Cruisemas, Vol. 4: The Color of Money (1986) / Bardstown Bourbon Company Normandie Calvados Brandy Barrel Finish

0:00 In 1984, director Martin Scorsese and starred Tom Dude Tom Cruise gave the world. A cool look at a. Thoroughbred in the pool hall. Brad, in 2025, I say to you, I can always go back to whiskey. It's been very good to me. It's been very good to us, Bob. The film is the color of money. The whiskey is Bardstown Normandy Calvados Brandy barrel finish. That is an ostentatious name. It sure is. But we are going to review them both. This is the Film and Whiskey podcast. Welcome to the Film and Whiskey podcast and welcome folks to Cruise, Miss Merry Cruise, Miss Brad. Merry Cruise, Miss Robert.

1:07 What you know, the thing about the thing about cruise miss is do you, do you know that? Oh, what's The Beach Boys song? Little Saint Nick? Yeah. And in the in the bridge, they just say. They just say Christmas comes this time each year, which is the stupidest thing to like. Of course it does. Like you're not. This is not new information. Things happen chronologically, these boys. But all I could think to say, Brad was cruise miss comes but once a year. I'm so excited, man, because we once again get to fate, our favorite actor in the world, the runner of all runners. Amen, Tom Cruise, Tom Cruise, baby. I feel like Thanksgiving has a sense of decorum to it. Like it like it's got a little bit of like, oh, like this is respectable.

2:02 It's a good holiday. Cruise miss is just like I'm going all out, man. I'm I'm not even drinking whiskey today, Bob. I am drinking some Great Lakes Cookie Exchange milk Stout and it's like tastes like berries and vanilla and manliness. You know, I saw a quote on the wall of a brewery in town the other day. There's no such thing as a strong beer, Bob. There's only a weak man. I do think Cookie Exchange Milk Stout is one of the more suggestive titles for a beer I've heard in a long time. It's a hell of a euphemism, Brad. I I don't know what you're talking about. Nope, me neither, Brad.

2:45 We're here to talk about Tom Cruise is what we're here to talk about. I was saying there's definitely no, no euphemisms or like awkward sexual tension in this movie at all, Bob. No, not at all, because we're talking about 1980 sixes, 80 sevens, the color of. Mine I just wrote 1984 in the opening and I I have no idea. I knew that was wrong and I just didn't tell you. It's 1986, the color of money in. 19. 86 Scorsese film that is a quasi sequel to the very famous 1960s film The Hustler starring Paul Newman. And guess what folks? It may be the world's very first ever Legacy sequel.

3:27 If you're interested in learning about legacy sequels or, or what they are, our friend Patrick H Williams just did an hour long video about the Legacy sequel over on YouTube. And Brad, when we looked through the list of Tom Cruise films that we haven't done, there are a great many of them we have not talked about on this podcast. But I think something about we should do an early Cruise and then the allure of like it's Paul Newman and Martin Scorsese teamed up with Tom Cruise. It's a very, this was kind of a no brainer. Yeah, absolutely. Now I do at some point I want to hear your thoughts on the new Inaritu Digger combo with Cruise. What are you thinking about that Bob? I do not have high hopes.

4:13 I mean, I have. My hopes are very high. I don't have a good feeling about it, I guess, is what I should say. Yeah. So yes, Tom Cruise is making a new movie next year with Alejandro Gonzalez Inuritu, the director of Birdman and The Revenants. And we only really see him in this trailer in silhouette and it looks like he is dressed in the same like make up that he is in the very beginning of the first Mission Impossible when they make him look like Ross Perot. Yeah, yeah. And I'm, I'm like, I think that's what we're going for here. And he's like in in cowboy boots and tighty whities and he's doing the Joker staircase dance and that's the whole trailer. And I don't know what the hell is going on. See, I, I got the impression that he was dressed a little bit like Joe Dirt.

5:05 Like he has kind of like the, the, the robe and Whitey tighties and boots on and he's got a shovel and but he's Joe Dirt doing his Tropic Thunder dance. That's the vibe. What? If it turns out that this is actually a prequel to how Jon Voight came to be in in control of Stanley Yelmats in the movie Holes, and this is Digger, the origin story of Holes. That would be the legacy sequel. So me up dude that we've all been waiting. For so Brad, you wanted. To talk about. The Color of money today. This was a movie that I mean you. I don't remember if it was you or me that suggested it first, but it was a pretty easy choice for us.

5:49 And you've also told me that you have absolutely no familiarity with the movie The Hustler that came to adore this. Did you do any sort of like, cursory reading about the movie The Hustler before diving into this, or did you want to be completely detached from it? You did tell me to do reading on the Hustler, which means I didn't do any. Now I will say I did not tell you go read. I didn't. I didn't say go read Hustler, which is a that's a crucial difference. I said read about the film The Hustler. That is a very. Specific search history is not my responsibility on this fine cruise miss.

6:29 I have not read a single thing about the Hustler. I did however, ask my dad today. Hey, have you seen the color of money? Because we were celebrating cruise miss today, I asked him if he'd seen the color of money. And he goes, yeah, I probably saw it a long time ago. I was like, well, have you ever seen the Hustler? He goes, Oh yeah, I watched it the other day while I was working out. So, apparently, the Hustler. Dude, listen, if this doesn't work out between us, Brad's dad is going to just slot right in easily, easily starting in season 11. All right, Brad, we're kind of off the rails already here today, but that's what Cruz Miss is all about. I do think it is time for us to get into our first segment of the day, which we call Brad Explains. Brad's going to give us the movie plot with only 60 seconds taken on the clock.

