You're listening to the Back Home Network presented by Home Field Apparel. Welcome back to Crimson Cast, Gayla Clavio joining you. It is the 18th of June, almost summertime officially as we're heading towards the longest day of the year, and we had some extra time today. We had a meeting cancelled, so I put out a call for some impromptu podcast questions and here we are. So we're going to tackle a few items that you find folks out in social media land have sent our direction.
Had these number of questions about IE football, had a couple about basketball, had a lot of alcohol related questions. I guess everybody's minds are on the weekend, which I'm with you folks 100%. But anyway, we're going to tackle those here in just a second. But first of all, just a reminder that Crimson Cast is part of the Back Home Network and the Back Home Network is brought to you by Home Field Apparel. Your place to go for the finest in college fashions, the softest
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Also, just a reminder that coming up here very soon, we've got the Indiana Volleyball golf outing Thursday, June 27th, a little over a week from now, 10:00 AM shotgun start at the Hawthorne's Golf and Country Club. And this is a great way for you to support IU Volleyball who's having just a dynamite. Set of of occurrences going on on the recruiting trail here lately. Signed one of the top classes in college volleyball for this incoming year. They're already off to a great
start. 3 ladies signed for 2026 and you know, folks in this era, that's all happening at least in part through NIL. You know, yes, vision, yes, the program's going in the right location, but at the end of the day, you got to have the NIL support. This event is an awesome way to do that. Go to in forindiana.com/volleyball and you'll see some registration options for the event. On the 27th, $275 gets you on
the course for the golf event. That includes breakfast prior to the round, lunch following the round, a silent auction and then an interaction with the volleyball athletes that play for Indiana, as well as some IU volleyball swag. If you got four people that you want to put together and come out there, it's $1000 for the team, so you save some money there. Business owners, you can also
sponsor a whole for $250. That's front and back nine sponsorships as well as various additional core sponsors. Go to inforindiana.com/volleyball. And hopefully we see you there on the 27th. I'll be there and I hope I see you there as well. Let them know I sent you again. The 27th that's Thursday of next week up in Fishers at the Hawthorne's IU volleyball NIL
event. All right, let's dive into the questions that you had out there today and, you know, let me tackle a couple of of larger scale questions, then we'll get to some of the fun ones a little bit later on. So first of all, a a good question here, I think from Adam Cabe, who of course is, is a regular in terms of, of being on our Twitter. And he asked a question which I'm going to pop on screen here. Hopefully you can see this given for those of you watching on the video.
By the way, if you want to watch these podcasts on video, most of them are on Spotify on video as well as just audio. If you want to listen that way, but also on the back home network YouTube channel, join the over 6400 people that are on that Channel and get not just this content, but all the back home network content in visual form. So. Adam asks.
Given the successes at all previous stops for Coach Sig and the addition of difference making players, what do you think lends the national pundits assuming IU only gets 1:00 to 4:00? Wins next season vibes alone won't do it, but this team really seems to be heading to five to eight wins in my honest opinion. So, Adam, it's a great question. And I think it's one of those situations where we have to balance in the minds of the pundits, in the minds of the people who are trying to keep
track of college football. Couple of things. First of all, most punditry in college football is pretty static in nature most of the time. There's there's teams at the beginning of every year. If you go back and go through the last 10 to 15 years, there's teams that have amazing seasons that nobody saw coming.
