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Harry Styles lives a charmed life, but it doesn’t come without obstacles. The Harry’s House supernova’s mostly flawless Love On Tour hit a few snags — the postponement of three Los Angeles shows due to Styles falling ill in early November, followed by the hijacking at gunpoint of a tour van in Brazil — and Styles was at the center of a controversial Gucci campaign.

With respect to the latter, Styles is taking steps to avoid any hiccups with his own merchandise.

As reported by Billboard today, January 11, a lawsuit has been filed in Chicago federal court against “a number of online sellers for allegedly violating his intellectual property rights by selling counterfeit merchandise to unsuspecting Harry fans,” specifically citing that “the counterfeiters are mostly located in China, or in ‘other foreign jurisdictions with lax trademark enforcement system.’”

Here’s the key context from Billboard‘s report: “Arguing that the counterfeiters use misleading tactics to make it ‘difficult for consumers to distinguish such stores from an authorized retailer,’ attorneys for Styles want a judge to issue a sweeping court order that would, among other things, force big web platforms like Amazon and Etsy (who are not named as defendants) to immediately shut down the listings.”

The next opportunity for fans to cop verified Love On Tour merch will be at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, where Styles is playing his postponed November dates on January 26, 27 and 29 before hitting Australia in February. See his full 2023 tour schedule here.

There are many reasons to love Garden of the Gods Resort, which was recently named Yelp’s #1 Hotel in the United States. The most obvious one is that you can’t find a view of the iconic Garden of the Gods park like this anywhere else. Set just above the park’s visitor center, the resort has the best possible vantage point of the red rocks and Pikes Peak in the distance.

The founders bought the property in 1949 to create a private club and resort, enamored with the view and possibility it would bring for tourism and members. After changing hands the resort is now again locally owned, and touts that what was once an exclusive club is now aimed towards continuing to be “an inclusive destination of discovery” and committed to “welcoming all who seek to restore their spirits and satisfy their souls”.

With the addition of the state of the art STRATA Med Spa and Fit, the resort is, to me, equal parts luxury, outdoor basecamp, and wellness getaway – all with great food and drinks.

Here are the details:

WHY IT’S AWESOME:

You’ll notice I mention the view about 450 times in this piece. Sorry, I just can’t get over it. After spending part of my childhood living in Colorado Springs and now visiting frequently as a traveler and Colorado resident for the past decade – the view from the resort is still unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Even without the amazing food, high ceilings in the luxurious club rooms, amazing service, wellness classes, spa, and infinity pool – the view on its own would be worth a visit.

Luckily, if you’re not as visually motivated as I am – there is so much more than just what meets the eye here. Despite its location in the middle of one of Colorado’s consistently fastest-growing cities, it feels like you’re in a secluded wellness retreat.

Its STRATA Med, Fit, and Spa really set the resort apart. While not all-inclusive, there is an abundance of wellness options you can choose to schedule during your visit. From concierge medicine to spa treatments (where I had one of the best massages of my life) to daily fitness classes and personal training – the resort caters to all wellness needs.

IN-HOUSE FOOD AND DRINK:

For a resort that feels intimate, there are a surprising number of food and drink options. From the more upscale Grand View Dining Room (currently under renovations), to the slightly more laid-back Rocks Dining Room and Rocks Lounge and Patio, Kissing Camels Grille and Bar and Beach and Cable Barista – you have lots of choice without ever leaving the property.

I especially enjoyed the large room service menu that can also be delivered to the infinity pool. During my dinner at Rocks Lounge, there was live music, low lighting, and truly exceptional service. I can’t wait to return.

AMENITIES:

• All rooms with private balcony or patio
• In-room fireplaces
• Fitness center with daily fitness classes
• In-room wine on tap
• STRATA Med Spa Fit center
• M & M Tennis Facility
• Recreation center
• Three swimming pools
• 27-hole golf course
• Kids Club
• Spa and salon

ROOM TYPES:

Something I loved about Garden of the Gods Resort was that every club room and suite in the lodge portion has either a balcony or a private patio facing the Garden of the Gods and Rocky Mountains. If you have a larger party or want more privacy – you’re covered. The resort also has plenty of residential-style cottages and private casitas with one, two, and three-bedroom options.

Explore room types here.

BEST THING TO DO WITHIN A 15-MINUTE WALK:

Garden of the Gods visitor center and park is just below the resort – and it is well worth a visit. The National Natural Landmark is a public park that is free to the public and absolutely awe-inspiring. The rock formations are otherworldly and the views are epic. There are 21 miles of trails within the park, as well as opportunities for technical climbing (with a guide), horseback riding, and biking. You can even take a Segway tour around the park. It is legendary in Colorado Springs and outside of it – consistently one of the top attractions in the country.

BEST THING TO DO WITHIN A $20 CAB RIDE:

Garden of the Gods Resort is located in Colorado Springs but is just a couple miles from one of my favorite vibey mountain towns: Manitou Springs. Known throughout history for its healing mineral springs, it is one of my favorite places to spend a day. The downtown area is super walkable, eclectic, and unique. And just up the road, you can grab a ride on the Pikes Peak Cog Railway – the world’s highest cog railway that climbs up the iconic Pikes Peak. Once you’re at the top you gotta stop for the famous Pikes Peak high-altitude donuts made at the Summit House before walking around and understanding why this mountain inspired Katherine Lee Bates to write the song “America the Beautiful.”

BED GAME:

This is a luxury resort, so I expected a comfy bed – and I was not disappointed. The club room I was in had a large bed with luxurious linens I had to pull myself out of. But the best part is that if you want to stay in it you have a million-dollar view right from there.

Rating: 9/10

SEXINESS RATING:

While the room, spa, and wellness areas are all sleek and would garner a 10 rating in sexiness, the common areas in the lobby are definitely family-friendly and lean somewhat more refined than sexy.

I’ll have to come back in the summer season – when the infinity pool switches back to adult only – to see if a score change is warranted.

