You are listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Jim, I do communications and produce this fun podcast. Am I? Yeah. Yeah, there you are. The dulcet tones. The dulcet tones of Chris from Y. I'm Lexi, I'm also a communications coordinator, but you can find me on social. And former mixologist, or continued mixologist, but. She's retired. retired, for sure. Yes. retired mixologist. I'm such a great mixologist that while we were doing that intro, I lost count of my ounces of gin. So. Oh, well. You're going to love this cocktail for years. It's going to be a lot more like real home bartending then. Yeah. That's what that means. I forgot what I was doing. I am Roger. I work in beer, but I also enjoy making cocktails. I also enjoy having cocktails made for me. Yeah, this is a special one because I think that even the times when Roger has not been leading a cocktail episode, he still had to make one cocktail. So Roger is making no cocktails today. This is like Mother's Day. Just put your feet up, Roger. It's a treat. A treat. So Lexi is a former and current mixologist, and I think we all kind of are. I know I got really into it during the pandemic. That's true. It became such a thing that, as we discussed in a previous episode of Barrel to Bottle, it caused a run on chartreuse. That's how many people became bartenders at home. And then the monks just kind of- Said too bad. Checked out. We're saving my life. And so we thought about all the things that people were doing during the pandemic. Maybe they weren't into the kind of more complicated aspects of mixology, but I think we all kind of got into that if we weren't already into it. I know I did with making my own simple syrups that were infused with various flavors. Various kinds of sugar. Various kinds of sugar. I definitely got into the sugar thanks to Raj. And making some fat washed bourbons, fat washed spirits. So we're going to kind of cover all that stuff today. Technique, equipment, the different things you can do at home to kind of, you know, emulate some of the things they do in fancy bars. And you can do that at your home. You can impress your friends and family. A lot more home bartending going on. I feel like you visit places and there's a lot of people have made, you know, that was something that came, I think, from the lockdown especially was, let's make the garage have a nice bar and enter the basement. People are probably really happy they did that because, you know, you go to a nice bar, you're spending 20 bucks on a cocktail without even batting an eye. It adds up pretty quick. Yeah, and our prices, of course, are stable and wonderful. Yeah. And we have, I mean, seriously, you can make a $20 restaurant cocktail for, you know, pennies on the dollar. That's something we've always tried to emphasize in the podcast, I feel, is that mixing drinks can be intimidating, but they're all levels of skill and complexity. So like you can have a tiki drink that's 18 ingredients, or you can have one that's three. I think that that that was what I noticed the most during when people were asking me a lot of questions and for a lot of advice was, you can start with some cocktails that are a little easier, and then you can slowly progress into the more advanced ones. But they only really have to be as advanced, as complicated as you want them to be. You can make some exceptional cocktails that aren't. Number one, make a classic daiquiri. Yeah. Do it. Yeah. We've done it on the podcast before. Yeah. We've done it on socials. Yeah. We've covered a lot of this stuff in various episodes, but we're pulling it all together and we also- Some gadgetry today. Gadgetry also because we got a lot of fun gadgets from Nicole, Binny's Nicole, loyal listener, and she is in charge of our accessories and snacks, and she keeps us fed with all the great snacks, but also, Binny sells a lot of accessories, and she brings all that stuff in, various shakers and mixers and spoons and strainers and a cocktail smoker, tons of glassware, every different glassware you can imagine. Do you think she's a loyal listener or an obligate listener? I think she's a loyal listener. She's a long time listener. Long time listener. I'm just teasing you, Nicole. We really appreciate your efforts. I pulled a brofee today with having this idea and then making Lexi do most of the work. I did make some simple syrups and I did make the bacon fatwashed bourbon. Whatever, brof. Nice job. I did a few things, but she's going to be doing most of the mixing. You don't need too many cooks in the kitchen. No. It's true enough. So there's nothing more annoying than too many cooks in the kitchen. Exactly. So we're gonna start nice and light today with a bee's knees. A bee's knees is typically two ounces of gin, three quarter ounce of lemon, and half an ounce of a sort of honey or honey simple kind of thing. When I make them at home, I typically use just regular honey. It gives it a really nice viscosity and kind of thickens it up a little bit. Today, we're going to do a smoked bee's knees with a raspberry simple syrup. How do you incorporate your honey into the drink? Most people would make a simple syrup, so it doesn't get all clumped up with ice. Do you dry shake first? Do you dissolve it in the gin? Depends on how much time I have, really. So for this one specifically, it's actually got a rosemary honey simple syrup. So the simple syrup is two to one gin. No, it was a one to one simple syrup, and then steeped with rosemary overnight. Two to one would be a heavy simple syrup. So when you're just using honey, you don't have to run into any trouble with it getting all cold. Sometimes. So if that is the case and you want to just drop a spoonful of honey in there, you can. I would just do that first, pop it into the glass before the ice, and then give it a little twirl on the bottom of the glass. Take a spoon. You could dry shake it if options are endless there. I agree. I mean, we know that alcohol is a great solvent, so you can stir it up. Just before you dump it onto ice. No. That will stick to the ice. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at, listeners. It's hard to use straight honey, which is why you might want a simple syrup, but you can do it if you incorporate it into the alcohol. Yeah. We've done it before with some of the Tiki episodes where I just follow the, add enough warm water until it pours. So either way works. Lexi is going to be using the Visky Smoked Cocktail Kit, which we saw being for $64.99. They have the single serve and they have a carafe. We're going with the single serve. They're both the same price. The carafe does not come with the cool brulee gun, but it does come with a carafe. So it just depends on what your needs are. Wait, one comes with a brulee gun? This one comes with a little gun, the little flame gun. The butane torch. Yeah. So that's pretty cool. And it's really easy to use. It's just a little wooden top. The top has a little screen in it, and you just put the little wood. It comes with a little oak, and you can probably just buy more oak. I assume that even just barbecue chips that you get at the hardware store, it's like shavings. Can be broken up into smaller pieces and then used in there, and then you just light it, and you put this on top of your glass, and the glass fills up with smoke, and you let it sit for a little bit, and then you pull it off, and it looks very cool. I think that's an important point is, yeah, you can use barbecue wood chips, and then you can mess around. You could get cherry wood or apple wood. Yeah, absolutely. What? I know. Hickory if you want to be really intense. Yeah. Mesquite if you want to be crazy. Yeah. You're making a Texas brisket-inspired drink. So if you are an avid reader of Forbes Magazine. I am. There is a cocktail recipe in there that comes from Chicago, and it's a carnitas pineapple tequila cocktail. They take the fat from the carnitas, and they infuse the tequila with it. So they fat wash the tequila. Nice. That sounds delicious. The pineapple brings it in to the other famous pork taco, the al pastor. Yeah. I think for at-home mixology, if you are looking to impress people, the presentation of this cocktail is really cool because you pull that thing off the top of the glass and the smoke slowly pours out of it. A linea worthy. Yeah. If you don't follow us on Instagram, this is your sign to follow us on Instagram, so you can see this beautiful presentation. fire in the hole. Hopefully, we don't burn anything down. Yes. No, it'll be fine. We got the fan on. You don't cover it or anything, it just sucks it down. You'll see that in the next one too. Cool. Yeah. Oh yeah. It looks neat. Yeah. Yeah, it's very cool. It's kind of funny though that it's wooden. Yeah, the top is made of wood. Pay attention to what you're doing. But I think it's probably like, it's going to get nice and weathered. It's going to make it look like you used it a lot. Yeah. It's going to be very cool. There it goes. So it looks like it's got kind of a- Got in there. Kind of a, you can smell it already. Got kind of a spooky Halloween. Good thing we got the fan on high. Yep. So another little secret is if you buy the wood smoker for your cocktails, it comes with a little butane torch. Yep. So take that torch very, very carefully and smoke your rosemary. So you'll smoke it and you'll place that on top before you serve it. Nice. Smoking rosemary smells fantastic. Yeah. Thank you. So pass this around as you drink your drink, and you can get that smoke right into your nose, and it really changes the whole profile of the drink. Typically, again, you would have the rosemary on top, but it smells like a campfire. So we don't burn down the building today? Yep. That's there. Well, that's pretty delicious. What did you think? It's very good. I'm partial to a bee's knees anyway. Yeah. I mean, I've always said that I think the balance of sweetness and acidity is like the perfect. People can't even necessarily articulate how much they like that, but we see it in things like cider and beer and so many beverages. It's like when they nail that. And people will often say they don't like sweet things, but they do. If it's balanced, they love sweet things, but they need that acidity there. I absolutely agree. Sea lemonade. Everybody loves lemonade, right? How many drinks in the world are based on citrus and sugar cocktails? You've got to have that balanced. Everything in the Caribbean. Yeah. So something else to remember too with this cocktail is four ingredients. Three, if you don't have the rosemary, but it's just a few things, and it's really easy to pick those up at your New Year's Binny's and wow your guests every time. And if you don't grow rosemary, you should. It's very easy to grow. You can grow it on a patio, a windowsill, your backyard. Super hardy. Super hardy. Yeah, really. I feel like I have my rosemary through the winter. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like a pine. It looks piney. The hardiest of herbs. It is pretty hardy. It's not no shrinking violet like sherbet or something. Or a shrinking violet. The simple syrups we had today with the rosemary one. So we're coming to the end of gardening season, at least in Illinois. If you're harvesting your herbs, putting them in the freezer like a good gardener should. So I made this simple syrup with just a one-to-one sugar to water ratio. And then I put basil in one. I really like the way this basil one sounds. And then rosemary. I want a little lighter on the rosemary because rosemary is pretty strong. It just adds a whole other element, a whole other layer to your drink. And you can use a lot of different stuff in those syrups. And that's just boiling it until it's reduced to what you want it to be and then putting the washed herbs in there. And don't cook it, but just let it sit there overnight or whatever, and then strain it out. Something I tend to do when I make these at home is leave the herbs in there. Yeah. So strain it all out and then pop just one in there and just let it sit there, rather than the one that's already been cooked down a little bit. When I make rosemary, I usually do a smoked rosemary. And so you can just torch it and plop it in there and let it sit. Yeah. And this can lead to endless rifts on drinks. I mean, if you wanted to make a clover club and introduce another maybe herbaceous flavor, you can use a simple syrup that has flavor besides rosemary. Yeah. Besides rosemary. And another thing you can do that I have always, I cherry pits or lemon, squeezed lemons, squeezed orange, mango, that you've taken all the flesh out of, pop those in a bowl, one part sugar to two parts of that, and the hydroscopic process pulls the liquid out and it creates a syrup. And then you just kind of mix that up in the syrup and the sugar dissolves, and you have a totally flavored syrup, and you didn't need to cook it or anything. Yeah. If you've ever made a fruit pie, you see this process. You know, you mix strawberries with sugar and just let it sit. Yeah. You get a syrup. Yeah. But you mean, you know, you can just, the whole new thing you can do with used, you have all these lemons you've just juiced, what do you do with them? Right. You know, I think we're coming upon, as we're recording this, as fall is beginning, for Thanksgiving cocktails, an herb that I feel a lot of mixologists love using, it was very popular for a while, was sage. Yeah. And you definitely think of sage around Thanksgiving and things like turkey dressing and poultry seasoning. For sure. I've definitely made some interesting cocktails with incorporating sage and cranberry, can go really well together. You could definitely use your sage for a simple syrup. It makes a cool garnish. You can make a parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme simple syrup. That's right. And call it the Scarborough fair cocktail. For all you Garfunkel heads out there. The rhyming Simon. Right. Oh, we already got another mix going. Very fancy, very long spoon, comically long spoon. But again, presentation. People are going to be impressed. Copper, it's gleaming. That expert wrist action you've got going there. She knows what she's doing now. So the trick to using one of these spoons that you'd find is, you don't want to grab the spoon and use your whole arm to stir the cocktail. You just want to balance it between your index and your middle finger, and you toss it back and forth between the two. So your wrist actually shouldn't move at all, and then you've got a good- The handle has a spiral shape for a reason. So if you start using these and can't immediately do it very well like Lexi can, you need to practice, and then you'll impress your friends. I like everything. I worked at a bar once, and I was a server at the bar, and I said, what do I have to do to get behind the bar? I've got all these years of experience. What the hell, man? He said, when you figure out how to stir properly, I'll let you come behind the bar. So just hours and hours of hours of sitting there and trying to figure it out. So if you can't figure it out, it's fine. Can I ask a question? Can you scroll through Instagram with one hand and stir with the other? Oh, absolutely. I figured. You can stir with both. You can shake and stir. You can, oh yeah. It's been a while, but I'm sure it. We got more flame. Flame on. Oh, it's coming out the side a little bit. Okay. So now we're in a clear glass so we can see. Yeah, we actually get to see. It just fills the glass. It looks like a head of foam on beer. It's crazy. That's pretty cool. Earlier today, we did some coffee in the office to test it out. Quite good. Smoked coffee. Yeah, just made some espresso in the little machine in the back and then we smoked it. Or you could do maybe Mr. Black. Mr. Black. With a marshmallow fluff. What's the recommended amount of time to leave the drink in contact with the smoke? Anytime I've ever done this, it's been like 20 seconds at most. I had it made for me on table side and it was just like- It's quick. Instant, almost instant. Not really a ton of time. The best part though, again, is when you lift that, you get that beautiful. Yeah. If you're doing that table side, that's the show. Yeah. That's amazing. You're getting just similar to the fat washing, which we'll talk a little bit more later, is that you're getting a lot of the elements of it, but it's not like a full meat smoking, which takes hours. It's just elements of smoke, of the smoke flavor. When you do this at home too, again, you'll be drinking right out of that glass, and that's really where you get a lot of the- Right. All of that smoke right up into your nose. Yeah. I mean, even though you've disseminated from the mixing glass, I get the smoke right away. Oh, yeah. What was this again? Oak? So it's oak wood. Sorry, what cocktail we got here? This is just a smoked old-fashioned. Classic. If any bar is going to do a smoked cocktail first, this is usually what they tend to go towards. The bourbon and the smoke just combine so nicely, and it's got this really nice, you know, boldness from the actual bourbon being most of the cocktail. It's not too sweet and kind of throws off the balance. So this is just two ounces of any bourbon that you would like. I tend to lean towards Wild Turkey 101. If we're going to do a smoked cocktail, get a little bolder. A little bit of a Demerara syrup, and a couple of dashes of Angostura