Hey, thanks for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Backing your feed with something fun this week, I'm Greg. I do communications at Binny's. In the room with me today, Roger, beer and all things beer adjacent. Hey, I'm Pat. I buy the celebrity liquors for Binny's. I'm Chris. I am a celebrity at Binny's. You know what? I always pretend like people don't know what the subject is, but they downloaded the episode, right? They saw the title of the thing. And since this one is entitled Celebrities, they probably know what's going to happen. Are we sure we haven't done this one already? BTB TMZ. Oh, that's good. We are doing this at exactly the wrong time, because now we have four cynical guys in the room, instead of any one of the people who care about popular culture who have been on this podcast in the past. Listen, I'm not under the assumption that any of these are inherently bad. Okay. I tried to pick liqueurs where people were actively involved in the creation of them. Right. And have some mindset as far as I'm not just licensing my name and slapping it on this, like this is not Mike Ditka's blah, blah, blah. This is anything but. Did you try Mike Ditka's blah, blah, blah? I might have. All right. Makes a good pot roast nachos. With the wines, I picked the wines and I picked wines to not have them all be rosé. That's probably hard. Every celeb made a rosé. They all have rosé. We have a rosé today. Well, you got to have one. We'll see how that goes. Are there celebrity beers that aren't just like death metal bands? There's not a lot, no. Of course now as seltzer is destroying and eating the entire beer industry, there's celebrity seltzers. We have celebrity seltzers. Are we going to try to run the jewels one? Because they're awesome. And seltzer sucks, so I'm kind of curious to see how that came to be. Yeah, we're not going to try that one. I just can't figure out why there aren't any death metal rosés yet. There's got to be. There has to be a death metal rosé. They think it's being ironic. Venom rosé. Yeah, right. I have a metal beer because there are lots of beers that are affiliated with metal bands. So I brought one from a brewery that we've talked about before and love. Unibroue did a beer with Megadeth. Who's going to get to talk about bottle conditioning, you guys? Beer sells, but who's buying? Perfect. Yeah, so we have the Megadeth beer and then we have two seltzers, which I'll be tasting them for the first time with you guys, which is kind of exciting. Same celeb or different celebs? Different celebs. How many celebs have seltzers? I guess they got to have some hook to sell their seltzers. Yeah, quite a few. Okay. One of them also is kind of a growing category now. It's iced tea seltzers. So it's not necessarily, they don't even say seltzer on here. They call it sparkling hard tea. It's the sparkling thing that I'm leery about. When I heard that this was a category, I thought I can get behind this. Yeah. But well, I guess this will be the first time I ever try one. Are we ready to get going here? Yeah, we're ready to get going. All right. So the first thing that we're going to try is Loverboy. And unfortunately, it is not affiliated with the 80s band. But I am wearing my red leather pants, so. He is. I don't understand any of these references. You've heard the song Working for the Weekend, right? Oh yeah, that song sucks. That's Loverboy. Yep. And I think that's the idea here, you know, like partying and getting ready for the weekend. This is the brainchild of Kyle Cook. Who the hell is that? He is the main character star of the reality TV show Summer House. What the hell is that? I love that show. Aren't you a huge Bravo TV fan? It's on Bravo TV. It's about a bunch of young adults that go up to the Hamptons and party. Those are the people I hate the most. We are proving once again, yes, we are not the target audience. We are not the target demographic for this. I am a huge tea drinker though. I don't really drink coffee. I drink tea every day. You've never talked about that before. So, there's Loverboy Sparkling Hard Tea is the product here. Is there actually a naturally-brewed tea that's part of this? Yes, there is. One better, it's white tea, which is something you don't see every day. White tea is adjacent to green tea. It smells like peach Snapple. Wait a minute, a sparkling hard white tea. Yo, this is awesome, but it's sweet as hell. Hold on, don't even talk about it. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around what they're presenting at. It bears some explanation here. We are branding, we're forging new territory here. So yes, this is appealing to seltzer drinkers. It's appealing to hard iced tea drinkers. It's kind of blending the two categories. Sparkling hard tea, naturally sweetened with monk fruit. So it has zero sugar added to it. It's 4.2% alcohol, so it's a little lower, more sessionable. Wait, it's got monk fruit in it? Monk fruit. Well, that's why you like it. Yeah. I haven't even tasted it yet. I know you're going to like it because it's got some exotic fruit. Well, it has white tea in it, peach and lavender. So the white tea mentioned here is just so that they can say it's tea, because that's barely even a flavor. Yeah. Peach is totally dominant in the nose at least. This smells like the instant oatmeal packets with little pieces of apple masquerading as peach. Do you know the oatmeal packets when you were a kid? Yeah. That's what it smells like. You're right. It does have a very peach preserve. Basically anything that's flavored with peach, like lip gloss, shampoo, hair care product. That's how it is. I really