Rating: 8/10

THE VIEWS AND PHOTO SPOTS:

Garden of the Gods wasn’t named TripAdvisor’s #2 attraction in the country (and #9 in the entire world) in 2022 for nothing – it’s remarkable. And you have a view from nearly everywhere on the property at Garden of the Gods Resort. From the infinity pool to the private balconies or patios in every club room or suite to the windows in the bar and the reflection pool that dates back to 1951 – the options are nearly endless.

I recommend waking up for sunrise at the infinity pool – it may be cold but the warm light hitting the red rocks is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

BEST SEASON TO VISIT:

I have only visited the resort in the winter – which was magical – but I’ve visited Garden of the Gods park in all seasons. There truly isn’t a bad time to go. The warmer months will bring more crowds, but also more activities on the resort and off, while the winter months are peaceful and slower. It’s also a treat to wake up to snow-covered red rocks in the distance.

IF I HAD TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ONE THING:

When I visited in December only one of the three pools was open for the season – the heated outdoor dreamy infinity pool with views of the Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak. While this normally wouldn’t be a problem, it’s an adults-only pool when the others are open seasonally, and during the winter transitions to all ages. I would love to visit and be able to relax in an adult-only environment anytime.

BOOK HERE:

Rates start at just over $220 per night for a basic queen room, with specials for Colorado residents.

INSTAGRAM IMAGES TAKEN AT GARDEN OF THE GODS RESORT:

If even some of the many allegations against him are true, then George Santos would still be one of the most prolific liars of the modern age. The newly appointed New York representative has been accused of so many fibs it’s hard to keep track. Was his mom killed in the September 11 attacks? Nope. Was he one of the first people to contract COVID-19? Nuh-uh. Is George Santos even his real name? The jury’s out on that one. Now he’s even been called out for allegedly lying about his college years, which probably didn’t happen either.

As per Insider, the Nassau County Republican Party, which includes Santos’ district, held a press conference in which they had big news: They were formally calling upon him to resign over lying about, well, everything during his congressional run. One member, Joseph Cairo, singled out one fib for being particularly strange.

“He told me … that he was a star on the Baruch volleyball team and that they won the league championship,” Cairo said to chuckles. “What can I tell ya?”

Where did Santos say he was a volleyball star? He used to claim he attended Baruch College and New York University. It turns out he went to neither, as he later admitted. “I didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning. I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my resume,” he said following a shocking exposé by The New York Times.

If you’re willing to lie about 9/11, you’re probably fine making stuff up about your athletic prowess, too. After his own party in his own district called on him to resign, Santos announced that he wouldn’t be taking their advice. But perhaps he’s not being honest about that either.

(Via Insider)

If you’re asking team Uproxx, The Menu is easily the best film of 2022. And now that it’s hit HBO Max, it’s feeding us all over again with some of the best discourse we’ve had in some time, as people dissect its themes and that famous final course. But what is it about The Menu that resonates so strongly?

For starters, the movie has a lot of things going for it — the way it combines comedy and genuine horror, the perfect cast that absolutely nails their parts both big and small (seriously, how great is every f*cking player in this movie?), and of course, the way it weaves the pleasure and displeasure of servicing people throughout its entire narrative. It gives us a lot to unpack and ruminate on. Dare I even say, marinate over. But my favorite thing about the film is the way it offers a little something for everyone, whether you want to talk about food, class, society, love, sex, passion, or all of those things at the same time.

That’s truly The Menu‘s power. It’s multifaceted and smart. And it manages both without making you, the viewer, feel dumb.

For instance, you don’t really have to know sh*t about fine dining to understand the world the script builds. In fact, as critical of fine dining and the sort of people who can afford to consume it as The Menu might seem (I’d also argue that Tyler’s cobbled-together dish is a send up of “do-it-yourself” services like Hello Fresh) it’s actually also a celebration of what makes our modern food scene so vibrant and fascinating. The skewering is not the food or even fancy food, in general — it’s about the characters assembled at this particular dinner.

As for that food (and there’s some excellent food porn in the movie), The Menu achieves haute cuisine authenticity by looking towards and borrowing inspiration from the actual giants of our contemporary food scene, as well as some great production design from Ethan Tobman and culinary consultation from Dominique Crenn, the chef behind San Francisco’s Atelier Crenn which is set to reopen its doors in 2023. In fact, let’s take some time to shout out Crenn whose insight is part of the reason Ralph Fiennes’ Julian Slowik is such a believable character. Crenn also is known for creating menus in the form of poems, so there is a bit of the chef in the DNA of Slowik himself.

You don’t need to know who Chefs René Redzepi, Massimo Bottura, or Ferran Adrià are to enjoy The Menu, but seeing the way these large culinary personalities inform the character of Julian Slowik, his island restaurant Hawthorne, and the very dishes served on the titular menu is that extra little ingredient in the film that makes it so damn fun to watch. So we’re shouting out all the references to real-life chefs that we caught on to over the course of the film and where you can experience their food right now. Let’s eat!*

*Thomas Keller’s French Laundry isn’t on this list because we stuck to super-overt references (the movie doesn’t hide its nods and winks) but Keller’s food, approach, and the way he reinvigorated the American fine dining scene in the late 90s and into the 2000s certainly looms heavily over the film.

MEET THE CHEFS:

René Redzepi — NOMA

NOMA is a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Copenhagen run by chef René Redzepi and is known for its highly creative dishes and routinely recognized as the “best restaurant in the world,” by culinary obsessives, critics, and chefs.

The menu at NOMA (which at one time included something called reindeer brain custard with bee pollen) put an emphasis on local and seasonal ingredients, wild-caught fish, and foraged plants.

The most NOMA-inspired dish in the movie? Definitely that first course of freshly harvested scallops, plants, flowers, and slightly frozen seawater. That dish is so ridiculous it’s almost unbelievable, but because NOMA exists we can actually say “cool bro, but we’ve seen crazier stuff!”

Where You Can Find Their Food Today:

Just this week Chef Redzepi announced that NOMA would be closing its doors in 2024 and reopening as a giant test kitchen food lab called NOMA 3.0 in the future. The reason for NOMA’s shutdown? According to Redzepi, the sort of fine dining popularized by NOMA is “unsustainable,” both “financially and emotionally.”

Many on Twitter theorized that it was because he saw a certain movie.