bitters and orange bitters. Nice. Give it that nice twirl and smoke her up. Yeah. Smoke her up. With these two, just like with any cocktail ratios, I think the smoke timing is again just something to play around with. Like, this is plenty smoky, maybe you just want nuance, you don't leave it on there as long. We're not even putting a ton of chips in there. You didn't even refill it from drink to drink, did you? No. So I mean, it uses a very minimal amount of chips and produces a ton of smoke in that little glass. So it's really like an easy thing to play around with and figure it out. Yeah, very cool. Yeah. I mean, the smoking anything, you can do any kind of spirit really. I mean, it's limitless. So another fun one, if you are a little nervous about or maybe haven't quite dabbled into the world of mezcal, is take a tequila and try smoking that. It'll get you that real woodsy smokiness, but maybe you're not quite there. Maybe you want to try it. Maybe not without all the iodiney flavors. Yeah. So maybe start there and work your way up. Some training meals. I'm thinking about a Bloody Mary smoked with hickory or mesquite. Nice. I like that idea. You could put liquid smoke into it too. That's true. That's true. But why use liquid smoke when you can just have real smoke? That is true. You get the cool butane torch. Right. True. You can probably use that torch for Baked Alaska. But there's other, there's probably other cocktail. Oh, yeah. Flaming citrus peels. Yeah, flaming citrus peels. You got your absinthe, sugar cubes, lots of different stuff. Just be careful. If you are making a tea drink, and I recommend doing this outside for your first time in an empty space with no grass, no dry grass, no dry bushes, you can- Did you start a small forest fire? No, no, no, no, no, no. But I see how someone could, absolutely. So you will make a tiki drink, and you will grind a little bit of cinnamon over the flame of a torch. And it will spark up, right? These really beautiful sparks. That's pretty cool. Plus, so many tiki drinks, just you light the high proof rum on fire. So we recommend adding a torch to your home mixologist line up. On this little kit, 6499, it comes with the glass, it comes with the chips, it comes with the little top, it comes with the torch, it's a nice little setup there. And as Lexi noted, she will show videos of this because as much as it really doesn't do it justice for us to just talk about it, you have to see it. We need to set up a cool photo shoot with our photographer, Maddie. Look at the smoke. Yeah. Dimmily lit room. Yeah. The effect that I liked is the smoke lays on the drink. Yes. Like fog rolling in off the sea. Yeah. I mean, this is a perfect cocktail for like Halloween fall, especially Halloween presentation. Sure. Perfect. Don't mess around with dry ice. Just use this thing. Right. All right. What do we got next? We go to the next one. Oh my God. My drink is going to be watered down. I know. I know. That's another thing for home mixology that maybe we should talk about. The kind of ice that you use to make these things while it's not going to necessarily ruin your cocktail, it does have a lot of different effects on things. So, most people have seen the big giant cubes that you want to use for an old-fashioned to prevent it from watering down so quickly. We saw those too, right? Yes, we do. We do. Yeah. So, if you're looking for ice or not sure what you're looking for, for ice, head to the back. But we also saw ice molds, and I know that there are more ice molds coming out that do a better job of making a clear ice cube. That's the thing is you want that dense. I know there's machines and very expensive things that do that, but I think they're starting to come more to a consumer price of a cheaper, even non-mechanical way of making those clear ice cubes, because it's all about really like the speed of freezing. Right. So, if you could emulate that, you can get yourself a nice clear cube that's big and melts slowly. I guess what we're saying is here that a key ingredient to a lot of cocktails is dilution. Yeah. You want the appropriate dilution. Yes. Water is actually a component in these cocktails. Tons of people are getting their ice from refrigerators that are built to make ice as quickly as possible. Right. And they melt super fast. So the ice is full of air and it melts super fast. So the dilution is going to be very different if you're using a cocktail cube like Lexi is, like she just stirred that for a good minute, and the cubes didn't change in size all that much. So the drink is going to be properly chilled. There's going to be a little dilution, but not super watered down by any means. And also just to enjoy it, just a straight up whiskey or whatever with a- Yeah, exactly. With a whole melting ice cube. Exactly. And that's where the ice cube trays and molds can come into play, because even if that's not perfectly clear, if you're just using it to mix with, it doesn't matter. Right. You want the clear stuff if it's in a glass and you want to really bedazzle your guests. But right. And there's so much, so much cast drink stuff out there these days. And, you know, put in a cube in that is pretty good idea in a lot of cases. Yeah. If you're treating yourself to this really expensive whiskey, don't put banana cubes from your refrigerator that tastes like meat. Yeah, unless you want the flavor of the flavors of your freezer. The freezer burned flavors of ancient meat. So next up is a subject called fat washing. We already talked about, there's a cocktail bar here in Chicago that does that really well. It's a lot easier than you think it is. So to do so, you will heat up some, for this cocktail, we have a brown butter bourbon old fashioned. To do this, you will brown your butter in a pan, add it to the bourbon, let it hit