And there's teams that have bad seasons who were supposed to be good that no one saw that coming either, you know, And I think to a large degree, even with all of the numbers that are in the game right now and, and the way that that you can quantify a lot that goes on with college football, realistically speaking, most of the time you're going to be gravitating towards the programs that have demonstrated success, particularly under coaches that
have demonstrated success there. So that's two strikes already against IU, you know if. And, and I, I think this goes both ways. I mean, everybody remembers how high the pundits were, relatively speaking, on IU going into the 2021 season because the information that you had going into that season was, well, gosh, Indiana's got their starting quarterback. Back. They've got all these various pieces offensively that look
good. The defense we assume will be good because they've got a defensive minded coach. They seem to make the right moves in the portal and we're going to assume the players are going to develop what nobody anticipated. Well, there were several things that season, obviously, you know, you know, why, why did Indiana get rated 16th? Why were IU fans upset about that? They felt like IU should have been rated higher. But nobody anticipated Michael
Pennix not being ready. Nobody anticipated the huge void in offensive ability that came from losing, you know, the offensive coordinator from the previous year, Caitlyn de Boer. And, you know, all those things kind of collide, but that it wasn't like people looked at that in the preseason and said, oh, IU is going to suck. You know, IU was ranked 16th going into that season. And clearly they were not
anywhere close to that good. So I think what's going on with Cignetti, yes, people acknowledge that Cignetti is has been successful, but. You can look at Cignetti successes and you can say, well, there's a difference between winning at Elon or winning at James Madison versus winning at a Big 10 school, especially arguably the worst football school in the Big 10 in terms of overall history and reputation
and things like that. I mean, Indiana hasn't been the the worst in the conference over the last 10 years if you take everything on aggregate, but they're certainly not in the top half and. You can even apply that to the players. Yes, you've got difference making players that are coming up, but most of those players are coming from the lowest level of FBS.
And while they were certainly impressive at James Madison or some of the other places, and then, you know, granted you've had some power conference players sprinkled in, at the end of the day, it's hard to look at that and immediately say, well, of course Indiana's going to rise up to, you know, five to eight wins when you're coming off of, you know, consecutive seasons, essentially where three consecutive seasons where you just didn't measure up all things considered.
And so it's a safe pick if you pick Indiana 17th or 18th in the conference because it's a brand new coaching staff. And look, as as much as I think IU fans and and media people, my and I include myself in this, have bought into this idea that IU is going to be good at least like bowl eligible good this year. There's a real chance that it
doesn't translate. You know, there's a real chance that that, you know, the team is still a mess and that the offense isn't sorted and that the defense can't contribute at the level that it needs to. All of that is possible.
I, I tend to think that between the relative softness of the schedule, the uncertainty of some of the teams and elsewhere in the Big 10, the workmanlike approach that Signetti and his staff are taking with their players, I tend to think that they're going to be better by a pretty significant margin than what a lot of pundits are projecting. But I understand why the pundits are projecting what they're
projecting. And so I, I would actually embrace this if I were you all, I would just say, you know what, let the people who's you know, who are supposed to be keeping track of this stuff, let them say IU is going to be bad. It'll be that much more rewarding when IU is good. And if IU does end up kind of falling short of the expectations of the fan base has you can always fall back on. Well, all right, it's a little bit of a longer Rd. than
everybody thought that it might. Be because again, I you know what I would remind the one thing last thing I'll say on this is it's not basketball. You know, it is very hard to take a bad team and turn them into a bowl eligible team in one year. That wasn't what happened under Kevin Wilson, you know, and I and I think. Even with, you know, I mean, Tom Allen did not inherit a bad
team. I thought he inherited a pretty good team and kind of treaded water for a couple of years before they kind of punched through in that 2019 season and got bowl eligible. But you know that that's that's where sometimes it does go longer than we would like it to. And it's why I'm still in my mind hedging my bets in terms of like, not trying to be overly optimistic with this IU team.
