Category: Worldwide

There are so many whiskeys (and whiskies) on the market, most of us will never even come close to trying them all. From Scotch to rye to bourbon to Japanese to white whiskey to wheated whiskey to… we could open a new bottle every day for the foreseeable future and never repeat once.

But what if — instead of trying a new whiskey every day — you could only pick one distillery to pledge alegiance to? The parameters are wider than drinking just one single expression for life, but still pretty limiting. Todd Johnston, beverage director at Marsh House in Nashville, found a pretty clever workaround.

“I would go with Buffalo Trace,” he says. “It encompasses several different whiskey labels. Old school and well-respected whiskeys with a variety of delicious options.”

Read below to see what Johnston’s fellow bartenders choose as their picks.

Glenfiddich

Reniel Garcia, bar director of Havana 1957 in Miami

Glenfiddich is one of the few remaining single malt distilleries which does its own bottling. As a single malt, you can count on Glenfiddich having a basic quality that surpasses most of the blended whiskeys.

The Dalmore

Piero Procida, bartender at The London West Hollywood in Los Angeles

The Dalmore distillery in Scotland and only because of the incredible attention to detail the master blenders pay to their product. It is superb whiskey that is well cared for with so much attention paid to creating the most perfectly balanced whiskey. Every line they have come out with has just been superb. They have had since 1839 to perfect their whiskey and it shows in every bottle how well they have harnessed their craft.

The smoothness and texture as well as the very different characteristics you see across their line makes this brand stand out above all others.

Old Grand-Dad

Adrienne Miller, bartender at Satterfield’s in Birmingham, Alabama

Old Grand-Dad always and forever, their expressions are beautiful on the rocks or in a cocktail or just with soda or champs. It’s good with anything.

The Balvenie

Ryan Negley, whiskey fellow at Boulder Spirits in Boulder, Colorado

I’m a sucker for a variety of flavors within a singular lineup. And for me, The Balvenie captures that beautifully. Granted, they are one of the largest brands of single malt in the world, but for good reason. From the use of first fill American Oak as well as their esteemed older expressions, they make great whisky day in, day out.

Blanton’s

Erin Gowdy, bartender at Paul’s Landing at The Vinoy Renaissance in St. Petersburg, Florida

Blanton’s is easy to sip and it’s great on the rocks or neat. With its hints of caramel and vanilla with the perfect amount of sweet corn flavor, it’s the kind of bourbon I could drink for the rest of my life.

Bulleit

Frantjèsko Leonora, bartender at Curaçao Marriott Beach Resort in Curaçao

I don’t need a distillery, I can give you a single bottle!

Being a bourbon fan the brand I’ll have to go with is Bulleit Frontier Whiskey. It has a bold, spicy character with a distinctively smooth, clean finish. The Kentucky limestone-filtered water provides a foundation for the bourbon’s character, while charred American oak barrels lend a smoky backbone.

Delicious to sip on any time.

Suntory

Chris Amirault, bartender and virtual mixology teacher at CocuSocial in New York City

Hakushu 25 year from Suntory might be the best whisky I’ve ever had. It’s rare, Smokey, mineral, and I enjoyed it at their distillery. I’ll put my faith in their team.

Blanton’s / Suntory

Drew Reid, restaurant manager at W Aspen in Aspen, Colorado

Tough question but I’ll go with distilleries behind my favorite bottles. I would happily live with Blanton’s bourbon and nothing else. This bourbon is unmatched. Neat, just as is. Hibiki from Suntory is a very close second here. It’s perfect on its own but shines in a highball.

Bruichladdich

Jim Lunchick, master mixologist at Merriman’s in Hawaii

If I could only drink one distillery’s bottles it would be Bruichladdich. Those guys really throw a lot of variation into their various styles of single malt bottlings. It’s Islay Scotch, but you can climb a ladder from barely smokey to over-the-top peatiness, depending on which of their expressions you choose.

Angel’s Envy

Sabari Kanth, lead bartender at Conrad Fort Lauderdale in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

You can’t go wrong with Angel’s Envy bourbon. It’s a well-balanced bourbon with hints of vanilla, rich chocolate, and sweet dried fruits because of aging in port casks.

Black Button

Anthony Rouhana, bartender at The Cub Room in Rochester, New York

Black Button Distilling: A hometown favorite of mine, the folks at Black Button are not only passionate about the whiskey they make, but the whiskey they drink as well. Constantly seeking sources of inspiration, I’ve found myself contemplating the quality of different drams with the distilling team on a number of occasions. Truly students of the craft, it’s always a good time to sit in on one of their delicious study sessions.

I see great things for them in the future as they continue to strive for excellence.

Writer’s Pick:

Ardbeg

Ardbeg is well known for its peat-smoked, not-for-novices whiskies. But on top of the usual smoke monsters, they also have offerings like An Oa, which is smoky but also well-balanced, sweet, and spicy — due to aging in a gathering vat made up of whiskies aged in Pedro Ximenez sherry butts, new charred oak casks, ex-bourbon casks, and others.

The 2020 Emmy nominations were announced earlier this week, and aside from an inexplicable number of nominations for Quibi programming, the Emmy voters did a mostly decent job given the huge amount of content with which they had to deal. The Emmy voters hit the most important bases (Watchmen, Schitt’s Creek, Ramy) and didn’t make too many unworthy choices, The Morning Show may have been a rare exception, although even the Apple+ drama is good, just not perhaps Emmy-worthy.

In fact, there were not a lot of egregious snubs, with one major exception: Rhea Seehorn, who plays Kim Wexler on Better Call Saul, as well as her co-star Bob Odenkirk, who was also wrongly snubbed, although he at least has a number of past nominations. Nominating the series for Best Drama, as well as for its writing, and overlooking Seehorn and Odenkirk was a real head scratcher, and social media was left more than a little confounded. Rhea Seehorn was brilliant on this season of Saul, and while that is true in every season, it was even more remarkable in Saul’s fifth season given the pivot her character had to make.

One actor who agreed as much as anyone was Seehorn’s co-star, Bob Odenkirk, who witnessed Seehorn’s brilliance on set every single day. He took to Twitter to note the snub while also showing his appreciation for the nominations the show did receive.

Seehorn likewise offered consoling words to Odenkirk, while also appropriately expressing gratitude for those who did receive nominations, like Giancarlo Esposito.

On a more positive note, Giancarlo Esposito — sporting an apparent pandemic beard — was thrilled with his double Emmy nominations for both Saul and The Mandalorian.

Maybe the key to getting Seehorn a nomination is to get her a guest role in season two of The Mandalorian, because otherwise, the Emmy’s refusal to nominate her is getting ridiculous. At least, however, voters has one more season of Saul in which to make up for it.

Netflix wraps up July with the return of one of its wildest, most inventive sci-fi/superhero series. That’s right, The Umbrella Academy is back and they’re bringing another doomsday event complete with cults and time-travel and Swedish milkmen-turned-assassins. If for some reason that doesn’t speak to you, there’s also a new doc and a BBC import that might prove interesting.

Here’s everything coming to (and leaving) this week of July 31.

The Umbrella Academy: Season 2 (Netflix series streaming 7/31)

Netflix’s group of superpowered oddballs is back and ready to save the world again, or destroy it. It could go either way with these weirdos. The team travels back to the ’60s where they learn of another impending apocalypse somehow tied to the assassination of JFK and their father. They’ve got 10 days to fix it but first, they’ll have to manage disgruntled cults and amnesia and a talking fish.

