Ever since Zack Snyder’s Justice League was fast-tracked to become a reality thanks to an aggressive fan campaign, there has been a similar movement pushing for the release of David Ayer‘s original version of Suicide Squad a.k.a. the Ayer Cut. Ayer has been a vocal supporter of #ReleaseTheAyerCut, and now, Jared Leto is getting in on the act. The actor played a divisive version of the Joker, who had a surprisingly small presence in the theatrical cut of Suicide Squad, and Ayer has recently been teasing that Leto “killed it” in the unseen footage.
While attending the Los Angeles premiere of House of Gucci on Thursday night, Leto was asked about #ReleaseTheAyerCut and offered his full support.
“Absolutely,” Leto told Variety. “Why not? Why wouldn’t they? That’s what streaming’s for, right?”
Leto has also been recently setting the record straight about his “method acting” on the set of Suicide Squad. In the lead-up to the film’s release, there were reports that he got very into being the Joker on set by sending used condoms to cast mates Margot Robbie and Will Smith. However, Leto now claims those stories were blown way out of proportion and everything was “given with a spirit of fun and adventure and received with laughter, fun, and adventure.”
“I’m playing a guy called the Joker, it’s okay to play some jokes,” Leto told Entertainment Weekly. “Nothing ever crossed any lines, and it’s not up to other people on the internet to create those lines.”
While you were sleeping, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (who loves gavels) broke the speech for longest speech on the House floor. For 8 hours and 33 minutes, McCarthy did his best to prevent a vote on the Build Back Better package, which he labeled the “single most reckless and irresponsible spending bill in our nation’s history.” In doing so, he literally rambled all night long (even longer than an 8-hour Nancy Pelosi speech that previously held the record) and didn’t finish until after 5:00 am on Friday morning. All of this seems like a waste of time (and rest) for nothing, since the vote will happen on Friday anyway, and the speech was truly a sleep-deprived, nonsensical nightmare, in which McCarthy rambled about…. fentanyl?
Yes. Here are some highlights because there’s no way you wanna invest 8 hours in a speech (any speech), period.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tells a bizarre story in which he claims a Chinese general told his “friend in the Senate” that “you’re weak, America, because you believe in God, and you take fentanyl.”
Nice of @MeidasTouch to compile a highlight reel of Kevin McCarthy’s speech for those of us that went to sleep like normal people pic.twitter.com/hEEyHQruxi
Well, a pair of Democrats coped by delivering commentary “live from the cloak room.” Leading the charge would be Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who broadcast an Instagram Live, in which she and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) dragged McCarthy for saying nothing of importance for 8+ hours. Their video went viral with over 300,000 views overnight and counting. Within the video, AOC and Raskin referred to McCarthy as a failure at being an “evil genius” and more of an “evil… imbecile,” and AOC tweeted a clip as well.
Below, AOC (who called the speech “one of the lowest quality speeches” that she’s ever witnessed) referred to the GOP members who flanked McCarthy as “all these Agent Smiths in the background,” which she sarcastically referred to as “exhibiting the stunning diversity of the Republican party.” Her Twitter caption? “If I have to suffer through Kevin McCarthy’s speech so can you.”
Raskin also took to Twitter, mid-speech, to declare, “It is a feat of epic proportions to speak for four hours straight and not produce a single memorable phrase, original insight or even a joke.” He added, “Never in the field of human conflict were so many words listened to by so few people.”
It is a feat of epic proportions to speak for four hours straight and not produce a single memorable phrase, original insight or even a joke.
McCarthy thinks he is a wit but so far he has proved he is only half right.
And as Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko wrote on Twitter, “It’s exhausting watching Kevin McCarthy paint with his own feces publicly.” Well, McCarthy’s efforts did nothing but make everyone sleepy. The House will meet for a Friday vote on the Build Back Better package.
It’s exhausting watching Kevin McCarthy paint with his own feces publicly. I hope everyone has a good night.