a room temperature, and then pop it in the freezer for at least 12 hours. The longer you go, the more butter flavor you're going to get. If you just want to do a little bit in there, I wouldn't go any less than 8 to 10 hours, but you definitely can. I mean, it pops in there. Savory, buttery, nutty. The French call this butter bournoisette or hazelnut butter, because of the aroma and flavor it creates when you brown the milk solids in butter, and it's delicious. But you're not going to be pouring yourself like an oily cocktail. No, no. The whole point of this is that the fat freezes and rises to the top, and then you take that out and you're left with this. So you're left with all the flavors, a little bit of the texture, but not like the actual fat solids that are going to make it super oily. Right. And home cooks should be familiar with this. If you make stock or any number of sauces, you might want to skim fat off of it, and you can do it while it's hot. You can take a spoon and skim it right off the top, or you can chill the whole thing down and you just get solid. Easier when it's here. It really is. And you get all the fat rises to the top, you get a big blanket of it and you just take it off. And so another key thing here is to make sure that whatever fat you're using, you don't have to learn the exact smoke point of the fat, but just watch it, make sure it's not smoking, because if it starts to smoke, then it's going to start breaking down and not taste as good. That's true, and you can burn butter pretty easily. Very easily, yeah. You want it browned and aromatic, not burned. Yes. I feel like a few years ago, a few, more like 10 at this point, bacon fat vodka was really big, and a lot of people are making cocktails with that. And I would see even at bars that you would see the bottle and it would look greasy. So if you've ever had a cocktail that's fat washed and thought it was gross, like it probably was not done correctly. Yeah. So as we're trying this, it's not greasy at all. It adds a really interesting mouthfeel and the flavor is awesome. But it is. What's in this again? This cocktail? Quite literally, your regular old-fashioned. So bourbon, bitters, Angostura, and orange bitters, and then a little bit of simple syrup and that's it. That's really interesting because I feel like even more so than the last old-fashioned, maybe it's the orange bitters, there's a fruitiness popping out along with the rich buttery nutty flavor. I kind of forgot what this cocktail was, so I thought it was something coconut related. There was a coconut flavor that I got off of it. Oh yeah. Yeah, I get that too, like toasted coconut. I think that's probably where you're getting- I mean, you'll find that- There's vegans out there. Yeah, you'll find that. Right. Coconut butter or- You are vegan and you are wanting to try this, or maybe you're just not quite comfortable with the idea of the butter or our next cocktail. You can use sesame oil. You can use avocado. You can use peanut butter. You can use anything that's got that really nice fattiness to it and cook it down a little bit, and then just let it freeze and plop it right off. You can use coconut oil. Could you use cream of coconut or the chunks that are in a cream of coconut? I think you would do a milk wash, which is a little bit different in the process. All right. But yeah, I mean, you can use just regular coconut oil. There's so many oils out there that you can use. I love the idea of sesame oil because that is so nutty. Oh yeah, that would be quite a flavor. Yeah. Sesame oil, gin, yuzu. Nice. We're getting there. I mean, there's just endless possibilities with all this stuff. There's just so many different ways to combine all these different flavors and all these different techniques. That one was really good. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Nice work. Again, the whole process probably took, besides letting it sit in the freezer, maybe 20 minutes and all you need is a stick of butter and a bottle of bourbon. Yeah. That's my normal Monday night anyway. Yeah. So there you go. Stick of butter, bottle of bourbon, and set. The caramel notes of the bourbon and the butteriness makes me think of Poppycock, Crunch and Munch or Popcorn Balls, all old-timey person things. We've definitely talked about Poppycock and Crunch and Munch on this podcast before. Poppycock, sir. But it's Halloween, so if you're one of those really old school people that likes making popcorn balls for the kids, they love that stuff. All the parents throw those away these days because they're so paranoid. Yeah. Popcorn ball. Don't make them to give away, just make them for yourself and make good ones. There's a lot of potential there. There is a lot of potential there. Also, you could brown some butter for those. Yeah. Maybe do a little bourbon, cook down your bourbon. For the kids. Maybe throw a little bit of spice in there, just to really, you could do fall spices and hot pepper. So cayenne, a little bit of pumpkin pie spice. I agree with you, Roger though. The biggest flaw when people make popcorn balls is they don't get any real caramelization in the sugar. Yeah, it's just crunchy, sugary, crunchy and sweet without any added flavor. But I think we just described how to add a ton of flavor. Kind of the impetus for all of this was that I made, I decided just on a whim to make fat-washed bourbon because I was making bacon one night. And I'm like, I should do something with this. Because usually I just save it and put it in the fridge and I just never use it. But I'm like, I'm going to make something with this. So you're going to popcorn. Have you ever made bacon, made popcorn with bacon fat? Definitely. I remember revolution. Oh, God. So good. It was like bacon fat popcorn with parmesan cheese and bits of bacon, I