Chlöe and Halle Bailey are having a big year, especially after the former graced our Uproxx cover this month ahead of her upcoming album. She also discussed her good fortunes in their new Essence interview, where Halle touched on something more personal: her relationship with rapper DDG, which it looks like is getting pretty serious.
When Halle was asked if she was in love with the musician, she answered, “Yes. For sure I am. I’ve been a fan of his for years. I grew up being on YouTube and would always see the young Black creators and was constantly inspired by them. He was one of them. I completely forgot about him. But then I saw that he was dropping music, and I really gravitated toward this one song. Coincidentally he messaged me — and the rest is history.”
In June, DDG spoke about a line in his song with Gunna, “Elon Musk,” which is about going on a double date and was rumored to be about Halle. “I think it’s self-explanatory,” DDG elaborated. “I think the world knows that me and Gunna have a mutual situation with people that are related. Gunna got a Maybach, I got a Maybach — he got the truck, I got the car. One day, he was on a date, I was on a date, we pulled up at the same time.”
Shit is expensive. Gas prices may be trending down right now but inflation has our dollars stretched pretty thin. Right now, finding ways to save money is vital, unless, you know, you’re fine with spending your last days of summer at home instead of luxuriating on some beach or at a dope music festival. We don’t want that for you — you deserve better!
In an effort to help you save some money, we’re shouting out the best food under $3 from all the big fast food chains. This was harder than anticipated. When we were first putting together this article we had it aimed squarely at the best dollar menu buys and then we realized, fast food restaurants don’t really have dollar menus anymore. McDonald’s has a menu they literally call the $1, $2, $3 Dollar Menu, and it doesn’t have anything under $2! So we bumped up the price to $3 and still couldn’t include all of our favorite chains (we’re looking at you Shake Shack!). ‘
Our goal was to put together a list of affordable bites that still delivered on big flavors — eating bad-tasting food that’s cheap is easy. So if you want to find the best way to stretch your dollar at all your favorite fast food restaurants, see our list below and add your suggestions to the comments. Let’s eat!
Arby’s — Jalapeño Roast Beef Slider
Arby
Price: $2.19
Arby’s Jalapeño Roast Beef Slider is one of those rare budget buys that doesn’t feel like it’s cutting any corners or making any compromises. You get layers of the same zesty, sweet roast beef Arby’s is known for, just less, with a slice of nutty Swiss, and fresh grilled jalapeños, providing a gentle kick of heat against the sweet beefy and smokey flavors.
It’s way better than you’d expect it to be. Of course, it isn’t as satisfying as getting a full-sized Arby’s Roast Beef sandwich but still definitely gets the job done.
The Bottom Line:
A three to four-bite slider that offers big flavors despite its small size.
Last week I tried Wendy’s new French Toast sticks and was incredibly disappointed. Then a lot of people started telling me that Burger King had the best French Toast Sticks. If you’ve followed our fast food rankings you’ll know that I hate Burger King, I think the brand is pretty awful at everything they do, so I was intrigued to try these.
And you know what? They’re pretty damn good.
They’re crispy on the outside and perfectly soft and spongey on the inside. The flavor combines maple notes with butter and cinnamon and is served alongside a dippable side of maple-esque corn syrup. It’s better than it should be.
The Bottom Line:
Burger King’s French Toast Sticks are probably the best fast food iteration of French Toast.
If this feels like a lazy choice, trust us, we tried to pick something else. The only other thing on Carl’s Jr.’s menu under $3 is a cinnamon roll, so I tried it, and I can’t in good conscience recommend the cinnamon roll — even if it would probably make for a more satisfying meal than a boring order of French fries. And Carl’s Jr’s French fries are really f*cking boring. They’re a salty soggy mess that pales in comparison to the Criss-Cut fries, which will, unfortunately, cost you nearly $5.
