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This is a weird one! Lots of whiskey & gaming news this week - including French fry flavored vodka from Arby's, a major Among Us update, and the release of Netflix Gaming for iOS and Android, including two Stranger Things games. I'm also reviewing Barrel Craft Spirits' Barrel Seagrass, an American and Canadian Rye Whiskey finished in 3 different types of casks! Chat about this week's episode on the Bourbon Bytes Whiskey & Gaming Lounge Discord server at http://www.BourbonBytes.com Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BourbonBytes Subscribe on YouTube for live streams and more: https://www.YouTube.com/BourbonBytes Leave a voicemail with questions or topic suggestions: (818) 660-5782
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On today's episode of the Bourbon Bites podcast, we're getting weird with some unexpected combos
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including Arby's vodka, Netflix gaming, and barrel seagrass. What on earth is going on
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Stay tuned and find out. Hey everybody, and welcome to the Bourbon Bites podcast
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I'm your host, Clifton, and today's show is jammed packed with news and reactions
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And I figured it's all relevant and it's all timely. So I'm going to get into as much of it as I can tonight because I'm so excited to talk
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about some of these things. Some of them are very, very strange. That doesn't mean they're not fun to talk about
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The first one's not really strange, but I guess a little disappointing to some people
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I don't know if it's official. I haven't seen anything other than a tweet about it, but apparently there will not be
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a Van Winkle rye this year. They did this before in 2017
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They said there wasn't enough stock of the older rye. There has not been a reason said for this this time
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But honestly, like who's going to get their hands on that bottle anyway
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I mean, I will say I have had the opportunity to try Van Winkle rye and it was so good
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It actually came. It was at a bar in Charleston, South Carolina. I saw it on the shelf
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I asked the bartender how much it was and he was he showed me and I was like oh no thank you but I was talking to my friend about it and I was like hey that's like a unicorn bottle I've always wanted to try but not at that price so he may have snuck me a little pour of it after he overheard that and I gotta say it's very very good now it's retail good is what I'll say it's not near you know the crazy secondary market but that could be said about any you know secondary bourbon especially anything with the Pappy or Van Winkle line
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name on it so um but yeah so i guess it's a little disappointing that there's not going to be a new
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one this year but at the same time like who would have saw it anyways but instead of pappy we are
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getting something new this year arby's is releasing vodka yeah i read the headline and i was like
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this is a joke right this is april fools but no they are actually releasing two flavored vodkas
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there will be a crinkle cut vodka and a curly fry vodka so these aren't just novelty names these are
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actually different flavors of the vodka the crinkle cut flavor is made with kosher salt and
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sugar whereas the curly fry vodka is distilled with cayenne paprika onion and garlic i don't
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know about you guys i'm biased i love a good curly fry i am not a crinkle cut fry fan i don't know
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about you guys i just always i grew up eating those when i was a kid and i was like these are
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so potatoey but curly fries man those are my jam it's a toss-up either curly fries or waffle fries
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Those are my two favorites. Although I am also a sucker for McDonald's fries
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They're just when they're cooked right. They're often not cooked right. But when they are, they are delicious
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But I'm very confused by this news. But I'm also like gonna try to get a couple bottles
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I may or may not have emailed them and asked if they did media samples
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I highly doubt they will. But if they don't, I will still plan to pick these up
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They are going to sell for $59.99 each. That supposedly includes shipping
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They go on sale on the website. So if you just Google Arby's vodka, you'll see the website there
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They go on sale November 18th, but there's going to be a second round of releases on
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November 22nd. If you missed it and you're like, dang it, I really wish I would have bought that Arby's vodka
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I don't know. But I'm honestly going to try to go for them, not just because, you know, it would be fun
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to have on a video, but also like I'm genuinely curious. Like I love curly fries
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So if you made a vodka that actually tastes like that, I could see a lot of uses for that
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I could see doing a Bloody Mary with it. Lots of, you know, interesting, like spicy kind of cocktails
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It sounds really interesting. $60, a little much, but I just hope it doesn't go like the Tesla vodka and like people flip
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it on secondary. That would be the most hilarious thing ever if people are like flipping Arby's vodka
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But you never know. I'm planning to open mine if I do get them. But we'll see if I'm able to snag a bottle on the 18th
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And again, if I miss it, it's always the 22nd to try out again. So are you guys excited about this or are you guys like, what the heck
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why is Clifton talking about this? I don't know. I don't know either, but it was all over
