Category: News

King of Kentucky is one of the most sought-after and fleeting bourbon releases of the last few years. Even as a whiskey writer and spirits competition judge with lots of sources in the industry, I’ve had a hard time getting my hands on a bottle myself. Luckily, that drought ended when a bottle of King of Kentucky 5th Edition landed on my desk this week ahead of its release. Spoiler alert: this whiskey lives up to the hype and then some.

But before we get into that, let’s dive into why this super rare whiskey is so special. It was launched five years ago by Brown-Forman Master Distiller Chris Morris, Brown-Forman’s man in Kentucky. Morris is best known for his work on Woodford Reserve and Old Forester, among a lot of other hats he wears (Morris also helps make the barrels of Brown-Forman’s other big brand, Jack Daniel’s). He started this particular label to highlight the amazing barrels hiding in the Brown-Forman rickhouses in Kentucky.

This year’s first release (of only two) is a 15-year-old single barrel expression that retails for $250. That doesn’t sound too bad, right? Here’s the rub: these bottles are so revered and rare that the aftermarket price is 10 times that, easily.

Last year’s release is selling for $3,500 already. And here’s the even bigger rub: you’ll need to be in Kentucky for the release in order to snag a bottle (though there will be some bottles in Ohio and Illinois this year too). Oh, and King of Kentucky is often considered the best bourbon of the year by whiskey critics and fans alike. Add all of that up, and you have the perfect storm for a rare release that costs thousands of dollars the second after it hits shelves.

Is it worth it? Oops, yeah, I kind of spoiled that already. Let’s just dive in and see what’s in the bottle.

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

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• We Tasted Bourbon Whiskeys ‘Double-Blind’ And Tried To Guess Each Bottle
• All The Double Gold-Winning Straight Bourbons From This Year’s San Francisco World Spirits Competition

King of Kentucky Single Barrel 5th Edition, Barrel No. 14

ABV: 65.3%

Average Price: $249 MSRP

The Whiskey:

This year’s King of Kentucky is a 15-year-old bourbon made from a mash of 79% corn, 11% rye, and 10% malted barley. The spirit — made at the Brown-Forman Distillery in West Louisville (Shively) — went into the barrel on December 18, 2009, at 125 entry-proof. After 15 long years, only about 35% of the whiskey was left in the barrel. 43 single barrels were then chosen for this release and individually bottled as-is, yielding about 3,500 bottles of King of Kentucky.

The Bottle:

King of Kentucky bottles feel like a bit of a throwback merged with winning a Golden Ticket. The glass is classic and dipped in wax. The label is a golden ticket of sorts with a white-on-black simplicity that pops with gold trim. The whole vibe imbues simplicity with class.

Tasting Notes:

The nose opens with a hoecake with a sourdough edge which leads to very old boots rubbed with blonde Kiwi polish as pitchy fir mingles with dank honey with a sprinkling of dried berries and soft spices (think nutmeg and allspice) with a thin layer of used vanilla husks next to a faint whisper of honeydew melon and a twinge of chili pepper tobacco.

The palate is boldly mounted with ABV buzzing that leads to an avalanche of hot spices — Red Hots, sharp ginger, dried and woody chili peppers — that peaks with a blast of heat from the ABVs before lush vanilla cream cools everything down with notes of black cherry sweetness and old wicker. And then another wave of heat arrives on your senses with a woody spice matrix that’s then tempered by dark chocolate powder, brandy-soaked raisins, soft oats, buttery toffee, chocolate-covered espresso beans, dry cedar, and wet pipe tobacco cut with black soil, and cherry stems. The end leans into that earthiness with cherrywood tobacco and more dried berries, slowly — and I mean slowly — fading through the warmth of the finish.

Bottom Line:

This is a wild ride from start to finish. It’s bold, brash… and bombastic. That second wave of heat and flavor notes is fascinating, a big “wow” factor. That might also mean that you may need a rock to calm this one down. I can tell you that tasting it with a few drops of water really opened it up into the stratosphere, so don’t hold back.

