Our friends at Crown Royal invited us out for a night of sweet basketball and tasty Crown samplings at Staples Center this past Wednesday. On display were the lowly Lakers and surging Clippers and of course, inspired cocktails featuring different Crown variants.

The star of the night’s festivities was Crown Royal Regal Apple Whisky. The heart of this spirit is the classic Crown Royal Deluxe, which itself is a blend of 50 Canadian whiskies. The Crown Royal Deluxe that serves as the base is infused with Regal Gala Apples and apple flavors. The result is a sweet variant on the traditional Crown taste, which leads with a vibrant apple nose, rests on your tongue with a tart smoothness and finishes with a very apple-forward sweetness.

Crown Apple isn’t for everyone. If you like your spirits sweet, you can certainly get down on it. I think it plays well as a cocktail ingredient, where the sweet apple flavor can play nicely with other drink elements.

Here are the cocktails that were served at the tasting event:

Crownberry Apple

• 1.5oz Crown Royal Regal Apple
• 4oz Cranberry Juice
• Garnish with apple wedge

Crown Royal Press

• 1.5 oz. Crown Royal Deluxe
• 3 dash (s) Bitters
• Top with Lemon-Lime Soda
• 1 Lemon Wedge
• Garnish with a lemon wedge

The Northern Buck

• 1.5 oz Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye
• .5 oz Lime juice
• Top with ginger beer
• Garnish with a lemon wedge

The combination of Cranberry juice and Crown Royal Regal Apple was a winning choice. The sweetness of the apple whisky was offset a bit by the tartness of the cranberry juice. Two distinct tastes that taste pretty good together.

The Crown Royal Press makes for a nice warm weather cocktail, good for summer days and sticky nights where a little bitters and a lot of lemon-lime lighten up the classic Crown Royal Deluxe.

The Northern Buck showcases the whisky of the year, Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye. I found the lime juice to be a bit of a distraction, but I certainly enjoyed the rye + ginger beer combo.

Master of Whisky Stephen Wilson was on hand to guide those in attendance through a tasting of each whisky variant before we moved on to cocktails and one-sided basketball. We trust Steve on all things whisky related, but his detailed overview of the perfect process for experiencing retronasal olfaction and really understanding the flavor of each variant was a real treat.

Next time you’re trying a neat spirit, go through these steps:

• Smell the glass first and take a small swig
• Tilt your head left to right to let the spirit coat both of your cheeks
• Let the spirit coat your tongue and press your tongue against the roof of your mouth
• Swallow your swig
• Open your mouth and inhale across your tongue
• Close your mouth and exhale through your nose
• Enjoy that retronasal olfaction!

After the tasting it was game time. And for the 2015-16 LA Lakers that meant one thing – sadness. The Clippers jumped out to an 18-2 lead and we’re never really threatened by the young Laker squad. It was hard to watch Kobe Bryant struggle through 22 minutes of a 2-12 shooting performance from the field on his way to a six point, zero assist, three rebound night. Kobe tried to create when there was nothing to be created and lobbed up tough shot after tough shot. Metta World Peace looked surprisingly effective putting up 17 points, five rebounds, two steals, a block and an assist off the bench. He was also 2-3 from three point land.

The Clippers looked like a team ready to make a deep playoff run. Chris Paul scored 25 points and Jeff Green contributed 21 points off the bench as the Clippers easily dispatched the Lakers 103 to 81.

The love for Kobe was strong, but it’s hard to see the guy go out this way. Chants of MVP showered Bryant when he made it to the free throw line. The crowd called out his name when he wasn’t on the court. Kobe sat out the entire 4th quarter with his shoulders and knees all wrapped up. Watching the end of the Kobe era coincide with the Lakers’ franchise-worse 61st loss was a bittersweet sight.

Last week our friends at DraftKings invited us to Staples Center for the official unveiling of the DraftKings Fantasy Sports Bar & Lounge. Located inside the arena just past the box office, the new 4,500-sq.-ft. F&B concept is loaded with monitors and touch-screen tablets so LA sports fans can get their daily fantasy sports fix going while watching the Kings, Clippers and Lakers compete. Designed with the feel of a Vegas sports book, the $1.5 million dollar craft beer and gastro pub was completed in a very quick timeframe and features 35 Toshiba Smart TVs, six Toshiba Virtuoso Screens, 15 Microsoft Surface Tablets and four iMacs. Fans can sign up or log in to their DraftKings accounts through these devices in order to enter tournaments, unlock food discounts and sign up for ticket giveaways.

The menu for this new spot was designed by Josiah Citrin and features some pretty scrumptious takes on classic bar food like hot dogs with mac and cheese. Fans thirsty for a a Bud Light alternative inside Staples will be happy. with the selection of Goose Island options on tap.

In addition to the AEG and DraftKings cutting the ribbon on their new DFS hangout, DraftKings also presented a $2 million check to week one winner BALLAH who came from behind on the first Monday Night of the season to put up 228.04 points and take home the top spot in the DraftKings Millionaire Maker Week 1 league.

This BALLAH fella and his buddies looked familiar to me. Turns out they all went to my hye school. Glendale High breeds some pretty savvy fantasy football enthusiasts, and these guys were no different. BALLAH and his boys have been playing in yearly leagues for more than a decade. They all knew their stuff, too.

Going into that first Monday Night BALLAH’s $2 million winning lineup was sitting in 3,000th place. Carlos Hyde’s two scores and final six yards put BALLAH over the top. Here’s his lineup:

“The thing is,” BALLAH told me, “you need like 30 points from each spot. You can maybe miss on one guy but you need that kind of production out of each spot.”

That’s definitely a different approach from your regular fantasy football decision making. In a standard league, you hope that all your guys will produce, but you’re happy to get 10 points out of your flex spot. You want each slot to give you numbers, but with DFS, you’re forced to go big. You have to build your lineup using a budget, yes, but you need those home run hitters in there. You gotta go for the boom and bust dude that’s undervalued, not for the consistent player who will guarantee you steady production without a ton of upside.

BALLAH’s score of 228 was good enough to win it all week 1. The next week’s DraftKings Millionaire Maker featured a top scorer who cracked 300 points. Imagine that. Typically your happy if you can crack that 100 point week barrier with your standard annual fantasy team. If you’re near 200, you’re totally dominating. But when the whole field has access to the same players with the same budget restraints, you need to think bigger. You need to aim for 30 points from each spot.

So keep that in mind next time you dabble in daily fantasy sports. If you’re playing to win big, you need big time production from every single start. That likely means passing on trustworthy point scorers so you can swing for the fences on guys who have higher week-to-week ceilings.