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With St. Patrick’s Day rapidly approaching (March 17th), it’s definitely time to dig into some Irish whiskey. I already grabbed a dozen Irish whiskeys off my shelf and blind tasted them to find the best out there. But that was a little slanted. Can you really blindly taste cheap whiskey against limited edition and very expensive whiskeys and expect the more aged expressions not to dominate? Sadly, no. Craft and time in the barrel are sure to win the day.

This time around, I’m tasting eight affordable Irish whiskeys. I’m also doing it double-blind so I don’t know what’s in play. I simply asked my wife to pick out eight bottles that all cost less than $40 — it’s easy to spot the cheaper stuff thanks to metal twist tops and nothing fancy on the label (like “single barrel” or “limited edition”). She then poured all eight and put the bottles back. I came in a started tasting and taking notes.

The results were actually pretty surprising. Here’s how it shook out.

Part 1: The Taste

Taste 1

Tasting Notes:

There’s a light grain note with a hint of leather jacket, orchard fruit, and “spice” on the nose. The palate is pretty light and touches on orange zest, a hint of vanilla beans, and a sugar cookie sweetness. Beyond that, the sip just kind of disappears on the finish.

Taste 2

Tasting Notes:

There’s a thin maltiness on the nose with a touch of vanilla that’s all dominated by rum-raisin. Old cellar beams with plenty of black mold lead towards a very mild dry tobacco with a hint of “fruit.” The end is short and warm with a hint of dark soil on the finish.

Taste 3

Tasting Notes:

This is warm and malty and bursts with apple Jolly Ranchers on the nose. The palate holds onto that apple candy and adds vanilla and spiced malts with a hint of red berries, sweet caramel, and Honey Nut Cheerios with a line of mineral water.

Taste 4

Tasting Notes:

Lemon citrus, wildflowers, and sweet grains lead towards a dark fruit leather that draws you in (Jameson?). There’s a vanilla and holiday spice mix on the palate with roasted almonds and a touch of wet sweet oak. The finish has this creamy texture that’s damn near chewy (Jameson.) with a final hint of mineral water and grains.

Taste 5

Tasting Notes:

This opens with a chocolate-caramel candy nose that’s touched with old leather and dry straw. The palate is all creamy milk chocolate with a mild mid-palate of dark fruits and light spice. The finish leans into roasted almonds with a grainy spice and a hint more of that chocolate.

Taste 6

Tasting Notes:

The nose opens with pears and vanilla next to new leather and an echo of “oak.” The palate is “woody” in a sense that it’s not distinctly any particular wood while notes of neutral grain spirit mingle with raisins and the plastic bottle that held vanilla extract.

Taste 7

Tasting Notes:

The nose mixes leather and grains with orchard fruits and winter spices. The palate leans into the spicy malts as old pub furniture dominates the palate in a very nostalgia-inducing way. The finish is warm and leans into a vanilla-laced candy bar with mild chocolate and nuts.

Taste 8

Tasting Notes:

A light touch of caramel, vanilla, and almond are dominated by pear on the nose with a hint of oak. The palate has an orange/honey vibe that leads to Almond Joy wrappers and a nutty cinnamon roll.

Part 2: The Ranking

8. Tullamore D.E.W. — Taste 1

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $28

The Whisky:

Tullamore’s entry-point whiskey is a blend of triple distilled grain, malt, and single pot (malt and unmalted barley mash) whiskeys. Those spirits are then aged in a combination of ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks before blending.

Bottom Line:

I’m shocked this came in last. I generally love Tullamore D.E.W. as a table whiskey, especially with some soda water or ginger ale. Alas, here we are. It wasn’t so much as this was thin, there just wasn’t a lot going on to keep my attention or make it memorable.

7. Bushmills The Original — Taste 3

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $27

The Whisky:

This is Bushmill’s classic and original recipe (so to speak). The grain and malt juices are rested in ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks before they’re married, proofed, and bottled.

