The Vesper Martini (pronounced “ves-pa”) is a literary and later a cinematic classic. The martini variation is all about packing a big punch while carrying some serious flavor notes from the gin, Lillet, and lemon. It’s also one of those recipes we have that are very clearly dictated — there’s no room for interpretation.
Back in 1953, Ian Fleming laid out the recipe very specifically via James Bond in Casino Royale. Bond ordered a dry martini in a “champagne goblet” with “three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.” That’s a pretty easy recipe to follow even though it’s, gasp, shaken, and not stirred (brass tacks, vodka martinis are perfectly fine shaken but gin contains oils that separate from the alcohol and that clouds the drink and dulls the gin when shaken instead of stirred).
That aside, this drink still rules. So who cares? Let’s just make one and enjoy it because, again, this is a classic.
Also Read: The Top Five Cocktail Recipes of the Last Six Months
Naturally, we’re starting with Gordon’s London Dry Gin since that’s specifically called out for this recipe. I’m using a Beluga Transatlantic Vodka because it has that adventuring, Bondian, Russian espionage vibe. It’s also a delightfully subtle Siberian vodka. Lastly, there’s the Lillet Blanc. This is pretty easy to find at any liquor store and works wonders as a more deeply-nuanced alternative to dry vermouth in any cocktail that calls for that ingredient.
Zach Johnston
What You’ll Need:
Champagne coupe or “goblet”
Cocktail shaker
Cocktail strainer
Fruit peeler
Paring knife
Jigger
Zach Johnston
Method:
Prechill your glass in the freezer.
Add the Gordon’s, vodka, and Lillet to a cocktail shaker.
Fill the shaker with ice (about 2/3 full), affix the lid, and shake gently for about 15 seconds or until the shaker is completely frosted over.
Strain the cocktail into the prechilled glass.
Allow the cocktail to settle to clear up (see cloudy image above). In the meantime, peel a long thumb of lemon peel. Express the oils over the cocktail. Lastly, trim the edges of the peel to create a long and thin lemon twist.
Garnish with the lemon twist and serve.
Bottom Line:
Zach Johnston
This opens with a bright rush of those lemon oils. Then there’s a bit of a magic trick. The first half of the sip feels and tastes like a very soft and mineral-forward vodka martini that then starts to slowly warm as the mild botanicals and barks kick in on the finish of the sip and warm you to your soul. So, it starts as a vodka martini and then ends as a subtle gin martini.
That gin-y nature builds as you drink the cocktail but it never overwhelms. The lemon plays a crucial role in both brightening and mellowing the sharper aspects of the gin. The Lillet adds a very slight sweetness that acts as a sort of bridge between the minerally vodka and the botanicals of the gin.
This really is a delightful yet very strong cocktail. This is four ounces of straight booze in a glass. Yes, it’s slightly diluted with some water from that ice, but it’s still a wallopping cocktail that could get you in trouble if you forget how much booze is in it. So just go by Bond’s own advice: Drink (only) one before dinner and drink it slowly to really savor it.
Last week, a video surfaced of DaBaby and his crew in a fight with DaniLeigh’s brother Brandon Bills, who was born Brandon Curiel. The incident took place at Corbin Bowl, a bowling alley in Topanga, California, and it came after multiple disputes between DaBaby and DaniLeigh, who have a child together. During the fight, Bills was punched, grabbed and swung around by his hair, and repeatedly thrown to the ground. Now, Bills is seeking compensation, suing DaBaby for assault, battery, emotional distress, and negligence, according to court documents obtained by TMZ.
In the documents, Bills said he was attacked by DaBaby and his crew without warning after walking by them in the bowling alley. Before the fight, Bills threatened to fight DaBaby due to his ill treatment of DaniLeigh. “When you come to the West Coast, bro, which I know you be out here, you’re going to catch this one-on-one fade, bro,” Bills said in a video he shared back in November. “One-on-one fade to see what happens between me and you. I want to see how gangsta you are, to see how much of a real man you are.”
Bills’ lawsuit comes after DaBaby was reportedly placed under investigation as a result of the incident. Local authorities are investigating DaBaby for assault with a deadly weapon, focusing on him allegedly kicking Bills in the head during the fight.
We will never get tired of new chicken sandwiches. Back before Popeyes dropped their internet-breaking sandwich (which started an aftermarket for fast food, for Christ’s sake), the menu item sat comfortably on the sidelines. Don’t get me wrong, the chicken sandwich has always had its fans — look at the success of Chick-fil-A — but it’s never been in the culinary spotlight the way it is now.
Things are different in 2022. With the entire country infected with chicken sandwich fever, big brands can’t stop giving us new chicken sandwiches. And, frankly, we won’t stop eating them, desperately chasing that first Popeyes high. Arby’s, Panda Express, McDonald’s, Burger King… they’ve all made valiant attempts to change the game.
