The best way to describe James Wan’s career is to look at his 2015-2018. He went from one fun movie that made over $1 billion at the box office (Furious 7), to a spooky low-budget (comparatively speaking) horror movie (The Conjuring 2), to another fun movie that made over $1 billion at the box office (Aquaman). He’s able to exist in two worlds, like Arthur Curry reconciling his human and Atlantean sides, and he’ll combine his horror roots with his blockbuster expertise in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.
Wan told Total Film that the Aquaman sequel owes a debt to a 1965 Italian science-fiction horror film. “Aquaman 2 is very heavily inspired by Planet of the Vampires,” he said. “You can take the boy out of horror but you can never take the horror out the boy.” In the trailer for Planet of the Vampires, a spaceship crew land on a planet where “the living dead try to escape into life.” Jason Momoa would’ve decked the life out of them.
Wan continued:
“Well, the first movie took a lot of people by surprise, right? And that’s partially because they were not familiar with the comic book, which deals in this very lurid, strange world. People were taken aback that I didn’t throw all that stuff away and make a dark, heavy film. But I didn’t feel that would have been right for it. So with the second film, I feel it will be easier for people to accept where we go because I’ve already laid the foundation.”
As long as the octopus drummer is back, I’m in.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom opens on December 16.
It’s been a full week since Mike Lindell’s failed Cyber Symposium, and the “Big Lie” event is still continuing to plague the bonkers MyPillow CEO who bet a little too big on his “proof” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. This time around, Lindell is scrambling after cyber security expert Bill Alderson has come forward demanding the $5 million reward offered to anyone who can prove that Lindell was not sitting on data that shows the election was stolen. For the record, Alderson is a completely different cyber security expert than Josh Merritt, who was hired by Lindell to prove his terabyte of data was real, but Merritt refused to play along, which caused the Cyber Symposium to go down in flames.
Here’s what Alderson told Dakota News Now about Lindell’s data:
He says he’s followed the specific rules that were agreed to when he registered for the challenge. His proof that Lindell is wrong, is arriving at Lindell’s attorney’s office today.
He kept a copy of the documents for himself, which he shared on a zoom call with our I-team.
“With all of my exhibits, proving what my belief was about the packets and why they were not packets and why they did not contain IP headers, why they did not contain Ethernet addresses, why they did not contain congruent, you know, request-response packets, while they were not in P-PCAP format, and they didn’t contain any dating or anything of that nature,” said Alderson.
During a Wednesday morning appearance on Steve Bannon’s Real America’s Voice podcast, Lindell was asked about Alderson’s claim that he bested the Cyber Symposium challenge by disproving Lindell’s data, which caused the MyPillow Guy to scramble and accuse Alderson of looking at the wrong data.
“The whole rumor going around the symposium was that this data is not from the 2020 election,” Lindell said. “Well, the whole challenge was [to] validate data from the 2020 November election. It had nothing to do with my data.”
Lindell then said his attorneys are looking at Alderson’s claim that he’s entitled to the $5 million reward, which was withdrawn during the symposium when Lindell’s own expert wouldn’t go on record saying his alleged election data was legit.
Kevin Morby had a good 2020 thanks to Sundowner, and now he’s ready to offer a behind-the-scenes look at the album with A Night At The Little Los Angeles, his 4-track demo recordings of the album’s songs. That’s set to be released on October 8.
Morby says of the album:
“I am pleased to announce A Night At The Little Los Angeles, the 4-track demo version of my album Sundowner. Recorded at home and in my back shed — aka The Little Los Angeles – in Kansas during the summer and winter of 2017 and 2018, this is the sound of me alone in a room with a 4-track to catch my songs as they — quite literally — fell out of my mouth. When I later went into a proper studio to make what would become Sundowner, my goal was to capture the essence of these initial recordings, and here you will now have access to the very essence I was chasing.
I am excited to, for the first time, share this side of my songwriting process with the public. Many of my favorite recordings have been made inside of an artist’s home with little to no regard of the outside world, but instead deep in their own that they are building in real time. And with that — I’d like to invite you into my own little world here and now and ask you to please step inside and spend A Night At The Little Los Angeles.”
Listen to “Campfire (4-Track Demo)” above and find the A Night At The Little Los Angeles art and tracklist below.