think. It was so good. That's so good. Oh, mommy bomb. Oh my God. So good. Save your bacon fat people. But in this case, I made bacon and I measured it out. And what I found was a ratio of three ounces of bacon fat to, I think, 12 ounces of bourbon. And it recommended more fat for butter or stuff like that, but for bacon, just not as much. Well, you've got those smoky elements. Yeah, smoky elements and it's a very strong flavor. I mean, when I was growing up during the Depression, nobody didn't save their bacon fat. Yeah, exactly. You've got to save that. Come on. Fry some eggs in that? Yeah. Is it hickory smoked bacon? What is it? Um, I don't know. Oscar Mayer, hickory smoked, probably. Just regular old bacon. Regular old bacon. That's not bespoke bacon, Jim. But again, if I can give a bacon cooking tip, if you cook bacon, if you don't know what you're doing, some people just burn it, crank up the heat. You got to start in a cold pan with room temperature bacon, and you just got to let it. Absolutely true. Or you bake your bacon, folks. I've actually been putting it in an oven, but I know it's so much easier. Oven is a piece of cake. You're right. But if you are doing it in a pan, a cold cast iron skillet to start is the way to go. Make sure it's not smoking. But if you're cooking at a low temperature, you should render it out nicely. It doesn't smoke. Put it through a strainer, and then add your bourbon and get it to room temperature, and then let it sit there, and then it will congeal. You can spoon it out. That's pretty wild. It's pretty strong. I made a Manhattan with it. I made a black Manhattan with it, and it tasted to me like French toast. Yeah. I've made those before and called it a breakfast old-fashioned, because sometimes you want it old-fashioned at 10 AM. That is bacony. For your sugar element, use maple syrup. Yeah. And then there you go. Holy Toledo. This reminds me of the breakfast-themed beers, like the outside beer geek hipster brunch and stuff, but even more bacony. It is intensely bacony. That's pretty interesting. Aggressively bacony. Yeah. It conveys crispness even. Christmas bacon. I mean, it'd be a great Christmas morning. Not Christmas, crispness. Oh, I think of the bacon, too. Yeah, it'd be a great Christmas morning brunch, you know. See? Well, sure. Breakfast of passion. Crisp winter morn. I feel like it tastes like the bacon was cooked too crispy. Yeah. I think that this could, there's some interesting beer cocktail potential here, incorporating this with beer. But like, I kind of want some of the creaminess and weight of like a stout or a porter. I was thinking the exact same thing, Roger. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting indeed. Jim, I think another thing to point out is how long does that really take to do that process? Well, I mean, other than cooking the bacon, which should take you a while if you're doing it right, it is kind of a slow process of rendering the fat out and not burning it. So that's like an hour, but otherwise, it's the same as what you did, just putting it in with the bourbon, getting it to room temperature, freezing it overnight, taking the fat out, and then you're ready to go. So easy. Super easy. Anyone can do this. Do you want to store these in a refrigerator with the fat in them? That probably be advised. Yeah, I would. Yeah. I would too. Same with your simple syrups, it'll last longer in the fridge and it's not going to ruin them or anything. Right. And also if you scrape all the fat off and pretty much got it all but you maybe didn't quite. Yeah. You could run it through a fine mesh strainer cold and get all the little chunks out. If you get some cheese cloth or something. Yeah. Cool. So Lexi, you did a combination of stirring and shaking for people that are unfamiliar with mixology. I know some people can geek out about this and get very opinionated about it, like gin cocktails. You don't don't bruise my gin, bruise the ginger, bruise my gin. So what do you mean? I know. So what are your thoughts on that? I am not a cocktail snob. I think at the end of the day, what's really happening is you're putting alcohol on a cup. And I live by that standard. Yes. Yeah. You know what? Sometimes if you're just having a spirit on the rocks, yes, absolutely kind of cherish whatever you're going to sip on. But if it's something like this, where you're adding acid and sugar and whatnot, you know, maybe we don't. I always say you should shake your juices. That is the proper way. But other than that, I mean, I think. And that's usually what I follow is like I love making tiki drinks. So many of them are juice based. Or if you're incorporating syrups, I think that can be good to, you know, the more you shake it and you want to kind of get that froth and get, you know, some air introduced into it. I think don't discount the fact that a lot of the people that are the most opinionated about this are the people behind the bar who they're putting on like kind of a display. So if you're stirring it in this beautiful mixing glass, which is what we're using right now, you know, it looks really enchanting to watch somebody stir this thing in this beautiful glass. So, yeah, especially if you got that spoon technique like, right. But also there's like shaker technique too. So I mean, people love to watch my rippling biceps as I should. Especially your ramosa gin fizz. Oh, here we go. Shake until your arms fall off. Right. But so I think that I kind of agree with Lexi though, like it's whatever you want. I don't know that I really buy this. You can't shake a gin cocktail. I don't buy that either. There's so many gin cocktails I would shake. I don't love a shaken martini, unlike Bond. One thing that bothers me in drinks like that- Maybe get a little cloudy. Gets cloudy. And in this case, I