enjoy this. You know what? I'm shocked I enjoy this. This is really good. Oh no. I thought you might like it because so I picked the peach flavor because there are three different flavors right now so far. I knew you like peach stuff. You love those peach bitters. I do like peach bitters. This is actually pretty good. What are the other flavors? The other flavors are pomegranate and hibiscus with some lime, and just a lemon iced tea with ginger in it. I bet that's good. The pomegranate and hibiscus lime, I'd probably pass on. Pat, I thought you'd get a kick out of this in some respect. They actually suggest that you put Aperol or Campari in these. It's interesting. Well, why don't they do that? What's the base liquor? Is this malt? Well, it doesn't say actually, but I think- You would think it would be cane sugar. Yeah, because they're gluten-free. Yeah. I get a cinnamon sugar note near the back third of it. It's almost like cinnamon sugar on peaches. I don't know. It's not in there, but I totally get it. I get it too. Then right after that comes this wash of aspartame. Yeah. I mean, the natural sweeteners are weird like that, how crazy sweet they are. Yeah. It is very sweet. It's very densely peachy. It reminds me of like a white peach and maybe the white tea is being suggestive, but I always find white peaches to be like more floral even in the mouth. So it reminds me of like deep white peach or even like a gummy peach, you know, the candy peachy ugly. Yeah, for sure. Peachy penguins. Strangely, I think there might be just like the faintest whisper of tea tannin on the finish. I can see that. Maybe that's where you get some of the spice. Yeah, the spice. The weird thing, though, is as aggressive as I find lavender usually to be, it's pretty well integrated in there. It's not like screaming. I mean, it's floral, but it's not screaming lavender to me. What about you guys? I agree. Yeah. This stuff is awesome. I'm pretty sensitive to lavender, but I think people are going to like this. And I think if you want to amp it up a little bit and do the opposite of that, they're nice and sessionable and locale. So if you want to go crazy and dump some gin in this, that could be cool. Some tequila. I don't know. I like gin a little too much for that. All right. So Loverboy available now. They come in six pack. They're 11.5 ounce slim cans. 11.99. Okay, all right. Well, from a reality television star to you, what's next? So again, harkening back to our travels down the rabbit hole with ranch water, this is ranch water adjacent. I think it could be very easily be rebranded as ranch water. This is cacti. There's something I like about this can. It's that number right there. 7% alcohol. Agave spiked seltzer. Cacti is made with 100% premium blue agave from Mexico and natural flavors for refreshing and bold taste. Well, what does that mean though? It's not the alcohol is not agave based. It's like there's agave. There's agave syrup in it. Yeah, there's agave syrup in it. Yeah, because it says beer produced by Meadow Creek Beverage Company in association with Anheuser-Busch, St. Louis, Missouri. So, this is a flavored malt beverage in the classic sense of they made a beer and absolutely stripped out all the flavor as the base. Yeah. And then put some flavoring on top. Cacti. Is this the only flavor of this brand? Who's the celebrity here? Travis Scott. Who's Travis Scott? Oh, Travis Scott. You know, he was in Fortnite. Fortnite? He's a rapper. You really don't know Travis Scott? No. Wow. Yeah, I know. Run the Jules is going to run the Jules on him. The thing of the thing of note here is that it's 7% ABV, which is kind of the opposite direction in this category. They're always so obsessed with calories and staying under like or around 100. This is kind of, I think, trying to appeal to people that like ready to drink premixed cocktails. So this is 7%. It's still only 150 calories, which isn't, you know, super high. There's 15 milligrams of sodium in it. So that's kind of like when we drank the ranch waters. There's a commonality there. It is only available in a variety pack, like many seltzers. And the other two flavors are pineapple and strawberry. Pineapple, strawberry, and lime, huh? Yeah. To me, this tastes, it's much less sweet than the peach. Yeah. But it tastes like kind of a, if you were to add like, maybe do half tonic and half 7Up. It has kind of like a lemon lime soda feel to it. It totally does. It's a little dry on the finish. It's very Sierra Mist-y. Yeah. If you're a Sierra Mist fan. Yeah, exactly. He's also alluding to the bitter cut. There's a bitter cut underneath the sweetness. Well, that's your tonic. You wouldn't get it on just a soda. Yeah, exactly. It's citrus soda and tonic. Weird. I think this would have stood out in the Ranch Water episode as a different thing too. Yeah. You remember those Push Pop things? We have alcohol versions of them now too. Yeah, the episode is coming. This reminds me. Yeah. Well, now that Natterdays is making them, Natterdays icicles. Hold on your butts, folks. But yeah, this reminds me of that lemon-lime flavor of those cheap popsicles or Freezy Pop. Yeah, I can totally see that, but it's a little bit dilute. Those would pack more of a punch. This is like if you put one of those in a glass of water and drink it an hour later. I think one of the lessons we learned from the Ranch Water episode is that water is a key ingredient. Water is water. Yeah, not a huge fan. I don't know. I could drink it, but I don't know. I could drink it. I've had way worse hard seltzer. Oh yeah, for sure. It's just my beloved peach lover boy will never be