Massimo Bottura — Osteria Francescana

Another three-Michelin-star restaurant, Massimo Bottura’s Osteria Francescana is located in Modena, Italy, and is largely recognized as one of the best restaurants for Italian cuisine with a menu that makes deep reference to history, art, and philosophy. You know, like high end food menus are wont to do.

A lot of Bottura’s spirit bubbles through The Menu and the restaurant is known for its highly exclusive dining room that contains just 12 tables. One of the chef’s most famous dishes, “Oops, I Dropped The Lemon Tart,” a dessert served upside down and smashed, is a commentary on our obsession with achieving perfection, something chef Slowik directly talks about in the movie and may be best exemplified by the broken emulsion he serves Janet McTeer’s pretentious food critic Lillian. (The idea of a single dish that put a chef on the map feels like a nod to multiple chefs but Bottura is definitely one of them.)

Where You Can Find Their Food Today:

Osteria Francescana has future booking dates open for August through December of 2023 on the restaurant’s website.

Ferran Adrià — elBulli

Chef Ferran Adrià’s elBulli was a three-Michelin star restaurant known for its highly creative menu of molecular gastronomy and was named the best restaurant in the world fives times by Restaurant Magazine.

A documentary about the restaurant called El Bulli: Cooking In Progress, gave the world its first glimpse into how much creativity and attention to detail goes into the sort of service that Slowik’s Hawthorne is riffing on.

There isn’t a dish directly inspired by elBulli’s menu in the movie but much of Chef Slowik and his crew’s attention to detail comes directly from the Cooking In Progress documentary, especially Hawthorne’s backlit spice rack (seen in passing through the movie), which is a direct homage to elBulli’s famous backlit shelf. Also, the whole “everyone on staff living together for the season” is very Noma/ elBulli.

Where Can You Find Their Food Today?

elBulli closed its doors in 2011 but Adrià newest venture, elBulli 1846 is set to open its doors in the summer of 2023 near where the original restaurant stood overlooking the Costa Brava cove in Cala Montjoi.

Adrià has kept busy since closing elBulli, mostly with the elBullifoundation as well as Tickets, a restaurant in Barcelona headed by his brother Albert Adrià which just recently closed.

Grant Achatz — Alinea

Grant Achatz’s Alinea is a three-Michelin star restaurant located in Chicago, the only restaurant in the city to be awarded this accolade. The restaurant is known for Achatz’s intense use of molecular gastronomy and is the reason why everyone in the hit show The Bear, no matter their position, calls each other ‘chef,’ as a sign of mutual respect in the kitchen.

That practice was popularized by Alinea. The dish most inspired by Achatz in The Menu is the final course, a Jackson Pollock-esque take on s’mores that was directly lifted from Alinea’s own final course but blown up (literally and figuratively) for the movie’s sake. According to an LA Times piece, production designer Tobman painstakingly tasked himself with figuring out how to translate this tabletop painting of a dish to a 30-by-60-foot space.

It was worth it, that overhead shot of the s’mores dish is one of the movie’s greatest single frames.

Where Can You Find Their Food Today?

Alinea is open for booking at the restaurant’s website.

Hugh Acheson — Empire State South

Although the build isn’t quite the same, (SPOILERS) the well-made cheeseburger at the film’s climax feels like a direct reference to Chef Hugh Acheson’s off-menu double cheeseburger from Georgia’s Empire State South.

The burger is made from local beef served on a Japanese milk bun and topped with local cheddar, housemate pickles, and a burger sauce. It’s simply, a well-made cheeseburger but it’s definitely one that is stuck in Uproxx food writer Zach Johnston’s memory. He calls it one of his favorite burgers in the country and we’re inclined to believe Zach because he knows his sh*t.

Where Can You Find Their Food Today?

Acheson is the chef/owner of Five & Ten, The National, and Empire State South, all of which are still open.

Magnus Nilsson — Fäviken

Chef Magnus Nilsson’s Fäviken, located in Sweden, was known for its Nordic cuisine-influenced menu and the chef’s heavy involvement in the sourcing of ingredients. Chef Nilsson was known to catch the fish served on the menu himself (like the first scene on the island!) and would build out an ever-shifting prix fixe menu of multiple double-digit courses, using preserved vegetables harvested by Nilsson himself and stored from up to eight months in the restaurant’s famed root cellar.

The meat smokehouse from The Menu, built in the “Nordic tradition” is a reference to Nilsson’s famed cellar.

Where Can You Find Their Food Today?

Chef Magnus Nilsson closed Fäviken’s doors in 2019 citing burnout as the primary reason. Are you sensing a trend here?

Today Nilsson is running an apple orchard in Sweden which sounds like a way more chill way to spend your days than foraging and fishing for your menu. We’re willing to bet those apples are good.

Roy Choi — Koji

While not explicitly “fine-dining” longtime FOU (friend of Uproxx) and star chef Roy Choi’s Kogi truck is a renowned fixture in food conversations. Choi is never directly referenced in the movie but in a deleted scene McTeer’s Lillian shares a story of a Korean taco truck serving “the platonic ideal of a Korean taco,” (whatever the f*ck that means) manned by Julian Slowik.

This taco leads to the interview that puts Slowik “on the map.”

Where Can You Find Their Food Today?

Roy Choi is the co-owner, co-founder, and chef of Kogi BBQ, Chego!, Best Friend, and LocoL. All of which are still open.

Blaine Wetzel — Willow’s Inn

As much as we’d like to only highlight the positive influences, The Menu is a dark film, so we need to mention some of the darker source material as well. A lot of director Mark Mylod’s inspiration for The Menu seems to have come from Blaine Wetzel’s notorious Willows Inn, a restaurant that was profiled by the New York Times last year over its “genius chef” and the restaurant’s toxic work environment.

The restaurant was located on the island of Lummi, part of the San Juan archipelago of Washington state (clearly where the movie takes place), 100 miles to the north of Seattle, and is only reachable by ferry. The island enjoys forests, farms, and fisheries and attracted food obsessives far and wide to come for multi-course dinners that made use of (or claimed to) the island’s many resources, from freshly foraged flowers to salmon pulled straight out of the surrounding waters, which are viewable from the dining room.