7:19 So let's go ahead and do your take with this little segment that we call Brad Explains. Brad Explains is the part of the show where Brad breaks down the plot of the movie that he has just seen, often for the first time. This is a first time watch for Brad on Absolutely. First time Brad, because. Yeah, dude, because we are going for a abbreviated episode today, I'm gonna impart or impose a 32nd Brad explains on you today, which has never been done and I gave you no warning. So good luck my friend. I will give just the the slightest bits of information about this movie because we really we have not set this up very well. It's a Scorsese movie.

8:02 It stars Tom Cruise and Paul Newman. It is a movie that takes place almost entirely inside of pool halls. And Brad, this is definitely our first billiard themed movie. I don't. Think we've done another one? Do you think there's some young people that listen to our podcast who are like pool hall? Are they like swimming? Like is is a pool hall even a common parlance anymore? I don't know. I mean, I the only place I see pool tables now are like in a bowling alley, like a bowling alley that has a dive bar attached to it. You know what I mean? Yeah, they really don't exist, and even in the movie they made fun of that. Yeah, right. So this 40 year old movie. All right, Brad.

8:42 So do your best impression of Fast Eddie Felson here and give us a 32nd breakdown of this movie, including as many spoilers as you can fit in. I am starting your time now. The Color of Money is a film that follows Tom Cruise as a young hotshot billiards star and a older Paul Newman who wants to teach him how to not just be a billiard star, but hustle other people for money. At the start, Paul Newman wants to hustle and Tom Cruise just wants to win. And by the end of the film, Paul Newman wants to win and Tom Cruise just wants to hustle. And the entire time, both men either want to have sex with each other or with Tom Cruise's girlfriend. Man.

9:28 Color and money. And who can blame them? Who can blame them? Fred here. Here's the real question. Let's start off right off the bat now. Paul Newman is an older gentleman in this movie, right? Yeah. He's still a strong contender for most attractive person in this movie. And I think the real question before us is who? Who is the most attractive person in the color of money? Brad, I mean, I don't think the costume department did Tom Cruise any favors with the little, like, red. But like, the earring that Tom Cruise has in his left ear throughout the film reminds me of, like, you know, the little sheet of paper with the, like, the little hard candies attached to it.

10:11 Yeah, it looks like a little red hard candy stuck one that they stuck to his ear. Tell me I'm wrong. They could have really up to the weird the weird horniness factor if someone just like, nibbled that right off of his earlobe. And Paul Newman, the costuming department, did a great favor. Dude is dressed sharp. I mean he. Is one of the few men that can pull pull those sunglasses off too. They look. Awesome, they look so cool. He also has the bluest eyes ever to be blue, so. I will. I will die on the hill. Not that it's a hill that needs to be dyed on, but like, I think Paul Newman is the best looking man of all time. Like young Paul Newman.

10:57 I don't know if there's anybody else that's ever looked better than that. Not a Rocky 4 Sylvester Stallone with a beard. It's a close second. It's a close second. Brett. He's like Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, Steve Buscemi. That's the top three. That's basically it. The thing about Tom Cruise in this movie and how he looks, I feel like if you've seen The Color of Money, you can't be surprised that Tom Cruise jumped on the jumped on Oprah's couch. Like yes, I feel like the. Manic energy is there for sure. Is like 100% there and it works for the movie and it's great.

11:40 But I, you know, if, if we're talking about attractiveness, he's got like a little bit of a weird vibe going on. So Tom Cruise becomes a mega * in 1986 and he'd already been on the ascent, right? So like he does movies like The Outsiders in 1983, I believe. And then he, you know, he has Risky Business, which is his first big starring role that's a big hit. And then out of those movies, he lands Top Gun, where he really did flex a lot of power, even in that early, early starring role. Tom Cruise has always been super savvy about how he structures his contracts and the kind of points he gets on the back end and how much control he has over the script. And Top Gun, people didn't realize this the way after the fact, but like, Tom Cruise had a huge hand in how that movie came out.

12:27 And he's, I believe, 24 years old at this point. And so Top Gun comes out in May of 86 and is just a freaking juggernaut. And that kind of carries this movie to being a hit too. This was the the first financially successful Scorsese movie in a really long time. And I do think that it's interesting, Brad, I don't know if you've ever seen the original Top Gun, but like, you know, Tom Cruise kind of makes his bones on being varying levels of like smarmy wise ass. And and it the the shades of that are like how likable is he? And I feel like when you hold Top Gun up to Vince in this movie, you really do kind of see the nuances of how Tom Cruise is willing to use his persona in different ways and even in ways that reflect poorly on him, not as an actor, but like he's a piece of shit in this movie.

13:20 Dude. He's like, he's legitimately the villain of the movie. And it's, it's interesting to see, especially as such a young person, Tom Cruise, take on a role like that, where the ultimate hero of the movie or the guy that you want to see win by the end of it is Paul Newman. And Cruz is willing to kind of undercut him that way. I thought for me watching this movie again, I think what I was most impressed by is Cruz willing to make that decision for his career at such a young age. Because if you get people associating you with being the bad guy or a guy they don't like too early in your career, it can really screw things up. Yeah, well, and even just a few years later, he makes Rain Man where like, yes, he kind of ends in a decent place, but he's still a piece of crap.

