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A great whiskey and Coke is a fantastic highball. A mediocre whiskey and Coke is just a sugar bomb with some booze thrown in. As with any cocktail, the better your base ingredients, the better your end result. I get it, that sounds kind of dumb at first, especially if you’re burying something in Coca-Cola. But bear with me, if you use a big, bold, and bombastic whisk(e)y, you’ll elevate even the humble whiskey and Coke to new heights.

Enter the Smoky Cokey — a combination of Classic Coca-Cola and Lagavulin 16. This is the best whisk(e)y and Coke there is.

Before you laugh, let me explain. The Smoky Cokey was devised by Diageo’s (Lagavulin’s parent company) global brand ambassadors as an evolution of the simple highball. Their train of thought was “Hey, people have been putting whisky in Coke since Coke started. So why not make it, you know, good?” They hit solid gold.

By adding Lagavulin 16 to a pretty sweet and spicy Coca-Cola, you’re adding a layer of bitter smoke, soft umami, and fruitiness that blends beautifully with the cola to create something more than the individual parts. Look at it this way, both Lagavulin 16 and Coke have very big flavor profiles so you need something that can stand up to each one. And it just so happens that these two ingredients are a perfect dyad.

Let’s get into the recipe!

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Smoky Cokey

Ingredients:

• 2 oz. Lagavulin 16
• 5 oz. Classic Coca-Cola
• Ice
• 1/4 Lemon wheel for garnish

There’s a lot of variation you can play with here once you get a taste for the original Smoky Cokey. I’ve used Ardbeg 10, Talisker 10, and even Lagavulin 8, but none of them quite hit the same perfect balance as Lagavulin 16.

As for the cola, “coke” is in the name so go with that. That said, I’ve made these with Jarritos Mexican Cola and Fever-Tree Madagascan Cola too. The Jarritos is a little too sweet and the Fever-Tree a little vanilla-forward for me, but they totally work too.

What You’ll Need:

• Highball glass
• Stirrer
• Paring Knife
• Jigger

Method:

• Fill the highball glass with ice.
• Add the whisky and top with Coke.
• Cut a lemon wheel into quarters and place one on the ice. Serve.

Bottom Line:

This is a perfect highball. The rich and savory smoke adds this beautiful counterpoint to the sweet and spicy Coke. It flows. It takes you on a journey. It’s delicious. There’s a layer of soft malts that come through under the cola as well with a hint of anise and soft wood.

If you’re still not convinced, I can assure you this isn’t a one-off or an anomaly. These are enjoyed at the Lagavulin Distillery on Islay by the people who make the whisky. If that’s not enough to get you interested, try this: The combination is becoming so popular that some bars have them on tap in Scotland and Ireland. The fact is, no matter how much of an abomination it sounds like to mix a nearly $100 bottle of finely made peated Islay scotch with Coca-Cola, it might just be the best way to drink it.

Samuel L. Jackson technically isn’t the most prolific swearer in movie history (to which he calls “bullsh*t”), but no one can drop a “motherf*cker” like he can. So it’s surprising that the most common line the actor hears from fans in public doesn’t involve a curse.

The Hollywood Reporter recently gathered together Jackson, Oscar Isaac, Tom Hiddleston, Michael Keaton, Brian Cox, and Quincy Isaiah, and asked them, “When a fan comes up to you on the street, what do they typically recognize you from, and what do they usually say?” Cox answered with his Succession catchphrase “f*ck off,” while Jackson said, “These days, ‘What’s in your wallet?’” Not “hold onto your butts” or “does he look like a bitch?” or something about motherf*cking snakes on motherf*cking planes, but his Capital One commercial slogan. We, as a society, can do better.

THR: And how do you respond?

JACKSON “My wife’s hand.”

KEATON What does that mean?

JACKSON My wife’s hand is in my wallet.

Jackson admitted that people do ask him to call them motherf*cker “all the time. Or they’ll ask me to put it on their answering machine. They’ll literally say, ‘Would you do my answering machine?’ ‘This motherf*cker’s not home right now. And the motherf*cker will call you back.’” Cox suggested that he charge them for the request, but Jackson, king among men that he is, said, “I don’t want to gouge the public. I charge them enough to come to my movies.” What’s in your wallet? All the cash that you’ve saved by Samuel L. Jackson not charging $50 to call your mother-in-law a “motherf*cker.”

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)

Last month, a rumor popped up that Drew Brees‘ time with NBC was coming to an end after one season. Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reported that Brees, who the network tabbed as a potential replacement for Cris Collinsworth on its Sunday Night Football broadcasts when he agreed to join at the conclusion of his football career, would not return due to a mutual parting of ways.

Brees took to Twitter in the aftermath of that report and said that he was undecided about what his future would hold. But on Wednesday morning, Joe Reedy of the Associated Press received confirmation from NBC Sports chairman Pete Bevacqua that Brees’ time with the network as an NFL analyst and Notre Dame football color commentator is over.