The Bottom Line:
Maybe don’t eat at Carl’s Jr if you want to save money, everything is pretty pricey here, even those weird Chicken Stars.
I was ready to write Chick-fil-A off as too expensive for this particular article, but it turns out you can buy a Chick-fil-A breakfast filet for just $2.10, which leaves you a bit of money left over to add cheese or egg and make it a more substantial meal. You can also ask for a side of lettuce and they won’t even charge you for it!
Chick-fil-A’s breast filets are significantly smaller than what you’d find in one of their sandwiches (we give it about three-to-four bites) but still has that same pickle-brine peanut oil fried flavor that Chick-fil-A is known for, though I taste a tinge of sweetness in there that I don’t get from the bigger filet. Maybe that’s just the sensation of eating the chicken without any bread.
You can order this filet grilled or fried, unfortunately, Chick-fil-A doesn’t make a spicy breakfast filet, but they do have hot sauce.
The Bottom Line:
A small but satisfying tiny breast filet of chicken that is cheap enough to add extras to while still falling under that $3 price tag.
All credit for this one goes to TikTok user Wyaleen Ahmed, who first posted this hack on how to come away from Chipotle with a whole lot of food for just $3 toTikTok last month. Technically, it’s just over $3 so it should be disqualified from our list, but we think we can look the other way for a few cents (you can probably find the spare change under the seat in your car or in a pair of pants you haven’t worn in awhile).
Wyaleen’s original video isn’t on her TikTok anymore, but the hack still exists in reposts and is still making the rounds on the app. The idea behind Ahmed’s hack is to order a single taco with a bunch of extra ingredients. You could do that, or you could just try to make a taco that will actually taste good. To do that, you kind of have to ignore Ahmed’s advice.
Order a crunchy taco over the soft shell, trust us, it’s way tastier, get a side of white rice (free of charge), a side order of pinto beans (also free), and load it up with fajitas, cheese, and lettuce. If you think that sounds dry and boring, it’s because you need to order your salsa, sour cream, and roasted chili-corn salsa on the side. That isn’t to get more food, that’s just because you’re dealing with a hard shell and you’re going to want to keep moisture to a minimum so the tortilla doesn’t get soggy and crack.
Now you’ve got a delicious crunchy chicken taco with a side of rice and beans, aka a full meal!
The Bottom Line:
Chipotle is expensive, but you can the single taco order allows for a lot of creativity for out-of-the-box thinkers looking to score a lot of food.
Del Taco has a whole menu with 20 items under $2, so if you want to eat on a tight budget, this is your place. We have to give the top spot to the Bean and Cheese Burrito over everything else offered on the menu though. Del Taco slow cooks their beans, and that’s a rarity in fast food. The result is fluffy tender beans full of fragrant earthy flavors like oregano, chili powder, garlic and onion. Combine that with Del Taco’s freshly grated cheese, and you have a perfectly mushy and melty bean and cheese that tastes like the sort of thing you’d make at home, unlike what they sell you at Taco Bell.
When you order this Del Taco will ask if you want Green or Red, for a tomato-forward flavor, do the red, but if you want heat, get the green.
This burrito, aside from being delicious, is also insanely cheap. At $1.39 you could buy two, or pick up something else from the 20 under $2 menu and you’ll have a whole meal’s worth of food.
The Bottom Line:
Affordable and flavorful, it’s the best of both worlds.
El Pollo Loco’s BRC burrito is way too good for how cheap it is. Every component of this burrito hits, El Pollo Loco’s beans are tender and subtly spicy, the jack cheese nutty, sweet, and creamy, and when combined with the rice has the perfect mouthfeel and texture. With a dab of spicy avocado salsa with every bite, this burrito is both extremely flavorful and filling, coming in at nearly 500 calories.
This is a straight-up meal!
The Bottom Line:
One of the most flavorful items on this entire list for the least amount of money.