Sadly, most of the new chicken sandwiches aren’t terrific. They’re interesting and some even manage to be a breath of fresh air, but nothing really competes with the current GOAT. Not much can even manage to match the former GOAT, Chick-fil-A.
Until now.
Wendy’s freshly launched line of sandwiches — a trio that includes a Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit, Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich, and something called the Classic Big Bacon Cheddar Chicken Sandwich — is the first drop that Popeyes might actually be worried about. These new sandwiches won’t be the cultural phenomenon that was the Popeyes sandwich rollout, I can guarantee you that. I’m not sure fast food will ever have a moment like that again. But what Wendy’s has done has vastly expanded its chicken sandwich options (six different varieties, not including spicy, classic, and grilled variations), something Popeyes seems too scared to do.
This means in 2022, the best chicken sandwich might still be found at Popeyes. But the best place to buy a variety of chicken sandwiches is Wendy’s. No cap. Here is what makes the new sandwiches great, starting with the least exciting of the three.
Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit
Dane Rivera
I love the idea of the chicken biscuit. It helps the chicken sandwich fit in with the world of fast food breakfast, and more chicken sandwiches is always a good thing. My issue with Wendy’s line of breakfast chicken sandwiches is the chicken itself. It’s garbage. Wendy’s chicken breast filet is good, it’s the only reason why Wendy’s is in the top five of fast food chicken sandwiches, but the smaller version they use for their breakfast sandwiches tastes like a different bird entirely. It’s chunky and full of hard-to-chew bits that just taste really low quality.
I know we’re talking about fast food here, but trust me on this one — Wendy’s breakfast chicken filet is no good. And that alone is enough to break the Hot Honey Chicken Biscuit. The flavors are great, I’ll get to that when we talk about the lunch version, and the way the semi-sweet biscuit complements those flavors proves that the people behind the Wendy’s kitchen are actually attempting to make good food, not just jumping on trends, but none of it matters when the chicken is this bad.
Do better Wendy’s, we know you can. In fact, that’s what makes this so frustrating.
The Bottom Line:
If you like Wendy’s breakfast sandwiches, you’re going to like this sweet and spicy version. But if you actually have tastebuds, wait a few hours and hit Wendy’s for lunch.
Classic Big Bacon Cheddar Chicken
Wendy
We’re going to take a quick detour to talk about Wendy’s other new sandwich, the Classic Big Bacon Cheddar Chicken before we talk about the much more exciting Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich. This is essentially a chicken sandwich version of the Wendy’s Classic Big Bacon Cheddar Burger that is currently on the permanent menu. In a sense, it was already a menu hack, and now Wendy’s is making it easier to order.
Personally, this sandwich isn’t really for me. But if you love big cheesy salty chicken sandwiches, this is your jam.
The sandwich features a chicken filet topped with bacon, onions rings, American Cheese, and a cheddar cheese-based bacon jam on a toasted cheddar bun. It’s probably the saltiest sandwich I’ve ever eaten. The sauce is salty and smokey, the bacon is salty and smokey, the cheese is salty, the onion rings, saltY — every goddamn thing about this sandwich is so salty that it’s hard to taste anything else. I can’t say it doesn’t taste good, but I can say that eating it made me feel terrible.
Not morally, I mean physically terrible. It’s the sort of sandwich you eat when you don’t give a single fuck.
I think if any ingredient feels excessive in this sandwich, it’s the onion rings. I love the crunch they provide, but the flavor kind of clashes with the fried chicken filet. It makes sense in the burger version of this sandwich — where its aromatic qualities and sharp flavor play off the deeper savory qualities of beef — but with the chicken, the onion flavor dominates too heavily.
The Bottom Line:
Eat it after you smoke a fat bowl. Otherwise, it’s a slightly worst version of Wendy’s Big Bacon Cheddar Burger.
Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich
Dane Rivera
All that stuff I said about the onion rings in the big bacon cheddar burgers? Wendy’s fixed it in the Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich. This sandwich features a spicy, classic, or grilled chicken filet topped with pepper jack cheese, bacon, a habanero-based hot honey sauce, and what is perhaps Wendy’s best culinary creation since the spicy nugget — crunchy dill pickle chips. These pickle chips deliver all of the crispy crunchy mouthfeel of fried onions, but with a flavor that actually works with and elevates fried chicken.
The pickles also add a lot of depth and complexity to this sandwich, supplying a hint of sour tang that plays well with the citrus-y habanero honey sauce. I’m telling you, they’re really good.
Dane Rivera
The sauce hits you first, it’s sweet, but unlike all the other fast food hot honey chickens out there, it’s not sweet to the point of tasting like candy. Instead, that sweetness acts as a pleasant introductory note. It presents itself gently before ratcheting up to simmering heat, which is reigned in between bites by the brine-y/ earthy flavor of the pickles. It’s a well-thought-out combination of flavors, and it’s really one of the best chicken sandwiches I’ve had since Popeyes first dropped their iteration.