Dead Oceans
1. “Campfire (4-Track Demo)”
2. “Sundowner (4-Track Demo)”
3. “A Night At The Little Los Angeles (4-Track Demo)”
4. “Wander (4-Track Demo)”
5. “Velvet Highway (4-Track Demo)”
6. “Valley (4-Track Demo)”
7. “Brother, Sister (4-Track Demo)”
8. “Don’t Underestimate Midwest American Sun (4-Track Demo)”
9. “Provisions (4-Track Demo)”
10. “U.S. Mail (4-Track Demo)”
A Night At The Little Los Angeles is out 10/8 via Dead Oceans. Pre-order it here.
This article originally appeared on August 24, 2019
Kids can seem pretty unappreciative at times. Parents often sacrifice a lot to give their child the best, just to have it thrown in their face, or in the bin. This is something that Haley Hassell recently discovered when she went to three different stores to get her daughter the latest trendy pencil case.
When Hassell gave her daughter the pencil case, she threw it in the bin complaining that everyone already had it. That’s when Hassell decided to teach her daughter the perfect lesson.
“[Daughter] learned a tough love lesson today… I went to 3 different stores to get that LOL pencil box you see in the trash there. When I surprised her with it this afternoon (just knowing she would be ecstatic) she stared at it and threw it in the trash and slammed the bedroom door. She yelled ‘that’s stupid, everyone in my class has that..I don’t want it anymore!'”
“OK So by this time there was probably smoke coming out of my ears and I’m trying real hard not to completely lose it on this kid that I have worked so hard to completely take care of financially on my own & make sure she always gets what she needs and then some. BUT I thought I had always taught her to be grateful & know how lucky she was but apparently sis needed a small wake up call!”
“SO before completely going Madea mad on my child I check myself and say, ‘okay that’s fine, let me go get the one you’re going to use.’ Came back with her new pencil box, which is the Ziploc bag. She lost her mind! Suddenly the LOL Box she just trashed was good enough and the Ziploc bag was horrible…but it’s too late for all that.”
Yes, Hassell gave her daughter a Ziplock bag as a pencil case since she didn’t appreciate the LOL one.
“I told her to get the LOL out of the trash and we would be finding a child to give it to tomorrow..one whose mommy and daddies don’t have money for any school supplies or someone who may not even have a mommy or daddy.”
“I explained to her she’s not entitled to anything special and she is taking for granted how lucky she is. So for now she will be using a Ziploc bag & will personally be delivering the nice box to a child that could benefit from it. Maybe I overreact sometimes but I would’ve done anything to have all the things she does as a child. I truly believe changing your perception & just being grateful can turn around any situation in life.”
Commenters seemed to love the punishment, with one user writing: “I’m down for this. Yes it’d be easier to give in, but sometimes you gotta teach them the principle of the matter.”
While another added: “I think you responded appropriately. Maybe she can earn the one she decides she wants at some point.”
Others were less receptive of the idea, with a commenter writing: “I guess I pretty much interact with my child on a regular basis, you know, take them with me when buying stuff for THEM so I know what they want. I talk to my child and care about their feelings. I don’t fear monger them. But hey, good job being a monster mom!”
Personally, I fully support mom on this one and think it’s important to teach kids to appreciate what they have. If you don’t, they’ll most likely turn into terrible adults.
This article originally appeared on December 4, 2019
Bullying is a huge problem. According to DoSomething.org, 1 in 5 students ages 12-18 in the United States are bullied during the school year, and approximately 160,000 teens have skipped school because of bullying.
So when Randy Smalls of South Carolina discovered that his teenage daughter was making fun of a classmate over her clothes and makeup, he took swift action.
Smalls instantly felt sympathy for Ryan Reese, a seventh-grader at Berkeley Middle School, having been bullied in his youth. So he took money meant for his daughter and went on a shopping spree with Ryan to get some new clothes and a makeover.
Smalls’ wife and Ryan’s mother Richauna Reese are friends, but they weren’t aware of the bullying until recently. The families got on the phone after speaking to Ryan, and Smalls asked if he could take Ryan to buy new clothes and get a makeover at the beauty salon.
Smalls used money initially intended to buy his 13-year-old daughter some new clothes, but after learning about her bullying, he decided to spend the money on Ryan instead.
