Close your eyes and imagine what comes to mind when thinking of Jonas Brothers fans. For me, it’s gaggles of young girls adorned in sequined tops and brightly colored merch screaming their heads off. But that’s not who showed up to the band’s surprise Los Angeles concert at The Theater at the Ace Hotel on April 25. Both the Jonas Brothers and their fans are all grown up.
The screaming fans weren’t exactly young. In the time since Jonas Brothers graced the covers of teenie bop magazines and went on talk shows to discuss their purity rings, their once young fan base grew up and got a jobs in corporate America — but they never lost sight of their fandom. While the crowd was overwhelmingly comprised of women (the venue even opened the men’s bathroom to women to help curb the lines), the majority of the concertgoers were in their late 20’s and 30’s. Sure, some still rocked sequined tops depicting who their favorite Jonas brother is (Nick was shown the most love out of the three), but most of the people there looked like they had come straight from their office job.
Just like their fans, the Jonas Brothers have come a long way since adolescence, as heard in their new music. Just a few weeks before the release of The Album, the band’s sixth studio album which drops May 12, the brothers took an opportunity to try out new songs in an intimate setting. After opening with their recent single “Waffle House,” Nick took over the mic to explain how the show was about to proceed. The brothers planned to play a “good amount” of new songs in the first half of the show, then return with all their hits after a short intermission.
Nick went on to share the story of how The Album came to be. Jonas Brothers began writing music for this project about a year and a half ago, a time when all three were hitting some major life milestones. Nick and Joe were in their first years of marriage to their partners — Priyanka Chopra and Sophia Turner — and both became first-time fathers. Because of that, their music has changed along with them. Where Happiness Begins was filled with jaunty tunes about relationships and sex, The Album takes a turn inward. Many of the songs they premiered for the crowd are more acoustic-leaning, and have themes of “family, and fatherhood, and love of course,” according to Nick.
What a night LA! Getting to play a few songs from THE ALBUM our first time at @theatre_acedtla was so special. Dallas-Fort Worth, you’re up tonight!! pic.twitter.com/i7DE4m2nG1
Joined on the stage by six backup singers and a full band, they launched into performances of new songs. Songs like “Montana Sky” and “Vacation Eyes” were tender and soulful ballads, the latter Kevin said is about “what it feels like to be in love with a person who makes you feel like you’re on vacation every day.” Others like “Celebrate!” were more upbeat and got the crowd moving. After giving a rendition of The Album‘s lead single “Wings,” the lights dimmed and the boys brought out stools and acoustic guitars to sing “Little Bird,” a soaring lullaby which was dedicated to all the parents and children in the crowd.
Following a brief intermission, Jonas Brothers returned to the stage to fire off back-to-back hits. The crowd screamed along to “Leave Before You Love Me” and “What A Man Gotta Do,” two songs that dropped following their 2019 comeback. Then, both Nick and Joe got to have their solo moment. Nick took center stage for “Close,” his 2016 collab with Tove Lo, and Joe busted out the DNCE numbers “Toothbrush” and “Cake By The Ocean.” Speaking of DNCE, Joe’s side project that dominated radio in the mid-2010s, the band invited DNCE drummer Jack Lawless and guitarist JinJoo Lee to join them on stage. Lee absolutely stole the show with her guitar solos; at one point, she dramatically fell to the ground and continued to play on-beat as she was lying down.
It was clear throughout the concert that this intimate show was designed for the biggest Jonas Brothers fans. The crowd seemed eager to hear unreleased music and they would instantly recognize most songs after only one chord was played. Paying service to their day-ones, the brothers would throw t-shirts into the crowd and let us take over singing choruses. Their closing songs were perhaps the biggest example of how this show was a love letter to their fans. Though there was no encore, Jonas Brothers ended their set with three of their biggest hits back-to-back: “Year 3000,” “Burning Up,” and “Sucker.”