14:08 But by the end of that movie, right. And I think that his willingness to take on interesting roles and just to take on roles with great actors like that, you know, that's one of the big things that's been talked about, Tom, is that in that like second phase of his career, once he was past his young, like I'm just getting my foot in the door. He wanted to work with great actors and great directors. And he works with Paul Newman and Martin and Martin Scorsese like. Yeah. What? What else can you act for? Ask for as a young actor and the role that he takes on here in Color of Money, He starts off like weird and intense and he finishes smooth and charming and intense and it like it's a great transformational arc within the film for his character.

14:58 Dude at the end of the movie when he loses and then to Paul Newman, and then he goes and knocks on the door and gives him the money and he's like, Hey, here's your cup, man. Like I I just totally jumped the game. Oh. What a gut punch. What a gut punch. What an incredible. Scene like I I'm I'm going to spoil something. I didn't love this movie, Bob. My favorite movie. However, that scene was incredible. It was so good. Even to think back to when Paul Newman and I out of Carmen. Is her name in the movie? Yeah, The girl, Tom Cruise's girlfriend. When Paul Newman says to Carmen, like, I'm going to beat him, you know, and like the way she responds to him is setting up Paul Newman to get had. Like, it's not just Tom Cruise that has learned how to be a hustler.

15:51 Carmen is 100% there with him. It's it's so good. One of the interesting things about this movie and I just watched it for the first time, I don't know, a year and a half ago maybe I'd just never gotten around to it. And so this was an. Interesting you watched it a day or two ago. It was like your 7th time now. Yeah, right. No. Second time watching it, and I remembered most of it 'cause it had been semi recently. But watching it again, once you kind of realize that by the end of the movie, Tom Cruise has either learned really quickly how to hustle. Once, you know, Paul Newman kind of dumps him at the 2/3 mark of the movie and you don't see Tom Cruise for a while.

16:31 And then you get the reveal at the end of the movie that he's been hustling everybody. And so you're left with the choice of like, either he's been hustling everybody because it's like a survival tactic and you had to learn really quickly, or he's been hustling us the entire movie. And he's just like, he's that good. And I think that as you watch the movie back with the dynamic of never knowing if Paul Newman's motivations are like, I'm playing the long game, even when I'm showing that like I lost my ass to Forest Whitaker. Is that intentional? Is that something that he's trying to do to get under Tom Cruise's skin? Because we see all through the movie, he's absolutely willing to take financial loss in the interest of the long game. And so when you watch the movie back, the cool thing to me is like, you can take the surface level reading of like. These are two fundamentally flawed people who cannot help but continue to make horrible decisions for their own personal lives.

17:32 But you can also take the reading of like, and maybe they know they're doing it and they're doing it on purpose because they're hustling each other. And I think that was like the cool, I don't know if you want to call it meta, but there's like a, there's a conspiracy theory you could make about this movie, I guess. I see for me the way I read the movie and like one of the key lines that I like honed in on was early in the film when Paul Newman and Carmen are talking to each other. She tells him like, yeah, we met because I was at the jail. I tried to break into his parents house and I stole his mom's necklace. And she goes, all he said about it is my mom has a necklace that looks like that.

18:15 And it's like this like establishment of like he's an innocent kid who just wants to play video games and all that. There's almost like this chiastic structure to the movie where when you start, and I, I said this already, like Paul Newman wants to hustle, Tom Cruise wants to win. And by the end of the movie, they flip. And so for me, it felt like, you know, his name's Vincent in the movie, Tom Cruise's character. Yeah. It feels like Vincent by the end of the film, even just the way he dresses, he looks like Paul Newman by the end of the movie. And there's this sense of like they've switched positions and Paul Newman has gone from being a hustler to just loving the game of billiards again. And you kind of get that in like the almost like the Rocky training sequence where the the timeline of this movie is so wonky where he's like he has like a whole training montage it.

19:09 It's insane. And it's like it takes place in the course of like 3 days, you know? And he's like, I got it now I'm back. And at the end of the movie he's even like, I'm going to beat you next week in Atlanta, and if not, I'll beat you the week after that in Saint Louis. And it's like, yeah, are are we just doing tournaments like every three days? What is going on here? Yeah, what is happening? I love in the middle of the movie that there's like an absolutely random eye test scene. There's like one or two, two or three. Right. It's part, it's part of the training montage when you're over the age of 50. The only thing they didn't show was him getting his prostate exam to make sure that he was like, nimble enough in that area too, you know? So.

20:00 My reading on it isn't just that they they obviously do switch places in terms of like Tom Cruise wants to be, he just wants to win at all costs. He has this, this desire to like, I cannot even pretend to be bad. I have to dominate and show everybody. And Newman's trying to get him to play the long game the whole movie. And yes, they do switch by the end. But I think more of what the movie is saying is like, there's this code of honor among these guys that like, when it's time to play for real, you play for real. And you don't throw a game like that. And there's something about that scene at the end when Cruz comes in and just slaps that money down on the dresser that it's like, you betrayed the ideals of what we do here. And I do think that, like, there's a scene after that where they like, he basically says, like, send Tom Cruise to find me.

