Episode 35 - Riptide

Riptide Rye from Cali Distillery

Hey there, Backyardigans! “YOUR BACKYARD FRIENDS THE BACKYARDIGANS!” How y’all are! It’s episode #35 and we are sippin’ corn and spillin’ tea, as it were, as per usual. In this episode, we’ll sample an incredible rye from the good folks at Cali Distillery they call “Riptide,” and we’ll talk about the 80s TV show by the same name. We’ll also talk about a cheese cloth, a strainer and the case of the troublesome cork, but first, we’ll talk about a certain situation that has impacted a lot of us in the bourbon/whiskey community. It involves that most artistic of photographers on Instagram, the one known simply as… SCOTCH TROOPER.

If you’re not aware of what’s been going on, here’s a quick recap. This is an over-simplified version, but @scotch_trooper (SPELL IT OUT) is this incredible artist doing really cool pics of Star Wars figurines posing with different Scotch bottles. If you’re not following him on Instagram or Twitter, do yourself a favor and follow him. And trust me you’ll be glad you did the second you do it because you’re going to go down the rabbit hole of his account just enjoying the pics he’s made. Well during the 12 hours of boom hosted by the incomparable Scotch Test Dummies (and you should follow them, too), @scotch_trooper was a guest, and explained he was being threatened with legal action by someone claiming he was making alcohol appealing to minors by posing toys with booze. In a particularly ballsy twist, his accuser is, as of today, still unknown. He doesn’t even know who has made this claim. He’s had some sponsors drop him, presumably afraid of the damage it could do to their brand, and from a corporate standpoint, what else did you figure they’d do, right? Their media and brand image folks are going to be pretty hawkish when it comes to defending themselves against anything they see as a threat. It’s a chicken-shit defense, but a defense nonetheless. Thankfully, it sounds like some of the brands have stood by him during this because they’re fully aware of how ridiculous this is. Plus, this is going to help their brands look much better to the general public by sticking by their friends in need, right? We’ll see what happens if the heat gets turned up, but here’s what I want to know: who did this? Who accused him? Isn’t that part of the Constitution? Aren’t you supposed to be able to face your accusers? Is this Russia? This isn’t Russia! (bonus points if you can tell me the classic film that line is from). Seriously, tho. We’re headed to a very dangerous place as a republic if we’re going to allow nameless, faceless people to make random accusations with no recourse for the accused. And can anyone explain to me how you’re gonna get a kid to drink Scotch by using Star Wars characters? Have you ever seen a 10 year old try to take a sip of black coffee? Multiply that times A THOUSAND and that’s about what you’d get when one tries Scotch! And why would anyone want to get a kid to drink, anyway? Scotch guys like their Scotch as much as we like our bourbon. The last thing we all want is more people drinking up the supplies and driving up the price! At any rate, it’s a bad rap for @scotch_trooper, and I fear we’re setting a precedent here. Basically, someone can hate your page, then spend a lot of time going through each image on your page, and then call down the thunder to shut down your page, all while you have no idea who it is and why they hate your page. Look, it’s clear @scotch_trooper was not pandering alcohol to kids, and it should never have got this far. To go after his livelihood is just trashy, and the person that did this is trashy.

Riptide the rye whiskey - So the good folks out there in Gardena, CA, sent me two samples, Riptide (which is the rye), and CALI whiskey, what they call “A California twist on a classic American sipping whiskey.” We will review the sipping whiskey very soon, but today we’re focused on the Riptide rye. Now, due to Ace Ventura at the local UPS office putting the box through its paces, the cork BROKE. OFF. IN. DA BOTTLE. Oh mamacita how do you fix that?!?! Well, I’ma gonna tell you how you fix that! You get on that there YouTube and you find out that cheesecloth (or in our case, a thin, clean lint-free dish towel), a strainer and a large glass measuring bowl can save your bacon! If you ever run into this problem and need assistance, DM me and I’ll walk you through it. It’s not the issue it appears to be, trust me. So after saving the rye from a cork-filled fate, I naturally had to sample it to ensure quality, and it was the payoff to all the hard work I put in saving it. I’ve never been a big rye guy, just because I’ve never really had much access to them, and when you see so many choices in the bourbon aisle, you, or at least I, can get distracted. But Riptide has turned the tide, so to speak, on my rye-free ways. Here’s what the back of the bottle says: “Riptide is a high proof rye, powerful yet surprisingly smooth and easy to drink.” Well, that’s very true. At 118 proof, you’ll get good warm burn on this one, but it is very smooth. You’ll also pick up great butterscotch notes on the tongue. It’s really good. It goes on… “Hand-bottled in small batches at cask strength, ‘Riptide’ is a complex whiskey with butterscotch notes (yep, could definitely pick up on that) in perfect balance with the bite of the rye.” Then they conclude with one of the best lines at the end. “Even the empty glass smells fabulous.” HAHAHA Yes it does!

