Episode 1 - Bokeh and Bondi Bourbon

Bokeh and Bondi Bourbon

Welcome to the Backyard Bourbon Broadcast! In this episode, Jerimy talks Netflix, bokeh effects, the Army-Navy game, and Bondi Bourbon. It’s a full show, and the first episode of our second season! This is episode 1, season 2 of the Backyard Bourbon Broadcast!

Hey there, Backyardigans, how y’all are! Hey it’s the first episode of our second season, and it’s also getting very close to Christmas, so we’re combining it all into one. We were sent a complimentary bottle from the folks at Bondi Bourbon out of Minnesota, so we’ll be reviewing their bourbon, we’ll talk about Netflix and their slow and steady descent into soap opera-ville, getting the bokeh effect into your pictures, and maybe get into the Army-Navy game that was going on as I was scripting this episode.

Right, so first let’s talk about Netflix and the cyclical circle-jerk they’re turning nearly every original series into. Any of you notice that? Now, I love Netflix. It’s enabled me, as a parent, to see movies well before I normally would, which is like 10 years after it came out. But they start off a series and you’re really into it, and at some point in about the second or third season, the good guy becomes the bad guy, or the bad guy becomes the good guy, or some insignificant character who had no part in anything up to that point somehow rises to be in charge of everything, and it all ends with one of the main characters who you thought would be around forever meeting an extremely violent end and then you know the actor just signed on for a movie deal somewhere else and they’re done with the show. Or you know they’re baiting you to return next season where you’ll be subjected to the same cycle of drama all over again. They created an incredible platform for watching entertainment without commercials, but it didn’t take too long to degrade it into “The Young and The Restless” on crack. Black Sails, one of my favorites on Hulu, matched this pattern exactly. Frontier, on Netflix, with Jason Mamoa, same thing. Basically, they’ve used violence to get guys addicted to soap operas. That’s where we’re at. It’s driving me nuts, because I know that every new series we stumble across, I got about 1-2 seasons before it descends into some moral morass. “And so begins the long, slow descent into deuche-baggery.”

OK let’s talk about boring photography now, sound good? Sure sure sure. Specifically, let’s talk about the bokeh effect. The bokeh effect is the out-of-focus effect of lights and lighted objects in your photographs, and it gets greater the wider your aperture is. It’s those beautiful warm circles that come out in your pictures when you photograph someone in front of Christmas lights. And that makes Christmas the perfect time to practice mastering the bokeh effect. Now if your aperture is real small, like in the f-stop 22 range or so, you’re not going to see that effect, probably at all. But if you blow your aperture up to like 4.0 or 4.5, it’s going to look really nice. And remember, the smaller the f-stop number, the “wider” your aperture is considered. It’s opposite of what you think. Now, if you really want to get an incredible bokeh effect, use a lens with a larger aperture than 4.0. I use a 50mm prime lens, and a prime lens is just a lens that is set to a specific focal length with no zoom ability. My 50mm prime lens is set at, you guessed it, 50mm, and it’s aperture goes all the way to 1.8. ONE POINT EIGHT! It can make a set of Christmas lights look like the warmest bunch of magical circles you’ve ever seen. If you take a look at my Wix site, backyardbourbonbroadcast.wix.com/broadcast, I’ve got some pictures of this episode’s bourbon, Bondi Bourbon, in front of our Christmas tree. But as with anything, it’s not instant magic. In fact, setting the aperture that wide can be problematic when you’re not paying sharp attention to focus. Aperture set to 1.8 or thereabouts means anything the width of a nickel, closer or further away from your subject, is going to be noticeably blurry. If you’re photographing people, and the focus is slightly off of their eyes, it’ll be distracting for your audience. If you’re snapping pics of a product, this Bondi bourbon for example, and you don’t have the product label in perfect focus, it’s going to lose its effect. And sure, you can claim it’s how you intended it, but we all know that trick. Getting product labels focused with the low light you’ll probably be taking Christmas pictures in with a high aperture is definitely something that takes a bit of practice, and a lot of times, you won’t notice you didn’t get it right until you’re reviewing your pictures later and unable to go back and correct your mistakes!