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Discord. So I had to share the news because I mean, I love weird combinations, which is the
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theme of today's show. So I'm excited for it, but in a very not optimistic way is what I'll just say
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So look for more on that. I'll let you guys know if I happen to get my hands on it. But I do want
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to go in and talk about what whiskey I'm drinking today. Since we're on the theme of weird
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combinations, I thought the weirdest bottle I have in my collection, but one that I have
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quickly fallen in love with is Barrel Seagrass. So if you're not familiar with Barrel Seagrass
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it is a special bottling, or I guess it's not just one release. There's several releases of it
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but it is a release from Barrel Craft Spirits, who you guys know I love. I've had them on my
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channel several times, but this is a weird one. It's a blend of American and Canadian rise
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but they've all been finished in rum casks. They've been finished in apricot brandy casks
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and Madeira Wine Cask So holy crap that a lot of finishing and it a combination of different ryes but I have just absolutely loved this bottle I actually had a sample of it sent to me from the
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distillery and I couldn't get enough. I had to go buy a bottle. They're about $90 MSRP but I figured
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it would be a good one a weird one to have on the podcast today so let me go and get that poured
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so this one i have is 119.3 proof it was one of 13 309 bottles but like i said there's not just
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i think there's multiple batches of this this may be the first one it just was announced this year
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2021 now the back of the bottle says it was distilled in kentucky indiana tennessee and
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canada so like i said it is a interesting combination of rye whiskey i do love rye so
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I'm obviously very excited about this bottle and it's already half gone because I've been
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sharing it because it's such an interesting one so let me go ahead and give that a nose real quick
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oh man that is so bright it's super uh fruit forward I don't know exactly which fruit it's
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definitely kind of leaning a little bit like peach um but it's it's really really bright on
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the nose on first whiff of it now the name seagrass kind of invokes a maritime kind of
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essence to it. And I will say the nose does have a little bit of like a briny aspect as well. It is
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bright and it's very fruit forward. But I guess if you were to salt a like melon or something
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that kind of is what I'm leaning towards with this. It's a little salty and briny on the nose
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but it's still very fruit forward. Yeah, it's very clearly a rye on the nose, but there's a lot going
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on with it, especially with the finishes. So I think we have to try this one to figure it out
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So cheers. Let's go ahead and give it a taste. Oh man, that is really good. You know what it kind
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of reminds me of? I don't know if you've had the Japanese sodas. I forget what they're called
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but they're the ones that have the little ball on the top that you pop into it. But it has a
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fruity, bubble gummy kind of flavor to it. But it's something that actually works really
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really nicely with traditional rye notes. I'm really digging how complex this flavor is. I mean
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You would think that maybe they overcomplicated things by doing all the different finishing on it
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But honestly, it makes it an even more interesting spirit. I think rye handles finishing very, very well
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I mean, some of my favorite ryes are finished, whether it's a toasted barrel like a Mictors
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Midwinter's Night Dram with the port cask, or even just some rum finished ryes like the Doc Swenson
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So this combines all of the different types of finishes that I like
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puts them all into one, and combines it with rye. So that's a winning combination for me
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this has got to be my favorite thing I've ever tried from barrel um I hope they do more weird
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experimenting like this I have tried dovetail which is kind of similar I don't think it gets
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as funky with the finishes um there's a few other ones that they've done that are special releases
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that I haven't dived into yet but I'm curious to know um do other people like seagrass because
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I've shared it and everyone I've given it to you first of all seems very surprised when they taste
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it they're like what is going on in my mouth but at the same time they all tell me that they really
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like it and a lot of them go out and buy a bottle shortly after so let me know what you guys think
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of it on our discord server which you can join at bourbonbites.com you can also call in and leave
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me your comments and questions for the show you can call me at 818-660-5782 leave me a voicemail
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there and I would love to feature it on a future episode of the podcast but I don't know I'm just
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so enamored by how good this seagrass is I like I said I've drank half the bottle after just picking
