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You can tell a lot about a person by what's in their glass.
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Sometimes it says, "I appreciate true craftsmanship." And sometimes it says, "I'm going to explain
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my crypto portfolio to you at a child's birthday party."
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I'm Tim Fulton, and this is Character Proof.
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Tasting notes and character flaws.
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In every episode we pour one bottle — bourbon, scotch, tequila, whatever's on the shelf — give
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it an honest tasting, and then lovingly, specifically roast the exact person who drinks it on purpose.
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So grab a glass, pull up a chair. Let's get pouring.
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Angel's Envy is a bourbon with a second act.
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It starts life as a fairly classic Kentucky straight bourbon —
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vanilla, oak, the usual respectable résumé — and then, instead of going to the bottle like
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its classmates, it spends several extra months in ruby port casks, where everything changes.
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The name is the old distiller's joke:
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the angels take their evaporative share, and this finish is what they'd envy.
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The nose is vanilla and toasted oak wrapped in raisin and maple.
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The palate is where the port does its work —
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red fruit and berry sweetness folded into caramel, a little bittersweet chocolate, madeira-cake
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richness —
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and the finish, fittingly for a whiskey defined by one, is long, sweet, and burgundy-tinted,
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the bourbon equivalent of a song that ends on an unresolved chord on purpose.
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It's bottled at 86.6 proof, elegant rather than muscular, and it is engineered — top
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to bottom, cork to label — for the hours after ten p.m. Which is precisely when Julian
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Reyes comes alive.
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Julian is thirty-five, an architect, and his evenings have a floor plan.
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At ten-forty — not ten-thirty, which is eager, not eleven, which is careless — the apartment begins
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its transformation:
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the overheads go off, the two lamps come on, a record goes on the turntable, chosen
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for its cover as much as its contents, and the ice ritual begins.
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Julian makes clear ice. Directional freezing, an insulated cooler, a serrated knife —
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the man produces a single flawless cube with the
Load full transcript
patience of a jeweler and the equipment
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of a small lab, and when it lands in the glass it rings once, like a bell marking
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the hour.
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Then the pour, unhurried, wrist slightly theatrical even when — and we'll get
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to this — no one is watching.
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Julian's favorite word is "finish."
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The bourbon is finished in port casks.
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The shelves are finished in walnut.
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The evening, by design, is finished by midnight.
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Everything in Julian's life gets a finishing cask.
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On date nights, the system reveals its full capability.
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The record is already playing when she arrives —
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Julian believes, correctly, that being caught mid-ritual is more charming than
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starting one — and at the appointed hour the two glasses come out, and the cube
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rings, and he slides hers across the walnut and says
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"notes of port,"
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low, like it's classified.
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The lighting scenes have names in the app.
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One of them is called "Landing."
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His bookshelf is arranged by spine color in a gradient that peaks, not
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coincidentally, directly behind where a guest would sit.
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The whole apartment is a set dressed for a two-person play,
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and the bourbon — sweet, plush, finished, gone by midnight — is the score.
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He owns exactly two of the good glasses, hand-blown, plus a third hidden in a cabinet
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like a spare tire,
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because a chipped glass at ten-forty is not a mishap in Julian's cosmology;
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it's a continuity error,
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and continuity errors are the one thing the set cannot absorb.
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Here's the honest thesis:
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Julian has taken the oldest move in the book — the nightcap as seduction —
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and given it a building permit.
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Some men on this show perform for a crowd:
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Devin needs the sparklers,
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Rick needs the foursome.
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Julian's theater seats exactly two, and the craftsmanship is real;
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ask anyone who's sat in it.
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And here's the affectionate part, because there's always one,
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and this one snuck up on us.
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Most nights, there is no date.
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Most nights it's Tuesday, and the presentation is over,
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and Julian — alone, unwatched, unphotographed — does the entire thing anyway.
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Lamps. Record. The cube, the ring, the pour, the good chair.
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Ten-forty sharp, one drink, done by midnight.
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And somewhere in there the roast collapses,
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because a ritual performed for an audience is marketing,
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but a ritual performed alone is just a life —
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built carefully, by a man who decided his own Tuesday
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deserved the same finish as anyone else's Saturday.
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The port cask doesn't know if anyone's watching either;
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it improves the bourbon in the dark, for months, on spec.
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So drop the cube, Julian, and let it ring once for nobody.
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Angels take their share and envy the rest —
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and what they envy, it turns out, was never the girl across the walnut.
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It was this:
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a finished evening, in a finished room, for the one guest who always shows up.
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Well, the glass is empty, and the verdict is in.
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That's going to do it for this episode of Character Proof.
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If you saw yourself in tonight's pour — first of all, we love you.
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Second, hit subscribe, leave a five-star review,
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and send this to the friend whose bar cart costs more than their car.
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Got a bottle you want us to put on trial?
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Drop it in the reviews or find us on socials,
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and you just might be next week's character.
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Until next time: drink responsibly, pour generously,
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and always check your character flaws.
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Cheers.