Are you guys Team Truly or White Claw? Go. Truly. That's like asking me a question about- Like, what is that book with the werewolves and the vampires? Greg. Who gives a s***? Jesus. Ask me about Twilight. Barb. Truly. Haven't had enough. I will cast my vote at the end of this cast. Yeah, some of us, we don't have opinions about K-pop bands either. I'll also, I've only tried- I don't either. That tells me Greg does. One White Claw and two Truelys, so that's the only- In your life? Yes, in the whole year of existence of those brands. Wow, Barb. You're listening to another edition of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Roger, do marketing and education for Binny's. Hillary, communications. Pat, especially spirits. Barb, I'm cool, so I'm in wine. And Greg, I do communications for Binny's. This week, after much ado about our favorite episodes, Cans was one of the buns that people liked the most. We're gonna do Cans Part Two. This week, we're gonna talk especially about spiked hard seltzer water, which is all the rage right now. Move on to some classic cocktails, Nouveau cocktails, All in Cans, and do wine in cans. So we have a ton of cans here lined up. All the cans. Can you dig it? Everybody can dig it. But when we talked about this a year ago, it was like it was the hot thing, but it wasn't compared to where it is now. Now it's the hot thing. No. In that past year, space in our stores has grown like fivefold. These things are everywhere. They're multiplying every week. There's new hard seltzer waters, there's canned cocktails, there's canned wine, there's canned wine cocktails. We have pallets stacked of these products that we did before. Yeah, totally. Our buyers are being presented with new products in this format every single day. It's just getting out of hand, but it's what the people want, so we are trying to give you what you want here. We're going to taste a whole bunch today and give them the classic thumbs up or thumbs down, I guess. What do you guys think? It's convenience, it's low ABV, it's low calorie. What else is the attraction here? We're talking about overall or just the spike celsers? Cans. Cans? Convenience. Yeah, convenience. You can take them with you? Yeah. I think a lot of people are drinking these out of the can, not taking the time to pour them over. They get cold faster. I mean, they're environmentally friendly, if that matters to you, which it should matter to you. This is a lot of people trading up or tangentially for light macro beer. I think that's a ton of those people that suffered in silence and begrudgingly drank the big guys' light beer and didn't really like it, felt it was a waste of calories. Now they have so many more options of flavors and tastes that they can do for pretty much the exact same, if not fewer, calories. Beer drinkers who didn't really like beer are now drinking Spike Seltzer. I think so. I think that's a big part of it, not all of it. What is really interesting about this is it's crossing tons of categories. I mean, everybody's drinking these. What we'll also talk about in this that I want to address is exactly what these things are. It can get confusing. Some of them are made from malt, some are made from sugar. The ones that are made from malt, I feel are the progression of FMBs, so flavored malt beverages. Mike's Lemonade was a huge thing, Twisted Tea. Then we saw Hard Soda explode for a while. A lot of the magazines have been trying to unpack this and figure out, is this just a fad? Is it going to blow over? Are we going to see things decline? I think the seltzer, it took a while to kick off. It's important to remember, spiked seltzer started the trend back in 2012. So it's taken a little time to snowball into what it is now. But I think some changes in ABV, some the marketing of it, these slim cans have really taken off, and interest in lower calorie beers, the huge push of McUltra, I think has helped this. Not to mention LaCroix. People are not drinking soda, they want to drink something lighter and fresher. Yeah, in the past three, four years, LaCroix has gone crazy too. And 2012 was long before people had really switched over to LaCroix. Yeah, LaCroix and San Pellegrino and anything sparkling water, whether alcoholic or non-alcoholic, it's everywhere, like everywhere. So do you guys think that since LaCroix was more popular, do you have friends, do you ever mix alcohol in your LaCroix? Yeah, vodka for sure. Yeah, absolutely. So I think again, when we were talking about convenience, this is like skipping a step, or I think if you're going to parties and barbecues and stuff, it's always a little awkward for people to leave, mix a drink, and then come back. You can just have these in a cooler, reach down and grab it as if you're grabbing a beer. See, I find everything at a party awkward. So I pick myself a cocktail. Not to mention when you have to juggle a two-liter of Coke and a candle like Captain Morgan. All right, well, we've got a lot of these to taste, so let's get going here. I guess this first one is from Truly, is that it? Yeah, Truly. So Truly is made by Boston Beer. And this one, you're looking at 5% ABV, 100 calories per 12-ounce can. These are gluten-free, so Truly is made with sugar as opposed to malt, and they ferment it pretty dry. It does still have a gram of sugar in it, so it's not completely dry. Wait a minute, made with sugar, so it's a sugared water that they ferment and carbonate? Yes, it is fermented from cane sugar, and they ferment it dry till it gets to the appropriate alcohol, and it's fermented dry, so there's no real residual sugar left. Trippy. Yeah. It's not even like rum, they don't distill it. It's just like rum base. Kind of like the beginnings of rum. The beginnings of rum, kind of, yeah. Sort of, but it's not using molasses, whereas most rums molasses. This is basically just sugar shiners, so it'd be like people make a moonshine out of sugar. And nobody who drinks this stuff cares about it. But yeah, you're right. It's an interesting source. All right. So what flavor is this? This is wild berry. Yeah. So there's obviously not enough time for us to taste through every single hard seltzer. We're going to hit quite a few of them, though. So we want to hit some of the major brands and some of the flavors that we know people are digging from those brands. Wild berry, I think, is one of the most well done, truly, flavors. I think it's kind of artificial smelling. It smells like gummy worms. It smells like kid style and all. Yeah. It's got a fake artificial berry thing going on. Yeah. Like Flintstone chewables. Yeah. I don't like it. It's fine. It doesn't have a lot of flavor. It's got a little... This is good. I mean... Yeah. It's not offensive. No. No. Not at all. It's fine. The interesting thing with these is this idea of perceived sweetness. I think our minds associate fruitiness and these really bright fruit flavors with candy and stuff. Even