Because at the end of it all, it's not a you you're, you're getting overly excited about IU football, sets you, sets you up for disappointment, sets you up for thinking, well, gosh, are we over rating the coaching staff? Are we over rating the players? When you realistically what you should be approaching it with, I think is a mentality of it's hard to get that many guys going in the right direction. It's hard to change a culture
overnight. And even with a bunch of winnable games, we've all seen in college football that even the most winnable games might not be things you come away with. I mean, Indiana won that game last. Year against. Wisconsin at home, which fits into that category where it's like, should Wisconsin have lost that game? Absolutely not. But they did against an inferior opponent, so. You know, that's the kind of thing you got to think about and that's I think we're all that's
coming from. So we'll see. Question from Patrick. Felts need all the IU football uniform thoughts. So for those of you who missed this announcement yesterday, this was kind of greeted with with some interesting mixtures of things as there was a leak off of Tavin Jackson's web. I think it was a Snapchat. And then IU actually released the the the jerseys that they're going to be using at least the home jerseys for next year. I'm going to call them up here on the on the video screen, you
can kind of see them. It's a little bit of a smaller picture, but there we go. So you can see like for those who haven't seen these jerseys, I'll I'll try to remember to put a link in the sub stack for those of you who haven't seen these. This is interesting, you know, from the standpoint of. The, the, the, the lettering's a lot bigger. The number on the front looks a lot bigger. It's a really simple design and
it's, it's not a bad design. It's not like I wouldn't call it eye-catching or anything like that in terms of, you know, being something that we're going to remember for the rest of our lives. The 2024 uniforms, Probably not our friend IU Artifacts noted that he's getting some 1964 season vibes because that was the first year that Indiana appeared on the front of the football uniforms that the actual. Word Indiana and I can kind of see it when I look at that picture.
I overall, I'll be, I'll be honest. Like I know a lot of people that complaints about the uniforms last year. I don't get like 2 jacked one way or the other about the uniforms. You know, what I would really like is like a clean brand that is pleasant to look at that isn't too derivative and is, you know, it is kind of faithful to the overall branding that I use had in in, you know, across most of its sports.
And so when I looked at them, I was like, well, all right, I was initially a little bit negative on the design itself. I was like, I wish that they had done a little bit more with it, but the more I look at it, I was like, it's a really straightforward design. It it doesn't take a lot of risks, but it also doesn't put IU in a particularly bad light in terms of of how it comes across. So it's all right. You know, I'd give them a, I'd give them AB minus. I guess in execution.
I think there's a lot of room for improvement. And I think a lot of the people who reacted negatively to the reveal yesterday, as it were, a lot of that negativity is a built up kind of frustration over the lack of innovative ideas with IU football uniforms since the Kevin Wilson era. And I think a lot of that's been by design. I can kind of see Kurt Cignetti not really wanting a lot of really flashy stuff as far as the uniform itself is concerned. But maybe not. Maybe I'm wrong on that.
I know Tom Allen certainly seemed to want a very straightforward look compared to what Kevin Wilson was interested in. You know, so I'm curious to see how this look evolves over time. But for 2024, I think what they've got is fine. We had a couple of other quick questions in terms of of the football side of things. We we'll get a lot of tailgate questions, which I love. And I think it's I I'm going to try to tackle a couple of these.
First of all, Al Forno, good to see you again on Twitter. Al, outside of the Rose Bowl, which new Big 10 stadium or game day experience do you recommend checking out? So of the other three, Oregon, Washington and USC, I've only been to one and it's Oregon and I, I actually really highly recommend checking out Austin Stadium.
It's a really cool design. It's a smaller stadium and most of these, most of the West Coast stadiums that aren't the Coliseum or the Rose Bowl, I think they're smaller than you might anticipate them being. But I remember I went for it was it was Oregon, Portland State, like it was, it was not that important of a game. So it was. Easy to get tickets. It was raining and Gray, shockingly, but it was cool. Like walked around the whole stadium a couple of times. There's like an overhang area.
The vibe was cool and it was neat 'cause it was like, this is where Oregon does all of their, their magic stuff. And I thought it was really cool. I, I am unquestionably the most interested in going to Washington to watch a game. That whole scene has always looked really fascinating, like going all the way back to, I remember watching, you know, Huskies football back in the 80s and 90s when and they won a national title and, and we're a
real national player. So that's the one I'm most interested in. I I'm certain. I will go to the game at USC when they play out there. I have no clue what to expect with that. But yeah, I think Washington is the one I would like to go see that I haven't yet, but I would absolutely recommend when Indiana plays at Oregon, go check. That one out, 'cause I think that'll be a really cool one if you haven't been up there before. Plus, Eugene's just a kind of a fascinating place.