Starting to sound familiar?

It’s Hawthorne to a tee, and the many allegations of verbal abuse and sexual harassment of the female employees and residents of the island by male kitchen staff members as well as allegations of physical and verbal abuse and a generally toxic environment created by Chef Wetzel, all bring The Menu’s dish “Man’s Folly” to mind. Chef Wetzel has since denied the allegations but we’d like to note that the Times spoke to 35 former employees and the restaurant subsequently suffered a mass exodus of chefs after the story went live.

Despite the allegations, people kept flocking to Willow’s Inn even after the New York Times story dropped.

Where You Can Find Their Food Today

The Willows Inn is currently closed and considering the property is now owned by Lighthouse Mission Ministries, a nonprofit whose mission is to end homelessness, it doesn’t look like it will ever return. As for Chef Wetzel, it doesn’t look like he’s currently cooking anywhere right now but his wife, Chef Daniela Soto-Innes is set to open a new restaurant called Rubra in Nayarit Mexico in the spring of this year.

Soto-Innes joined Wetzel at Willows Inn following the fallout from the New York Times story bringing along some of her staff with her, so her touch was part of the Willow’s Inn’s final months. According to Bon Appétit, Wetzel will not be involved in Soto-Inne’s newest project.

Natasha Lyonne is one of our most eccentric screen stars. She’s also one of our most eccentric interviews. Like her characters on Russian Doll and the forthcoming detective show Poker Face, the actress-filmmaker thinks and talks a mile a minute. That produces some, shall we say, very original thoughts, ones that only she could produce. Such as one in a new Rolling Stone profile about brains, you know, just chilling together while lifeless bodies smoke in bed.

The Orange is the New Black alum spoke with the publication’s Alan Sepinwall about her new series, in which she plays Charlie Cale, a cardsharp-turned-cocktail-waitress-turned-amateur sleuth whose superpower is she can always tell when people are lying. It teams her with a new king of the mystery format: Rian Johnson, who started Poker Face while he was doing post-production on Glass Onion. She met Johnson through his wife, You Must Remember This podcaster Karina Longworth — two very brainy people who know how to get stuff done. Talking about them prompted her to go off on quite the tangent.

“I think I have some sort of smart-people boner disease, just to seem as smart as I can in this moment,” Lyonne said. “I am very hot for very smart people. They really do it for me. I don’t want to possess their bodies. I want to possess their brains. I want to put their brains in a jar in a room. I want to take my brain out of my body, put it in its own jar. And then I want to sit in my bed like Ray Liotta in Hannibal, sit there with my skull just open, watching the brains play together and hang out while my brainless self sits in bed smoking cigarettes. That’s my fantasy, you see.”

It’s quite the image! Brains monkeying around together, Lyonne doing her best scalpless Liotta, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. There’s a good chance no one else has said anything remotely like these exact words.

Lyonne also talked about how her busy schedule leaves little free time. But she’s cool with working “to the bone,” as she puts it. “No life, no kids. It’s just me and Rootbeer,” she said, referring to her dog, a little Maltipoo.

Poker Face brings back the bygone mystery-of-the-week format of ‘70s shows like Columbo, McMillan & Wife, and Lanigan’s Rabbi. It’s not as self-contained as it was back in the day; apart from acquiring a Basset Hound early on in the series, then tending to him every now and then, Peter Falk’s Lt. Frank Columbo had no character arc, and each episode is its own discrete entity. This one has both a continuing story and a new murder every week.

Poker Face premieres on Peacock on January 23, and if it’s anything like this Rolling Stone interview, it’s going to be a corker.

(Via Rolling Stone)

This year’s Golden Globes turned out to be a genuinely enjoyable production. We received a plentiful amount of Jennifer Coolidge. Jerrod Carmichael told some savage jokes that hit well. And the world has remembered the charming nature of Colin Ferrell. Yes, he was also recognized for his performance in Banshees Of Inisheren, but he endeared everyone and also delivered an update on an ailing former co-star.

In that light, one of this week’s Hollywood Reporter roundtables is worth revisiting, and it’s also got some lovely words from both Brendan Fraser and Adam Sandler, both of whom were not at the ceremony (and Fraser had a very good reason). While speaking with Hollywood Reporter, here’s what they each said about their favorite career advice that they ever received:

FARRELL Before I did my first American film, Pierce Brosnan got me in a bear hug, picked me up and said, “Keep being bold.” I don’t know that he knew that I was bold, but it was a lovely thing to hear.

SANDLER A lot of the guys I’ve worked with over the years, older actors and actresses, like to say before we move on from a setup, “Let’s go one more and see what happens. We’re here, it’s set up, let’s go one more.” Sometimes you land on something you weren’t expecting.

FRASER Ian McKellen [Fraser’s co-star in Gods and Monsters] said, “Approach each role as if it’s the first and the last time you will act,” and that’s stayed with me.

Even though I am mildly disappointed that the best advice for both Sandler and Fraser didn’t come from each other while working on Airheads, this will do. I think I most enjoy the advice that Sandler received, but Farrell is (as the kids say) having an (arguably overdue) moment. Let him run with it.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

There’s never been a better time to invest in whiskey than right now. In fact, whiskey has officially become a better investment than cars, watches, and art. Seriously. But whiskey isn’t something you can call up a broker and just trade .. yet. It’s a lot more complicated than that. We’re here to help.

To help parse some of the grey areas of whiskey investing and how we got here, we reached out to two bona fide whiskey investing experts, Justin Thomspon and Caroline Paulus. Thompson is the co-founder and co-owner of Justins’ House of Bourbon in Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky — one of the only legal shops where you can buy investment-level, ultra-rare, and tightly-allocated bottles of whiskey. Thompson has been working in rare and collectible whiskey investing for over a decade now. Paulus works at Justins’ as their in-house Whiskey Historian, making her a leading expert on vintage and rare whiskey in general.