matched at this point. He's got a favorite forever. He has a seltzer bestie. Worth mentioning that both of these products, they're premium-priced products. This comes in a nine-pack, which is kind of goofy for $17.99. Jeez. So, oh my. Especially because it's malt-based. Yeah. Come on. Get that price down. You're putting a little bit of agave nectar in it. That's not expensive either. You can get gallons of organic agave nectar for nothing. So I said I would want to try some more Loverboy flavors, but I'm never going to invest $12 a six pack to experience them. No, never. I'm not going to do that. All right, so up next, we have from Unibroue, out of Quebec. This is a Tout le Monde, which is the Cezanne Brew from Unibroue that's done in collaboration with Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. I wanted to feature this one because I think it's a killer beer for the format, the price. They also have Cezanne 13. Cezanne 13 has 13 ingredients in it, and you got to kind of respect. Too many. You got to kind of respect the Unibroue. They just won't say what they are. Like, too bad, you don't get to know. To the beer at hand, this is just a really like sessonable, clean Cezanne, well-fermented. Sometimes when you drink like craft Cezanne's, they can be all over the map. We talked about that in our Cezanne episode. They can be soapy, overly sweet, way over spiced. Tons of residual sugar. Yeah. But Unibroue just really, they've really honed in on doing Belgian style beer well. Oh, they're masters of Belgian styles. You know, they also brew PBR for all of Canada. They brew PBR and then these masterful Belgian styles at the same brewery. They really dialed in the balance on this one, in my opinion. I've never had anything claiming to be a Cezanne that is anywhere near this sessionable. I mean, it's really soft and easy drinking. I mean. Yeah. This is a fantastic beer. Yeah. It's delicious. This is almost like a Belgian table beer, kind of, but no one would know what the hell that is. So, I think it makes more sense to just call it a Cezanne. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at the bottle right now. It's four and a half percent alcohol. That's like got to be the very, very low end of even qualifying as anything like a Cezanne. What? Okay. Listen, first of all, this is not for me, so I shouldn't even weigh in in my opinion. But since when are you like, Megadeth has a beer collaboration. It's a modest 4.4 percent. You can enjoy it. It's well balanced and rounded. It's a well-behaved. It's not particularly on brand. With metal, yes. Well, that's how a lot of these metal people are. Just like Mr. Mustaine himself. Offstage, he's a gentleman. Yeah. This is the heavy metal version of drinking your tea with your pinky out. Your white peach lavender tea. I think what should be noted though is that it was important for him to partner with Unibroue. He's proud of his French heritage and it was like a good fit for him and he really actually had some say in like what the beer was going to taste like and I think probably because of Dave's past, he wanted a beer that wasn't crazy strong. I'm just mad at Roger for not opening beer hates astronauts and I'm mad at Roger for not opening permanent funeral. If permanent funeral is here, I would have opened it. Permanent funeral is so good. It's so good. It's coming back which it hasn't been around for a long time. Yeah, Floyd's had any metal collabs right now, I would have brought one in but you get this very respectable, I totally agree, surprising. I mean, the other Cezanne has like peaches in it or something. So, what are they doing? Like, he's old now. He's not a teenager metal guy anymore. He's like in his 60s. So, Dave mustang with his grandma beer. That beer is delightful. Whatever. You don't like that at all, do you, Greg? Greg's not a 4.5% alcohol kind of guy. No, no. And that is just incredibly drinkable, though. That's amazing. It's such a good beer. I was thinking when I got picked this up, I'm like, I haven't bought a sixer of this in a while. When this came out, this was $10 for four of them. Now, they just give you the other two. It's a six pack for the same price. Nice. The fact that this is a $10 six pack is crazy. Hold on, let me. I hate this beer so much, I'll finish it. It's like the applesauce of beers. What, you do shots of it out of plastic cups? I want to, first of all, point out that I ran these particular celeb wines across our wine buying staff, and they all rolled their eyes that we were even doing this episode as a concept, and jokes on them, they bought them, and they're selling. Yeah, people want this stuff. Yeah, right. And we are nothing if not a podcast for the masses. The masses just don't know it. Right. That's what we do here, you know, broad appeal. So, yeah, there's a lot of celeb rosé, and we weren't going to open the Ace of Spades, because that's a lot. So, here's a white, a rosé, and a red. All right. So, first up, our white is Invivo. We got the Sauvignon Blanc. There's also a Pinot Noir, and I believe a rosé coming. This is from famed actress, celeb of 15 years ago, Sarah Jessica Parker. Oh, all you Sex and the City fanatics. Well, the first thing I'll say about this is the nose just explodes with guava, peachy notes. It's very tropical. This is nothing, nothing if not a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Yeah. Yeah. It's Marlboro, right? Yeah. Sure is. That's quite nice. What does she actually have to do with this? I'm pretty sure this is an existing winery that she just partnered with. Stopped the grapes underfoot while wearing cute heels. Well, their marketing