Ranking:

99/100 — This is a damn near perfect pour of whiskey. It’s not only bold, it’s 100% unique. This stuff rages against the machine on your palate in the best possible way while making you want more, louder, bigger, harder — and then it delivers!

This week was a comedown from the high of Beyonce’s massive Renaissance, but we were lucky enough to experience some great releases to keep us preoccupied. From the release of another new Carly Rae Jepsen track to another stunning single from Niki ahead of her forthcoming LP Nicole, there was a lot of cool stuff going on.

Each week, Uproxx rounds up the best new pop releases. Listen up.

Omar Apollo — “Highlight”

As Omar Apollo prepares for the release of Ivory (Marfil), he’s giving fans a taste with “Highlight.” It flaunts his flirty attitude with a groovy sound and inviting lyrics: “You’re the only one that holds me / Yeah, I know you’re feeling paranoia / Are you in love, ’cause I wanna try,” he sings.

Remi Wolf — “Pink + White” (Frank Ocean Cover)

Before Frank Ocean announced his $26,000 c*ck ring, Remi Wolf shared a soothing rendition of the singer’s sprawling song “Pink + White” from his iconic last LP Blonde. It’s a hard cover to pull off, but Wolf does it justice with her gorgeous soprano.

Niki — “High School In Jakarta”

Niki’s conversational, detailed approach to songwriting gives “High School In Jakarta” a warm, welcoming texture that also intensifies the themes of youth and heartbreak. She makes the listener feel like a friend, and her insights into her own life are as universal as they are personal.

Carly Rae Jepsen — “Beach House”

Following “Western Wind” is this funky song called “Beach House,” which proves that she hasn’t lost any of her catchy melodies or whimsical lyrics. Her personality is as funny and entertaining as ever as she details exchanges with guys that went wrong for various reasons, and she’s able to make light out of all of it.

Olivia O’Brien, Fletcher — “B*tch Back”

After the unleashing of Fletcher’s controversial “Becky’s So Hot,” she’s teaming up with Olivia O’Brien for “B*tch Back.” It’s as mischievous as her last track off the bat: “Remember Ibiza, ’cause I don’t either / But I know we had a f*cking blast,” O’Brien sings. It serves as an anthemic ode to reckless female friendships.

Empress Of — “Turn The Table”

Empress Of always impresses with her radiant, silky vocals, but “Turn The Table” is packed with pleasant elements, like celestial synths and vivid lyricism. Everything about it is hypnotic with a memorable, colorful chorus.

Mxmtoon — “Kaleidoscope”

“Kaleidoscope” is a dreamy earworm that’s as resistant as it is beautiful: “I was born in a box / And taught to be soft / Learn to draw within the lines / Only speak when you’re asked,” she sings before launching into an ebullient chorus about being free and uncontained.

Lauv — “Stranger”

Lauv’s new track “Stranger” is about being jaded when it comes to romance, but still trying anyway. From the start, he sounds tired and drained: “So what if this is it? / What if it falls apart in front of my face?” he sings, but by the end passion enters his voice and he’s still singing in spite of everything.

Calvin Harris, Charlie Puth, Shenseea — “Obsessed”

Calvin Harris, Charlie Puth, and Shenseea have joined forces for an eclectic track against a jaunty piano tune. Shenseea’s flow keeps it upbeat and enthralling, whereas Puth adds a layer of bittersweetness, making for an engaging collaboration.

Zachary Knowles — “Crush”

This pulsating new song by Zachary Knowles is vulnerable, starting off slow but amping up in the chorus as his desire intensifies. “I’m sorry if I fall back in love when we both talk,” he admits with a sticky melody over a groovy rhythm.

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

This past weekend, rapper Slim Jxmmi of Rae Sremmurd was reportedly arrested at Los Angeles International Airport over a drug case in Georgia, according to TMZ.

Jxmmi, whose birth name is Aaquil Brown, had reportedly flown in from Canada, and upon landing, Customs and Border Patrol agents took him into custody. The case in Georgia reportedly entails possession of marijuana by Jxmmi with the intent to sell. At the time of writing, Jxmmi is currently being held in custody in Los Angeles without bail, and faces up to 30 years in prison.