In-N-Out gets a lot of credit for making great cheeseburgers, but I don’t think they get enough credit for how cheap they keep prices. This is still one of the cheapest places you can get a really delicious high-quality cheeseburger, and while the single has nothing on the culinary masterpiece that is the Double-Double, it’s still pretty damn good.
In-N-Out has some of the best American cheese in all of fast food, it melts perfectly, and features a salty flavor that pairs well with the scrawny but flavorful meat patty. Add chopped chilies and green onions to your cheeseburger for more flavor, and together with In-N-Out’s thousand island-style sauce and thick juicy tomatoes, you have the best cheeseburger you’re ever going to eat for under $3.
The Bottom Line:
Probably the single best item on this entire list, In-N-Out could charge double for this burger and people would cram into the drive-thru to order it.
Yeah, Jack in the Box tacos aren’t good, we sometimes aren’t even sure if the tacos are actual human food, but sometimes nothing hits the spot quite like these weird soy-based greasy tacos. The lettuce is almost always wilted and bland, the meat questionable, they put a literal slice of American cheese into the thing, it’s weird, it’s off-putting, but order these while buzzed, drunk, high, or hungover, and tell me this isn’t one of the most satisfyingly salty, crunchy, and greasy tacos you’ve ever had from a drive-thru.
The Bottom Line:
It’s the weirdest taco you’ll ever eat, but it’s only a matter of time before you find yourself strangely addicted to these.
At KFC you have two dark meat options for under $3, the thigh, and the drum stick. The thigh is going to get you more meat, but nothing beats the juicy tender bite of the drum. We strongly recommend you opt for KFC’s Original Recipe which is less crunchy than the Extra Crispy, but way more flavorful, combining flavors of garlic, onion, thyme, black pepper, and oregano for a chicken batter with a remarkable depth of flavor. Popeyes might have the crunch and a great spicy option but KFC’s Original Recipe gives Popeyes best a run for its money. If only they made an Original Recipe sandwich!
The Bottom Line:
You’re getting a freshly prepared piece of bone-in-fried chicken for under $3, it doesn’t get better than that! Someone had to drudge this chicken in batter with their actual hands — you’re getting that level of effort for a steal.
No one can really explain why the McDouble Cheeseburger is good, maybe it’s the nostalgia, maybe it’s that undeniable McDonald’s flavor (they sugar the beef), but for whatever reason people swear by this super cheap option from McDonald’s. McDonald’s isn’t generally cheap — the average combo will run you anywhere between $8 and $10 — so it’s actually pretty surprising that they have a whole ass double cheeseburger for this cheap.
This tiny double features two meat patties, two slices of cheese, pickles, onions, ketchup, and mustard. As a cheeseburger, it’s kind of awful and overly salty and sweet, but it has this flavor that just screams “McDonald’s!” and we can’t help but love it for that.
The Bottom Line:
The best tasting bad cheeseburger you’ll ever eat.
You wouldn’t know it looking at the Popeyes app, but you can order chicken a la carte, and even better, each a la carte order comes with a biscuit. That’s a whole piece of fried chicken and a biscuit for just under $3. If you really wanted to, you could pull chunks of meat off your chicken and sandwich it between your biscuit, drizzle it with honey, and have a spicy hot makeshift sandwich.
Popeyes chicken is tender and always juicy with a crunchy breading that combines pepper, garlic, and onion powder, with a heavy layer of spicy and smokey cayenne on the spicy blend.
The Bottom Line:
Popeyes a la carte chicken is one of their best-kept secrets.
This isn’t the most exciting order but it gets the job done and it tastes great. Order your Cane’s tender extra crispy, order that Texas toast BOB style (that’s buttered on both sides), drizzle the Cane’s sauce on your toast, place the tender on top, and you’ve got a delicious half-sandwich that tastes better than Raising Cane’s actual chicken tender sandwich. It’s filling enough to satisfy, but it tastes so delicious you’re going to wish you bit the bullet and ordered a full meal.