copy says that it was a special blend created by SJP with the fellas at Invivo. Oh, man. Does she go by SJP? Well, it's on the label. It doesn't say that in the ad copy, but I didn't want to read her whole name another time. I just saw it on the label. That's hilarious. Well, and it has her signature on the back. So there is definitely some level of investment here. So that's something. It's not just, I mean, okay. It's not in doggo gin? Yeah. The Snoop Dogg wine is Snoop Dogg's face on. Literally anything Ditka's ever put his face on. Well, there's a number of retired Chicago athletes that can carry that same banner. But yeah, the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc at hand is pretty much what you would expect. What's the alcohol in this? 13% alcohol by volume. I mean, I would say this is is typical, relatively typical New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. I mean, in the mouth, it's all about guava and passion fruit, some peach. I like the tropical character. Yeah, it's a delightful wine. Yeah, it's a little softer than a lot of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. It has a slightly rounder mouth feel, almost like it maybe was not all stainless steel fermented. It's not really accentuating the super crispness of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. The acid is moderated a little bit, maybe a little sweetness. That could be a whisper of residual sugar there. Yeah. Well, for sure there is. But I'm almost thinking that maybe they saw some barrel time, like neutral barrel, just for body. This seems a little Riesling-esque to me. Yeah, I know. What does that mean? I guess maybe the combination of the fruit and the sweetness is making me think of some Rieslings I've had. I think it's a perceived sweetness because of the tropical nature of the fruit character, but I don't think it's that sweet. It's not that sweet. Yeah. What else do you say, Chris? You're a wine expert. It's definitely not a sweet wine. I would guarantee you there's a little bit of residual sugar in here. But yeah, it just comes across as a little fatter. And I think adding to the perception of sweetness is slightly moderated acidity. I mean, sometimes Sauvignon Blanc is just really screaming citric high acid. And it's not to say that this is low in acid, but it's not an acid bomb by any means. So I think, Chris, that puts it right around in the flavor profile that is similar to everybody's favorite top-selling New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. It's really not that far off. True. So what's it going to upset you back? And this will set you back $15.99, which is, there's not a lot of solid tax built on top of this wine. Totally reasonable. Cool. All right, cool. Nice wine. You like Sauvignon Blanc? Check it out. This is going to be a totally popular style. I mean, it's hitting all the right notes. Way to go, SJP. Barrel to Bottle, thumbs up, seal of approval. SJP. Who do you think she is, NPH? Our next Celebrity Wine is Maison No. 9, which is Maison No. 9 French Rosé, and it's made by famed Super Bowl commercial actor... I forgot his name. Is this the guy with all the tattoos? Yeah. Post Malone? Yeah, yeah. Famed Super Bowl commercial actor Post Malone. This is his rosé. What kind of weird closure is on this wine bottle? It's a glass cork with a little... That's really interesting. I've never... So the label is a sword with a rose with barbed wire as its stem wrapped around it. Is that one of his tattoos or something? It's probably a tattoo that's on his body somewhere. We did our research. We were huge post-Malone fans. Greg, did you see when he covered Nirvana? Oh, really? Is that any good? It was during quarantine. His band would play music that was... He crosses a lot of categories. He really likes country music too. That's cool. We don't live in a monoculture. No, yeah. He's cool. I saw him on an Elvis special commemorating the 68 combat special that Elvis did in 1968. He was jamming on an acoustic guitar and playing Elvis songs. He was pretty good. I was surprised. I don't know anything about him though. All right. Once again, stop proving that we're out of touch. Here it is, the Rose of Post Malone. This is the new vintage and it's selling like hotcakes and the kids like it. Even Herman said it's not that bad, so that goes pretty far in my book. It's almost as peachy as the peach tea in the nose. Yeah, you're right. It has the characteristic circus peanut candy smell on the nose. Circus peanut. I don't mean it as a knock, but it has that. It does. Now that you say it. Well, I'd say there's a little RS here too, but it's less sweet than I was expecting. A little bit of fruitiness. There's a clean finish. I wouldn't say that this is the most complex, but no rosé from the south of France ever is the most complex. That's not the point. I think for the average, someone who's pretty inexperienced when it comes to rosé, and they're just looking for something that's light and drinkable. I mean, this has some nice aromatics to it. It's easy to drink for sure. So I could see this having pretty broad appeal. I don't know that he's going after the wine community with his release. I think you're probably right there. So it's a cool looking bottle with a cool, I mean, it's like an elegantly tall bottle with a cool enclosure and a celeb tie-in, and there is a lifestyle tax on this one. This is $21.99, and you would expect a comparable bottle from a random French Chateau to be somewhere between $12 and $15, I think that's fair. That's what most French Rosés are going for? Yeah. Chris, what do you think about the price $21.99? Yeah, it's definitely high. I mean, if I'm going to spend over $20 a bottle on a Rosé, it's going to be Bandol or something that actually is complex. This is very straightforward. I mean, I assume it's Grenache-based. I don't know though. It smells like it though. Yeah. It smells like textbook French Rosé. It's probably worth saying that he doesn't put his name on it. That's kind of classy. Is it? So I'm torn about that. But it's got the face tattoo or whatever is on there. Well, he does have a sword on his face, but it doesn't have sword. Not that sword, I think. So what do you guys think about that? Because I've noticed this, some celebs, like Sarah Jessica Parker put her signature on the back and her initials on the front. There's nothing that says his name here. Ace of Spades didn't come into existence being tied to Jay-Z, but it is now. Some of the spirits that you have, you have Black End and that says Metallica right on the front, right? Yeah. So- No. No, it doesn't. Or a famous one also is Casamigos that's not on the table. Clooney's name is on there, but you would have to know to look for it. Well, there's two signatures right on the front. Yeah. So if it's a celeb product, is it better for them to put their name on it? Well, I think in this case, he's got such a big built-in fan base, and he's got a big social media presence, I'm assuming, and there's a hype machine behind it all. So it's a form of false modesty to not put your name on it, where when everyone who you expect to buy it knows full well that you're associated with it. Really? That's what I'm thinking. I view it as like he doesn't have to put his name on it. That's how many people know that he made this and want to try it. I agree. Okay, well, contrasting that, here, our next wine is Z Alexander Brown, aka Zach Brown, aka another bearded tattoo guy, except this one plays more on the country and the things, right? With the funny hat. Yeah, I was going to listen to some of his music in preparation for this, but I got pulled into a meeting and I didn't. You sound disappointed. I really missed out. So what we have is the Z Alexander Brown, what's it called? Unchained? Uncaged. Z Alexander Brown, uncaged, and what we have, there's several different varietals out there. We have the proprietary red blend, very classy bottle, black label, white barn owl, white snowy owl. Snowy owl. It took me a while to find it because I was looking for something. That is not a snowy owl. What is it? That's a barn owl. Okay, really? I think. Chris, settle a bet. Look at him. He goes, I think. I think. Hang on. We know more about the animal on the label than the celebrity. It looks like a snowy owl to me. We're Googling owl. No, it's a barn owl. Okay, Jim, either leave all this horse sh** in or cut it to make me sound smart like I got it right in the first try. I nailed it. Yeah, it's a barn owl. It doesn't look anything like a snowy owl. Hey, do you guys smell this wine? It's nice. Can we talk about the owl on the label? Yeah. That's a creepy looking owl. Okay. So as a proprietary red blend, that puts them in a weird category that's kind of adjacent to your rosé drinker. I'm not talking smack about this particular consumer, but it's not a serious wine customer. It's someone who's just looking for something fun, easy to drink. All right. So anyone who's ever called me pompous, that statement, it's not a serious wine drinker's wine. Roger, go f**k yourself. Okay. We're talking about Apothec Red here. We're talking about Menage à Trois here. Well, are you saying that this is the same price? Because I think $7 red blend drinkers aren't the same as someone who's looking for a red blend that's like $18 to $24. Well, that red blend does extend up into the 30s and 40s, depending also, because ostensibly, you could put your prisoner on there. Yeah. You could put almost any red wine on there. Yeah. Well, okay. Chris, what do you think of the wine? I mean, I hate to side with Greg in this matter, but this wine is definitely not up my alley. It's sweet for a red wine. It's a soft, easy drink in red blend. It's soft. It's very soft. Yeah, it's super soft, little sweet. But it is the kind of wine that a lot of people enjoy. I mean. It's $14.99. If it didn't have a musician's name on it, it probably would cost $5 less. That's fair. That's it. That said, anybody who is a Zac Brown fan and who likes barn owls, apothic red or barn owls, there's no shame in buying this. It's fine. Jim, roll the f***ing music. Get out of the wine segment. Okay, here, pour this and pass it around, because I need the bottle back. We're starting with this one? Yeah, of course, it's vodka. So we're going to do some Celebrity Spirits now. Greg, yes, we're starting with the vodka. Or do you want to taste flavorful things and then taste the flavorless thing? We should try the vodka first. I just don't want to go from cynicism to cynicism again. Oh man, who's reading the label? No, I'm reading the back leg. The back gets to read the label. I want to read it. I will say that this is an elegantly designed vodka bottle. Looks like a black and white cookie. I want one of those now. You got any of those, Ben? I wish. So, Celebrity Spirits, we're going from like, I don't know, most flavorless to maybe most flavorful. We're going to start with the newest Chopin vodka, which is Chopin Vera Wang. And it's a one liter, very striking black and white bottle. It's got a poem about vodka on the back. Let's hear the poem. Vodka. Vodka is amazing. Vodka is cool. Vodka is sexy. Vodka makes me smile. Vodka makes me dance. Vodka makes me happy. Vodka is sunsets. Vodka is the