Back in January, Jxmmi was arrested for battery charges in Miami.

Jxmmi’s lawyer, Steve Sadow, spoke to TMZ, saying, “Nearly two years ago, Aaquil entered a plea to a marijuana offense in Cobb County, Georgia. He was placed on probation,” Sadow said. “In early June 2022, the mother of his child filed an untruthful complaint with the Cobb County Police Department, which led to an arrest warrant being issued.”

Recently, Rae Sremmurd released a new single called “Community D*ck,” which features Flo Milli. The duo’s upcoming album, Sremm4Life is set to arrive sometime soon. Both Jxmmi, and his bandmate, Swae Lee, have teased the album via a series of tweets.

“Bout to get a dose of this Sremmy,” said Swae, in a May tweet.

Jxmmi followed up, saying “Time for that 4 foe four for phor.”

Sean Bean could probably use an interview coordinator right about now after making some not great comments about how modern productions handle sex scenes. During an interview with The Sunday Times, the Game of Thrones star lamented the use of “intimacy coordinators,” which started appearing on more and more sets thanks to the HBO series and its penchant for gratuitous sex scenes. However, Bean is not a fan.

While the role of an intimacy coordinator is to make sure everyone feels comfortable filming sensitive scenes through choreograph and dialog, Bean prefers the old method of winging it even though that approach is exactly why intimacy coordinators exist.

“I think the natural way lovers behave would be ruined by someone bringing it right down to a technical exercise,” Bean lamented. He also brought up how an intimacy coordinator wasn’t used while filming a bizarre sex scene with Lena Hall in Snowpiercer. Via Variety:

When the interviewer pointed out that intimacy coordinators can help to protect actors in the wake of #MeToo, Bean responded: “I suppose it depends on the actress. This one [referring to Hall] had a musical cabaret background, so she was up for anything.”

In the aftermath of the interview, several people reached out to Hall to check on her, and she set the record straight that she is not “up for anything.” In a multi-point Twitter thread, Hall shot down Bean’s characterization of the mango sex scene, but also praised him for being a respectful scene partner.

“Just because I am in theater (not cabaret, but I do perform them every once in a while) does not mean that I am up for anything,” Hall tweeted.

“Sean is an awesome actor and made me feel not only comfortable but also like I had a true acting partner in those bizarre scenes. It was us against the world and we were gonna tell that story,” Hall continued. “If I feel comfortable with my scene partner and with others in the room then I won’t need an intimacy coordinator. BUT if there is any part of me that is feeling weird, gross, overexposed etc… I will either challenge the necessity of the scene or I’ll want an IC.”

You can see the full thread below:

(Via Lena Hall on Twitter)

George R.R. Martin didn’t always get his way with Game of Thrones, but things are different for House of the Dragon.

House of the Dragon co-showrunners Miguel Sapochnik and Ryan Condal revealed the three things that the A Song of Ice and Fire author requested be in the prequel series. “[Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss] skipped over Jaehaerys for reasons of clarity that [Martin] really didn’t understand,” Sapochnik told Insider. “He had a bee in his bonnet about it. He wanted us to right that wrong.” Jaehaerys II Targaryen (Daenerys’ grandfather) was mentioned to have sat on the Iron Throne in the books, but he was left out of the show to simplify the Targaryen family tree.

Martin’s other demands: more colors, especially for the dragons.

Martin was hopeful that House of the Dragon would be the perfect time for fans to see dragons of varying size, shape, and color… Martin also asked that House of the Dragon include a lot of symbolic color related to all the major and minor Houses of Westeros. He spoke with Condal about the heraldry fans would see and that detail’s importance in the story.

The series will feature at least 17 dragons, which Condal told the Hollywood Reporter was the “biggest difference” between Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. “Dragons exist in this [era], whereas they were an extinct species that came back to life in the original show,” he said. “So there’s an infrastructure built around them. There’s a dragon pit, saddles and dragon keepers — this monk-like order that takes care of them.”

