I pulled the TSG Boone 5-Pocket in Whiskey out of the box and the room went quiet. Somewhere in the distance a banjo started playing, an elk bugled, and my grandfather’s ghost saluted from the corner. These aren’t pants. These are what happens when a bourbon barrel and a mountain lion fall in love and raise a child that can deadlift a Subaru.
The color? Straight-up 12-year single malt. The fabric feels like it was woven by blind Appalachian grandmas using threads pulled from the beards of retired smokejumpers. I put them on and immediately grew a beard thick enough to hide trail mix. My quads gained 15 pounds of functional muscle just from the act of zipping the fly.
I tested them the only way a man should:
• Forded a Class IV river (pants stayed bone dry, fish asked for autographs)
• Scrambled a 5.9 chimney in full daylight (held like they were sewn from spider silk and spite)
• Sat on a cactus during a tequila-fueled vision quest (cactus apologized, pants didn’t even blink)
The five pockets are tactical masterpieces. Right now they contain:
1. A Leatherman I’ve named “Regret”
2. Three venison sticks and one emergency flask of the pants’ namesake
3. A topographical map I will never fold correctly
4. Enough paracord to MacGyver my way out of a bad Tinder date
5. The coin pocket currently holds a single .30-06 casing and the phone number of a park ranger who is “concerned but intrigued”
I squatted to glass a ridge at 9,000 feet and heard angels harmonizing in 4-part country. The stretch is unholy. I high-kicked a pine marten that got too fresh with my jerky, no rip, just a soft whisper that sounded suspiciously like “yee-haw.”
These pants don’t just fit; they understand. They’ve seen things. They’ve forgiven me for things. They make me want to register to vote in Montana, buy a chainsaw mill, and name my firstborn Boone.
If you die wearing these, search-and-rescue will find you looking heroic, pockets full of snacks, smelling like oak and freedom. They’ll bury you in them because nothing else will ever feel right again.
11/10. Would fight Bigfoot naked just to prove these pants deserve better than me.