Bottom Line:

Besides the apple candy, there wasn’t a whole lot going on. This really felt like a whiskey and Coke or whiskey and ginger pour than anything else.

6. Proclamation Blended Irish Whiskey — Taste 6

ABV: 40.7%

Average Price: $36

The Whiskey:

This whiskey is a blend of Irish whiskeys sourced from distilleries all around Ireland. The whiskeys in the mix are mostly aged in ex-bourbon casks with a few barrels of sherry cask-aged whiskey thrown in there too.

Bottom Line:

This faired far better against whiskeys in its price range than against rare bottles of Irish whiskey, which is no surprise. In the end, this felt like a perfectly suitable mixing whiskey.

5. Teeling Small Batch — Taste 2

ABV: 46%

Average Price: $40

The Whiskey:

Teeling was the first distillery to reopen in Dublin after nearly a century of tough times for Irish whiskey. The craft distillery ages its juice in bourbon barrels before transferring that whiskey to Central American rum casks. Those barrels are then batched, proofed, and bottled in Teeling’s big, dark bottle.

Bottom Line:

I kind of had an inkling this was Teeling. I’m not a huge fan of their Small Batch but adore their older and more bespoke releases. I guess that’s why this fell very middle of the road for me today too.

4. Jameson — Taste 4

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $30

The Whiskey:

Jameson is the classic tripled distilled Irish blend. The juice is a blend of single pot and grain whiskey. Those age in oak — primarily ex-bourbon barrels with ex-sherry thrown in too — until they hit that classic sweet spot.

Bottom Line:

That creamy finish really saves this sip. And, yes, I knew it was Jameson. Still, this had a little more depth overall and felt like it could work on the rocks as easily as with some ginger, Sprite, or Coke.

3. Busker Single Grain — Taste 7

ABV: 44.3%

Average Price: $33

The Whiskey:

This grain whiskey is a blend of two casks. The majority of the whiskey was aged in ex-bourbon barrels with a small contingent coming from whiskey aged in Marsala casks from Sicily. Those barrels are blended and then proofed down before bottling.

Bottom Line:

This was pretty damn nice for what it is. There was some depth and it felt like it could be a nice on the rocks sipper but was a little non-specific too. Regardless, this felt like it’s worth the money for something slightly different that’s also perfectly fine.

2. Grace O’Malley — Taste 8

ABV: 46%

Average Price: $38

The Whiskey:

This whiskey begins as barrels of three to 10-year-old whiskeys. Those whiskeys are then aged in a range of barrels from French oak wine casks to ex-bourbon to rum casks. The blend is built from those barrels and then proofed down to a very accessible 92 proof.

Bottom Line:

This also faired far better against Irish whiskeys in its price range. There was a good flavor profile that feels like it’d stand up in a highball with fizzy water or a cocktail. I don’t think I’d pour one on the rocks but I wouldn’t turn one down either. It’s was very solid in the end.

1. Kilbeggan Traditional Irish Whiskey — Taste 5

ABV: 40%

Average Price: $27

The Whiskey:

Kilbeggan is an outlier Irish blend. The whiskey is only distilled twice, instead of the usual three distillations most Irish whiskey goes through. That juice is then aged for over four years in ex-bourbon casks before it’s blended, proofed, and bottled.

Bottom Line:

I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever had this particular expression from Kilbeggan before — I know I had their rye last year. Anyway, it was so unique on the nose and palate thanks to that choco-caramel vibe that it stood out and rose above the rest. That chocolate depth really felt like it’d shine well in a cocktail or maybe as a shot with a Guinness back.

Part 3: Final Thoughts

Kilbeggan came out of nowhere on this tasting. With so many whiskeys carrying a very non-descript “grain,” “fruit,” and “wood” note, it stood out for having truly unique flavor notes. But let’s not go crazy, it was still obviously a very inexpensive whiskey that’s mostly made for mixing and on the rocks pours in a pinch. It’s not life-changing.

