What do we all have on the line of today? Did you bring stuff? Yeah, I brought stuff. Well, I just brought the vodka. That's cool. Vodka! Good times. Ooh, what's that? Is that an ice mold? It's a Christmas tree. That's so cool. Malornament. Malornament. That's so cool. We've already seen like, oh yeah. It's adorable little six pack of 50 mils. Love that little six pack. What else is in this bag of crisps? This is kind of fun. So I brought kind of some CH stuff, but this is some barrel aged Malört. I was just going to ask if you guys are planning to do that. Yeah, it's kind of, it's a work in progress. So I brought our vodka because it is like nobody does this. It actually takes Illinois grain, mills mash, ferments it, distills the living shit out of it until it tastes beautiful. Right on. Like I'm so proud of that stuff. We are going to bad mouth it though. Yeah. Oh yeah. You can trash it all you want. I brought one of our innovative gins. Sweet. That's a great gin. An example of really interesting Amaro's that we make. Our Amargo to Chile, this is like our Mexican Mole in a Bottle. Go back in the timeline a couple of weeks and then you can listen to our Amaro episode. Oh, nice. Oh, I will. Yeah. The bourbon because it's such a smoking deal. This is representative of we're like, we suck at making bourbon, so we're not going to bulls**t you. We're just going to source good bourbon and sell it for $19.99. Yeah. I love that. That's a phenomenal deal. 105 proof. That's a Roger Bourbon and a Roger Price. Yeah. I don't know. I brought Mezcal because probably not a lot of people know that we import and bottle. They import a really cool line of Mezcal. You guys don't have it in your shelves because there's so little of it, but whatever, we can talk about it or not talk about it, doesn't matter. Then because it's the only one in the world, the American Quince Brandy. Really? Yeah. That's neat. Again, it's not something you got to talk about. You're talking to the fruit king here. Roger is the fruit king. He's all up on his quince. Obscure irrelevant fruit is my forte. I figured I was coming someplace where obscure irrelevant fruit might be appreciated. Right here. That's what I got. All right, guys. There's a lot of stuff on the table. Jim, roll the music. We got to get started. Hey, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, Binny's Podcast. Did I say that right? Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Oh, Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. The Ohio State University. He does this. Everyone's looking at you, and it's making you feel pressure, and then they laugh at you. Roger's just saying this. How much fruit you enjoy. This will be fun. You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. You're listening to another episode of Binnel... All right. Perfect. You're listening to another episode of Binny's Barrel... Binny's Barrel to Bottle, The Barrel to Bottle Podcast. Why does it sound so strange? Because you're saying it wrong. That's why it sounds strange. The Barrel to Bottle, Binny's Podcast? No? Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. It's our own fault for having a podcast with like eight fucking words in the name. We're off to a terrific start. I'm Shannon. I'm Shannon. I'm Greg. I'm Pat. I'm Roger. And in the room with us today, Tremaine. Tremaine Atkinson. Tremaine Atkinson, owner, are we going to call you master distiller too? Just head distiller. Head distiller at CH Distillery, CH, kind of a cool modern spirits distillery, big production facility down in the South Loop, started with a kind of distillery pub, right, in the West Loop? Yeah. Yeah. How long have you guys been around now? One of the OGs in Chicago, right? Yeah, since 2013. And yeah, we opened originally in the West Loop with our distillery and a beautiful cocktail lounge, and then we outgrew that pretty fast and built this massive 50,000 square foot, two and a half acre distillery in East Pilsen in the South Loop. Yeah. They were the unfortunate victims of over zealous Chicago building regulations as the first distillery kind of built up from the ground up in Chicago, right? Yeah. The city thought distilleries were brewpubs originally, which was fine for us when we were originally building, but then when we built this big place, they kind of said, hang on, you guys have a whole lot of alcohol in here and some barrels, so we might want to make sure that you guys don't burn down the neighborhood. So we built a fireproof distillery. That sounds like the Titanic, doesn't it? Yeah. It's a particularly overbuilt distillery. I mean, he's got these ridiculously thick walls, and I think they've backed off on some of that stuff now. If you built a distillery now, is it as tough as when you built it? I don't know. I mean, it's probably not best to be first through the new building code. So hopefully, we made things a little easier for the next guys. Well, you guys made it. So they got this big distillery down there now, and they're making all kinds of interesting spirits. They have kind of a flagship vodka, something Tremaine's particularly proud of, a couple of different gins. You guys make a selection of Amaro, right? We do. And all kinds of cool stuff. And you also bottle a really kick-ass bourbon at a just incredible value. So, oh, and of course, my favorite, Malört. So we can't leave Malört out. But we should probably start with the vodka, huh? Yeah. I mean, that's why we got into this business in the first place. I've always been a vodka fan. Unlike maybe everybody else, I think vodka is really worth drinking. And I like good vodka. So I'm not shy about bad-mouthing vodka. Hey, but the important thing to remember is, far more people love vodka than hate it. You're not shy about bad-mouthing vodka. No, not at all. But listen, just because it's not for me, doesn't mean I don't recognize its place in drinking. Like we sell a bazillion times more vodka than we do weird Amari. Yeah, exactly. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, bad-mouth bad vodka all day long, I would say. So we wanted to make a good vodka, and of course, we wanted to make it local. So we source organic rye and wheat from Kane County. We bring it in and we mill mash, ferment and distill it all the way. So it's truly handmade from scratch. I think it's delicious. My favorite cocktail is CH Vodka on the Rocks. You get much past that. You can add some other booze. That's cool. But that works for me. Hey, a vodka that stands on its own, there's something to be said for that. Yeah, that's right. But since we opened with a cocktail lounge, as well as a distillery, and the Illinois law being that we can only, you know, if you have a tasting room, you can only sell what you make or what you produce. So that gave us lots of good inspiration for making other spirits, which is... You have to make all your mixers. Yeah, exactly. So if you want, you know, if you want gin, you make gin. If you want rum, you make rum. If you want Amaro, if you want anything. So that's how we've ended up making at one point or another, probably 35 or 40 different spirits. A lot of which, you know, just end up getting used in the tasting room and in cocktails. So and we've had a lot of inspiration also from our clients. So we get a vodka account and then we had we had a beer pub in Logan Square that said they couldn't get Kumel anymore. It's a caraway based flavored liqueur. And they said, well, could you make one? And I said, I don't know, I've never had it. But describe the flavor for me. So I still have never had anybody else's Kumel but ours. But once you step a toe into the world of Amaro, as you know, there's no going back. So yeah, we got challenged to make an Amaro by a bar that said, we're not going to buy your vodka because we're buying the cheapest vodka on the face of the planet, making as much money as possible on it. But if you make Amaro, we'll buy it. So I went to that meeting and I kind of stormed back to the distillery and I said, we're making Amaro. We made our first Amaro, which is sort of a dark chocolate, heavy baking spices, 40 percent alcohol, super bitter. That's a big Amaro. I kind of made it for myself because I was so annoyed by not being able to sell vodka. That meeting left you with a bitter taste in your mouth. Oh, I'll shut myself out. Yeah. I had to say it. Yeah. Then from there, once we had an idea of all the different things you could do, then we started collaborating. We've made about seven different Amaros at this point. It's a little bit like having a whole bunch of kids. You quickly get outnumbered, but you might as well just enjoy it. Also, you always have a favorite. That's true, but that actually does change day-to-day. You got to hold it against them is key. Always think of who's going to be the favorite today. Yeah. Who is the mistake? Isn't this vodka great? Yeah. It's got a fuller body. We tasted a gin in one of our previous recordings that was shockingly full and chewy for a gin. I think this has some of that character. It's round and fat, but there's not a lot of lingering grain sweetness to it. It's really nice and neutral. This is one of the better vodkas I think we carry. I would say it does have a touch of sweetness though. I think that's what people like about Kraft Vodkas is that as a spirit, it's supposed to be so neutral, but I think if they feed to the fire, they like the ones that have a touch of flavor. This is great though. This is clean. This is vodka. This is the kind of vodka you try to describe. Brendan Fraser comes out of the ice and walks down the street, and you got to tell a caveman what vodka is. Give him this. What is that, Encino Man? Have I used that previously in a podcast? Never have. I am amazed you pulled that reference out. You're like, try CH Vodka, buddy. Well, so what else do you say about a vodka? Very clean, very smooth, eminently mixable. You like it on the rocks. What are some of the other cocktails that you guys make with it? We, of course, make a great Moscow Mule. The trick to that is fresh juiced ginger instead of just ginger beer. That's a big seller. Then we sell lots of martinis, of course. We definitely have a core group of vodka fanatics who love to come in the bar and try to drink us out of vodka. Do you guys ever make any perfect martinis? We were just talking about those in a previous podcast with sweet and dry vermouth. Ah, my perfect martini has no vermouth in it. I'm always willing to give any cocktail that is all booze a try. Yep. Give it a try. The best kind of cocktail. It's definitely an underrepresented and forgotten cocktail that's incredibly simple. Well, vermouth is a tough spirit for a craft tasting room, because we can only serve it if we make it. And I have tried to make vermouth, and I will say that's the hardest thing I've tried to bite off. I haven't been able to make it successfully. One of our co-hosts, Barb, tried to make vermouth once and gave me a sample, and I think it almost killed me. All right, cool. Well, what should we taste next from here? Let's go to our key gin. This is a gin that we made for people who don't usually like gin, right? It's not a big juniper bomb. It's also a good example of what craft distillers can do, that it's harder for some of the bigger guys to do. So this has got a little