Having said that, Wendy’s needs to up its quality control. The sandwich lacks the consistency it needs to truly be a standout. I guarantee that after pubbing this review, someone is going to tweet a very ugly sandwich at me and that’s on you, Wendy’s, not me. The honey sauce is drizzled onto the sandwich, it’s fine, but tossing the filet in the sauce would probably work better and result in a more consistent sandwich and a less messy bun. The pickle chips, while great enough to be a menu item on their own, are also terribly inconsistent. Few of the pickle chips have that perfect ratio of pickle to batter — most of them are more chip than they are pickle, and you’ll find that those particular chips are completely lacking in flavor.
Wendy’s really has something here, but they need to figure out how to put it together better so that it’s good all of the time, not just some of the time.
The Bottom Line:
This is absolutely worth jumping in your car and picking up for lunch or dinner tonight. Wendy’s may have been late to the undeniable hot honey chicken trend that is fast food’s current obsession, but they’re the best to do it so far.
It’s not often that a show gets a second season before the public has even seen it. But so it goes with Super Pumped, an anthology docudrama series whose first season chronicles the rise and not-quite-fall of Uber…and which doesn’t even debut until Feb. 27. But it already has a great subject for round two: Facebook. And it even has a great narrator.
As per Deadline, no less than Quentin Tarantino — the motormouthed auteur, whom Brad Pitt once joked is “the only guy I know who needs cocaine to stop talking” — will serve as information-giver on the show’s as-yet-untitled second season. It won’t be the first time he’s served as narrator: He performed those duties for 2015’s The Hateful Eight, which he also happened to write and direct.
The show will actually serve as a kind of reunion. Also on board for the show’s second go is Uma Thurman, who will play media titan Ariana Huffington and who scored an Oscar nomination for Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and took out lots and lots of people in his Kill Bill diptych. (Sadly, they will continue to never share an actual screen together.)
Super Pumped’s second season will, as per THR, be a “deep dive into Facebook’s transition from groundbreaking startup to the power it has become.” As for the (again) not-yet-aired first, that will look at the car-sharing service, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as ousted CEO Travis Kalanick.
Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber debuts on Showtime on Feb. 27.
Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson is one of the most decorated fighters in MMA history, but with Johnson clearly in the latter half of his fighting career, plenty of folks have wondered what his next step is. For a long time, Johnson already knew exactly what it was going to be: a full time Twitch streamer.
Johnson has been an avid streamer on Twitch for years. When he’s not training, it’s not uncommon to see him on online playing the next big thing. He recently checked out the hottest game on Steam, Lost Ark. For awhile, he was streaming so often that it was essentially a second job for him, and in a lot of ways, it was. While talking with the Washington Post, Johnson explained how he was fully prepared to make the jump to becoming a full-time Twitch streamer after his MMA career was finished. Eventually, though, he decided it wasn’t for him because of the absurd schedules that Twitch streamers typically have.
“Wake up every day and stream full time? … Oh god no. I couldn’t do it,” Johnson said during an interview on The Washington Post’s Friday live stream, Press Play.
…
“My schedule basically consisted of this: I would go to the gym, train for a session, stream afterward, then get my second session in, come home, eat dinner, kiss my wife, and then go downstairs and stream for another two hours,” Johnson said. At the time, he was making around $3,000 per month from streaming, enough to cover his mortgage. “But then it came to a point where I was like, ‘Why am I doing this? I don’t get to go to bed with my wife. I’m absolutely exhausted. It’s just not worth it.’
Johnson’s love for gaming is very real. He’s never been shy about that, but the level of work and luck required to be successful on Twitch is just as exhausting as Johnson said. It takes over a person’s life and it can feel like they don’t have time to do anything else besides work on their stream, just to make a career out of it.
For now, Johnson is going to continue letting Twitch streaming be a hobby. Perhaps he will find a way to turn his love for gaming into a career after his days in MMA are done.
Paramount+ recently confirmed the returning cast members for the Teen Wolf revival movie that’s currently in the works. The show originally aired on MTV from 2011 to 2017 and featured an ensemble of teens in the fictional town of Beacon Hills, where not only were there werewolves but other supernatural forces like kitsune and lizard people (really!) running free in the quaint California town.
One of the few non-supernatural characters was Mieczysław “Stiles” Stilinski, aka Stiles, played by a then-unknown Dylan O’Brien. O’Brien’s character was the class clown/comic relief for the show, which did have its darker moments. Stiles was best friends with the titular teen werewolf, Scott McCall, and the two were longtime best friends. So, when the cast was announced and O’Brien was nowhere to be found, many fans were upset.