It is in the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking, in the drive from Portland to Eugene. That's some wild landscape going down the road, man. I mean, this is some moonscape stuff going on out there. Like it just kind of feels, especially if you grew up in the Midwest and you spent most of your time in the Midwest, it kind of feels like you're on another planet or another celestial body. So that would be the one I would I would recommend going and
checking out our let's see. We had a question regarding this is from from Hoosier beer guy. Assuming some on field success occurs in the sig era, what are some improvements you'd expect to see to the game day experience slash stadium slash facilities slash program to become a more serious football school? I think first and foremost, get rid of pass outs. Stop letting people leave the
stadium. I mean, I, I don't know how you instill a sense of seriousness around a football program if you're just allow people to leave whenever they want. I know that that's been historically how it's operated.
But I would argue that for the majority of attendees for IU football, many of whom just have tickets because they're trying to get priority points for basketball, you know, treating it like something that you don't have to make much of an investment in from a time perspective or a fanship perspective is a mistake. And I think especially for.
Students. Giving them the option of leaving and and potentially coming back, even though I know a lot of them don't just doesn't seem like a lot of it makes a lot of sense. So get rid of the pass outs. I think first and foremost, I know this will probably not be received well, but I think I think there's a place and you know, you need to have a good role for the marching 100 and. What you do, I think a more logical balance needs to be
struck. Between what role the marching hundreds playing in the the in game like during play or do you know during drive stuff versus what happens with the Pai just. You know as. As much as we have a lot of traditionalists in the football audience, and I understand where you're coming from on this, and we have a lot of marching 100 adherents out there. And so this is not intended to be a criticism, but more of a reality.
I feel like, you know, the, the, the atmosphere that you need to create an intimidating environment in college football really cannot be achieved with a marching band. It, it just doesn't have the same vibe. And, and I think younger fans, especially, I think players, I, I think that there's a general and, and I, I include the opposing teams players in this as well. You, you need to have something that creates a sense of foreboding from an atmospheric perspective within the stadium.
That's kind of. The direction I'd like to see things go, I think there's been some strides made in the last couple of years on that and some of it is really, you know, maybe as much about modernizing. Some of the stuff that that the the band is doing within the confines of the game day atmosphere, you know, I think the overall, the overall video board production could definitely get better.
That's, you know, it was, it was kind of a revelation when I you started regularly doing video board shows. What about 12/13/14 years ago? I think that you could use a reset there, certainly. And then I think just in general scale, like the scale of services within the stadium that they've been slowly doing upgrades there's Suppose we're going to do a whole deep dive into what the changes are going to be in the football stadium at some point this summer.
We're going to try to get a couple people on who can speak more directly to that. But you know that they're adding more food options. There's supposed to be some really cool new food options in the North End zone, which is great to hear, especially since that's where my tickets are going to be now. I think putting the students up in the North End zone, curving around onto the east side of the stadium is an interesting approach. I'm curious to see how that plays out and I think that's
going to be helpful. But look, I I've said this for years, like the biggest adjustment that you could make to the game day experience is putting a competitive product out on the field. In big 10 play and making it so that it is compelling to watch the team play football.
You know, I feel like a lot of the strides and this didn't get talked about as much I think as it should have during the time, but I think a lot of the strides that IU made in terms of their overall game day atmosphere in the latter stages of the Kevin Wilson era and and even into the. The the first few years of the Tom Allen era, a lot of it was really because the team was competitive in a lot of those games, like you didn't feel like.
You were going and the game was going to be over at halftime. But I but I also think beyond that, you know, figuring out a way to continue to get people engaged, you know, making sure that you've got the right kind of atmospherics to support the crowd, doing what you want them to do at key moments in games.
I think that that's really key. It's a very different sort of setup and experience than Assembly Hall because Assembly Hall even today, even with the lack of relative success over the course of the last, I don't know, 20 years or so consistently still knows when to get loud. And it still achieves A level of, of, of, you know, the kind of intimidation that you just, you rarely ever come close to in Memorial Stadium. But that would be some of the things I would talk about there, I think.