Both Thompson and Paulus were kind enough to jump on a call and talk about how bourbon became such a massive win for investors while also touching on how to get into the game, which bottles to look out for, and which mistakes they see people make when buying investment bottles. It’s a deep dive that’ll give you real-world tips about investing in whiskey in 2023 — yes, we name-check bottles to buy. And if this whets your appetite, make sure to hit up Justins’ House of Bourbon the next time you’re in Kentucky or online to start your own investment journey in bourbon.

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First, can you take us back and touch on how all of this got started?

Justin Thompson: I don’t think you can ignore what’s happened in the wine and Scotch market. There’s been a secondary market for the best or what’s perceived as the best wine for centuries. And then there’s been a pretty healthy auction and secondary market for scotch. Now, bourbon has marketed itself with a value compared to scotch, and a more versatile ingredient compared to scotch. So it was always going to get to the point where American whiskey was going to have that moment. That’s why I don’t believe it’s much of a bubble as some people think it is because of the sustainability of what we’ve seen in the wine and the Scotch market for decades.

But there was tremendous growth in bourbon. This is what makes these things valuable, the supply and demand of them. Bourbon folks really started to invest in the trendsetting markets, New York, San Francisco, LA, Chicago, and it started taking hold there during the cocktail renaissance. And that snowballed to folks seeking out bottles on their own.

Then you can’t discount what the Pappy Van Winkle brand did and how it was marketed with a shoestring of a budget — if you even want to call that a budget — that they had. But it got recognition domestically and internationally for just being exceptional products and kind of broke down a lot of barriers or stereotypes that some folks had about the bourbon market in relation to it being a true super-premium spirit area.

Which bottle was the first to really break through?

Justin: The bottle that I believe started this whole secondary craze for bourbon was the Pappy 23 Decanter back in 2009. I remember seeing that on the shelf and it was $400 and I was like, “Man, there it is.” Long story short, we probably would’ve bought it and gotten into it the second we got in the car. But at that point, the guy I was with said, “Man, do you think this is as good as buying 10 Pappy 15s?” You could have got a Pappy 15 for 50 bucks-ish back then. And I was like, “Probably not, man.” So I think I bought a 15, and he bought a Lot B {Pappy 12 year}.

Then I think about two months later I saw those Pappy Decanters selling on Craigslist. I was like, “Man, these things are selling on Craigslist for like 1,500 bucks. Can you believe that?” And here we are today where they’ll sell for close to $30,000.

It happened in a short span of time, I guess. But when the growth of bourbon started to take off, they finally figured out how to crack the coolness code in the trendsetting markets. Still, I think it was just the right time for bourbon.

So there was a shift from average to superior in the thinking from the producers, really, that pushed premium products as well?

Justin: To their credit, they started marketing and showcasing some of their best barrels and blends to the consumers and having the belief in that if you put out a superior product to those consumers, you would start to gain more of a following. So instead of the workhorse working man’s brand that they started as, they started doing these special releases to showcase what their base product could do under double the aging or double the barreling or whatever they had. So that’s kind of how I believe in the last 15 years, how we’ve gotten where we’re at today. I don’t know, Caroline, anything to add to that?

Okay, that’s how it all started. How did it grow so fast though?

Justin: There was this phenomenon that I don’t think the scotch or the wine industry experienced in the same way back in the day. Social media definitely enabled the secondary market to grow for bourbon in a unique way.

There are people that had no interest in bourbon until they heard their buddy bought a bottle for $50 and then sold it in the parking lot that night of the Walmart for $500. So that’s a pretty good deal. Anybody can have a $50 bill in their pocket to make $500. But not everybody’s got $500 in their pocket to make $550. So there was a period that brought a lot of new enthusiasts, if you will, to the table. And that is a strong force that no one can resist that’s an arbitrage where that almost would be almost criminal on Wall Street … almost.

So finally, the retailers caught up to it and do some work to stem that from happening now. The brand’s thinking, on the other hand, is still status quo so to speak. You know, a lot of these brands are still run by teams that’ve seen the ups and downs of bourbon over decades and aren’t as willing to change. So all of this, I do think, helps the status of certain brands.

We’ve seen this exact pattern in other collectibles. Nike has definitely seen a boost in sales by having these shoe boutiques open up all over in New York City or London that are selling secondary Jordans and Air Force Ones and whatever. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal recently talking about how Nike was going to cut down on the bots people use that have gamed their system to acquire more shoes. But then at the same time, it’s a weird paradigm because they rely on those people to lift the awareness of the brand. And that same thing is happening in bourbon.

So let’s shift a little and talk about actually getting bottles. You have one of the best-known legal avenues to buy allocated and vintage bottles. How do you look at what price goes on which bottle? How much does “MSRP” come into play since today there are bottles that are released at $500 or $1,000 without the secondary markup?

Caroline Paulus: We’ve got two sides of the store here. On one side you’ll find all the MSRP bottles, some limited releases that we’ll get from smaller brands, some just normal Maker’s Mark or what have you. And then the other side of our shop, which is definitely the more collectible side, those are going to be the bottles that we have to pay above retail to bring in. So that just varies. It is interesting to see some of the newer brands putting out those $500 MSRP releases. Some get snapped up and some sit a little bit longer.

Which ones have been successful at that price point?

Caroline: Some brands have shot for the moon in terms of pricing. But some of those do go pretty quickly like the Rabbit Hole Raceking and the Chicken Cock Chanticleer. Barrell Craft Spirits has those silver label expressions and they’ve been very popular.

Which brands/bottles have you seen maintain value, decline, or increase?

Justin: Colonel E.H. Taylor bottles have been very resilient, especially the limited releases. The first one is the 18-year Marriage expression and the Warehouse C Tornado Surviving, those skyrocketed. They’ve come back down a little bit but they’re still higher than what they were previously to the COVID. So we have another period of uncertain economic times ahead of us. I’m sure others will come down a little bit.

Doesn’t that make it a good time to buy?

Justin: Some people will panic sell and uninformed investors always seem to unload at the wrong time. So I think you’ll see more whiskey for a short period — the next two to three months — come available and I think it’s a great time to buy. I think this is the time when the sharp investors will be looking at not only stocks but these types of items. So, yeah man, I think it’s a great time to have your eyes open looking for whiskey to buy.