bit of juniper, but it's got fresh key limes in it. So we actually buy fresh key limes and cut them up and throw them in the still. What makes a key lime different? Roger? Totally different type of lime. Obviously size-wise, you're going to have a different ratio when you squeeze it, of the peel to the pulp. Flavor-wise, it has a different character than a Persian lime as well. I describe it as brighter and almost has a touch of lemony characteristic to it. What do you guys think? You're obviously working with them. Yeah, it's not quite as bitter, so you get that nice fresh flavor. We balance that off also with some lavender and a little bit of white pepper to finish this off. This is really popular as a cocktail gin because it's closer to a flavored vodka. We actually call it our gateway gin. Yeah. Yeah. We have had a lot of people who said, I hate gin, and then they try this, and then they say, oh, I don't hate gin anymore. That's not my uncle's gin. Yeah. So many people's first gin are such horrible gins, or old-school perfumey, piney gins. A lot of people try a gin once or twice, and then write it off forever. How tequila used to be before good tequila started becoming available, right? Yeah. What's funny about gin, I think, is that they're made with so many botanicals, but the ones that are the most ubiquitous are these London Dry ones where they're so juniper-heavy, that unless you've really become an experienced gin drinker, you're probably not going to pick up on the subtleties. So I really have always been a big fan of Kraft gins because I think they move past the juniper-domineering piney flavor. I mean, juniper is still a big part of this too, and the lime is in there, but you also get less peppery quality, this cracked peppery quality. Yeah. It's floral without being perfumey, I think. I like this a lot. I remember trying this years back and thinking it was really neat. Important to mention that juniper has to be part of it, though, too. Yeah. The TTB rules are pretty wide open on gin, has to have juniper, and there's not much past that. The thing that most people don't realize about gin is that it's the original flavored vodka. One of the things we talk about is that if you're going to make gin, you're starting with vodka, I would say you should start with a good vodka. One of the things that you'll taste in here is that soft richness of the CH vodka that's underneath it. I think that tastes a lot better than an NGS base. Not a big fan of using NGS for gin, although it's more expensive. One of our big things is- You're using the same locally sourced on location ground grains for the gin? For the gin, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that's a standout because I would say it's pretty common for people to just use- Yeah, you've got some margin of- Spirits. Margin of error. You can just cover it up. Yeah. I'm not saying what doesn't work in some cases, but ours, you can taste those subtle flavors because the vodka is so soft underneath. So, yeah. Very nice. What's next? The gin. It's great. Well, here, let's do a weird, under known, underappreciated fruit. Every now and then we get access to cool ingredients. My uncle has a quince orchard out in Oregon. And so he sent me a whole bunch of quince juice. What is a quince? A quince is sort of like an apple and sort of like a pear flavor wise. But if you try to bite into it, it's like biting into a pomegranate. It's all fiber, so you can't really eat it. It's typically used in cooking. So you take the juice and make paste out of it. So you find it in cheese boards a lot. But it's got a really beautiful flavor to it. So we distilled it into an O2V, just a simple unaged brandy. So when you're tasting this, you're tasting the essence of quince. Label is cute. It smells great. It does. Why did I always think it was quince? Am I just pretentious? Yes, yes. Oh, it smells delightful. It does. Definitely citric. This is awesome. And it's also the classic example for me of, I love the way this tastes. What do I do with the other 7 eighths of the bottle? Yeah. Yeah. It's not a big seller. This is perfect for a tasting room application where we'll just pour a sample of this for people after tours, or we'll occasionally come up with a cocktail that's very subtle with this. I bet it's great in soda, but it's too nice to put in soda. So delicate, like just the sweet. Yeah. I wouldn't want to cover up this flavor with something. I mean, this with a little bit of ice, I mean, it's just probably great. I mean, it doesn't even need ice. It's just like, this is just a soft, flavorful Ode-A-Vie. This would be great for cheese fruit pairings. It really has a beautiful apple aroma that's there, but it doesn't taste like apple candy or that sometimes when you get apple, it's too much. This is interesting. It's not as sharp as a lot of unaged apple brand either. There's a softness here that I think is really, really nice, especially considering it's what, 42 percent alcohol. Yeah. This is a great example of why it's fun to be a craft distiller. You get something like this and we're worried about making money on this. This is just making something beautiful. Of course, we don't do much in the way of Ode-A-Vie. Our good friends at Rein Hall in the city are the masters of that locally, and they do fabulous stuff. It's such a specific flavor. It's a very specific thing from my childhood and I can't put my finger on what it is. I'm having the same feeling. It's so familiar. Like a candy or something. Yeah. I went to my grandmother's house and opened up her candy jar, and it's got these little- Right. I don't know. Did my grandma have Quince flavored