don't necessarily want air incorporated into it. And also ice chips. You know how often you get ice chips floating on top of your martini. Some people like that, but you know. But Bond wanted his shaken because he wanted to stay mentally there. Oh, he wanted a weaker drink. Shaken. So that's also something- To begin with, it started with copious amounts of booze. Right. I'm not sure that was working out for him. You need the dilution because I put five ounces of booze in it. Yeah. Another thing we've been using here is the cocktail mixing glass, which is different than a shaker. It's just a little water, like how it looks like a little water pitcher. It's got a little pouring lip and you can batch a cocktail in that. So they have maybe not a full inch, but at least a half inch on the bottom. Yeah. And that's to give it a nice sturdiness. So when you are stirring your cocktail, you don't need to hold the glass. That's actually frowned upon to hold the glass. Right. You'll melt it down your ice really fast. The same reason that there's stemware for wine. Yep. Don't hold the goblet. And we have these available in your accessories section of Binny's, and they look cool. And again, it's like you're batching a cocktail, you're straining it out. It's a nice presentation. Yeah. And people don't do this much anymore, but they used to have big cocktail pitchers back in the day, where you'd stir up a whole pitcher full of martinis for your party. In one of the gift sets, it is a pretty big one. Yeah. I mean, there's bigger ones. We broke one. So, leads to my next one. If you buy these or let's say you tend to break things or you're taking it on the go, they make these mixing tins in the same material that they would make a shaker in. Yeah. With a weighted bottom? With a weighted bottom, you'll be fine. I've got a really cute tiki one at home. That's cool. It chills nicely. So check it out. Check the shelves. I mean, something as simple as the fact that this mixing glass has a little teeny pore spout, that's huge. If you just stir a drink in a big glass you have at home, you can spend all this time doing that and then spill it. Yeah. Spill all over the place. You just pop a hawthorn strainer right on top. You're good. Yeah. You can make a bunch of cocktails. You don't have to make one in each glass. You can make several cocktails. It's great. So speaking of those hawthorn strainers, Chris, you blew everyone's mind when you showed us how you can remove the spring very easily from one. I was invited on to this podcast for being a one-trick pony. I mean, that's a pretty amazing trick. So if you're whiskey night- Well, why don't we have to describe what a hawthorn strainer is for people who don't know. The hawthorn strainer has a little handle on it and has a rounded top that will cover your glass or string pitcher. And there is a little spring of wire that fits right in, and it is easily removed. They're designed so they can pop right off. You can wash them easily. And they can fit on a bunch of different sizes because the spring can move and change shape a little bit. So you can jam it into a slightly smaller glass, and the spring will move with you. What I do when I'm making a cocktail with egg white, is I just slip the little spring right off and I throw it right into the shaker with it. So if you have ever made meringue or wanted to whip egg whites in any way, you know it takes some serious elbow grease to whip those things up. If you're smart, you're using an electric mixer. And you can make a good cocktail with egg white without one. The key generally being a dry shake, which is shaking the cocktail without ice. And you can get a decent foam, but this actually kind of works as a whisk right inside of your shaker. I'm going to make a clover club. This is an old timey cocktail from Philadelphia. It's a raspberry gin drink. And generally, you would make a raspberry simple syrup, or you can take simple syrup. What I did today because I wasn't prepared was I muddled some raspberries. One thing that a lot of people don't do, but there's some evidence that some really old recipes have vermouth in them. So it's kind of like a martini, a raspberry martini. This was the first flavored martini, is what you're saying? Could be. Could be one of the early fruity ones, for sure. And the real key is that there's egg white in it and you get that real frothy top. Right. And you can use pasteurized eggs if you want to. Yes. Or if you're a little weary about the eggs, you can strain out the liquid that comes with your chickpeas. That is true. Aquafaba. All right. Yeah, you can do that. You can even use that in- I do that. In recipes. Yeah. Have you ever poured out a can of any kind of bean and noticed the bubbly matrix that you get, especially if you rinse them in water, a lot of bubbles are formed. So you've got protein in a thick syrup there and it works very similarly to- Yeah. And they sell powder of it too. So if you don't remember to drink, keep your chickpea juice. You can buy the powder. Well, this episode is all about reusing fats and things like that. That's an excellent tip. The last cocktail I ever put on a menu was a vegan gin fizz. Nice. With lavender. Hummus flavored? Some garlic? No. It was actually with lavender. Pita chip garnish? It was like a- Yeah. Lavender key lime pie. Nice. So my recipe for the clover club is two ounces of gin, and I'm using sapphire because that's what we have in the studio today. Traditionally, if you were using vermouth, you'd use a dry. I'm using Dolan Blanc. I think it's softer and really plays well with berries in general. So I agreed, went that route. Half an ounce of Dolan Blanc vermouth, three-quarters of an ounce of rich raspberry simple syrup, which is a two to one ratio of sugar to water, and then a bunch of raspberries