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It’s really hard to argue with the experience of sipping Talisker scotch. The seaside distillery on the Isle of Skye is everything you dream a Scottish whisky distillery would be. When you visit, you taste the seafoam and brine on the air, you dine on copious oysters while overlooking the bay and the distillery, and you drink a lot of what I would argue just might be the best single malt in Scotland.

The beauty of Talisker — in my professional opinion — is the accessibility paired with strong flavor notes. This isn’t a peat monster from Islay, but it’s also not some right-down-the middle blend. Talisker distills and ages distinct, fascinating whisky expressions that help folks fall in love with single malts. Their whiskies are self-contained “Ah-ha!” moments, bottled by the sea.

Last week, adventurer, conservationist, and TV host Forrest Galante and I got the chance to taste five core bottles from the Talisker line. These scotch whiskies got us buzzed, opened the doors to a fascinating conversation, and definitely did not let us down in the flavor department. Check out my tasting notes from the Expression Session below.

Talisker 10

ABV: 45.8%
Average Price: $75

The Whisky:

This is a pretty straightforward endeavor. This juice is aged for ten years and then it’s bottled. This expression serves as the perfect entry point to the brand with its easy nature and high drinkability.

Tasting Notes:

Notes of tart fruit greet you with a hint of that malted barley. The sip holds onto the berries as a billow of smoke lurks in the background with a bit more malt. The sip clocks a note of spice on the short-yet-warming end.

Bottom Line:

This is my go-to for highballs. I generally mix it with a very minerally and fizzy water like San Pellegrino or Gerolsteiner.

Talisker Storm

ABV: 45.8%
Average Price: $82

The Whisky:

This whisky has an interesting aging process. The whisky is aged in a combination of used barrels and re-charred barrels. Basically, the take old barrels, strip the charring, and then re-char the barrels to their standards. The process adds a new layer of depth by rejuvenating the staves.

Tasting Notes:

This sip amps up the peat a tad while bringing in the brine next to a clear maltiness. The smoke at play here is more akin seaside campfire while the brininess is reminiscent of oyster liquor. There’s a hint of the berry leftover from the Talisker 10 with a touch more peppery spice on the medium-length end.

Bottom Line:

Bring this bottle the next time you go camping at the beach. Also, serve it with oysters. In fact, I like to drop an oyster into a shot glass of this and shoot both at the same time.

Talisker Distiller’s Edition

ABV: 45.8%
Average Price: $96

The Whisky:

This expression is a double matured Talisker 10. The double maturing, in this case, refers to using old Amoroso sherry casks. The deeply seasoned wood adds some serious brightness and deeper color to the dram.

Tasting Notes:

The peat and pepper are met with a plummy nose. There’s a velvet texture to this one that’s very pleasing to the palate as the jammy berry sweetness dominates the peat with a small kick of malt on the end.

Bottom Line:

This is a solid sipper (especially for those wanted to ease in with something a little sweeter) that I also like to use in cocktails married with sweet and herbaceous vermouth.

Game of Thrones House of Greyjoy — Talisker Select Reserve

ABV: 45.8%
Average Price: $60

The Whisky:

This bottle celebrates the final season of Game of Thrones and House Greyjoy. The kicker, as Forrest Galante pointed out, “It has a freakin’ Kraken on the box!” I might be paraphrasing, we were three big drams in by that point.

Tasting Notes:

This is all brine and smoke. There’s a sense of what your clothes smell like after sitting in the rain on a beach next to a smoky campfire all night while eating shellfish. The sweetness comes from the malts with a nice pop of peppery spice way in the background of this sip.

Bottom Line:

This is a good pairing whisky for a barbecue and/or seafood feast, especially as the base of a highball. It’s also a cool gift because of the aforementioned Kraken and the GOT connection.

Talisker 18

ABV: 45.8%
Average Price: $250

The Whisky:

This is where the Talisker 10 ends up when it ages for eight more years in the Talisker storehouse. This bottle serves as a great lesson in how aging truly can transform juice so vividly over time.