“I say, ‘When you laugh along, you’re co-signing the bullying,” Smalls told Yahoo News.
“My daughter was upset, especially because she is into fashion,” he said. “So she came with us and helped pick out Ryan’s new clothes.”
While his daughter was at church, Smalls took Ryan to the beauty salon and paid for twice-a-month appointments until the end of the year.
After hearing about the good gesture, local salons have also offered to keep Ryan looking stylish for the next few months.
Richauna, Ryan’s mother, told Yahoo News that her daughter was struggling after the recent deaths of her father, grandfather, and aunt, as well as non-epileptic seizures caused by the stress.
The shopping trip has helped Ryan immensely. “I wasn’t expecting it. I just started to cry. It (the bullying) was really sad for me because I had lost my grandpa, father, and aunt, and it really took me deep down in my depression,” Ryan explained.
“This is the first time I have seen a parent take such a stance on bullying,” Richauna added.
Smalls was overwhelmed by the response and says that it’s helped his daughter see her mistake.
“I didn’t expect for this to get big but I’m glad if other parents [can learn from it],” Smalls said. “My daughter learned her lesson.”
“As parents, we have to take responsibility for what our children do,” Smalls told ABC’s Strahan, Sara, and Keke. “We can teach our children, but when they go and are around other children they can veer off a little bit. When situations like this happen, we have to take action and be the parent and not the friend.”
This Father Took His Daughter’s Bullying Victim On A Shopping Trip
This article originally appeared on September 13, 2019
Losing a child is a pain that many of us simply cannot comprehend. Given how much mothers and fathers love their sons and daughters, we can only begin to imagine how much pain they would feel when something terrible happens to their children. But for Melissa Hayes-McGuinness, a mom from Australia, the pain is even greater.
Her son, Jordan, died in a car crash in December 2012 at the age of 18. As did five other people who were unfortunate enough to cross Jordan when he was drink and drug driving at high speeds down a Gold Coast highway following a Christmas party. The five victims were sitting in a broken-down car waiting for help when Jordan collided with them at speeds of up to 87 miles per hour.
The sheer force of the crash caused the parked car to burst into flames. The only survivor was the 16-year-old driver of the parked car, who had to climb over his friends to escape the burning vehicle and suffered from severe burns and a head injury that still affects his memory to this day.
Among those killed in the parked car were a 20 and 23-year-old, their 15-month-old girl was orphaned. The other victims were 16, 17, and 18.
As you can imagine, Melissa has to deal with unimaginable grief on a daily basis. Not only for her son, but for those he killed, and those they left behind. But thankfully, Melissa has found a way to channel that grief positively. Every year, she travels across Australia speaking to teenagers about road safety. As part of her talks, she reads an incredibly powerful speech which she calls “Jordan’s confession.”
Her speech reads, in part:
SOURCE: YOU CHOOSE / MELISSA MCGUINNESS
“I would give anything that night to have just hit a tree and not left this horrendous legacy,” Melissa begins. “Those kids didn’t deserve what happened to them. In truth, I guess I did.”
“I screwed up and paid the ultimate price. What I did was unforgivable,” McGuinness continues, speaking on behalf of her son and addressing the orphaned girl, “I’m the reason you’ll never see your mummy and daddy [again].”
Throughout the speech, Melissa shows photos of her son, including on his last day of school. Then, the photos changed to a news clip of the accident, showing blue flashing lights and twisted metal.
“Jordan was smart. Jordan was funny. Jordan was a great person, but none of that means anything now. None of it,” McGuinness continues to tell the teenagers sitting in silence before her, many of whom are usually crying at this point.
“That’s because he defined himself by his choices that night. He shaped a terrible and permanent legacy for himself, his family and his victims’ families because he chose to drink, smoke [marijuana] and speed down that highway.”
“And everything he did before that just pales in comparison.”
“As much as there are hundreds of reasons to be proud of Jordan… he died in shame,” his mother tells them, “This is how he’s going to be remembered. There’s no getting around that.
“My husband and I did not raise him to think that drink or drug driving was acceptable behavior, yet I stand up here as the mother of a kid responsible for the death of four kids from drinking and drug driving.”
“Think of all the good stuff that you’ve done. Think of all the effort you’ve put into your life. Think of all the effort people who have loved you put into your life. And imagine all of that being wiped out by one stupid choice. Because that’s the brutal reality of what happens.”
