We can go back and forth about whether whiskey is a summer spirit for hours. Sure, when it comes to “fresh” cocktails most people think of lighter spirits like vodka, gin, and tequila this time of year. But would you really like to sip on a glass of vodka or gin while you sit around a campfire? We don’t think so.
We’ll save our vodka for mid-afternoon vodka sodas and our gin to be mixed with tonic water. Then, as the evenings progress, we’ll bring out the whiskey to warm us up or for mixing whiskey-based highballs.
If you’re going the whiskey direction this time of year, we want you to purchase the bottles that will speak to the season. That’s why we decided to ask some of our favorite bartenders to tell us the one expression of whiskey we absolutely need for summer 2020.
Widow Jane American Oak Rye
Patrick Donnelon, bartender at Suraya in Philadelphia
Widow Jane Rye is the perfect summer rye, it brings a subtle pepper spice to any of your favorites. One summer cocktail I love is the rattlesnake — a traditional rye sour with lemon and egg white. The honey notes in this expression temper the spice perfectly for highballs and Kentucky mules, too, if you’re going for a lighter summer sipper.
Stranahan’s Diamond Peak Whiskey
Hay Culham, beverage manager at Bonsai at Hilton Pensacola Beach in Pensacola, Florida
Stranahan’s Diamond Peak. A hard to find little gem. With notes of caramel, espresso, and spicy chocolate, this goes down way too easy. Pour straight from the bottle or over one cube, this whiskey won’t disappoint.
Basil Hayden’s Bourbon
Samara Rivers, founder of the Black Bourbon Society
Basil Hayden’s is a great light whiskey for the summer. It’s easily approachable, not too strong of a proof, and you can sip it all day without having to add water or ice. It also mixes great in a cocktail without overpowering the other flavors in the glass.
Angel’s Envy Bourbon
Piero Procida, bartender at The London West Hollywood in Los Angeles
Angel’s Envy would forever top my list. Being a Scotch guy, it was hard for me to switch over to spicy and peppery bourbons, but Angel’s Envy is a nice middle ground. I could actually enjoy without burning off my taste buds. It is truly unlike any of the other bourbons that I have ever tried. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of good bourbons out there, but if you’re looking for something on the softer-sweeter side, you will not regret this.
The port barrel finishing helps give this expression the incredible maple, tangerine, and vanilla flavors so distinct in this bourbon. It’s one of the fastest-selling bourbons at our hotel.
Old Grand-Dad Bottled In Bond Bourbon
Lenny Eckstein, co-founder and head distiller of Deerhammer Distillery in Buena Vista, Colorado
As an everyday drinker, my summer pick would be Old Grand-Dad — Bottled in Bond. It’s a classic from Jim Beam that is never hard to find on the shelf, and the quality of this bourbon really stands up at the $20-something price point.
Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon
Ryan Negley, whiskey fellow at Boulder Spirits in Boulder, Colorado
I’ve got two, actually. Each with their own purpose, but I’ll never not have a bottle of Four Roses Small Batch or an Old Grand-Dad Bonded in my home. They’re both “comfort” whiskeys for me. Also, they’re perfect for summer sipping.
Suntory Toki Japanese Whisky
Hayden Miller, head bartender at Bodega Taqueria y Tequila in Miami
Toki from Suntory is my highball whisky of choice. Especially if you have a nice, softer soda water which will help the already smooth spirit roll across your palate. Throw in a twist of lemon and you’ve got it made.
Monkey Shoulder Blended Scotch Whisky
Anna Mains, brand ambassador for Monkey Shoulder
They say that we can’t be everything to everyone, but Monkey Shoulder can. Monkey Shoulder is my go-to brand for any season, but especially the summer. It is just as great in a pina colada as it is neat. It’s amazing in frose (trust me), and it’s amazing in a boulevardier. Its smooth, approachable flavors make for one hell of a highball, and if you aren’t (high)ballin’ all summer, can you really even say you summered?
Writer’s Picks:
Old Forester 100 Proof Bourbon
If you’re looking for a whiskey to sip while you sit around a summer campfire, look no further than Old Forester’s 100 proof offering. This spicy, rich, complex bourbon will warm you up on a chilly summer evening.