Tasting Notes:

The berry sweetness is muted as the smoke takes center stage. This isn’t a billow of smoke blown in your face. It’s more of a crackling whiff of smoke when you open up a fireplace to load in more wood. The sweetness edges towards a rich toffee as the spice leans into a sweet/mild chili pepper, while the smoke curls and swirls through your senses on the subtle and lasting finish.

Bottom Line:

The perfect sipper to have on hand to celebrate something (like the end of the workweek). I drink it with one rock to help open up those flavors.

Check out the full tasting below!

Stipe Miocic (20-3) earned a unanimous decision victory to retain the heavyweight championship against Daniel Cormier (22-3) at UFC 252 from the UFC Apex in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Cormier came into his UFC 241 fight just under a year ago “ok” with the prospect of hanging up his gloves after defending the heavyweight title. A former light heavyweight and then-heavyweight champion, Cormier fully expected another win. Maybe not a knockout like the first fight, but he certainly didn’t anticipate how the fight would play out: Cormier would wear down as the fight went to the championship rounds and it was Miocic who targeted the champ’s body and forced a ref stoppage.

Months of verbal back-and-forth followed and Cormier was relentless in his need to “get that (loss) right.” He was confident that, given the opportunity, he could finish Miocic again. Booking the trilogy was complicated, as Miocic recovered from eye surgery stemming from a torn retina in his rematch with Cormier, then his gym was then closed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But Saturday night, while that saga was put to an end, it also signified the end of the 41-year-old Cormier’s career.

The former Olympian has struggled with back issues, unable to wrestle in his last camp leading up to Cormier-Miocic II. He previously said he wanted to retire before he turned 40, but has continued kicking that timeline down the road to go out on his own terms. He said after his fight that he only wants to fight for titles, and with the next title fight likely going to Francis Ngannou, he called it quits.

As for the fight itself, Miocic found the jab in the first, changing levels between the midsection and Cormier’s head. Cormier took Miocic to the ground early in the round, but the champ immediately was able to get back to his feet. Back on their feet, the opponents traded shots and Cormier accidentally caught Miocic with a poke to the eye. After a quick stoppage, Miocic continued to chip away at Cormier’s body. At the end of the round, Cormier began to find his right hand, faking a takedown and exploding up with hooks to the head.

Midway through the second, Cormier continued to pepper Miocic after faking a takedown and unloading on a heavy combination. Miocic continued to mix things up, jabbing at Cormier and working the body. At the end of the round, Miocic caught Cormier with two right hooks, dropped him and peppered him with shots before the end of the round.

To open the third, Miocic continued to pour it on. Cormier locked up Miocic in the clinch and the champ walked him back to the cage, but Cormier appeared to have recovered just enough to get back in the fight. Toward the end of the round, Miocic caught Cormier with an eye poke that swelled his eye almost completely shut.

In the fouth, Cormier landed a handful of significant rights, while Miocic continued to lock him up and push him against the cage. Cormier and the champ traded big rights before heading to the fifth round.

Cormier and Miocic traded shots jab-for-jab to open the final round. Miocic and Cormier traded heavy combinations, throwing everything they have with just two minutes to go in the round. Miocic gained dominant position against the cage, opting to hold Cormier before peppering him with a body-head combo. Cormier stuffed a takedown attempt, but Miocic found his way to the cage yet again, holding Cormier and earning the label as the greatest heavyweight of all-time.

While Epic is using Fortnite to start an open wide fight with Apple and Google over payment methods, the company’s biggest game keeps getting expansion bundles. The latest is a DC-themed bundle that adds one of the Batman universe’s biggest villains to the game.

Days after Epic got Fortnite removed from the Google Play and Apple app store after implementing its own payment methods inside the game, Epic announced Saturday that The Joker will be added to the game along with other villains in the Batman universe as part of the Last Laugh bundle. The pack, which is expected to drop on November 17, includes a number of Joker-themed items including an outfit, two Joker-themed pickaxes, a Laugh Riot Back Bling and a Joker emote called “Pick A Card.”

Poison Ivy and a new Midas Rex avatar are also part of the pack, which Epic says will cost $29.99 and officially comes with 11 in-game items and 1,000 V bucks. Fortnite has leaned into the DC universe heavily in recent days, adding Harley Quinn items back to its digital shop while the DC Universe gears up FanDome, the universe-specific equivalent of Comic-Con.

