Welcome back to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, your favorite podcast, not sponsored by a VPN service or boner pills. Or mattresses. I'm Pat, I'm the Director of Spirit Sales here at Binny's. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's. Roger, beer. I'm Alicia, wine. Chris, wine. You guys weren't nearly as excited as I was. All right, so we're coming up on the end of the year here, and we wanna talk about our picks of the year. What are our picks of the year? Everybody was supposed to pick two things. I, of course, brought three things. I think Chris may have brought six. I brought either three or seven, depending on how you count. Thanks for continuing to tune in to these long episodes. Right. I do have multiple picks, only because I'm drinking less new wine because of my stay-at-home situation, but I'm also drinking a lot of spirits and beer on this podcast. So I do have top twos in those categories too, but I won't talk about them. Your knowledge base knows no bounds. We welcome your bounty of picks. Pick whatever you want. All right. Well, listen, let's start with the picks. We should probably lean into beer first because it is better cold, correct? Yeah, at least one of them. So what you got for us? A hazy boy, of course. That's what I'm all about. Nice. What? I know. Isn't that surprising? So I was going to talk about the Pilsner that we enjoyed on the Pilsner podcast from Oma Gang. I would suggest instead that you listen to our Pilsner podcast. Oma Gang Idle Days. What a great beer. It was a killer. That was fantastic. I wasn't on that one. Super elegant, super beautiful. Holy cow, that beer was great. It's so cool to see people getting interested in lagers again. It's great to see some of these breweries opening up that are really focusing almost exclusively on lagers, places like Art History, Goldfinger. Yet, this has nothing to do with your pick. Well, it is one of my picks. It's my bonus third pick, would be Ohmigang Idle Days. But I was kind of torn here. So what we're going to try is one of our recent collabs. So I'm really proud of some of the collaborations that we've been doing as of late. I think there have been some innovative, creative things that we're looking to put out. And this latest one I thought was highlighting something that we've mentioned in the past briefly, is this new yeast strain from Omega Yeast called Cosmic Punch. And it was used to do our collab that recently came out with from Buckle Down. This beer is called Hexed Hazy. It's from Buckle Down Brewing in Lions. And it uses Citra, mosaic, and Saburo Hops. And then this new yeast from Omega. Roger, unlike me, and perhaps unlike you in this case, I had one of our collabs on my top three beers of the year too, but it was the My Cousin Binny, which I thought was excellent. And I'm the farthest thing from a hazy guy, but fantastic, fantastic job on that one. I second that one. That one was really good. So you have, Chris, you kind of have the science background and I think it's appropriate too with this idea of thiols is going to be something that's a lot of beer nerds are going to talk about. So this yeast strain is particularly known for like the biotransformation process, which happens somewhat when you put hops and the dry hops in the fermenter, which was kind of that aha moment where people were like, all right, is there anything that's really behind the science of hazy beers? Like, is it just sloppy brewing? Is it, you know, and they started to realize that something actually takes place in the fermenter. So the idea with this was to kind of create a yeast strain that captures thiles. So for people that are kind of like, all right, well, that's nice. What does what does that mean to me? What might what would you say if people are curious about it? What could they wrap their minds around? I've got a lot to say about this because it's an important subject in wine, too. But I'll try to be brief. Thiles are organosulfur compounds, and they're found prominently in certain wines, most prominently in New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. They really have just precursors in both hops and grapes. There is some free thiles in hops, but it takes the fermentation process to really release them and create these compounds that are based on sulfur. What they result in is those super fruity over-the-top guava, gooseberry, that kind of thing that you get out of- You're talking cape gooseberries or actual gooseberries? I'm talking about actual gooseberries, because one of the other things you can get out of them is blackcurrant, which is closely related to the gooseberry, whereas the cape gooseberry is not. So don't confuse the two. Everybody get your gooseberries straight. Don't mess around. So we just popped a can of this. You want hazy IPAs to taste like they're juicy. I mean, that term gets thrown around a lot, but this literally looks like juice, and it smells like juice, and it tastes like juice. Roger, which one is this again? Hex Tazy from Buckle Down. This is the collab that we did with them. It was released around Halloween. At this point, it's had a couple of weeks on it. I think it's even drinking juicier and softer now than it was like. People have this misconception with some of these hazies that you have to drink them the day they were canned. If it's a brewery that knows what they're doing, you can drink a hazy a month, two months after it is brewed. You might actually like it better after it has some time on it. There is no hot burn on this thing at all. It's so plush and pillowy and soft and fruity. Yeah, there's so much pineapple and mango and banana, and it's soft and round. Speaking on the note of being patient with hazy sometimes, I think that was something you mentioned too with the Binny's Club with Maplewood and my cousin, Binny. You had it when it first was canned, and then you had it two weeks later, and you said it improved. All of those exuberantly fruity tropical notes, some of them can be from yeast esters, but most of it is the production of thiols, which give you these aromas. Really, classic hop varieties, Roger, as you well know, did not produce thiols really. It's these new wave hops that have the precursors available to break down into these organosulfur compounds. They give you these really wild tropical flavors. But there's a slippery slope because sulfur can taste and smell sulfury too. You got to watch out. I personally am so in tune with sulfur compounds that often I taste hazy IPAs and they smell sulfury to me. But I get the tropical too, but it's always mixed up in a sulfur note. But that's just me. This is nice. Am I crazy for thinking this actually has a bit of a bitterness on the finish though? It finishes slightly crisp. There's a teeny tiny bit. So when I was talking to Buckle Down about hazies, I think that they do a good job. Half Acre, I think, does this a lot too. They sneak in a little bit of balance, even though people say that they don't want their IPAs bitter, it has to be super juicy, sweet. This had even