“I still love Jordan profoundly, I miss him terribly… but this can’t be sugarcoated. He defined himself permanently by his actions that night.
“There are accidents and there are choices. Jordan didn’t have an accident that night. That’s what happened to his victims. Jordan made a choice.”
SOURCE: YOU CHOOSE / MELISSA MCGUINNESS
Melissa affectionately calls the teenagers she’s talking to, particularly boys, “dirtbags.” Why? Because they often think they’re “ten foot tall and bullet-proof.”
Following the death of her son and his victims, Melissa started the You Choose – Youth Road Safety campaign. It teaches young drivers about the devastating, life-long consequences of being reckless behind the wheel.
Melissa knew that most teenagers won’t learn anything through a lecture, so instead she channels her own grief by telling her own story.
“I’m not lecturing them about right or wrong, I’m demonstrating through actual lived experience what it’s like to be on the receiving-end of what I was,” Melissa told Yahoo News.
“I show them a clip from Jordan’s memorial ceremony and I ask them to imagine while they’re watching it what it might be like if their family was in the same predicament that my family’s [going through].”
“But pretty much just taking them on this entire grief journey from where it started—as the excited teenager about to start his life to the horrible accident through one stupid choice one night. Then what it looked like for everybody else involved.”
“The thing with… Jordan is he’s relatable because he’s just like any other other kid there that’s sitting in that auditorium… and I’m also relatable as the mum.”
“[Through Jordan they’re shown] this great kid that made this one stupid choice that could be any of those kids. Any of them.”
Melissa says her talks are so powerful because she’s the “perpetrator’s mother.”
The guilt of her son’s actions have weighed so heavily on Melissa that she often felt like she “didn’t have a right to grieve her son”.
“Those kids were innocent kids, they were doing nothing wrong and my son behaved 100 percent irresponsibly and was completely responsible for their deaths.”
SOURCE: YOU CHOOSE / MELISSA MCGUINNESS
Each time Melissa talks to a group of kids, it gets a little easier for her. It gets easier to watch footage from the crash, and somehow, it gets easier to watch footage of Jordan’s then 10-year-old sister breaking down at the memorial service.
But one thing doesn’t change. The reaction from the kids she’s speaking to. Melissa says that no matter the type of school or the age of the kids, with very little encouragement, the kids always swarm her with hugs at the end of her speech. In most instances, she says, the instigator is usually the “biggest dirtbag in the room”
“I have a remarkable story to tell. It’s the worst story. And I feel really compelled to share that with teenage kids,” she told 9now.
“This is what is left behind: Here is the mum that has to attend your funeral, has to pick up the pieces. That car can become your own coffin.”
One man from the Detroit area put his quarantine creativity to great use. James Vreeland used his newfound free time to, as he put it on Instagram, “get into the restaurant game.”
He did that, of course, by building an entire tiny restaurant in his yard specifically for squirrels. It’s hilarious and also weirdly very impressive.
It’s an open-air concept with communal picnic-style tables and natural grass floors, which really brings a sense of connection to the earth and the source of the squirrel food. It’s a brilliant design.
It’s called Maison de Noix, or “The Nut House” in English, and it’s the newest, hottest neighborhood spot that all the squirrels are chattering about. If they didn’t have to social distance, there would be lines out on the sidewalk every day to get a table. It’s very exclusive.
It has a tiny coat rack with wire hangers for squirrel jackets and everything! And even though the restaurant is aimed at its squirrel patrons, it’s open to all sorts of creatures. James said that the blue jays in the area are also loving the new place.
Not only did James build an innovative restaurant, but his menu is like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s so diverse, and yet, so streamlined. And don’t worry; he’s printed out the menu and stationed it at the front of the restaurant for those who might be interested. Let’s take a closer look, shall we?
So simple, yet so sophisticated, you know? A mixed seed trio! How intriguing. And you can’t go wrong with stale bread or pizza crust. I appreciate that the chef leads with what he has on hand and fresh (I mean, stale) that day, instead of shoehorning out-of-season ingredients into a year-round menu.
Raw peanuts on the shell are a known squirrel favorite, and counter-softened apples, well, that’s an application you don’t see very often, mainly because they’re so hard to get just right. But I have faith in the kitchen staff of Maison de Noix.