20:53 We're going to do this for real. I need to know if I can beat him or not. And they never show you what happens. But like, you, you, I feel like that scene fell short of the scene before it because I couldn't understand at that point. Like, you know, Cruz bursts in and is like, you used me. You used me for your own ends. And Newman says, like, yeah, I did. And then it's like, OK, well, is Newman confessing to, like, this was all a ploy for me to get back in the game the whole time or I. And. And it kind of muddies the water in a way that's, like, not narratively interesting. It muddies the water in a way that I leave the movie a little more confused because. Totally.

21:36 I already thought that it was like morally ambiguous and good, and then it became morally ambiguous and I'm confused now. Does that make sense? Oh 100%. All I know is that we got one of the best shots of the movie when Paul Newman and his girlfriend are on one side of the room and Tom Cruise and his girlfriend on the other. And they're all at four different levels of the room. And the camera is set up so that you see all of them in the mirrors across the room. So I literally counted. There are 9 versions. There's nine people in the room when you count the reflections in the mirrors. It's an incredible shot. And I like I and, and he lets the camera sit for I mean, it's like 1215 seconds of this tension of like Tom Cruise and Paul Newman staring each other down and you have this just this incredible shot.

22:32 And he just sits there for like 15 seconds. And I'm like, like, that's a director with some balls to just let that tension sit, to let the shot sit. I just, I like, I'm with you 100% on the narrative element of that part, like what is happening, but then I don't care because it's a perfect shot. Yeah. The thing about this is like it's a 2 1/2 star movie in like what the script is offering us out of four, right. It's it's like a perfect, like mediocre movie. And then you have got like Newman and Cruz and Scorsese, like elevating this material. And even then, it's like Scorsese is trying to inject this movie with so much kinetic energy that you're like, surely this is propelling us towards something. And I feel like it just never quite gets there. Like, it's like it's hurtling towards something that we never actually see.

23:27 And that may be part of the intent that, like, for these guys, they're just going to keep chasing this high forever. And I do think that, like, you know, if we want to talk about Scorsese for a hot 2nd, Scorsese has spent the late 70s and early 80s, like, absolutely coked out of his mind and overdosing on drugs and like, being in the hospital, nearly dying, having a heart attack at one point and has to get back in the good graces of Hollywood because then the films he chooses are financially disastrous as well. And so you see things like in the mid to late 80s, he makes this movie. He directs a music video for Michael Jackson. And like, now we look back on Scorsese's career and it's like, oh, it's so cool that he did those because he he brings the Scorsese touch to that. But like, at the time and even to hear him talk about it now, it's like he's embarrassed that he made this movie because he had to make a financially successful movie. And I'm like, no, dude, like you're the most interesting thing about this movie, Martin Scorsese. Yeah, well, what is it then about Scorsese in this film that keeps you interested?

24:31 Because I kept watching it and being like, all right, where's the Scorsese of it all? There's a few moments of like, camera brilliance or just the way the lighting is set up that you're like, not many film makers can do this. But overall, throughout the film, I didn't find anything that like stuck out to me as like this is like Martin and Thelma just doing their magic. See, I disagree with that. I think that what Scorsese doesn't bring is the like, I'm gonna carry my themes into this movie. I'm gonna carry this theme of like religious guilt or like the Mafia or New York even. Like none of that's coming with him. And it's almost like he's a hired gun and he just brings like Scorsese the technician.

25:17 It's like that scene in in Toy Story 2 where the old guy comes and paints Woody again and he just, he comes in, he does the thing he's great at and then he leaves. And like, this is all about like, I am Martin Scorsese. Nobody on earth, yeah, like Spielberg can move the camera in ways that narratively Dr. the story forward in terms of like, I will get 4 setups in this one shot. Scorsese doesn't care about that. He's like, I'm going to do 100 setups and they're all going to be these crazy kinetic whip pans back and forth and then like these crazy close-ups of a ball rolling and getting hit with a cue. And, you know, there's this one, this one match they have where it's just like overhead and they just do like, still, almost still frames.

26:01 It's like, and you watch the different. Yeah, it's just an insanely kinetic movie. And I think that, like, that's what you bring Scorsese in for, is like, make this movie look as cool as it can. And he's like, awesome. Give me $1,000,000. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I will say the first like 25 minutes of the movie are just like over the shoulder conversation shots. But you don't like sometimes the over the shoulder shot doesn't include the person facing the speaker, if that makes sense. These ones all include like the a little bit of the back of of Cruz or Newman's head as they're talking to each other or the girlfriend. And then you occasionally get a really strong fast push in on the face and it's like really intense. And I'm like, this feels very 80s. I don't know if it feels.

26:52 Very Scorsese. Oh, see now my my most direct comparison of like movies we've done is Goodfellas, where like he's using that sort of like I'm pushing in on you immediately. And it's always in the scenes where like, Henry just snorts a ton of coke. And then it's like, and I think for me, that's kind of why I was watching this movie this time as, oh, this is kind of an addiction movie. This is a drug movie. And Scorsese's just coming out of like, I'm now sober and now I'm making this movie about two guys that can't help but do anything but play pool and their weird twisted motivations and codependencies. And so the first time when when they're in, I can't remember what. It's called the the black.

27:37 Owned Chalky Hall in Chicago. Yes, and Newman first. Like like breaks one and crack and you hear the crack and it, it, it goes like cut, cut, cut and all the cuts are like converging up into his face and it's like, oh, this dude just got high. Like he just felt like a rush of heroin when he freaking broke this thing. And you, and you kind of get a hint of that when he's at the bar flirting at the very start of the movie and Vincent is in the background breaking and he's like, Yep, man, this, this guy's got a thunderous crack. Like he's just, he's just breaking back there. And you're like. Does does Paul Newman? Is he getting a little excited right now? Explicit man, I don't, I don't know about you, but I as a rule of thumb, I never let another man talk about my thunderous crack.