more pronounced bitterness when it was fresh. So yeah, you're not wrong at all. And that was by intention. We basically looked at some of the beers that Buckle Down had brewed in the past, and I was like, I like that about this beer, like that about this beer, but I want it to be even drier. I don't want any lactose, no maltodextrin. I think they nailed it. Both of these right now are pretty much sold out, unfortunately, but I bring it up for a couple reasons. One, always make sure that you keep an eye on what kind of collabs we're doing. Two, keep an eye out for this yeast. It was used to make both my cousin Binny and Hex Tazy. Do you guys hear that? I hear the get the f*** off the stage music. It's starting up. wait, I had a follow up question. What kind of exotic fruit did you teach the guys at Buckle Down about while you were out there brewing this? This I think actually, with the combination of hops we used, there's nothing too crazy in this. I get a lot of guava and I get a lot of papaya. You didn't bring up the world's largest tree-bearing fruit? No, Jackfruit was not mentioned. Okay, I'm gonna go next. Wine, wine. I'm gonna go next before our palettes get blown out with y'all's choices. Y'all's, you don't even know what my choices are. Yeah, you brought three. Yeah, she makes a good point. Let's dive into the world of wine here. Okay, so remember last year, I picked two wines from the same producer in Santa Barbara. Yeah, that guy you were on the take from? Yeah, yeah. Well. His check bounced this year, so she brought some already. Yeah, someone told me I can't do that anymore. So some of you may know that I absolutely love burgundy. And rather than come on this podcast and show you a really expensive burgundy, I wanted to show you one that I had this year that is my absolute favorite value. And those two things don't normally come along together. What, you in value? No, burgundy in value. Oh, okay. But I was actually just, I was working in Lincoln Park on Saturday and had so many interactions with customers looking to spend around 30 bucks on quality white burgundy. And this is it. So this is Michel Bousereau's Bourgogne Cote d'Or. And the Bourgogne Cote d'Or was eligible for a regional appellation just as of 2017. So it's kind of an added, rather than just Bourgogne on the wine, we see Cote d'Or, which is of course the combination of the Cote de Nuit and the Cote de Beaune. So some kind of prize sites. But even more than that with this wine, all of his fruit in this wine is from Merceau and Pellini Montrachet. So we're really kind of getting the large level wine at a regional price. You're talking villages? Villages, pat. Got it. So let me send it around. This is again, Michel Boussereau's Bourgogne Cote d'Or 2018, $33.99 on the shelf. $33.99, Chris, have you tried this one? I have not, but great pick, excellent producer. As Alicia says, the fruit is coming from that Merceau-Pellini border, and you can't ask for more than that out of a Bourgogne to have your fruit come from sources in Appalachians like that. And most of the wines, I'll point out, at this price point are from some of the larger negocions, and that's not the case here. The Boussereau family has been cultivating wines for seven generations. Michel has now passed it on to his son, Jean-Baptiste. They only own 10 and a half hectare. So a pretty small operation. As you guys smell and taste the wine, it's a year in oak, 15% of which is new. I think you'll find it to be a pretty kind of textbook, but delightful. This smells amazing. This smells wonderful. Oh man. Write what your name can be. I would point out that judicious use of new oak is a signature of this house. They really want the terroir, the fruit to shine. New oak is never a big part of the wines, but it's there for texture and really beautiful stuff, Alisha. The flavors are right on point. It's got the baked pineapple quality that you get from a reasonably aged, reasonably oak chardonnay. The texture on your palate, it's actually structured. It's beautiful. And rigid and with silk across the top. Yeah. Wow. For people that aren't as familiar with this style, but they've had other whites, what would be just a little introductory into white Bordeaux and what? White Burgundy. White Burgundy, I'm sorry. White Burgundy is always going to be chardonnay and is really the world class region for it. But we should, in this part of Burgundy, so I'm setting aside Chablis up in the north. But when you get down to the bulk of our selection, you can expect kind of this medium to full bodied wine. You can expect some portion of new oak and they generally will complete malolactic fermentation. It'll have a little bit of creaminess, a little bit of weight from that second fermentation, converting acids. So all in all, you should expect elegant use of oak, nice kind of ripe, round stone fruits, little bit of tropical, hefty weight, and just yeah, that little bit of toastiness from the new oak. So if you really like super buttery, creamy, really vanilla-driven kind of Cali Chard, this might surprise you a bit. It's gonna be more restrained. There's gonna be a little more acid to the wine. But if you've ever been fatigued by the heavy-handed nature of some Chardonnay, this is a light and graceful and energetic expression. You can feel the energy of the acid on the palate, no doubt. Michelle Bousereau, which one? Yep, this is the Bourgogne Cote d'Or, and he does higher-end stuff, too. We've actually tasted his Merceau on this podcast. Okay, I recognize the Bousereau name. That's why I was asking. And I poured this with the importer for an education class for our staff when we did a little Burgundy 301, and this was loved by many. Interesting. Value White Berg. Great stuff. Really nice wine, great nose. All right, we're standing in the world of wine. What did I pick last year, Continuum? Yes. Which is like 250 bucks. Yeah, I think even a little bit more. I'm blowing that out of the water, because... What? That wasn't enough for you. Because I think the point last year, my point there was that there is such amazing potential in wine, and sometimes it costs money, but just the realization, and when you try something like that, it just grabs you. So that happened again this year. And I am going to pass around a different wine than the one that we're- I'm talking about. Yeah. What? So- What's the point of this? Shut up. I'm passing around the Noval Ten-Year Tani. Is this your pick? No. Why are we tasting it then? Because I wanted to try it again. You're trying to make Roger happy by pouring as much fortified wine as we can in a single podcast. So the good folks at Noval in Portugal, sent over this flight for our port buyer to taste through and purchase. What happened was they sent over the 10-year tawny. They sent over a 2007 Colheeta, which is like a more quickly aged bottle. Like a vintage tawny. A vintage tawny. Then they sent the 2018 vintage port, which is astounding. So I'm tasting all of these. Try the 10-year and I was like, this is really good and you can try it in the glass