Steve Hartlett’s close friends would likely recognize a song named “Land Of Steve-O” as a cry for help. “When I’m at my darkest, I feel I’m the most sarcastic, or funniest,” the Ovlov frontman concedes and the tracklist of Buds sure makes it seem like a funny album on first glance — references to Jackass and Spirited Away, a vaguely Strokes-y song called “Strokes,” another one titled “Moron Pt. 2,” and its closer, “Feel The Pain,” which for my money, is probably the funniest song title of 2021. Ovlov has recently been compared to an inside joke shared by an intensely vocal minority and they’ll know why “Feel The Pain” is really fucking funny — it’s the most popular song of the band Ovlov has been compared to more than any other. Imagine if Greta Van Fleet were self-aware enough to make an original song called “Stairway To Heaven.”
Hartlett was very intentional with “Feel The Pain,” though it’s not exactly a tribute to Dinosaur Jr. In fact, it’s partially about how much he came to hate J. Mascis without ever meeting him. Before Hartlett explains how that came to pass, he warns, “I don’t know if I’ve told anyone this story before,” and then for about 10 straight minutes, recalls how a combination of financial desperation, heavy drug usage, social isolation and the persuasion of a notorious con artist resulted in him collaborating with Dinosaur Jr. guitarist Murph on a bogus “Hare Krishna rock album.” We’ll get to that in a bit.
Ovlov’s cryptic lyricism belies Hartlett’s actual communication style — effusive, at times uncontrollable in its tangential nature. “I’ve made about a thousand friends trying to have a conversation with anyone who came up to me after a show,” he concedes. “But then it got to a point where I couldn’t do that with everyone and then I started ghosting people closest to me.” Betraying his roots as a kid that was only allowed to buy records at the Christian bookstore, Hartlett jokes, “I always tried as hard as I could to be like what I hoped Switchfoot would be if I walked up to them.”
We talk for nearly an hour and a half without getting much into the songs of Buds themselves, but rather everything occupying Hartlett’s mind while writing it — processing his disconnection from the world during the pandemic, the nature of addiction, the purpose of creativity, and the splintering of the indie rock community that sustained Ovlov and vice versa throughout the past decade. Even the album title itself is a double entendre, a reference to Harlett’s lyrical themes of friends loved and lost or just to marijuana, the one narcotic that he’s allowed since he quit drinking in January of 2020. Opener “Baby Shea” alludes to Shea Stadium, the Brooklyn DIY institution that shut down in 2017 despite a successful Kickstarter campaign to cover renovation costs. The end was nigh only a few months earlier, as the New York police and fire departments shut down an Ovlov/Sinai Vessel show at Shea without much explanation.
But for all of its baggage, Buds is a casual listen — eight tastefully tattered songs breezing by in less than a half-hour, largely shorn of the blown-out fuzziness that kept Ovlov’s pop sensibilities largely theoretical. In fact, Hartlett calls Buds their Green Album, with its predecessors am and Tru respectively representing the Blue Album and Pinkerton — their seminal debut and its rawer, darker successor. As with most of their peers in New England – most notably Pile, Krill, and Speedy Ortiz – Ovlov are known as much for their influence than their actual music itself. In the wake of am, producer and engineer Michael John Thomas III would get bombarded by local bands who wanted their album to sound like Ovlov, and both he and Hartlett would softly dissuade them from even trying. Not because Hartlett has an unreasonably high opinion of his work — rather, “when we were making am, we were smoking so much weed that neither of us remember a thing.”
This was mostly how Harlett operated for most of the past decade. An interview regarding one of his side projects was titled “The Myriad Myths Of Stove’s Steve Harlett: A Drunken Account” — “at no point are we sober,” the author states. And it begins to explain how “Feel the Pain” came to pass. “There was this Hare Krishna monk who’s a big fan of Speedy [Ortiz] and Ovlov and Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr., and for all I know, that’s all the rock music he listens to,” Hartlett guesses. He initially infiltrated this scene by offering Speedy Ortiz a place to stay while they were on tour with Grass Is Green — each member was allotted an empty bedroom in an unfurnished mansion. Matt Robidoux was playing guitar for Speedy Ortiz at the time and he was later recruited, along with Hartlett, Murph, and Grass Is Green’s Andy Chervenak to record a rock album written nearly in full by the con artist/monk. “But Murph was doing it, so that alone made it feel worthwhile.” He picked up the guitar for what I think was the first time to transmit the message of Krishna through slacker grunge,” according to Robidoux. “My friend who owned a record store put the LP on display with the review ‘a masterpiece in dogshit’.”