As the crowd filed out of the venue, still amped up on screaming along to their favorite songs, one thing became clear: Jonas Brothers, their fans, and their music have all come a long way. The Album is perhaps their most mature work to date, with songs reflecting their current season of life. It’s a season of life many of their fans are also in, judging by the number 30-year-olds, moms, and soon-to-be moms I saw in the crowd. But no matter how much work or family duties take over, Jonas Brothers fans will always have time to drop everything and show up for their favorite band on a Tuesday night.
The Album is out May 12 via Republic. Find more information here.
It isn’t easy having to explain to a child who is different that they aren’t quite like other children. Most parents would probably prefer to downplay the situation, saying “It’s no big deal. You aren’t quite the same as the other children, but everyone is different.”
However, Tori Roloff, 31, star of the TLC’s long-running “Little People, Big World,” has decided to go the other route. She’s asking her 5-year-old son, Jackson, to lean into his uniqueness and use it to help others.
Tori is married to Zach Roloff, 32, who’s been a star of “Little People, Big World” for 24 seasons. Zach and Tori have three children: Josiah and Lilah, 3, and Jackson, 5. All three of them have achondroplasia, the most common form of dwarfism.
In an Instagram post, Tori shared how she is helping her son embrace his uniqueness.
“I feel like Jackson (and others) are starting to notice that something is different about him,” she wrote. “At Jackson’s first soccer game, the other team was asking why he was so small. Purely out of curiosity I believe—not bullying or being malicious—just curious.”
Jackson told his mother about the questions during the game, and she was quick on her feet with a thoughtful answer.
“It stuck with him enough to tell me on the side line though. I told him ‘that’s how God made you, now show them how fast you are!’ He then proceeded to score a goal, and I can’t tell you how stoked we were,” she wrote.
Tori hopes that Jackson will embrace his size and use it to help others just like his family has done by increasing awareness about the challenges that people with dwarfism face through their TV show. The show also showed how all people, no matter their size, are much more alike than they are different.
“He’s starting to notice that he’s different and that’s hard to cope with—however, I WANT him to know he’s different. But maybe not in the way he thinks he is,” she wrote.
She then described her innermost hopes for her son.
“Jackson I pray that you notice that you are different,” she wrote. “That God has set you apart from all other people. I pray you’re different in how you see and love others. I pray that you’re different in the choices you make to keep God close to your heart. I pray you’re different in how you solve problems and arguments. I pray that you think differently about how the world works and adaptations that can be made. I pray you see your differences and use them to change the world. You are different, kid. Different than any kid I’ve ever met. You are one of a kind and I am so stinking proud to be your mom.”
There is no one right way to talk to our children about the challenges they face in life. But It’s valuable for people like Tori, who has a very unique parenting situation, to share how she handles difficult topics, because it gives us more tools to use in the oh-so-tough but oh-so-rewarding job of parenting.
Age is just a number if you ask some people. Once you pass all of the milestone birthdays, time just seems to zoom right on by. You still feel like you’re 32, but your birth year is saying you need to add a decade or two. But if you don’t feel old, are you actually old or is society trying to put you in an age-shaped box?
If you ask the ladies of Sun City Poms, a cheerleading squad in Arizona for women over 55 years old, age really is just a number. That’s right, these ladies, some of whom are well past retirement age, have a cheer squad and man, are they active. Not only do the ladies perform, but they also march, and their practices would be a lot for people half their age.
According to People, the seniors practice three times a week for three hours at a time. That’s pretty intense, but it doesn’t stop these women from sticking it out, even the ones who are in their 80s.
While people outside of Arizona may just now be hearing of the Sun City Poms, the cheer squad has actually been around since 1979. It started as a cheerleading squad for a women’s softball team called Sun City Saints, and eventually evolved from cheering at games to performing 50 shows a year at different events.
Mary Zirbel, 81, has been with the squad since she was around 58. According to People, she joined after she saw them marching in a local parade. The group is only for people who live in the Sun City retirement community, and the group currently has 30 members. They even have some trainees who are being put through a thorough recruitment process to make sure they can hang with the lively crew.