For a brand new restaurant that opened during a global pandemic, Maison de Noix is doing very well. It helps when you are the only restaurant that caters to squirrels in the whole United States. They really cornered the market.
He has even started doing Facebook Live videos that are just a live stream of the restaurant. You can tune in each day to see the animals stop by. At one point during the last live stream, James commented, “Sorry for the shaky cam — there is a bluejay sitting on the camera.”
A time-lapse of the “brunch rush” can be found on his Instagram, and it’s just delightful. This whole venture is just entirely lovely, and I thank James for his efforts. I hope things like squirrel restaurants don’t go away once the pandemic ends. We need them now, and we’ll need them then.
7. And this one’s a true test of your reading strategy.
First person to read this, stand up proudly on your chair, and yell at the top of your lungs, “Oh Captain, My Captain!” will receive a 95% on this exam. … … … *Just kidding. Name the drummer for The Beatles.
The White Lotus told a bunch of stories in its six-episode limited run. It told a story about a rich little snot and his frustrated new wife. It told a story of an insufferable married couple and their bratty children. It told the story of a needy alcoholic heaving her mother’s ashes across Hawaii. But, most interestingly, to me, at least, it told the story of a hotel manager spiraling into hell because of all those other things (and a sprinkling of manic pill-popping). It was a ride as fast as it was wild, and it ended with him pooping in a suitcase and then getting stabbed and then having his corpse stuffed into a box and loaded into an airplane. A classic story we’ve all seen a million times.
I’m talking about Armond here, as you know if you watched The White Lotus, which I’ll go ahead and assume you did because you clicked on this article. Things did not go great for Armond. It all started out so small, too, with a miscommunication about a reservation. A few episodes later he was snorting ketamine in his office. If you were to sum up his headspace in one moving image, it would probably look something like this.
HBO
But this brings us to the important question here: Did Armond, even with all the drug-sniffing and underling-seducing and suitcase-pooping, actually, in the grand scheme of things, do anything that was really that wrong? It’s a fair question. One with shades of gray. Let’s dig into it all with another round of Case For, Case Against.
CASE FOR: Armond did something wrong
HBO
You should not poop in a suitcase. Ever. Even if it’s your own suitcase, but especially not if it’s somebody else’s suitcase. I’ve been cranking my brain away on this since Sunday night and I have not found a single good reason to poop in a suitcase short of “it’s a special suitcase that has a little portable toilet in it,” but that, to my knowledge, is not a thing that exists. Nor should it. Maybe for camping, if we want to stretch the limits here (no one steal this idea), but I don’t think we do, in part because carrying a suitcase full of poop around the woods is weird and in part because it was not the situation here anyway. Shane had a normal suitcase. You should not poop in normal suitcases.
You should also not steal drugs from teenagers and do those stolen drugs in your office during work, even if the teenagers are mean and have good drugs. I don’t even need to put the “and” in that sentence. I could have said “you should not steal OR do drugs in your office during work” and I still would have been on solid footing. You definitely should not snort ketamine at work, or ever, probably. That’s the kind of thing that’s hard to explain if a coworker catches you. (“Oh, uh… hey Dan. I was just… snorting… ketamine.”) I suspect we can all agree on this, at least in a vacuum.
Another thing that you should not do: Give the stolen drugs to your employees and then engage in sex acts with them. That’s bad supervising all around, and not super moral, even if the employees seem cool and have great hair and are up for it.
You should try not to screw with guests at your fancy resort, too, or at least not in ways that are obvious to them. Like, it is generally not good to book a honeymooning couple on the same small boat as a sad messy lady who is lugging her mother’s remains around a tropical heaven inside a golden box that she only puts down to get massages or make love to dying bald guys. It’s kind of funny, sure, and extra funny when the honeymooners are entitled little skunks and/or whiny bloggers, but still. Just as a general principle, you should try to avoid this. Some of it is the bad karma, some of it is professionalism, most of it is avoiding situations that can wind their way toward you getting stabbed to death in a luxurious hotel suite. This last thing is very important. The key to screwing with people is to keep it small enough that you have deniability. And to not get stabbed. Please write this down somewhere.
Add it all up and the conclusion is obvious: Armond made some mistakes over the six episodes of The White Lotus.