Get Even (Netflix Original)

This BBC import carries serious Pretty Little Liars vibes. It follows a group of British school girls fed up with the callous cliquey behavior of their peers and determined to get revenge. Of course, someone ends up dying and they’re the ones framed for the murder so along with the feel-good vengeance we get a dose of murder-mystery.

The Speed Cubers (Netflix Documentary)

If that Spelling Bee documentary Netflix put out a while ago was 100% your brand then you’ll want to queue up this new film, which takes a look at another prestigious circle of the intellectual elite. Speed Cubers are people who can solve those mind-jumbling Rubix cubes in less time than it takes us normal folk to blink, but this doc goes beyond just marveling at their abilities to tell a moving story of friendship.

Here’s a full list of what’s been added in the last week:

Avail. 7/26
Banana Split
Shameless: Season 10

Avail. 7/28
Jeopardy!: Collection 6
Last Chance U: Lany (Netflix Documentary)

Avail. 7/29
The Hater (Netflix Film)
Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons: Season 4 (Netflix Original)

Avail. 7/30
Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie
Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy (Netflix Anime)

Avail. 7/31
Get Even (Netflix Original)
Latte and the Magic Waterstone (Netflix Family)
Seriously Single (Netflix Film)
The Speed Cubers (Netflix Documentary)
Sugar Rush: Extra Sweet (Netflix Original)
The Umbrella Academy: Season 2 (Netflix Original)
Vis a Vis: El Oasis (Locked Up) (Netflix Original)

And here’s what’s leaving next week, so it’s your last chance:

Leaving 8/1
Skins: Vol. 1-7

Leaving 8/3
Love
Paranormal Survivor: Season 1-2

Leaving 8/7
6 Days
Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer
St. Agatha

The Umbrella Academy took fans on a wild ride in its first season, but the best advice we can give heading into season two is this: strap in, weirdos. That’s because our beloved band of misfit heroes are doing more time-traveling, more misguided heroic shenanigans, and in Klaus’ case, more drugs. They’re just doing it in a different century.

Here’s where (and when) all of the Hargreeves siblings are in the doomsday timeline.

Number Five

Number Five (Aidan Gallagher) managed to teleport his family to safety at the end of season one, but he didn’t really stick the time-traveling landing. When season two picks up, Five is the last sibling to arrive at his intended destination — Dallas, Texas in 1963. He gets there 10 days before the end of the world. That’s right, the apocalypse has been rescheduled, and we can only assume the Hargreeves siblings are to blame. Five’s still got the Commission tailing him, though they’ve sent a Swedish trio of henchman in place of Hazel and Cha Cha, but his main dilemma is how the hell he’s supposed to find his family members who’ve been scattered across the space-time continuum.

Vanya Hargreeves

Out of all of the Hargreeves siblings, Vanya (Ellen Page) probably suffered the most. She spent her whole life believing she was normal and, therefore, of no value to her father figure, Reginald Hargreeves, the eccentric billionaire who adopted these superpowered pricks. As we learned over the course of the show’s first season, Vanya does indeed have powers, and they’re so terrifying that Daddy Hargreeves spent years lying to her and drugging her with suppressants because she couldn’t seem to control them. When she found out, she went off the deep end, causing the world-ending event that forced everyone to travel back to the ’60s. Vanya seems to be doing well in this particular decade. She’s hanging out with a housewife and her young son, and it looks like she’s got a grip on her powers. That or the whole definitely-destroying-the-planet thing means she’s cool with never flexing her supernatural muscles again.

Diego Hargreeves

Diego (David Castaneda) spent most of the show’s first season resenting his higher-ranked brother Luther and hunting down the people who murdered his ex, Detective Patch. Of course, because the killers (Hazel and Cha Cha) worked for the Commission, they managed to frame Diego for the deed instead, which meant he was always on the run. It looks like things haven’t changed too much when he gets dropped in ’60s-era Texas. From what we can glean from the trailer, Diego’s managed to get himself locked up in a psych ward and he’s nursing an unhealthy obsession with JFK’s assassination plot. The good news? He seems to have made a friend in Lila (Ritu Arya) who’s described as a “chameleon with a twisted sense of humor who can be as brilliant or insane as the mission requires.”

Luther Hargreeves

Poor Spaceboy. Luther (Tom Hopper) found out the reality-shattering truth of his father’s betrayal in season one — his whole mission-on-the-moon bit was something Reginald Hargreeves concocted to keep him busy. His daddy issues manifest in increasingly annoying ways throughout season one, but they take a dangerous turn when he believes the only way to protect his family, as it’s de-facto leader, is to lock up his sister, Vanya until they can figure out how to control her abilities. That ends pretty much how you’d expect: part of the moon chips off, collides with Earth, and obliterates the human race. When he’s dropped back in time, he finds a different fight and a place where he feels like he can fit in. Until Five comes knocking with ramblings about another D-Day event.

Allison Hargreeves

Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) spent season one fighting for custody of her kid amidst a nasty divorce and reluctantly being sucked back into her family’s strange, dysfunctional dynamics. She was the only Hargreeves sibling to actively try to help Vanya navigate her newfound powers, and she was rewarded for that sisterly love with severed vocal cords, seriously limiting her ability to use her persuasive superpowers. It seems like some time away from her family has done her good because her voice is back, she’s got a new man, and she’s freely using her gift to rumor Diego into punching himself in the face.

Klaus (and Ben) Hargreeves

Being labeled the black sheep of this oddball bunch means that Klaus (Robert Sheehan) was always left on the sidelines. To be fair, he liked it that way. It meant he had more time to indulge in his favorite hobby: drugs. He spent most of season one high as a kite, avoiding exploring his own abilities which include communing with the dead. Of course, his ghostly brother Ben (Justin H. Min) was the exception, and when we jump back in time, the two have found a way to stir up even more trouble. Think cults. Apparently, Klaus traveled to India, became a bona fide guru, and now has a legion of followers who will be very pissed that the world’s expiration date has been moved up.

‘Umbrella Academy’ drops Season 2 on July 31.

I’m honestly not sure where Paul Feig finds the time for all his various projects, two of which are sticking their landings during this strange time. In addition to executive producing HBO Max’s recent debut of Love Life (which is already gearing up for a second season), he’s seeing the results of a 15-year-push (as creator) for Other Space to see a fitting light of day. You may have already heard about the show’s history as a casualty of the short-lived Yahoo Screen service. Fortunately, the uproarious series has been resurrected from a premature grave and will stream via Dust on August 1.

Yep, Other Space is finally getting its due. Sci-fi and comedy lovers can soon journey to 2105, far away from our current troubles, and witness the highly-flawed maneuverings of a young, inexperienced space crew (including Karan Soni from the Deadpool movies and Dave Franco, who’s now moving into directing) as they tangle with robots and aliens and other mysterious entities. There’s also an antagonist named Karen (Bess Rous), and since Feig was gracious enough to speak with us, we had to talk about his apparent Karen fixation within his past writings.

The show will be available for binging through On Demand with the DUST app, which is available for free on the Roku app store and at watchdust.com. While we spoke to Feig, we also dove into some Love Life matters, and of course, I couldn’t resist tucking in a Bridesmaids-related question.

It’s been quite a laborious, winding road for this series to surface in a place where everyone can watch it.