The Bottom Line:
A better chicken sandwich than Cane’s actual chicken sandwich, for half the price.
We don’t have a real preference over the soft or crunchy Taco Bell Taco, both have that distinctive Taco Bell salty grease flavor, and both have their benefits. The soft feels more substantial and filling, and the beefy flavor is a bit easier to taste but the crunchy taco has a better mouthfeel and texture. Pick your poison.
The Bottom Line:
Taco Bell’s tacos aren’t great, but they’re cheap, get the job done, and taste twice as good as the burritos.
Wendy’s makes some of the best cheeseburgers and bacon in fast food, and you’re getting both of those things for under $2, that’s a steal! The Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger isn’t as substantial as the Dave’s Single, the meat is considerably smaller here, about two ounces, but it features that same savory meaty flavor of the thicker patties, while the bacon supplies smokey notes and a crunchy bite. The burger also comes with cheese, tomato, romaine lettuce, and mayo with the option to add everything from crinkle-cut pickles and onions free of charge.
Skip those and add bourbon sauce to ratchet up the savory smokey flavors and you’ll come out at just over $2.
The Bottom Line:
Not as satisfying or decadent as the real thing, but Wendy’s Jr. still offers the same big flavors in a smaller, more affordable package.
There’s been a lot of talk about Method acting over the last couple years, but there’s just one problem: Almost all of it has gotten it wrong. No, someone like Jeremy Strong isn’t “going Method” by staying in character (or something like it), and even he admits his method (lower case) has little to do with the practice developed by Konstantin Stanislavski. Andrew Garfield even said as much on a new episode of WTF with Marc Maron — then talked about some pretty crazy stuff he once did for a role that people think is Method.
So who did the erstwhile Spider-Man go faux-Method for? Why, Martin Scorsese, of course. Garfield starred in 2016’s Silence, the director’s solemn, haunting epic about Portuguese Jesuit priests who find themselves in danger in 17th century Japan. To get into the ascetic swing of things, the actor went so far as to do two things: he fasted and he went celibate for six whole months. If that sounds like a drag, well, it wasn’t, at least for him.
“It was very cool, man,” Garfield told Maron. “I had some pretty wild, trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food at that time.”
Garfield also tried to set the record straight about Method acting, and he tried to separate what it really is from, say, Jared Leto taking ages to use the toilet.
“There [have] been a lot of misconceptions about what method acting is, I think,” said Garfield. “People are still acting in that way, and it’s not about being an asshole to everyone on set. It’s actually just about living truthfully under imagined circumstances, and being really nice to the crew simultaneously, and being a normal human being, and being able to drop it when you need to and staying in it when you want to stay in it.”
Garfield said he’s “kind of bothered by the misconception” people have of it, “this idea that ‘method acting is f*cking bulls*it.’” He said, “No, I don’t think you know what method acting is if you’re calling it bulls*it, or you just worked with someone who claims to be a method actor who isn’t actually acting the method at all.”
That said, he didn’t want to go into whatever version of the Method he uses, saying it’s “very private,” and he doesn’t “want people to see the f*cking pipes of my toilet. I don’t want them to see how I’m making the sausage.”
Last week, Diddy hopped on an Instagram Live session with Timbaland, Jermaine Dupri, Summer Walker, and others. In the fairly unfiltered affair, Diddy made waves for saying that he’s “not f*ckin” with Triller” anymore because of the fallout between Swizz Beats and Timbaland following a lawsuit. But his proverbial shot-heard-round-the-world, was insinuating that R&B is “dead.”
“R&B is muthaf*ckin’ dead as of right now,” he said. “The R&B I made my babies to? R&B gotta be judged to a certain thing—it’s the feeling though, doggy. No, no, no. It’s a feeling. You gotta be able to sing for R&B and then you gotta tell the truth. R&B is not a hustle. This sh*t is about feeling your vulnerability.”
