel to prison in barely a few months. These days it lives just on the periphery of our collective consciousness, something we vaguely remember happening but forget the details of.
Which is to say, the perfect subject for a documentary in 2023. These days, when any viral news event spawns competing documentary projects before the duck shakes have even been milked, that’s no faint praise. The list of projects that have fallen into the awkward territory between tired of hearing about it and remember that? is long, and no one needs another Comey Rule. In that sense, Netflix’s The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker comes just at the right time. And kudos to Netflix and director Collette Camden (a prolific director of TV documentaries, many for the BBC) for giving us one stand-alone, 85-minute documentary feature rather than the de rigeur, hopelessly padded four-episode docuseries.
Yet while The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker may not need more run time, it could certainly use more insight. It offers many tantalizing details, making it that much more infuriating when it descends into yet another round of “maybe the media is to blame?!”
It’s not as if Camden didn’t do some legwork. The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker interviews, for the first time that I’ve seen, Kai’s mother and cousin, and reveals his true place of origin (Edmonton, Alberta Canada). Yet Camden has a habit of tugging threads just long enough to reveal some controversy and immediately moving onto something else. As if her idea of balanced coverage was to simply find two people who disagreed. In conclusion, America is a land of contrasts…
It’s natural that a documentary like this will have healthy chunk devoted to “remember that?” It has to refresh our memory before it can move onto revelations, and The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker does whet the appetite admirably. Through interviews with the people who “discovered” Kai, notably then-KMPH reporter Jessob Reisbeck, who conducted the initial interview, and his cameramen and producers, Camden thoughtfully conveys what made Kai so intriguing in the first place.
He was sort of a hobo with a heart of gold (“Before I say anything else, I want to say no matter what you done, you deserve respect…“), homeless and stony in an 80s surfer dude kind of way (That was like the biggest wave I’ve ever ridden in my life), with a comedian’s sense of timing (Q: Would you do it again? A: …Club him in the head with a hatchet?). He was clearly also an unreliable narrator and capable of serious violence (braining a guy with a hatchet, showing scars from knocking a guy’s teeth out, etc). His particular stew of compassion and malice was baked in from the beginning. It’s what made him intriguing. Yet Camden sort of presents Kai’s violent tendencies as red flags we should’ve seen but missed.
Camden is at her best delivering the untold story of what it was like trying to wrangle this unhinged, completely unpredictable and usually drunk guy onto his Jimmy Kimmel appearance (through interviews with various producers, fixers, and reality show gadflies). Great story! Throughout, Kai goes off on tangents about fluoride as a method of mass mind control, the government as an evil empire, and organized cabals of child predators. These are all now staples of the red-pilled conspiracy-net, but Camden doesn’t really explore this at all, or how this presumably not-very-online guy got caught up in them. That “Kai’s” accent goes from Hawaiian to Canadian also goes unremarked upon.
When Kai intimates that he was a victim of horrific child abuse, his cousin at first seems to corroborate this before Camden interviews Kai’s mother. The mother explains it away casually, locking Caleb in his room as a logical attempt to deal with a hyperactive child. Some editorial authority would’ve been crucial here, but Camden exerts little. She’s equally hands-off when it comes to the crime for which McGillvary is currently doing time — killing a New Jersey lawyer who McGillvary says tried to rape him. Was it really self-defense against a rapist, as McGillvary contends, or was it, as the prosecution contends… wait, what does the prosecution even contend? They take pains to show that the killing was “premeditated,” but the question of what the actual motive was remains wide open.
Camden introduces a subplot about McGillvary potentially using public sex offender registries to try to “hunt” rapists and pedophiles. Then, incredibly, does nothing to explain if or why he might’ve thought his victim was a sex offender. Instead we get the media people doing introspection about how maybe it was wrong to try to give this guy a reality show.
This seems to reflect a broader trend in historical revisionism, whereby media proves that the only kind of criticism it understands is media criticism. Was the media too mean to Britney Spears?? Was the media too mean to Princess Di?? Should the media have known Kai was dangerous??
This flagellation is inevitably just as facile as whatever inappropriate-by-today’s-standards thing they’re self-flagellating over, often as a way to bypass more substantive critique (like, why was Britney Spears being interviewed on Barbara Walters as a teenager in the first place? Why was “Kai” homeless and hitchhiking in the first place?). And what should people have done? Tut-tutted more? Been more paternalistic and measured in their excitement? Not stopped to look at a train wreck? Especially as it relates to Kai, the Forrest Gump of 20-teens web trends, “what should the media have done differently” strikes me as the most asinine question possible.
The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker was smart to explore this subject and in many ways is a good start, but as it stands feels frustratingly incomplete. Sometimes maybe competing doc projects are a good thing.
‘The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker’ is currently available on Netflix. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can read more of his reviews here.
Alec Baldwin’s apparently cursed Rust film is resuming filming again this year. That’s quite a turn of events, but the production reached a settlement with the late Halyna Hutchins’ family more than one year after she perished after being shot by a firearm held by Baldwin. He previously insisted that he he didn’t fire the weapon, although the FBI investigation found that statement to be inconsistent. Still, the production will continue with Halyna’s husband, Matthew Hutchins, doing executive producing duties, and the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau exonerated Alec in light of his belief that the firearm only contained dummy rounds.
Fast forward to this week, and the Santa Fe District Attorney’s office feels differently. Baldwin is being charged with involuntary manslaughter, and in a statement to PEOPLE, his attorney called the decision “a terrible miscarriage of justice” while adding, “We will fight these charges, and we will win.”