No wonder Martin hasn’t finished the books: he’s too busy making sure Syrax is the right shade of yellow. House of the Dragon premieres on August 21.

(Via Insider)

The 1975 are gearing up to drop their next album, Being Funny In A Foreign Language. Indeed, the album is meant to be funny, and Taylor Swift and Bo Burnham see the humor in it.

A new Pitchfork interview with Matty Healy notes that Swift got an early listen of the album and said of it, “It’s so funny.” It also says that Healy played the LP for Burnham and “was pleased when Burnham laughed at all the right times.”

He also said he was playfully upset with Bo Burnham over “That Funny Feeling,” saying, “He needs to stay in his lane a little bit. When he did that song, I was like, ‘You motherf*cker.’”

Healy also addressed the omnipotence of his penis on the album, saying, “There’s so much of it [laughs]! There are so many good dick jokes on the record. It’s all about my dick. I’m obsessed with my dick for some reason. I’m trying to figure out what that represents. I think it’s because there’s such potency to the idea of the dick, and so much fragility in modern masculinity, and my masculinity. I’m obsessed with that duality, of just, like, having a dick.”

Of the album, he noted, “We’ve done very clever and very cool a lot. But what about — brace yourself — earnest. If you dethrone sincerity with irony, you get an equal tyrant by the end of the day, and I’m kind of tired of it. Because what makes me feel uncomfortable is saying, like, ‘Do you mind telling me that I’m good, or that you love me, just so I can feel OK?’ That’s the sh*t I’m scared of, being seen as some f*cking lame dude. It’s way harder to be a bit naive and soppy without going ‘not,’ or ‘lol,’ or ‘I jack off all the time.’”

Check out the full interview here.

Being Funny In A Foreign Language is out 10/14 via Dirty Hit. Pre-order it here.

Guess who’s back? I guess it’s time to trot out this old standby because yet again, a rapper has reneged on a promise to retire to rap. This time it’s Iggy Azalea, the Australian rapper whose career became a bumpy road of criticism, trolling, and record label frustrations after her initial early success. While she announced last year that her 2021 album, End Of An Era, would be her last, it seems that while promoting the album she rediscovered her creative spark — and a vindictive streak that she will seek to exercise with more new music.

On Twitter, she explained, “A year ago I was willing to walk away from music because I was tired of the negative energy it attracted.
But what I’ve learned is that even when I’m minding my business, y’all gonna be negative AND nosey. So if I can’t have peace, neither can you. I’m coming back. Cry about it.” She followed up later tweeting, “They can only be mad at themselves. Shoulda left me be. Now I’m on my petty Gemini sh*t.” She also posted a gif from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and a still from Quentin Tarantino’s revenge epic, Kill Bill, letting fans know exactly what time she’s on.

And while she didn’t give any further details, she did confirm that future music would again be released independently and that she wasn’t “gonna talk about dates, direction or anything just know it’s happening and there will be a budget.”

A recent example of the negativity she said she’s dealt with since “retiring” is the response she received after a fan posted a video of her twerking during a Long Beach Pride performance. While the original user praised the performance, writing, “Iggy really be tossin that big mf” in a complimentary way, the replies were less than nice, disparaging her physique and prompting her to comment, “It’s a good thing I genuinely feel happy about myself & my body cause y’all stay in every comment section talking the most shit about me & it’s very mean spirited & ugly.”

When the Chicago Bears drafted Georgia linebacker Roquan Smith with the eighth overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, it seemed like a perfect fit. Here was one of the best middle linebacker prospects in years going to a franchise that has arguably the greatest lineage of middle linebackers of any team in the NFL.

Since being drafted, Smith has played in 61 of a possible 65 games, missing four games to injury in 2019, and has eclipsed 101 tackles in every season, including a preposterous 163 last year (95 solo). He has five career interceptions and 43 career tackles for loss, serving as the central cog in the Bears stout defense, but entering a contract year, Smith has not received the offer he feels he deserves for being one of the best middle linebackers in all of football.