We made this five years ago, and we made it while I was in the post-production of Spy, but the backstory is that it’s something that I first created back in 2005 at NBC, which is where we did Freaks and Geeks. So, I wrote it and really loved it. I’m a lifetime sci-fi fan and always wanted to do a comedy that was true to sci-fi, and they all really loved it there. But it was a single-camera show, and they thought maybe it should be multi-cam, so I wrote it that way, but they didn’t know what to pair this with. They usually like to pair very similar shows for an hour if they’re half-hours.

And just like that, it went into the vault?

It [was] in my files for about nine years, but I could never really let it go, it just stuck with me. I saw it very clearly in my head. I loved the characters and the setting and the idea and all that. One of my old assistants found it, and he was like, “You have to make this.” Right at that moment, we got contacted by Yahoo!, which was trying to get into the streaming world. They wanted three different series with good budgets, so I immediately pulled out Other Space as a passion project that I’d been trying to make. We brought on this amazing team of performers and writers, and it was a scrappy little show that wasn’t so cheap that it was terrible, but it was lo-tech enough to be fun in a way.

More focus on characters and jokes, less dollars spent on space-y effects.

I was so proud of it, and it was a hard thing to make … in an old warehouse in Sun Valley, which is in the middle of nowhere as far as Hollywood knows, and we had to build the interior around this old medical plant. They made it very inventive and creative, and I really worked hard on it and put it on Yahoo! Screen, which just didn’t catch on. It was the kind of thing that nobody could ever find. They didn’t get it out there, they just did marketing on the Yahoo! website versus traditional marketing, so the bottom line is that nobody knew it existed, so it folded pretty quickly. It was our show and the sixth season of Community that got picked up, but it was gone.

Given that Yahoo! Screen became the Community graveyard as well, it really hammers home how that was a serious streaming-service misfire.

I was out of my mind because I had this thing that I was very proud of, and the people that watched it, loved it. We had a fanbase, but it was tiny, so it made me crazy because I had this thing that I think people would enjoy. We were trying to sell it to other streamers, but once something gets canceled, it’s generally hard to get it picked up, or it was back then. I had it streaming for free on my Tumblr site, and I was trying, through social media, to drive people to it but couldn’t get the reach that I needed. And out of the blue one day, Dust popped up, and they were fans of the show and wanted to do it, and I will be eternally grateful to them. Because not only did they want to air it, they wanted to do promotion for it. We never had that chance, so even the fact that I’m talking to you about it right now is wonderful. I’m happy as a clam, and hopefully, [it will] get more of a fanbase. I’m just so proud of the show and everyone in it.

What was the biggest thing that kept this show stuck on your mind?

I loved it. The only sci-fi comedy that I remember seeing as a teenager was Quark, which was this Richard Benjamin show that we just thought was really funny. There were shows like Red Dwarf out of England, and those kind of things, but not really very many. And then I would see things like Spaceballs, which would be funny, but they were making fun of sci-fi and sort-of the people who like sci-fi, the tropes of it. And I just wanted to do a comedy in a sci-fi setting that could be used with the weird turns and twists that you’d get from more heady type of sci-fi and play with that.

It also feels like a workplace comedy (which makes sense for you) about space, but it’s much wittier than the recent Space Force.

Yeah, because I spent years on The Office and was influenced by that docustyle. I wanted to have that style on this show but wanted to justify it, so that’s why you learn as the show goes on that they are actually on a reality show, they just don’t know it — with electron cameras, so that could be a reason for why the show existed, but the cast and the writing were just so funny. Many of them have gone onto bigger things. So, it’s really that feeling of knowing that you’re sitting on something really good. It’s one thing if you have a show that doesn’t do well because critics hate it. We’ve all experienced that, but when it’s something that a small audience gets pretty rabid about but nobody else sees it, so it dies in an embryonic stage, and it just didn’t feel fair with all the hard work that so many people went into it.

In the thick of 2020, this might be a more optimal time than expected (with fresh content slowing down) for the show to land again.

I love that you found the right words, but I’m fortunate that during this terrible time when everybody’s stuck inside, that we’ve got two series that we just finished, Love Life and Other Space. We can help people fill time during quarantine, and it looks like we are going back into lockdown, and I’ll reserve my thoughts on that, but if we can provide one more bit of entertainment for people to help them get through this terrible time, that’s always a plus.

To switch to a little more lighthearted subject, you obviously wrote the Karen character (and named her Karen) long ago. Right now, Karen is a name that’s a little bit loaded.

That makes me laugh, actually. Oh, I’m very up-to-date on the Karens.

Do you think people will read into that name at all?

If they do, they’re gonna have to look at me as if I’m some oracle. The funny thing is that I had a series of kid books, well, it was supposed to be a series, but we only did two, Ignatius MacFarland, which was a sci-fi comedy also, and the lead girl in that book is also Karen. For some reason, the name Karen has always intrigued me, I don’t know why. But I’ve called more characters Karen in the things that I’ve written, and it’s not like it’s a bad thing, but my Karens tend to be slightly headstrong. Maybe a bit.

People might play with it. At least the Karen in Other Space isn’t throwing tantrums about masks.

But whatever gets people talking about it!

There will be jokes. Speaking of which, you once said that you never heard a test audience laugh as loud as during *that* Bridesmaids scene when Maya Rudolph sank down in the street. Has there ever been a funnier moment for you on set when a cast just couldn’t hold it together?

Oh, it happens all the time. Some people are more prone to breaking than others. Rose Byrne is a notorious breaker, she will just start laughing because she’s hilarious, and she works with the funniest people in the world. When we were doing Spy, shooting the scene when they’re in the restaurant-casino, and Melissa [McCarthy] is trying to order the wine from that enormous list, she was trying to sound like she knew something about wine. And I have so much footage of Rose Byrne not being able to keep a straight face during that. But it happens a lot because everyone I work with is so funny, and they’re all team players.

There are some sets where directors or crew or whatever will get very upset if actors get on a laughing jag. I am so happy when it happens. I don’t even care if I’m behind schedule. I’ve driven it home to the crew to never turn the camera away. I’ve used instances where people break when I could get a good laugh or a real moment out of them. But I also find it really funny, and knowing that we have all these DVD extras we can use that we can put bloopers on. There’s nothing that I like more than footage of my favorite actors flubbing their lines and making each other laugh. I look forward to it, but honestly, I’m worse about ruining more takes than most of my actors. I’m very famous about just bursting out laughing behind the camera.

Let’s talk about Love Life, which was a hit for HBO Max. When you got involved, did you know it would be the flagship show?

No, no. We had Anna Kendrick, and that was a big deal, Anna in her first TV series, so we hoped we would be one of their flagship shows, but we didn’t realize that we would be the one flagship show, head of the pack. That’s always nervewracking like, you know, the Yahoo Screen, to be the first volley of the new platform. That’s terrifying because if, for whatever reason, the platform doesn’t work, then you get blamed for being a part of that… so when it started shaking out because of production and the way that everything was going earlier this year, when I started to see what was going on, I was like, “Oh boy,” but we all believed in the show so much. And HBO Max was such a great partner, and we really made sure that it was gonna hold up to the scrutiny that it was going to be subjected to. I’ve always fine with taking the chance of being the canary in the coal mine. You hope the canary comes out the other side and is really strong and popular, but fortunately, we made it through the coal mine.

A few years ago, romantic comedies started disappearing from the box-office. There are a lot of factors there, like budget, but do you have any hunches of why they’re so popular on streaming?