if it isn't necessarily sweet, it tricks you into thinking it's sweet. I mean, this has very little sugar in it, even though it tastes a little sweet. How strong is this? Five percent. Five percent. All right. The next one is from Smirnoff. Smirnoff is famous for the ice products. So like FMBs, hard lemonades, hard fruit-flavored punch things. The lineage of these, yeah, definitely goes back and I feel in a lot of ways we're going, we're returning to the early wine cooler days because we're going to try some wine and cans and there's more sparkling wine and cans. So it really just depends on what kind of, how you're getting that booze into the bubbly beverage. So with these guys, they are crafted to remove gluten. So it's a FMB. Yeah, it says right on the top, premium malt beverage. Interesting. No artificial sweeteners, zero sugar added, 4.5 ABV, 90 calories. It smells like Smarties candies. This is less bad than the last one. Really? I think this tastes more like candy. Yeah, I don't like candy. I like simple flavors and I hate when they get all goofy and then it just- Well, this one's crisp. The other one tastes like limestone and chemical on the finish to me, and this one actually- I found the other one more flavorless than this. I think there's more residual fake flavor in this. The other one was all about the fake aroma, but really no flavor, which I dug. Yeah, I couldn't care with that. We're getting clod now, huh? Yeah, getting clod. Yeah. obviously, the brand that is commanding the market, that has created the phenomenon that is hard water is White Claw. Folks from Mike's Hard Lemonade. What's funny is that these have been around for a while, and everybody is assuming that they just came out, but what I would say about the White Claw versus Truly is that across the board, people tend to say that White Claw is sweeter. If you like drinking La Croix, which I've drank La Croix for years, I think truly appeals more to plain sparkling water, non-alcoholic drinkers, whereas they're stealing like pop drinkers with White Claw. We've got White Claw Mango in front of us, and I will say this is easily the sweetest one so far. Sweetest, and again, most artificially for me, it's just- This is like mango chewy candies. Yep, or it tastes like Slurpee. It's like mango scented candle. It's very artificial and kind of waxy for me. I don't think it's bad though. I like mango, but this is pretty cool. It's a little too sweet. I don't know. Greg hates mango. The other brands are digging in on the whole no added sugar. That's a stab at White Claw, so this has added sugar. Really? It's only 100 calories, but it has two grams of added sugar, two carbs, it is gluten free. Bon and Viv, Cranberry Spiked Seltzer. Until recently, these were known as just Spiked Seltzer, and this is the brand that started it all. They since sold to Anheuser-Busch. Once it became a category, it was a little tricky to have your brand just be called Spiked Seltzer. It was a little confusing to the consumer, so now it's called Bon and Viv. What flavor is this, cranberry? Cran. Zero sugar, gluten-free, 4.5% ABV, 90 calories. It's not bad. Yes, it is. No, this one's awful. I don't know what's going on with this. It's got a remnant of black cherry. See, cranberry is actually gross on its own. You bake it down, you add sugar and citrus to it to make that gelatinous Thanksgiving thing that people like, but on its own, it's this bitter little berry that grows in a swamp. I like this. This is the best one. You're really hating on fruit today. I think this is the most refreshing of the group so far, like the driest and the crispest, but I don't like the flavor. Yes, I do like the dry crispness, but the flavor, I think they missed on this flavor. So we do have more Bon and Viv. We pop one of their variety packs. There's another interesting phenomenon about these is that people love the variety packs, but as much as we see people buying them, I've also heard people tell stories where friends say, I have millions of these left in my fridge after parties because people don't like one flavor and they leave the other one. So anyway, this is a new one. This is one of their botanical varieties, so they've been playing around with that. This is hibiscus. Clementine hibiscus. I was going to guess orange. Clementine hibiscus, huh? Kind of like a light orange sherbert. Hey, this isn't gross. Yeah, I like this a lot, actually. Is the hibiscus actually there? Really subtle if it is, if at all. It's very refreshing. Yeah, I like that one. Yeah, this is good. Yeah. All right. Nice work, Bon and Viv, whoever you are. This is my vote for the best one so far. Since we like that one, let's try another. Let's make it a triplet here. Touring the whole variety pack of Bon and Viv. Pear elderflower. Oh, boy. My friend did say she really liked this one. This one smells. I already know what it's going to taste like. Like fresh pear. It's pretty wild. Pear candy too, but. Oh, my God. Fresh pear. Also pear candy. They're both there. The green apple candy. Very aromatic. This is pretty good. Dude, this is green apple Jolly Rancher. Right on the nose. It says pear, but I definitely smell green apple. This is horse sh**. I like this. It's not at all pear, but I don't mind the flavor. There's apple there for sure. Yeah. I see what you're saying, but there's pear there too. It kind of dries your mouth out a little bit. You want to try the last Boniviv or should we move on to another one? Yeah. I want to try the other Boniviv too, but I vote on this one for being able to crush them. I could slam a handful of these. These two, I think that flavor or just Boniviv? That flavor. The mandarin and the... We'll be forgiving and call it pear... . Perscus and the jolly rancher elderflower. Yeah. Okay. The other thing too with these is that I could see some of them would work better than others as mixers. I definitely heard people saying that they add gin or vodka to these in addition to simply drinking them out of the can. We took a Twitter poll. I was surprised at how many people said that they mix considering it's all about convenience. Maybe it's not. Convenient, but it's also too low in alcohol for many people, including my tastes. Savage. 59% of the people who voted said that they were fine the way it is. Just straight up out of the can. Yeah, just drink more of them. I hate everything grapefruit. Which leaves, it was a three-way poll, right? Four. Four-way poll? Yeah, tequila, vodka or gin, or just the way it is. Okay, so I like the smell of this one. I do grapefruit, yeah. A little bit of that squirt quality. Yeah, like Stiegel. Oh, that's a good one. I like this one. It finishes. It's not just grapefruit. There's like a flowery quality in there too. Christmas. It smells smoky. Yeah, I get that too. There's a weirdness to the nose. The flavor is decent. Who would have figured out? I think the finish is pithy and rindy though. Pithy and rindy? You're pithy and rindy. It is pithy and rindy. He's right. It's drying and a little bit of citric acidity taste. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's not complex like we're making it sound. It is like a laser beam of grapefruit, but this is another one I could crush upon. You can put some tequila in that for sure. My vote so far is for the common vine. Or just drink it like a normal human being. Roger's just trying to get lit. Yeah. You can just have the tequila. Okay, so White Claw or Truly? I'm just kidding. You had like one truly. I'm a Bon and Viv guy. Straight up Bon and Viv guy, obviously. Yeah. Bon and Viv I was impressed with. I think with these, we sell, like I said, a lot of variety packs. Even if you haven't been sold yet on these and you've had ones that you didn't care for, taste through the field. We've got them at crazy good prices right now. We also have a lot of them in our Make Your Own Six Pack racks. So if you want to do your own variety pack from different manufacturers, you can do that too. Pass. I'll take the crab juice. All right, canned wine. Canned wine is a growing concern. We sat down with one of our wine buyers and tried literally 60 canned wines, and we only carry a handful of them. We took the time to find the ones that are actually worth drinking, and that's what you find to Binny's. All right, first up for wine and cans, I'm passing around a rosé made by Cupcake Vineyards, which is what we fancifully call a negotiate, it means they buy stuff from other people, they grow it. Yeah, they bottle a bunch of cheap stuff, right? Yeah, and put their own label on it, and throw it in a bottle. Only in this case, yeah, they threw some into cans. And I want to show you guys this one, because backstory, a few weeks ago, I blind tasted out all of our sophisticated Binny's wine managers on four rosés all out of different formats. So we had one out of a glass bottle, one out of a three liter box, one out of a can, and one out of a 1.5 liter bottle that is mass-produced. And in one of the two meetings, this was the rosé that won by a landslide. This was the choice? Yes, it was. All right, cupcake rosé in a can. Thirteen and a half percent alcohol. Plus, if you want to consume a lot of wine without people judging you, it's fun to remember that a 12-ounce can is half of a bottle of wine. Yeah, that's worth pointing out. It's like 355 milliliters and a bottle of wine is 750 milliliters. So if you drink just straight up drink a can of wine, you're drinking half a bottle of wine. Maybe be careful. You guys know I don't drink much wine and anybody who listens to this knows, I probably don't drink much wine. This reminds me of cheap jug white Zinfandel. It's better than that. It's a little better than that. It doesn't have that artificially and it doesn't have much residual sugar. It's not sweet. That's key. It has a little bit of acidic cut. It has the nice berry fruit, a little bit of the berry fruit. You know what it doesn't have is that circus peanuts taste that a lot of the southern French ones get. This is pure California, straight ahead fruit. I like how dry it is. Yeah, it's refreshing on the finish, a lot of berry fruit. I think it's really pleasant. Look, the jury is still out on wine and cans. I'm not 100 percent endorsing all of them every day, every time. It's just a format. They just have to get the right thing in the can. I think they're still really working on, I don't know if it's carbon dioxide, sulfur. There's a lot of reductive quality that comes out of a lot of them. When you say reductive quality, what does that mean in layman's terms? Smells like sulfur, smells like bad eggs, or maybe boiled cabbage. There's a lot of that coming out of canned wine, and I'm not sure why. Well, like in a production way, airtight production, and that the sulfur can't ever escape. And if they package it in a way that's completely anaerobic, to preserve it, and you're going to get stuff that... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe crack the can and let it breathe for a couple minutes before you take it to the dome. There you go. That's a good tip, and for sure, that's a start, but sometimes it just never airs off, and we can't really figure out any pattern about it. But I've found, in general, if you're talking about still wine or plain wine, not cocktails, rosé is usually fine. Most bubbles have been okay, and any of the wine cocktails out of a can are usually pretty much okay. Before we move on from this, it doesn't say anything about the sappage on there, but I bet you it's a healthy glop of Pinot grigio. Oh, you think it's red wine mixed with white wine? I think it's, yeah. What's that method called? What do you say that? Oh, it's not Sainte-Nye. It doesn't have the structure and flesh of a Pinot. Correct. Right? Am I right? You would read a spec sheet on this or something? I have not read a spec sheet, and I would be surprised if that was the method of production for this particular rosé. My guess is it's just Central Valley, maybe Pinot Noir, maybe Syrah or something. Yeah. It's very non-denominational rosé. All questions to ponder when you're shotgunning it. Hey. Is it free-run juice? Is it Sanye? Well, the implication there is that along with the watermelon and strawberry, it's got some of that melon quality that you get from white wine too. It could be. Sorry to Wine Nerd on the Can Podcast. That was good info. Thanks. Yeah. All right. Up next is Capacola Rosé Sangria. 13.9% alcohol by volume. I'm sorry. I pronounced it wrong. It's carpaccio. Oh, I thought it was Gabagool. capriccio Rosé Sangria. It is a 375 ml can, 13, so what is that, a pint? 13.9% alcohol made with premium grape wine with natural flavors and elderberry extract added. So this brand, it's capriccio. capriccio. I said Gabagool. Yeah. And this brand, talk about something catching fire. This is something that we got wind of mid-summer last year, and could literally not get enough to keep on our shelves. We were allocating bottles of capriccio Sangria at one point. And my working theory about why people got so excited about it is, it's a high alcohol sweet wine. And folks who are used to drinking sweet wines are used to 5%, 6%, 7%. So now they started drinking this capriccio Sangria that's at 13.9% and just getting hammered. This tastes like melted popsicles. It does taste, yeah, like really candied. Yeah. It's just candied mixed berry sweet. This is so sweet. It's like sticky. Yeah, it is. It's thick because it's so sweet. There's so much residual sugar. Yeah. Oh, man. Kind of like the fruit flavors. It's fun. But it's way too sweet for me. It's very sweet. It's very sweet, but it's also very high alcohol. And in the wine world, that is super rare to find that confluence of. I'm surprised the package is so it's such a large form it can considering how strong it is, too. Yeah. It's a 12 oz. It's coming toward the market from the