Considering he recently launched his R&B-focused label, Love Records, (in partnership with Motown Records, no less) these words coming from Diddy were curious to say the least. But the hip-hop mogul walked back his words a bit in trying to set the record straight in a series of tweets:
“It’s been 3 days of the debate…This is the clarity of the message…It’s not disrespect to anybody. This conversation was out of love and me purposely wanting to bring attention to R&B! It was something that I saw the effect of the Hip hop and R&B balance. That balance is honesty and realness when it comes together, melodies, vulnerability and most importantly LOVE!!! This message is that R&B game needs more love, vulnerability, support!!”
It’s been 3 days of the debate…This is the clarity of the message…It’s not disrespect to anybody.
He certainly did bring attention to the R&B debate, but this felt like a cheap shot, considering the end result of this kerfuffle is that we’ll have to see just what Diddy’s idea of real R&B is when Love Records starts putting out new music. Your move Diddy.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers enter the 2022 NFL season with lofty expectations, but it has been a bit of a rocky start for the club in training camp. Offensive line injuries have plagued Tampa Bay, including this week’s season-ending injury to potential starter Aaron Stinnie, and the franchise’s face has not been present for the majority of August. Tom Brady, perhaps the greatest quarterback of all-time, has been absent for what the club describes as “personal reasons,” but an odd theory emerged earlier this month, outlining that he could be out of pocket due to an appearance on FOX’s The Masked Singer reality program.
That pseudo-rumor was seen by many as far-fetched but, given Brady’s highly lucrative alignment with FOX, it appeared more plausible to some. However, Brady quelled the speculation on Monday, first by reporting to Buccaneers training camp for the first time and later sharing an explicit denial on Twitter.
This should at least slow the speculation to a crawl, especially as the attention will inevitably turn to how Brady looks on the field. Tampa Bay’s offense should be quite impressive again with Brady, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Leonard Fournette, and future Hall of Fame addition Julio Jones, and Brady has the experience to hit the ground running.
Of course, conspiracy theorists could point to Brady denying the rumor by saying he wasn’t on the show “last week” also leaves the door cracked in case he was engaged in semantics. Still, this was a wild one on the surface, and Brady has said his piece on the subject.
Phoebe Bridgers loves her dog, Maxine. Heck, Bridgers has brought the sweet little black pug along for an interview on Late Night With Seth Meyers in the past and even played an intimate acoustic show in San Francisco earlier this month while sitting on a couch on stage with Maxine the entire time. Now ‘The Maxine” is the name of Bridgers’ new “band taco” at LA Tex-Mex local chain Homestate. Following in the footsteps of previous artist-taco collaborations at Homestate from Leon Bridges and Vampire Weekend, Bridgers is the latest singer to launch a benefit taco.
The Phoebe Bridgers taco is vegan and made with, “Black beans, shiitake mushrooms, avocado, caramelized onions, crispy corn strips, served on a Kernel of Truth Corn Tortilla.” $1.25 from each taco purchase benefits CASA of Los Angeles, which advocates for children and families in LA County’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems. “HomeState is one of my favorite local restaurants; Maxine and I should probably be cut off from their breakfast tacos by now,” Bridgers said in a statement.
Phoebe Bridgers
The announcement comes ahead of Bridgers’ performance at the This Ain’t No Picnic festival in her native Los Angeles. Credit to Bridges, because while a celebrity taco might seem outlandish to some and a cleverly-timed ploy to raise the stakes for her big show, she has a history of embarking in partnerships like this that give back to causes in Los Angeles. Like CASA, Bridges released the “If We Make It Through December” Merle Haggard cover two Christmases ago as a benefit for the Downtown Women’s Center in LA. So you can comfortably have a Maxine taco for both it’s bold flavors and altruism.