Hartlett began to realize he was being exploited when he was asked to participate in a photoshoot and subsequent marketing for the album, of which 1000 copies were supposedly pressed, with a “thick yoga book that warped the record sometimes,” according to Robidoux. While the whole operation should’ve appeared supremely sketchy from the start, “I was drinking a lot, doing any kind of drug…he paid me everything in advance and I really needed the money,” Hartlett sighs. “But Murph was doing it, so that alone made it feel worthwhile.”
During that time, Harlett says Murph would call him every day, mostly to vent about what it was like to be in Dinosaur Jr. This doesn’t really feel like an airing out of personal business — J. Mascis’ relationship with other members of Dinosaur Jr. is very much a matter of public record. And the first line, and only the first line — “you could not feel the pain” — is addressed to Mascis. “It’s me saying, ‘I don’t think you could handle what Murph has been through,’” Hartlett states, though he finds himself in a much more ambivalent space now. “One of my biggest fears is someone judging me based on one of my old friends telling them all about me, rather than me telling them myself,” Hartlett admits. “I was probably more of an asshole than he was at my age.”
As his communication with the much older Murph began to wane, Hartlett began to recognize that he wasn’t in the best position to reciprocate in a mature friendship. He cops to abusing heroin “off and on from 20 to 26,” only stopping after his best friend died in 2016 from a fentanyl overdose. “Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody that died from fentanyl from 2016-2017, and that’s also why so many of these people from that era are dead or sober.”
Compared to past Ovlov records, Buds operates from a much more abstemious perspective, though it’s all relative. “I still drink way too much coffee to the point where my friends have asked me, ‘are you doing adderall again?,’” Hartlett admits. “Because I used to abuse the fuck out of adderall.” From an objective remove, Hartlett’s life has been completely upended — “Baby Shea” is dually inspired by the ending of Shea Stadium and the beginning of a romantic relationship that recently ended after three years (“I moved back to my parents’ house and I think I did acid almost every day”). Prior to the pandemic, Hartlett was a seasonal worker at the local Costco; he enjoyed being outdoors and having little interaction with people. But in early 2020, he quit after being unable to tell the difference between a panic attack and COVID symptoms. Hartlett was considering relocating to Nashville until a room opened up for him back in Connecticut, and he hopped on a Greyhound back to New England — after growing up with five siblings and spending his 20s knocking around in Brooklyn’s indie rock scene, this is the first time he’s had a room to himself. And in this space, Hartlett has found himself questioning what he really wants out of Ovlov, and really, life itself.
The pandemic was unquestionably a net loss for indie rock, devastating bands reliant on touring as a primary source of income or even just a loss leader to keep their name in the conversation. But while plenty of younger bands wanted to use 2020 as an opportunity to completely rethink the economic model of touring, I often found it was the artists who were pushing past 30 that were quietly thankful that they didn’t have the option of leaving behind their jobs and relationships to barely break even on the road.
Both Hartlett’s father and grandfather were performers who suffered from anxiety, and “they had to have at least two drinks before they went on stage,” Harlett recalls. “And knowing that as a 14 year old, I’m like, ‘I guess that’s part of the show.’” But now that Hartlett has accessed a rare moment of stability, he has a greater sense of clarity in addressing what’s troubled him as the frontman for a beloved, if not lucrative, indie rock band – does it make sense to continue writing Ovlov songs when he feels most at ease as a hired gun or doing covers? Are the stresses of touring worth the fleeting adulation or human connection? Is it possible for Ovlov to go from one record to the next without breaking up?
“I need to make an actual decision [about our future] because it’s gonna be too late and people aren’t really gonna give a shit about us,” Harlett worries, regardless of how many Ovlov diehards have branded the band name on their skin. “I’m amazed people do, and I also want to remind myself that it’s not gonna be like this forever. It can be, but I need to be ready for it to not be this way.”
Buds is out today via Exploding In Sound. Get it here.
Willow took a risk in pivoting to a more pop-punk sound, but she quickly proved she knows how to excel in the space with singles like “Transparent Soul.” She got Travis Barker to join her on the track, and now she’s added another collaborator to is, as Kid Cudi hops on a new remix that was shared today.