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this up about a month and a half ago so I'm gonna have to buy more before they disappear because
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it's just so so delicious now finish wise it takes a little bit of a weird turn i think that's
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probably its weakest point it's not as long and interesting as i thought it would be the palette
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is so dynamic and so bold but like once you finish it it kind of quickly goes away however
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it just makes you want to go for a second sip so let's go and try it again yeah the finish like i
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said it's not super long but it is nice it's like a those um candy hearts you get on valentine's day
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I think they're called like sweethearts. That's the first thing that comes to mind. They leave a bit of like a powder, like a chalkiness in your mouth
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There's a little bit of that on the finish, but it's not off-putting. And I don't want that to come across as like this is super sweet
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I've had some rum finished whiskeys that are way too sweet. This isn't that. It's actually really balanced
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It's just the finish leaves you with a nice little poof of sweethearts dust
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So now that we've mentioned some whiskey news, we got to talk about some exciting gaming news as well
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First of all, there's a new Among Us update out and it may be the biggest update to the game yet
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So they released a trailer on their YouTube channel. They had a whole blog post about it. There's a lot in store with this update
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First of all, they're adding achievements. So wherever you're playing the game, you can earn achievements
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Something that I'm surprised wasn't in the game before, especially like on Steam. But it's nice that they're adding that
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But that's just the tip of the iceberg. One of the most exciting aspects is a new store interface
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So they are adding a lot more customizable options. Not just free things that you can unlock by earning experience points
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but they're also adding paid items to the store now i know at first you're like oh god it's turning
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into one of those pay to play things but i will say these are all purely cosmetic they are not
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influencing gameplay whatsoever so they're all totally optional but they're actually adding a
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new way to pay called stars so you earn your typical beans is what they call them for your
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experience you can use those to unlock certain things but stars will unlock premium items so if you want to have you know the latest outfits you probably want to put a couple a few bucks into the game but again it all totally you know cosmetic but i excited because i always felt like there wasn enough like outfits or like you could have pets with you i felt like it was
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pretty limited so to see that they are expanding that yes they're having to you know make you pay
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for it but they explain like there's a lot of work that goes into that and honestly the game's only
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five dollars on steam or you know it's like free on mobile uh so it's not that unexpected there's
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going to be some kind of paid um you know i guess it's like dlc downloadable content but it's more
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again just for make your character look really cool um so there's that they have these things
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called cosmic cubes i think that they're introducing which are kind of like a it's like a tier based
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thing where you go through and you unlock different uh cosmetics like i said if you have a cosmic cube
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activated i'll say this i have not tested out these new mechanics yet but it sounds like there's
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like a new like branching path system so i i don't you know i'm not disappointed that they are adding
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a paid aspect to the game. I think it's such a popular game. I don't blame them for wanting to
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get more money from it. And the fact that it doesn't affect the gameplay, that actually is
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the biggest selling point to me because it's not like they're trying to, you know, have people basically pay to play or pay to win, dare I say. But that's not all. Oh, no. Because the biggest
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I think, in my opinion, the best part of this update is the new roles they are introducing
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So before you all just kind of played together, no one really, you just did different tasks. It
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was random but now you can take on certain roles in your party so three of the new roles are for
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crewmates who are the people that are not the imposter one is a scientist who can access vitals
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at any time so they can see you know who's alive or who's dead now they're all these are very
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limited so you don't have access to this you know throughout your entire gameplay session with the scientist you actually have to recharge your battery of your vital device but engineers
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can actually use vents so not only the imposter can vent now the engineer can use it that could
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really trip you up because you can see someone use a vent and it can just be an engineer. The next role for crewmates is called a guardian angel. They can cast a protection shield around
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the remaining crewmates. So if you time it right, you can actually save your crewmates from an attack
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which if that happens, you know, then you can actually report the person trying to kill you