Fortnite also announced some new Batman gear for the game, if you need it.

And as we already know, it will cost a bit less to get into the V buck ecosystem these days.

The Good Place is over, and we now know how at least a group of Hollywood television writers envision the afterlife should play out for the rest of us humans. But in another universe, the show could have ended very differently. Vulture had a sitdown with The Good Place showrunner Mike Schur which covered a number of different topics, including how the writers put together the pieces necessary to stick the landing after four very philosophical seasons.

One fun thing that (spoilers incoming) came up was that Schur and the staff had known for a while the line they wanted the show to end with — Michael saying “keep it sleazy,” something he always wanted to say since he heard Eleanor say it in the show’s first season. But getting the rest of the details worked out didn’t happen until much later in the show’s timeline.

The writers always knew that the main cast of the show was going to experience the true afterlife for a while and then move on. But what happened to Michael, however, was something they debated and actually changed a bit. As Schur explained, the “keep it sleazy” moment that ended the show was something they reworked a number of times.

In the original conception, it was slightly different. I think he was buying a cup of coffee and the barista misspelled his name on the coffee cup, and that made him really happy. The barista misinterpreted that as making fun of him, there was a brief argument, and then the barista apologized and Michael said, “Don’t worry about it. Mistakes happen. It’s part of being human.” And then on his way out, he said, “Hey, take it sleazy,” and the barista laughed.

Schur said when writing the ending the staff had known for “at least a year” what Michael was going to say, but the context he got to say it in changed quite a bit. It was certainly an ending that resonated with fans, though, and Schur described it as a “ridiculous and silly and lighthearted” way to finish things off. There’s a lot of good stuff in the interview, but picturing the writer’s room riffing on ways to have Ted Danson say “keep it sleazy” is certainly a highlight.

Jusuf Nurkic took the floor on Saturday afternoon with a heavy heart. Nurkic had been open about his grandmother’s struggles after contracting COVID-19, and prior to the game, the big man posted a picture on Instagram announcing that she had passed away.

The Portland Trail Blazers ended up winning their game against the Memphis Grizzlies, thanks in large part to Nurkic having his best performance in the bubble. Nurkic was immense, going for 22 points and 21 rebounds while pitching in six assists and giving the Blazer frontcourt some serious punch. As a result, the Blazers don’t need to suit up for a second play-in game against the Grizzlies, and instead get an extra day of rest before their 1-8 series against the Los Angeles Lakers.

Still, Nurkic is unable to go home and be with his family right now, and after the game, he discussed the struggle that was playing today. He said that while he wanted to miss Saturday’s game, his grandmother “made me play.”

“I don’t have much to say about it,” Nurkic said after the game. “I didn’t want to play, she made me play, I guess. Personally, I thought, ‘I’m not gonna play tonight.’ But just being in the locker room, shooting the ball out there in warm-ups and stuff, I think I already came, did all those decisions to stay here and be with the team, so, might as well. I think she’d want me to play, so I’m glad we won and we’re in the playoffs, what we came for.”

Obviously everyone’s thoughts are with Nurkic and his family as they go through this tragedy, and it’s especially sad that he will not be able to mourn in person with his loved ones. Having said that, it’s nice that he was able to find solace in basketball, and he did one heck of a job playing for her memory against the Grizzlies.

Lil Wayne has been doing anything but staying quiet in 2020. In a year that has produced his thirteenth album, Funeral, a new radio show, and a number of guest features, the rapper added to that with a new update that lets fans know that not one, but two new projects are on the way, from the New Orleans rapper: Tha Carter VI and No Ceilings 2.

The announcement came as the rapper took made an appearance on ESPN. “Carter VI coming soon,” Wayne said. “But, I got No Ceilings coming first. No Ceilings 3.”

While the word “soon” coming from musical artists pertaining to their upcoming releases should be taken with a grain of salt, fans can certainly still be excited about Wayne’s upcoming projects. The last Carter installation came in 2018 with Tha Carter V when the rapper was finally able to release it following his contract dispute with Birdman. Following its first installment in 2009, No Ceilings 2 arrived in 2015, but, unfortunately, it failed to receive as much praise as its predecessor.