Overall, I expected Bushmills, Tullamore, and Jameson to dominate and they… just didn’t. They were fine but really felt like mixers all around. I’d say the Grace O’Mally and Busker were big surprises too. They’re fairly new to me (in the grand scheme of things) and are perfectly suitable for mixing and shooting your way through another Saint Patrick’s Day.

Drake is unloading some of his property and looks to make a tidy sum, according to a new report from TMZ. He recently listed his Hidden Hills mansion — which he affectionately calls the “YOLO Estate” — for $14.8 million. For that amount, the buyer will be getting full-sized basketball and tennis courts, a swimming pool (complete with a spa grotto and water slide), a theater that seats 25, a horse stable, and 12,500 square feet of space. He’s also selling two adjacent properties for a grand total of $22.2 million.

Complex notes that the impetus for Drake’s home sale is likely his recent purchase of a new home in Los Angeles’ Beverly Crest neighborhood, which was reported in Architectural Digest. Apparently, Drake is buying English singer Robbie Williams’ home, which despite going unlisted is estimated at $50 million. It’s a good 7,000 square feet larger than the YOLO Estate, although according to Complex, it’s still much smaller than his mansion in Toronto, which is a whopping 50,000 square feet.

Although it wasn’t reported as an official reason for his move, it’ll likely also be nice to possibly throw off Drake’s stalker, who showed up at the Hidden Hills house multiple times looking for him, even going so far as to sneak in and steal some of his drinks. He’s since filed a restraining order — after she tried to have one filed against him first — but perhaps moving house will provide an added layer of security along with all that extra space.

When Dawn Staley signed a historic seven-year, $22.4 million contract last fall to stay on as the head women’s basketball coach at South Carolina, to many in women’s sports, it was a sign of hope in an industry where there isn’t always a lot of it. Not only because it was a massive reward for what has been massive success in the program, but because it drew Staley’s salary even with the men’s head coach at the university.

During negotiations, Staley had to make the case to South Carolina leadership that she had achieved enough to deserve the deal. The accolades speak for themselves — a National Championship in 2017 and three Final Fours — but Staley struggled to find comparisons for her performance in the modern game.

“What is my market value?” she asked herself and the university. “I’m a Black woman, highly successful in my profession. There aren’t many Black women who are as successful as I am in this profession. There are only either white women or white men who have had the type of success or better. So what is my fair value? What is it? Where is it?”

While Staley stands impressively atop her sport today, nearly 30 years ago, another pioneer asked herself similar questions in a similar situation. A young coach named C. Vivian Stringer, on the heels of a 1993 Final Four appearance at the University of Iowa, agreed to an extension that pulled her equal to the men’s basketball coach at the time, Tom Davis.

“I’m so grateful of my brother, Tim, who was my representative at the time, who told me I had matched the same amount of money as (Davis),” says Stringer now. “It bothers me now to (think), have we gone backward?”

Telling the story this way, pay equity among women’s basketball coaches does seem to have lost its momentum. But the same can be said of the fight for equity in sport for women across time. Billie Jean King and the Original Nine took a stand for equal tournament payouts — then Venus Williams did the same. And just as Stringer and Staley sought salaries equal to their counterparts in the men’s game, Becky Hammon left the NBA last year to reset the market for WNBA head coach salaries. The U.S. Women’s National Team soccer stars have been fighting for equal pay for so long they may as well have their own chapter in this history.

Staley didn’t negotiate this new deal just for her bank account. She did it to “strike when the iron was hot” and take a leap forward in this fight rather than baby steps.

“It’s a long, drawn-out fight that will continue, but I hope that I lend a ray of hope to continue to fight and be able to risk it all,” she says. “That’s what it takes in order for you to have a groundbreaking headline. Because everybody puts the money up there. I want to put the fight (in the headline). It was a fight. That should be the headline.”

The USWNT settled last month for $24 million, but the deal does not include back pay for past players. We are approaching the anniversary of the TikTok from Oregon star Sedona Prince that blew open the economic disparity between the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments. A WNBA team last fall was reportedly fined half a million dollars for chartering flights for its players. The fight continues.