night. Vodka is not those things. Vodka is love. Come on. Vodka is Chopin. Chopin vodka x Vera. You know why this is making me mad? Because Chopin would be, if we had to pick one of those expensive vodkas that you want to drink, Chopin would be my pick. I like the potato vodka. I like the neutrality and softness. So this is a collaboration with Vera Wang where Vera personally selected a special variety of young potato for this vodka. Are you reading the copy? I'm reading Chopin's website. Hmm, smells like nothing. Vodka amazing. Only thing that I'm picking out of this neutral nose is actual potato peelings and citrus. There's a soft fruitiness here. It is citrus. Yeah. I really like the body on it. It's got this round fatness in the body, which you do generally get from potato vodkas. It's a nice clean vodka. It's a very clean nose. There's some sweetness here. Yeah. So to review, she picked these potatoes out. Hang on. We're not... So, okay. She selected the variety of potato, not the potatoes. Somebody gave her like three flashcards, and she picked one of the three kinds of potatoes. She picked the kind of potato. It doesn't matter. None of this matters. I was under the impression she was like at the loading dock, looking at the shipments and okaying them herself. Hang on a second. Let's hit time out here. This freight car of potatoes is acceptable. This one is not. So far off the rails. This vodka is a good vodka. Insofar as we can all agree that a good vodka is a thing that exists. This is a good one. It's mildly sweet. It's very clean. There's almost no spirit. Well, I might not be the person. No, it has little bite. I'm suspicious that it has a bit of sweetener added to it. Yeah, and certainly some glycerol to give it some body. It's a little bit tough. It's not neutral. But vodka, truth is, it never is absolutely neutral. Only neutral. Yeah, but I mean more than usual. In my opinion, this is a really good vodka. Now, you want to talk about celebrity tax. Oh no. This is a whole other level. What does a fifth of Chopin set you back? We are currently selling a 750 ml of Chopin for $22.99. A reasonable price. A normal price, $24.99. Yeah, right. That's a good price. This is a one liter bottle and we are selling it for $89.99. Oh boy. What the fuck? It's not even that pretty of a bottle. It's just matte black on the top half. There is a slight upcharge for the Vera Wang vodka. Yeah. I went from defending this vodka to being mad at it. Get it out of here. I don't want to look at it anymore. I mean, Vera Wang's dresses cost a small fortune, so of course, it's crazy expensive. I've never shopped for one. That's her brand. She's like never shopped for one of Vera Wang's dresses. She sells the dresses to celebrities, so of course, her vodka is going to be crazy expensive. Listen, it's really good vodka. I'm not of the opinion that that's worth $90, but I'm also not the target audience. It is very clean. It has a viscous, slightly oily texture, and there is a hint of maybe citrus, like lime leaf, and maybe even a little mint, and definitely earth, and that's saying a lot for something that's supposed to be neutral, but I mean. That is. Have you ever read the BTI tasting notes for vodkas? Because they use normal descriptors. It's always like cracked black pepper, green vegetation, some spiciness. I'm like, well, that's confusing. Those notes are in there, but it takes a lot of attention and focus to try to pull them out. I think you have to divide the legal concept of vodka with the reality. It's supposed to be neutral in aroma and flavor, but that is never exactly the case. Everybody loves Tito's. Tito's has taste for sure. It's sweet. This definitely sets the record for the longest. We've talked about a specific vodka on Barrel to Bottle ever. Yeah, let's stop talking about it. All right. So, hints, that's what we're talking about next. Next up is Blackened Whiskey. This is from Dave Pickerel and Metallica. Was that your head feel depressing? Yeah. You have to do more at the end. Yeah. All right. Stop. Both of you. Looking around, just waiting to interrupt me. All right. God, you assholes. Okay. Start the segment in earnest now. All right. Blackened Whiskey. From Metallica. Stop it. Blackened Whiskey from Metallica. It's actually a blend of bourbon and rye, and then it's finished in what they call Black Brandy casks. I don't know what Black Brandy is. Then each batch of it, they sonically enhance by, they have a specific playlist of Metallica songs for each batch that gets blasted through speakers in the warehouse to vibrate the whiskey in the barrels. There's batch info on their website. We're tasting batch 89. Let me pull up the playlist. Can you get an edition that's just them playing Blackened over and over and over again and nothing else? Blackened Squared. All right, so this is batch 89. Robert Trujillo selected the songs for this and arranged the playlist. It is Damage, Inc., I Disappear, Holier Than Thou, The Call of Cthulhu, and Justice for All, Confusion, My Apocalypse, and Sad But True. So it played those eight songs on repeat over and over. He's not even on most of those songs. Any of those songs? Yeah, he is. Well, I guess not. He's the Johnny Come Lately in the band. I mean, theoretically, this sonic theory should have a lot to do with like bass and the double kick drum because like a Kirk Hammett guitar solo is not going to shake the barrels. Well, it's because the sonic theory is a bunch of horse sh**. But how's the whiskey taste? You don't think the wah-wah influences the whiskey? All right, we're early. It smells like bourbon. Yeah. Actually, it's got a