28:26 That's that's. Just I have a. Question. It's for me, Brett. I have. A question for you, Bob. Why is John Turturro in this movie? What is his, what is his purpose in the film 'cause he literally like sets up Vincent and then they set it up like he's going to be the championship round, like it's going to be Turturro versus Newman or Tom Cruise and and he just disappears, just utterly disappears from the movie. I think The thing is like this is Turturro before he's even a little bit famous. And you know, I think I think to a lot of people he's still kind of a that guy. And like we know him as John Turturro because we've seen him in enough movies. But like this is before he starts working with the Cohens. This is before this is 3 years before do the right thing. Like you know, and even in that movie he's like the 5th build person maybe.

29:14 So like, I think it's just like, dude number one, that doesn't work out. And oh, you see him later and you go, Oh yeah, that's dude number one, you know, But because we're like, oh, it's John Turturro. Oh, that's Forest Whitaker. Like, yeah, we just remember it more. Yeah, and, and Martin is like, cocaine is bad, here's my bad character who does cocaine. It's bad. Nobody should do it. All right, man, listen, we got to drink some whiskey. And when I say we, I mean me, and I will explain that in a second, but we've got a really good Bardstown release here to get into. So Brad, what do you say you watch me drink whiskey? I'm ready, Bob.

29:56 All right everybody, so today I am flying solo for a whiskey review and we're checking out the Bardstown Bourbon Company Normandy Calvados Brandy Barrel Finish, which is part of their Distillery Reserve series. Now we've tried both of the prior releases in this series this season from Bardstown, the first of which was the Cathedral French Oak, and the second was that Hokkaido and we loved, loved the Cathedral French Oak. The Hokkaido we were pretty high on, but I mean, cathedral French oak for us was one of the best whiskeys we've ever had on this show. So there's certainly a lot to live up to. Now when we're talking about today's whiskey, the Normandy Calvados finish.

30:37 I'm not super familiar with Calvados. And so like I've I've had to do a little bit of digging. We've said many, many times on this podcast that Brandy is not really our thing. And so Calvados is a kind of a protected type of Brandy that has to be made in Normandy in France. And it's an apple Brandy typically, although apparently there are some exceptions that it can be made from pears as well. Now Bardstown did a collaboration with the Excuse My French Here Christian Druan house in in Normandy to procure some Brandy barrels to finish this whiskey in. Now it says that this straight bourbon whiskey was finished for 28 months in Calvados and it. Consists of just two.

31:22 Whiskeys, both from Indiana, one is 12 year and one is 13 year. Both are a 7521 and 4% malted barley, the 21 being a rye. I love what Bardstown has been doing with their experimentation. They're always pushing the boundaries and they're always willing to produce premium whiskeys to do it. I think retail these 375 mil bottles is like 150 bucks, but it's already going on the secondary market for $500.00. So this is a incredibly limited supply that we're getting here. I'm going to dive in. I have a little bit of a tickle in my throat, forgive me for that today, but I have tasted this once in the past.

32:03 We only got 1 bottle to split between Brad and myself, and I just have not seen Brad in person to give him a sample of this. So I'm going to give you my notes today. Once Brad tries it, I will go back on to the published version of this on our website where you can read the text of this and I'll add Brad's score and tasting notes on this Normandy Calvados Brandy barrel finish. But with that said, you get to watch me stick my nose in this glass and give you some nosing and tasting notes. Yeah. And I think the thing with this is like, it's really, really dark stone fruit. I mean, there's a ton of like prune. I get a little bit of date. But it it has more of a wine character. It's like a like almost a Pinot noir, super dark, syrupy wine character going on with this.

32:47 And then a a really nice layer of vanilla and oak. So if you are a fan of Reds, and I mean red wines, you're going to love this because it it has that sort of oak influenced vanilla character wine to it. I like this a lot. I don't know what it kind of portends. I don't know if that means that it's going to be sweet on the palate. But as far as the nose goes, I'm going to give this a, let's call it an 8 out of 10. Yeah, super dark. Lots of really, really good dark stone fruit, like a pitted dark cherry note. It doesn't quite tip into the cherry Robitussin, which is where it loses Brad and I sometimes when notes, when whiskeys have that wine character to them.

33:32 This stays in that sort of vanilla range, but it's more like a pure vanilla extract. It's not sweetened vanilla. There's almost a layer of almond to this as well for me. And then on the back of the palate, it starts to tip into being not bitter, but it has the same effect of like black licorice on my palate where you do taste the annus. And it also kind of coats your palate in this sense of waxiness as well. Really, really nice. But it is on the dryer side. So this is not your super sweet whiskey. I like this a ton. And you know, I, I'll, I'll ask Brad what he thinks, but he is not the world's biggest fan of black licorice. So I'm going to give it an 8 once again on the palate here.

34:13 And then when it comes to finish, it's really long lasting. Now this is clocking in I believe at, let's see, 104.2 proof, but it drinks way lower than that without losing the viscosity. It's got a really nice thick, long lasting mouthfeel and finish to it, but you don't get a ton of chest burn here. This is like sipping on a really high quality wine. I'm sure that they're going to get pissed at me for keeping keeping to refer to it as wine because it's a Brandy barrel, but it just it reminds me of drinking a really high quality like a Bordeaux or something that you've shelled out some money for to sip on a summer evening.