On the track, Cudi gets his own verse, which mirrors the themes of the original lyrics: “”I know you’re not my enemy / In my world, there’s moments seeing through the different lies / It’s all of diminishing / But come on, you know that I’mma try to make it right.”
Willow says of the remix, “I am so grateful for this song because it was created during such an introspective time during quarantine. The solitude allowed me to introspect and really let go of the insecurities I had about making a project in this genre. I am humbled and grateful that Kid Cudi is now able to bring his magic to this remix.”
She previously told Rolling Stone the song was inspired by a quote from Hindu guru Radhanath Swami: “It is said that a saintly person is so pure that he or she acts like a spotless mirror. When we come in the presence of such a mirror-like soul, we can see both the beauty and ugliness of our inner life.” She added, “I read that quote, and it really spoke to me, and that’s kind of how the idea of this song came to be.”
Congressman Paul Gosar (R- AZ) was censured earlier this week for his disturbing decision to share an anime video featuring him brutally murdering both President Joe Biden and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D- NY). While his most batsh*t colleagues have come to his defense—including Andy Biggs, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, and Lauren Boebert—Gosar’s own family has been on Team AOC.
Earlier this month, Jennifer Gosar—the youngest of Paul’s nine siblings—spoke with MSNBC and called her brother a “sociopath.” As Mediaite reports, Gosar was interviewed by Andrew Wilkow on Thursday for his The Wilkow Majority show on SiriusXM, and says he has no idea why the majority of his siblings hate his guts. Clearly it’s a triggering topic for the beleaguered congressman, as he was the one who sort of brought it up.
When Wilkow asked about the AOC video and whether he would consider taking it down, Gosar said that he “absolutely” would. “I’m not here for that,” Gosar continued. “I don’t espouse violence, I don’t espouse harming anybody, whether it be a member of Congress, whether it be a President of the United States, whether it be my own brothers and sisters.”
While sharing a video of yourself brutally killing two of your colleagues might read as espousing violence to some people, it was the last part of Gosar’s comment—where he mentioned his “own brothers and sisters”—that really got the old man going:
“I’ve got seven siblings that are horrific to me. I mean, they’ve done everything. They’ve called me every name in the book, and yet I have done nothing, nothing to them at all. I have done nothing irrational. I’ve done nothing physically. I’ve never harmed them. I’ve never done anything. So that should tell you the caliber of the person you’re talking to.”
It’s not the first time one or many of Gosar’s siblings have spoken out against him publicly. In 2018, two of his sisters—both health care workers—spoke up against their brother while six of his siblings endorsed his opponent; they did the same again in 2018 and 2020. And just yesterday, Tim Gosar told CBS News that his brother, a noted conspiracy theorist who reportedly has ties to hate groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, should be expelled from Congress.
Thanksgiving dinner should be fun with the Gosar family.
“The famous couple enlisted the help of party planners Wife of the Party to construct the event, and transform the couple’s California home to look like the show’s set,” the New York Postreported. “The event featured a maze staircase, bunk beds, and large piggy banks stuffed with cash.” One winner even went home with “a flight to Napa and dinner for two at French Laundry,” a famous California restaurant. Squid Game is about impoverished people playing a literal game of life or death to win 45.6 billion won (or $38 million), but here was Teigen and her rich friends missing the point of the show with an ostentatious and wildly expensive reenactment. It’s the Parasite tweet all over again.
Teigen called the party “absolutely epic,” but others disagreed.
the simply unmatched irony of john legend and chrissy teigen hosting a squid game party for all their rich celeb friends >>> pic.twitter.com/UdCj80li0l
Who do you think missed the point more: Kylie Jenner and her Handmaid’s Tale party or Chrissy Teigen with her Squid Game party? pic.twitter.com/BUJVLXFGsZ
Yknow what, I’m tired of being self aware and trying to live a judgment free life. I wish to be as ignorant as Chrissy Teigen hosting a Squid Game party with her rich LA friends.
no longer worried about my personal abilities in textual analysis because at least i’m not chrissy teigen doing squid game with her rich celebrity friends because she thinks she’s sae-byeok and not one of the gross rich american VIPs betting on the murder games
Usually I’m a fan of Chrissy Teigen but there’s something super fucked up and weird about spending the weekend cosplaying Squid Game with your incredibly rich friends.