Well, it’s a couple of things. When a genre goes away for a while, it always comes back. It usually goes away because there’s an overload of product in that genre, and sadly, a lot of time the quality drops, so I think romantic comedies have gone away too long, and people miss them. The other side of it is that going to the movies is a very expensive prospect, and the bigger tentpole movies are what really tend to pull in big audiences. And if a romantic comedy is on at the theater, we think, you know, we have to pay a lot of money to go do that, babysitters for the kids, and parking and food and all that. It may make people not want to take a chance on a smaller film versus a giant tentpole that gets a lot of press, and they know more, and it’s not an original thing, and most romantic comedies are an original thing that hope they’re good, but you don’t know. When it’s on streaming, the only effort is in pressing a button to activate the file and have the thing come up. And you get to have the same experience and relive your love of these movies. I am a major supporter of the movie theaters, and it’s on hold right now, but my dream and my wish is that when it’s safe to go back to theaters, everyone will go back.

Do you think that cable and non-cable networks are also willing to be a little more experimental? Love Life is an anthology series, and another one of your producing projects, Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, really plays with format as well.

It’s definitely that, but also, again, back to the idea that you don’t have to lure people out of their houses, into their cars, and shelling out money. I think Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is a very undeniable idea, that if marketed correctly, could draw an audience into a theater. That said, you don’t have to pack the same heavy-duty litmus test as, whether it’s a superhero movie or more out there, and undeniable, like you move heaven and earth to go see that and put money down. Even though you want it to be undeniable on TV, the litmus test is more like, “Oh, let me turn that on.” So, it allows you to be more experimental, like what is a heavily-commercial idea, versus something that looks like fun that they want to watch.

With Love Life, are you working on Season 2 anytime soon?

HBO has given us the greenlight on it. We’re just in the process of figuring out casting right now. The whole season is very plotted out. Sam Boyd and Bridget Bedard, who wrote the show, pitched it out to HBO Max, and it was fantastic and one of the reasons we got the pickup, so we’re very excited about it. A lot of work to do and a lot to figure out, regarding how to get something made during this strange time.

‘Other Space’ streams exclusively on Dust beginning August 1.

Over the past several weeks, headlines have been filled with news of Megan Thee Stallion, Tory Lanez, and their fateful encounter on July 12. In the wake of the news that Tory had been arrested, it was revealed that Megan had been shot, opening a sorely-needed, but poorly-conducted discussion about the dangers faced by Black women in America — even the most famous of them.

Here’s a timeline of what we know:

Megan And Tory First Appear On Quarantine Radio

The pair first sparked rumors — and light admonishment from fans — about their relationship when they appeared on Tory’s Quarantine Radio livestream from Megan’s house. While the lighthearted stream found the two laughing it up as Megan failed to teach Tory the latest TikTok dance, some fans noted that their activities seemed to be violating social distance guidelines. For the most part, though, it seemed as though the two were having a good time and made a fun — if odd — couple.

News Of Tory’s Arrest And Megan’s Injury

The first signs of trouble in paradise arose when news broke in mid-July that Tory had been arrested for carrying a concealed weapon while Megan, a passenger in his SUV at the time of his arrest, had suffered an injury to her foot. At the time, the injury was reported as a cut from broken glass as a result of the altercation that sent police looking for Tory’s vehicle in the first place. Witnesses at a party the couple attended described an argument and multiple gunshots before the car peeled away, and video of the arrest showed Meg leaving behind clearly visible, bloody footprints as she exited the vehicle.

Megan Reveals That She Was Shot

After a few days of speculation from fans, the first solid tidbits of information began to trickle out and in an attempt to get ahead of the rumor mill, Megan revealed that she’d been shot in what she called the “result of a crime that was committed against me and done with the intention to physically harm me.” She promised that she was focused on recovery so that she could get back to making music, noting that she hated “that it took this experience for me to learn how to protect my energy.”

Social Media Reacts To Megan’s Shooting

Once Megan revealed that she had indeed been shot and TMZ reported that Tory was the suspected shooter, people on social media went wild with reactions. 50 Cent reposted a demeaning meme — which he later deleted and apologized for — while video model Draya Michele joked during an interview that she wished someone cared enough about her to shoot her. Other transphobic and misogynistic jokes surfaced as well, with some men seemingly approving of Tory’s actions and Black women once again forced to lament that they are often the butt of jokes that are more dangerous than funny.

Megan Condemns Jokes, Defends Herself

Megan herself re-entered the conversation to call out those who’d joked about her predicament, streaming a frank and vulnerable talk on Instagram in which she admitted that Tory had shot her in both feet and detailed the resulting trauma. She also took to Twitter to censure Draya’s comments as the model met harsh repercussions across the board, reportedly getting dropped as a Fenty ambassador as Fenty founder Rihanna, Lizzo, and Beyonce all reached out to wish Meg a speedy recovery with thoughtful gifts and messages.

As of now, we don’t know what the ultimate outcome of this situation will be, anymore than we know how or why things escalated to the point of violence. Tory Lanez is currently under LAPD investigation for assault, while Megan returned to social media to assure fans she would return to releasing music soon. However, the situation does highlight a very grave issue: Black women are increasingly forced to stand up for themselves and each other against misogynistic men both in real life and online, and that’s a fact that needs to change.

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

There’s an odd trick Timothy Simons plays: that he’s able to remain charming, endearing even, even while he’s playing an overtly grating douchebag (that is, Jonah Ryan from Veep). Simons gives Jonah a gangly vulnerability, an over-eager little brother quality, despite Jonah being overtly the kind of person you’d never want to spend any time around.

It’s not an easy balance to maintain, but Simons, along with Nicholas Braun (Cousin Greg) from Succession and Zach Woods (Jared Dunn) from Silicon Valley, makes up a triumvirate of weirdly lovable stretched-out man-children on HBO shows. Long, pale character actors are having a moment, one could say.

This month, Simons shows up in writer/director Karen Maine’s debut, Yes, God, Yes, playing Father Murphy, a priest who seems a little like the “cool pastor” even as he tells the students at his Catholic school that they will burn in hell for all eternity if they engage in non-procreative sexual activities. The Midwestern priest is a weirdly fitting role for Simons, who, having grown up in rural Maine, has the ineffable air of someone who grew up far from Hollywood.

It’s nice to see him, and hard to believe he’s only had a handful of roles since Veep. Presumably, we’ll see him a lot more once we can have new shows and movies again. I spoke to him this week about how got his start in acting, Maine, what it’s like being recognizable for playing a really annoying guy, and how he’s handling being trapped in his home for months on end.

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How did you first get into acting?

How did I get into acting? Oh, God. I didn’t have any friends in college and I needed to try to meet people, and ended up auditioning for some short plays with no intention of actually pursuing it. And then it just went well. I enjoyed it, and within a couple of months I had changed majors and prescribed myself a life in the theater.

Where were you in college?

I went to the University of Maine.

Did it work out? Did you make friends after that?

I think I did. You’d probably have to confirm it with them. They’ve acted like my friends for this long, but maybe they’re just good actors. I don’t know.

Was Veep your first big role? Was that the point in your career where you realized that you could quit your day job?

