Whiskey with Witcher

Yennefer reconnects with Tissaia. Geralt reacquaints himself with a friend. Jaskier reconciles with Vespula! There are reunions a-plenty in season three’s third episode, so it’s only fitting that our whiskey pairing is one as well. We first discovered Milam & Greene back in our second season, but this time, we’re sampling their Port Cask Finished Rye, a sweeter-than-expected spirit that still has...

There are “Extraordinary Things” to be found within season 3’s stellar second episode, as well as some real nightmares, and we have a blast discussing both. Keira Metz makes her debut! Jaskier drops an eye-opening new song! Philippa whips Dijkstra into shape (literally)! Fringilla gets drunker than we do! And as for the episode’s monster, well let’s just say we much prefer it when it’s our whiskey...

It’s time to celebrate, Witcher fans, because season 3 is here! In “Shaerrawedd,” Geralt, Yen and Ciri are finally together...but sadly, the same isn’t true for us. Valerie’s out of town, so we’re recording our discussion of the season’s first episode virtually, but on the bright side, that means more delicious Clyde May’s Alabama Style Whiskey for Tim and Producer Sean! And that leads to a lively...

The Witcher’s all-new season is mere hours away, so we’re doing a little pre-gaming with one of our favorite fans. Writer and “I Can’t Believe it’s Not Fanon” creator Rebekah Rodriguez-Lynn joins us for a surprisingly classy discussion on Witcher fandom (hey, we’re capable!) and what we can expect from season three…all over a round of fiery margaritas. But be forewarned, the cocktails aren’t the o...

And so two became three… In our final episode devoted to the Witcher prequel series, Producer Sean joins the discussion as we look back at the series as a whole and unpack what worked and what didn’t. (Spoiler alert, there’s a lot more in one category than the other.) We also speculate on what influence Blood Origin may have on The Witcher’s upcoming season, take a look at some recent character po...

We’re four episodes into Blood Origin and…we’re finished? Yes, hard as it is to believe, we’ve reached the finale of the Witcher spinoff series and all we can say is that it’s a good thing we paired it with a strong whiskey—the 112-proof Seven Spheres Rye by The Obscure, to be specific. While there are moments here and there that we enjoyed (most of them featuring Meldof), the show’s fiery villain...

Things get downright feisty on screen—and in our recording studio—this week as we take on The Witcher: Blood Origin’s third episode. At last, our seven heroes are united as our beloved Meldof joins the team. But our mutual love for the dwarven warrior seems like the only thing we can agree on in what proves to be one of our most contentious episodes ever. Is talking work at a party okay when lives...

Our heroic team doubles in size over Blood Origin’s second chapter, as we’re introduced to the cleaver-wielding Brother Death and the two magical celestial twins Syndril and Zacare. So, with siblings playing such a big role in this Witcher spinoff, we liven things up with a bottle of Garrison Brothers Small Batch Texas Straight Bourbon, which proves to pack a flavorful punch perfect for an episode...

Much like Blood Origin itself, our season covering the four-episode Witcher spinoff was more than a little delayed. But the time has finally come to dive into this sometimes-fun-sometimes-frustrating prequel tale, which we kick off with a bottle of Caol Ila Distillery’s North Star Single Malt Scotch Whisky. (Why this particular scotch? Much like most of the things in Blood Origin, it’s better not...

Things got soberingly real for our favorite fantasy franchise this month with the Writers Guild of America (WGA) choosing to go on strike and fight for a better deal for its members. Yet, while writers and studios may be at the heart of this work stoppage, the effects are being felt all throughout Hollywood. In this new bonus episode, we lay out the broad strokes of what the writers are striking o...

We’re not going to say that The Hexer is a good show. (We’re nowhere near drunk enough for that.) But the 2002 Polish production isn’t entirely without merit. In fact, for all its why-is-Ciri-wearing-a-gimp-mask strangeness, there are some things The Hexer does quite well. Perhaps even better than Netflix’s Witcher series. In our latest bonus episode, which doubles as our official goodbye to our H...

It’s the season that’s so big they had to split it into two! We’ve returned and so has Geralt of Rivia, who’s back with a dramatic new season three teaser. We discuss what its talk of fear might reveal about season three, unpack intriguing details (so why is Rience holding a cat?) and share our thoughts on Netflix’s decision to release the season in two “volumes.” We also weigh in on the images th...