Taking personal offense at the complete lack of self awareness Chrissy Teigen must have in order to throw a Squid Game-themed party where she watches her rich friends ‘fight to the death’. The commentary just writes itself…
In 2019, Jimmy Kimmel teamed up with TV legend Norman Lear to create Live In Front of a Studio Audience, in which a bunch of A-list celebrities recreated classic sitcom episodes from the ‘70s. They kicked it off with reenactments of All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and Good Times, and won two Emmy Awards for their efforts. Now, as noted by The Hollywood Reporter, they’re coming back for a one-night live event featuring episodes of ’80s family sitcom classics Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life.
Kimmel announced the event on Thursday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live and teased that Kevin Hart will be playing the role of Arnold “Whatchu talking ’bout, Willis?” Drummond (originally played by Gary Coleman), while Damon Wayans will play the aforementioned Willis (Todd Bridges’ part), with John Lithgow as their adoptive dad. The Handmaid’s Tale’s Ann Dowd will take over for Charlotte Rae for The Facts of Life, while who will be playing the girls of Eastland is yet to be announced.
“Other than with my family, there’s no place I’d rather be in my 100th year than on a soundstage at Sony with these glorious actors reliving what our company had produced all those years ago and sharing it with the millions of viewers who could use a little laughter,” Lear, who celebrated his 99th year on this planet on July 27, said in a statement.
Live In Front of a Studio Audience will air on ABC on December 7, 2021.
For weeks, crucifix-loving pillow magnate Mike Lindell has been teasing his “historic” interview with Donald “I’m Wearing a Tuxedo for No Discernible Reason” Trump, and this week it finally aired. While it will surely be remembered by all those who witnessed even snippets of it, it’s probably not for the reasons Lindell hoped. On Thursday night, Jimmy Kimmel had a few things to say about the pre-taped interview, which has the production quality of a homemade ‘80s sex tape with none of the charm:
“Mike Lindell, the MyPillow Guy, has been licking master’s butt again. The Pillow Man scored a one-on-one interview with the man who will eventually bankrupt him. Lindell sat down with Trump for 36 rambling minutes last night, it was a quite a sit-down. It was like watching a ventriloquist get interviewed by his dummy.”
Kimmel wasn’t about to subject his audience to the entire Q&A, which was heavy on the A, but he did share some highlights which basically consisted of Trump performing some of his most famous hits, including talking about the border wall, the rigged election, and Obama. Lindell, meanwhile, sat across the table, nodded, and responded “mmm-hmmm” in agreement to everything Trump said.
Kimmel, of course, wasn’t about to let Trump’s formal attire go without comment. “Look at these guys, it’s like Trump is interviewing for the concierge job at the airport Radisson,” he wryly observed, noting that “Tuxedo Trump squeezed this interview in between raids on the fondue fountain at Mar-a-Lago.”
The Jimmy Kimmel Live host went on to note that “Mike Lindell went through every one of his debunked claims of election fraud and the president just ate it up and thanked Mike with a bigly compliment: ‘You are a fighter and I’ll tell you, someday, this country, I really believe someday this country’s going to be very appreciative of what you’ve done.’”
If you just can’t get enough Lindell in your life, Kimmel announced that on Black Friday, the Pillow Man will be hosting “a 96-hour webcast, which Kimmel has dubbed The Mike Lindell Moronathon, “during which he promises to file a lawsuit that will overturn the results of the 2020 election.” Which is something we can all be thankful for.
You can watch the full clip above, beginning around the 2:00 mark.
At long last, Adele’s new album 30 is out now. Naturally, given how long fans have been waiting for this project, people are really talking about it this morning, so much so that it’s the top-trending topic on Twitter as of this post. A lot of the conversation is about “Woman Like Me,” an album highlight that sees Adele in diss track mode.
Adele recently spoke about the track with Rolling Stone, who called it “a diss song through and through.” Adele revealed the track was about a relationship she had after her divorce and said, “Even though I’m directing all the things I’m saying at someone else, they’re also things I’ve learned on this journey. The storyline of what I’m saying, I wouldn’t have been able to write before because it was something that I was experiencing myself.”