And I think it's going to be a work in progress. And I think as with anything, the crowd's going to feed off the team. And then in in response to that, the team can feed off the crowd. But if this is not a, this is absolutely the egg has to be laid first by the team. That has the Hatch. Before the crowd's really going to be able to learn to get into things. And I think that's that's going to be the key element there. So let's switch gears to basketball real quick.
Any sports partisan says it feels let me actually pop this up on screen. For those of you who would like to see this in person, so. The question is for it feels like every pre season, even back to Archie's early years, we discussed how deep the roster is and how. Difficult it'll be to split out. Playing time, however, is there actual objectivity to this upcoming rosters depth in terms of both experience and potential contributions?
It's a great question. This is something that Scott talks about all the time and and repeats like the same lament at the end of every year. It's like, you know, every year we, we tie ourselves up in knots talking about who's going to play X1 number of minutes. How are they going to separate these things out and then by the end of the year it doesn't
really matter. And you know the so I, I think when you get down to it, I think that this IU team does have a hierarchy in terms of what we're what we should expect going into the year. I think it's pretty straightforward this year that when you when you look at the players that are here, when you look at the players that are going to be incoming. You know, it really comes down to Omar Ballo's going to get 25 to 27 minutes. Malik Renew's going to get about the same, maybe slightly more.
Trey Galloway's probably going to get about 26 to 30 minutes off the bench or starting, I think either way. But you know what, I think if he comes off the bench as a six man, he'll still get more or less the same number of minutes. Miles Rice is probably going to get a lot of minutes of point guard. He played a ton of minutes last year for for Washington State. And then I think the, you know, Mackenzie Imbacco is probably a guy that, you know, gets a, a a
ton of minutes as well. I mean, he in his freshman year played 67% of available minutes, 68% of available minutes, which is a lot. I just saw. I'll expect like that group plus Kane and Carlisle, plus probably Bryson Tucker. You know that would be. That's probably where. You're, you know, if you, if you think about the players that aren't going to get the most minutes, I think that's probably the top of the pecking order.
You know, the, the questions I have on this and we had another question specifically about minutes, which which, you know, it's hard to really meter out exactly what it looks like. I am really curious to see like, you know, what is it? What kind of a contribution are we going to see out of Luke Goody? He played about half of the available minutes at Illinois last year. Will we see him play as many this year?
Is it something where he comes in regularly off the bench and plays a bunch or do his minutes kind of get ratcheted back a little bit? Last year was the first year he played that many minutes. He didn't really didn't play very much at all his first two years. And I think with him and potentially Trey Galloway and potentially Bryson Tucker, you know, as as three pieces that are going to have to pop in and really earn their minutes. You know, I like that group feels like the group that's
going to get the most run. There are wild cards in that and that, you know, naming namely what's Gabe Cups, what's Jakai Newton and and what's Anthony Leal's overall contributions. You know, I, I. Feel like those guys, it's going to be tough for them to get on the floor regularly with the three guards that you've. Got in the mix. But I could be wrong. On that, I mean, if Jakai Newton's bounced back and can provide that athleticism, I could see him, you know, doing fairly well.
I, I feel like the, the, to go back to the core question here that that sports partisan is asking, objectively speaking, it feels like this is a pretty deep roster in terms of guys that you wouldn't feel concerned about playing, You know, guys that you can go in and, and say, you know, we know we've seen a season of Miles Rice. We know Miles Rice can play at a
really high level. You know, we've seen Luke Goody now in the kind of role that you would like him to play here and he was, you know, one of the top 100 best offensive efficiency players in the whole country last year. You know, that's that's that only gets a mirage. I think that, you know, even you know, Omar Balo, like we've seen Omar Balo play multiple years. We've seen him as IU fans. We saw him in Vegas and I. Feel like you can feel pretty
good about. What we know about those guys, I feel like you can feel pretty good about what we know about Trey Galloway. I feel like what you saw to Mackenzie and Baca, we can feel pretty good about that. You know, I so I think the the wild cards are really the guys that we. We don't have a clear understanding of what they can do. And this is where, you know, this is where I would throw Bryce and Tucker, and we just don't know what he's going to
look like. He could be the breakthrough star on this IU team, you know, Gabe Cups like what? How does he respond to what happened last year? That I don't entirely know. You know, it was a tough season for Gabe Cubs. He got put in some situations, I think that he wasn't ready for physically or just from a mental approach to the game. How does he respond this off? Season and and just do his minutes get dialed way back.