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Not sure that your crewmates will believe you, but it's actually a pretty cool feature and I'm
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excited to see that in action. And there is one new role for the imposter. So you can become a
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shape shifter so you can disguise yourself as any of the other crewmates so you can frame someone i
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love that it's again limited time you can't do it you know for the full match but you can disguise
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yourself as another crewmate kill someone and you know they're all going to blame that crewmate
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and they're like i saw so and so kill so and so but no they were just shape shifting so super cool
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i think this is going to really amp up the gameplay it's going to add another layer of depth to the
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game and honestly i'm just really excited for it so if you are too make sure you are on our whiskey
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and gaming lounge discord server we do random gaming nights um very frequently so if we want
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to test out those features we might do it sometime soon so make sure after listening to this you join
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us and we'll most likely post about that in the arcade room but we have a tipsy gaming uh voice
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and video chat lounge where we do all of our gaming sessions so keep an eye out if you see us
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on playing something feel free to hop on and jump in so i told y'all this podcast was jam-packed
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well there is another piece of gaming news that i have to talk about and it's another weird one
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Netflix announced that they are introducing Netflix gaming to Android and iOS. So there
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are going to be new Netflix branded games in the app stores. These are only accessible to people
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that have a paid Netflix subscription. This was available on Android a few days before iOS, but
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as of today, when I'm recording this on the 10th, it's now available on iOS. So, you know
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I had to download all of these new games and try them out and give you my thoughts on each of them
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The first one I played is one called Teeter. Now, this is a balancing game where you lift two sides of a beam and you roll a ball left
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or right, basically trying to get it go through a hole. I don't know if I've talked about this very much before, but I am very much a casual gamer
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I love having, you know, simple games I could just pull up on my phone, whether I'm, you
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know, on a break or on an airplane where there's no signal. I love casual games that are offline and Netflix nailed it with these
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um so i believe all of these are offline games so you don't have to be connected to the internet
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you do have to to validate that you are a netflix subscriber um it is linked to your profile on
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netflix but as far as i know i don't think you actually have to be online to play um these games
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of course there are more features like leaderboards and stuff when you play online but um i love that it appeals to the type of gamer that i find myself being like yes there are some
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games that i really love diving into the story on but a lot of times i just want something casual
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something quick and something fun. The next one I tried is one called Card Blast, which is basically
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a poker style game. You make pairs and flushes, like basically the rules of poker, but it's all
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about combos and doing it fast paced. So you have like an ever flowing line of cards and you try to
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make as many combos, but don't submit it too early because you're two of a kind, maybe come three of
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a kind if you wait it out. So there's a lot of strategy involved. It's actually probably one of
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my favorites from this initial launch. I caught myself playing it throughout the day. It's just
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a lot of fun and speaking of fun the next one that i tried was called bowling ballers so this
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is your typical i guess they called runner games it kind of like temple run you are a bowling ball in this game and your goal is to knock over pens and collect coins while avoiding obstacles So you in this I guess in the scroller is what it called I don actually know Let me let me Google that What what kind
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of game is Temple Run? Ah, I was right. So they're actually called Endless Runners. So not necessarily
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that there's no ends to levels, but that's basically how it presents itself. Honestly
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another really fun one. It's super hard. I will say I died several times, but I was able to
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complete the daily challenge you got to be quick but it's it's a lot of fun so i think that's
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probably my second favorite of the casual games uh last week is one that i just couldn't really
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get into because of how difficult it was it's called shooting hoops so basically it's exactly
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what it sounds like you are a basketball but you have like a little um like pellet gun or like a
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blaster and it rotates around so you press you tap on your screen to shoot the ball and make it bounce
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around the screen and your goal is to get it into the baskets it's really hard y'all i like
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struggle i'm not even through this tutorial yet it's it's definitely a strategy based game again
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you have to know when to blast um it's a lot of fun but it's definitely something that you got to