bit of a sweetness to it. I think it's definitely spicy like rye. We don't know what proportions of anything are. This is the Whistle Pig guy, right? No, we do not. It's 90 proof. Yeah, Dave Pickerel was the one who initially set it up. Unfortunately, of course, Dave is dead now. This was kind of his last project. I don't think I've ever actually tried this before. It's got a lot of toffee notes to it. Yeah, it's really candied and a little bit of fruit. This is a really soft, approachable bourbon. It's a nice whiskey. Huh. And it's 90 proof too. Is it bourbon? No, it's a blend of bourbon and rye. Oh, I'm sorry. American blended whiskey. It's like the super Tuscan whiskeys. So are you saying it's exactly 50-50 or what's the deal? No, no, that's undisclosed. So it could fall into one of those categories. We just don't know. Yeah. Do they play the music through a big PA system or do they play the music through like your Macbook? I think it's just somebody's phone. I think I saw the video. You know, it's, they believe in this. Like it's, they're really blasting the barrels. Copper and Kings does it too. I mean, they really are. It's like a 1980s Walkman with those little foamy headphones they put on the barrels. Yeah, headphones on the barrels is being good. It's $42.99. So it's a pretty fair price, honestly. Listen, what do you guys think of the whiskey? When I first tasted it, I was like, it's okay. It's a bit sweet. And I think it's a bit expensive. That's where I am right now. I still think it's a bit sweet, but $42.99 I think is reasonable. I want to say it used to be more expensive. But $43 I think is okay. Is it 80 proof? It's 90 proof. Is it three years old? Probably. It's very candied. It has a root beer, vanilla, root beer float kind of. Absolutely, Roger. I was just thinking in my own mind, little root beer barrel candies. All right, give us a good celeb coming up next. All right, good celeb coming up next. Haven't we done this one? I feel like we've done this one. Probably. We're going tequila next. Of course, the biggest tequila launch of all time, pretty much, has over the past year been Teremana from The Rock, from Dwayne Johnson. So he is a big tequila fan, and he was always used in tequila as his drink of choice when on those 30 seconds a day where he's not lifting weights or something, and to relax before in the transition from chest to back or something. He was a serious tequila fan though, and he identified what he really liked in tequila, and he liked that honeyed agave sweetness, and he liked a fuller, richer tequila that wasn't overly sweet though, and didn't have that aspartame added to it or anything. So he took some of his many, many, many millions and just built a distillery. And so he found a distillery that essentially let him build a distillery next to it. So he literally built a distillery. He built a new distillery. He didn't buy a permit or something. So he's part of somebody else's gnome, there's a bigger distillery, and he was like, here's however many millions of dollars, and they built an adjoining building. So he shares the crushing and the fermentation. So it's brick oven cooked, and it is roller mill ground, and then it's fermented, and then his is double copper pot distilled. Can I ask you a question? Is the distillery, like is the siding metal or wood, or is it made of rock? I don't know. It's made of bricks. Does he use a tahona, and do they call that the rock? So when they're doing that, can you smell what the rock is cooking? Listen, you guys, he's a serious tequila guy, and this is good tequila, and he was really about no added color, no added anything, and the little symbol on the bottom of the bottle in the corner of the label is some kind of tribute to his daughter or The label is really cool on the back. It's very upfront. Very transparent. It lists everything, what the agave is, the gnome, the roasting, the stills, the aging, calories, carbs, sugars certified, gluten free. I think that's super cool. We already said this. It's Reposado on original release, which means they distilled and aged before release. So they actually took the time to invest in making the product that was matured. And like they're currently aging in Inyeho and waiting to launch that. This is good. It is good. I will say without having tasting it and just smelling it, I really like the nose. It has very clear agave notes. It is lightly honeyed. It's citrusy. I was going to add that it's got that kind of classic lime peel kind of citrus oil character. And I think the color is really beautiful. You can tell they're not coloring it. You know, it's got that very pale. Yeah, there's no bull. And his whole thing is it's the tequila for the people. So it's priced reasonably. This is 33 bucks. 33 bucks. So the problem with this is my house tequila was one that's about $6 or $7 cheaper. And then I got a bottle of this and then I tried them side by side. And the classic problem is I might have to upshift and spend that extra money for this because it's like that much better. You should because your other one is triple distilled and it doesn't taste like anything. You swept the Savies in our Save or Splurge episode. I sure did. So you have some money to spend on tequila. This bats out of that price point. It easily out kicks its coverage on price, yeah. Wait, that's a different metaphor. Is it? It punches above its weight class. That's better. There's no doubt it does. I mean, there is a natural sense of sweetness to this. You can tell it's not sweetened, but it's soft and sweet up front and has clear agave flavors. I think it's pretty stellar for the price