2023 was kind of a rough year around the opulent Scotch & Comics estate, but we’re trying to enter 2024 at a different angle. And thanks to That Boutique-y Whisky Company’s Whisky Advent Calendar, we’ve come prepared. Armed with a small stack of books and fistfuls of tiny whisky bottles, your slightly-dimmed-but-not-completely-snuffed-out host Devin R Bruce takes you on a tour of various of tastes, sights, and emotions. Featuring comics such as The Compleat Terminal City, Vowels, Moving Pictures, Abandon The Old in Tokyo, and Vext. Though our path be plagued with terrors, we have puns on our side. So, so many puns. Scotch & Comics: five times the flavour.

Show Notes:

• There’s some cussin’ in this episode! We really earned the explicit tag.
• Look at Devin, using the term “art deco” when he doesn’t really know what that means, despite having asked multiple knowledgeable people and having read a couple of chapters in art history books.
• Fun fact: I visited Australia in 2014. That is a decade ago, for those of you who are bad at math or admitting how old you are.
• Hero Squared was co-written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis and illustrated by Joe Abraham. According to DeMatteis, it’s his favourite comic he worked on with Keith.
• Who’s Zauriel? Glad you asked! He’s an angel, from Heaven, who voluntarily falls to earth to protect humanity and join the Justice League. He was created by Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, Howard Porter, and John Dell in 1997 for the JLA ongoing series. He kind of rules.

Different Whiskies Consumed:

• Benrinnes 17 year old, batch 7: Speyside, flowers and peat on the nose, really sweet at first and then the peat comes in; water doesn’t really smooth it out but the initial sweetness is dulled.
• Glenburgie 16, batch 8: Speyside, sweet and light nose of banana & vanilla, smooth & sweet taste, butter & spicy finish.
• Corowa 4, batch 2: Australian whisky; deep deep amber, reddest whisky I’ve ever seen (aged in Muscat casks), chocolate and dates on the nose, dried fruit taste, long finish with a little spice and sweetness.
• Port Dundas 8, batch 3: single grain Scotch whisky from a defunct distillery in Glasgow, nose full of raspberries and cream and graham cracker, very oaky with a little vanilla, short-to-medium peppery and raspberry cream finish.
• Glen Moray 12, batch 6: Speyside, grass and slight lemon nose, tastes like grass/malt and…Corn Pops?, light oaky finish.
• Loch Lomond 21 year, batch 5: Highlands, lemony and acetone nose, slightly sweet & spicy, sweet finish that disappears almost immediately.

Featured Music:

• "Iron Man” by The Bad Plus
• “Subterraneans” by David Bowie
• “Pieces of Me” by Jacksoul
• “This Traveling Around” by Lyle Lovett
• “Flipher Overture” by Esthero

Opening and closing theme is “The Graveyard Shift” by NoMeansNo. Album art by Brandon Schatz.