34:54 Really, really great, long lasting mouth watering finish. It doesn't really like pick up any new notes for me. There's still a ton of oak influence. I do think that that black licorice note is kind of the predominant thing for me here. It tips a bit more herbal at the end, but you get those waves of cherry, you get the vanilla, you get the the dark wine grape character. It's a heck of a good finish. I'll give it an 8 once more and that takes me to balance where when you look across the board at. 888. From nose to taste to finish, typically I like to bump up the balance score as a result, because there weren't any weird peaks or valleys here. I'm going to come all the way up to a nine out of 10 on the balance. And then that takes us to the value score, which is really hard to give because this is, if not sold out in person at Bardstown, then it's darn close to it. If you can get this for $150.00 MSRP. And let me you know what, let me double check that it is 150 MSRP.

35:55 Actually, I was wrong. The suggested retail price on this is $100 for the 375. So it's right in line with where Cathedral and Hokkaido were. I think that this is probably my second favorite. I like this. Better than the Hokkaido. It does not approach the cathedral French oak for me, which is just in another stratosphere. I would pay $500.00 for another 375 of that. Now would I pay $100 for this? I think I. Would this is a really good whiskey and it like it has the, the weightiness to it, even in the mouthfeel that it feels like you're thinking something intended for special occasions and for sipping. And I think because of that, like if you're in need of a good holiday gift, if you're in need of a new special occasion whiskey, this could be the one for you at $100 at anything more than that, I would come down considerably on my value score.

36:49 So I'm going to go ahead and give it a 7 out of 10 on the value score, assuming you can find a bottle at or near MSRP. And that will Take Me Out to a 40 out of 50 on this whiskey. I'm interested to see what Brad thinks of this. 135, for reference, is where we typically start giving a thumbs up recommendation. 40 out of 50 is typically a no brainer recommendation for us. And if it approaches 45, then it's like it's on another level. This doesn't quite approach that like all time transcendent list for me, but this is one of the better whiskeys I've had in 2025. At a 40 out of 50, you could do a lot worse than picking up this Normandy Calvados Brandy Barrel finish from Bardstown.

37:32 All right, let's. Get back into talking about the movie. Thanks again, Bardstown. All right, that was Bardstown. Now let me get this correct. Bardstown Distillery Reserve Normandy Calvados Brandy Barrel Finish. Wow, a darn good whiskey that I'm excited for you to try, Brad, because I got some really strong black licorice notes on the palate here. So we shall see, my friend. Yeah, we'll see. Indeed, I black licorice is like Satan's little turdlets. Dude, I will say Bardstown, these distillery reserves they've been doing. Oh, they're so good. Cathedral one we drank one of the best.

38:15 One of the best things I've ever drank. I've ever had in my life and like it. I I will never have more of it because it's all gone and it's going for so much on the secondary market. But like, Yep Dang, Bardstown continues to kill it, man. Yeah, absolutely, dude. Brad, do you have a 2 facts and a falsehood for me on this cruise miss? Nah, man, it's cruise miss. We're just here to have a good time. There's no falsehoods. There's no falsehoods. There's only, there's only cruise. Well in in lieu of 2 facts and a falsehood I. Want. To talk a little bit more about about Tom Cruise, because I want to get your opinion. We did a similar thing with Hanks giving and we said, like, aside from how good is this movie, how good of a Hanks movie is it?

39:03 Yeah. And so, you know, we, we used Hanks giving turkeys as our our rating meter. Then I think we need to use Cruise Mysteries. Yes. How many cruise miss trees do you give this as a cruise movie? Man, I mean, that's an interesting question. If we're going, let's just go out of like out of the 12 days of cruise miss, we'll go with 12 being the maximum. I think I would give this oh, I'd probably give it like 7 cruise miss trees out of 12 out of 12. Yeah, like it's, it's a decently. Cruise 56% cruise miss trees.

39:46 Yeah, OK, cool. It's not it's not iconic Cruise. Now, like I said, it's got manic Cruise vibes 100%. And I think you can see in this film, he has like really intense. Laugh energy that it's so easy to imagine him, what, five years later in Mission Impossible 91, I want to say. 9096, yeah, it's a decade after. Oh, 96? OK, so a decade later, sorry. Yep, you can easily see a decade later he hones that like manic energy into manic focused energy. And in this movie, it's not focused.

40:28 It's just like manic and laughing. And I'm just going to go beat the best guy in the pool hall. And and it's not, it's not that Mission Impossible Tom Cruise that we know and love. And so I I think it's like getting there, but beyond that, it's Martin Scorsese and it's Paul Newman. Like we have other heavy hitters, you know, for Paul Newman at the at the past the peak of his career, but still has a lot of weight in Hollywood. And Scorsese, like you said, like we now look at it and go, yeah, that's Martin, right? When you're working with two guys like that and you're as young as Tom Cruise was, I don't know if this is like the cruise miss to beat all cruise miss movies, but it's still, it's still Tom Cruise being Tom Cruise man.