If you just look at what these types of bottles have done over the last 15 years, it’s an incredible growth chart that I don’t think the stock market can even hold a candle up to it. And I think there are still going to be opportunities. We talk about supply demand, some of this demand is getting out there. There are other companies coming online with their own stuff and special stuff and that’s part of it, but we’re still on the tip of the iceberg of really getting the supply of whiskey out there.

There’s not enough to go around now is the feel of it.

Justin: I don’t ever see these rare bottles ever being oversupplied. Your Batch 23s, your Buffalo Trace Antique Collections, your special Michter’s releases, Formosa releases. I just don’t think anyone’s prepared to release hundreds or thousands of cases of these rare whiskeys consistently anytime soon.

How does somebody get into this (without having to sell bottles in a Walmart parking lot)?

Justin: I think there are just three opportunities for folks to obviously be a part of the investment side of it. Either it’s kind of part of your DNA if you’re a part-time stock trader and manage a portion of your portfolio with whiskey; or you educate yourself with it and you look for arbitrage and you put a lot of time into it and you look for those opportunities, whether it’s on secondary or releases from the store; or you trust someone to curate a collection for you and you pay a premium. But in that case, you’re not so worried about getting out of that in six months because you’re going to hold it for what I would say should be at least two years or longer. Or it’s a blend of these things and you trust your palate.

How does your palate come into play?

Justin: There are so many times I’ve heard folks say, “Well, I’ve never heard of that.” And I’m like, “Well yeah, but it’s really good and I’m going to tell you once the word gets out, then it’s going to be harder to find and the price is probably going to drive up to whatever the market says it is.” So actually do participate in the fun part of tasting the stuff.

If you have a hobby where you like trying different whiskeys and experimenting and you trust your palette, you just believe it, “Hey this is really good.” It might be something that’s either Kentucky only or only in one particular market or a newer brand that’s getting ready to branch out or it’s a release that maybe not everybody knows about and you just trust your palette and know what tastes good. You should probably buy those bottles and save a couple of them for down the road.

Sometimes when you taste things, you know instantly. Look at what happened with Smooth Ambler. A lot of people didn’t understand that MGP of Indiana can make beautiful whiskey and it took years before those 10 and 12-year-old bottles to sell. They were begging people to buy them for $50 after the Pappy craze popped off. And you couldn’t find Pappu 12 or Weller 12 on the shelf anymore. But you could find Smooth Ambler 12-year-old.

I hear people say it, man. “Oh, that’s MGP. I’m not going to buy that.” And people didn’t know until all of a sudden all those bottles are going for $500 or $1,000 and all of a sudden those same people that look down on it, they’re out there looking for. And that was this great whiskey that the people I knew — who knew good whiskey when they tasted it — bought by the cases and still had them.

Bulliet had a similar thing happen recently too, with their single barrels?

Justin: Yeah man, those Bulleit single barrels that came out a couple of years ago. You’re talking about 10 to 12-year-old Kentucky Bourbon at 104 proof that you could get for $59.99. But a lot of people just skipped them because it said “Bulleit” on it and Bulleit doesn’t have a reputation for being something that’s super allocated. You can’t make a quick dime or a long dime on them so people just kind of faded them. And the people who bought them were just people who just like really good whiskey.

Those were delicious. Let’s wrap up by looking at the mistakes you see people gravitate toward when they walk into a place like Justins’ looking for good whiskey to buy.

Caroline: I wouldn’t feel good letting somebody make a mistake. But I think that the mistake that I do see people make is looking for that “perfect bottle” all around — where it’s a steal and it’s something they love and it’s something that they think they’re going to make money on. But you kind of have to separate all of that in your head. If you’re looking at it as an investment, as a long-term thing, you’re going to want something that’s going to hold the value, something vintage. If you’re looking for that steal that tastes great, you have to move to that barrel pick from the side that Justin was just talking about. We sold hundreds of those Bulleit bottles. Those people would call us back asking for more and, well, it’s gone. So I think the only mistake that I would say would be trying to get everything all in one bottle. I think you have to diversify a little bit.

Justin: I think really big because I always say whatever makes people happy, then they’re doing the right thing. Because some people want these to show off. Some people want something nobody else really has. They’re, “Okay, Pappy Van Winkle, great, but I’m over that. What else is out there that’s even harder to find or even more expensive or has more complexity in the taste?”

But I’ll say the only time there’s a mistake is when they ask, “Hey, what would you buy?” And we will put that thinking cap on and we have a sense of what their budget is and we’ll say, “Hey, you want this one hard-to-find bottle, which is great, but this other bottle over here is just as good.” In fact, it’s a little bit older or a little more complex or it’s not as well known. And whether it’s the same price or maybe even cheaper, they still have a hard time not going with their “Old Faithful.” They have a hard time diversifying or letting go of that one thing now. But the thing is, I can’t say it’s a mistake because it’s making them happy. That’s the thing. That’s their go-to thing.

What do you tell people to trust when making that whiskey investment?

Justin: The most beneficial thing I think when making an investment is trusting your palate or having someone you can trust to curate for you. And it’s fun to have the stuff that everybody has, but sometimes you got to take a risk. And I think that goes if you’re investing in stocks or any other traditional investments too to get the big return. Sometimes you got to buy it before the masses know about it. And sometimes that’s risky. Sometimes that’ll pay off big. And if it doesn’t, well then hopefully you’ve still got a great bottle of whiskey that’s interesting to drink.

English rock guitarist Jeff Beck, who is often hailed as one of the great guitarists of the genre for his work throughout the ’60s and ’70s with various bands including the Yardbirds and Beck, Bogert & Appice, has died at the age of 78, according to a statement from his representation given to Variety. It reads, “On behalf of his family, it is with deep and profound sadness that we share the news of Jeff Beck’s passing. After suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis, he peacefully passed away yesterday (January 10). His family ask for privacy while they process this tremendous loss.”

Beck had most recently released 18, a collaborative album with Johnny Depp, in July 2022, completing a tour for the album that year. Throughout his career, he won six Grammy Awards for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, as well as one for Best Pop Instrumental Performance. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame both as a solo artist and as a member of the Yardbirds. After leaving the ‘Birds in 1967, he formed the Jeff Beck Group with Rod Stewart on vocals, producing two albums and a handful of hits before breaking up in 1969.