Every year for the past 15 years, Four Roses has dropped their much-beloved Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon. The whiskey is a rare blend of bourbons that come together to create the ultimate expression of Four Roses via their ten unique bourbon recipes. This year’s edition will drop in September but you can enter a lottery to win the option to buy a bottle right now.
That means it’s a great time to tell you what you’d be winning by reviewing the juice in this year’s bottle.
Before we dive in… Four Roses is renowned for making and blending ten bourbons into their whiskeys (except the Single Barrel expressions, of course). There are two mash bills that Four Roses work with. One is a very high rye bourbon mash of 60 percent corn, 30 percent rye, and ten percent malted barley. That’s Mash Bill B if you want to geek out a little. Mash Bill E is a lower but still high rye bourbon mash with 75 percent corn, 20 percent rye, and only five percent malted barley. How this turns into ten distinct whiskeys is through the yeast. Four Roses employ five different yeast strains on both mash bills, creating ten unique bourbon whiskeys. Those yeasts bring a different flavor profile to the mash that carries through fermentation, distillation, aging, and blending/proofing to the final product. Each of those ten bourbons then has a lettered name like OBSV or OESK or OBSF denoting the mash bill and yeast involved.
Obviously, that’s a lot to work your way through, so let’s just jump right into what’s in this year’s Four Roses Limited Edition Small Batch Bourbon bottle. That way you can decide if you’re going to wait outside your local retailer overnight to snag a bottle.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
Four Roses 2022 Limited Edtion Small Batch Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Kirin Company
ABV: 54.5%
Average Price: $179 (available in early September)
The Whiskey:
This year’s LE Small Batch is made from a blend of 20-year-old Bourbon from the OBSV recipe (high rye, delicate fruit yeast), a 15-year-old OESK (lower rye, slight spice yeast), a 14-year-old OESF (lower rye, herbal notes years), and a 14-year-old OESV (lower rye, delicate fruit yeast). The blend is non-chill filtered and bottled at 109 proof.
There are only 14,100 bottles this year.
Tasting Notes:
The nose is soft and feels aged-yet-fresh with mild notes of old cellar beams that lead to a sour cherry next to sourdough pancakes smothered in butter and maple syrup with a thin line of spiced cherry jam next to a bit of crumpled up old leather gloves. The palate opens creamy with a vanilla underbelly that’s countered by a whisper of barnyard funk and old barn floorboards before a chewy spiced cherry tobacco leaf kicks in with layers of nutmeg, clove, and allspice with a creamy eggnog vibe and a hint of Kentucky-hug warmth. The mid-palate gets a little warmed before diving back toward the spicy cherry tobacco and a finish that’s full of creamy brown sugar butter and hazelnut shells.
The Bottle:
The bottle is a classic Four Roses Small Batch bottle with an embossed label, allowing the amber liquid inside to shine through. It’s elegant and feels very classic. It’s a solid centerpiece bottle for any bar cart but it doesn’t scream “expensive” if that’s what you want.
The Bottom Line:
This is delicious. Drinking it neat is a lovely experience, but adding some water really lets the creamier and sour cherry notes bloom towards a softer and sweeter winter spice and a hint of dark bitterness (not quite chocolate but closer to coffee). A single rock cools down that big mid-palate warmth while still allowing the creamier cherry and spice aspects to shine through.
Ranking:
95/100 — this is a great whiskey. But not fully transcendent.
How To Get It:
You can enter the lottery from August 22 to August 28, by clicking Enjoy It First on the Four Roses’ LE Small Batch website. Notifications arrive on September 6th for those lucky enough to win the lottery. You’ll then need to bring $179 (plus tax) to the Four Roses Distillery Gift Shop in Kentucky to pick up your bottle between September 17th and October 16th, 2022.
Otherwise, bottles will be rolling out to select retailers in late September. Keep in mind, that this will be a very limited run in a few select markets.