41:20 It is hard when you go back pre Mission Impossible because Cruise is not only like figuring out what kind of projects he wants to do, but I feel like he's really challenging himself more. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. And every great movie star, not great actor, but great movie star finds their specific like movie star persona and niche and they drill down into it. Like we've talked about the Leo thing. Like once Leo hits departed and he's doing like tortured guy, like that run he goes on in the the mid 2000s to through the 2010 is insane, right? And I feel like, you know, you've got some guys that can continue to experiment like a Denzel who does a ton of different kinds of movies, but he's he is such a singular presence that you you see Denzel Cruz, I think is on the other end of the spectrum where it's like I found Mission Impossible and I am going to so hyper focus on movies like this forever now with a, you know, a one off here and there. Yeah, Jack Reacher, it will be out of nowhere it. Will be the most honed persona.

42:26 And so yeah, it's it's difficult to give this like a 10 out of 10 or 12 out of 12 cruise mystery, but I kind of like it better. It's it's fun watching Cruz in a mode that you're not used to seeing him. See now I would give Top Gun like a 10 out of 12 Christmas trees. Right. We're used to him in that role now. Yeah, exactly. And that like that's kind of what defines Tom Cruise is like smooth, confident, best at what he does, hits a challenge that like pushes him to become even better than he ever was. And so the Top Gun feels like we got a lot of Christmas trees hanging around, color of money, like tech.

43:08 Like if you just described the movie, it technically falls within that wheelhouse when you actually watch it. It's a lot more nuanced than that, which I, like you said, I'm I'm fine with. I really enjoy the fact that he made a movie like this. I don't know if it's the most Tom Cruise of them all. There's definitely hints of that like maniacal dedication in the Cruz thing here. And like, I read a, a fact online today that like Newman had said that I guess Cruz was training for like 10 hours a day until he got to the point where he, like Newman said it. I think the kid could have gone pro as a pool player. And I'm like, I'm not surprised because, you know, the the iconic moment from this movie from the Cruz perspective is when they're playing Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London.

43:58 And you get that shot where Cruz hits every single ball into every single pocket. And it's one shot that just spins around the table with him as he goes. And he's doing the samurai sword and he's doing the hair is perfect. And he's got the T-shirt that just says Vince. And it is like, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. It's like it's both insanely cheesy looking and cool. And I think that's where Cruz lives. Right? Yeah. Also, his hair, he had like a little bit of a 50s pompadour going on. Yeah, it's so intense. And there's within the world of the movie, they're they're they're like, man, look at this asshole. Like, whoa, what is he doing?

44:42 Watching it as a viewer? Like this guy still feels weirdly innocent as he does all this. Like he has no idea what else is going on. He just wants to be the best player in the room and to show off the fact that he's the best player in the room. And there's almost like an honor to that. That feels a lot better than where he ends up at the end of the film. Yeah. Now on the Newman side of things, I was thinking a lot about like if they remade this movie or if they did another sequel, Do you have Cruz in the Fast Eddie kind of role? And. Oh yeah. You know that what's funny though, is like watching it, I'm like, oh, this is a Brad Pitt performance.

45:23 Paul Newman is giving a late era Brad Pitt performance. And we've talked extensively about how Brad Pitt looks like Robert Redford but behaves like Paul Newman. And so I'm watching this movie and I'm like, I honestly would pay so much money to watch The Color of Money remake with Brad Pitt and Timothy Chalamet and just give me that all day. Like all day dude. Timothy, he would be out there just playing pool for 12 hours a day just to prove he's better than Tom Cruise, who only did 10 hours a. Day, dude. He is the future of cinema. We need him. We need him playing 12 hours a day. Dude, I've only seen him in Dune and Dune 2 so I don't I don't know if I have enough Chalamet recognition to know how I feel about him.

46:13 He's going to be right there again this year for Best Actor. Man, really Marty McFly, Marty Supreme. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm going to go into Marty Supreme thinking about it as a double feature for Color of Money 'cause it seems very similar. So OK, on that note, Brad, I think it's time for us to to wind things down a bit here on this cruise miss. And you know, we'll give final scores. I also want to just say like, I think the thing that was missing for me and and it seems intentional was like if you're going to make a movie about hustling people, I want to see more hustles. There's only like 3 hustles in this whole movie, dude. And I think go.

46:54 Ahead, go ahead. What when they when they do the the two brothers and a stranger hustle. What are the best scenes of the movie? It's incredible. I like everything's focused. Everything's moving. It's it's a great scene. And you know if you've ever seen the Hustler, folks like it. It tells you. Like what the end that the tell us of this all is like, this is not fun. You are going to get beaten and crushed and your reputation destroyed. And that's the end of this. And so this movie is in that lineage where like it's fun for a second and then ultimately not fun when Paul Newman loses his shirt playing Forest Whitaker or getting conned by Tom Cruise.

47:37 And I think it's really intentional because when you have Paul Newman in a movie where he's playing essentially a con man, everyone's going to be thinking The Sting. I had so much fun watching The Sting. This is like that, but with pool. And I think Scorsese is telling you absolutely not. That's not what this is. Yeah. However, I will say from an enjoyment standpoint, I probably would have enjoyed watching the fun version of The Color of Money a little bit more than that 100% does. That make sense 100%, yeah. Seeing the hustles, seeing them, like work out new things that they're going to do, new ways they're going to hustle people would have been so much more fun than this. Like, weird psychodrama that we get that is good. It's not great.