If Baldwin is convicted, though, what could be the possible punishment? In New Mexico, involuntary manslaughter covers manslaughter cases where no malice is intended. As well, the charge counts as a fourth-degree felony. If convicted, a defendant would ordinarily be on the hook for up to 18 months in prison and a possible $5,000 fine. However and as NBC News points out, this case could carry a “firearm enhancement” which could beef up the sentence to a mandatory five years. Given that Baldwin’s attorney resolves to fight this charge, it seems unlikely that a plea deal is in the cards.
The Rust armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, will also be charged with involuntary manslaughter in this case. Via PEOPLE, her attorneys declared, “[S]he did not commit involuntary manslaughter…. We intend to bring the full truth to light and believe Hannah will be exonerated of wrongdoing by a jury.”
Another influential ’60s rocker has passed, just days after days after guitar god Jeff Beck passed at 78. Variety reports that singer-songwriter-guitarist David Crosby has died at the age of 81.
A statement shared by his wife reads: “It is with great sadness after a long illness, that our beloved David (Croz) Crosby has passed away. He was lovingly surrounded by his wife and soulmate Jan and son Django. Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us. His legacy will continue to live on through his legendary music. Peace, love, and harmony to all who knew David and those he touched. We will miss him dearly. At this time, we respectfully and kindly ask for privacy as we grieve and try to deal with our profound loss. Thank you for the love and prayers.”
Crosby was best known as the founder of the Byrds and later as part of the supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (originally just Crosby, Stills & Nash). While neither group lasted for very long, their influence has since reverberated throughout rock and popular culture (a bunch of characters in the sci-fi rock romcom adventure film Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World are named for Stills, Nash, and Young). CSN&Y has sporadically reunited over the past few years, keeping their presence in rock as unforgettable as hits like “Woodstock,” “Teach Your Children,” and “Our House.”
Crosby was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: once for each of his two groups.
There’s still so much unknown when it comes to the fungal infection responsible for kickstarting an apocalypse on HBO’s The Last of Us. We’re starting to suspect creators Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann like it that way, because keeping fans in the dark about the world-ending pandemic’s origins and reproductive methodology only makes this show more unnerving to watch each week.
We’re pointing fingers, placing blame, tossing out old boxes of pancake mix, and just maybe considering going Keto again. (Damn you Druckmann!)
How Did Cordyceps Initially Spread?
We know the infection likely originated in Jakarta, Indonesia. That heavily-populated hub was the focus of a radio report playing in the background during the season premiere as Sarah and Joel were enjoying his meager birthday breakfast. There would’ve been pancakes to accompany Sarah’s shell-laden scrambled eggs but her dad forgot to pick up more mix, a fact Tommy also remarks on when he comes home. As the family — Sarah, Joel, and Uncle Tommy — load up into the pick-up truck, ready to drive to school/work, a neighbor offers them some homemade biscuits, something they all turn down. So that’s two opportunities to consume carbs denied by characters this show is trying to convince us live in Texas, where carbs are one of the main food groups. Seems suspect, but let’s move on.
Sarah also refuses to eat some of her next-door neighbor’s homemade cookies — to be fair, they’re raisin cookies so that’s not necessarily a red flag, just an indicator Sarah has good taste in sweets and her Boomer babysitter doesn’t. And both she and Joel skip his planned birthday cake snack when he arrives home late and empty-handed. (Sidenote: Has anyone eaten at all on the day the world ends? If not, that’s bleak.) When Joel and Tommy race to grab Sarah and escape the chaos once Infected start roaming the streets later in the episode, they posit theories on how the “virus” is spreading. Joel says it’s contained to the cities while Sarah questions if terrorists might be behind the outbreak. She also wants to know how they’re so sure they aren’t already sick.
Besides not exhibiting any symptoms, it seems like a plausible answer might be that they didn’t consume any flour that day.
In the video game series, Cordyceps Brain Infection was initially spread through crops in South America that had been infected with the fungus, but the mention of Jakarta, Indonesia in the show has led some to think a flour and grain factory might be the culprit. That would mean that everything from bread to granola and, yes, pancake mix, might carry spores capable of invading those who ingest foods like biscuits and cookies and really all of the best items on the food pyramid. According to a Vulture breakdown, that pathway for fungal infections to spread has happened before, first in the Middle Ages but more recently in places like Manchester and France. Even certain strains of fungi like Candida survive off yeast produced in our bodies and can cause serious health issues. (Which, rude.)
All in all, it sounds like it was a good thing Joel didn’t indulge his sweet tooth on his birthday, though why some people got sick while others who most likely had consumed flour and grain in the days leading up to the outbreak didn’t is still something that’s keeping us up at night.
Texas’ top Republicans made it pretty clear that most of them are strongly opposed to abortion when, in 2021, they took the shockingly drastic step of imposing a near-total abortion ban in the Lone Star State. In the more than year since that controversial decision, much bigger decisions have been made on the topic of a woman’s right to choose — including the Supreme Court’s unprecedented decision to reverse the half-century old Roe v Wade ruling. But Texas senator Bob Hall has an entirely different — and absurd — reason for wanting to end abortion: so that all those aborted fetuses stop ending up in our food products.
This is not a drill!