The announcement of the two projects comes after 2 Chainz confirmed that Collegrove 2 will arrive this year. The two rappers have already shared what could be its first single in “Money Maker.” Coming off his Funeral deluxe album, Wayne also recently released a video for “Thug Life” with Jay Jones and Gudda Gudda.

The 2020 presidential election is less than three months away and both major party candidates will look to make a final push to win the votes of Americans. In order to cast these votes in the current coronavirus pandemic-restricted climate, many Americans are hoping to take advantage of a mail-in ballot option to submit their vote for president, something that President Donald Trump is making difficult with changes to the postal service.

Trump is reportedly holding billions of dollars back from the United States Postal Service, which has been included by Democrats in a proposed coronavirus relief package. Some believe Trump is doing this to slow the USPS down ahead of the upcoming surge in mail-ballots for November’s election. In response to this report, Taylor Swift took to Twitter on Saturday to condemn his actions in a pair of tweets, one of which said the president was attempting to “destroy our right to vote.”

“Trump’s calculated dismantling of USPS proves one thing clearly: He is WELL AWARE that we do not want him as our president,” Swift said in the first of two tweets. “He’s chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power.”

In the next tweet, Swift requested that Americans request a ballot early and “vote early,” hopefully in an attempt to avoid possible ballot delivery and counting issues closer to the election. “Donald Trump’s ineffective leadership gravely worsened the crisis that we are in and he is now taking advantage of it to subvert and destroy our right to vote and vote safely. Request a ballot early. Vote early.”

Swift’s tweets come after the singer spent a second week atop the Billboard album charts with Folklore.

The NBA, in its effort to figure out a way to keep things fair for the teams in the race for the 8-seed prior to its COVID-19 hiatus, decided to institute a potential play-in series for the final postseason spot. The Eastern Conference didn’t need this, the Western Conference did, and as a result, the Portland Trail Blazers and the Memphis Grizzlies squared off on Saturday afternoon to fight for the right to take on the Los Angeles Lakers in a seven-game series.

The two teams played a tight game, and by the time the dust settled, a second was not necessary. The Blazers picked up a 126-122 victory, sending the upstart Grizzlies home and officially punching their ticket to the playoffs.

After an early feeling-out period by the two teams, Portland began asserting itself about halfway through the game’s first frame. After falling behind early 11-8, the Blazers went on a 22-3 run and took a 31-19 lead into the second. Memphis struggled to get much of anything going from the field, shooting 29.2 percent and hitting one of its five threes. Portland, meanwhile, had as balanced of an attack as they’ve had all bubble — Carmelo Anthony and C.J. McCollum both scored six points, while Damian Lillard and Mario Hezonja each chipped in five.

The Grizzlies started clawing their way back at the start of the second thanks to an 8-2 run in which every point was scored by Jonas Valanciunas, including the first six in the frame. They eventually took the lead while Lillard was on the bench, but for the remainder of the half, it was another Blazer who asserted himself on the game and guided the team to a 58-52 lead at the half.

Nurkic, playing with a heavy heart following the passing of his grandmother due to COVID-19, was magnificent. He went for 15 points and 17 rebounds while pitching in a pair of steals and a pair of assists for good measure. He was +19 in 21 minutes of work during the first half. Lillard pitched in 13 points, while Anthony and McCollum both had 10. For Memphis, Valanciunas’ 16 points and 11 boards led the way, while Morant had 11 points.

Memphis’ offense came alive in the third period. The team dropped 42 points on their opponents in the frame, giving them a 94-89 lead heading into the third, thanks in large part to the play of Morant. While he didn’t always look in control during the first half, his 10 points and seven assists in the quarter were massive for the Grizzlies.

Of course, the fourth quarter of Blazers games in the Bubble have been must-watch, thanks in large part to the play of the Bubble’s seeding games MVP. Lillard has seemingly willed his team to wins late in games, which played a gigantic role in getting Portland jumping Memphis into the 8-seed and needing only one win to make the postseason. That, ultimately, wasn’t quite the case, as his backcourt mate was the one who got the team over the hump.