What happens there? And then with Jokai Newton, obviously it's the injury situation and and also then the adaptation to the college game. You know, Carlisle's the only one I'm not 100% certain of, of the, of, you know, the projected starters. You you could look at what he did last year and you can say that, you know, efficiency wise, he wasn't an efficient scorer at all. You know, he did a good job of of dishing out assists,
relatively speaking. You know, but he didn't shoot the ball well and he didn't play a huge amount of minutes. Actually, by percentage, played fewer minutes than. You know, over the course of the season and and certainly played in far fewer games than Luke Goody did and certainly less than Trey Galloway. So does Galloway start there? And is Carlisle a guy off the bench?
But still, it's nice to have a piece that you've seen for at least a year, you know, at the power five level or whatever it is now the the power two level. I just don't know if if Carlisle's necessarily a guy that you can expect to play a huge number of minutes and then what happens with the remaining aspects of the backcourt with that. So to answer the macro question though, I really do feel like there's a lot more tested depth and experience.
I think the biggest question, and this kind of goes back, there's a really nice piece that Evan Mayakawa published today, which I'll also try to remember to put in the crim in the sub stack about, you know, the key to winning in the portal era. And a lot of it comes down to, you know, can you preference the OR can you give preferential court time to the people on your roster who are returning who already know the system?
But then that also leads to the larger question of how much do the systems themselves need to change with IU because we've seen, you know, offensively, this was not what you want to see moving forward in the last couple of years. I think with IU, it was a bit, you know, it was OK, but it was largely Trace Jackson Davis two years ago. And then this past year, it really was a struggle on offense
and defensively. I'd argue that we haven't seen Indiana be where they want to be, you know, in either of the last two seasons either. So how much, how much can these new pieces adapt? And this is where maybe the idea that you want to have that the carryover of the minutes, maybe it's not as important with IU if they're having to change the way that they're doing business on both ends of the floor. So I do think objectively this is a much deeper team.
I think it's. Objectively, in terms of top to bottom like that, those top 8-9 spots on the roster, I think it's a top three roster in the conference right now as far as how that meters. Out. I think we have a pretty good sense of how it's going to look with the bigs and I think there's more questions the further away from the bigs that you get. Simply in terms of just how everything gets allocated.
So let's let's real quick before we wrap up because we are we, we kind of answered the question with the with the Evan asked about the minutes. So hopefully he heard that. So we appreciate Evan asking that question. We did have a couple of questions regarding the the tailgate scene. So someone asked, this is Zach Curry. Imagine this. It's a sunny but chilly Saturday afternoon in October. I don't like chilly afternoons in October. Give me November for the chilly afternoons.
The Hoosiers of the home team kick off at 3:30. Given the weather, what is on the menu at the tailgate? Wow. So, yeah, I think by the time you get to that time of year, you really need to try to pivot to not just food that handles better in colder weather. It's bad enough for an afternoon tailgate. I think it's different. Like for a morning tailgate, that to me is perfect. Like breakfast sandwiches on the Blackstone griddle and Donuts that right there.
Like you put that combo together, throw some coffee in, throw some some hard Truth Hill cinnamon vodka into the mix. I mean, you got a nice morning going right there for yourself. You know, for an afternoon tailgate, I think it's a little bit more complicated in as much as you've, you know, to me for that, for a lunchtime tailgate, I'm probably doing like some kind of of griddle based Philly cheese steak. I, I think that that really sounds good.
You'll get some seasoned, some seasoned steak, maybe some chicken, get some cheese on there. You'll get some homemade rolls and, and get those, you know, properly buttered, get them toasted up on the griddle. And I mean, I think you're good to go there.