“They’re always kidding me about being an old lady but they tolerate me,” Ginger Price, now 90, told Today in 2018. “I mean, I could make a mistake or something and I can say, ‘Well what do you expect, I’m old,’ you know.”
The group even performs at local high schools, and there are times when the students scream so loud for them that they can’t hear the music.
“I did not think they could dance like that or they could carry people, they could do the splits. Like I thought they were going to do like simple hand movements but no, they like blew my whole mind away, and the whole school’s minds away,” Emily Essa, a high school student, explained to Today.
Sun City Poms seems to be in a league all on their own. Remember the trainees mentioned earlier? Well, they have to do a three-month class and learn two routines to see if they can keep up before they’re even allowed to join the group. While their members are currently ages 58 to 90, the ladies plan to keep going until they can’t physically do it anymore.
Peggy Parsons, 81, told People that she’s hoping to continue with the Poms until she’s at least 90, so they can all celebrate together, saying the goal of the group is, “We aspire to inspire before we expire.”
Garth Hudson, 85, made a name for himself being a quiet presence in a raucous band … The Band, that is. Hudson played organ, accordion, and the occasional saxophone in an outfit initially known as The Hawks, which became known as The Band after backing Bob Dylan in the mid-’60s when he controversially went electric.
The Band would also back Dylan on his famous “Basement Tapes” sessions in 1967 that were eventually released in 1975.
After being introduced to the world through Dylan, The Band made a name for itself as one of the most talented ensembles in rock history, recording classic songs including “The Weight,” “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and “Up on Cripple Creek.”
Hudson changed rock history by being one of the first few to play a Hammond organ on stage. He was known as the “mad scientist” in the band who joined only if he could give music lessons to fellow members Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Robbie Robertson.
u201cOn this day in 1976, The Band played their final concert at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. It was filmed by Martin Scorsese for The Last Waltz, including this phenomenal version of The Weight with The Staple Singersu201d
Hudson also composed music that appeared in Martin Scorsese’s masterpieces “Raging Bull” and “The King of Comedy.”
Today, Hudson lives in an assisted living facility, and recently fans started an online campaign to show appreciation by sending him cards. But even though Hudson is in the last chapter of his life, he recently revealed that he’s far from finished. On Sunday, April 16, he surprised the rock world by performing at a house show hosted by musician Sarah Perrotta in Kingston, New York.
He performed Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” on piano during the show. The footage shows that although Hudson is frail, the music in him is still as strong as ever.
u201cGarth Hudson played a surprise set last night at a house concert in Kingston, NY, hosted by the musician Sarah Perrotta. It was his first public performance in many years, and Perrotta has kindly shared the video. Beautiful.u201d
A story first shared by Fox 29 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the epitome of customer service that goes above and beyond.
Jessica Getty and her husband, Mark, went to a Lowe’s hardware store in Brookhaven, Pennsylvania, earlier this month to buy materials to help their 5-year-old son, Will, make a significant leap in his development. They were looking to buy PVC pipes to build parallel bars so he could learn to walk.
“He was born very prematurely, just 23 weeks, so as a result, he has quadriplegic spastic cerebral palsy,” Jessica told Fox 29. People with spastic cerebral palsy have difficulty controlling muscles in their arms, legs, trunk and face, making walking difficult.
The Gettys hoped their son could learn to walk by training on a set of parallel bars that would help him safely remain upright while he moved his legs and feet. “One of our goals for William is to get him walking,” Jessica told Fox 29.
When the family got to the PVC pipe section, they asked Lowe’s employee Dave Urban for help, and he quickly realized that the job would require more than cutting a few pieces. “I thought I would just be finding some fittings, making a couple of cuts, and I saw Will, and I found out what we were building,” Urban explained while holding back tears.
Urban got to work cutting and fitting together pipes for the Gettys’ project, and over the course of 30 minutes, he created a parallel bar device that matched their exact specifications.