Veep was definitely the biggest job that I had ever gotten at that point. Getting cast on that show was the point at which I quit most day jobs. Before that, I probably would have been able to, I don’t know. I acted in commercials and I would pick up jobs here and there. I think I made enough money that I could have not done anything else, but there was no reason to not also work my day job. My wife and I were trying to have kids, so I stuck around. Even after I got cast on the show, it was still just a pilot, and everybody that I had talked to, including Tony Hale, was like, “You’re going to film that pilot and every single day, everybody is going to be like, ‘This show is a sure thing. It’s a sure bet that it gets picked up.’ Every single pilot that I’ve ever been on has said that, and two of them have gotten picked up.” I didn’t really quit my day job until after the pilot got picked up. That’s when I was like, “Okay, I’m going to stop freelancing.”

What was your day job at that point?

I was a commercial casting camera operator and session director. I wasn’t the casting director, I would just run the sessions. The 400 people that you see for, I don’t know, whatever it was, a McDonald’s commercial or whatever, I was the one that ran those sessions. So 200 times a day I would explain, “Okay, you come in here. Pick up the burger. It’s very good. Alright, take a bite. Yeah, wow. That’s satisfying. Alright, thank you. Tell me your name?” This actually came up last year, but one of the commercials that I session directed was that Folger’s commercial where it seemed like the brother and sister were going to have sex. And they just did, I think it was GQ, did an oral history of that commercial this past year.

Did you have any idea that people were going to take that from the script?

No. Thinking back on it, I do think… Because sometimes you’re dealing with two adults, and sometimes it all becomes too familiar in the audition. It was like, “Maybe we could tone down some of this.” You know what I mean? I don’t know. I guess what I’m saying is, I’m not surprised it went that way.

Did you have any embarrassing acting jobs that you took before your breakout?

Luckily, no. Nothing that really you could go and find. You can’t do too much of a deep dive, like when Julia was in that leprechaun movie [Troll, 1986]. Nothing like that, but I’m just lucky. All the embarrassing jobs I had were just not filmed.

On Veep, there are a lot of cracks about your height. Is being a tall guy kind of a useful novelty for an actor?

I don’t think so. I’m sure that it helps in some circumstances, but if I were to be completely honest, I can only imagine that it gets in my way. It definitely helped when it came to the story in Veep, but I can only imagine that it gets in my way. If you have a director that’s very concerned with what their frames are going to look like and how two people are going to appear together, if I’m 6’5 and the person next to me is 5’3, I think that makes it challenging for a director. I don’t know. I imagine it gets in my way, but maybe I’m just feeling pessimistic today.

Between you and Cousin Greg on Succession, it seems like the tall guy in comedy is having a bit of a moment.

Yeah. It’s me, Cousin Greg, and Zach Woods [Jared on Silicon Valley]. Just taking over Hollywood bit by bit.

In Yes, God, Yes you play a priest. Did you have any experience with priests in your life to draw upon for that?

No. My family wasn’t particularly religious. My grandmother had a picture of John F. Kennedy on the same plane on her wall as a picture of Jesus, from what I remember. So Irish Catholicism is a big part of my family’s history, and all the guilt that you would carry with you through generations, but my family growing up was not particularly religious. A lot of it was brand new to me.

Your character, he seems like he’s trying to be the “cool priest” a little bit, but then he’s also preaching the classic fire and brimstone stuff. Were you drawing on anything there? Do you remember anything from that time period [2001] that you could relate to?

I remember thinking when I was reading it, that what he believes is very strict. “If you do X, Y, Z, you are going to burn in hell for all eternity.” That’s a pretty aggressive stance. I didn’t really want him to come across as cool, but what I do think, I don’t think he’s necessarily trying to be cool. What I think he’s trying to do is to be like, “I’m a person that has found a way to connect with young people and sell them this thing.”

I think what I drew on was that sort of teen counselor thing. I’m not trying to be one of you, but I am going to talk to you about your fears. I think it’s interesting that he’s somebody who says he’s this and says he’s empathetic, but the answer is still, “You’re going to hell if you do that.” I liked that. I like that he might sound gentle and like he’s somebody who’s really trying to connect with these kids, but ultimately, the answer is the same.

What is it like being recognizable for a character who’s the obnoxious guy? Do you have any weird fan interactions day-to-day?

Not currently because you can’t go anywhere anyway.

Right.

The only people I’ve seen have been my family and my neighbor. No. One thing, and this was sort of by design, was that I try to separate, even physically, Jonah from myself as much as I could. Even just little changes. I combed my hair differently. I don’t ever dress the same. I intentionally chose things that I wouldn’t wear day-to-day so that we wouldn’t necessarily look alike. I think that, luckily, I look different enough from him when I’m out in the real world that mostly, it’s just people being like, “Hey, man. That show is really funny,” rather than like, “I hate you.”

Is that your Clark Kent thing? You have your glasses and now you’re-

Yeah. Nobody recognizes me if I don’t have a weird half-shaved head with an incredibly high widow’s peak. Or a sweater vest.

What was it like growing up in rural Maine? Did you ever consider acting before college?

No, not at all. I was in the high school play when I was a senior, but… no. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but it definitely wasn’t going to be this. Growing up in rural Maine… you don’t really stray too far from home if you grow up there. There aren’t a lot of Mainers generally, and there are very few out here. Maine is a lovely place. One of the things that I’m actually writing is about Maine generally, just because it’s such a f*cking weird place. I’m working on something revolving around that.

What did your parents do when you were growing up?

My dad was a photographer. He did everything from senior portraits to L.L. Bean catalogs, and hunting and fishing catalog stuff. He was really good at that. My mom ran the business side of the business. He had a studio that was connected to our house growing up, so they… they had a separate space, but they worked from home and ran a business together, and it was great. Now, my mom, I think by the time I was a senior in high school my mom had started working in adult education at the high school that I went to, and she’s still working there. But yes, that’s what they did growing up.

Have you been off work since quarantine started?

Yeah. I was on a job that was shooting in Montreal whenever the quarantine started. I had been home. I had a two-week down period where I wasn’t shooting, so I had actually come home to Los Angeles, I think the Monday after the quarantine started was the day that I was supposed to head back to Montreal. So I was kind of at home for a couple of weeks before it started and have obviously just been home since. As far as work goes, I think everybody is in the same position of trying to figure out how and when anything might be able to happen. Luckily, I’ve had writing jobs that I have been able to work on, so that’s been good. Either things that I’m actively writing or stuff that I’m developing to pitch, and even a couple things that are in the very beginning stages of being thought out. There’s been enough to keep busy, but it’s definitely been weird, especially for somebody that’s very used to having to go out of town and go get on planes to go to work.

‘Yes, God, Yes,’ released July 24th in virtual cinemas and drive-ins, and July 28th on digital and VOD. Vince Mancini is on Twitter. You can access his archive of reviews here.

We’re not sure that The Umbrella Academy showrunner Steve Blackman doesn’t also have supernatural abilities like the group of gifted misfits that he babysits for Netflix. He is, at the very least, blessed with good timing. That’s because the show’s second season, which lands on July 31, feels pulled from the pages of our current news cycle, despite being set back in the mid-’60s.

Communism. Racism. Homophobia. A nuclear apocalypse caused by a time-traveling troupe of weirdos with superpowers and major daddy issues. Save for that last bit — you know, with the doomsday event caused by the circus of oddballs that is the Hargreeves family — the issues that The Umbrella Academy tackles in its second outing carry a weight of importance the first season was missing, and it’s so much better for it.