At first, many believed that O’Brien wasn’t going to return due to his skyrocketing popularity and upcoming projects. He starred in Taylor Swift’s monumental 13-minute music video for “All Too Well” last fall and was also cast in M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming feature, The Vanishings At Caddo Lake.
But now, fans suspect that O’Brien isn’t returning in solidarity with his former co-star Arden Cho, who played Kira in the original series. According to reports, Cho, the only actress of color in the main cast, declined to return after being offered significantly less money than her co-stars. Arden responded to a tweet about O’Brien, saying he’s a “good one.”
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, most people who were able to work from home did. Along with that shift to remote work came a blurrier line between home life and work life—in a society where that line can be quite fuzzy as it is.
Constant connectedness via the internet has contributed to people’s difficulties in disconnecting from work. It’s far too easy to think about something work-related and shoot off a message to an employee or a co-worker no matter the time of day. In some ways, this ability makes work easier. The problem is that it also makes it easy to not have true time “off.”
Everyone needs time off, even people who enjoy their work. And now, in a series of labor reforms, one country is making it easier for everyone to create a healthier work-life balance for themselves.
First, Belgium joins several other nations in approving a four-day work week. Employees can request a six-month period of condensing a 38-hour work week (full time) into four days instead of five. Same pay, same number of hours, just shifted into four days so that every weekend is a three-day weekend. After the six months are up, they can continue with the four-day week or return to five.
“The period of six months was chosen so that an employee would not be stuck for too long in case of a wrong choice,” a government representative told Euronews Next.
According to Forbes, if an employer wants to deny an employee’s request for a four-day work week, they have to justify the reasoning for their denial in writing.
Another reform designed to enhance work-life balance allows employees to ignore messages from employers outside of work hours without fear of reprisal. This right to disconnect has already been granted to government employees as of January, but the new law will apply in the private sector as well, for all companies with 20 or more employees. Workers can turn off their work phones during nonworking hours and cannot be reprimanded for not responding to work communications outside of work hours.
“The boundary between work and private life is becoming increasingly porous,” Belgian labor minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne said. “These incessant demands can harm the physical and mental health of the worker.”
The reforms also include provisions for insurance for gig workers, such as Uber drivers and take-out delivery persons, as well as clarifying what counts as self-employment.
New laws in Belgium:n*Right to a 4-day work week (longer hours each day)n*Get your work hours 7 days in advancen*Bosses can’t bug you overnightnnAfter Iceland tried a 4-day workweek, 85% of workers switched to it.nnBelgium has a 7-party political systemhttps://www.theguardian.com/law/2022/feb/15/belgium-to-give-workers-right-to-request-four-day-weeku00a0u2026
Other countries have been experimenting with and implementing shortened work weeks with success. Iceland spent 2015-2019 trying out a 35- to 36-hour work week without any drop in pay and found that worker well-being soared while productivity remained steady or in some case increased. Now some 86% of the population works shorter hours or are gaining the right to work shorter hours. Scotland, Spain and Japan are also trialing abbreviated work weeks, and so are many large companies and organizations.
Here in the U.S., California congressman Mark Takano has introduced legislation that would change the full-time work week from 40 hours to 32 hours, citing the impact of and learnings from the pandemic as an opportunity to create a “new normal.”
“I care about making capitalism sustainable and more humane — and less low road and less cutthroat,” Takano told Business Insider. He said that the huge number of deaths during the pandemic has been traumatizing and has made people reevaluate their relationships with their jobs.
“This much stronger connection to human mortality has made people value their time,” Takano said. “I think there was a Great Realization among a lot of Americans — how hard they’re working and that they wanted to move on from the jobs that they were working at. So a four-day work week is something that connects a lot of Americans.”
The legislation has yet to see a vote, but the idea is popular among Americans. In a survey from financial firm Jefferies, 80% of respondents supported the idea of a four-day work week, while only 3% were actively opposed to the idea. Another survey of 4,000 workers conducted by Good Hire found that 83% of respondents would prefer a four-day work week.
Considering that the experiments with four-day work weeks have found increased productivity and employee well-being, perhaps the biggest hill to get over with the idea is simply the idea itself. Change is hard and can be scary. But there’s nothing magical about five 8-hour days versus four 10-hour days. And we’re even finding that there’s nothing magical about 40 hours a week versus 32 hours a week. More isn’t always better, and if people get the time that they need to be healthy and happy, they’re more likely to put more energy into their work, thereby being more productive with the time spent on the job.
Of course, not all industries or organizations can make it work, but for those who can, it’s definitely worth a shot. In the meantime, let’s keep watching Belgium and the other countries implementing shorter work weeks to see what we can learn from their experiences.
It’s thrilling to wonder “what could have been” when we hear stories of great screenplays that were never shot, incredible musical collaborations that were almost recorded or TV pilots that sounded great on paper but never got the green light.