A lot of bad things have befallen Donald Trump of late, not the least being accused of illegally hoarding classified documents. Perhaps he has so much on his plate that he didn’t notice this: Last week he lost Alex Jones. The repeatedly sued conspiracy theorist announced he was decamping for Trump’s likely 2024 Republican presidential opponent Ron DeSantis. But now he’s doing his best to backpedal.
As per The Daily Beast, Jones released an “emergency message” over the weekend directed at his favorite one-term president. Claiming he’d been taken out-of-context by the “corporate media,” the InfoWars honcho declared that he hadn’t “abandoned” him; he was just concerned that he’d been lied to by health officials about the pandemic.
“Not a warning out of any desire to hurt you, Mr. Trump, but to save your important legacy and hopefully ensure you can get back into the White House coming up in 2024,” Jones bellowed. “We know the election was stolen! We know the ‘Deep State’ is trying to set you up any way they can,” he added. “We understand you are a lion surrounded by hyenas.”
Jones also claimed that Trump had tried to call him about turning on him, but that he missed the call. He also implored him to go back and watch the show, which aired Thursday, in which he went bully for DeSantis, claiming that he wasn’t saying he was only for DeSantis.
“I understand that you’re under attack, I understand you are surrounded, and I’m trying to get you to reassess the situation,” he concluded. I know that people like [Don Jr.] are telling you that you need to reassess the situation.”
Jones has parted ways with Trump — only to come crawling back — before. Last year, he called him a “dumbass” for advising people get vaccinated against COVID, not long before the disease started disproportionately claiming Trump supporters’ lives.
In his show Thursday, Jones sure seemed to have pivoted away from the big guy. “I am supporting DeSantis,” Jones averred. “DeSantis has just gone from being awesome to being unbelievably good. And I don’t just watch a man’s actions, as Christ said. Judge a tree by its fruits. I can also look in his eyes on HD video, and I see the real sincerity.”
He added, “This is what Trump should be like. And I’ve been hammering this point, and he’s doing it now. And we have someone that is better than Trump. Way better than Trump.” Sure sounds like he was taken out of context.
Those of us who lived through the ’80s remember well the heyday of the mullet, that business-in-the-front, party-in-the-back hairstyle many feel should’ve been left in the annals of history under category of “humanity’s bad decisions.”
However, the mullet has apparently been making a comeback in recent years. For some, it’s a kitschy statement, for others it’s a morbid curiosity and for some … well, for some it’s a lifestyle. #mulletlife
In fact, since 2020, the USA Mullet Championships has crowned winners for the best mullets, offering cash prizes and a whole host of bragging rights to the child, teen and adult who sport the ultimate mullet. Say it with me now: “Yeee hawww!”
The child and teen category winners have already been named for the 2022 contest. Prepare to be amazed, impressed and maybe a little mortified.
The top spot in the kid’s division went to Emmitt Bailey of Menomonie, Wisconsin, with his spikey-curly combo mullet. In second place, Epic Orta—yep, his name is Epic—came rolling in from La Joya, Texas, with some tousled, epic ombre action. And finally, William Dale Ramsey of Pataskala, Ohio, came in third. (If that kid doesn’t go by “Billy,” then nothing in this world makes sense anymore.)
It’s the wraparound sunglasses that really bring out the mulletness on all three, isn’t it?
Moving on to the teen division, another Wisconsinite took the top prize. Cayden Kershaw of Wausau barely eked out a win with less than 20 votes separating him from second place. Gotta say, that big feathered action up top perfectly harkens back to the true ’80s mullet. Second place winner Fisher Monds came in a solid, though, representing Florida with those gorgeous sun-tipped curls. And Max Weihbrecht, yet another Wisconsinite (what’s with the mullets, Wisconsin?), came in third.
(Personally, I think it was the aviators that lost it for him. Get that boy a pair of wraparounds—he’s got a bright mullet future ahead of him.)