Sangria perspective, which is fruit flavored and it's traditionally it's been 6 or 7 percent. And this is like a high octane version of that and it's sweet like candy. But of all this Ingrias we tasted, especially that one day, this is better than all those. Yeah. Maybe because it's so sweet. All right. Well, so that was sweet and people love sweet. And that was sweet and strong. Be careful with that one. It'll catch up on it. Last year, we tried some canned cocktails. Canned cocktails are huge now. It's so cool. And everybody's getting into the game. Breweries are coming out with canned cocktails. Distilleries are coming out with canned cocktails, especially here in Chicago. And then, I don't know, lifestyle brands are coming out with canned cocktails. Right? Like, I don't know. And it's so cool. Pat, you led a group of our employees through a huge canned cocktail building. Just yesterday, we tasted like four dozen different canned cocktails. I went through the canned cocktail aisle at the Lincoln Park Binny's, and anything that explicitly stated that it had vodka or gin or something truly kind of going for that cocktail-centric wasn't just spiked sparkling water. But if it said vodka soda or vodka and this flavor or something, I pulled it and we tasted it all, and some were fantastic, some were not fantastic, so I brought an assortment here today, and we're going to taste through and see what we come up with. I thought it was cool. What you said, what you're looking for in one of these is, is it a cocktail? Yeah. I think the best compliment, the true measure of quality you can give to one of these is if it was served to you blind in a glass and you were at a bar and you said, yes, I will have, I will pay you another 10, $12 or whatever for another one of I'll have one of these. I will have one of those. I think it tastes like a cocktail I want to drink. I think that's the best compliment you can give to these things. And so there are a couple of them out there that do and a couple of that don't. So we'll see. What's up first, Pat? First, we're going to try, we're going to go on the light side. We're going to try a couple vodka and sodas. And the first one we're going to try, we got this new line in called High Noon, High Noon Sun Sips. It's in a skinny can. It's 100 calories, no added sugar, gluten-free, blah, blah, blah. It is vodka with real fruit juice, sparkling water and natural flavors. And the first one we're pouring is going to be a watermelon. Can I ask the obvious question that nobody wants to ask? How hard is it to make a vodka soda? It is not. And that was funny because one of the ones we tasted yesterday was literally just a vodka soda, no added flavor or anything. Just a canned vodka and soda water. And they're charging 10 bucks for a four pack of 12 ounce cans of vodka soda. But that's kind of what we talked about earlier. You're not going to bring a handle of Tito's and a thing of soda water. Club soda. I am. And a lime too. That's just so that you can avoid the party. All right. So we got a bunch of these. So in the basement by myself with the cat. What are you doing? Making a drink. So first up, high noon sun sips vodka and soda watermelon. Watermelon. So have you noticed on these, do they often say like pour this over ice? Some do what I noticed yesterday. So in tasting all these, we taste a lot of them in 12 ounce formats. And then there's a bunch of little ones with 200 ml cans. And those tend to be stronger, like 10 to 15 percent alcohol. And they all say pour over ice. I don't know that we're capturing the same audience though, honestly, because I think personally, if I'm reaching for a cocktail in a can, it's because I just want to hold the can and drink the cocktail and not have to do anything else. So to have this really strong one that's almost syrupy in body because it should be diluted and poured over ice and stuff, it's like, why am I buying this? Why do I have this in this format? All right, so what do you guys think of this watermelon pocket? This doesn't suck at all. This is right in the spiked seltzer category. It's right there. And they get some leeway because it's got more opportunity for flavor. It's sweeter than the other one. Yeah, it's exactly the same thing. It's the same level of alcohol, too. Yesterday when I tasted this, I thought it would taste like pure watermelon rind. This is really good. This has a nice balance of rind versus fruit watermelon. It's still a little green. It's still a little green. It keeps it tasting fresh. Yeah. Yeah. It is sweeter. All right, so the next one is a high noon grapefruit. I love this one we tasted yesterday. It's one of my favorite things we tasted all day yesterday. See how it stacks up against the Bon and Viv grapefruit. Pat, I guess what I'm confused about is if these are 4.5 or 5% ABV, what makes me buy the vodka soda version versus the hard seltzer version? I think it's just marketing and convenience maybe. The hard seltzer version isn't necessarily a vodka to begin with. It could just be a flavored malt beverage, or it could just be they're making a vodka out of sugar and just mixing it with water. I think it's better. I liked it better than any of the hard seltzer so far, even though it really is at the end of the day a hard seltzer. You're just too sweet. I don't like anything grapefruit. I like it. I like it a lot. I like grapefruit. I think that's it, Barb. I don't like grapefruit either. It's just isn't doing it. I love this. I think it's got a nice amount of sweetness and says no added sugar and it's only 100 calories, so it's weird that it's this sweet. How is that possible? I don't know, man. It's good. It tastes like squirt. Yeah, that's why it's awesome. Here's the fundamental problem with this. It's four and a half percent alcohol. I would drink it until I maintained a nice buzz. I would be peeing every 15 minutes. I think that might be part of why people like these two is because it feels like- They get their steps in? You stay hydrated. Yeah, because it feels like you're hydrating yourself. Like, oh, it's good. I'm drinking water. All right. Well, I've got now, keeping it back local, I guess, I've got a Two Brothers Artisan Spirits Mango Pineapple Vodka Soda. So this unlike a spiked seltzer that you might see from another brewery, they have a distillery, they're making a vodka, and then they're cutting it down with water, carbonating it, adding flavor. So this is just, oh, mango pineapple. Mango pineapple. I don't know why I didn't want to like this, but I like it, right? It's good. It smells like sun tan lotion. Pineapple candy, is that like, pineapple candy is very different than pineapple. It flirts with being fake tasting and smelling, but I don't think it goes quite as overboard as it could. It's fine. No, I don't like it. You like it a lot? One thumbs up. I don't like it. Not quite it too. It's artificially for me. One more vodka soda. This one's