You've, you've really got a nice combo 'cause I think with, with that temperature, especially for a lunchtime tailgate, you want something that's going to be substantial 'cause you're probably you people are going to be drinking during that time period as well. And you want to make sure you send people in where they don't have to buy something at the concession stand. It's an option if they get
hungry later. But I always try to set something up where people are going to leave the tailgate at least feeling like they got something substantial in their stomach, particularly for a lunchtime tailgate 'cause you're probably, you've probably already pregamed a bit before you got there. As far as like what's the beverage of choice? That's a borderline temperature, like 4345°. I really, I find I don't really
like beer at that temperature. I like beer when it's a bit warmer or I like a a darker beer when it's colder. But like in the mid 40s, I'm probably leaning towards some kind of a cocktail or mixed drink. And again, something that I think doesn't require ice. I got to think about what that would be though, because a lot of it is about if you're, if you're tying it in with the Philly cheese steak, beer's probably the best option there.
But I think you're probably going for an amber ale or a. Porter or something along those lines, something that could be cool as opposed to ice cold, something that's going to properly support the flavor profile of the Philly cheese steak. That would that would be the mixer. So I think a good a good. Amber, I'm more of a Porter guy myself. So I'm, I'm, you know, that's, that's a my Bach type of situation as well or an Oktoberfest type of situation.
So like a, a good like a rogue dead guy or something like that. I think pairs really well in that circumstance. I had a couple other alcohol related questions. So I guess I'll ask. I'll I'll answer. Those real quick before we wrap up the we had a question about where'd it go here? Did all of those questions disappear? Maybe maybe somebody took them off. Well, someone asked me like my top three mixed drinks, which my mixed drink tastes are all over
the place. So with no particular order, oh, sorry, this is Craig Davis asked us this top three cocktails ranked. I guess I have to rank them. So I think, you know, for #3 I'm probably going for a very, you know, just the, just the, the classic bourbon and Coke, which I know a lot of people like, that's boring. It's not really a mixed drink. It's, it actually is a perfect
mixed drink in a lot of ways. You know, particularly if you've got like a mid grade or slightly lower bourbon or Scotch, either one works really well. I think with Coca-Cola, I prefer the Mexican Coke more and more now with this, with this combination and it'll pair. This actually pairs well with another question I got. I think you get some bullet rye. And Coke, that, that mixes really well together.
I'm gonna put that at #3 #2 this is a remnant of my time in the South, particularly living in Memphis. But I've always loved a hurricane. Not really a drink you get a lot up here in Indiana, but a well done hurricane to me encapsulates all the, the things I like in, in a cocktail and then all that. My top one is is a Manhattan, which to me I think is the kind of the more it's it's it's a nice sophisticated jerk without being pretentious. It's it's pretty straightforward
and I just like the flavors. I think it actually the Manhattan. Is kind of underrated at a tailgate setting, you know, you have to kind of premix it a little bit. 'Cause it's hard to get the ratios right necessarily in the field, but I think that's a good option. So I would I would check that out. On a related note, Craig asks how many do you consume after IU football wins their eighth game of the year? Enough that I'll probably lose
track of the actual number. It's I'm not, I, I'm not Craig. I'm not doing it. I'm not getting down the pathway of, of dreaming that big yet. But I appreciate the thought process. Thank you. We did have a question and I'm, I'm trying to locate it here 'cause I want to give the person credit, but someone asked like, what are your, what are your top three bourbons? I actually. Think they deleted the the oh. No, there is. Darryl Frazier asked us. What 3 bourbons do you really enjoy everyday?
Sipper 1 to share one for a special occasion. So I mentioned Bullet earlier, not the rye, but the the the rye. I guess the rye would work here as well. I really enjoy that as a as a sipping bourbon. It's kind of between that and Four Roses right now. I really enjoy both of those as options. I've kind of migrated away from. I used to be a big Maker's Mark adhere and but but less and less
here lately. I'm probably not going to get I I think that my my my one to share the it's a little on the pricey side, but I if you have not had the hubers bourbons yet, the double oak bourbon is outstanding. And again, it's a little on the pricier side, but I would absolutely recommend any of their bourbons on us. I particularly love the double oak, but even the even the regular one is it's just really well done.