She sings on the chorus, “Complacency is the worst trait to have, are you crazy? / You ain’t never had, ain’t never had a woman like me / It is so sad a man like you could be so lazy / Consistency is the gift to give for free and it is key / to ever keep, to ever keep a woman like me.”
Reactions to the track were bountiful, with one person summarizing a common sentiment by calling the song “the best yet classiest diss track we’ll see this decade.”
Listen to “Woman Like Me” above and check out some reactions below.
Congrats to Adele for Woman Like Me, the best yet classiest diss track we’ll see this decade. #Adele30
“I put my heart on the line for the very first time because you asked me to and now you’ve gone and changed your mind but loving you was a breakthrough I saw what my heart can really do now some other man will get the love I have for you” #Adele30#WomanLikeMepic.twitter.com/5bJkjFXrqf
Adele: “Are you crazy? You ain’t never had a woman like me. It is so sad a man likе you could be so lazy. Consistency is for free, and it is key, to keep a woman like me”
Finding the best gift for the budding home bartender in your life isn’t always an easy task. There’s a lot of crap out there, from thin tin cocktail shakers to cocktail “mixes” that add sugar and not much else to your base spirit. This year, let’s go a little bit bigger and better with our gifts for the whiskey, gin, and vodka enthusiasts in our lives. Let’s show some love to our favorite cocktail drinkers, too.
We’ve put together a list of some seriously good tools and booze that we like to use and are thrilled to recommend. This is a mix of great box sets of whiskey, high-quality bar tools, experiences, and even some serious swag for going out on the town and hitting up a bar or two.
Hopefully, the ten gifts below will be just right for that cocktail- or whiskey-minded person in your life. Let’s get into it!
This is one of the best-looking whisk(e)y box sets we’ve seen in a while. The lineup in this box includes whiskeys from Balcones, Virginia Distillery, Westland, Colkegan, Westward, and Boulder. The kit also comes with custom digital content that will take you behind the scenes at each distillery with expert guides providing tasting notes.
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The fact that this comes with “custom digital content” is the clincher. Yes, the whiskeys are all fantastic too (we’ve had them all and can vouch for that). But the fact that you’ll be guided through tastings and see where these whiskeys come from (and the people making them) takes the whiskey gift box set to a whole new level.
A great mixing glass is crucial for making stirred cocktails. This glass from Poland is a great mixing jug that comes with a copper barspoon, jigger, and julep strainer — literally everything you need to get mixing. The glass has unique damask detailing to help it really stand out and match the copper bar tools.
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This is made by pros for everyone. The jug is a single piece of crystalline glass, which means it needs to be hand washed and is not dishwasher safe. Otherwise, this is pro gear for anyone looking to up their cocktail game. It also comes in a nice box for presentation and storage.
A solid shaker is a must for any budding home bar chef. This 500ml Parisian-style shaker is made with stainless steel and plated in copper — giving the shaker a real heft while also making it very solid.
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Having a good shaker means you’re able to make great cocktails. You need that heft to stand up to the ice getting beaten around inside the vessel when you shake a drink. Those tin shakers you see at the check-out counter in liquor stores or on sale for $5 at Bed, Bath, and Beyond will crack and fall apart after a while.
Cocktail gift sets are always a good way to go. The gift of a bottle of good whiskey (or any spirit) with the bespoke ingredients needed to make a specific cocktail is like an adult Lego kit. While we’re calling out an Aberfeldy set that you can get on Reservebar.com, there are a lot of options out there. The point is to get a set that comes with a nice bottle, a nice box, some good glasses, and… maybe something unique. In this case, that means seeds to grow your own herbs for the cocktail and bespoke honey for mixing.
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This makes a mean cocktail with a very fresh vibe. The best part is that it’s something interactive and will help build essential cocktail-making skills.
Great glasses are essential for any home bar. The best place to start is with a set of Old Fashioned (or rocks) glasses. They serve as both a cocktail glass and a regular pour glass. As with the bar equipment above, don’t skimp. Crystal means that the glasses are non-reactive and (as long as they’re cleaned correctly) will not impart any unwanted flavors into your neat whiskey pour or cocktail.