As such, on Tuesday, Smith publicly requested a trade from the organization, asking to be dealt to a team that “truly values what I bring to the table” after being offered a “take it or leave it” contract that Smith says would’ve been bad for him and the linebacker market as a whole to take.

According to Ian Rapoport, the deal in question featured backloaded money that would’ve left his deal shy of being the highest among middle linebackers in the league, along with de-escalators that no one else making his kind of money has in their deal.

As Smith notes, it’s possible the Bears could come correct with an offer and salvage the relationship, but as of this moment, he won’t be putting pen to paper on any deal that’s similar to what they’ve offered him. It’d be one thing if this was an issue of a guarantee amount and signing bonus, but to backload a deal and put de-escalators in it that could pay him less when literally no one else of his stature has those in their contract is pretty blatantly disrespectful of Smith and it’s hard to blame him for making this decision — although surely some will.

Someone out there will happily pay for a tackling machine in the middle of their defense and we’ll just have to wait to find out who that is — but it’ll more likely than not be a contender or fringe contender.

Following Monday’s surprise FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, Republicans have been dutifully falling in line to defend Donald Trump, who is naturally fuming bad about the whole thing. (They broke into his safe, folks!)

Ever the faithful GOP soldier, Marco Rubio entered into the fray on Monday night where he proceeded to launch into somber diatribes about how America is becoming a third world country while also threatening retaliation against President Joe Biden.

“Biden is playing with fire by using a document dispute to get the @TheJusticeDept to persecute a likely future election opponent,” Rubio tweeted. “Because one day what goes around is going to come around. And then we become Nicaragua under Ortega.”

Rubio also made a video where he doubled down on settling the score with Biden.

Via Newsweek:

“I’m telling you, you’re playing with fire,” Rubio said. “This is dangerous, because someone else will be in power one day, and now you have created the precedent for them to do this back to you. And then we become the Third World, and then we lose our country, and our system of government and the meaning of being one nation under a real constitution.

“This needs to stop and the people responsible for this decision, [Attorney General] Merrick Garland, the director of the FBI [Christopher Wray], need to be held to account for going along with something so undemocratic, unconstitutional, and flat out destructive and dangerous to our republic.”

Of course, it didn’t take long for someone to point out the hypocrisy of Rubio’s lecturing. Florida State Rep. Anna Eskamani took Rubio down by a notch pulling out an old tweet where he was completely fine with the FBI announcing an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails right before the 2016 election.

“This you in 2016?” Eskamani tweeted along with a screenshot of Rubio saying that Clinton’s mishandling of classified emails “proves that she is DQ’d from being Commander in Chief.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is getting a similar treatment as Twitter users have latched onto an old tweet from October 2016 where she wrote, “When you’re attacking FBI agents because you’re under criminal investigation, you’re losing.” Whoops.

(Via Rep. Anna V. Eskamani on Twitter)

Fans are eager for new music from SZA. Back in May, The “Good Days” singer hinted at “a SZA summer,” and while we’ve received an expanded edition of her 2017 debut album, CTRL, as well as a remix of her labelmate Doechii’s “Persuasive,” we still have heard nary a title, release date, or even a single from her much-anticipated sophomore album.

Last month, SZA hinted at a disagreement between her Top Dawg Entertainment label head Punch, as well as RCA Records. In a recent interview with Vulture, Punch indicated that he and SZA have since reached an agreement. According to Punch, a release date is imminent.

“We know exactly when it’s coming out,” he said. “But on the internet, you only get a certain amount of characters. You don’t have time to really go into a full explanation of what’s going on like that when you’re in the moment and tweeting something.”

In the past, SZA has mentioned that her and Punch’s relationship has been tumultuous, but elsewhere in the interview, Punch insisted that there is more than meets the eye.

“I’m not going to say there’s never been contention,” he said. “There’s always contention, especially when you’re dealing with creative. Difference in opinions, it happens, but that doesn’t mean somebody is unhappy or anything. It could’ve been a conversation in the moment. Then a lot of speculation happens. I get it. We have to remember that context is important and you never get the full story through tweets.”