Of course, there’s still time-traveling paradoxes that cause flatulence-producing psychosis and tyrannical talking fish and aliens wearing human skin suits (all the bits comic book fans salivate over). Yet for its next act, the show is determined to get us to not only laugh at the ridiculous antics of its clan of overgrown preternaturally-talented toddlers, but to care about them and their struggles, too. We chatted with creator Steve Blackman on this season’s new trajectory, meeting more Academy ‘siblings,’ and the tons of Easter Eggs that he’s hoping fans find.

Why head back to the 1960s?

First and foremost, I wanted them to be in a new place, a new setting. So I had already planned before the end of Season 1 that they had to go back in time and thankfully, we had great source material in Gerard [Way] and Gabriel’s [Bá] work. Volume two of the graphic novels was called Dallas and there’s a section of it which was set in the ’60s around the Kennedy assassination, and right away, I knew that’s where I wanted to put them. I mean, the ’60s were a tumultuous time — lots of issues of civil rights and homophobia. There’s a lot of fear with communism. It just seemed a great time to throw this dysfunctional family into it.

Weirdly, it sounds like you’re describing 2020.

It seems very relevant now, doesn’t it?

It does. Was there any feedback from Season 1 that you took into Season 2?

A little bit. I mean, I always thought that the theme of Season 1 would be “meet the family,” and Season 2 is really “get to know the family.” I think what I learned from Season 1 is people really responded to some of the oddities. I mean, we’re always trying to subvert the genre of the superhero show, because, at the heart, this is a dysfunctional family show. But in Season 2, I felt I wanted to balance the oddness and really just dig into these weird relationships more. At the same time, I didn’t want to skirt over the social issues of the day. We’re a heightened reality show, but we wanted to deal with racism. We wanted to deal with homophobia.

How do you do that in the context of this strange superhero genre you’ve created on TV?

It had to feel organic to the storytelling. We wanted to feel it from Allison’s eyes and from Klaus and from Vanya. What I worked very hard with the writers on is to make it feel like her [Allison’s] story was organic to that time period. She fell in love with this guy who happens to be in civil rights. She finds a voice for herself. I mean, she lands not only without her physical voice, which is something, but for her first experience, she walks into a place that has a “Whites Only” sign. I thought that was a wake-up call to the viewers saying, “This is going to be a fun season, but also we’re going to deal with some serious issues this year.”

What’s it like to look back on the season now, in light of the Black Lives Matter movement and all the protests happening?

Well, it’s all very humbling. I’ve got to be honest with you. I mean, this Black Lives Matter movement is such an incredible thing to watch and to see it grow and see the push to end violence, racism, and police brutality. We finished writing the show over a year ago. So this [current] movement hadn’t begun yet, but the stories are the same. I’d like to think as a country, we’ve come further along than we have. But clearly, what we see now with George Floyd, we haven’t come as far as we wanted to and we have to do better. I think that’s where this show might feel very timely because we’re showing that things improved but not enough. We have a long, long way to go.

What’s the biggest obstacle the group is facing in trying to save the world this time around?

First of all, they don’t start out together, and that is by design. I felt that it was too easy for them to arrive together. I know they’re a lot of fun when they’re together, but it was nice to have an anchor to other storylines to show the challenge of coming back together as a family. To find each other and then to be willing to leave your old life. Klaus, Luther, and Allison have had years in specific time periods. So, there was a challenge for them to sort of leave those lives and join up with the family. And that was a fun device to sort of show that struggle. But ultimately, they’re stronger when they’re together, so they find their footing when they find each other.

And they find new powers. We see some of the kids able to do new things this season. Is that a byproduct of storytelling needs or were those abilities just waiting all along?

It’s a bit of both, to be honest with you. I think some of it is coming with the stories, but something I’m trying to do, which is slightly different than the novels is having the powers in the TV universe always evolving. Because remember, they broke apart when they were teenagers. They didn’t finish their training with their dad, and they’re still sort of discovering stuff. One of the other things we’re going to find out going forward is they’re stronger together, their powers work better when they’re together as a team than when they’re apart. But I see all their powers changing a lot, going into future seasons.

Will we be seeing other gifted kids in those seasons?

Well, we know there are 43 mothers who gave birth on that day in 1989. We’ve now met one other one [in Season 2]. And we’ve discovered that our kids thought they were the only ones. So clearly dad hasn’t told them everything. What’s wonderful for storytelling purposes is now we can meet more of them, and some of them are going to be good, and some of them are going to be bad. We could see feuds happen and new alliances. It’s exciting.

Where does The Umbrella Academy land? They’ve caused the end of the world twice now. Are they part of the problem?

Well, maybe. Here’s the problem, we fuck shit up all the time at the academy. In the DC/Marvel universes, there are these perfected characters, but these guys are not them. They struggle to do good things. Their personalities continue to get in the way, all of the emotional baggage continues to get in the way of saving the world. I think that’s the fun of the show. I think they will do better, but there’ll be a lot of new challenges along the way. Meeting these other possible “siblings” will be one part of that.

For fans looking ahead to Season 3, what’s one scene they should be paying attention to this season?

Well, I’m going to answer that in a slightly coded way. The writers and I have embedded tons and tons of Easter eggs in the show. They’re all over the place, and they may not be seen in the first viewing but as the show is released, I’m going to drop some hints, as will Netflix, of things they should be looking for. There are clues and things that allude to the past and things that allude to the future. Places where we want to go if we have another season, but I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised with what we’ve embedded in the background in scenes that they probably won’t even notice at first. I’m going to keep Reddit very busy.

Speaking of the future. Would you ever go off-book or has Game of Thrones given you too many nightmares?

Too many nightmares. I really don’t want to get ahead of [Gerard and Gabriel], only because I’m really good friends with both of them, and I really respect them. The idea is I want to work collaboratively with them, I don’t want to feel that I’ve gone so off where it’s a totally different thing.

Is there an endgame?

I think Gerard had many volumes ahead of him in his head, I think he knows really where he wants to go for many graphic novels. I think there’s always an end plan of how many seasons you want to do in a comic show. But it certainly won’t be limited by Gerard.

Of all the UA members, whose power does the world really need right now?

Such a good question. I’m going to give you two things it needs. I think you need Allison to rumor people, and I think we might need Five to go back in time and undo some stupid things that we’ve done.

‘The Umbrella Academy’ returns to Netflix on July 31.

Last Updated: July 31st

It’s really not hard to seek out pop music — the genre derives from the word “popular,” after all — but it proves much more difficult to find new and quality artists in a world saturated with Ed Sheerans and Taylor Swifts. That’s where Spotify comes in.

Spotify is a goldmine for digging deeper into the pop genre and unearthing some treasures that haven’t made it to star status (and maybe never will). This list is just one step in the discovery process, featuring some killer playlists in bedroom pop, dream pop and just straight-up pop. That being said, it’s also a means to get you back into some nostalgic tracks from pop’s Golden Age (aka the early aughts) and feature the females leading the way for future stars in the genre. These are all the best pop playlists on Spotify right now.

Charli XCX’s The Motherf*cking Future Playlist

Recently collaborating with 100 Gecs and Rico Nasty, Charli XCX has had an ear out for the stars that might be coming up behind them. Though she’s certainly busy opening up the all-female arena show, releasing new music, and traveling all around the world, she’s still managed to find time to update this extraordinary playlist, playfully dubbed “the motherf*cking future,” which features mostly women who are currently on top of their game, or artists from the past who were way ahead of their time. If there’s a great new pop song building momentum, it’s probably on here. And Charli doesn’t discriminate between indie, trendy, popular, or commercially successful — if it’s good pop music that sounds like the future, it’s here.