also from a brewery, Boulevard Brewing out of Kansas City, Missouri, home of the favorite Cezanne's of the Cezanne King Adamson over here. They have a line of cocktails called Fling, and this is a blood orange vodka soda. They are not making the distilled spirits that are in here. They are partnering with other distilleries. This is made with vodka from 360 Vodka, which is some Missouri brand of vodka. It looks cool. What's that say about beer breweries? Breweries are doing non-beer. Beer sales are falling, and breweries are trying to find ways to maintain revenue streams. Well, good on them for innovating. It's all right. That tastes like those Italian ice things. If they were using Nutrisweet for the Italian ice. Yeah, it's a little bit of that like cloying finish, fake sugar finish. Yeah, it is a little bit saccharine. Yeah, saccharine. Good, not great. How much is that? Those are $12.99 a four-pack. The flavor itself is good, I think. I like the blood orange, and it's refreshing, but yeah, I get a little of that splendid aftertaste. $12.99 a four-pack? That's so expensive. How strong is that? This should be 12 of them for that much money. 5% ABV. Oh, that's softly. I got to get the taste of that out of my mouth. Not truly? You can really use a Truly to cleanse right now. All right, so we're going to try some Moscow Mules next. Kind of one of the first canned cocktails we had on the shelves. They've obviously grown in popularity. We have a bunch of different ones now. Because once again, it's hard to mix vodka with non-alcoholic ginger beer. This is one I don't understand. Yeah, the easiest cocktail in the world to make. Ginger beer comes in a can. Just add vodka to it. Take a couple of sips and then put vodka in it. So this one's from, again, another one from two brothers, two brothers, Artisan Spirits. This is 7.5% alcohol. Yeah. Also, we have crabbies, right? It's like an alcoholic ginger beer. Yeah, but it's not vodka. Does this have lime or anything like that in it? Yeah, lime is another component to it. It doesn't say on here if there's lime in it though. It's mellow. I do like it. It's a nice mule. It tastes good. It's good. I'll let you know in a minute. Roger's bug-guarding me can. I was trying to see if it said lime. That one was from two brothers, right? Two brothers seems pretty mellow. You know what I look for? This is a weak-ass Moscow mule. Is it the ginger? Because I look for spicy ginger. I've got an over-the-top spicy one coming up. This next one is super ginger. The next one is the staff pick. This is the two times we've done this big tasting with the staff. This has been everybody's favorite Moscow mule. It's available at all Binny's stores. This is called The Copper Can. It's 10% alcohol. It looks more like a Moscow mule. It looks like it's got some cloudy ginger beer and lime juice actually in it. Right on. Pretty cool. That's a four pack of cans. Yeah, that's a mule. I like that a lot. Copper Can, staff favorite. This is pretty good. That is 10% guys. Yeah, it's 10%. It's 10% that actually- It doesn't taste like it. You're getting some trouble with this guy. They actually say on the can three shots per can. Yeah. The distributor who sells it to us says, well, yeah, I always add more vodka to it though. Yeah, you got to spice it up there. No, that's definitely delicious. Yeah, it's good. 12.90 on a four pack. Frankly, that might be better than my own home-made Moscow mule straight up. If there's anything wrong with this at all, it's the fact that it's a little on the sweet side, and then if you're somebody who likes LaCroix and you're getting away from soda, it's going to seem heavy. Yeah. But it's a cocktail, not a spiked seltzer. Yeah, and it's really authentic too. Yeah. Well, I think that's why I like the Two Brothers one more. Because it's lighter? It's more like a hard seltzer. The Two Brothers one is a marriage of canned cocktail and hard seltzer. I agree with that. So what's our next mule? Well, this next one comes from New Holland Spirits. Wait till you taste this one. This is my favorite, but it's kind of polarizing. I asked the distiller if he liked making these, and he just shrugged his shoulders. Yeah. Right. He's folding it in. Pat, do you like this one because it's heavy on the ginger? It is over the top ginger. So much ginger, gross. No, that's why I like it. It is over the top ginger. You're the most over the top ginger. So this does say pour over rice for what it's worth. Tell me what to do. It's a spicy meatball. How strong is this one, Barb? No, nine percent. It stings the nostrils. Important to note that this is made with gin and not vodka, which is kind of cool. And I think the piney and the botanical character from the gin actually marry pretty well with the juniper. Dude, up until now. Marry pretty well with the ginger. Oh, it burns on the back. We've been watching black and white television and this is color. This is suddenly high def. Isn't this awesome? Oh, it's good. This is easily my favorite canned cocktail in the store. I like it a lot. It definitely has that big cake of spice on the finish, but I find it very sweet. Oh, yeah, it's sweet, but the spice kind of keeps it from being cloying. Like it has no business not being cloying and syrupy, but that spice just totally balances it out. This needs ice. I mean, it says pour it over ice. Needs ice. You like it, right? Yeah. I don't think it needs it. It's crazy spicy. I will take cans to the face. You like it, though? No. Yeah. I'm not pouring this over ice. This is good. This is real. This is like Boenderberg spicy ginger beer if you're in that one. Yeah. Boenderberg. Boenderberg. Yeah. Australian stuff. This is awesome, though. It's awesome. It's a great meal. Do we have any other meals? No. That's it on the meals. We have three. One is the Copper Can. What's the podcast winning mule then? I'm voting for New Holland. Two brothers. Copper Can. Copper Can. New Holland. Yeah. Since my vote counts six, that's the one. All right. What are we trying next then? We got a couple of canned margarita cocktails here. Let's do those. This first one is coming around from Cut Water Spirits. You're going to kill me, but we're going to try this side by side with a margarita from Buzz Tall's. Yeah. Buzz Tall's. So Buzz Balls, it still are those goofy round plastic balls, cocktails and balls with a can top. Buzz Tall's are stronger. This is 13 or 13.5 percent. It has a can top, but it's actually not carbonated. This is the kind of margarita you would definitely just pour over ice. So the Buzz Balls package was always iconic. With Buzz Tall's, they've managed to make a tennis ball can smaller. Yeah. It's plastic still, but it's like a mini tennis ball can that just holds a strong cocktail in it. What's up, lawsuit? The top says lime rita, lime rita chiller. Not lime margarita, though, so it's okay. I think it's suable. That's suable. Dear Budweiser. This is a