As Vice reports, Hall recently introduced a bill in Texas requiring that any food containing “human fetal tissue” be “clearly and conspicuously labeled” to indicate so much. Which shouldn’t really be a problem, since the idea that food manufacturers are adding aborted babies into their products is outright insane.
A spokesperson for the FDA provided Vice with a statement in response to Hall’s absurd accusations, stating: “There are no conditions under which the FDA would consider human fetal tissue to be safe or legal for human or animal consumption.”
“Prominent conspiracy theory movements like QAnon hold (falsely) that elite Democrats are running a cannibalistic, Satan-worshiping, child sex-trafficking ring. QAnon’s beliefs are linked to antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ tropes that hold that Jewish and LGBTQ people are trying to hurt children, and even drink their blood. These conspiracies, which have flourished partly through lockdown isolationism and election denialism, have radicalized a stunning number of Americans and torn families apart.”
While food manufacturing would in no way be impacted should Hall’s bill become law, it could require changes to scientific and legal studies as, according to Sherman, “fetal cell lines can be used to develop and test drugs. These lines can be collected from a single miscarriage or abortion, then replicated in labs, over and over again, for decades. (Cell lines derived from aborted fetal tissue can be preferable, both because it’s easier to collect and because fetal tissue derived from a miscarriage may carry whatever genetic or chromosomal problem may have caused the miscarriage in the first place.) Fetal cell lines have led to development of many major vaccines, such as the vaccines against chickenpox and Hepatitis A.”
On Thursday, January 19, 2023, New Mexico First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies issued a written statement announcing that Alec Baldwin, producer/star of the indie western Rust, is being charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter. The action comes nearly 15 months after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was accidentally killed by a firearm being used by Baldwin on the film’s Albuquerque set. Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the film’s armorer, is also facing the same charges.
“After a thorough review of the evidence and the laws of the state of New Mexico, I have determined that there is sufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Alec Baldwin and other members of the Rust film crew,” Carmack-Altwies wrote. “On my watch, no one is above the law, and everyone deserves justice.”
In the immediate aftermath of the accident, the Oscar-nominated actor expressed “shock and sadness” over Hutchins’ death. But the more questions that were asked about exactly what happened on the set that led to the tragedy, the more Baldwin seemed to back away from bearing any responsibility — despite the fact that he was the person holding the gun that killed the DP and injured director Joel Souza.
Though Baldwin had the gun in his hand, he insisted that he never pulled the trigger. He also claimed that while “someone” was responsible for Hutchins’ death, that someone was “not me.” And when Halyna’s widower, Matt Hutchins, filed a lawsuit against Rust producers, Baldwin’s reaction was to accuse the plaintiffs of attempting a money-grab from “deep-pocket litigants.”
In order to prove her case, it’s the DA’s job to show that Hutchins’ death wasn’t just a tragic accident. As TIME writes, Baldwin “could face at least five years in prison if a jury finds that the actions that led to Hutchins’ death were more than simple negligence.”
David Halls, the film’s assistant director, signed a plea deal with Carmack-Altwies’s office. In exchange for pleading guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon, Halls will face a suspended sentence and six months of probation. But Andrea Reeb, the special prosecutor who was appointed to assist the DA in handling this case, isn’t letting Halls off the hook that easily.
“If any one of these three people—Alec Baldwin, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, or David Halls—had done their job, Halyna Hutchins would be alive today. It’s that simple,” Reeb said. “The evidence clearly shows a pattern of criminal disregard for safety on the Rust film set. In New Mexico, there is no room for film sets that don’t take our state’s commitment to gun safety and public safety seriously.”
You can read Carmack-Altwies’s full statement below.
The Last of Us might be HBO’s latest smash hit, but it might not have happened if it weren’t for another massive HBO franchise you might have heard of.
Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, the on-screen duo who are making their trek across a dystopian landscape to escape some zombies, were actually on the same show at one point, which is also what inspired Ramsey to become an actor in the first place. “I don’t think that I’d be an actor if it wasn’t for Game of Thrones, ’cause I never really set out to be [one], and then it sort of happened,” Ramsey told Entertainment Weekly.
Ramsey was just thirteen when she was cast in the hit fantasy series, which helped her realize that she actually wanted to have an acting career. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. So it set me up and prepared me for The Last of Us, and all my other projects, in ways that I don’t think anything else could.” Pascal joined the series in season four.
Thanks to the GoT connection, the two Last of Usleads already felt like they had a bond before filming even began. “I feel like it made us come from a family without knowing each other already,” Pascal explained, adding that their experiences on the show were so similar. “To have two characters that the fans liked make their entrance and make their exit is parallel for the both of us and a kind of bonding thing before we even got a chance to bond. So, yes, I am grateful for that.”
But when it comes to learning the mistakes of those who came before them, Ramsey doesn’t think The Last Of Us will have a similar journey that Game of Thrones did. “I don’t think it’s gonna be as long as Game of Thrones,” Ramsey mentions. “I don’t think it’s gonna be this show that goes on forever.” Considering how the final season was received, keeping it short and sweet will be for the best.
As a professional in the spirits industry, I can assure you that there are some expensive whiskeys out there that are worth dropping a little extra scratch on. Part of that is just the reality of the marketplace in 2023 — where the final “price” of a bottle could mean a few different things. All premium whiskeys are released with MSRPs (manufacturer’s suggested retail price), but the rarity of the release and/or the hype around the juice in the bottles or the brand itself often means that bottles go for well above their original MSRPs.