Insecure’s Soundtrack Playlist

Insecure‘s fourth season is here, which means there’s never been a better time to get familiar with the show’s picks. Considering Issa and her crew had the help of Solange, it’s no wonder the show quickly became known for breaking out new artists and scooping up exclusives, like “In My Room” by Frank Ocean, which debuted with some speculation about an impending album. There’s plenty of soothing R&B, mood-building rap, and more left of center sounds that are perfect for when you’re tired of your old favorites and ready for something new. Plus, the Insecure crew will update this throughout future season roll outs, even more reason to keep an eye out. It’s not quite pop, but it’s popular and mainstream enough to fit in just fine.

Pop Flash by Topsify

Of course, one of the best ways to discover new pop music is through Uproxx’s weekly Best New Pop roundup. Combing through the vast array of new releases can be daunting, so we’ve got that covered for you. All the best weekly releases and more are featured on Topsify’s Pop Flash playlist, which pinpoints the most important moments in music and offers a guiding light for pop fans who can’t find their tribe anywhere else.

US Top 40 Hits

Look, there’s no better place to shop for pop than the top of the charts — it’s just a fact. Whatever is popping off on the Billboard Hot 100 is probably going to be something that you’ll want to know about, if not put on loop and memorize the words to. This year DaBaby, Megan Thee Stallion, and Doja Cat have all taken their turn in the top slot, but who knows what else will be in store as 2020 goes on. Luckily, this playlist is updated every week, so you’ll be up to date, too.

Pop Rising by Spotify

If your idea of discovery is seeking out the newest hits the pop world has to offer, then Spotify’s Pop Rising playlist is the one for you. This regularly updated collection refers to itself as the hits of tomorrow, today, and showcases the singles that you’re sure to be hearing on the radio in no time. Although a lot of the artists on this playlists are big hitters like Taylor Swift, J Balvin, Cardi B, and Dua Lipa, its cover artist is usually a promising up-and-comer, like Jeremy Zucker.

Pop Cravings

With over half a million followers on Twitter, Pop Crave stands out as a reliable source for the most breaking news in pop music in culture. The Pop Crave team has cooked up a weekly updated playlist showcasing the best new music from established and up-and-coming artists. Whether they’re spotlighting the best songs from Taylor Swift’s new album or featuring breakout artists like Pink Sweat$, Pop Crave has their finger on the pulse of the latest releases.

Bedroom Pop by Spotify

This playlist is pretty straightforward — it’s more than six hours of relaxing, lo-fi bedroom pop. If you’re a diehard fan of the genre, the artists here may be familiar to you, but for the rest of us this regularly updated, 100+ track collection is chock full of hazy gems that have come out this year and includes up-and-comers like the soulful MorMor and Gus Dapperton, who recently announced his sophomore album.

#NowWatching by Ones to Watch

Ones to Watch is another music blog that’s all about discovery in the R&B/indie/pop realm. Its #NowWatching playlist is a seasonal smorgasbord of, well, the artists you should have your eye on. Each iteration of the playlist is updated throughout its featured season, with the current rotation including some names in pop you may have heard, like Billie Eilish and Oliver Tree, as well as notable newcomers Cub Sport and Charlotte Lawrence.

r/PopHeads Weekly Hot 50

Any music-obsessed individual knows that one of the best places to find breaking news about your favorite artists is in one of the many music-centered subreddits on Reddit. More infamously, there’s r/PopHeads which dissects the most up-to-date information on pop’s biggest stars like Billie Eilish and Camila Cabello. Thankfully, to keep track of all the new music, members of the group formed the r/PopHeads playlist on Spotify which rounds up 50 songs recently released by today’s pop icons.

Fresh Finds: Pop

Though pop music generally evokes some of today’s top-selling artists, many musicians who dip into the genre aren’t signed to major labels. That’s where Spotify’s Fresh Finds: Pop playlist comes in. The playlist rounds up recent releases from pop-leaning artists who either independently release their music, or are on indie labels. Spotify updates the playlist weekly, so there’s an endless flow of undiscovered talent to tap into.

Women of Pop by Spotify

Like Beyonce famously asked, “Who run the world?” The answer, of course, is girls, and this Spotify-curated playlist is all about female empowerment. The expansive collection showcases all the badass women in pop music, from idols like Camila Cabello and Kehlani to icons like Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and J-Lo. It also does an excellent job of balancing new hits with classics like Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and TLC’s “Waterfalls.”

Dreampop by Spotify

Also pretty self-explanatory — the 49-track collection offers nearly three hours of ethereal dream pop jams. The playlist does feature some pretty big names in the indie-sphere like Beach House and Tame Impala; however, it’s also a great tool for discovering up-and-comers in the genre, like the delightfully lo-fi Men I Trust and DIY-bred Kevin Krauter.

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

If you’re searching for the best bourbons on the market, you’re likely to see expressions from the big brands first. Sazerac, for instance, has seven distilleries under its shingle. One of them, Buffalo Trace, has spawned 20 brands under that single distilling umbrella — from Eagle Rare to Pappy Van Winkle to Blanton’s. Then you have Campari, Pernod Ricard, Diageo, Bacardi, Brown-Forman, Casa Cuervo, and, of course, Beam Suntory (which distills too many whiskeys to list here). Even seemingly small lines are often owned and operated by industry titans.

Yet with the growth of the whiskey market, small-time, local, and fully independent bourbon distilleries have also had a chance to thrive. The craft bourbon scene is all about shining a light on local terroir and ingredients and taking the time to make something as unique and inventive as it is delicious. These are brands that carve their own lane — often by focusing on the hyper-local grain-to-glass experience.

The ten bottles below represent ten (currently) independent distilleries around America making some seriously tasty bourbon. Not every bottle on this list is available nationwide, to do so they’d likely have to sign a distribution deal with a big company. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to find them if you search high and low — they might ship to specialty stores near you or use a delivery service. Whatever it takes, trust us — these expressions are worth the effort.

Wilderness Trail Single Barrel Kentuck Straight Bourbon Whiskey Bottled In Bond

ABV: 50%
Distillery: Wilderness Trail Distillery, Danville, KY
Average Price: $65

The Whiskey:

This award-winning bourbon hits a lot of popular notes that make bourbon special. The juice is aged in toasted oak that’s then heavily charred. It’s bottled-in-bond. It has a high wheat mash bill (24 percent) which is making a roaring comeback. And the barrels are moved around the rickhouses as they age, adding extra depth to the process.

Tasting Notes:

Since this is a single barrel expression, there will be variation. The bottle I tasted had a sense of bananas cooked in butter and brown sugar next to a hint of dark spice next to wood. A caramel sweetness dominated the palate as a sharper black pepper spice mingled with a hint of orchard fruits and a kick of vanilla. A sense of dried wheat lingered on the end as the sip slowly faded out.

Bottom Line:

This stuff keeps winning awards, meaning the price isn’t going to get any lower.

Woodinville Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 45%
Distillery: Woodinville Whiskey Co., Woodinville, WA
Average Price: $35

The Whiskey:

This Washington state whiskey was named the whiskey of the year by the American Distilling Insitute. The grain-to-glass experience focuses on local grains with corn, rye, and barely all sourced from a single family-run farm in Washington. The distillate is made in-house at their Woodinville distillery and then trucked over the Cascade Mountains to age in the harsher Eastern Washington climate inside toasted and heavily charred oak.