“The unbelievable busyness of an NFL career and then really not taking a break at all and launching right in with us with both Notre Dame football and the NFL, it was certainly an around-the-clock assignment,” Bevacqua told the AP. “This was definitely a lifestyle choice for him, which is totally understandable.”

Bevacqua told the AP that the network won’t prevent Brees from pursuing another opportunity in broadcasting despite the fact that he is under contract. Despite that, the expectation is that Brees will spend this year at home with his family.

At the close of Beach Bunny’s recent video for “Karaoke,” a commander played by Better Caul Saul‘s Bob Odenkirk — who fancies himself a superfan of the Chicago indie band — delivers a message to the intergalactic pop “Star Team.” As the band floats in a spaceship, Commander Odenkirk begins, “We intercepted intel regarding the whereabouts of Star Agent Zero. It seems an enemy ship is circulating among the star cluster…we need you to find Zero. Time is of the essence. The entire Universe is counting on you.”

Confused? Beach Bunny’s Lili Trifilio has written a three-part space saga of sorts that plays itself out in the next three of videos of songs off of the band’s upcoming album, Emotional Creature, due out on July 22nd. Now we have Part 2 in the “Entropy” clip and the heat is on for the Beach Bunny Star Team.

The song itself sees the band shifting towards a more decidedly pop-punk atmosphere, but that doesn’t make it any less endearing. “Somebody’s gonna figure us out and I hope they do, because Im fallin’ for you-uuu,” Trifilio sings. Will the band rescue Star Agent Zero? Stay tuned, on the next episode of the Beach Bunny: Intergalactic Pop Star Steam.

In the meantime, watch the video for “Entropy” above and check out their current tour dates here.

Emotional Creature is out 7/22 via Mom+Pop Music. Pre-order it here.

It can be a painful realization when someone comes to terms with the fact they are not “the one,” but rather “another one” that fills the void the true “one” left. Wet sings through this reality on their new single “I’m Not Her,” a somber piano ballad confronting the commonality of using someone to get over someone else.

“Guess my place was taken long before / Before I was ever faced with this lonely man I call my baby,” Kelly Zutrau emotes in the chorus. Later on, in her sole verse, she admits to wishing things were different, saying, “Oh, I wish I could convince myself / That I wasn’t born and just here to help you get over someone else / But that wasn’t never me.” The record sits at just two minutes and 14 seconds, but it is enough to trigger the lovelorn threads within all listeners.

“I’m Not Her” follows the release of “Tell Me Why” back in May. The two tracks are set to appear Wet’s upcoming seven-song EP Pink Room, a relatively quick follow-up to their October 2021 album and first independent release Letter Blue.

Listen to “I’m Not Her” above.

Pink Room is out 7/8 via Friends Of Secretly Canadian. Pre-order it here.

If you’re keeping track of the number of times Ted Cruz has embarrassed himself in public, you’ll want to add another notch — if you can find the space. On Tuesday, as Raw Story reports, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the rise of white supremacy and domestic terrorism in America in the wake of the recent mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, which the Justice Department has classified as a hate crime.

But when it came time for Cruz to speak, it was clear the Texas senator didn’t understand the assignment, or just flat-out ignored it. Instead, he used his time at the microphone to tell colleagues on both sides of the aisle that Black people are bad, then rattled off a lot of B.S. that was not germane to the conversation. After complaining about the way that Democrats attempt to “politicize acts of violence” (LOL) and blaming them for the creation of the KKK, Cruz claimed that all this whining about white supremacy was “diminishing anti-Jewish violence, anti-Asian violence, violence directed at white people, [and] violence directed at police.” Trying to take a neutral stand, Cruz stated that “my view is simple: violence is always wrong whatever your ideology, left-wing, right-wing, no wings.” Then he got to his real point: “Black supremacy” is what we should really be talking about.

Cruz went on to cite the Brooklyn subway shooter and the Waukesha Christmas parade attack as two examples of Black nationalists, before adding: “Then, of course, we have the violence of the antifa riots and the Black Lives Matter riots that wracked this country” in the summer of 2020. “Stores were looted, police cars were fire-bombed, people were assaulted, people were murdered,” Cruz said. “My colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle sought to excuse, sought to apologize, four even went so far as to raise money to bail out of jail the violent rioters committing these acts of violence.”

When Amy Klobuchar, who has butted heads with Cruz before, commanded the floor just a few minutes later, she was quick to give the Texas senator a lesson in stats. She rebutted that “the intelligence community has identified racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists as a category of people most likely to conduct mass casualty attacks… But one thing that wasn’t noted, and this is just one year of statistics, but was not noted by Senator Cruz, and that is that the FBI reported that of the racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists it was investigating in 2020… 87 percent were white supremacists. So I just think it’s very important that the record reflect that.”

Let the record show: Klobuchar: 1; Cruz: 0.