Most people have adjusted to the fact that we live in an era where premium whiskey sells for inflated prices. Which eventually leads any well-meaning neophyte (including my editor) to ask: “Okay, but which expensive whiskeys are actually worth paying so much more for — especially in a marketplace where you can easily get really good whiskey for $30 to $50?” Today, I’m going to answer that by listing 20 bourbon and rye whiskeys on the U.S. market that I would personally pay extra for to have on my shelf (I’m saving international whiskies for another day).
The first and biggest rule I follow in premium whiskey purchases is that it has to taste really goddamn good. If it doesn’t, then what is the point? Look, I buy bottles for investment, flipping, trading, and auctioning all the time. But even then, I’m buying bottles I’m sure taste good because — as with any investment — things could go south. I can’t drink my house if the housing market tanks. If the whiskey market tanks, I can 100% crack open an expensive whiskey bottle and enjoy it with my friends and family.
So I win even when I lose. (Sort of.)
When it comes to the 20 bourbon and rye whiskeys below, they all taste great. That’s why they’re listed. But they all cost more than their MSRP on the open market. Generally speaking, you have to put in a lot of work and have a huge network to get these bottles at MSRP — which is what you really want to do if you’re going to take whiskey investing seriously. But this isn’t about investing and turning a profit. This is about ranking bottles of expensive whiskeys that are actually worth paying that little bit extra to have (and sure, maybe holding onto for a little while, too).
These are the bottles I’d pay a little extra for.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
This rare Michter’s expression is pulled from single barrels that were just too good to batch or cut. Once the barrels hit the exact right flavor profile, each one is filtered with Michter’s bespoke system and then bottled as-is at the strength it came out of the barrel.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Dark cherry and butterscotch candies pop on the nose next to sour red wine mixed with mulled wine spices — lots of cinnamon, clove, and star anise — next to tart apple skins, apple bark, and a hint of singed marshmallow between lightly burnt Graham Crackers.
Palate: The palate leans into spices in a subtle way with a nutmeg/eggnog vibe next to rich vanilla ice cream and smoked cherries with a minor note of fresh pipe tobacco and singed cedar bark.
Finish: The end adds some dried red chili and sharp cinnamon to the tobacco with a pinch of freshly cracked black pepper and a supple sense of a fresh fruit bowl with a lot of red berries.
Why I’d Buy It:
Michter’s is always a good place to start. The quality of the product is so high that you will not be disappointed if you have to crack open a bottle. While you can get this at MSRP if you’re at the distillery in Louisville on the right day, you kind of have to get lucky to get it.
Otherwise, this is so good as a Manhattan base or bold sipper that spending $200 to have it around is worth it.
19. New Riff 100% Malted Rye Bottled In Bond Aged 6 Years
This whiskey from New Riff is a whiskey lover’s dream pour. The mash is made from 100% malted rye (most rye that is used for whiskey is unmalted). That means more sugars are available in the grain as it goes through germination and then heating to stop that process, which helps create a lot of sugars. Anyway, the juice then rests for six years in new oak before the barrels are blended, proofed down, and bottled as-is.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: There’s a hint of figs and dates on the nose that leads to a spiced Christmas cake covered in powdered sugar frosting with plenty of candied citruses, dried dark fruits, and roasted nuts next to vanilla pudding and dried pear skins.
Palate: The taste has a hint of orange saltwater taffy on the front that leads to a mix of clove, allspice, and sassafras as dark fruit leather and white peppercorns pop.
Finish: The end is lush and mellow with a hint of that pepper next to dark dried fruit layered into a tobacco leaf alongside cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and dark orange oils.
Why I’d Buy It:
If you’re in Northern Kentucky (or Cincinnati) and go to the distillery on the right day/week, you’ll be able to get this at MSRP. For the rest of the people in America, you’re going to have to pay a little extra. The main reason for that is that this is… drumroll... it’s great-tasting whiskey.
Sure, it’s one the rare side but it really just pops as a unique and delicious sipper.
This limited-edition release celebrates the 30th Anniversary of Knob Creek, which started back in 1992 during the darkest days of bourbon. The juice is Beam’s standard mash bill that’s distilled at a slightly different temperature and treated with a little more care during aging by placing barrels in very specific locations throughout their vast warehouses. After 18 long years, the best of the best barrels are small batched, and just proofed before bottling.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Dark molasses and pecan clusters with salted dark chocolate lead to brown butter, old figs, and salted caramel with a woody sense of cherry and apple bark next to cinnamon-laced cedar sticks with burnt orange.
Palate: The palate is full of lush vanilla notes next to singed cherry bark and apple-cider-soaked cinnamon sticks, star anise, salted black licorice, and dark chocolate-covered espresso beans with a hint of dried red chili spice turning up the heat on the mid-palate.
Finish: The end has a floral honey sweetness that balances everything toward orange blossoms and bruised peaches, cherry tobacco, and clove tobacco.
Why I’d Buy It:
This is the best Knob Creek there is. If you take Booker’s releases out of the Beam Suntory equation, it might be the best Jim Beam product right now. Add in that it is one of the tastier bourbons of 2022, and you have a winning combination.
This whiskey heralds back to Michter’s historical roots in the 19th century before the brand was even called “Michter’s.” The whiskey in the bottle is rendered from a very small batch of bourbons that were aged in Chinquapin oak which was air-dried for three years before charring and filling. The Kentucky bourbon was then bottled in an extremely small batch that only yielded 2005 bottles this year.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Sweet mashed grains — thinks a bowl of Cream of Wheat — mix with sticky toffee pudding, old leather, old cellar beams, and sweet cinnamon with a hint of burnt orange and dark chocolate next to eggnog with a flake of salt.