right now because we just passed around. It was really good. Spicy. It shows age. It shows some vibrant fruit at the same time. Right? Yeah, this is really good. Yeah. Just quickly on tawnys before we get to your ridiculous selection. Oh yeah. Whenever someone asks for a tawny, really I tend to tell them that 20-year is the sweet spot. So if you are going to spend the money, 20-year it's just the right amount of nutty, toffee, caramel notes. So what you're saying about this 10-year is thanks but no thanks? No, I normally kind of- She's very politely saying that Greg should have opened the 20. No, no, no. He's like, hey, I'm about to recommend a $1,000 for- Let her get my back. We'll get there. So normally I go right for the 20 and I kind of dismiss the 10 to be honest with you. But when I participated in this flight, I was blown away by this 10. It really stood out to me as having much more depth of complexity than a lot of 10-year tawnies can have. So if you do want still some kind of purity and freshness of fruit in your tawny port, the Noval 10-year is outstanding. Okay. So we tried the 10-year and I'm like, wow, this is really good. By the way, I just saw them. I was walking past and just noticed that they were sitting around. So I jumped in while I had a chance. So he- I was not invited at this party. They just sidled into the port buyer's office. Yeah. Well, somebody left it out in the conference room, and I'm like, hello. So I tried the 10-year Tani, and then I tried the Kolhita 2007, which is like a vintage but still a Tani. Tried the 2018, and suddenly, we just stepped up a level. We just went up the flight of stairs and we're in something that's brutal and youthful but also super drinkable right now and very fruity and very powerful. That's what, like 120 bucks, something like that? The 2018 vintage. Small change. And then, and then, you guys, there was a bottle of the Noval 2018 Nationale, which is a vintage port, what is it, from a specific vineyard? Anyway, this is the top of the line stuff. And I was like, how much is this? And I heard a number and I was like, that's crazy. And they were like, oh no, that's the cost. It's actually $1,000 a bottle. You have the record now for highest retail price, Barrel to Bottle yearly pick? And wait, Pat, just ask him where it's available for our customers to buy. I'm sure it's not. Well, so we're buying some cases, but I think they're probably spoken for and they haven't arrived yet and they'll be gone shortly. But you guys, this was- I'm all for picking some of the best stuff you taste in a given year. This was the best thing I've tasted all year. I thought I was stretching with a $200 scotch last year. But it's not about the bottle. It's about the potential. It's about finding something that's absolutely- Roger, stop laughing. You will never realize. You can't have this. But that's not true because someday we're going to be back to doing wine tastings. Someday people are going to have opportunities to get out there and try stuff. We're not going to open the $1,000 bottle for our weekend at Binny's. All right. To all of our listeners, f**k you, go f**k yourself. I think that's what they want to tell you, Greg. But how often do you have that opportunity where you're like, this thing, this is the thing. People were walking by the hallway and I was like, get in here, you got to try this. I wish I'd been here that day. Yeah, f**k you. We're just taunting people with this pic. I'm really sorry, all you listeners out there. Is it really all going to be spoke for? Maybe there's a chance. If you're a barrel to bottle listener, in my opinion, you should be getting preferential treatment anyway. So tell the wine department at your local Binny's that we sent you in for this wine. See what they sent you. If you got a thousand bucks, burning a hole in your pocket, and you absolutely trust me. And this is what, the best thing you tasted this year, you think? That's my number one bottle. It's your number one pick. Is it the best thing you tasted this year? Hands down. Yeah. All right, well, let's say something. This is from old vines, un-grafted, pre-phylloxera, un-grafted, pre-phylloxera, 100% Toriga Nacional. It is very rare. There is a reason it's very, very expensive and it is phenomenal. Although I was not at this tasting. Wah wah, sad trombone. Sorry, Chris. Alicia and Pat. Yeah, we still got to lay down that sad trombone track for next year. Patinsu Trombones. Chris, what's your pick? My pick is actually much more reasonably priced, but equally legendary and phenomenal. And we're talking about a $39.99 price point for one of the greatest wines that you may ever try, which is domaine Huey's Clos de Bourg Vouvray Sack from 2019, which is absolutely phenomenal. 100% Chenin Blanc. domaine Huey goes back 90 years, was led by the famous Gaston Huey for many decades until he died in the early part of this century. I'm going to come clean. I've been calling the Hewitt for a long time. Well, if you're British, that's fine. I'm not. He's not, he's just this arrogant a**hole that tells people to buy a thousand-dollar pork. I didn't tell anybody to buy it. You didn't tell people to buy it. I didn't tell anybody to buy it. Do not buy this wine. Anyway, one of the greatest estates in Vouvray, they own three phenomenal vineyard sites, all incredibly, impeccably situated. There's, of course, Le Haute-Lieu, which is their original vineyard, and then Le Monde and Clodouburg. They're all considered among the best sites in the area. Clodouburg makes super intense wines, but they're not quite as austere as maybe the ones from Le Monde, and not quite as fruity as the Haute-Lieu wines, but they are incredibly long-lived. And so, this one I'm talking about is absolutely a baby right now. Check back in 20 years to see how things are going. Just beautiful, beautiful wine. Chris, it's sweet. Is it like a dessert wine sweet, or less sweet than that? No. How sweet is this sec? Sec is bone dry in this case, but it does have loads of quince and green apple fruit and almondy notes, and they're very, very intense. Ooh, quince, you say? Yeah, quince. Quince is a very classic tasty note for Vouvray for Chenin Blanc. So these are 100 percent Chenin Blanc if I didn't say that. Chris and Alicia, wouldn't you say that Vouvray is one of those regions that doesn't still have the notoriety or famousness infamy that some of the more famous regions in Europe have, and that you can really get a world-class wine in a lesser known Well, I'd say, you're spot on. The one sentence that proves that is this wine is $39.99. I mean, it's just stupid. It's incredible wine and incredibly cheap. Just some practical application here as well. Chenin Blanc is a great variety that everyone really should enjoy. It's high acid. It has this, these representations from domaine Hue are gonna be nice and kind of full-bodied, but these are really kind of approachable wines. They're wines that a wine novice and a wine collector would both enjoy. Equally, when you're shopping this holiday season or whenever, this is the wine that I recommend oftentimes for people that are buying gifts or bringing a housewarming present to someone who knows wine. So they'll appreciate this producer as Chris has laid out. And they will also have a choice to open it that night. And though, you know, slightly disappointing because it can age for decades, it's still going to be beautiful. It's not like they're opening, you know, a really young Bordeaux prematurely and you're just kind of crying in the background. You can enjoy this one young, but this is a wine that can age for decades. And so you're going to kind of show off your wine knowledge by bringing this producer to this person's house. Mine in the background is Roger's favorite Emo Band. And if your great aunt Gladys only drinks Emo Grigio, how dare you? I hate Emo. They would still like it. Totally. Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, Chenin Blanc, the acid just is like, it keeps getting higher in your mouth. It's a ton of orchard fruit. There's like a wooly kind of quality to it. It's lovely. Both of my wine picks today are informed by the fact that I've been locked away and I've been honestly plowing through a relatively generous collection that I have. And rightfully so, but both wines I picked today were based on the fact that I have consumed things 10, 15, 20, 30 years old over the last year or two. You're so old, Chris. It reminded me why I should be buying the new vintages, and the 2019s were incredible. And the old wines I drank were just mind-blowing. I mean, they are incredible. All right, Pat just whipped out his pick. Yeah, Pat's gnashing his teeth here. We need to move on to spirits. I'm not gnashing my teeth, I'm having fun. But yeah. I never thought I'd see this bottle again. Why? Because I thought you were gonna keister it away forever. Well, I brought it back as one of my picks of the year. Unbelievable. So, one of the true surprises for me this year. This is an about face, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah. Well, it's kind of an about face. Hey Pat, I'll explain how I got there. All these customers are asking me about Smoke Wagon. What do you think of them? That's why it's great that we're trying this. Yeah, no. So, this was one of the- So, they can't buy this either? No, this is a round. But this was one of the true surprises for the year for me. So, my first pick here is Smoke Wagon Small Batch straight Bourbon, which is their kind of middle tier price, 100-proofer. This one are 100-proof bourbon tasting like pretty handily, and that's where it really surprised me. So, I had tried it before and it tasted like a lot of other MGP, but with a little lean into the wood, I would say. But this one doesn't at all, and this is just gorgeous, just fruit and cream, and it's just outstanding. So, we picked it on a blind tasting line up, not knowing what it was. Let this be known as the year that Pat was surprised by a blind tasting. Hands. Yeah, Pat, I have to say that I have three liquors on my list for this year, and that's one of them, because same scenario, blew me away in that tasting. Yeah, totally blew me away. I kind of dismissed it as this Tater bait, you know, Trophy Hunter Bourbon, because that's who was coming in and bugging the staff about it. But, you know, I had an opportunity to sit down with Aaron, the guy who owns this place and blends all these whiskeys and get to know him a bit and talk to him for a long time about what he is specifically going after when he's creating these whiskeys and constructing these whiskeys and what his long-term kind of visions are for these whiskeys. I walked away with a lot of respect for the guy, and he's got a serious set of blending chops. This bourbon is truly exceptional against others at its price point. I'm kind of surprised that you brought it for us to try again, because it's still kind of fresh in the memory. And it's so good. It's so good. How much is this, Pat? You said it's amazing and it's pricey. That was a pregnant pause for I don't know. I think we're selling this for 50 bucks. I think it's 54.99 maybe. Maybe 54.99. It's very affordable in today's bourbon market. Especially for like an independent bottler and not like one of the big guys, this is a very good price for the quality of the whiskey. You could easily pay twice. Talk about pillowy. This is the hazy IPA of whiskeys. It is, but it's really good. What bigger producers might someone be drinking at home that you think would appreciate this style? Any bourbon lover is going to appreciate this style. It's a rye heavy bourbon, but it's not a spice heavy bourbon. Exactly. It's not one of those hard, right? Greg mentioned pillowy. It's got this softness and plushness to it that I think a weeded bourbon fan would like. It's like a chocolate covered cherry, the kind with the cream inside. Yeah. I wouldn't call this the hazy of whisky at all. This is not a weeded bourbon. This has got some spice on the finish and it's 100 proof. This is for people that are chasing all the Buffalo Trace stuff. If you love things like Eagle Rare and you're looking for like. This is a bottle where we don't get a ton of this, but we do get a good chunk every month or at least every few weeks or something. If you see this on the shelf and you love bourbon and you want a bourbon that you can just drink, you should not pass this up. A bottle that goes with your grandma's fine china. Yes. Yes, everybody dislikes the bottle design. He designed that himself. I like the bottle design and I think with it being holiday season right now, this would make a no-brainer gift. Not for everybody, I guess. They might think it's too busy. I think it looks nice. Yeah, it's like this floral etching on the bottle. See, I think the pinnacle of package design is leather bead gin. So Roger Artase says the diametric opposite. Yeah, Greg is minimalist. I'm more baroque, so I think that this is fine. Anyway, there's not much else to say about that. We covered it in previous podcasts or in a previous podcast, but this was a true surprise for me this year, and it really knocked my socks off. So hats off to them. That's one of my picks of the year, Smokewag. It's also a great example, and I think this is where Pat was coming from initially when I was asking him about Smokewag, and he was dismissive, was that people tended to really only get hyped up and care about their most limited expression. Yeah, the uncut, unfiltered. And that's what's a shame, is to just ignore a portfolio because one is more hyped up than the rest. Well, you don't want it if you can get it. I mean, uncut, unfiltered is good, but they're, you know. There's a lot of cast-strength bourbons out there, and a lot of cast-strength bourbons from MGP and stuff. This was, but this one is just at such a sweet spot. All right, no more whiskey grapes. Roger, beer me. Oh, it's a stout. I'm not ready for this. So, this is a beer that Chris and I actually were sharing a can of this not that long ago, and just talking about how much we were blown away by it. One of my personal favorite