Unless…
THE CASE AGAINST: Armond did nothing wrong
HBO
I mean… look. Could he have made better decisions? Sure. Would he still be alive if he had? Probably. Maybe. I suppose he could have been hit by lightning or swallowed up by lava even if he had acted like a saint the whole time. The world is weird and not always fair. Might as well get your kicks in while you can. And anyway, if anyone in the history of the world deserved their suitcase to be pooped in and their drugs to be stolen, it would be this guy…
HBO
… and these girls…
HBO
… respectively. Someone needed to take them down a peg, to show them the world is full of real people with real problems beyond whatever trivial hooey they consider a flagrant violation of… whatever exactly they think was flagrantly violated. Some of this may be colored —shaded, at least — by the thing where I worked at a fancy schmancy country club in my teens and would have found it endlessly funny if someone pooped in a few of the members’ golf bags. Some of it may be the stupid faces Shane made every time he was on screen. It’s probably a combination of things.
I’m not saying his actions were right, at least not in any sort of moral or ethical way that could be defended against even the slightest pushback. I’m just saying, like…
…
… I get it. You do, too. Please do not lie to me about this. Or yourself.
VERDICT
HBO
Armond went a little too far. I’ll concede that. But also, come on. Someone, somewhere, whether it ended up being a hotel employee or gardener really any other form of service worker, was eventually going to poop in or on at least one of Shane’s possessions. It might happen again. It might not have even been the first time. Let’s cut the guy some slack.
Some single barrel bourbons will reach into the hundreds of dollars while others sit on shelves for around $30. It’s a minefield with little rhyme or reason — on the surface, anyway.
To help you make the best choices and get the most value for your dollar when buying bourbon, we thought we’d call out ten bottles that outkick their coverage. These are expressions that we think are either worth more than their low, low price or offer something unique and special at a very affordable price point. Are they cheap? Not really. Are they worth every penny and then some? Bingo.
Now let’s dive in! Click on the prices if you want to give any of these a shot for yourself.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of 2021 (So Far)
Last year, Jim Beam released their “distillery-only” Old Tub expression on the national market. The juice is an unfiltered and higher ABV version of classic Beam, giving you more of the brand’s depth in each sip of whiskey.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a sense of cornmeal next to sawdust, oily vanilla, and a hint of fresh honey sweetness that entices the senses. The sip takes on a caramel corn sweetness vibe as the vanilla carries you towards sweeter woods and cherry fruits. The end is short and sweet (like most Beam) with a distant wisp of orange oils next to a slight minerality.
Value For Dollar:
When it comes to Jim Beam, you can’t really go wrong with any pick if you’re looking for value. The difference between this and, say, standard Beam is that it’s both better tasting and more refined. This is a real-deal sipper for around 20 bucks in a world where $20 bourbons are rarely good for more than mixing (yes, even Old Grand-Dad).
Jefferson’s Ocean is an experiment in finishing that’s pretty unique. The blenders pull in six to eight-year-old whiskeys sourced from four Kentucky distilleries. They marry those barrels and then re-barrel the whiskey, load them onto a ship, and sail those barrels around the world for almost a year. The best of those barrels are married again and bottled at cask strength with no additional fussing.
Tasting Notes:
There’s a clear crème brûlée vibe on the nose with touches of orange zest, cinnamon toast, and slightly singed marshmallow. The taste dives into salted caramel notes with hints of Almond Joys covered in dark chocolate next to a savory fruit edge. That fruit turns figgy as the end fades slowly, hitting on spicy tobacco warmth and a final touch of fresh mint.
Value For Dollar:
When it comes to bourbons that have a “gimmick,” you can be forgiven for rolling your eyes or skipping to the next bottle. But this smashes all pre-conceptions about gimmicky aging by delivering a great sipping whiskey for under $100. This punches way above its weight class while maintaining a beautiful and unique drinking experience.
Head Distiller Nicole Austin has been killing it with these bottled-in-bond releases from George Dickel. This year’s release is a whiskey that was warehoused in the fall of 2008. Eleven years later, this whiskey was bottled at 100 proof (as per the law) and sent out to the wide world where it received much adoration.