Palate: The palate is super creamy with a crème brûlée feel that leads to soft winter spices, dry cedar, and orange chocolates with a hint of marzipan in the background.
Finish: The end has a creamed honey vibe next to figs and prunes with fresh chewing tobacco and salted dark chocolate.
Why I’d Buy It:
This is one of the “secret Michter’s” — but folks are catching on and this is getting harder and harder to find at MSRP. Still, this is one of the whiskeys that truly lives up to the deliciousness factor with a unique profile.
Protip: Michter’s has a wider distribution in the EU. You can find this at MSRP in places like Germany and Czechia (where I buy my bottles) and then bring them back in your checked luggage while adhering to all import laws on spirits.
This whiskey from Sazerac’s other Kentucky distillery of note (they own both Buffalo Trace and Barton’s 1792 distilleries) is a bit of a hidden gem. As with all Sazerac products, there’s a lot of secrecy around what the actual mash bill is, aging times, and so forth. It is likely a high-rye mash that’s aged over five years.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Salted caramel and apple pies lead the nose with a nice dose of nuttiness, winter spices, and eggnog creaminess with a butter vanilla underbelly.
Palate: Bruised peaches with clove and nutmeg drive the palate toward woody orchard barks, rich toffee, and a sense of vanilla cake with cardamom icing.
Finish: The end is softly full of woody cedar bark, cream soda, and apple-cinnamon tobacco.
Why I’d Buy It:
This is the easiest win on the list. 1792 Single Barrel is delicious whiskey at a good price. But if you’re not in Kentucky at a liquor store at the right time, you’re not getting this at MSRP. This is so tasty that I wouldn’t really care about paying twice that amount for it to have a bottle on the bar. It’s a single-barrel expression of really good whiskey — that’s always worth a little extra consideration.
This Buffalo Trace whiskey rests in the warehouse for 12 long years, in the same barrels and warehouses as Pappy van Winkle whiskeys. The difference between this and Pappy 12 — good ol’ “Lot B” — is pretty simple actually. If the barrel doesn’t hit the exact flavor profile needed for a Pappy, it’s sent to the blending house to become a Weller (as long as it hits Weller’s flavor profile, of course). So yes, this could have been a Pappy 12 had the flavor profile been slightly different in the barrel.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose hits softly with bruised peaches and old pears next to fresh wool sweaters, vanilla pancake batter, and moist marzipan next to orange oils, worn-out wicker deck furniture, and old Buffalo Trace leather with a faint hint of dried roses.
Palate: The palate kicks around cherry bark and apple-cider-soaked cinnamon sticks with spiced cranberry sauce over buttermilk biscuits and gingerbread.
Finish: The end leans into the sharp brown spices with a mild sense of vanilla cake with apple cider and cinnamon frosting, a touch of burnt orange, and more of that moist marzipan covered in salted dark chocolate.
Why I’d Buy It:
All the Pappy comparisons aside, this is really good whiskey at a lower proof (making it more drinkable for most people). It’s also one of those bottles that you break out for celebrations, so paying extra doesn’t feel that out of the ordinary. Finally, it makes a really good gift bottle since “Weller” has excellent name recognition.
The latest Booker’s is a nod to “Kentucky Tea” which isn’t tea at all. It’s when you add a little whiskey to a glass of water and then that looks like tea. The juice in this case is a blend of bourbon barrels from seven locations across six different warehouses. The final product was bottled without any fussing at cask strength.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: There’s a clear sense of sour cherry and vanilla cookies on the nose with a supporting cast of dark tobacco packed into old cedar boxes with a rough and worn leatheriness tying everything together.
Palate: The palate opens with a vanilla white cake frosted with cherry and chocolate — a bit like a Black Forest cake — that leads to orange oils, clove, and old pine boards with a touch of sap.
Finish: The end has a fruitiness that leans towards a spicy star fruit with a fresh vibe next to light pear tobacco with a pine humidor edge.
Why I’d Buy It:
Booker’s is always worth picking up. The aftermarket value doesn’t go insanely high (maybe an extra $100 per bottle — $200 or $300 for the really good ones). Plus, you’re always going to find something unique and delicious depending on which release you come across.
Distilled back in the spring of 2010, this whiskey was made with a mix of Kentucky corn and wheat, and barley from North Dakota with that Kentucky limestone water. The distillate was filled into new white oak from Independent Stave from Missouri with a #4 char level (55 seconds) and stored in warehouses C, K, and N on floors 2, 3, and 4 for 12 long years. During that time, 64% of the whiskey was lost to hungry angels. Those barrels were then batched and this whiskey was bottled as-is.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose on this one is surprisingly sweet with a big slice of coconut cream pie (with a lard crust) next to your grandma’s butterscotch candies straight from an old leather handbag that’s held menthol cigarettes for decades and maybe some old Mon Cheri bonbons.
Palate: The palate opens with a lush eggnog full of nutmeg, allspice, and vanilla that leads to a white pound cake with a hint of poppy seed next to old leather tobacco pouches with a hot cinnamon spiciness on the mid-palate with light cedar woodiness.
Finish: The end layers that white cake into the tobacco while packing it all into an old leather handbag with whispers of mint chocolate chip, Halloween-sized Mounds bars, and old lawn furniture that’s been left out too many seasons.