Tasting Notes:

Oak carries notes of burnt sugars, rich vanilla, and creamy pudding. The spices build-out to a Christmas spice mix as a note of dark chocolate powder brings about a soft mouthfeel and clean bitterness that’s accented by the vanilla and caramel. The sip lingers nicely and sort of walks back through all the notes as it nears its close, leaving you with warmth from the spice.

Bottom Line:

This makes a killer Manhattan or Old Fashioned or even a sipper, especially at this price point.

FEW Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 46.5%
Distillery: FEW Spirits Distillery, Evanston, IL
Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

This is another locally sourced grain-to-glass experience. This expression also can’t seems to stop winning awards. The high-rye mash bill brings about a whiskey that leans closer to the classics from Kentucky while still feeling bespoke.

Tasting Notes:

Apple orchards, caramel, and rich vanilla mingle with a nose of ground dark spices. Stone fruit arrives to support the slight tart apple as the caramel sweetness and vanilla dominate alongside a clear rush of dark spices. As the sip fades, the fruit is what lasts longest.

Bottom Line:

This is a great cocktail base.

Cedar Ridge Iowa Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 40%
Distillery: Cedar Ridge Winery & Distillery, Swisher, IA
Average Price: $40

The Whiskey:

This grain-to-glass operation in Iowa utilizes the oceans of corn grown around their distillery. The mash bill is 74 percent locally-grown corn with small amounts of rye and malted barley supporting. From there, great attention is paid to the aging so that the final product feels both familiar and fresh.

Tasting Notes:

Christmas cake bulging with dried fruit, spices, and molasses greet you alongside a hint of that Iowa corn. The vanilla, caramel, and fruit are there but the fruit has an almost savory aspect that then veers toward slightly acidic. There’s a nuttiness on the end that’s supported by the Christmas cake spices.

Bottom Line:

A decent sipper for $40 and works well in wintry cocktails.

Garrison Brothers Small Batch Texas Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 47%
Distillery: Garrison Brothers Distillery, Hye, TX
Average Price: $85

The Whiskey:

Garrison Brothers are creating some of the finest whiskey on the high-end of the market. Their Small Batch Bourbon is a “corn-to-cork” experience that utilizes a sweet mash (meaning each batch is new, unlike sour mashing). The recipe of food-grade corn, red and winter wheat, and malted barley is the first step to greatness. The next step is the aging in the hot Texas sun, which accelerates the transfer of sugars from barrel to booze.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a lot going on from notes of tart apples to wildflowers, fresh honeycombs, worn leather, green grass, and a hint of cinnamon. The palate digs into spiced cakes, creamy puddings, lemon candy, and burnt orange zest. Notes of walnuts, caramel, and a return of the apple combine for a caramel apple feel on the end with a very distant wisp of smoke.

Bottom Line:

If you can find this for less than $100, buy two. Drink one and save the other for a special occasion.

Wyoming Whiskey Small Batch Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 44%
Distillery: Wyoming Whiskey, Kirby, WY
Average Price: $50

The Whiskey:

This wheated bourbon is another grain-to-glass experience from a much-lauded distillery. All the grains are sourced with 100 miles of the distillery. The craftsmanship of the juice is evident from the first sip.

Tasting Notes:

There’s a subtleness to the vanilla bean and caramel that leans towards both floral and creamy notes. Those florals carry through with a sense of a thick pudding spiked with sharp cinnamon and vanilla and a browned butter feel. The sweetness edges towards toffee as the vanilla and spice slowly fade, leaving a single whisper of fresh mint at the very end (especially when you add water).

Bottom Line:

This is an easy sipper all around, especially with a drop or two of water or a single rock.

Peerless Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

ABV: 54.45%
Distillery: Kentucky Peerless Distilling Company, Louisville, KY
Average Price: $65

The Whiskey:

Peerless started out by creating damn-near perfect rye. Then, last year, they branched out into bourbon and hit it out of the park again. The juice is made from a sweet mash, aged to perfection, and bottled at cask strength with no manipulation.

Tasting Notes:

This is an instant classic. There’s a clear sense of bourbon vanilla and caramel with an oakiness upfront. Those notes are supported by a chili pepper spiciness, orchard fruit, dark spices, and a hint of mint. The sip lingers just long enough to remind you that you’re drinking vanilla and caramel-forward bourbon.

Bottom Line:

This is another sipper that can work wonders in a simple cocktail like a Manhattan.

Belle Meade Cask Strength Reserve Bourbon

ABV: 55 to 60%
Distillery: Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery, Nashville, TN (sourced from MGP Indiana)
Average Price: $55

The Whiskey:

This hallmark expression from Nelson Green Brier’s Belle Meade bourbon line is worth the hunt. The juice is a blend of seven to eleven-year-old high-rye bourbons that are sourced from only seven barrels per bottling. Since the batches are so small, the cask strength will vary slightly but that just means this is the pure juice from the barrel with no fussing.

Tasting Notes:

Tart apples dripping in salty caramel mingle with mild spice next to candied fruit and a hint of roasted peanuts. There’s a rush of red and sweet fruits that leads toward a cinnamon candy heat, washed down with a crisp vanilla-heavy cream soda next to wood, corn, pepper, and earthy nuts. Hints of pepper next to cherry and cinnamon linger as the bourbon slowly fades.

Bottom Line:

This shows how sourced juice can become anything with masterful aging and finishing techniques. Sip it, mix it, enjoy it.

Kings County Bottled-In-Bond Bourbon

ABV: 50%
Distillery: Kings County Distillery, Brooklyn, NY
Average Price: $55 (half bottle)

The Whiskey:

This little Brooklyn distillery puts out some much sought after (and expensive) bottles. Their well-crafted whiskeys are generally sold in half bottles, which would be annoying if the juice in those bottles weren’t so damn refined. The mash bill is a unique 80 percent corn that’s fully supported by malted barley which is then aged in small-format oak for four years.

Tasting Notes:

This is another classic bourbon that revels in refinement. The notes of vanilla, brown sugar caramel, and oak are balanced. The palate dances between those notes and hints of fruit, dark chocolate, fatty nuts, and corn pudding. The sip fades out for just the right length of time — enough for you to reminisce about all those flavor notes.

Bottom Line:

A full-sized bottle of this stuff would cost $110 if they made them. That’s a lot of money for a bottle of bourbon. Still, this works wonders as a sipper for a special occasion (or as a gift).

Balcones Texas Blue Corn Straight Bourbon Whisky

ABV: 64.9%
Distillery: Balcones Distilling, Waco, TX
Average Price: $70

The Whisky:

This is the most unique bottle on the list and worth the search (and money). Texas blue corn is used to create a truly Texan bourbon. The juice is aged in the Waco rickhouse, under the hot Texas sun, allowing the sugars from the wood to really imbue themselves into the bourbon.

Tasting Notes:

Salted butter melting on freshly baked cornbread mingles with fresh tobacco, mint, and powdered white pepper. The sip then takes a left turn into Red Hots, orange marmalade, and fire-roasted marshmallow territory with black tea bitterness cutting through. The pepper and corn return on the finish as this one takes its time to say goodbye.

Bottom Line:

This one definitely works as a cocktail base but really opens up in a highball or on the rocks.