Hello, dearest listeners, and welcome to the inaugural episode of Brandy with Bridgerton. Now we realize that you might have become accustomed to a certain uncouth and unsophisticated level of humor unbecoming of high society on this channel. But fear not, for today our discussions shall be of only the most genteel nature as we welcome a most prestigious guest, Lady Christina Newhall of Studio Cit...

It’s taken at least three translators, two streaming services, thirteen whiskeys, a Susanna Hoffs slow dance classic, and far too many references to Spirit Halloween, but we’ve finally gotten to the final episode of The Hexer. Will the series go out with a bang, or a poorly subtitled whimper? (Do you really need to ask?) Still, finishing this amusingly uneven series is something worth celebrating,...

We’ve reached the penultimate episode of The Hexer and we still have no clue what’s going on. So in a desperate attempt to help, we’ve paired this episode with Navigator Straight Bourbon, which to our delight and dismay proves to be much more enjoyable than what’s on screen. Geralt has a bunch of acid flashbacks, Ciri dons a lucha libre mask and Jaskier may or may not declare his love to his favor...

Someone must have been hitting the potions a bit too hard because The Hexer’s eleventh episode is easily one of the worst of the series. After dispatching Renfri in the quickest, most anticlimactic way possible, Geralt finds himself wandering around until he winds up in Brokilon Forest again where he…wanders around some more. He also says a bunch of stuff, only half of which we understand due to a...

Renfri has arrived! We celebrate what’s one of The Hexer’s strongest episodes to date (but keep in mind that’s a VERY relative term), by unbottling one of Tim’s favorite whiskeys, Redbreast 12 Year Old Single Pot Still, which we drink straight up—you know, in much the same way that our girl is now a straight up villain. We also question the practicalities of impalement, wonder whether the episode’...

The Hexer’s ninth chapter just may be its most eventful one yet. Renfri returns! Geralt confronts Falwick! Ciri makes her (somewhat anticlimactic) debut! It’s an episode that’s, frankly, overloaded with important moments, and so we’ve paired it with an equally overloaded spirit—the 125-proof White Dog Mash #1 by Buffalo Trace Distillery. There’s no doubt the raw, unaged White Dog is powerful stuff...

While we wait for more news on the Witcher show and games, we got an update on something we really didn’t expect: new books! Okay, we got a brief, off-the-cuff statement on them that was all of five words long. But those five words—“They are in the plans”—came from none other than Andrzej Sapkowski, which means they’re more than enough for us to devote an entire episode to! We speculate on what th...

It may be Cupid’s big week, but we’re the ones playing matchmaker in this special Valentine’s Day episode. First, we discuss our all-time favorite Witcher ships, both canon and fanon. You know, the ones we may or may not be secretly writing sexy fanfic about. (Let’s just say Geraskier is SO season one.) But things really heat up in our second segment as we take turns picking Witcher characters at...

It’s time to break out the nice glasses as we welcome our first guest of 2023! For years, Joanna Estep has successfully balanced a career drawing, coloring and lettering comics with a love of fanart and The Witcher, recently culminating in her self-published Geraskier minicomic, “Where Are You This Moment?” In this bonus episode, we talk to Jo about her art, her fandom, her love of messy women and...

We suspected—well, Tim did at any rate—that with its limited production budget, The Hexer wouldn’t attempt to bring Geralt’s iconic fight with the fearsome striga to screen. Shows what he knows because that classic short story forms the basis of the series’ eighth episode, which we’ve paired with Compass Box’s uniquely fruit-forward scotch blend Orchard House. Sadly, no amount of whiskey can make...

For our first Hexer episode of 2023, we thought we’d put aside our usual drunken nonsense for a serious discussion of dopplers and elven displacement…but who are we kidding? It takes all of ten minutes for Tim and Producer Sean to devolve into juvenile jokes about the name “Dudu” and it’s all downhill from there. We do manage to discuss whether the episode’s adaptation of “The Edge of the World” i...

Who needs a sword when you’re wearing an outfit that absolutely slays? In our first new episode of 2023, we’re focusing on the fashion of The Witcher’s first two seasons, as we toast some of the hottest looks to hit the runways of Novigrad. Tim and Valerie each rank their five favorite costumes, discussing what they say about the characters and sharing their only slightly tipsy thoughts on why the...

Whiskey With Witcher is now a year old! Somehow we’ve managed to keep this thing going for a full trip around the sun, so to celebrate, we’re uncorking a bottle from Tim’s private stash—Harp Song, a 16-year Irish single malt—and answering questions about ourselves asked by you, our listeners! We share some of our more deeply held thoughts on The Witcher and where we see it going, weigh in on the m...