William even got out of his chair and successfully tested the bars out in the PVC pipe aisle. Urban was moved by the youngster’s drive to learn to walk. “I think you saw that courageous smile of his,” Urban said, adding that he felt a “sense of pride” seeing William stand using the bars he built him. “It keeps getting me,” he said, overcome with emotion.
When parents are raising a child with special needs, they need all the support they can get, and the Gettys were moved that a stranger stepped up to help. “It was really cool,” Mark said, according to The Guardian, with his wife adding, “It was just kindness that touched us and really meant the world to us.”
It’s the type of practical kindness that may significantly impact William’s life.
u201cLowe’s employee goes above and beyond to help family build custom device to help son with quadriplegic spastic cerebral palsy learn to walk https://t.co/BcBw0ericcu201d
— Uplifting News by Qwyck (@Uplifting News by Qwyck) 1681105384
Since they brought the parallel bars home, Jessica told The Guardian that William has been diligently working with them to learn to walk. The parallel bars help him to step forward, side to side and to pull himself up to stand. After just one day, he could use the bars to walk about 10 feet across the family’s kitchen floor.
Urban says the opportunity to help means as much to him as it did to the Getty family. He hopes his actions will inspire others to help when they can as well.
“Just go the extra mile,” Urban said. “And it just may reward you 100 times back.”
Many parents will do just about anything for their children, but oftentimes that just means showing up for events and being their biggest cheerleader. It’s a seemingly small act that can absolutely mean the world to a child and creates positive core memories they’ll talk about with their own children.
For one dad, showing up for his kids’ activities got a little more challenging after he was struck by a drunk driver in 2006. The accident left him using a wheelchair. “I had to relearn how to do everything from crawling, eating, like I had to relearn everything,” Charles Potter told Good Morning America. But that hasn’t stopped him from doing all the dances his daughter’s school puts on, like the one that went viral in December 2022.
Potter was on stage participating in a daddy-daughter dance recital when his wife caught it on video and uploaded it to TikTok, where it quickly went viral. The video currently has over 13 million views, 2.2 million likes and over 37K comments, and while the text overlay gave some background on the video, it doesn’t tell the complete story.
Potter explained to GMA that his daughter’s school puts on the father-daughter dances every few months, so they’ve done them several times. But when his daughter first asked if he would participate, the dad didn’t hesitate.
“My youngest is doing … a dance hip-hop chair class. And they had these daddy-daughter dances and she asked if I was up to, you know, doing them with [her],” he told GMA. “I was like, ‘If you want to. Yeah, absolutely. We’ll make it work.'”
The interesting thing about these dances is that there’s no instructor. The family is sent an instructional video and they’re in charge of learning the routine on their own, so they modify the movements accordingly and practice after school.
“They get like, two or three weeks to learn the dance on their own,” Potter’s wife, Rhonda Conrad, told GMA. “They don’t have anyone teaching them. It’s all done in the living room.”
Potter’s dance video with his daughter is sweet for many reasons, but it’s made even sweeter by the love and dedication from a father to his daughter.
Dr. Seuss is one of the most enduring and endearing children’s books writers of all time. His work has been around for over sixty years, and while certain titles certainly fall short of today’s standards, kids continue to enjoy the unique use of wordplay, illustration style and abounding optimism of his beloved classics.
But how exactly did Dr. Seuss came up with such an impactful idea in the first place? That’s a story unto itself, and one that, much like his fictional works, still feels relevant today.
As explained in a Twitter thread by writer and research assistant Billy Oppenheimer, it all began when another award-winning author, John Hershey, started investigating the looming question of 1954: “Why can’t children read?”
After two years of reading children’s books, meeting with experts and observing how reading was taught in schools, Hershey ultimately came to a rather simple conclusion—children didn’t want to read, because children’s books were boring.
Even in an age pre-TikTok and Snapchat, reading had to “compete for the interest of children with television, radio, movies, comic books, magazines, and sports,” and children’s books by and large just weren’t entertaining enough to hold short attention spans in comparison to their instantly stimulating counterparts.