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take take your time to learn the mechanics of i think this would be a good one to play like on a
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plane when you have a lot of time to dedicate to it um it wasn't my favorite but honestly it's still
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a lot of fun there are also two adventure based games included in this now both of these games
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have come out before but I've actually never had the chance to play them I think they were paid or
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they were part of you know Apple's gaming subscription there's Stranger Things 3 the game
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which follows along with the story of the season three of Stranger Things which if you haven't seen it it's amazing honestly I think season two was like my least favorite but season three was awesome
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it picked up all the things that I loved about season one so there's that game they're they're
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all pixel based so if you are a lover of classic retro games like myself you will absolutely love
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the aesthetic of these two games the second one is called stranger things 1984 which is another
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pixel based game i think this game actually came out before the other one but i will say this one
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it feels a little rough the season three game is a little more refined a little more you know
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playable to the average person but 1984 definitely has the difficulty of like a classic arcade game
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because you don't know what the heck you're supposed to do most of the time i definitely need to read a walkthrough um next time i play it um speaking of stranger things actually this
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past weekend, my husband and I went to a pop-up store that was a Stranger Things themed store
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It was so cool. I actually am posting it on my Instagram story when I'm releasing this podcast
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so make sure to go check it out. That was such a cool experience. You basically walk through the
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front entrance, then you are right in the living room with the iconic, you know, alphabet Christmas
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lights from season one. It's just, it's so cool. There's a lot of cool photo ops there. So like I
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it's like a pop-up so there are photo ops but there's also shopping so they have a bunch of
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exclusive merch um t-shirts hoodies um themed like socks and things like that i think the only thing
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that i actually bought from it was a magnet that says welcome to hawkins if you guys don't know i
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collect magnets from all of the vacations i take we put a magnet up with a little printout of a
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photo from that trip so we definitely took a picture with a demogorgon that is going to make
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its way under the hawkins magnet it's so cool but they had the living room they had the starcourt
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mall, which was crazy. The lights flicker and go crazy. The screens all glitch out. Like I said
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I'm going to put it on Instagram if you haven't seen it. But it's so such a cool experience. Very
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well done. And again, it's free. Yes, you can buy the merch. You can buy the magnets and the t-shirts
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which are pretty pricey, but it's free to go through. They have one right now in Los Angeles
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which is in Glendale. They also have one in New York. I don't know the exact location of that
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These are running through mid-December. So if you're near any of the cities, look up Stranger
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things pop-up story you'll see what i'm talking about it's definitely to promote the new the new
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season which is coming out soon which i'm so excited for again a little bit of a stranger
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things fanatic i love the aesthetic of that show obviously i mean do you see the influence with with
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my channel and my bourbon bites branding you can tell i'm a lover of that era so i think that about
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does it like i said that was a lot of news um but it was all stuff i was excited about hopefully you
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enjoyed this episode if you did make sure to leave me a rating and review on your favorite podcast
19:49
platform and if you're not yet following me make sure to do that because that really does help me out i can see when people download episodes it really does mean a lot it helps me know i'm you
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know not wasting my time with this but make sure to check out my youtube channel as well last night's
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stream was penelope bourbon we tried their toasted series their rose cask really fascinating folks
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so definitely check out that stream this saturday i'm having my good friend brandon come over we are
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doing an obtainium flight so we're going to be comparing a 13 year old 14 year old and 15 year
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old whiskey some of which are hazmat they are extremely high proof i'm so so excited to do that
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with brandon of course it's always fun having him over we might get a little might get a little
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toasty but um it's gonna be a great time and i i love the obtaining that i've tried i've only
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tried one so far so i'm excited to try all three of the ones i picked up um but yeah stay tuned for
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that on youtube and stick around for the next episode of the podcast coming every friday so
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thank you all for listening this has been bourbon bites whiskey reviews with a gaming twist i'm
20:45
Clifton. Cheers. And I'll talk to you next podcast
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