What else? In college football, Army-Navy was on recently. And that was an old-school game. I haven’t seen these teams play at all this year, so I don’t know if this is typical, but evidently neither quarterback has any skill throwing the ball. It was all running all game long, which, for this rivalry, kind of made sense, and like I said, it was old school. Not Big 12 style shoot out the lights and score over 100 points. It was more ground and pound. Basically, it was a good boring game. Made me feel like I went back in time 50 years to watch a football game. I also liked their tradition of singing their school songs after the game, with the winner singing last. I really appreciated the respect Army gave Navy as they sang their song, while waiting to sing their own alma-mater. And I’ll just add this - there wasn’t one player kneeling during the national anthem in that game.

OK, let’s get to the bourbon, amiright, or amiright… or amiright?? Bondi Bourbon (pronounced bond-EE)  is the product of two Canadians who started making bourbon in Minnesota about ten years ago. They’re currently available in liquor stores in that state, Nebraska, and California by the end of the month, and they say it will be available in Canada by the end of the year. Very classy bottle style, very smooth aroma out of the glass. OK Here’s the deal: This podcast isn’t going to work if every bourbon I review is “just awesome!” “Everything is awesome!” Honesty is the only thing that’s going to work, and hopefully one of the reasons y’all tune in here. So in cases where I don’t like a product, a conflict arises from not wanting to disappoint the folks that sent me a bottle, but still wanting to be honest with my listeners. When I first tried this bourbon, my first sip was, as always, neat, and it was very light and smooth. Not anything astounding, but nothing that turned me off, either. A couple of days later I tried it on the rocks, and I’ll be very honest with you, I didn’t like it. In fact, I didn’t even finish that pour. I told my wife and a close friend about the experience, and really was conflicted over it. These people were gracious enough to send me a bottle you can’t even get in this state, and here I am, not liking it at all, to the point of being unable to even finish the second glass, and I’m gonna have to tell people about it. Both of them, without hesitation, told me to tell the truth. So I’m telling y’all the truth about how those first couple of tries went. Now that’s not the end of the story, though. I then tried a third pour. Neat with just a little bit of water. And folks, that pour was pretty good. So I can’t figure out this bourbon. Is it the ice? I don’t think so. It’s the same ice I always use. I’ve had it again and again since then, and I’m still stumped. I just don’t think this bourbon does well on ice. Maybe it’s because it spent so much time in Minnesota, it just doesn’t like being cold. And hey, I get that. That’s why I moved from Wyoming to Oklahoma. Tired of being cold. Maybe it just needs to air out? Possibly. I haven’t had bourbon that needs that, but I have recently had some bourbon that had been aired out for a long time and it was pretty good. Maybe that’s what this needs. This is a decent bourbon neat or with a little water. Is it my favorite? No, no it’s not. But it’s not objectionable. Would I choose it over, say, Weller, Bulleit, Woodford? Or Wild Turkey 101? Or that super-tasty, super-cheap, super-overlooked Evan Williams 1783? No. I wouldn’t. Not a knock towards the generous folks at Bondi that provided this wonderful bottle, but just being honest. Also, I’m not one of those that thinks bourbon can only be made in Kentucky, but I am starting to notice differences of bourbons from different regions. My guess would be the difference in water makes the difference in taste, but that’s just a guess. It may also be due to the unique temperature fluctuations of the south, and maybe it’s just not getting hot enough in MN for it to have a comparable taste? I’m obviously not the guy to figure that out. What’s my final thought for this bourbon? Folks, I don’t even know. But this is the damndest bourbon I’ve ever had. I really like it neat. I have it multiple times this way, and it is very smooth. But my favorite way, or maybe I should say my “usual way”  to have bourbon is over a big cube, and I would not recommend having this bourbon on ice. The times I’ve had it that way, I did not like it. If I was giving it a grade, for “neat,” I’d give it a strong B. For ice, eeeeek. It’d have to take the course all over again. I’d love to hear your own thots on it, and let me know if you’ve ever encountered this before.

Alright, let’s wrap this thing up. I hope you enjoyed today’s show, and I want to thank each and every one of you for popping in to listen to me ramble! Hopefully, we have entertained you and you’ve enjoyed your time with us. I’d also like to thank the maker of today’s bourbon, Bondi Bourbon, for sending a bottle to us and for being so gracious to us here. Hey stop by and say hi on social media: we’re on Instagram @backyardbourbonbroadcast and on Twitter @bourbonandstory. Or drop us a line at backyardbourbonbroadcast@gmail.com. Once again, thank you for listening, and we’ll talk to you on the next episode of the Backyard Bourbon Broadcast!

Bourbon and a fireplace