In the ’70s, along with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, he formed Beck, Bogert & Appice, and over the past few decades, Beck shifted to playing mainly instrumental music and continued releasing albums right up until last year. He was given a pair of honorary degrees from British universities and was credited with popularizing the use of feedback and distortion as an effect in rock guitar techniques. He’s survived by a wife, Sandra Cash, whom he married in 2005.

Jeff Beck is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

It’s always cognac time. The grape spirit from France has a depth to it that works wonderfully when you’re snuggled next to a crackling fire under a pile of blankets. It’s versatile, often sweet, and full of dark woody depth. All of that is to say that it’s time for a cognac blind taste test!

A note before we start: All cognac is brandy but not all brandy is cognac. The grape-fueled spirit has to be made in Cognac, France to be called “cognac.” Even other brandies from France cannot be called “cognac” unless they’re made there. That’s where you get varieties like “armagnac” (another regional designation of brandy) and the like. At the end of the day, we’re still talking about a variety of brandy from France. There are other rules (double distilling in copper pot stills, two years of aging, etc.), but we don’t need to get bogged down in the minutiae right now. We’re just here to find a tasty one to drink!

Our lineup today is the following bottles:

• Rémy Martin Cognac Fine Champagne VSOP
• Bisquit & Dubouché Cognac VSOP
• Martell Blue Swift “Spirit Drink” Made with Cognac VSOP Finished in Bourbon Casks
• Hine Rare VSOP The Original
• Cognac D’Ussé VSOP
• Cognac Ferrand 10 Générations Year of the Rabbit Port Cask Limited Edition

The above bottles are all pretty goddamn good. They also all are mid-range choices — priced between $50 and $70 — that you should be able to find fairly easily. This isn’t about one-off 100-year-old bottles that you can only find at one whiskey bar or hidden behind the register at a high-end liquor store. This is about the bottles that you can actually try too.

As for the ranking, this is based on taste alone. Cognac tends to lean toward the dark and sweet fruits with a sense of leathery oak aging and hints of wintry spice layered in. In short — if you like a fine bourbon, you’re likely to really like cognac, too.

Okay, let’s dive in!

• We Put A Whole Bunch Of Bourbons To A Giant Blind Test And Discovered Some Absolute Gems
• The Affordable Vs Expensive Blind Bourbon Bottle Battle
• The 20 Most Popular Hot Sauces In America, Blind Tasted And Ranked
• Blind Soda Taste Test: Can Any Cherry Soda Beat Cherry Coke?
• The Best-Known Basic Bottles Of Bourbon, Blind Tasted And Ranked

Part 1: The Tasting

Taste 1

Tasting Notes:

Nose: The nose is balanced between soft florals and a rich nuttiness with echoes of old oak and mashed berries on a hot day.

Palate: The palate feels classic with bright, sweet, and tart fruit mixing with dry woody spice, a touch of leather, and sweet vanilla.

Finish: The end is short and sweet with a fruit/nut/vanilla vibe that leans into a dark and sweet cherry finish.

Initial Thoughts:

This feels pretty quintessential. There’s a touch of roughness on the mid-palate but that cherry finish more than makes up for it.

Taste 2

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Hints of tannic oak mingle with vanilla candies and a dash of winter spice in a plum jam on the nose.

Palate: A twinge of dried roses leads the palate as layers of orchard fruit skins mix with apricot jam, woody cinnamon sticks, and a hint of sour cherry.

Finish: A minor note of salt arrives to counter that sour cherry late as gooseberries and warming spices round out the lighter finish.

Initial Thoughts:

This was pretty good too. The overall profile was strong but it ended a little lighter/thinner than I wanted.

Taste 3

Tasting Notes:

Nose: There’s a sense of stewed apples with cinnamon sugar next to gingerbread and vanilla cake with a fresh almost pine resin darkness next to plump raisins and roasted almonds.

Palate: The palate has a sense of orange soda and ginger candy with hints of vanilla tobacco and maybe a twinge of old oak.

Finish: The end is creamy with a feel of vanilla tobacco wrapped up in cedar bark but ends very abruptly with a touch of proofing and thinness.

Initial Thoughts:

This nails the nose but stumbles on the finish. It just fades out into blankness.

Taste 4

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Old oak barrels are tempered by rich and almost creamy notes of vanilla that lead towards a burst of summer wildflowers on the nose.

Palate: The taste embraces those flowers with hints of jasmine next to violet next to lavender that’s counterpointed by plum pudding nuttiness, woody spice, and a hint of that vanilla cream.

Finish: The end is long-winded and really leans into the brightness of those florals as the woody spice warms your senses.

Initial Thoughts:

This is just nice overall. There’s a clear beginning, middle, and end. It’s a little floral-heavy but not offensively so.

Taste 5

Tasting Notes:

Nose: This starts off very similarly to the last pour with dark and rich chocolate and marzipan but carries on toward old soft leather and mild Christmas cake spices with a hint of vanilla and candied fruit.

Palate: The taste mingles soft vanilla pods with buttery toffee and woody spices as the fruitiness shines a ray of sunshine through the whole sip.

Finish: The end has a good sense of dark chocolate and almond with a hint of black tea bitterness rounding everything out.

Initial Thoughts:

That chocolate-nutty finish goes a long way and really helps this pour stand out from the crowd today. It’s just a really well-rounded sip of cognac.

Taste 6

Tasting Notes:

Nose: There’s a sense. of the alcohol on the nose that’s almost hiding the lemon honey and ground almonds with a light note of grape must.

Palate: There’s a clear spiciness that almost feels like a malted whisky next to gingerbread and cinnamon sugar.

Finish: The end leans heavily into dark red berries and Coca-Cola sweetness with a hint of spice and that alcohol from the nose.

Initial Thoughts:

I’m not a huge fan of that rubbing alcohol note on the nose or finish. Still, this had a pretty unique profile with a fair amount of spice, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Part 2: The Ranking

6. Cognac Ferrand 10 Générations Year of the Rabbit Port Cask Limited Edition — Taste 6

ABV: 44%

Average Price: $65

The Cognac:

This limited edition release from Ferrand uses only Ugni Blanc grapes. That hot juice is “double-aged” — first in classic French oak and then in port casks. Those barrels are batched and proofed before bottling.