In 1954, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Hersey investigated the question everyone was asking, “Why can’t children read?”
Hersey found the answer and then wrote about it in a piece published in Life Magazine.
Henry would end up publishing his findings in an issue of “LIFE” Magazine, along with the call to action for writers to create something more compelling than what the current market provided. The article would be read by an editor at Houghton Mifflin, who would then challenge an illustrator friend of his to “Write me a story that first graders can’t put down.”
That illustrator was, you guessed it, Theodor Seuss Geisel.
Seuss has the added obstacle of only being able to write a story using a vocabulary list of 300 “accepted” words. So his strategy, as is with many brilliant creatives, was to just play around, combining different rhyming words until something resonated. Eventually the words “cat” and “hat” caught his attention…
…And in 1957, we’d have “The Cat in the Hat,” a blockbuster of a book that used 236 unique words, which Hershey himself hailed as a “masterpiece” and a “gift to the art of reading.” It would also remain the book that Seuss was proudest of, “because [it] proved to a number of million kids that reading is not a disagreeable task.”
A lack of interest in reading, particularly reading for pleasure, is still a widely discussed topic among parents and educators. And much like in Dr. Seuss’ time, an overwhelming amount of competing tech-media is largely to blame. A 2021 survey from Common Sense Media revealed that in just two years after the pandemic (between 2019 and 2021) kids ages 8 to 18 increased their time on social media 17 percent, amounting to somewhere between a little more than five and half hours to just over eight and half hours a day.
We might not be able to grab even shorter attention spans with rhyming tales of Whoville, but we can still take a page from Dr. Seuss’ book by making reading seem more “interesting.” Perhaps it entails a wider selection of book titles, or joining forces with the power of social media to form communities like #BookTok to make reading still feel fresh and modern—these are two strategies that have already proven successful. Or perhaps it’ll be something altogether different.
The solution might not be completely solidified, but like Dr. Seuss, we have to maintain a curious spirit and incorporate a sense of play in our approach. Keeping something fun is akin to keeping something alive more often than not. Take it from the guy who brought us Grinches and Loraxes and Whovians that still lift our spirits today.
Speaking of reading, if you care to check out Seuss’ biography, which Oppenhemier cited in his thread, you can find it here.
How are Donald and Melania doing these days? It’s hard to say. After they left the White House in disgrace two years ago, she didn’t seem too excited about ever going back. Surely she’s a little peeved that he’s running a third time. Surely she’s also nonplussed that he has all these legal woes, including one stemming from an alleged affair he once had. And surely she’s steamed that all this means he may miss her birthday.
As per People, today, April 26, is Melania’s big day. She’s not planning anything big. All she wants is a “low-key” affair: a quiet night with her family at Mar-a-Lago — or as “low-key” a gathering as one can have at a massive resort that’s home to a former president who likes to rant at strangers. Alas, it’s unclear her husband will be in attendance, as he may have to tend to one of his many legal matters.
“If Donald is here, he will be joining the family to celebrate his wife’s birthday,” a source told People. “Despite what you hear, the Trumps are a close family.”
Another source claimed the two were secretly a happy couple. “Don’t be fooled by the former president’s outspoken manner and dominant influence on those around him. He respects and admires his wife,” they said. “He wants to make Melania happy.”
Said source also described their depths of their passion for one another, saying, “They have a more than suitable partners arrangement.”
What could keep Trump from Melania’s b-day soirée? While he’s not in New York City for the trial involving E. Jean Carroll, the journalist who has accused him of raping her in the ‘90s — he didn’t want to inundate New Yorkers with traffic, he claimed — he could be otherwise occupied. After all, he might be in big trouble for Truth Social posts the judge found “entirely inappropriate,” forcing his lawyer to swear he would tell him to knock it off.