collector's item right here. This smells like it was a Cuervo Margarita Max. I'm Team Buzz Tall's on this one. Look at the color difference. I am also Team Buzz Tall's on this one. I think the Buzz Tall's is a wildly better margarita. What wacko bizarro universe are we picking the Buzz Tall's over like the Kraft distillery product? I said the same thing yesterday. Dude, all 12 employees who were tasting through all these with us yesterday, everybody picked the Buzz Tall's as the better margarita. You're totally right. It's better. It's a better margarita. It tastes like a margarita made with margarita mix. The other one tastes like a real margarita. I'm going to totally take Team Roger on this one. A good margarita tastes like tequila with a little bit of lime and maybe some orange on top. But there's nothing wrong with having the other kind of margarita too. There's one thing wrong with it. Diabetes. I'll tell you another thing wrong with it. Yeah, this isn't tequila. This is made with wine. Oh, yeah. The Buzz Tall's are wine coolers. They're like the last bastion of wine coolers. Also, they're proud to label their product women-owned. So that's a twofer for you. It was like a master's grad school project. Yeah, I don't care what the basis is. It's a better tasting margarita. That's all I'm saying. Is it Mexican wine? No. It's orange wine, actually. Orange wine? Yeah, it does say orange wine. It's orange wine. Orange wine. Yeah. Like the wine. Orange wine is white wine made like a red wine. They make Buzz Tall's margarita mix out of orange wine. For all the hipsters. There are two kinds of people who like orange wine. There's turtleneck wearing sommeliers. With man buns. And then there's like the college kid who just pokes a hole in the bottom of a Buzz Tall's. There's two people on the tree. Buzz Tall's are $14.99 a four pack. I can get after that. All right, up next, a couple of rum cocktails. First, Two Brothers Mojito, made with their own rum, it's 7.5% alcohol. This mojito is good. There's too much mint, there's not enough lime. No. It tastes like spearmint. It's a little too minty for me. If you like mint, it's your thing. It tastes like double the pleasure, double your fun. Who's drinking a mint cocktail? Really? Yeah. It's like liquid chewing gum. Yeah. No, I was just saying. At least you'll have fresh breath. I get it. All right. It's okay. Fair effort for a rum cocktail. Next one is we're going back to Fling from Boulevard. This is a Mai Tai. They call it Cheeky Tiki. Cheeky Tiki. Best name so far. It's a cute can too. Yeah. They did a good job at the packaging here. If you think the cutesy imagery of off-color brewing, but turned into classic cocktails. How strong is this one, Hill? This is delicious. Roger, how do you make a Mai Tai if you're going to make one at home? Rum, lime juice, orange liqueur of some sort, like a good high-quality one. The almond flavor is key, so the syrup that everyone mispronounces. Orgeat. Orgeat. Or you could use creme de noyau. I like doing that. I figure you're going to batch them and stuff. That's pretty much it, fresh lime. Even on the simple side, you're talking probably five-ingredient cocktail. Yeah, and it's also a pretty short drink then, because there's not really any base mixer in it. Taking that into consideration, is this a worthy Mai Tai? I don't mind it. It tastes like ice cream. I don't love it. I don't mind it. Yes, I don't think it's what you're saying, but- It's not very Mai Tai-esque. I don't mind it. It's real citrus forward. This one was just tastes like a lemonade to me. Yeah. Yeah, like a melted sherbert. Yeah, it's not as tropical as I would want for Mai Tai, but out of the can, it doesn't bug me. Yeah, it's a nice drink, but I would never pin it as a Mai Tai, I don't think. It's sweet, but it doesn't have other flavors to lift up the sweetness. I agree. It's just heavy. I bet they're using white rum in that, and you'd never use a white rum in a Mai Tai. There's no of the breadth or richness of an agri-coal, nothing like that. Also, it needs some cherry or something, like it needs some red. Yeah, right. I know. It needs more red. It needs red. Whatever you think that is. It's usually a shot of grenadine in a bar, that's what it is. It could use a shot of grenadine. I think if we tasted this blind, we'd all guess it was a lemonade or whiskey soda. I don't even know what I would pick. It's formless. Yeah. So let's move on. Next one, New Holland's other offering, it's a blueberry gin lemonade. It's 9% alcohol. This also says pour over ice. Important note here, this isn't the same gin as their mule. They actually make a blueberry gin. Then they add that to the lemonade here to make this. So what's that? In with their botanicals? How are they making blueberry gin? I'm not sure when the blueberry gets added to it. It could be added probably, I would think post distillation as a maceration. Can you buy blueberry gin from them? Yes, you can. Cool. It's like blueberry dum-dums. This smells like cleaning products. I love this one. Really? Yes. I made everybody vote for one overall favorite after everything they tasted yesterday, and this was by far the winner. I can tell across the stores and our chain, a lot of the staff likes these. This is weird. I like it. I love it. People like this the best? Yes. seriously? What people are these? It's pretty good. It's also a little too sweet for my taste, but it has... I like the mule better because I like the over-the-top spiciness, but I think as a strong canned cocktail for what they're charging and what you're getting here, this is a pretty good value. I think I grew up with too much Lysol. I'm getting cleaning products out of this. Disagree. Disagree. I don't get many chemicals. Bloop. Okay, we're going back to Boulevard's Fling Line, and we got a Cucumber Lime Gin and Tonic now, and this is made with a gin called Builders Botanical Gin. That is a local like Kansas City thing. This guy is 7 percent alcohol. Made with gin neutral spirits, cucumber, lime, and other natural flavors. What's a gin neutral spirit? I don't know. I think it doesn't say comma, but neutral spirits is on a different line than gin. It's got to be gin neutral spirits. Hello, Govna. Nice. I already like this one. It's got a bulldog smoking a pipe. I'm really looking forward to him throwing up after this one. Hello, Govna. It says, get me a GNT or GTFO. Cucumber, limes, and stiff upper lips. This gets the award for best packaging by far. Again, how hard is it to make a gin and tonic? It's a little lime. That's what trips you up. But I think part of this, the only reason I would go by a can of a two-ingredient cocktail is if I was going specifically somewhere where I couldn't mix my own two-ingredient cocktail. If I really felt the need to have a gin and tonic instead of a hams while in a canoe or something, or if I was going to the beach and I couldn't bring a handle of Seagrams and a bottle of tonic. Again, very bad circumstances for you. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Maybe like insider knowledge. Are they putting the vodka that they don't want to use or the gin that they don't want to use in this? Is it a way not to just trash some of the product that they're making? I think they're talking about the local partner that's the spirit partner for this. I think that it's higher quality than that. Yeah, it's definitely higher quality stuff, at least in this case. Certainly, some stuff, gin that might not meet a distillery spec might get sold off in bulk. You know what? It's okay. So, as it finishes, it gets quineiny. It gets root bitter. At first, I was like, this is kind of gross, but that's because we have a table of half empty sweet cocktails in front of us, and this is supposed to taste that way. It's supposed to taste bitter. That's what a gin and tonic is. It keeps you from getting malaria. I mean, some tonic waters though, famously have quite a bit of sugar in them, so they definitely went no sweetness whatsoever. To me, that bitterness, it's almost like tannins. It's like this really hard, like oversteeped tea. I think it's true. Yeah. Well, that's what quinine is. I mean, quinine is made from cinchona bark. All right, we got one left and it's a Bloody Mary. Yeah. Oh, gross. Dude, I always wondered why they wouldn't make a premixed Bloody Mary. Did you shake it up or something? I shook it. Is it like emulsified? So this is from Cutwater. They have a mild and a spicy. It's thick and you need to shake it up, but you can see chunks of black pepper in there and maybe some non-totally ground up vegetables and stuff in there. Again, paying this premium for a canned two ingredient cocktail seems kind of silly, but it's 10% alcohol. If you're a Bloody Mary on the go kind of person, you wake up somewhere and you just have a cooler with you. You know what? I would keep one of these in the golf bag or something. Sometimes when I wake up at 6.30 in the morning, I don't have the energy to make my own Bloody Mary, and I just want to shake up a can and drink right out of it. Don't judge me Roger. What you're saying there is that you just want a can of warm tomato juice while you're golfing. No, I didn't mean keep it between rounds. I mean bring a cold can with, start the round off with a nice cold Bloody Mary. I like it. It smells good. So their Bloody Mary mix is really good. We harry the mild and spicy Bloody Mary mix in every store. They're really good, and this is just their vodka. So they make a vodka called Fugu, and it's their vodka and their Bloody Mary mix. I think they did a nice job with it. That's 10 percent. Yeah. I don't mind this at all. The spicy one is way better. The spicy one is actually pretty legit, respectively spicy. This has got a little spice to it too. Yeah, for sure. The other one must be real hot. Yeah, the other one's respectably hot. This is more, it's really peppery, that spicy on the finish. What did we say were our favorite of the seltzers over there? Truly. Bon and Viv. Bon and Viv. I think we should recap all our favorites, right? Sure. From each category or in general? I've got all the favorite cocktails, I think. Your favorites? No, the group's favorites, I think. That Clementine Hibiscus is really good. The whole Bon and Viv. The Truly Wild Berry actually is the least. The way I would go if I were to drink this stuff, which I won't, but there it is. So, Hillary, what are our favorite hard seltzers over there? We're digging Truly Wild Berry and Bon and Viv Clementine Hibiscus. And Bon and Viv Grapefruit and Bon and Viv. Says you. The one with the cucumber. Pear Elderflower. Yeah, that one. Pear Elderflower. Oh, the Jolly Rancher one. No, that one sucked. Listen, Bon and Viv isn't betting 1,000 here. No, they're betting 750, which is pretty damn good. They had two acceptable ones. I like the cranberry one. Yeah. No. You didn't. I didn't. Yeah, I like Bon and Viv. I like the White Claw Mango too. That was pretty good. I will admit. And then in the canned cocktails, Pat and I are all about the mule from New Holland Spirits within gin. We had two favorite mules. Yeah, one was the New Holland and the other one was the Copper Can. So it seems like Moscow mules out of a can are kind of the lead. They're pretty good. And we liked Buzz Tall's margarita. That's out of the choice of these margaritas. Out of the choice of these margaritas, yes. If you're a fan of Cuervo margarita mix, that was good. If you want a sophisticated margarita, no water. Nobody, no. No, desiccated. Sophisticated. Look, plebes. Come on. That's not sophisticated. No. Yeah, it is. It sounds like nobody really minded the Cut Water Spirits Bloody Mary out of a can. We would drink it. Yeah, that was really good. Pretty easy. And we had a pretty better than decent rosé from California from Cupcake Vineyards out of a can. I think those are the favorites on this side. And Buzz Tall's. Did we say that one? I liked the blueberry gin lemonade too from New Holland. That was good. No, that was awful. Rest stop bathroom. Well, folks, that brings us to the Q&A portion of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, where we answer your question for a $20 Binny's gift card. Email your question to us at comments at binnys.com or hit us up on social media, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, at Binny's Bev. Our question this week comes from Katie Rice Cakes. Welcome back, Katie. Welcome back. What are your favorite summer drinks? I feel like I'm stuck in a rut making the same thing. Have a hams, Katie. Pat. His Q&A every time, like, where would you like to travel? Hams. He's getting those sponsor dollars. Yeah. Right. Hams writes him a check every time he says hams. If only. All right. What are you drinking that's not a hams? A cocktail. My go-to is actually a dark and stormy. It is like a Moscow mule, but it's rum. So you start glass with ice in it, ginger beer, and you float dark rum over the top, like a blackstrap dark rum, something like a Myers or if you want to cheapen it up a bit, Cruz and blackstrap. It's fine. And as the dark rum fades into the ginger beer, it looks dark and stormy. And then you add like just a lime wedge, squeeze the lime wedge in and it is good to go. And it's an awesome summer cocktail. Usually in the summer, I'm doing my take on kind of a mint julep. So I like bourbon and I've infused it with home grown leaves of mint, a little bit of sweet tea, a little bit of ginger beer, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Very refreshing. Damn Barbie bougie. So delicious. Do you have mint growing? It's all over my backyard. I do think it's like a weed. No, it is. Mint will take over your lawn. So it's a trick I actually learned from the master distiller at Woodford Reserve a few years ago. And she said, if you have all fresh mint going all over the place, take a whole bunch of