Bottom Line:

This just didn’t land. It was a little all over the place with a spiced malt and alcohol vibe that felt almost unfinished.

5. Martell Blue Swift “Spirit Drink” Made with Cognac VSOP Finished in Bourbon Casks — Taste 3

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $58

The Brandy:

This is classic Martell Cognac taken up a step. The old-school French VSOP Cognac is finished in Kentucky bourbon barrels for a final rest before batching, proofing, and bottling.

Bottom Line:

This was fine, albeit a little sweet from that bourbon finishing. Still, I can see this working perfectly fine in cocktails.

4. Bisquit & Dubouché Cognac VSOP — Taste 2

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $70

The Brandy:

This fairly new cognac comes from the famed Maison Fondée Cognac, which has been producing great brandy for over 200 years. The brandy in the bottle is made from grapes harvested in the Grande Champagne, Petite Champagne, Fin Bois, and Bons Bois regions of Cognac and built to suit a modern, American palate.

Bottom Line:

This was fine. Again, I’d lean toward only really using this for cocktails to fill in the gaps in the flavor profile.

3. Rémy Martin Cognac Fine Champagne VSOP — Taste 1

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $55

The Brandy:

This classic brandy is nearly 100 years old. The majority of the grapes come from the Grand Champagne region of Cognac with a vast majority of the grapes being Ugni Blanc. The spirit ages for four to 12 years before blending, proofing, and bottling.

Bottom Line:

This was a notch better than “fine” today. There was a little roughness on the mid-palate but that will likely disappear with a rock or two (if you want to sip it) or in a nice and easy brandy cocktail.

2. Hine Rare VSOP The Original — Taste 4

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $72

The Brandy:

HINE Rare is a masterfully crafted cognac. The juice is a blend of eaux-de-vie (water of life) made from wines from the Grande Champagne and Petite Champagne growing regions. That spirit then is barreled in oak where it spends six to 12 years maturing. The results are then married, proofed with soft mineral water from local springs, and bottled.

Bottom Line:

This felt like the first true sipper of the panel. It was complex and convivial while feeling like you were drinking something actually kind of special. The only reason it’s not in first place is that it was a tad on the lighter side all things considered.

1. Cognac D’Ussé VSOP — Taste 5

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $59

The Cognac:

This was Jay-Z’s signature brand (long story). The juice in the bottle goes way back to Baron Otard from the famed Château de Cognac. The new line was re-crafted to suit American palates and includes a blend of Cognacs that are aged at the château for four to eight years before blending, proofing, and bottling.

Bottom Line:

This just had the most depth and enjoyment as a sipper today. It’s deep and rewarding as a sipper on its own but also makes a mean sidecar or cognac old fashioned.

Part 3: Final Thoughts

Cognac D’Ussé is really hard to beat at this price point. Hine almost beats it out. In fact, I’d wager that if it was a little warmer out, I’d probably reach for the lightness of the Hine over the deeper hues of the D’Ussé. Both are worth stocking on your bar cart.

Remy is a good choice to have around if you want a brandy mixer. The rest are fine but not worth running out and hunting for, especially since you should be able to find Cognac D’Ussé, Hine, and Remy pretty much every liquor is sold.

“Bye Bye Bye” was a smash hit in 2000 when it was released as the lead single to boy band NSYNC’s second album, “No Strings Attached.” The hit single propelled the album to sell a then record-breaking 2.4 million copies in its first week.

Two years later, the band would go on hiatus to allow breakout star Justin Timberlake to record a solo album. The hiatus soon became a permanent breakup and the band hasn’t recorded or toured together since.

However, even though NSYNC broke up more than 20 years ago, band member Joey Fatone hasn’t forgotten how to sing and dance to “Bye, Bye, Bye.” He proved it on Sunday, January 8 while giving an impromptu performance of the song during brunch at the Palace, a popular drag bar on South Beach in Miami, Florida.

Fatone was at the bar while vacationing in Miami for a bachelor party.

The Advocate reports that when drag performers Tiffany Fantasia and Elishaly D’witshes began to perform “Bye Bye Bye” Fatone hopped on stage and started performing with them. While at first he just danced to the song while the drag queens lip-synched, he was handed a microphone and started to sing his harmonies. Fatone also showed that he still remembered the iconic dance moves by busting them out before an excited crowd.

See on Instagram

“WHAT A WEEKEND IT’S BEEN ALREADY!! We had the honor of being visited by @nsyncs own @realjoeyfatone who joined us and sang one of their biggest hits with our queens for our visitors,” the Palace wrote on Instagram.

Imagine being in the crowd, three mimosas deep, and seeing a member of NSYNC come out of nowhere and sing one of their biggest hits. That would have been well worth the price of admission.

Even though NSYNC isn’t together, Fatone has stayed in the spotlight over the past two decades. He made multiple appearances on “Dancing With the Stars” where he earned second place in 2007.

From 2010 to 2015 he was one of the announcers on “Family Feud” and in 2019 he competed as “Rabbit” on “The Masked Singer” where he came in fourth place. He told People magazine that a lot of viewers were surprised he had such a great voice after performing on the show.

“People are like, ‘I didn’t know you had the voice and chops. You should do an album,'” he said. “I’m like, ‘Eh, I’d be fun to do one.’ It’s not my forte in the sense of doing a solo career.”

Fatone has also performed in a Rat Pack-style revue in Vegas alongside fellow boy banders Wanya Morris from Boyz II Men and Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean and Nick Carter. The limited-engagement show featured the singers performing their band’s greatest hits and an audience Q and A.

Fatone also appeared as Angelo in the 2002 hit “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” as well as its 2016 sequel. He’s also slated to appear in the recently announced third film in the series.

It’s wonderful to see Fatone strut his stuff with some drag performers but it could also serve as a reminder to his NSYNC buddies—Joey still knows his dance moves and would be ready for a reunion at a moment’s notice. He may just need a few mimosas to get started.