Marni and Howard are the founders at Cali Distillery, and they really did a great job with this whiskey. This is really great stuff, and also probably one of the highest proofs I’ve had in my short 3 or 4 year experience drinking bourbon. This is my current daily drinker, and I had to hurry up to get this review going because I was going to burn through it all before I put down any notes about it. And as for marketing, they did a great job on the bottle. Very unique, eye-catching style and label. Admittedly, it’s a little jarring to put California and whiskey together, because Napa Valley has really laid claim to the state and made it synonymous with wine. Tequila is probably second place, but my personal opinion is that you won’t be disappointed at all with this rye. Especially when you consider it’s a local company, run by a couple bottling their stuff by hand.

Riptide the TV show - OK, did any of you ever see the show “Riptide” back in the 80s? It was only on for a couple of years…  from 1984-1986. It was another helicopter/boat/robot/detective show… It was like Magnum PI meets Simon and Simon meets Short Circuit. Basically, it was two buff guys and their nerdy cousin solving crimes, flying helicopters, and remotely controlling robots. I don’t know why but we were all big on robots and private investigators back in the 80s. Like that was a legitimate career back then. “What do you do?” “I’m a private investigator.” “OOOOH,” the people would say in response, impressed with this stranger who just stumbled into their Tupperware party with his Trapper Keeper and his Hush Puppies and his Members Only jacket slung over his shoulder. And here we are, 30 years later, no closer to cool robots than we were back then. In fact, we’re probably further behind, because no one cares now. But the 80s TV shows were always giving us tantalizing glimpses of what the near-future was going to be like. Robots… making your coffee… and the hilarious antics that then ensued. Women were always in bikinis, California was pristine place everyone wanted to be… everyone had a boat. And evidently even a helicopter. There were always plenty of explosions and gun play and no one got hurt and no one thought “hey I saw a gun on TV, I should go shoot up a school.” Gotta miss the 80s for that, right?

And I don’t know if any of you ever did this at your house, but for almost every TV show and movie in the 80s, there were easily-identifiable hero parts for me and my brother. I had blond hair, and my brother had brown, so it was very easy to dole out the parts. Whatcha playing? Dukes of Hazzard? I’m Bo Duke, my brother is Luke Duke. Our cousins are over? Easy. Mindy is Daisy Duke, and Nate gets to be… Uncle Jessie or Roscoe P. Coltrane. I don’t know, it wasn’t perfect. I’m just saying. Simon and Simon? Again, blond and brown hair makes things easy. Star Wars? I’m Luke and my brother is Han. Piece of cake. In fact, of all the times my brother and I fought when we were kids, and there were a lot, I don’t remember ever fighting over who was going to be who from a TV show. But Riptide was the easiest, again another blond and brown combo, but also the geeky guy looked just like my cousin Nate, who himself was always engineering things in his basement. In fact, for awhile, my dad called Nate “Murray” like the character’s name. You’ll have to YouTube it, because they actually have full episodes on there.

Well, that’ll about do it for today’s show! Hey I hope you enjoyed this episode! A very special thanks goes out to the good folks at Cali Distillery in Gardena, California and their Riptide Rye. That was an EXCELLENT rye and I can’t wait to try the sipping whiskey next. As always, I’d also like to thank the Jingle Punks for the music we use a our intro, and also Bird Creek and Bobby Renz for their “surfing” style music you heard in today’s episode. You can find their FREE music on the YouTube Audio Library. Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Twitter, I put a lot of beautiful pictures I take for each podcast on there, and I’ve done so with the Riptide rye, I think you’ll enjoy them. Well that’s it, God bless, and if you’re having a bad day, remember the days of private investigators, bikini-clad Californians and remote controlled bug eyed robots.

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