(Via Raw Story)

After giving a small tease back in October, Black Adam (which has been in various development stages for nearly a decade) has finally dropped its first official trailer that essentially sees The Rock‘s anti-hero locking horns with the Justice Society of America, making the film a deep cut into the DC Comics world. While the trailer sets up Black Adam’s as a ruthless deliverer of justice, who’s not afraid to kill to achieve his means, Pierce Brosnan‘s Doctor Fate plays a prominent role.

While plot details are being kept tightly under wraps, it appears that Doctor Fate is behind the unearthing of Black Adam and the plans to unleash him on a not-yet-revealed menace. However, that decision doesn’t seem to mesh well with the other heroes who don’t approve of how easily Black Adam is willing to end the life of his enemies.

Here’s the official synopsis:

From New Line Cinema, Dwayne Johnson stars in the action adventure “Black Adam.” The first-ever feature film to explore the story of the DC Super Hero comes to the big screen under the direction of Jaume Collet-Serra (“Jungle Cruise”). Nearly 5,000 years after he was bestowed with the almighty powers of the ancient gods—and imprisoned just as quickly—Black Adam (Johnson) is freed from his earthly tomb, ready to unleash his unique form of justice on the modern world.

Rounding out the cast is Aldis Hodge as Hawkman, Noah Centineo as Atom Smasher, Sarah Shahi as Adrianna, Quintessa Swindell as Cyclone, as Amon, and of course, Brosnan as Dr. Fate.

Black Adam hits theaters on October 21, 2022.

On her latest album, Squeeze, Sasami took us to polar extremities with sounds that ranged from gazy indie, to industrial rock, and even to straight up dark metal yowls. The ambitious collection has been out for a few months, and now Sasami has released an alternate take of “Tried To Understand” that flips the track on its head and features Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis.

“‘Tried To Understand’ was a song that took many forms before it became what you hear on my album,” Sasami said in a statement.

These words should not be taken lightly, as it goes from a grassy folk tune with a sweet lead guitar, to a decidedly thrashier, driving number with a more assertive lead riff by Mascis. It rips hard at every turn and there’s a balanced dynamic in vocals from Sasami and Mascis.

“This rawer cut with J. Mascis is kind of a peek into the different dimensions and moods one composition can inhabit,” added Sasami, who is currently on tour with Haim. “This version features Ty Segall on drums, me on bass and guitar and J. on the ripping leads and backing vocals. It’s the less cute version of what spinning out can sound like.”

Listen to the alternate version of “Tried To Understand” above.

The Denver Broncos have entered into a sale agreement that will set a record for the highest price ever paid for a North American sports team. According to ESPN, the agreement between to purchase the franchise from the Pat Bowlen Trust will cost the Walton-Penner family ownership group — led by Walmart heir Rob Walton — $4.65 billion.

The news of the sale was announced in a pair of statements, one by Walton and one by Broncos president and CEO Joe Ellis.

The team has been in a trust since Bowlen, whose family purchased the franchise in 1984, handed day-to-day operations of the team to Ellis in 2014 as he battled Alzheimer’s. He died in 2019, and by that point, the team had been placed in a trust. It was officially put up for sale earlier this year.

According to ESPN, the sale is expected to become official sometime in the next 60-90 days after its terms are reviewed by the league’s finance committee and a vote is taken by its owners, with 24 yes votes needed for the sale to go through. The price tag of $4.65 million smashes the previous record for the sale of a North American team, which was held by Steve Cohen’s purchase of the New York Mets for $2.475 billion in 2020, and the record for the sale of an NFL team, which was held by David Tepper for his $2.3 billion purchase of the Carolina Panthers in 2018. It falls just short of the record price paid for a team, as the bar was set at end of May by the recent $5 billion purchase of Chelsea FC.

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are expected to play a “starring role” in the January 6th hearings after Florida’s least favorite couple provided “really valuable” information during their testimonies that will make for “gripping television.” The first hearing doesn’t begin until Thursday, June 9, but the New York Times provided helpful context about how little Jared and Ivanka wanted anything to do with Donald Trump — and Rudy Giuliani — while he was trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“No matter how vociferously Mr. Trump claimed otherwise, neither Mr. Kushner nor Ivanka Trump believed then or later that the election had been stolen,” the Times reported. “While the president spent the hours and days after the polls closed complaining about imagined fraud in battleground states and plotting a strategy to hold on to power, his daughter and son-in-law were already washing their hands of the Trump presidency.” They were already planning their move to Florida less than 24 hours after Trump was telling anyone who would listen that “frankly, we did win this election.”

And then ol’ cigar-hawking Rudy got involved:

Their decision to move on opened a vacuum around the president that was filled by conspiracy theorists like Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, who relayed to Mr. Trump farcically false stories of dead voters, stuffed ballot boxes, corrupted voting machines, and foreign plots. Concluding that the president would not listen even to family members urging him to accept the results, Mr. Kushner told Mr. Trump that he would not be involved if Mr. Giuliani were in charge, according to people he confided in, effectively ceding the field to those who would try to overturn the election.

Get ready for the latest Rudy meltdown in 3… 2… 1…

(Via the New York Times)