The Grizzlies fought, but were never quite able to get enough separation between themselves and the Blazers to fend them off entirely. Portland kept coming close to taking the lead, and within 30 seconds late in the fourth, McCollum hit a three, followed by Nurkic cleaning up and offensive rebound, scoring, and converting an and-one to put them up by three.

McCollum, despite his broken back, then connected on a pair of jumpers, extending their lead to six with just over a minute to go.

Memphis kept doing what they could, but the exclamation point came via Anthony. Lillard found him standing alone in the corner, and Anthony — who was 0-for-5 from deep up until this point — went full Olympic Melo, knocking down a gigantic triple that decided the game.

A quick triple by Dillon Brooks cracked the door just a bit, and while Gary Trent Jr. only connected on the first of two free throws in the aftermath, the Blazers came down with the offensive rebound, Anthony went to the line, and made them both. A late three by Morant was a consolation, but it was too little, too late.

Lillard’s 31 points and 10 boards lead the team, while McCollum pitched in 29, including a number of huge buckets down the stretch. Nurkic did a little bit of everything — 22 points, 21 rebounds, six assists — while Anthony scored 21. For Memphis, Morant’s 35 was a career-high, and for good measure, he pitched in eight assists. Valanciunas had 22 points and 17 boards, while Brooks and Brandon Clarke both had 20.

With the win, Portland gets an extra day off before its showdown with Los Angeles. That series will begin on Tuesday, Aug. 18, with a 9 p.m. EST tip on TNT.

Last year’s Shazam! is one of the films that helped save the DCEU, which has struggled to match the success of its big screen counterpart over at Marvel. A sequel was a no-brainer, but, of course, who knows when that will happen. But that hasn’t stopped some online commentators from dropping “reviews” of the as-yet-unmade follow-up at places like Letterboxd. And since even Shazam! director David F. Sandberg has a lot of time on his hands these days, here’s a joke trailer he made using those very write-ups.

“We haven’t shot Shazam 2 yet but there are already reviews up on Letterboxd,” Sandberg wrote on Twitter. “I’m pretty sure that means we’re allowed to start using review quotes for marketing.”

The video lasts about 30 seconds, and it follows the tradition of draping pull-quotes over the screen in dramatic fashion — a practice critic-proof comic book movies rarely employ. Granted, the pull-quotes rarely comment on the purported quality of this, again, movie that hasn’t even been shot yet. Instead, they say things like “I’m fine with this,” and “David F. Sandberg is a sweetheart,” and “Jack Dylan Glazer Im free Thursday to paint ur nails and dance in ur room to Fleetwood Mac.” (The latter refers to the actor playing our hero’s disabled, comic book superfan brother.)

The fist Shazam! concerned an orphan, played by Asher Angel, who discovers he’s been picked by an ancient wizard, played by Zachary Levi, to be his alter ego of sorts. Its success, especially following the even bigger moneymaker Aquaman, helped right the troubled DCEU, which is now doing so well that Justice League, its semi-disastrous attempt at an all-star Avengers mash-up, was famously given a Mulligan.

Meanwhile, production on Shazam 2 is scheduled to start next spring, though, you know, who knows what will happen?

(Via EW)

In March of 2019, Nipsey Hussle was tragically shot and killed in his hometown of Los Angeles outside The Marathon clothing store that he owned, located in the Slauson section of the city. Saturday marked what would have been the rapper’s 35th birthday, so people took to social media to honor his legacy.

Tributes poured in from all corners of the celebrity world. Among them were athletes like Memphis Grizzles guard Ja Morant and Indiana Pacers guard Victor Oladipo, the former tweeting the words “It’s Nip Day” with a blue heart. Oladipa made his sentiments known on Instagram, sharing a picture alongside a much-loved quote from Nipsey: “We’re not the cause, we’re the effect.” On the music side of things, Kehlani shared a tweet that said, “happy birthday big nip.” Fellow west coast rapper Dom Kennedy also honored the late rapper by sharing several Nipsey songs in a string of tweets.

Going above and beyond, Snoop Dogg shared a new song entitled “Nipsey Blue” the day before the later rapper’s 35th birthday.

You can see still more thoughtful words from all over social media:

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