Episode 104: The Annual Crab Feed and an Emergency Dump

It's our favorite holiday of the year: the Annual Crab Feed, where preparation is key, butter flows like water, and consequences are ignored entirely.

We record before the feast with big plans and empty stomachs, mentally training all week to eat, drink, and make poor decisions. There's a silent auction looming, and Alex becomes emotionally invested in a "Bat Boy for a Day" item—fully intending to purchase it so Mike can live his best subordinate life. Dreams are made. Dreams are crushed.

Post-crab feed, we return full, liquored up, and reckless, sipping McMenamins Billy the Yule Goat Whiskey (which earns a solid high silver, thank you very much). There's no leftover crab giveaway this year, so Mike and Alex do what any responsible adults would do: steal crab on an empty cookie tray and sprint out the back door like criminals fueled by melted butter.

This year, the players learned the strategy—just keep feeding Mike and Alex butter and crab until they can't resist. A Tapphoria regular, Nick, makes a bold late-game move by fleeing with two bottles of salad dressing as his prize, cementing his legacy.

The night winds down with sleepover prep, homemade Egg McMuffins for booze-soaked bellies, and the Winter Olympics—where SkyCam is cool but the drone audio sounds like a video game boss fight. Things grind to a halt when Mike has to leave mid-recording for an emergency dump, courtesy of butter-lubed pipes and zero regret.

Crab was eaten. Whiskey was rated. Dignity was lost.
This is the episode your cardiologist warned you about.

In Episode 103 of Whiskey n Whine, Mike and Alex taste Pilot House Distilling's "Come Hell or High Water", an A-O American Light Whiskey aged in barrels that spent time on a fishing vessel off the Oregon coast — because aging whiskey on land just isn't adventurous enough anymore.

The guys debate an ill-advised plan to take a same-day train trip to Seattle for the NFC Championship, quickly realizing they are no longer built for all-day drinking marathons (Mike's Cleveland experience confirms this). Between sips, they discuss the beauty of a well-timed dive bar, especially when you're killing time during a high school dance competition.

Boat stories take a turn as Alex recalls a family fishing charter gone horribly wrong, featuring nonstop seasickness, four hours on the water, and at least one person puking over the side at all times. The conversation drifts to fresh fish and chips, fishing trips in Cabo that turned into full-on booze cruises, and feeding bait fish to a sea lion at the dock.

Travel trauma continues with stories from Scotland and England, including pickled onion chips, a rental car that never fully recovered, driving a right-hand-drive manual transmission, and a shared frustration with why beer in Europe is never cold enough on a hot day.

Episode 102 proves that civilization peaked when you could buy a salad bar day pass at Round Table Pizza and it's been downhill ever since.

We're drinking A-O American Light Whiskey from Astoria, Oregon, and somehow this episode still earns a Gold rating despite the absolute nonsense that follows. Oliver joins the podcast while in town testing to become a firefighter/EMS, and instead of easing him into our world, we pick him up from the airport and immediately drag him to a Vancouver dance competition. Welcome to the chaos, kid.

Oliver survives the shock thanks to Smokin Oak BBQ and gets a front-row seat to the endless shuffle between food, beer, and convention centers, which he finds hilarious while the rest of us question our choices. He's also relieved this isn't a high school competition, where food options are nonexistent and you're basically sentenced to Round Table Pizza. Again, RIP salad bar day passes. Society had it figured out.

It's a top-tier Sunday: NFL playoff football, whiskey pours, and chairs reclined just far enough to feel irresponsible. Alex roots for Indiana in the CFB championship purely out of spite because Michael Irvin exists, is deeply annoyed that Miami players get Lamborghinis, and assumes none of them could drive a manual if their lives depended on it.

Jenna has a flat tire on the way to the competition and is momentarily mesmerized by her dashboard lighting up like a Christmas tree until Kati tells her to pull the hell over. Her dad is on scene within 30 minutes, and we're honestly surprised there wasn't a jet hovering overhead.

We solve every problem the NFL has ever had (again), but shockingly nobody calls for our opinions. Mike dominates the dance comp scavenger hunt, finding items at lightning speed and discovering bonus chaos like an entire family wearing matching cat-print vests. We mentally prepare for the next round at a high school, discuss surviving the Oregon Convention Center while dodging tents, lunatics, and people with tails, and debate who Mike should write to about our continued Golden Globes snub.

Mike also invents a new breakfast item that could realistically save America: a twice-baked potato skin with an egg and salsa. And we all agree that if Seattle ever meets New England in the Super Bowl again, Marshawn Lynch needs to be signed to a one-day contract just to run the damn ball in and fix the timeline.

Gold whiskey. Loud opinions. Zero accountability.