I’ve spent the better part of 2023 listing off bourbons at every price point between $10 and $500. But bourbon whiskey doesn’t tap out at $499. There’s an abundance of bourbon whiskeys that cost well over $500 that truly rule. So to finish off our quest to find the best bourbons at every price point, I’m going to call out 12 bourbons that all cost ridiculous amounts of money but are actually worth that price tag.
Find that hard to believe? Well, it’s hard for anyone to place a price on iconic experiences but if you’re a true aficionado, these bourbons won’t disappoint.
Before we dive in, there’s a huge caveat to address — an elephant-sized bourbon bottle in the room, if you will. These are all highly allocated bourbons that you’re rarely going to ever find at MSRP (manufacturer’s suggested retail price). “Allocated” bourbon is the whiskey that goes out in very small batches to select bars, restaurants, and liquor stores. That tiny allocation means that the price charged for said bottles is often radically inflated due to massive demand. That’s not to say you can’t find some of these bottles at MSRP. But you kind of have a better chance of spotting f*cking big foot in the woods than getting some of these at their suggested price.
That all said, these aregettable bottles. You can purchase every single one of the bottles I’ve listed below right now … at a price. I personally think these bottles are worth the investment because they truly do taste transcendent. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be on this list. And it’s not like there’s no precedent for the cost, in the grand scheme of things, we’ve always assigned higher value to the commodities — shoes, wine, watches, cars, art — that are both rare and sublime.
So no telling me “$500 for a bottle of booze??? F*ck off!” in the comments.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
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 2022. 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.
Bottom Line:
This is 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 and a true gem of a bottle (the decanter is actually cool too).
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 $500 MSRP and a bit more. It’s so rare and delicious that you can’t help but fall in love with it.
I forgot to write down the barrel number on this one but it was in the low 3100s. That means this is a high rye bourbon mash bill (52% corn, 38% rye, and 10% malted barley) that’s aged for just north of nine years. The barrel pick (from The Ballard Cut) has a slightly lower proof than the bottle above.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Singed vanilla pods and candied cherry stems lead to a hint of burnt sugars on the nose next to chewed cigar stubs and a dash of sticky toffee pudding spices (a lot of sharp cinnamon and soft nutmeg next to black tea bitterness).
Palate: The palate leans into the tart cherries with a good dusting of smoked sea salt with a hint of stewed plums with a whisper of dill underneath and plenty of wintry spices adding to the heat of the mid-palate.
Finish: The heat falls off dramatically as a sense of old porch wicker with a hint of black mold melds with worn saddle leather with a hint of wax next to dry bunches of cedar and pine kindling with an echo of maple syrup and pecan waffle underneath it all.
Bottom Line:
Willett hits a sweet spot at nine years old that’s damn near magical, and this bottle is the perfect highlight of that. Granted, the tasting notes will vary depending on the ABV of the single barrel that you find. But one thing remains true — it’ll be an excellent one-of-a-kind bourbon.
9. E.H. Taylor, Jr. Warehouse C Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey Bottled In Bond
This 10-year-old bourbon was aged exclusively in Warehouse C from whiskey made with Buffalo Trace’s Mash Bill No. 1. The nuance here is that the barrels were aged on floors 2 and 5 only. That makes this blend a mix of lower-floor and higher-floor barrels. It’s cooler on those lower floors so the whiskey ages more slowly. Likewise, it’s warmer on the higher floors, and the whiskey ages a tad more rapidly. That means the final blend on this one is from whiskeys that feel and taste like they’re at different eras of the life cycle.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Cherry Coke dominates the nose with a big scoop of blackberry cobbler and Tahitian vanilla ice cream next to mild sweet oak with a whisper of warehouse whiskey mold.
Palate: That Cherry Coke drives the opening of the palate as well with a nice vanilla buttercream foundation below dark chocolate-covered espresso beans, rum raisin, star anise/black licorice, and sharp fresh spearmint.
Finish: That mint adheres to cherry tobacco on the finish with a woody winter spice matrix and a dollop more of that vanilla buttercream.