it, put it into a bottle of bourbon and put it in your cabinet until next Derby day and just infuse. Have minty bourbon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So also in my backyard next to the mint is a rhubarb that my in-laws brought and planted. I was like, get that out of here. But then my wife started making jelly. And when you make jelly from rhubarb, you boil it and there's like rhubarb infused water that comes off of that. And you do it with sugar. So it's basically rhubarb infused simple syrup. Make sorbet. So you could, but I... Or you could just make an alcoholic drink. Because in the summertime, I like gin. And you take that rhubarb simple syrup, mix it with gin, and then I have this habanero shrub. So it's like sweet and herbal and hot at the same time. And it is so refreshing. That's great. So I've been drinking a lot of just kind of a take on a spritz. What I've been doing is just having a glass with like a wine glass with some ice in it, and putting a little bit of Coke Americano, which is a gentian-based kind of fortified and aromatized wine, and a little bit of Aperol, and then just some club It's so good... . lighten up the body a bit. And I love those, and I've been drinking way too much Coke Americano, though, because of it. Because of you, I had a spritz last Saturday. And sure or false, that's the only time you use wine glasses in your house? That is the only time I use wine glasses in my house. Well, no, no, no. I have stemless wine glasses because they make good whiskey glasses as well. That's true. It hurts, Pat, every time. Kind of piggybacking off what Barb said, I make a lot of mint cocktails in the summer with fresh mint. What I suggest everybody learn how to do because it's so multi-purpose, is make fresh mint simple syrup. Absolutely. So equal parts sugar and water on the stove. I also like using, skipping your traditional white sugar, use a true brown sugar. So sugar in the raw, turbinado, demerara, look for those kind of words. Those have molasses content in them still, so it makes a much richer sugar syrup. Boil that down until it's, you know, you don't see any more sugar. Load it up with a couple handfuls of fresh mint, let it just steep off the heat for about a half an hour, and then strain it. You're left with this syrup that if you want to make a true mint julep, which is an underappreciated drink, people think they have to be sickly sweet. They don't. You just use that syrup. You can make mojitos out of it. You can make mint lemonade, which you can use all sorts of different spirits in. Vodka, mezcal, you can make a good Arnold Palmer with it, an accent, like iced tea lemonade and that. It's the best cocktail syrup to have. I got some in my fridge right now. What are you drinking? I've been getting real crazy this summer. Mixed with the ice packs of Truly. I swear to God, it's the only thing I've been drinking. The only thing. Mixed with 12 packs of Truly. The Tropical, because pineapple is my JM. I heard from your spouse. Why don't you just get the pineapple? Because I like the other flavors too. Fair enough. I heard from your spouse even. He's like caught up on Truly when he's at parties with you. It's all about the Truly. There you go. Thanks Katie Rice Cakes. Everybody else, write your questions to us at comments at binnys.com or hit us up on social at BinnySpoutable on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for your chance at a Binny's $20 gift card. I don't know guys. Cans is where it's at. All the cans. I think you pay a price for convenience though. I mean, a lot of these are two ingredients, three ingredients cocktails that you can make better by yourself. Of course, if you're going to make a margarita, you can use fresh squeezed lime juice, a little like Grand Gallo orange liqueur or something and a good tequila. But at the same time, if you're a lazy piece of like me, this is the much better option. It's such a fresh category. I think we're going to see price competitiveness, and we've seen prices coming down this summer. I bet Spike Seltzer is going to get cheaper because markets don't work like that forever. These other things, it's going to shake out. The good ones are going to last and the prices are going to come down. Yeah, for sure. I mean, Spike Seltzer too, it's got to be one of the lowest cost of goods and ingredients for any of these companies to produce. Honestly. I'm a big fan of saying when you compare anything in our industry that it's important to consider weight class. If you're judging really hot end scotches and then comparing it to a budget blended, of course, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb. I think in this room, we have some people that are fans of really well-crafted, time-consuming fresh ingredient, i.e. expensive time-consuming cocktails. If you consider these in their weight class of people going down our mixer aisle, grabbing a pre-made mix, and then adding the spirit to it, they do fine job in that category. Are they going to stand up to a $15 cocktail you order at a bar that's all fresh ingredients? They're going to, it might show. Some of them might show, but some of them are pretty good. I had mentioned at the beginning how the true standard of quality is, if this was served to you sight unseen at a bar, and you were like, yeah, okay, I got my $10 worth, I got my $12 worth, whatever. I think that's the best compliment you can give these people. Which is why I'm saying I wouldn't pay $10 for any of these. My answer would be no to almost all of these. No on all of them. But I agree that they catch us having reasonable expectations. For me, especially for wines, and again, I've found success mostly with rosé and bubbles and spritzers, and sangrias are kind of hit or miss. But I think wine will get there. For me, it's about as base an expectation as I can have for wine. If I take a sip of it and I go, yeah, I don't mind it, I drink it on a train, that's a win. It's like a huge win. That's such a low bar. There's such a broad world of great things out there to try. That kind of makes me sad. I'm on a train or I'm at a soccer game or I'm drunk already at Lollapalooza. Desperate alcoholic. I actually think that the canned wine segment makes the most sense. People always say they don't want to open a whole bottle of wine. You're absolutely right. They just have to find the good stuff to put in the format. Can I get a can of Dom Perignon? Not yet. Not yet. Thanks for listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Roger. I'm Hillary. I'm Pat. Barb, keep tasting. Here to see people at a party take ice out of the cooler and scoop it into their drink glass. With their hands too, it's gross. Isn't that gross? Do you do that, Hillary? Whatever, it's ice. Oh, yeah, that everybody touched. Who cares? Who touched it? Anybody. You don't know how well they hygiene. Things are going in and out of that ice. This is dirty hands. Whatever.