That’s why Staley, Stringer and a roster of women’s hoops stars that spans generations, are coming together for a new “Retire Inequality” campaign through TIAA that takes aim directly at one key ramification of the gendered disparities in sports and across American society.

The campaign includes the launch of a new, more stable and simple TIAA retirement account, a renewed emphasis on retirement in TIAA’s lobbying efforts, and keynote sponsorship by TIAA of the Women’s Sports Foundation Equity Project.

“We now know that women have 30 percent less money in retirement, and that will continue to lag and women can’t retire in the same way that men have been able to,” Stringer says.

Aside from this partnership, both Staley and Stringer, who is away from her job as head coach at Rutgers for the second straight season for personal reasons, say the best thing they can do is keep excelling and speaking out. As perhaps the most recognizable women’s basketball coach today, Staley is the leader that Stringer and others look to.

“I’m proud of Dawn. She’s making that and has made the case for herself,” Stringer says. “That will allow any female and any Black female to show the need to have equality in their pay. With that said, Dawn is the first person that steps up on this side of it, and it began some time ago. It sets the stage for us to close the gender gap, and I’m hoping that everybody that’s in control of women’s pay will realize that.”

With partners in this campaign like Prince and Dallas Wings star Arike Ogunbowale, TIAA is using a multi-generational outreach campaign and the 50th anniversary of Title IX to show how much work there is still to be done. Staley sits on Stringer’s shoulders; Ogunbowale sits on Staley’s. As has long been the case in women’s sports, even the most assertive advocates for equity in pay, working conditions, and respect know strength is in numbers.

Staley hopes her new contract can set a baseline for how excellence in coaching should be rewarded in women’s basketball, and become another domino toward true financial equity for women, from entry level to retirement.

Aaron Dessner has earned himself some clout in the pop sphere in recent years thanks to his work on Taylor Swift’s new albums; He’s collaborated with her on Folklore, Evermore, Fearless (Taylor’s Version), and Red (Taylor’s Version). He’s earned the favor of at least one Swift-adjacent music superstar, too, as Ed Sheeran says he and Dessner have been working together.

Sheeran is in the midst of a legal copyright battle over “Shape Of You,” and during the trial, Sheeran noted (according to BBC News reporter Mark Savage) that he and Dessner recently wrote 25 songs together in the span of a week.

BBC reports songwriters Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue say the hook of Sheeran’s “Shape Of You” is strikingly similar to part of “Oh Why,” which Chokri released as Sami Switch in 2015. The pair’s lawyer claimed Sheeran “borrows ideas and throws them into his songs, sometimes he will acknowledge it but sometimes he won’t.”

For his part, Sheeran denied he’s a “magpie” who incorporates the work of others without acknowledgement. He pointed out that he regularly shares credit with lesser-known artists, like he did on recent tunes “Shivers” and “Visiting Hours.”

Ed Sheeran is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Whether he’s being generous to his co-workers, supporting Tibet, or acting respectful around his fans, Keanu Reeves seems like a certified Good Dude. Here’s another We Should All Be More Like Keanu story for the collection. A recent Ask Reddit prompt wondered, “What’s something a famous person has done that just completely changed how you viewed them?” The whole thread is worth a read — some replies are positive, like Danny Devito and Rhea Pearlman taking care of Mara Wilson while her mother was battling breast cancer during the filming of Matilda, while others are negative, like the comment that simply reads, “Tom Cruise – Scientology.” But my favorite (and the one that went viral thanks to Goodable) has to do with The Matrix star.

“My grandmother had a crush on Keanu Reeves because he reminded her of my grandfather when he was young. Saw all his stuff, from Bill and Ted to the Matrix,” afdc92 wrote. “She had a stroke in her early 70s and was pretty much housebound for the last 10 years of her life, so watching movies was her main hobby, and became almost like friends to her because she so rarely got to see any of her own.”