breweries, Ailsmith, out of San Diego, California, they are famous for a beer called Speedway Stout, which is a Russian Imperial stout with coffee, and kind of to stay relevant, they had always done some rare one-offs, usually only once or twice a year. They do like their version of a kind of Dark Lord Day or Darkness Day was their Ailsmith Grand Prix, where they have variations on Speedway Stout. They finally started to realize, okay, well, everyone loves these variants, we should release some of these throughout the year, not just on Grand Prix Day, thankfully. And much like we've been saying before, Ailsmith was famous for doing everything in 750s, like it was a tiny brewery when they started, it was all bombers in 750s for their stouts. They have now recently made the switch to 16-ounce cans. So not only are you getting one of the most famous, award-winning, incredible Imperial Stouts, you're getting it in a 16-ounce can. So when you look at the price at the end of the day, the value here is just off the charts. You're getting four 16-ounce cans of a variant for $18.99. Wow. Tasting it? Can I take a stab at the flavor? Sure. I think it's peanut-flavored whey protein adjunct. So I was going like a soy sauce thing. That's from the Intensu Mami of just that it's a massive, more old school Imperial Stout. So this is definitely- It's got a pepper thing going on. Yeah. This is the Mexican dark chocolate and Mexican coffee variant. Now that you've said that, that's all I can taste, and sea salt. Yeah. Yeah, sea salt for sure. It's a little briny. Ailsmith's almost been unfortunately criticized by some of the new elk of beer drinker for how subtle their beers are. They don't, my favorite term, flavor blast these stouts. They make the coconut one and all these beer nerds were like, I can't taste any coconut. Well, they use real coconut and it was there, but it presented in itself in a very natural integrated way. Maybe those people should try those new flavor blasted Bud Light seltzers that I see in advertisements. The eggnog, yeah, the eggnog seltzer. I can't believe you didn't bring one for us to take. It might be more their speed. But as Chris and I were talking about, I think if you really want to sit down and you're drinking a beer and you start to think about, if you can't just immediately say, oh, this tastes like fill in the blank, that's inherently more interesting than if you can just be like, yeah, this tastes like there's a ton of vanilla in this. Even the coffee in here isn't just like beat you over the head coffee. It's part of a much more layered discussion of flavors that would be more akin to if you were tasting a wine. It's also dry. I totally agree with you, Roger. The coffee is super well integrated in here, yet tastes like good coffee rather than sometimes you get those purezine-like flavors out of coffee beers. I couldn't agree more with this idea of any good beverage should be doing the dance of the seven veils for you, should be slowly revealing things in layers and allowing you to find something new. That's a modern reference all the kids are going to pick up on. Any great wine, whisky or beer that can slowly show you something new every time you smell it, every time you taste it, and you have to sit there and think about it rather than just having it hit you over the head, is the kind of experience I want Going through your Tinder app, and would you rather get to know someone that you just find everything out about them on the first date and they're pretty uninteresting once you get past that and nothing ever changes and they don't grow and they don't evolve or anything? Or do you want to keep learning about them with each meeting? Have you been talking to my wife? Yeah, right. My metaphor there is not people. It's usually a really complex indie album that you hate at first, but the more you listen to it, the more you dive into it, the more you like it. Sure. Okay, like what? I think what we're all hitting at here is that it's like the double-edged sword that is adjuncts is that it's skin deep. If it says it's got vanilla in it, then boom, it's going to taste like vanilla. Whereas if you have to coke some stuff out of there, and the base stout of this beer is so complex that yes, you're putting dark chocolate and coffee on top of that, but you're tasting a lot of other complexities, some dark fruit notes, even to the point of like you said, like soy balsamic richness without all that acidity. It's all there to begin with because it's so deep and layered, and it has so much going on. So give this a go. If you're a huge can of coffee, like Greg, you're really in a coffee, you're in a really dark roasted coffee. True. If you'd get some of these new pastry coffee stouts, you don't drink your coffee with sugar in it. I don't like pastry coffee stouts because it's a completely bizarre thing to be drinking in the evening. And they're all, you're right, they're all so sweet. Yeah. They're all so sweet and heavy. If you're a big coffee fan, but you don't reach for vanilla cookie dough creamer to put in it, check out these Speedway variants. There's still a few sneaking around this year. There's going to be more to come. And the original is just a phenomenal beer. Perfect. Okay, as we're passing around Delicia's next pick, I would like to sneak in honorable mention, and that is, very rarely do you try something that is completely outside of anything you've ever experienced before. Very rarely do you try something completely unexpected and completely new. And we had something like that this year. I'm talking, of course, about Smooge. I have... I was wondering when this was gonna come up. I knew exactly where it was going. Smooge of the year. Anything like this before. They have, as much as I find it weird and unsettling, they created something completely new and strange. That's true. They did. Completely new. And they nailed it. They nailed it. Weird. It's weird. It's weird that people want it, but... It's Smooge. I don't know if we carry them anymore, but we used to have yogurt fruit-flavored wines. Wine sluice were actually... Do you remember? Anybody remember those? I remember those. What was the brand name on that? Because they were in the cordial aisle, right? By the chocolate wine? When they have to be refrigerated? No. That's even more disconcerting, right? It wasn't through Alize, was it? No. I don't think so. They were just peach and strawberry yogurt wine. All right. Hard cut. Hard cut on the yogurt wine. Right. Alize, you want to just pick it up with your second wine pick. I want to go to a producer that is not creating something new, but instead has always been classic and has always been making really elegant Cabernet in Napa Valley. I actually don't drink a ton of Napa cabs, I must be honest. But in thinking back to some of my favorite wines of the year, we did an advanced class on Napa. And we stacked this Frog Sleep Estate Rutherford Wine 2017 up next to wines such as Paul Hoppe's Nathan Coombs Estate on the shelf for $3.95, Cliff Leeds Stag Sleep up $70 bucks in