Bottom Line:
This is lush AF. It also builds and takes you on a journey through berry-forward bourbon toward older and spicier barrels with deep cherry and vanilla. Goddamn, this is a good whiskey. It’s instantly recognizable from the first nose and why this whiskey is so sought after. It really does live up to the hype.
8. William Heavenhill 9th Edition 15-Year-Old Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
The latest edition of Heaven Hill’s super exclusive William Heavenhill release was made from just 34 barrels. Those barrels were from a specific floor of a specific warehouse where they rested for 15 long years before batching and bottling as-is.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: That oak comes through like a dank old cigar box with a sense of cinnamon bark, whole nutmeg bulbs, and stewed cherry syrup with a whisper of sassafras and marzipan.
Palate: The palate is lush with a sense of old rye bread crusts next to huckleberry cobbler, more marzipan, orange oils, vanilla oils, and a touch of singed cedar kindling.
Finish: Salted caramel peanut clusters and thick cherry tobacco chewiness mingle with old oak cellars with dirt floors and a fleeting sense of falling fall leaves.
Bottom Line:
This is delicious, hard to get, and very rare. That said, I walked into the Heaven Hill bottle shop and it was right there behind the cash registers. So it’s not impossible. Otherwise, expect very high, unicorn whiskey prices.
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.
Bottom Line:
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, making these fleeting finds.
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.
Bottom Line:
This is up there as one of those whiskeys that not only live up to the hype but kind of part the clouds a little bit, letting the whiskey sun shine on in. It’s great neat but really shines with a little water or a single rock.
5. Wild Turkey Master’s Keep Bottled In Bond Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
This is the same whiskey as Master’s Keep 17-Year. In this case, after vatting of 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.
Bottom Line:
There’s all the nuance and depth at play here that makes Turkey great while still offering a familiar and convivial — even homey — vibe. This pour is both welcoming and challenging while still feeling fresh, funky, and full of grace. Make sure to add a few drops of water to get a deep creaminess and coconut cream pie and marzipan vibe amped up toward a cherry cream soda and Martinelli’s Sparkling cider depth.
4. Very Olde St. Nick The O.G. Aged 17 Years Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
This is a rare find but a monumental one — it’s vintage bourbon in a new release. The whiskey was distilled back in 1981 at the famed and now shuttered Stitzel-Weller distillery in Shively, Kentucky (West Louisville). The bourbon was taken out of the barrel in 1998 and stored in stainless steel vats to stop the aging process. And then it was left alone until 2022 when it was bottled completely as-is.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: Blackberries — think black cherry, berry, and currant — dominate the nose with a fantastical freshness that leads to marmalade with orange blossoms mixed in next to sweet yams with singed marshmallows dusted with shaved dark chocolate and kosher salt flakes.
Palate: The black cherry amps up 1000% — kind of like swigging from a Luxardo cherry jar — before more of that dark chocolate kicks in with a sharp peppery spice that’s mildly chili-esque next to Almond Joy, woody maple syrup, and pear compote.
Finish: There’s a light Honeynut Cheerios note on the back end that leads to more nuttiness before the cherry attaches to a winter-spiced tobacco leaf with a sense of old pine tar and leather boots leading to dry cellar dirt and broken-up old oak staves with a sweet plum jam vibe.
Bottom Line:
Preservation is releasing some of the greatest barrels left in Kentucky that you truly will never see again. This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime bottles that’s worth every cent.
3. Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 15 Years Old (2022)
This is where the “Pappy Van Winkle” line starts in earnest. The whiskey in this expression — made from Buffalo Trace’s wheated bourbon mash bill — 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.
Bottom Line:
This is revelatory bourbon for the uninitiated. It’s really that good. If you ever questioned whether Pappy was worth it, this bottle will answer that for you with a decisive and conclusive “yes” forever.