point. It's a fantastic tequila for the price. So Rock, good job. You're not making us pay celebrity tax and you made a good product and you're actually involved. Hey, it's the Rock, man. He's no jabroni. We talked about Mezcal last week, and very briefly brought up the distinction between an ancestral and artisanal Mezcal. And this one right on the bottle acknowledges that it's an artisanal. So artisanal, so it is going to be Tahona milled agaves and double copper pot distilled. So your final celeb for the day is a twofer. It's a twofer, so. Dos Hombres. Dos Hombres Mezcal. This is Brian Cranston and what's his name? Aaron Paul. Aaron Paul. From, of course, Breaking Bad. This is a fine mezcal. And these guys are actually pretty actively involved in this too. And, you know, they care about the brand and they care about, you know, making sure the producers and the farmers are taken care of and all that kind of stuff. I like the back. It says made in Oaxaca in a tiny village tucked into the mountains of Mexico. So we asked if... That's literally every village in Oaxaca. Yeah. Brett being Brett, he's trying to set up the virtual tasting that either happened or is about to happen. Yeah. Whenever this airs. So Brett being Brett, when he was making the request, he asked if he could also have the distiller. And they're like, well, he's pretty bad with English. And Brett was like, we can get a translator. And they're like, and there's not... Who's going to translate? And then they go, yeah, and the electricity is intermittent there. So, I don't know, Pat, did you talk to the distiller? No. We did not talk to the distiller. That's a shame. Okay. So regular price on this $59.99. So pretty standard Mezcal price, I'd say. You don't touch a lot of Mezcal for under 40 bucks. So $20 premium. This is where I would say most of the Mezcal in the aisle falls in that $50 to $70 price point now. Kind of smells like the Vita. This is a little more earthy. It's very approachable though. I mean, this I feel like has less of a learning curve or however you want to put it. As far as somebody's unacclimated with the category, I could see a lot of people jumping right into this and enjoying it. It's clean but it still has those bolder, spicier, earthier, woodier elements to it. Yeah. There's some herbaceousness in there. This is really nice mezcal actually. I haven't tasted it yet but the herbaceous note that you're talking about is really prominent in the nose. I'm getting the intersection of wisps of smoke with almost a eucalyptus type. Yeah, I could totally see that. Or menthol-y fragrance. Mm-hmm, yep. So, men's cologne but not in a gross way. In a modern artsy cologne sort of way, it ticks all the boxes. It's a little mossy and leathery and smoky and herbal with a little bit of freshness too. It's a really nice mezcal. It's a fruit by Fabergé. Well, there's all these pop-up companies that just make little batches and sell them for exorbitant amounts of money that I can never wear because I work in the liquor industry and everybody needs to be able to smell things all the time. I think you nailed it, Chris, with the eucalyptus. I get a lot of that on the finish. This is awesome. It's a good roger, like a mezcal. I enjoy this more than the one we tasted in the episode on Savor Splurge, even the $100 one, I would prefer this one. It's like cracked black pepper. You keep going back to it. There's something new each time. Yeah. White pepper, too. It really is a complex spirit. They did a good job here. I agree. Very good. Almost like peppercorns and spearmint on the palate. Really good though. All right. Fun times, guys. Yeah. Good job. Good job, Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston. This is a top notch mezcal. So, we saw a bunch of celebrity products today, and most of them had a pretty high level of involvement, not just sticking your name on something or endorsing it, or buying a controlling interest after the brand has been established, which those are all things that happen in this industry too. Yep. And whatever, I still think that's- What did you learn today? Metallica Whiskey Fine, Vera Wang Vodka. I mean, she did a good job picking those potatoes. Rocks Tequila Outstanding, Breaking Bad Mezcal Outstanding. And we also had some wines and seltzers. Cool. Yeah. Oh yeah, the peach tea I really liked. What show was that? Summer House. Summer House. Good job, Summer House. Loverboy. Big Summer House. Pat is working for the weekend, baby. Oh yeah. If you were a TV celeb, would you name your product after a reference to a pop song from the 80s? I mean, like own it. I would call it Tainted Love. Well, I don't watch the show, but I would hope that he references this some other time, and it wasn't literally just that. I'm going to have to do a little research. We got to ask. Beer buyer Kyle's wife watches that show. I know that. We got to ask her. Okay. Go ahead and ask her before the sayers and then we'll splice in. Actually, it's a continuing reference to one of the characters. I just think of the Chris Farley, Patrick Swayze skit. Yeah. It's a classic. Jeff and Dale. Barney. Oh, so good. Okay. Sorry. Oh, man. SNL used to be so good. All right, Jim, play us out with Working for the Weekend. All right. So that's been Celebrity Hooch. Part one. It's been a hoot. Oh, man. Run guys in the room. Those were fun. And you got some honest opinions too. True. So hope you enjoyed that. Please leave us a review on iTunes and we'll see you next week. I'm Pat. I'm Greg. I'm Roger. And I'm Chris. World renowned celebrity booze drinker. Keep tasting. Can you smell what the rock is cooking? Yeah!