48:22 Yeah. Yeah. And I think that kind of gets into final scores here, Brad. Now this is your first exposure to this film, to the hustler kind of ecosystem here. I want to hear where you're landing on the color of money. Do you want to do 2 facts in a or two facts in a faucet? Do you want to do? Let's make a double. Oh, we yeah, I'll tell you what, let's do final scores, OK, And then fold your let's make it a double into your final score. Yeah, final score. I am going to give this a 7.5. I like there's enough greatness in little individual scenes that I'm like, oh, like part of me wants to give it like a 6 1/2 seven. I do think that there's some great shots, even one that I sent you from the start of the film where Scorsese has four different levels of depth to a shot where it's I think it's like Paul Newman in the very back and then his Tom Cruise's girlfriend sitting in the mid shot.

49:19 There's somebody else and then there's Tom Cruise's hand at the very front breaking or hitting a ball and it's just a mind bogglingly cool. It's insane, dude. Oh my gosh. And so there's stuff like that that is enough for me to jump it up to a 7.5. I'm. Going to be at A7 on this one and I'm it's the same reasons as you. I think that ultimately I like the average we're coming out to like this is a 7.2 out of 10 kind of movie for me. Yeah, and yeah, I think it's like a six and a half, six script that is elevated by some insane stylistic choices. I think, you know, I I can't wait till we do some De Palma movies on this podcast. We've done one, which is the first Mission Impossible. But the kind of shots Scorsese's going for here is like his most De Palma it with the split diopters and the multiple layers, you know, of like horizontal planes and all that kind of stuff.

50:14 It's a fun movie to watch. I just wish it was a more fun movie. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? 100% and I think, I hope that I'm going for more fun movie. I I am going with a movie for a friend. Bob. I have never seen this movie, but for my Let's make it a Double, I'm going to pair this with Rounders 'cause I have been told by my good friend Brandon that it is his favorite movie that he has watched more than any other film in his life and I need to watch it. So Brandon, I'm going to watch it soon. I'm gonna pair this with rounders. I'm gonna pick a movie. I I think honestly, I would. I would pick a movie like The Sting, just for something more fun.

50:56 Yeah. Totally. But I'm gonna go back to a movie that came out around the same time as The Hustler, and it's a Steve McQueen movie that essentially follows the same basic beats, except Steve McQueen is a poker player. And the name of the movie is The Cincinnati Kid. And it's it's Steve McQueen. And then, like the big bad of the movie that he's trying to to beat in poker is Edward G Robinson, like late in his career. Great. Great movie, dude. Yeah. If you ever get around to watching old poker movies, The Cincinnati Kid is a real good one, man. Yeah. Edward Edward GI know the name and I can literally see his face but what what movie am I thinking of him from? You're thinking of him from Double Indemnity, where he was, yes, Fred Macmurray's boss.

51:40 You know the little guy with always got the cigar. Yeah, yeah, I for some reason I was thinking that he would fit in 12 angry men like. No, that's not George C Scott. What's his name? Lee, J. Cobb, Lee J Cobb. Maybe that's what I was thinking about anyways. Alright guys, Cruise miss. It's freaking cruise Miss Mary. Cruise Miss Mary. Cruise miss everybody. At Film and Whiskey, we are just speaking life and joy into your homes. This holiday season, I hope you are celebrating with a Tom Cruise movie of your own. Yeah, yeah. Let us know any. Big Christmas plans. Any big Christmas plans? We had my family over today.

52:22 It's like a week before Christmas. We have a new baby, which means we get to play the baby card. Everybody gets to come to us. Haley's brother's coming in from out of town. It's going to be great. I am taking my two older girls to a showing of The Nutcracker that the Columbus like ballet Symphony puts on. Every year they they do The Nutcracker for like a month, but they do 2 special showings called my first Nutcracker and it's just incredible. I took Sadie last year. It's one hour long. They have like stuff outside before and after and they like bring the, they like bring the rat king on stage with his helmet off and they're like, Hey, this is my friend Sean and and Sean plays a character called the rat King and watch he puts his helmet on so the kids aren't scared. It's it's like really well done and really cute and I cannot wait to take the girls to that.

53:17 Sean the Rat King changing lives out here. Yeah, that's right. Oh man, what about you, man? What do you do for Christmas? This is an on year for my wife's family. So my wife has this gigantic extended Italian family and we do a year off, a year on and even on the off years, our little nuclear kind of family is still like 20 people deep now. So when all the cousins come in, we've got like 75 people. We have to like rent a hall. So it's going to be we've got intense Italian Christmas happening. Italians keeping the local pool halls in business. Yes, listen, we have a small Hungarian contingent now. It's me and my brother-in-law and like 1 uncle. And so we carved out a little corner where we make pierogies and I make Hungarian sausage, and every once in a while we'll have paprikash too, while they all eat their ravioli and stuff is.

54:10 Is that what you call it? Bob Your your Hungarian sausage. I sure do, man. And I call you Sean the Rat King. Guys, from us to you, Merry Christmas. Thank you so much for sticking with us for the color of money. We'll be back next week with another regularly scheduled episode. If you want to leave a message about the color of money, you can find us on any of our social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok or YouTube at Film Whiskey. Or if you want to tell us what Cruise Miss movie you will be choosing this year, we would love to hear what you're going to be watching on Cruise Miss. Let us know. We have a Discord channel. We're on there every day talking to you guys. You can find a link to our Discord server at the end of every single one of our show notes. Back to our Season 1 re watches next Tuesday, folks, but until then, I'm Bob Book.

55:02 I'm Brad G. And we'll see you next time.