Why I’d Buy It:
The Buffalo Trace Antique Collection bottles are the mountaintop for a lot of whiskey drinkers out there. If you buy just one at a premium, I’d argue make the Weller. It’s consistently great year after year.
Eddie Russell made this whiskey to celebrate his 40th year of distilling whiskey with his dad, Jimmy Russell. The juice is a collection of a minimum of 13-year-old barrels that Eddie Russell hand-picked. Those barrels were married and then bottled as-is with no proofing or filtration.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Sweet and dried fruits invite you on the nose as a touch of fresh, creamy, and dark Black Forest cake mingles with mild holiday spices, dried almonds, and a sense of rich pipe tobacco just kissed with sultanas.
Palate: That dark chocolate and cherry fruit drive the palate as a hint of charred cedar lead towards vanilla tobacco with more of that dark chocolate and a small touch of honey, orange blossom, and a whisper of dried chili flake.
Finish: That honey leads back to the warmth and spice with a thin line of cherry bark smoke lurking on the very backend with more bitter chocolate, buttery vanilla, and dark cherry all combining into chewy tobacco packed into an old pine box and wrapped up with worn leather thread.
Why I’d Buy It:
This whiskey blew up in 2021 when it first hit shelves. When it was released in 2022, it was even more beloved. Why? It tastes amazing. It’s worth tracking these down just to try how great Wild Turkey can be.
This is the same whiskey as Master’s Keep 17-Year. In this case, after vatting of a minimum of 17-year-old barrels, the whiskey was only proofed down to 50% or 100-proof for bottling as per bottled in bond laws. The resulting whiskey is then bottled as-is.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: There’s a bold nose of spicy Christmas cakes spiked with orange oils, candied cherries, and dried apples next to vanilla pods and worn saddle leather that leads to this subtle hint of fresh cinnamon rolls with a cream cheese frosting cut with lemon and vanilla.
Palate: The palate is the epitome of smoothness with a subtle warmth derived from woody winter spices — star anise, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon — that then branches toward this whisper of burnt sugars and fats from an old brisket smoker with a hint of salted red taffy and singed marshmallow next to vanilla pound cake with a hint of poppy seeds.
Finish: The end has a sweet cinnamon candy flourish before smoldering wild sage and old boots arrive with a dark chocolate espresso cherry tobacco layers into an old cedar box with a hint of black dirt lurking in the distant background.
Why I’d Buy It:
Again, Wild Turkey can be amazing. This bottle proves it. The whiskey is so good in this bottle that it feels like the MSRP should be closer to $499 (unlike some bottles that have that MSRP and don’t live up to it).
Cowboy Bourbon is Garrison Brother’s signature bottle of whiskey. This year’s release was made from 118 hand-selected 25-gallon barrels, aged between eight and nine years. Master Distiller Donnis Todd went through all of their small-format barrels over the course of the year to find a dozen or so that he thought met the high standards of Cowboy Bourbon without filtering or cutting with water. That makes this a very as-is representation of what makes Garrison Bros. special.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose opens with a rush of sharp cinnamon bark wrapped up with old saddle leather, freshly fried apple fritters, walnuts, old cedar bark braids twisted up with dried wild sage, and a hint of dried yellow mustard flowers with an underlying sense of maple syrup over pecan waffles.
Palate: The palate leans into the spice with a hint of allspice and ginger next to apple pie filling with walnuts, brandy-soaked raisins, and plenty of brown sugar next, next to spiced Christmas cake dipped in dark chocolate sauce.
Finish: The end takes its time and meanders through salted caramel, stewed plums with star anise and sharp cinnamon, a hint of vanilla Dr. Pepper, and a mild sense of chocolate-cinnamon-spiced chewing tobacco buzziness with a warming Texas hug that’s part Hot Tamales and part chili-spiced green tea.
Why I’d Buy It:
I’d fly to Texas and stand in line to buy this whiskey on its drop day. But that’d cost far more than just paying a premium for it on the aftermarket. Again, the unique and crafty Texas juice in this whiskey is worth the price of entry. It’s phenomenal and so unique.
This whiskey dropped at the very end of December 2021. The whiskey in the barrel is rye whiskey that spent 13 years chilling in the cool Cascade Hollow warehouses in Tennessee. The barrels were then hand-selected by Cascade Hollow’s general manager and distiller Nicole Austin for their perfection. They were then proofed down only just to 100 proof and bottled as-is.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose is incredibly fresh with bursts of green apples, freshly cut sweet grass, citrus oils, roses, and fresh cinnamon sticks.
Palate: The palate leans into the green apple with a tart edge as the spices kick up a wintry vibe before a savory note arrives with a hint of dill, anise, and maybe some rosemary. On the mid-palate, the citrus comes back with a bright orange and grapefruit touch that turns into wet black peppercorns, white moss, and an echo of dried green tea leaves.
Finish: The finish lets that green tea vibe settles into the earthiness and savory herbs as the sip slowly fades out, leaving you with a whisper of dried wicker deck furniture.
Why I’d Buy It:
This is a rarity that lives up to the hype. This whisky is just delicious and really feels like something special.