They continued:

Not too long after the Matrix came out my uncle was in LA for business and was eating at a really swanky restaurant when Keanu came in with a woman. When he finished his meal my uncle came up to their table and said “I don’t usually do this, but I just wanted you to know that my 80-year-old mother loves you and has seen all of your movies. You remind her of my dad.” He said Keanu asked if he had a cell phone on him and when he confirmed that he did, he said “Give her a call, I want to talk to her.” He spoke with my grandmother for several minutes and it absolutely made her year. She was so isolated and his genuine kindness to her and interest in her showed what a truly amazing man he is.

Could the story be fake, considering it’s from some random person on Reddit? Of course. But I believe it to be true, because it’s absolutely something Keanu Reeves would do. Or as another Redditor put it, “There is virtually no positive story I would not instantly believe about Keanu Reeves.”

(Via Reddit)

When we asked Prince Daddy And The Hyena vocalist/guitarist Kory Gregory to describe his music in four words, he answered, “Loud, quiet, fast, slow.” In a similarly nonsensical fashion, the press release for their new song “A Random Exercise In Impermanence (The Collector)” says it is recommended if you like “bootleg Coldplay” or “if Alex G covered Green Day songs.” This is all to say that the Albany, NY-based four-piece has a sound that cannot be summed up in a normal way.

This new relentlessly exhilarating track, “A Random Exercise in Impermanence (The Collector),” comes from their just-announced forthcoming self-titled album, out this spring. It focuses on Gregory’s fear of death, which was worsened by a van accident that happened in 2018.

“I think the record as a whole, as a journey, feels bittersweet and hopeful in a way,” Gregory stated, and this single vividly showcases this tension of darkness and light. While his panicked yells are communicating stories of anxiety and cynicism, the instruments build an enveloping, optimistic landscape that’s as entertaining as a roller coaster.

Watch the video for “A Random Exercise in Impermanence (The Collector)” above, and check out the album art and tracklist for Prince Daddy And The Hyena below.

1. “Adore The Sun”
2. “A Random Exercise In Impermanence (The Collector)”
3. “Jesus F*cking Christ”
4. “Something Special”
5. “El Dorado”
6. “Hollow, As You Figured”
7. “Curly Q”
8. “Keep Up That Talk”
9. “Shoelaces”
10. “In Just One Piece”
11. “Discount Assisted Living”
12. “Black Mold”
13. “Baby Blue”

Prince Daddy And The Hyena is out 4/15 via Pure Noise Records. Pre-order it here.

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

During the LA stop at his Justice World Tour last night, Justin Bieber brought out Leon Bridges for a surprise performance. The Fort Worth, Texas-native then proceeded to perform “River” from his 2015 debut album, Coming Home.

Bridges released his most recent album, Gold-Diggers Sound, last July, which featured prominent production by Ricky Reed. Last month, he teamed up with fellow Texas musical trio Khruangbin for a collaborative EP called Texas Moon.

“Being under ‘the machine,’ you kind of have to adhere to whatever the label’s ideas are or whatever producer you’re working with,“ Bridges said of the EP in our cover story last month. “And whenever I’m doing that it’s more polished, but it’s still a vibe. Although I think my collaboration with Khruangbin is really where my heart is. I love how raw our sound is.”

Last night’s LA show was the first of two shows Bieber has planned at Crypto.com Arena on his Justice World Tour, which will take the Grammy-nominated “Peaches” singer across North America through June. Bridges is set to kick off a tour next month in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before making apperances at Hangout Festival and Glastonbury this summer.

Bieber announced last month that he would partner with Propeller and Live Free to local and national social justice organizations, including the REFORM Alliance, National Resources Defense Council, Fund For Guaranteed Income, and Last Prisoner Project.

Ever since Russia launched its horrific attack on Ukraine, Donald Trump—when he’s not not heaping praise on “smart” and “savvy” Vladimir Putin—has repeatedly claimed that the war between these two countries “would never have happened” if he had been in charge (a comment that has been echoed by Nikki Haley and others in his administration). And it’s a good thing he didn’t win his reelection bid, because—as Seth Meyers shared—the former president’s suggestions for how he would be dealing with the current war between Russia and Ukraine are like something out of a Looney Tunes cartoon.