I sometimes daydream about what would have happened if John Lennon had got on the plane in 1975 and joined Paul McCartney for the recording of his Wings album “Venus and Mars.” Lennon had planned to join McCartney at the sessions in New Orleans for what would have been their first official reunion since the Beatles break-up in 1970, but was told not to go at the last minute by his wife, Yoko Ono.
I also wonder what if director Alejandro Jodorowsky (“El Topo”) had been able to make his epic version of “Dune” starring Mick Jagger, Orson Welles and Salvador Dali in the mid-’70s. That film looked so promising that the making of it became an award-winning documentary in 2013.
There was also a planned sequel to Beetlejuice where the ghost with the most goes to Hawaii.
Michael Jackson asked Prince to duet on his 1987 hit “Bad,” but His Royal Badness refused.
When it comes to TV pilots, a lot of folks couldn’t wait to see the Dwight Schrute-centered “Office” spinoff, “The Farm,” that was never picked up by NBC. Or Judd Apatow’s follow-up to “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared,” called “North Hollywood,” that would have starred Jason Segel as a struggling actor who worked as Frankenstein at Universal Studios.
There are also a whole host of films that could have been a whole lot different. George Lucaswas originally slated to direct Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 masterpiece, “Apocalypse Now.” Instead, he made a space movie called “Star Wars.”
TV writer Dan Chamberlain took to Twitter on Sunday and asked his followers about their favorite “pop culture white whale” meaning the “unreleased/unrealized stuff” they wished they could have experienced. He gave two examples, one “The Day the Clown Cried,” an unreleased Jerry Lewis film about a clown during the Holocaust, and a Jay-Z “The Blueprint 3” track “Crispy Benjamins,” which supposedly sampled Regina Spektor’s “Chemo Limo.”
what’s your pop culture white whale? i mean unreleased/unrealized stuff like “the day the clown cried” – mine is the rumored jay-z blueprint 3 track “crispy benjamins” which supposedly sampled regina spektor’s “chemo limo”
The Lewis film, originally shot in 1972, is allegedly so bad that he donated an incomplete copy of the film to the Library of Congress in 2015 under the stipulation that it was not to be screened before June 2024.
Here are some of the best responses to the pop culture “white whales” people have been yearning to see and hear.
THE CHEAPEST MUPPET MOVIE EVER MADE – original concept from Juhl and Henson in ‘85, more recent Disney-rejected rewrite by Oz. Gonzo directs and blows the budget on the opening credits. The movie get cheaper as it goes… https://t.co/Kb6AUqAPVK…!
The 3 1/2 hour Director’s Cut. Explained so many things that happened, like the burglar who steals Del’s wallet in the hotel room. pic.twitter.com/nPDxUccBd5
A long, long time ago I got my hands on the script to “Dieter Movie,” about Mike Myers’ character from SPROCKETS. To this day it remains the funniest script I have ever read.
I think about the Beatles’ LotR 15 times more often than I think about either #TheBeatles or #LotR. Don’t even get me started on the Kubrick piece of the puzzle!
The only thing that could have killed it was J.R.R. Tolkien himself. So he did. pic.twitter.com/gMwvtOFVFS
Charlie Kaufman’s FRANK OR FRANCIS, which was set to star Steve Carell, Jack Black, Nicolas Cage, Kevin Kline (in 2 roles), Elizabeth Banks, Catherine Keener, and Paul Reubens.
There was going to be a Marx Brothers reunion movie in which each played the head of a different state running amok in the U.N. — written and directed by Billy Wilder following The Apartment. Chico died before it could be made.
James Gunn wrote a Spy vs Spy script in the late 90s for Jay Roach (Austin Powers director) with Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans allegedly playing the spies. Gunn wrote with Nic Cage and Eddie Murphy in mind as the spies. One day maybe. One day… 😓 pic.twitter.com/Lljdzo2VUH
McCartney went to his farm when the Beatles broke up, missing Hendrix’s telegram invite sent to Apple’s office: “We are recording an LP together this weekend in NewYork. How about coming in to play bass? Peace Jimi Hendrix Miles Davis Tony Williams.” pic.twitter.com/zubeaoT1tK
The uncut version of The Black Cauldron. Supposedly, Disney does have this version in their vault but have never made it public. Only a few surviving shots and cels have surfaced. https://t.co/Ar7Bd6Iev0
Big Bug Man. It was never released and it’s Marlon Brando’s last performance, as he recorded dialogue a month before he died in 2004 pic.twitter.com/gNcuJKcFfA
Some of the white whales mentioned seem so incredible that if they did materialize, it’d be hard for them to deliver on their promises. Sometimes it’s more fun to imagine what something would sound or look like than actually experiencing it in real life.