And and I think, you know, obviously you've got the people who are like you can't do bourbon unless it's like specifically from that particular area of Kentucky. Fine, whatever you you don't have to try it. But for those who are willing to venture out a little bit, give the hubers a try. I was blown away the first time I had it, like how good it was. And I would absolutely recommend
it to everybody. And you never know, if you stop by the tailgate this year, there might be a little bit of a sample for you. And then as far as special occasion, had this a few weeks ago and I would, I would highly recommend that. It's actually on the allocation list at Big Red and Bloomington, but Russell's Reserve Private barrel select, highly recommend that. It's I, I don't want to spoil the surprise, but it's under $100 and it's, it's, I find it to be awesome.
That's exactly what I'm looking for in those circumstances. One last question, we had recommended hope this is from Jeff Dix recommended hotel for two nights in in in Bloomington so and then a recommended lunch. Spot So you know, I'll say on the hotel front, I always recommend if. If you as long as you don't want or need the traditional big ish hotel experience. Try the Grant Street Inn and try Showers in. They're normally pretty
reasonably priced. Their their location is amazing and I think a lot of people forget about them when they come to Bloomington. Grant Street Inn is at 7th or it's actually 6th and and Grant, so it's real close to Kirkwood. And then Showers Inn is at like I think 9th and Washington or 8th and Washington again. Really. Really. Nice location and you're close to everything. If those don't work out, I mean.
You know the the. The graduate is where most of the people that I've had come in stay here lately. That's probably also if if where you were looking at originally was pricey, I think you know the graduate probably will be as well, but. Again, you can't beat the location, so I would recommend that.
As far as recommended lunch spots in Bloomington right now rattled off a few of these in previous podcasts, but just to kind of, you know, take a. Little bit of a meandering tour in downtown as far as where to stop in for lunch if you're alone, like if you don't have somebody under 21, I still like the the lunch like lunch at the tap is good lunch at Uptown and you can have somebody who's under 21. There is always, I think, a great experience.
I'd recommend trying out Da Vinci if you haven't been there. Da Vinci's at basically third and Washington, so it's a little off the. Beaten path from. Kirkwood, but their lunch is awesome. Austria Rago, as long as it's not a Monday, 'cause I think they're closed on Mondays for lunch, but they have great options all the way up and down the line. Beware, Austria. The sandwiches are incredible, but they're too big for lunch. By yourself.
You could go in with a friend and share one of those sandwiches and you'd both be stuffed. And then you know, I would probably also throw in Brewberger, which just opened. So there's a Brewberger at 3rd and Grant. So again, not too. Far off the off the strip, but that's been a real welcome addition to downtown. And then of course, the regulars. Buffaloes is always a great place to stop in for lunch. And if you haven't stopped into Buffaloes and and tried the smash burgers, I would
absolutely check that out. For the more health conscious, go to Ever Bowl, which the IU women's basketball program has been promoting on on their Instagram. I go there quite a bit. Ever Bowl is right above Lenny's, where Lenny's is at now in Kirkwood. And for a much lighter option, I think it's a really good one. I always have enjoyed what they've had there. So anyway, hopefully that was helpful, Jeff. And if you've got any other questions, certainly send those
in and let us know. Anyway, way over time here. So we're going to wrap up, but I really appreciate all you folks tuning in. Appreciate everybody that asked questions. I'm sorry I didn't get to. All of them. I think we answered like 6 questions. It took 42 minutes. That's the way it rolls here anyway. We'll be back with more Crimson cast coming up soon and as we get closer to the start of football season, we'll have certainly more to talk about there as well as basketball for
the whole back home network. I'm Galen Clavio, thanks for joining us, folks. We'll catch you. Folks, on the flip side, bring back the bison. That's all. Everybody, bye.