On Monday night, Meyers reminded viewers just how close we came to having an ex-reality show star sitting in the Oval Office at this pivotal moment in world history. But the Late Night host doesn’t even need to try to imagine what Trump’s response to the Russia-Ukraine situation would be, as Trump—who Meyers calls a “criminal dingus”—has vocally volunteered his suggestions… all without anyone even asking. And his latest idea might be one of his most bonkers—not to mention unethical, illegal, and all the other ‘un’s—yet. Even Meyers barely had words for it:

“Look, we came very close—very close—to a world where Trump was still in charge during Russia’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine, which is scary for many reasons. One of which is Trump keeps giving us a glimpse as to how he would have responded. And, as usual, it has that unique Trump blend of being both terrifying and incredibly stupid at the same time.

According to The Washington Post, ‘Trump mused Saturday to the GOP’s top donors that the United States should label its F-22 planes with the Chinese flag and ‘bomb the sh*t out of Russia. And then we say China did it; we didn’t do it, China did it. And then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch.’”

And holy sh*t, this man had the nuclear codes! For four years! And is hoping to have them again!

Meyers very well may have cracked the secret to where Trump’s utterly buffoonish ideas come from he suggested that the one-time commander-in-chief (!) “definitely gets his ideas from cartoon” and that his “Blame it on China!” approach “is a slightly stupider version of Bugs Bunny dressing up as a sexy lady to distract Elmer Fudd.”

You can watch the full clip above.

DMZ is primed to be the next critically-acclaimed DC Comics show. HBO Max has revealed the first trailer for the Ava DuVernay-produced series, which features Rosario Dawson as Alma, a medic desperately searching for her son across a dystopian New York City that’s been ravaged by the Second Civil War. As the trailer shows, Alma’s search will be no easy task as she deals with various factions that have taken control of the city. There’s also the issue of Benjamin Bratt’s Dawson to contend with.

Based on the Vertigo/DC Comics series of the same name, DMZ will be a four part series that starts streaming in its entirety later this month, which should make binge-watchers very happy. Joining Peacemaker and Doom Patrol, DMZ certainly looks like it has the makings of the next DC Comics hit as the company continues a string of much needed wins thanks to the recently released The Batman and the aforementioned John Cena show.

That said, DMZ will have its work cut out for it. Y: The Last Man, the last Vertigo adaptation set in a dystopian word did not last long, so it’ll be interesting to see if DMZ connects with audiences where Y: The Last Man didn’t.

Here’s the official synopsis:

DMZ leaps off the pages of the acclaimed DC graphic novel into the visual landscape of a dangerous and distorted Manhattan as one woman navigates a demilitarized zone in a harrowing quest to find her lost son.

DMZ starts streaming March 17 on HBO Max

Last year, Lucy Dacus released her third studio album Home Video, which featured the fan-favorite deep-cut “Thumbs” and the bittersweet single “Hot & Heavy.” Last month, just in time for Valentine’s Day, she returned with the new song “Kissing Lessons,” which, at first, was not available on streaming services but only through an actual telephone call because of her knack for creative marketing (before she officially unveiled “Thumbs,” she mailed fans VHS tapes with the track on it).

She brought “Kissing Lessons” to Late Night With Seth Meyers last night. She sings the wholesome story of a first kiss: “Rachel was a year older / When I was in the second grade / I thought she might know everything / I took her word like a golden ring / I asked her how to win my man / And she said, ‘I know just the thing’ / Gave me lipgloss and a hair toss / And, after school, a lesson in kissing.”

She is also standing, which is notable (and exciting!) because she’s been performing her set on tour while laying on a couch due to two herniated discs (“I am telling myself I am punk for this please do not say otherwise I’m fragile,” she had said about that arrangement.)

Watch her performance of “Kissing Lessons” above.