Comedian Harry Shearer claims to have seen a rough cut of the aforementioned Lewis film, “The Day the Clown Cried” and says that most of the time there’s no way these white whales can live up to their expectations. However, Lewis’ film is the exception that proves the rule.
“With most of these kinds of things, you find that the anticipation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But seeing this film was really awe-inspiring, in that you are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object,” Shearer said.
“This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is. ‘Oh, My God!’—that’s all you can say,” he continued.
Thanks to his accessibility on social media, Gary, Indiana rapper Freddie Gibbs has cultivated a devoted fanbase that isn’t afraid to razz him a bit with posts pointing out his lookalikes, including actor Don Cheadle. At this past weekend’s Super Bowl festivities in LA, though, Gibbs finally made contact with his celebrity doppelganger, who introduced himself by confirming fans’ observations.
The two had a fun moment recounting their meeting on Twitter, where Gibbs recalled Cheadle’s words and the actor verified the story. “N**** walked up to me last night and said, ‘People say we look alike,’ and it was Don Cheadle,” Gibbs wrote. “The f*cking goat.” Cheadle retweeted his post, calling it a “true story.” “Great meeting you, nephew,” he assured. “To be continued…”
— Don” ‘t ask me google questions” Cheadle (@DonCheadle) February 14, 2022
Whether that means the duo will find some project to work on together in the future or if it’s just the beginning of a growing friendship, plenty of fans were excited by the moment, including Gibbs’ manager, who got a photo of the two mid-embrace.
Tasting bourbon blind (or anything blind for that matter) is always more complicated than you or our LIFE editor (who loves assigning these) might think. Most of what we run here are “single-blind” tastings — meaning that the person trying something “blind” knows the guacamole brands or salsa brands or beer brands in the lineup (typically, that’s who went out and bought them). Even if you don’t know you’re tasting a Basil Hayden bourbon instead of, say, an Old Grand-Dad, you still know in the back of your head that those two whiskeys are in the day’s lineupsomewhere.
But today, we’re going “double-blind.” Meaning, I don’t even know what’s in the mix. I had my wife pick ten bourbons at random from my whiskey shelves and pour them into Glencairns while I was out walking the dog. The only instructions I gave her were to not pull more than one bottle off a single shelf and don’t open anything that’s sealed. That cast a very wide net. She then wrote down which whiskeys were in each glass and put the bottles back where they’d been, so I wouldn’t see which had been moved.
From there, I sat down, took photos of each glass, and dove into the tasting with no other information besides the look of each whiskey. I’m not even going to list the whiskeys here — you’re going to stay as blind as me. Let’s just dive in and see if I can identify any of these blind (at all) and where they fall in my double-blind ranking.
Also Read: The Top 5 UPROXX Bourbon Posts Of The Last Six Months
This opens with a sense of soft leather and vanilla syrup with a slight pear or cherry pie vibe with some dark berries and maybe nutshells. The palate isn’t too far off that profile with plums, nuts, and warming, woody spice. The mid-palate has a slight plum pudding feel that moves towards woody spices and more nutshell but ends up more like dry orchard wood than anything else.
My Guess:
Woody fruit with a bit of spice? This feels like a single barrel and very Kentucky. The berries remind me of Elijah Craig or Four Roses. It’s something in that general direction.
Taste 2
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Worn leather draws you in with notes of rich toffee, vanilla tobacco, blackberries, and a hint of dark potting soil. Toffee and vanilla drive the palate with a dry cedar bark next to dark and oily espresso beans. Dark berry fruit leans into more of that vanilla tobacco chewiness as that bark vibe lingers on the backend of the palate.
My Guess:
There’s zero “pie crust” or “biscuit” or “pancake batter” vibe so this has to be a sweet mash. That means it’s likely Peerless simply because I don’t think I have any other sweet mash bourbon on my shelves right now.
Taste 3
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Leather and a berry cobbler with raw biscuits lead the way on the nose as winter spices and a hint of floral honey pop in. Clove and nutmeg dominate on the palate with a touch of anise leading towards fresh strawberries, dark chocolate-covered coffee beans, and a big piece of cinnamon bark. There’s a spiced chocolate tobacco vibe on the end that leads towards a spicy plum jamminess that’s very dark and deep.
My Guess:
The darkness of this with those bitter notes and heavy spices feels very crafty. On that overtly leathery nose and super dark look and overall deep vibe, it’d say this is Texas craft whiskey.
Garrison, Balcones, TX … one of those.
Taste 4
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This starts with a big dose of caramel candies with a hint of honey next to toasted oak staves and soft suede on the nose. The palate holds into the caramel sweetness as subtle hints of stone fruit arrive with more oak, spicy apricot jam, peach pits, and a hint of perfumed soap (kind of like old-school Palmolive) and maybe fennel. The finish sticks with fennel and turns it into a candy with that caramel as the perfume lingers in your senses.