added. You don't want to cook the raspberries really long. You don't want it necessarily to turn into like, you know, thick pie filling. You want more of a fresh raspberry flavor. So kind of make your simple syrup and then add raspberries as it's cooling down, I think is a really good idea. Three-quarters of an ounce of lemon juice, and then half an ounce of egg white, which is half of a large egg white. Generally, a large egg will give you an ounce of white, okay? And this is in a broader family of all kinds of things that use egg white. The silver fizz being a classic. You can do golden fizz where you use the yolk instead. All the sours. All kinds of sours, whiskey sour, amaretto sour, all of those things. Anyway, I've got this all in my mixer with my little Hawthorne String Spring. What is not in that mixer right now? What is not in the mixer right now is ice. We're going to do what is known as a dry shake. This will allow this protein matrix to really develop, especially with the spring. It's going to take about 30 seconds to shake the heck out of this. The protein matrix is my favorite Keanu Reeves movie. It's so good. I think something we should talk about here, different types of shakers and different types. I tend to like the name of these guys, but I like when the two metals fit together. I don't think you should shake with glass. I don't know if I really need to explain that, but it hits it just right one time. You're not paying attention. You had a cabinet, a wall, anything, you're screwed. Yeah. So the dry shake is done. Now, I need ice. I took the Hawthorne strainer out. You can leave it in if you want for added agitation. So on to step two, add ice, close it back up. Make sure you're holding it very tightly. I did that once making a tiki drink with a lot of stuff in the shaker. I might have overfilled the shaker a little bit. Just a real, real mess. Happens to the best of us. Okay. What should I pour this into? We have glasses, right? Just pass it around. Hot crack. I will go into the clove club. I believe this cocktail was named after the bar. Correct? I know. The- Athletic club or something. It was the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, but the movers and shakers, the politicians and everyone we met there, and they were known as the Clover Club. What's that? If I recall my little- Doesn't Hopewell have a beer called Clover Club? They do. It's de-like- It's like a very raspberry sour, right? So good. Look at the beautiful, creamy foam on top. Yeah, it looks glorious. It's a beautiful pink color. If you look at our Instagram as well, I will show you how to get a little design on the top. You can put a little clover on top. Just like a barista. I feel like fresh raspberries muddled is better than a raspberry simple syrup. It's pretty good. I mean, if you're going to make raspberry simple syrup at home, you're using fresh raspberries. Yeah. But I don't know. There's something about the you know, I think your Hawthorne spring kind of worked to filter out a lot of the seeds. Yeah, true. Because I I'm not I don't get any seeds. No, I know. I was a little bit worried about that. I mean, honestly, I'm glad you made it this way because more people are going to muddle raspberries than are going to stop and make raspberries. You're right. And it's super, super straightforward. Just throw the raspberries and muddle them up with the simple syrup. And you're there. This is delicious. And obviously, what's real famous for eggs is that mouthfeel is great. And again, if you're hesitant, there's other options. There's the chickpea option. There's powdered egg whites, pastured eggs, foaming bar. Sugar could even be used. I mean, that's what it's for. Can use coconut, not coconut milk, not coconut oil, cream of coconut, cream of coconut. And then it gives you that raspberry coconut kind of taste. That would be cool. Nice. Well, these cocktails are all delicious. I think, again, this is a really fun way to just, great cocktails should be the beginning of a nice social event and get people talking. And some of this presentation is going to get your guests talking. Absolutely. Mixing of cocktails is a discussion piece. Like, what are you doing? That's interesting. Cool. I want to try that at home. People are impressed when you make cocktails at home. People are usually impressed by it. Or you can just tell them to go get a beer out of the fridge. Yeah, that too. Or you could make a cocktail for yourself and then offer the fridge to them. Yeah. Make sure you use good ingredients, though. Especially the sugars. You want to use some nice cane sugar. Yes. And not skimping on, you know, when you're having ingredients that are such a big part of the cocktail, like using good, clean ice. Ice that hasn't been sitting in your fridge and absorbing odor, you know, using good mixers. If you're going to incorporate tonic, buy yourself a good tonic. Buy like a fever tree or something. If you're going to get simple syrup, use the sugar besides just bleached white sugar. Yeah. Cane, turbinado. There's a whole episode. Whole episode. We did a whole episode on syrups. All right. Well, that was really fun. Lexi, thank you for making all these cocktails and for carrying out my idea. We both kind of ran with it, but Lexi did all the work. So that was really appreciated. And I think Roger appreciates. Brophy was here in spirit. Yeah, he was here in spirit. I think Roger appreciates not having to make a cocktail for the first time ever. Yes, thank you for making cocktails. My whole experience was ruined by making one cocktail. Can't believe you made me do that. Next time I got it. So if you are a fan of this episode and what we do here, leave us a review on Apple and follow us wherever you download podcasts. I'm Jim. I'm Roger. I'm Chris. I'm Lexi. Keep Tasting.