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These Double Old Fashioned glasses are big and hefty. You really feel like you’re holding something important in your hand when you’re holding one of these. They’re the sort of glasses that take any whiskey or cocktail-drinking game up from passive to pro.
This collab between Todd Snyder and Jim Beam celebrates one of our favorite bourbons from last year, Legent. That expression married Kentucky bourbon with Japanese blending to create one of the most unique expressions we’d seen in a while. This year, Todd Snyder crafted this denim jacket to celebrate that feat. The outer denim is died to be reminiscent of whiskey. It’s also very low-key. There are no ostentatious logos on the outside of this one, so whoever is wearing this won’t be a walking advertisement. The inside of the jacket does have a print on the back that explains the collaboration, which is way more our speed.
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This limited edition jacket is a winner for any bourbon fan. It’s sleek and not too light (like some jean jackets out there). Also, 50 percent of proceeds from every jacket sold will be donated to Stop AAPI Hate.
If you really want to get into tasting whiskey or dark rum or any spirit like a pro, you need a Glencairn glass or two. The crystal glass was specifically designed by Scottish whisky drinkers to be the ideal vessel for nosing and tasting a spirit. The base is weighted just right while also providing a handle (so your hand doesn’t warm the bowl while holding it). The size is perfectly throughout to leave enough negative space that allows the spirit’s aromas to build and disperse into your olfactory.
It’s just a perfect sipping vessel — if your giftee is serious about tasting their aged spirits, this is a must.
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Getting a set of Glencairns in a nice carrying case is a solid gifting move. Your grateful pal might invite you out for whisk(e)y tasting with these and share a nice bottle to boot.
This is the gift that’ll keep on giving. A distillery tour is a great chance for your friend to see how their favorite spirit is made. A tasting experience is the delicious icing on the cake of that tour. There’s a deeper understanding and respect you get for a spirit when you see how and where it’s made and possibly meet the people doing all the hard work. That goes even deeper when you get to drink with those people too. It’s something that will really stand out as a great memory for the participant.
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Look, we’re not saying buy someone a ticket to Louisville or Nashville, put them up in a hotel, and rent them a car. We’re saying check out what local spirits might be on your friend’s shelf and book them a local tour, maybe get two tickets in case they want to take a partner or even you.
There are distilleries all over America, so there’s a pretty good chance one isn’t too far away from you right now.
Okay, this is a crazy gift to buy someone unless they’re really far along their cocktail and spirits journey. The Meltdown takes big square ice cubes and (almost magically) turns them into perfect spheres for your whiskey pours and cocktails. The weight of the copper and the shape of the vessel do all of the work and make ice spheres in a matter of seconds. Then you can put them in a glass and pour your favorite drink over, just like in a fancy whiskey or cocktail bar.
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Making perfectly spherical balls of ice might seem unnecessary but there is a good reason. The more surface area you have on an ice cube (or sphere), the less dilution you’ll get as the ice melts (because it’ll melt more slowly). You’re amping up the cooling aspects while lowering the dilution.
Plus, it looks cool. Now… whether it looks cool enough to spend a thousand bucks (or more), that’s up to you.
Generally speaking logos on clothes are dumb. You’re a walking billboard. A shill. Forget paying Supreme for that box logo tee — they should be paying you. Where I make the exception is this Glenfiddich x Waraire Boswell sweatsuit. Both the Gledfidditch stag and Boswell’s butterfly “A” are so subtle that you don’t feel like you’re stanning a brand, rather you’re signaling your taste to fellow aficionados. Though the colorway looks like a deep red wine, true Scotch whiskey lovers will know that stag right away, while those in the fashion space will recognize the “A” that hovers above it.
The sweatsuit is 100% French Terry cotton and feels built to last in the way your old man’s crewneck sweatshirts used to feel and most of yours… don’t. It’s cozy yet classy — effectively merging the soothing elements of Scotch with its refined, upscale vibe. Better still, 100 percent of proceeds are directed to the GoFundMe Basic Necessities and Justice & Equality Causes, as well as the GoFundMe.org Small Business Relief Fund. Making this a good suit for a good cause.
Bottom Line:
Comfortable, stylish, well-cut, and benefitting a worthy nonprofit effort — this is a superb gift all around. The only downside is that very few of us will ever look as good as Boswell himself while wearing it.
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