My Guess:
I have no f*cking clue what this is. It’s weirdly nostalgic with that Palmolive note though.
Taste 5
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This draws you in with a nose full of stale popcorn next to pecan Sandies with a dose of cinnamon, a little bit of sweet grass, and a touch of leather. There’s a vanilla cream pie note on the palate that leads toward more leather, fresh floral notes, and choco-cherry tobacco. The mid-palate peaks with that tobacco spice and sweetness and then just sort of disappear into a watery grave.
My Guess:
This is something cheaper and/or cut way down in proof. That popcorn note makes this feel like an entry-point Dickel or maybe Evan Williams.
Taste 6
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Sweet spice, stewed pears with saffron, and a chocolate cream pie nose greet you. The taste leans into vanilla hard candies with almond-encrusted toffees, soft cedar, and a hint of potting soil. Pears and soft apricot-laced tobacco leaves drive the mid-palate towards more pear and hint of that soil, tobacco, and nutty toffee.
My Guess:
I have no clue what this is but it’s really goddamn nice.
Taste 7
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Vanilla pudding meets orange zest and kiwi as a hint of marshmallow drives the nose. Spicy tobacco leads the way on the palate as fresh mint lightens things up and dried roses counterpoint. The mid-palate is all about sweet spices with savory fruits leaning into figs and maybe even a touch of raw pumpkin flesh. Those figs take over on the end and create a sweet/savory fruity finish with a touch of kiwi skin.
My Guess:
This is a real outlier. It has to be some random finishing that no one else does. That savory fruit feels like something Woodford does in their limited runs but that’s not quite it though. I can’t quite put my finger on this but it’s something completely different.
Taste 8
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
There’s a mix of chocolate powder, apricots, and orange that’s tempered by five spice and a hint of wet reeds. Sweet and floral honey opens the palate up to Almond Roca (gotcha!) and peach pits. Ripe plums with more of those wet reeds drive the finish towards soft leather, more stone fruit, and a slightly spicy tobacco chew.
My Guess:
This is a Woodinville bourbon. It’s finished, maybe the PX cask? But that Almond Roca flavor note is very Seattle and gives it away instantly.
Taste 9
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
This smells like Special K with a supporting lineup of summer flowers, mocha lattes, soft cedar, and a hint of vanilla extract. Winter spices warm on the palate as biscuits with Nutella dive the sweet and sour mash mid-palate. The backend has a vanilla tobacco feel with a hint more of those spices but fades out pretty quickly.
My Guess:
It’s definitely wheated. It’s not Maker’s, Weller/Pappy, or Larceny — it’s not as dialed as those. My guess is it’s an MGP wheatie like Old Elk. Redemption maybe?
Taste 10
Zach Johnston
Tasting Notes:
Leather and berry brambles — the fruit, stems, leaves, and even dirt — pop on the nose with a hint of orange oil, mossy bark, and sweet oak. I already know this is Elijah Craig Barrel Proof by that berry bramble nose. The taste confirms it with more of those red and dark berry brambles, buttery toffee, cobbles from a cobbler, and a very creamy vanilla presence. A soft berry tobacco drives the finish towards a vanilla bark and a dusting of warming winter spices.
This whiskey is built from a batch of barrels that are a minimum of seven years old. Nearest’s Master Blender, Victoria Eady-Butler, creates the blend according to classic flavor notes first put into Tennessee whiskey by her ancestor, Nearest Green, back in the 1800s.
Bottom Line:
This just disappeared at the end today when I wanted it to hit a grand slam on the finish. It’s a shame because the first half of the sip is really good. I really can’t see using this outside of big cocktails.
I guess I was on the Tennessee scent in that I thought it was an “entry-point” Dickel but, nah, I didn’t come close to getting this one correct.
This release from Redemption is their take on MGP’s 45 percent winter wheat bourbon. Redemption’s team brings four-year-old barrels in-house and then masterfully blends them in small batches until they get just the right notes.
Bottom Line:
This started off really strong but ended a little thin. There was still a finish, don’t get me wrong. But at the end of the day, this felt like a solid cocktail bourbon more than anything else.
As for my guess, I nailed it at first. It’s an MGP wheated bourbon. But then I thought it was Old Elk and it’s not that.
This blend from Lux Row starts off with 14-year-old high rye bourbon. That’s cut with two different eight-year-old high-rye bourbons before that vatted juice goes into a French Sauternes casks for a final maturation. That whiskey then goes into the bottle as-is.
Bottom Line:
This was so out of leftfield. That perfume/Palmolive note reminded me of my grandmother but, like, after she’d had a whiskey or two. So there was a clear nostalgia play that drew me back and there was real depth to this whiskey. It, at least, had a clear beginning, middle, and end.