2. Eagle Rare Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 17 Years Old BTAC 2022
Back in the spring of 2005, a humble bourbon was made with Kentucky distiller’s corn, Minnesota rye, and North Dakota barley. That hot juice was then filled into new white oak from Independent Stave from Missouri with a #4 char level (55 seconds) and stacked in Buffalo Trace’s warehouses H, K, and L on floors one and four. It was left alone for 17 years, which allowed 70% of the whiskey to be lost to the angels. In 2022, the barrels were batched and the bourbon was proofed down to 101 proof and bottled as-is.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: The nose subtly draws you in with soft pipe tobacco that feels fresh and vibrant next to dried sour cherries dipped in salted dark chocolate and rolled in vanilla seeds and vanilla-laced streusel with a good dose of woody maple syrup with this fleeting hint of red brick, moldy cellar beams, and soft and sandy cellar dirt floor.
Palate: Old maple trees dripping with sap lead to a rich salted caramel candy vibe next to rich vanilla pound cake topped with a creamy dark chocolate frosting and bespeckled with orange zest, dried cranberries bits, and crushed espresso beans.
Finish: The mid-palate takes on a woody spiciness with a whisper of apple bark that informs a spiced Christmas cake full of soft cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, mace, and maybe some anise and dried dark fruits with creamy eggnog baseline next to old Whether’s Originals wrapped up in dry tobacco leaves and stacked in a musty pine box for safekeeping.
Bottom Line:
I try not to throw “perfect” around all that much. But… This is a perfect bourbon.
1. Michter’s US*1 Limited Release Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey 20 Years Old
Master Distiller Dan McKee personally selects these (at least) 20-year-old barrels from the Michter’s rickhouses based on… I guess just “pure excellence” would be the right phrase. The bourbon is bottled as-is — no cutting with water.
Tasting Notes:
Nose: A sense of dark cherry with deep rummy molasses, dried rose petals, old almond shells, and cedar bark mingle with a fresh pipe tobacco leaf just kissed with apple and pear essence with a hint of vanilla oils and old wintry wine spices.
Palate: The taste leans into smoldering vanilla pods with a sense of old oak staves from a dusty old cellar next to sweet cinnamon and cherry over dried sage and sharp spearmint with a clove syrup base and a dash of toasted marshmallow sweetness.
Finish: The end is full of dark cherry and woody spice with moist marzipan, burnt orange oils, and chewy fresh tobacco wrapped up in old leather and cedar bark with a hint more of that old cellar sneaking in.
Bottom Line:
This was my favorite bourbon of 2022. It’s unequivocally a classic from top to bottom and one of the best bourbons that money can buy. It’s also inching toward my favorite just bourbon ever. Full stop. It’s a true testament to the beautiful work the team at Micther’s does.
When Warner Bros. finally revealed the first look at The Flash during a massive Super Bowl trailer, fans were very surprised to see Michael Shannon reprising his role as General Zod. From the looks of the trailer, the film will use its time-travel/multiverse shenanigans to revisit Zod’s invasion of Earth that took place during 2013’s Man of Steel, which was a little known plot detail. In fact, Michael Shannon didn’t know what was happening at first either.
According to a new interview with the actor, Shannon was hesitant to reprise the role of Zod for two reasons: One, he could’ve sworn Henry Cavill’s Superman snapped his neck at the end of Man of Steel; and two, he was not thrilled with how Warner Bros. treated Zack Snyder during the Justice League debacle.
“I talked to [‘The Flash’ director] Andy Muschietti about it, and I liked Andy, and I said, ‘Andy, look — I just want to get Zack’s blessing on this because it just doesn’t feel right without that,’” Shannon continued. “And Zack, to his credit, was very understanding. He gave me his blessing, and I went to do it.”
Shannon then compared his performance in The Flash to Man of Steel, and well, let’s just say some of the actor’s trademark bluntness came out.
“The story is a lot more all over the place, you know?” Shannon said. “And I feel like I mainly exist in ‘The Flash’ as, like, an obstacle or a problem. Whereas, in ‘Man of Steel,’ it was more of a story. Like, ‘The Flash’ is definitely about The Flash – as it should be. So, it’s not as in-depth.”
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