This year’s Parker’s Heritage starts off with Heaven Hill’s classic bourbon mash bill of 78% corn, 10% rye, and 12% malted barley. From there, it’s all about where and how that whiskey aged. The lion’s share, 67% of the blend, comes from a 13-year-old double-barreled bourbon from the 5th-7th floors of Rickhouse Q. 33% of the blend comes from a 15-year-old bourbon that was aged on the 2nd and 5th floors of Rickhouse II. Those barrels were batched and then bottled 100% as-is without any filtering or proofing.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Salted toffee rolled in almonds and dark chocolate is packed into an old oak stave chocolate box and wrapped with old leather and caramel tobacco with a fleeting sense of dried ancho chilis and sour cherry juice next to singed hickory.
Palate: The palate has a deep woody winter spiciness — cinnamon bark, whole nutmeg, star anise, allspice berries — next to sweet oak and dry sweetgrass with a mild sense of cherry cream soda and salted black licorice over woody tobacco.
Finish: The end leans towards sweet and salted dark chocolate with a rummy plum pudding full of dark spice and dried fruits with a fleeting sense of that dried chili on the very back end with some very old oak and leather.
Why I’d Buy It:
This is where collectability starts to sneak in. I get these to have open and share with my hardcore whiskey crew because it tastes wonderful. But I know a lot of people who squirrel these away in vaults too.
This rare release from Rabbit Hole is a five-grain bourbon that’s made with some unique grains. The standouts are chocolate malted wheat from Germany (4%) and chocolate malted barley (3%) from the U.K. combined with 70% corn, 13% rye, and 10% malted rye. That juice rests in Kentucky until it’s just right for batching and bottling completely as-is in only 1,365 bottles.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose is brimming with dark chocolate cut with hazelnut, chili pepper, and orange with a molasses sweetness over cinnamon toast with a hint of sharp spearmint and maple.
Palate: The palate has a sense of that hazelnut tied to cinnamon bark and black cherry tobacco with a sense of firewood bark resting in rich black dirt next to dry dark chocolate just flaked with salt.
Finish: The end has a sense of old boot leather and cedar chocolate boxes just emptied and refilled with spiced cherry tobacco and eggnog-infused espresso beans.
Why I’d Buy It:
If you can get this as MSRP, get two — one to save and one to drink. Honestly, that’s true of every bottle on this list. Still, this is the best Rabbit Hole has to offer in my opinion. It’s that good.
6. Michter’s Single Barrel 10-Year-Old Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey
This year’s only Michter’s 10-Year release is an instant classic. The whiskey is made from a corn-rich rye whiskey mash bill with a good dose of barley in there. The absolute best barrels are chosen — with some up to 15 years old — for this release. Then each of those barrels is individually bottled as-is with a hint of proofing water.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Rich and lush toffee combine with soft marzipan on the nose as a dash of freshly cracked black pepper lead to cinnamon-laced apple cider and cherry-soaked cedar bark.
Palate: The palate is part Red Hot and part zesty orange marmalade with creamy vanilla pudding, sweet and spicy dried chili peppers with a hint of smoke and woodiness, and this fleeting whisper of celery salt.
Finish: The end dries out the almond with a vanilla cream tobacco, soft and sweet cedar, and dark chocolate orange vibe all balanced to damn near perfection.
Why I’d Buy It:
This is delicious rye. It makes the best Manhattan. And it’s worth paying that little extra to actually have.
This whiskey is a blend of Indiana, Tennessee, and Kentucky bourbons. Each barrel in that blend is a minimum of 16 years old. The barrels were specifically chosen for their cherry, nutty, high-proof, and chocolate profiles. Half of those barrels were then finished in new American oak for a final touch of maturation before vatting and bottling as-is.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose opens with a sense of wet oak staves (think rained on barrels) next to freshly pressed sugar cane juice, damp, almost still unharvested cherry tobacco leaves, the seeds from a vanilla pod, rainwater, stringy cedar bark, and fresh apricot next to Bing cherry.
Palate: Dark cherry leads to candied ginger on the opening of the taste as orange marmalade mingles with toasted sourdough, sticky yet subtle fir resin, and creamy key lime pie filling with just a hint of the butter in the crust of that pie. The mid-palate leans into the sugar in that pie filling as the cherry kicks back in with a sliver of tartness next to overripe peaches, dried hibiscus, mild anise, allspice berries, sassafras, and dried cacao nibs.
Finish: The finish gently steps through a field full of orange blossoms as that cacao dries out more, leaving you with dried choco-cherry tobacco that’s been inside a cedar box wrapped in decades-old leather.
Why I’d Buy It:
This whiskey is worth that $499 MSRP and a bit more. It’s so rare and delicious that you can’t help but fall in love with it.
4. Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve 15 Years Old 2022 Release
This is where the “Pappy Van Winkle” line starts in earnest. The whiskey in this expression is pulled from barrels that are at least 15 years old. Once batched, the whiskey is just touched with water to bring it down to a sturdy 107-proof.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose opens with freshly fried sourdough fritters dusted with ground almonds, sharp cinnamon, cloves, orange zest, burnt sugars, and maple frosting with a hint of old vanilla pods next to soft figs.
Palate: The palate leans into rich toffee with a sense of minced meat pies covered in powdered sugar frosting right next to sticky toffee pudding with salted caramel, orange zest, and tons of brown wintry spice countered by a moment of sour mulled red wine cut with dark maple syrup.
Finish: The end has a soft cedar vibe that leads to vanilla and dark cherry tobacco leaves and a hint of pine next to old white moss.
Why I’d Buy It:
This was the best Pappy released last year. So if you’re looking for a great Pappy to drink and share with friends and family, this is the one to buy right now.