People are loving the mullet championship updates, not necessarily for the love of the mullet itself but for the sheer entertainment value. Who among us has not stared in awe at a mullet before? Who among us has not encountered a dedicated mullet man and asked the ultimate existential question, “Why?”
“According to some historians, the mullet has been around since at least Ancient Greece, where the style was as much for function as it was for fashion. Cropped hair around the face with longer locks in the back allowed for both visibility and a protective layer of hair for your neck. Homer even described a haircut that sounds eerily familiar in The Iliad: “their forelocks cropped, hair grown long at the backs.” The Greeks weren’t the only ones sporting the mullet, though. There is evidence that Neanderthals and our oldest ancestors would wear this ‘do,’ as well.”
Another fun mullet fact: The name of the hairstyle was actually coined by The Beastie Boys in the 1994 song “Mullet Head.” The term “mullethead,” meaning “a stupid person,” has been around much longer, but the Beastie Boys described the mullet hairstyle in their song: “Number one on the side and don’t touch the back, number six on the top and don’t cut it wack, Jack.” (“Number one” and “number six” referring to the clipper guard sizes on a set of hair shears.) The name stuck, and now here we are nearly three decades later holding national mullet competitions.
The USA Mullet Championships folks actually held a live mullet competition in May 2022 and the video from it is a must-see for reasons I can’t really explain.
The open division is accepting registrations until August 31. We shall be waiting with bated breath to see which adult takes first prize in the USA Mullet Championships.
Verdant Tea has a simple tea challenge: take tea leaves, put them in your favorite mug, pour in hot water and enjoy. No steep-timers, no scales, no worries. Just a simple love for sweet, fresh, aromatic tea leaves. Ones with complex flavors and aftertastes. Seems like an unimaginable thing to do with the old blends that are tucked away in little mesh baggies in the back corners of your cupboard, right? That’s the Verdant Tea difference.
Verdant Tea
Verdant Tea takes a new business model and applies it to an often-outdated industry: By partnering with small farmers and skipping the middlemen, teas that have never left China before can be delivered straight to your door. This new model gives clean, organic, sustainable farming practices an opportunity to flourish.
Every batch of tea is crafted by hand. And that’s why brewing Verdant Tea is no fuss – their farmers already got all of the hard work out of the way so that all you have to do is sit back and savor the goodness that they created. With a healthy, biodiverse landscape, deliberate farming practices and dedicated craft, each of these family farmers delivers a product that’s unlike any tea on the shelves. And that’s because their teas never make it to “shelves” where they become overly dry and stale. Instead, they ship directly to your door so that you can experience and enjoy the incredible flavors of farm-fresh tea leaves.
Verdant Tea was founded in 2011 after David and Lily visited China on a research grant to collect the folklore and tradition of tea. After realizing the true taste difference of tea straight from the farm, they partnered with a tea farmer, He Qingqing, to bring her family’s teas to people all over the world.
Tea has only been growing in Laoshan for a few generations. Before tea, the He Family’s farm barely produced enough crops to feed them, let alone turn a profit. But by partnering with Verdant Tea, the He Family is now able to take risks, like making Laoshan Black tea and Laoshan Oolong – teas that are now becoming internationally famous.
If you’re not sure about Black or Oolong, try tasting true Dragonwell with Mrs. Li or other teas like white jasmine and silver buds yabao. If you’re not sure how to possibly pick, don’t worry, Verdant Tea has you covered. Join their tea of the month club or order a tasting kit so you can try a little bit of everything before you decide what you like (spoiler alert: you’re going to love them all!). Their website also provides in depth descriptions of different flavor profiles so you can feel confident about your choices.
Good tea is made by good people; by farmers that have the skill, craft and commitment to what they do. It’s made by people who own their land and control their entire process with creative freedom. Verdant Tea farmers take their generational knowledge and apply it to every step of the hand-crafted processes.
But don’t just take our word for it, see for yourself and steep up a pot of tea from one of Verdant Tea’s partner tea farmers today!
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