Jim Beam Black Bourbon
If you’re a bourbon fan looking for a reasonably priced whiskey to mix into a highball, Jim Beam Black should be on your list. At less than $20 this “extra-aged” bourbon is full of caramel sweetness and a mellow finish that makes it suitable for slow sipping when you’re tired of mixing cocktails with it.
Buffalo Trace Bourbon
There’s a reason this bourbon is the brand’s flagship. It might not be as flashy as some of the brand’s other offerings, but it was aged for over 8 years and is well suited for mint juleps or sipping over a large piece of ice this time of year.
Oddly, or tellingly enough, when I spoke to Sian Clifford a couple of weeks ago before her miniseries, Quiz, debuted on AMC, we had the same conversation so many people are having right now. The catalyst was different of course: for Clifford, the revelation around media bias and accepting the stories that are told to us came after reading creator James Graham’s script, which rehashes a real-life decades-old scandal centered around a popular reality competition show. For so many others, this questioning of the truth has emerged thanks to incidents of police brutality and racial profiling.
There’s no comparison, but there is a thread, one that Quiz explores in-depth with only three episodes. The series finale airs later this month and manages to tie the story of the show’s leads — an average British couple played by Clifford and Succession’s Matthew Macfayden, who are accused of cheating during an appearance on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire — to some of the same issues we’re facing now: issues of trust and media bias and questioning the status quo. We spoke to Clifford about revisiting this very British scandal, confronting her own bias, and what people can learn from this gripping story.
This cheating scandal was a much bigger news item in the UK. Do you remember watching it play out?
Absolutely. It was such a big scandal. I was a teenager when this was going on. You couldn’t escape it. It was everywhere and the show was so huge. That’s why this story was huge, ultimately. This was something that everyone watched with their family. A third of the country was watching it at its peak. It was event television. You made sure you watched it every night, so you had something to talk about the next day. It was a really hot talking point.
Reexamining the story now, has working on this show changed your opinion of what happened?
Well, yeah. There was absolutely no question at that time and that was how it was represented to us. Honestly, that wasn’t a time where we ever questioned our media or our news and what we were being fed. Now, it’s completely the opposite where we distrust everything, which is a theme that obviously James [Graham] is exploring with this project — when those lines started to blur when constructed reality became mainstream viewing and all of that. As soon as I read James’ script though… you don’t have to dig very deep into this story to realize how contentious it is and how biased the reporting was. My empathy with them was immediate. Also, as an adult, you consider people’s humanity and the cost to their lives that this experience created. I was shocked and appalled to read about what had actually happened to them and how they were treated. As soon as you look at it from that perspective, it raises a lot of other questions about the whole case.
If anything, this story feels relevant because we still treat our news reporting like it’s entertainment.
Yeah, the news is a television show, lest we forget.
True.
One of the things that I love about this show is how it exposes editing, which so many people are unfamiliar with. The idea that when Diana coughs that could have been taken from any point in the show and placed there. I think, understandably, of course, if you’ve never been on a television set, you don’t know that’s how it works. Even that idea about editing very subtly points to how the things that are presented to us can be grossly manipulated in order to force us to look in a certain direction.
It also doesn’t help that we had a tragedy here that understandably overshadowed what happened to this couple.
Yeah, you’ll know this from the show, if we’ve done our job properly, but his performance was the two days prior to 9/11, which is why this story got lost in the news in the US. That moment in history, I believe, has contributed to where we are now along with everything else that was going around at that time. I think that is something that James certainly wanted to capture. There’s that brilliant moment where Paddy Spooner and Paul Smith finally meet. He said, “The bottom’s falling out of the truth market.” I just thought it was a very pertinent idea to be discussing now, because I think there is so much about that period of time that could answer some questions as to why we are where we are now.
Even though this is clearly a drama, there are moments of comedy here. Did you go looking for those or did they just appear organically?