3. Michter’s Single Barrel 10 Years Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
The juice in this bottle is a little under wraps. Michter’s is currently distilling and aging its own whiskey, but this is still sourced. The actual barrels sourced for these single barrel expressions tend to be at least 10 years old with some rumored to be closer to 15 years old (depending on the barrel’s quality, naturally). Either way, the juice goes through Michter’s bespoke filtration process before a touch of Kentucky’s iconic soft limestone water is added, bringing the bourbon down to a very crushable 94.4 proof.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: There’s a peppery sense of cedar bark and burnt orange next to salted caramel and tart red berries with a moist and spicy sticky toffee pudding with some brandy butter dancing on the nose.
Palate: The palate blends vanilla tobacco with salted dark chocolate-covered marzipan while espresso cream leads to new porch wicker and black peppercorns.
Finish: The end has a pecan waffle vibe with chocolate chips, maple syrup, blackberry jam, and minced meat pies next to old tobacco and cedar with a sweet yet singed marshmallow on the very end.
Why I’d Buy It:
This didn’t come out last year, making it a rarer find. Still, this is great bourbon with a classic depth and vibe. It’s a little more expensive now that a vintage year was skipped but it’s still worth the price of entry to taste truly great bourbon.
2. Old Fitzgerald Bottled-In-Bond Fall 2022 Edition Aged 19 Years
The latest decanter release from Heaven Hill’s Old Fitzgerald Bottled-In-Bond series was made back in September 2003. Those barrels rested on three floors of rickhouse F and one floor of rickhouse X on the main Heaven Hill campus until October of 2023. They were then batched and proofed down to 100-proof for bottling.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: This has a classic bourbon nose with deep leather, oily vanilla pods, dark chocolate-covered cherries dusted with salt and nutmeg, and a mild sense of really fancy Almond Joy with this faintest whisper of singed marshmallow and smoldering apple wood.
Palate: The palate leans into woody spices with black licorice and spearmint candy blending into mint chocolate chip ice cream and root beer spiked with cherry syrup topped with creamy vanilla and dusted with cinnamon, clove, and dark cacao powder.
Finish: The end has a long and supple sense of those woody spices before delivering into soft Black Forest cake with a brandied cherry vibe and a hint of star anise-infused apple-berry cider.
Why I’d Buy It:
This is another one that a lot of people hide away in safes and cellars. That’s a shame since this is one of the best bourbons you’ll taste.
1. The Last Drop Signature Blend No. 28 A Blend Of Kentucky Straight Whiskeys
This blend is from Buffalo Trace’s Master Blender Drew Mayville, who’s been at the distillery since 2004. Mayville created this blend by sampling bourbons and ryes from the rarest and sometimes oldest barrels of whiskey in Buffalo Trace’s vast and numerous warehouses. While the exact details of the final blend are unknown, we do that the whiskeys in this blend are some of the rarest that the distillery had on its ricks. And since it is a blend of bourbon and rye whiskey, this is technically a “blended straight whiskey.”
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose then starts to deepen into sticky toffee pudding, old dried-up figs, black-tea-soaked dates, burnt orange, cinnamon sticks, dried ancho chilis, firewood pitch, and a creamy underbelly of vanilla and toffee.
Palate: The palate warms with an ABV buzz that leads to soft vanilla cream with tart but dark berries floating next to orange zest and salted caramel. There’s a sense of old boot leather and Kiwi boot cream next to waxy cacao nibs, cherry cream soda, pecan and dark chocolate clusters, pistachios, and roasted root veg — think caramelized parsnips and carrots next to a Yorkshire pudding.
Finish: The end becomes a luxuriously soft and creamy sip of stewed black cherries with anise and clove next to holly bushes and fir needles with a little bunch of spices — cinnamon sticks, star anise, dried rose, a stick of pine, dried orange peel — tied with an old waxy piece of twine.
Why I’d Buy It:
This truly is a bottle that mostly goes into vaults. Previous releases are already selling for well over $10,000. That aside, this is one of the best whiskeys I’ve ever tasted. If you’re not at all into investing in whiskey, then get a bottle and slowly enjoy this masterpiece.
In a new post on his Instagram Story, Drake says he’s going to “use 2023 to tell my truths.” While that could almost certainly set fans rubbing their mitts for life lessons and financial advice that can launch them to the Toronto titan’s tax bracket, as it turns out, his observations may end up being a bit more mundane.
In the same post, he reveals one of those truths — which involves public restrooms. “I have seen more staff and private bathrooms than anybody ever,” he quasi-brags. “Whenever you are waiting in line to use the bathroom just know there’s an amazing clean private room that they refuse to show you.”
Instagram
That… actually seems like pretty sound advice, actually. Why poop with the plebs when you could be using your bathroom breaks to really relax in comfort and privacy? This has been a running gag on a number of sitcoms, including Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Seinfeld, and Abbott Elementary, so maybe Drake’s onto something.
Drake right before he posted: “I’ve seen more staff and private bathrooms than anybody ever” pic.twitter.com/W0iUUw0v5W
Drake, who is riding the high from his and 21 Savage’s surprise joint album Her Loss, certainly knows a thing or two about treating yo’self — and embracing the sillier side of life. He was recently seen sporting some pieces from his hero Pharrell’s old jewelry collection and ahead of the new year proved he didn’t mind the “sassy Drake” memes that spawned from his Her Loss ad-libs.
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(@RobMarkman)