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 with a little Kentucky limestone water added.
Bottom Line:
This is where we get into the splitting hairs section. This was really good, unique, and something I want to go back to.
I guess because I couldn’t quite place it, it fell a little in the rankings. It felt like it should have stood out more somehow. Still, this difference between this and the next three entries is very small.
This Heaven Hill expression is released three times a year and has been winning award after award. The whiskey in the bottle is generally at least 12 years old and bottled with no cutting down to proof or filtration whatsoever. This expression is all about finding the best barrels in the Heaven Hill warehouses and letting that whiskey shine on its own.
Bottom Line:
This is a testament to the powerhouse whiskeys in this blind taste test. I knew this was Elijah Craig Barrel Proof and it still slotted in at sixth. But as I said with the Jefferson’s above, I’m super-duper splitting hairs with the awesome quality of this middle group of bourbons.
5. Yellowstone Hand Picked Collection Single Barrel — Taste 6
These bottles are part of an exclusive run of bourbon barrels that are “hand picked” by Steve Beam out at Limestone Branch Distillery (from sourced barrels). Beam pulls these exceptional barrels in and releases them for special retailers, bar accounts, and collections. Each release is around 200 bottles and they tend to be rare finds.
Bottom Line:
This was really nice overall. There was nothing that really blew my mind but it didn’t disappoint in any way either. I had no idea what it was but that’s sort of besides the point when the whiskey is this easy-going.
4. Four Roses Single Barrel, Barrel No. 66-2G — Taste 1
Four Rose’s standard single barrel expression is an interesting one. This is their “number one” recipe, meaning it’s a high-rye (35 percent) mash bill that’s fermented with a yeast that highlights “delicate fruit.” The juice is then bottled at 100 proof, meaning you’re getting a good sense of that single barrel in every bottle.
Bottom Line:
This was pretty damn tasty today. I can definitely see going back to this bottle for a nice end-of-the-day pour over a rock or two.
And, hey, I wasn’t that far off on guessing what it was!
This whiskey starts as Woodinville’s award-winning five-year-old bourbon. That juice is then re-barreled into Moscatel wine casks for a finish maturation period. After nearly a year, the whiskey goes into the bottle having just been touched by water but otherwise as-is.
Bottom Line:
That Almond Roca note is a dead giveaway. Though, I did call the wrong cask finishing. All of that aside, this is really pretty delicious. It’s such an easy and rewarding sipper. This is definitely where we get into the big leagues in this ranking, taste-wise.
This whiskey is hewn from 90 30-gallon barrels of four-year-old bourbon that were transferred into 26 59-gallon Tawny Port casks for a final maturation of nearly two years. That juice was then bottled as-is after a touch of water was added.
Bottom Line:
This is another one that was just delicious. I didn’t want it to end. That being said it wasn’t quite as nuanced and subtle as the next entry. This needed that rock to calm it down a bit (but only barely).
That need to be calmed is what gave it away as a big ol’ Texas palate buster whiskey. Though, I didn’t pinpoint the brand.
1. Kentucky Peerless Small Batch Bourbon — Taste 2
Kentucky Peerless Distilling takes its time for a true grain-to-glass experience. Their small batch is crafted with a fairly low-rye mash bill and fermented with a sweet mash as opposed to a sour mash (that means they use 100 percent new grains, water, and yeast with each new batch instead of holding some of the mash over to start the next one like a sourdough starter, hence the name). The barrels are then hand-selected for their taste and bottled completely as-is.
Bottom Line:
This was the most refined sip of the day by far. It was clean and distinct while still having an enticing feel to it. It’s also the one I wanted to go back to immediately.
Lastly, I think I called this one even though it was an educated guess (based on me forgetting I have Wilderness Trail on my shelf — another sweet mash whiskey).
Part 3: Final Thoughts
Zach Johnston
Even though I didn’t know any of these bottles from the jump, it all still shook out pretty close to what I might have anticipated. A few sank straight to the bottom, the middle was full of really good / very close bourbons, and the top two or three were undeniable. Not knowing what the labels were in advance had no bearing on the results.
That aside, I only really got three (maybe four) out of ten right when trying to call out what these are. In all honesty, part of that is that there are hundreds of whiskeys on my shelf and it was a bit overwhelming trying to narrow it down. Some of these could have been anything — a bottle I haven’t tried in a while, something I simply forgot about, something I haven’t tried yet … anything.
In the end, I’m glad Kentucky Peerless Bourbon won. I like that brand, the people behind it, and I truly adore their whiskeys. But even looking at the top three (which was all pretty much a tie), all of them are from small craft distillery operations that really, really care about the product they make themselves and put out into the world. All of the sourced stuff (with Elijah Craig and Four Roses being the exceptions) was below that.
Is that saying something? Perhaps.
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