Stag Sleep, Gallica Oakville at $160, the Vangay Bone Ash Vineyard in Calistoga at $165. The point is that at $55.99, I thought this was a beautiful expression of Cabernet. There is a little bit of Merlot and Cabernet as well. That in our discussions, no one could really justify spending three times this price point on some of these other wines because this delivers so much quality. This is textbook. It's what Napa Cab tastes like and a slightly modern style. Modern-ish. You know, one thing that they've, you know, I mean, they've only been around since, I think, 81, but this is all sourced from three vineyards, but they've been, they never were kind of taken by kind of that Parker Wave that swept so many Napa producers. And they've always picked at the right time. They've always used oak again, quite judiciously. Exactly. But it also doesn't have that like green pepper, like herbal quality that really like heights, you know, like really old school Napa Cabs have. It's a very good balance, streamlined. This is one of those wines where the bouquet is just like, you just want to keep coming back to it. It's unreal, the complexity to it. And again, like what we were saying before with the beers, like I like that you can't just immediately identify something and be like, oh, I smell, this is what it smells like. Like it's so integrated that it's pretty difficult to just like be succinct about what you smell, but it's incredible. There's so many kinds of, there's a floral layer, there's an herbal layer, there's of course, all the fruit in various conditions. There's an earthy quality to it as well. And you'll notice too, I mean, I think the tannins are another kind of element of balance that Frogsleep nails. They're not overly... Yeah, they're subtle here, because I'm really picky about that. Yeah. I think this is a beautiful wine. It is fantastically balanced. It does not veer into overripe jammy fruit. It's not overblown with oak. And if you just look at their entire lineup, from Sauvignon Blanc to Chardonnay, both super crisp styles with very moderate alcohols. Even the Zinfandel these guys put out is kind of an old school Claret styles in. It's not, you know, 16.5% alcohol and just porty and jam-like. There's always great balance from Frog's Leap. And this wine has just been on a roll lately. So good. This is Frog's Leap Rutherford Napa Cab. Do they have multiple different Napa Cabs? Or if somebody goes into Binny's and said, I'm looking for Frog's Leap Napa Cab, is this like the only one we have? This will be the one in the aisle on the shelf. Yeah. Yeah. You won't be too confused on this. $55, bro. And I'll say that Napa Cab is continuing to inch up in price point. Wines that were once $45 are now up to $65, $70. And that's not us, guys. Our hand is forced on that. And this one at $55.99 has kind of stayed in this price point for a while. And I just, it's a price when a lot of people are looking for. I highly recommend that. Solid pick. Excellent wide. Cool. All right, I'm next, and I get to keep talking about wine. I didn't bring the other bottle because- You only picked wine, huh? I know, that's not like me. Yeah, it's not like you at all. I thought you were gonna pick Dank Demon. I very much like Dank Demon. I had four of them over the weekend. The heck is Dank Demon? So remember when we tried the Nosferatu from Great Lakes? This is the next one in the series, and it tastes like how Sierra Nevada Green tasted when you were 22. You know what I'm saying? Just bad. Bitter, piney punch in the face. It's so refreshing to have a beer that I haven't had beer like this. That doesn't taste like any other beer on the show. Six or seven years. What's super cool though is that it's a new beer with new hops, yet it tastes old school. Really? They're all three new varieties from Hopstizer. All right, it's not his pick though, so we'll save it for the next one, I guess. Sorry. I didn't bring my second wine because- You didn't even bring your first one. It's not available. You can't buy this one either. No, you totally can. I didn't bring it because you guys had it a couple of weeks ago. So I was going to say the Biodynamic Syrah Grenache from Chateau Maris that we tasted in the Chateau Maris episode a while back. And it's $18.99. But then when you guys were recording the Thanksgiving episode and I busted in here, first of all, I want this to be known that I got the Madeira and you guys were all squabbling about it, but that's the Easter egg. I popped it in here and grabbed the Madeira. And second of all- So you stole it, is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, I did. And second of all, afterwards, Alicia came in and was like, hey, you got to try this cigar volant. And Chris, good pick with the Bonnie Doon Cigar Volant. Thank you. In the same style as that Grenache Syrah Biodynamique, like, I'm the kind of- You can just say biodynamic. Biodynamique? Well, it's spelled with a I-Q-U-E. I'm not going to say biodynamic. Isn't biodynamic the thing that was like one of your trigger words in previous years? Yes, and that's the thing is because I tasted this wine and I was like- Everyone needs to remember this day, the day that Greg Versch supported a biodynamic wine and didn't tell everyone that it smelled like fart. It did have a- As he did on that very day. I don't know why Jim cut that out of the episode. It smelled like fart. I said fart and they cut it. He told the winemaker that his wine smelled like fart. Because he was like, I'm sorry. It's okay. I was like, fart. The guy was British. He's like, no, he's serious. That's just how he is. It's okay. It's not like you're a director of communications and should know what you can and cannot say to people. I'm just being honest. Now, this is the thing. Say anything to people. My pick last year, the Continuum, my pick this year with the big punchy port, the National. I always go for these big forward styles, and I've been looking for something to drink, and I've been looking for something to drink that's not going to knock me out, and not going to punch me in the mouth with tannins, and I've been looking for something to drink that I can afford on a regular basis. I got to tell you, cheap Bordeaux ain't doing it for me. All signs point to Dragon Lady. I had a Dragon. I did. You're okay. So, that's all right. But these are wines, especially the Cigar Volant. It's $15. It's complex. It offers much more beyond just simple fruit at that price point. It completely out delivers. And Pat didn't like it. And I think that's- No, I didn't like it at all. That's wrong. I did not like it at all. Yeah, but it's super good. Because it's a level of complexity and nuance that you never see for that price. So yeah, I really appreciated that. It's a very complex wine at that price point. Totally. I have tried, I think, every vintage of Cigar Volant back to 1993, maybe, which sounds ridiculous, but it's true. Until 2018, when Randall Graham sold the name, but continued to make the wine and completely changed the style and price point. So that wine was brand