I think what I love about this — what I love about Succession, what I love about Fleabag is I feel like there’s this new genre, and Atlanta does it as well, that’s pushing against the categories as we currently know as comedy and drama. I think what we are demanding as an audience right now are much more complex stories that are much more human. When you start getting to the heart of humanity, in that way, that’s when things are hilarious that maybe shouldn’t be because they’re awkward and they’re uncomfortable James wrote these people as human beings who had only, prior to that, been painted as these pantomime villains. I think that immediately draws you into their story and their experience. That’s why it becomes so heartbreaking because these two people Charles and Diana, in terms of this narrative, have never, ever been considered as human beings before. I think for people to suddenly go, “Oh my God, that is what they were going through whilst we were laughing at home,” I think it holds a mirror up to how we treat one another, how we consume our press. I think it’s really important that we question that. I think we need to change journalism and change how things are reported.
AMC’s ‘Quiz’ airs on Sunday nights at 9:00pm EST.
Over the past couple of weeks, artists have used the talents they’ve been blessed with to not only show they relate and understand the frustrations of their fans, but to help them find comfort in hard times. Meek Mill aimed for this with his “Otherside Of America” single, while T.I. followed suit on his “They Don’t” single with Nasty C. DaBaby went back to his old work to achieve this goal as he updated his “Rockstar” song with a verse on police brutality and Leon Bridges reflected on the racism he experienced in the past on his Terrace Martin-featured single, “Sweeter.” Adding his own work to the mix, Lil Baby returned with a new single.
Offering a hand to those have who have experienced police brutality or those who are frustrated with its continuation, Lil Baby drops his new single “The Bigger Picture.” Announced hours prior to its release, the song also finds Lil Baby detailing some of his distaste towards police after a few experiences of his own. As for the song itself, Lil Baby reminds listeners that the issue at hand is with the system as a whole as that a change to make things right won’t happen overnight, but a start is needed somewhere. Lil Baby will also donate all proceeds from the song to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Still riding high off the release of his My Turn deluxe album, the song touches down a week after Lil Baby and Gucci Mane connected for “Both Sides.”
Press play on the video above to hear “The Bigger Picture.”
Arriving with great news for fans, news that was welcomed with open arms by the entire hip-hop community, Pop Smoke’s manager, Steven Victor, announced last month that the late rapper’s debut album would arrive in mid-June. The announcement followed constant reports on the album that detailed its possible features, executive production from 50 Cent, and more. While the record was slated to arrive tonight, earlier this week Victor returned to say that the album, titled Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon, would be pushed back nearly a month “out of respect of the [Black Lives Matter] movement.” However, to not make the day a complete waste, he revealed a new single would take the album’s place.
As promised, a new Pop Smoke single has arrived by the title of “Make It Rain.” Upon its announcement, Victor revealed that an artist would feature on the song, but their name would be held back until shortly before the song’s arrival. Keeping to that promise, Rowdy Rebel was revealed as the guest act on the song. Rowdy Rebel was infamously incarcerated with Bobby Shmurda back in 2016 on several charges and set to be released by the end of the year. As for the song itself, it brandishes the high octane energy fans loved to see from Pop Smoke while allowing them to hear Rowdy again as he raps his verse over the phone.
Press play on “Make It Rain” in the video above.
Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon drops 07/03 via Republic.
Musically, 2020 has been a fairly quiet year for Post Malone. The “Circles” singer has watched his Hollywood’s Bleeding album hold on top-10 spot on the Billboard albums chart while teasing the arrival of a possible “quarantine album.” The lone piece of music from Post Malone to arrive this year came on Justin Bieber’s Changes album, where the two worked together on “Forever.” Returning with his second guest appearance of the year, Malone lends a hand to Tyla Yaweh’s latest release, “Tommy Lee.”
Malone and Yaweh have been connected for quite some time. Yaweh is currently signed to Malone’s London Entertainment label which Malone owns alongside Dre London. Yaweh also served a supporting act for Post Malone’s Runaway Tour, which began in the fall of 2019 and came to an early end in March due to the coronavirus. “Tommy Lee” stands as Yaweh and Malone’s first collaboration, and on the track it’s clear that Yaweh aims to make a record that won’t be leaving our heads anytime soon. A smooth melody with a clean rhyme scheme, the song is only aided by Malone who falls in line with the song’s agenda as he delivers on its second verse. The single may serve as the lead single to Yaweh’s upcoming sophomore album which he revealed is slated for a summer 2020 release.
Press play on “Tommy Lee” in the video above.