Tasting Notes:
This bottle exudes a flaky-crusted pecan pie jacked up on maple syrup, sprinkled with dried apple, and flush with rich vanilla. The taste delivers on those promises with a subtle maple syrup sweetness balanced with roasted nuts, more vanilla, and another dose of that earthy/spicy dried fruit. The end is slow and pointed with spicy apple pies, brown butter richness, and another shot of that vanilla leading towards a hint of charred oak.
Value For Dollar:
Just to be clear, all Tennessee whiskey is bourbon from the jump (though not all bourbon is Tennessee whiskey). This release grows on me every year with the most recent release hitting it out of the park. Yes, there are bottled-in-bond whiskeys out there that are a little cheaper, but this is another whiskey that could be $80 (or more) on every shelf and no one would bat an eye — yet here it is for under $50.
Nelson’s Green Brier is a heritage brand that has a great comeback story. The family’s shingle was killed by Prohibition until descendants of the former owners stumbled upon the old distillery. Now, they’re making one of the finest, wheated Tennessee whiskeys at one of the most accessible price points of any whiskey.
Tasting Notes:
Cinnamon stewed apples mix with oily vanilla and a sweet edge of caramel. The spice carries through the taste with buttery cinnamon toast feel next to more tart apples, plenty of that caramel, wet brown sugar, and a small dusting of dark cacao and cherries. The end takes its time as it dances back through the cinnamon, cherry, chocolate, spice, and brown sugar towards a final note of wood.
Value For Dollar:
Sticking with Tennessee and all the great things happening there in whiskey, Nelson’s Green Brier continues to shine as a great craft whiskey and just all-around solid workhorse whiskey. The fact that you can get a craft bottling of this caliber at about $30 (the same price as huge corporate whiskeys with a lot less going on in the bottle) is a bit of a miracle.
Eagle Rare 10 is a marriage of at minimum ten-year-old Buffalo Trace whiskeys. Each barrel is hand-selected to bring in classic bourbon flavors that also feel deeply rooted and unique to the brand.
Tasting Notes:
This one opens boldly with orange rind and maple syrup next to touches of honey, worn leather, and toffee. Then the oak char and vanilla kick in, giving it a classic old-leather-chair-in-a-smoky-library vibe, as hints of mint lead back towards the toffee. When you add a little water, there’s a dark chocolate bar with almonds that arrives. The finish is short but sweet in all the right ways.
Value For Dollar:
I really struggled with putting anything from Sazerac on this list, especially from Buffalo Trace. But this whiskey is just too good to deny. The fact that you can still score this bottle for less than $50 is a miracle in and of itself when you look at the bonkers markups Buffalo Trace allocations get at retail.
This whiskey delivers way more than they charge for it, so here it is.
Michter’s is a revival brand that has relied on sourced juice but now is operating its own distillery and laying down its own barrels. The whiskey in this bottle is a blend of 24 or fewer barrels of up to eight-year-old bourbons. It’s an entry-point bourbon that’s a sour mash, small-batched, award-winning master class in bourbon whiskey.
Tasting Notes:
This smells, tastes, and feels classic — with an opening of rich bourbon vanilla beans next to almost creamy caramel with a nice dose of cellared oak. The taste veers into sweet stone fruits with a touch more creaminess leading into the vanilla as mild spice peeks in. The end is slow, oaky, creamy, fruity, and features a touch of smoked popcorn when you add a little water.
Value For Dollar:
Having just sipped on this again recently, it’s always a bit of a wonder how well-built this bourbon is. It feels and tastes like it was made in a way that honors all the bourbons that came before while still feeling fresh and kind of fun.
This craft whiskey is a grain/corn-to-glass Washington experience. The grains are all grown near the distillery. The oak is toasted and aged outside of the distillery’s warehouses for 18 months before the hot juice goes in for maturation. After around five years, the whiskey is blended, proofed, and bottled.
Tasting Notes:
Dark fruits meld with Christmas spices and plenty of brown sugar, vanilla, and nuts leading towards an almost dark rum nose. The palate delivers but dials into butter-fried bananas, creamy vanilla pudding, rich toffee, and a hint of toasted wood. The end doesn’t overstay its welcome and brings about a mild spicy chewiness and more of that toasty oak with a nice return of the toffee.