new to me, and it's very, very different from the way Cigar Volant used to be. But it's very, very much in line with the Bonnie Doone ethos, which is complex, subtle, not overripe. It surprised me at how good it was as well. I really liked it, Chris. I like your smooch. I'm so glad. All right, I'm done. Couple of saw bucks and you get a bottle of that, two Dragon Ladies and you're good to go. I was going to say, you can get a whole 30 rack of Hamish plus a six pack of Tall Boys for 15 bucks. So I was reminded when Roger pulled the Dragon Lady of how much I like those beers and how I didn't drink one for an entire year. So I got a Fuggin Awesome. The name of the beer is Fuggin Awesome. Fuggin Awesome. We don't have to believe it. Check out the label too. It's right up his alley. An Effin Awesome, which is made by the same brewery and it's very similar style. You're so high class, Greg. After I drank those two in one night, I was like, I'm going to have to drink something else. So that's when he had the cigar volant. Alright, cool. Thanks. All right, Chris, you're up next. Okay, so my next pick is from Brunello di Montalcino, 2016, great, great vintage, still very, very young wines. again, this pick was informed by the fact that I had some older bottles in my cellar, and I tried in the last year, a 2010 and a 2012, and they're just unbelievable wines. And so I had to get some 16, which is really pretty wound up right now, but it's this winery strikes kind of a balance between traditional and modern. They're not real modernists, but there is an incredible generosity of fruit to them that you don't always find in Montalcino. I think largely because they are located down in the southeast lower elevation, sunny part of Brunello or Montalcino, I'm sorry. So there's this great generosity of fruit, but then you are not lacking in that famous acidity that Brunello tends to bring and structure and spice and herbs. Just a phenomenal wine that I think in five to ten years is going to be absolutely incredible, but you could certainly drink it now with hearty protein. Chris? Fantastic wine. I'm upset with you for not having an open bottle of this for us right now. Well, somebody run out to the shelf. Oh, man. It's still pretty widely available, which is one of the reasons I picked it as well, but this is a beautiful wine and I'm telling you that if something like the 10 or the 12 that I drink is any indication of the evolution, like the 12 is just singing right now. It's perfect. It's beautiful. I couldn't believe how good that was and the 16 is a much, much better vintage. Is 16 current for release? Is that what's currently on the shelf? Yes. Seems like it should be 18. It's 16. Yeah. Brunello. Now you got five years. Montalcino requires very long aging before release. It's one of the categories on the shelf that you're going to see things like about four or five years after the vintage. Which means it's built to age, but it also means that they age it for you, so it's ready to go when you buy it. Yes. Correct. It spends a fairly long time in wood and then further time in bottle before release. Brunello is a good example. We were talking about this before we started recording, but there are some people that just like younger wines, and that's fine. Brunello is a good example. There might actually be people that prefer to drink it upon release because of how fresh the fruit quality will be and because of the intensity. Then if you like more tertiary qualities, obviously, you'll prefer to have it aged, but I don't think that you're in the wrong for enjoying it in its youth. There are just some people that like that style. Totally. They're totally fine. Absolutely. I agree with you, Alicia, particularly with this wine because I know I've said it like three or four times already, but it has a great generosity of fruit. Some producers you might find to be much leaner, higher in acid and more austere, and really may not be the most fun to drink young, but this one you could definitely open now for sure. All right, Pat, are you gonna bring this home? Yeah, I have two more. You get one. That was awesome. You get one. No, no, I get two. She's a future mom, folks, and that was a mom-responsive, I ever heard one. Too bad, I got two more. The next pick of mine for the year was something that we have tasted on the podcast relatively recently, and that's Barrel Seagrass. Greg hates Barrel because they have an un-Google-able name. But he's a website guy, so who cares what he thinks? I just, they made me know how to spell the word Barrel because they do it wrong. You guys always say this and then don't spell it, so for the people- B-A-R-R-E-L-L. B-A-R-R-E. So this is Barrel Seagrass. It is a rye whiskey finished in rum, agricultural casks, Madeira casks, and apricot brandy casks. I love this just as much as I loved it the first time. I love this whiskey so much. This is just one where I was thinking about what my pick of the year was, and last year it was pretty cut and dry for me. I had this cask of Highland Park that I fell in love with and stuff. But this is just a whiskey that I found myself continuing going back to throughout the year. It's so cheerful. It is. It just instantly makes you happy. It's basically a premixed cocktail. Brophy loves it because he doesn't have to do anything. It's so good. A delightful fruit cocktail cup with a cotton candy floating on top of it. Yeah, it's cask strength and a little hot, but it's perfect. It's really everything I want in cool whiskey. And it's 80 bucks. Cask strength and a little hot. Yeah. Me too. Yeah. So I have still yet to try this magical elixir, so I'll just go along with you and pretend like it's great. Better hurry up, man. It's good. It's running out. I do have two whiskey picks if you want me to share them now, or do you want to go first? Yeah, go ahead. Share your whiskey picks. Honorable mentions. Lay them on us. I don't buy a ton of scotch, although I do like it, but two scotches this year kind of blew my mind. They're both really fresh in my mind. One being the Mortlok 12, Wee Witchy that we tried on a podcast. Oh yeah. It was the Spend or Splurge episode, and it was up against McCallan 12. I just thought that this was such a beautiful scotch whiskey, gorgeous fruit, unbelievable Highland whiskey. Love that. Then on the other end of the spectrum, the Port Charlotte 10-year-old that we tried just recently. Nice. Which is a peated whiskey, which is not really my forte, but I just fell in love with the nose on this, and it drinks so well. I made a Rob Roy with it on Saturday night. Nice. Yeah. Nice. The subtlety and complexity of that is terrific. Yeah. It's off the charts. And both of them are very reasonably priced. The Mortlok's $44.99, Port Charlotte's $60, both completely worth the price of entry. Yeah. Both absolutely great. Mortlok sadly has been back-ordered now for about a month and a half. So hopefully, we'll see some by the end of the year, but who knows. Okay. I am buying a bottle as soon as it comes in. All right, we're wrapping it up with this one. What the hell is this? It stinks. It doesn't stink at all. We're wrapping it up with another just big surprise for me this year, and the rest of the Whiskey Hotline team would agree with this. And this is the first release in America, at least, for the Ardnamurkin Distillery. I'm sorry, can you say that again? Ardnamurkin. Ardnamurkin? Yeah, they made it real easy. A-R-D-N-A-M-U-R-C-H-A-N. And he claims that he can't pronounce V-A-L-A-G-H. Yeah. So Ardnamurkin is a newer distillery. They started distilling in 2014, actually. So they are a Coastal West Highland. This was started by the people that own Adelphi. wait, Coastal West Highland? Yes. So it's briny, but it's still, like, nutty and sweet. Nutty and sherry. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of that real young Kilhoman we had, like, 10 years ago when it was, like, only eight and five years old. I can see that. Not as peaty as that, though. Adelphi is a independent bottler that got started, I want to say, in the early 90s. And we've carried Adelphi casts from time to time, and they tend to be a bit on the expensive side. And we have a lot of relationships with a lot of different Scotch independent bottlers. And Adelphi is a good one, but it's not something that you see all over the place. But this is truly an impressive single malt whiskey, especially as a first release for us. So they make peated malt and unpeated malt. This is a 50-50 blend of each. And of that blend, 65% of it was bourbon barrel, 35% sherry, the sherry was PX and Oloroso casks. Oh, that's not complicated at all. So it's a blend of peated and unpeated in a blend of different kinds of barrels from an independent bottler from a brand new distillery. Yeah, from the independent bottler's brand new distillery. But this is just awesome. This is everything I want in a Scotch whisky. It's a little bit of smoke. It's a little bit of toffee, sugared sweetness. There's some fruit in there. There's some spice in there. I love it. It's 50 bucks or it's 60 bucks. I think it might be 59.99. Seriously? Yeah. This is pretty aggressive with the iodine though. Ooh, I don't think, I don't find it iodiney at all. I find it pretty subtle compared to like I love, not me. This is $60 on the shelf. So how many of these can you get for one bottle of Greg's pick? Oh, shut up. That's not the point. You can't get my pick. But I want to save this for last. This has been just a delightful surprise for me in the Scotch whiskey landscape this year. And you taste a lot. We taste a lot and we did several single casts of single malt Scotch this year, and this is one I picked above pretty much everything else. It's super subtle and complex. Roger is pointing out the iodine, but there's so much. There's this like brown sugar and graham cracker and then this orange peel too and a tiny wisp of smoke, but not to the point of being hammy or smoke. And there's some dark fruit in there too. Yeah. It's pretty smoky too. Wisp of smoke? I don't think it's that smoky. Roger is super sensitive to smoky. I think the smokiness comes out on the nose much more than it does the palate. It's interesting. I think you got to want smoky. Yeah, again, I'm as sensitive to that kind of thing, but it's a very kind of classic. I think it delivers for an Isla fan. They'll enjoy this. Chris liked the lightly peated Port Charlotte, and I think it's like a long... Sorry, heavily peated Port Charlotte. I think it's along those same lines of it's peated, it's there, but it's not like... It's not laphroaic, man. It's not Ardbeg. Yeah. Well, that one, there was a lot of smoke on the nose, but not in the palate. This is kind of the opposite. I get more of the iodine smoke on the palate. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask, Roger. I think we're both maybe a little sensitive to those smoky phenolics that can get medicinal. This is a phenolic, Scott. For sure. Fandady. It's super. I noted that in the Port Charlotte too, but it was subtle enough that I eventually found a lot to love in it. I guarantee you're going to enjoy this a lot more than Roger. Chris, you're going to love this. You're absolutely going to love this, Scott. Okay. I'd take Port Charlotte over this any day. So I'm looking forward to this. I considered Toraveg. Toraveg is a new distillery on the Isle of Skye and their first release. Honorable mentions. Yeah, it's sold out. Their first release sold out. The second release should actually be hitting within this week or something. And the first release really was quite impressive, but this one upped it though. The Sardinian Mercury is just fantastic. Are they independent? Yeah. Wow, it's good. It's really good. Yeah, it's really good. Also, they took a page out of the Leatherby Playbook in terms of package design. Yeah, pretty simple. And it's a pretty big distillery though. I want to say their capacity is already up to 400,000 liters a year, which is big. I don't know at all what that means. I mean, it's bigger than Kilhoman, I think. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, that's our favorites for the year, huh? Yeah. Sorry. Sorry, I only kept it to three. Actually, I'm proud of you. You talked about more than three. Yeah. Right? I talked about like 10 things, so sorry. All right. Let's wrap it up. Our top 10 includes, I mean, there's five of us, and we each picked two, kind of. So our top 10 has 11, but it includes- It includes, okay, we've got Frogsleap, Frogsleap, Napa Cab, we got Napa Cab, we got White Burgundy, we have, we've got a, no, we have a, what was your white wine, Chris? Corey, just let everybody say their pigs. Penn's like, all right, let me wrap this up here. I'm going to say everyone's pig. It's very Pantani of you. I think we should all say each other's pigs. So Chris really liked a Chablis. No. No, sorry. Chris really liked a Vouvray. Nobody ever talks about Vouvray and Brunello. That's terrific. Yeah. Roger liked an old school stout. Absolutely terrific. Roger did like an old school stout, but also a hazy IPA. He's evolving. Yes. It's an old school stout with adjuncts though. I mean, it's not like- Yeah, but it's the least adjunct. It's a round, compact little boy there. Greg's was some $1,000 port nobody can get. And what was the other one? Cigar Volante. That wine that sucked. It was superb, Pat. Come on. Great summation. This is great. Well, I mean, I wish I had tried that $1,000 port. It sounds like if you're interested in it, you can't get it, but you can email comments at binnys.com and Greg will let you know why. And Pat brought some tatery whiskies. So, thanks. Yeah, all available. You guys actually brought some stuff that I never would have tasted, and I'm a better person for having tried your favorites this year. Yeah. That was forced. Yeah, f**k you. Well, it's been a lot of fun. These were awesome picks. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoy this kind of stuff, do us a favor, leave us a review. Tell your friends about the show. We'll see you next week. I'm Pat. I'm Roger. I'm Greg. I'm Alicia. I'm Chris. Keep tasting.