Value For Dollar:
A craft bourbon for under $40 that’s beloved, award-winning, and delicious is harder to find than you’d think. This bourbon is mature and built in a way that both reminds of how great bourbon can be while pushing it somewhere new. There’s none of that young craft bourbon greenness you find with other crafty distillers around the country. This is fully-formed and on track to become a classic of the style.
This is a true Texas grain/corn-to-glass experience. The whiskey is made from Texas grains and corn in old-school stills and then matured under the warm Waco, Texas sun in Balcones’ own warehouse. The results are small-batch blended, slight proofed, and bottled.
Tasting Notes:
You get a real sense of kettle corn covered in caramel next to hints of oak, sweet apples, and worn leather. The taste veers away from these notes slightly, with pecan pie topped with vanilla cream, more of that leather and oak, and a touch of honey. The end is chewy and lingers as almost spicy tobacco arrives late to accentuate the oak.
Value For Dollar:
This craft bourbon is so goddamn unique when it comes to bourbon that it should cost twice as much. Yet, here we are with a $30 bottle of truly distinct and boundary-pushing bourbon that you can find almost nationwide. Those points almost pushed this to number one on this list but alas, unique doesn’t always mean best (though this is pretty close).
There’s a lot of love around this single barrel expression from Heaven Hill. The craftspeople at the company search through their warehouses for the exact right single barrels that meet their high standards. Those barrels are then proofed with that soft Kentucky limestone water and bottled with the year of distillation on the bottle alongside the barrel number.
Tasting Notes:
The nose features almost bitter caramel next to salty popped corn, oak spice, and flutter of vanilla. The sip is like velvet with caramel apples next to chocolate oranges and a bit of spicy tobacco. There’s a buzz and chewiness to the end that leans very easy-drinking, while the flavors slowly roll back through the spice and wood.
Value For Dollar:
This was another tough pick. Is Evan Williams Single Barrel a better value pick than, say, Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond, Small Batch, or even Black Label? Yes. This is a single barrel expression of bourbon for about $30. That’s crazy cheap for a bottle of perfectly sippable single barrel bourbon.
To be clear, this is not going to be a bourbon that changes the way you think about whiskey. It is going to be a perfectly solid sipper and mixer that could easily cost twice as much on a good day.
This is classic Beam whiskey with a low-ish rye mash bill of 77 percent corn, 13 percent rye, and ten percent malted barley. The juice is then left alone in the Beam warehouses for 12 long years. The barrels are chosen according to a specific taste and married to create this higher-proof expression.
Tasting Notes:
You’re greeted with that classic Beam cherry that has dark chocolate and brandy candy depth alongside clear Christmas spices next to a hint of menthol tobacco. The spirit carries on those paths as it layers in buttery and sugary streusel over tart berries with plenty of that spice next to a nice dose of salted caramels covered in a bit of bitter dark chocolate. The finish is spicy and sweet and fades gradually.
Value For Dollar:
This is the whiskey that got me thinking about this list. I broke it out the other night and poured it over some rocks. It’s delightful and better than plenty of other bourbons ten years or older that cost sometimes hundreds of dollars more. There are bourbons that are two years younger that cost three times as much as this … and they don’t taste as good.
That makes this the best value bourbon on the market, in our estimation.
This is the mountaintop of what Wild Turkey can achieve. This is a blend of the best barrels that are married and bottled untouched. That means no filtering and no cutting with water. This is a classic bourbon with nowhere to hide.
Tasting Notes:
Crème brûlée greets you with a nice dose of Christmas spices, mild pipe tobacco, orange zest, and a distant hint of fresh mint sprigs. There’s a pine resin nature to the woody flavors on the palate that accents the orange oils, spices, vanilla, and sweetness. The sip takes on a Christmas cake-feel late, with a velvet end that is just the right amount of everything you want from a bourbon.
Value For Dollar:
No list of best value bourbons would be complete with Wild Turkey Rare Breed. Yes, people tend to already be in on this secret but that doesn’t for a second take away from the greatness of this bottle of whiskey. This is the epitome of “why is this still so cheap?!” It’s also easily available pretty much nationwide for the same price, which adds serious value as well.
In the end, this is a great sipping whiskey which also makes a killer Manhattan that could easily cost twice or three times as much and no one would really bat an eye.
As a Drizly affiliate, Uproxx may receive a commission pursuant to certain items on this list.
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