candy? It's something like that. It's like haunting. It almost in a way reminds me of some pineapple candies. There's a pineapple. That is it. It's one of those pineapple ones with the wrapper and then it's a little- The hoodie that looks like the pineapple. Yeah. That's what it is. So grandma candies. Yeah. The hard candy. Yeah. Right. All right. Nailed that one. What's next? Let's go to Mexico because one of the things that we do is we love drinking, and we love drinking all different types of stuff. But of course, something like an agave spirit, we can't make, right? I mean, unless we can grow agave in Pilsen, maybe we could. So we import and bottle some of the most lovely mezcal from Mexico, very small producers. So this is a great example of one. You'll actually notice on the label that it doesn't say the word mezcal. Why? Because these guys are so small. That they don't want to pay the government of Mexico to use that word on the bottle, which is what you have to do. So these are made in really traditional, artisan ways. They have this to me is the one spirit category that can have terroir. I've been to this distillery and every time I take a sip of it, I imagine the mountains, the arid climate and the family that makes this. So it's really lovely. This is Sierra Negro, which takes about 15 years to mature. So it's one of the really kind of rare types that you can get. What kind of still was this made on? A copper pot or clay or something? This is made in a clay pot still. Clay pot. Very cool. Yeah. Do you know how the agave was crushed with this? This is crushed by hand. By hand. So wood mallet. Yeah, wood mallet. So this would be like, for listeners, this is like an ancestral style mezcal then, where after they roast agaves, they're going to chunk them up, hollow out a log and literally some poor sulkers have to beat the shit out of the agave with wooden mallets to extract the juice. It is caveman mezcal. Going back to our second caveman reference of the episode. And then that juice is fermented and distilled on a clay pot still, not a copper, not stainless, whatever. This is pot stills that can be made out of the earth itself. Really cool. Just to read off the label. Five sentidos, Cinco Sentidos, Sierra Negra. Cinco Sentidos, yeah. You won't get it on Binny shelves because it's imported in too small of quantities. Yeah. But we're trying it. Are the agave piñas roasted in an earthen oven, do you know? Yeah, these are roasted in an underground oven. They're massive. The Sierra Negra piñas are massive. So they're chopped up into smaller bits. And roasted and it's all done in the really traditional way, which- So it would be like earthen pit roasted. Yeah. And probably, they're digging a hole in the ground, lighting a wooden fire in there, covering the fire with rocks. And then the agave goes on top of the rocks. And these hot rocks are what actually cook it. Cover the whole thing with dirt and it cooks for a couple of days. It's got a nice smoky character. It's not too smoky. No, it's gorgeous. This is gorgeous mezcal. I mean, artisan agave spirit. Thank you. We don't want to get in trouble with the government of Mexico. Yeah. Right. Across the whole experience, like a little bit of soft fruit, a little bit of smoke, and then kind of a plastic equality, and then this pencil-lead, nervy minerality underneath there. Well said. I don't know what I'm talking about. I just put words together. No, that's great mezcal. How many different five centitos bottleys have you done now? Oh boy. We've bottled about 35 different expressions. I mean, I must have tasted at least 15 last time I was there. Yeah. Actually, we've got about another 20 that are on the way from Mexico right now. It's really lovely stuff. Again, you can get this at our tasting room as well. Which is a pretty cool place if listeners haven't been. Grab a cocktail and a very finely crafted cocktail made only with ingredients in the house, with the backdrop of these beautiful stills on the other side of a glass wall. Yeah. It's a cool place to have a drink. All right. What's up? What are we doing after this? Let's go to bourbon just because, as I said, when I was warming up with you guys, we stink at making bourbon. So why is there CH bourbon and why would you want to drink it? Well, as it says right on the bottle, we didn't make this. So this is something that's a great example of having a tasting room and needing a product and not being able to fake it. So we source our bourbon from MGPI in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, one of the big, very good bourbon makers, and instead of trying to tell some story that isn't true about what it is, we say what it is and then we just mark it up very, very minimally. So we make pretty much no money on this. And this retails, it's 105 proof. It's right at about three and a half years old and it retails for $19.99. So you can't really get a better value. It's tough to beat. Yeah. This is not high end, gather all your friends and impress them at how amazing you are with your bourbon knowledge. This is just good drinking bourbon. Yeah. I like that transparency too. I mean, there's a lot of what it is. A lot of the same juice somewhere that's in a bottle three times the price. That it's some grandma's recipe from back in the day. This bourbon tastes older than three and a half years old. I love that it's got mouthfeel, it's got maturity to it. It's got all the great sweet notes. It's not overly hot at all for 105 proof, especially considering the age. This is one of the best $20 you can spend in the store, in my opinion. It's good. Classic. It's got that bitto honey kind of flavor that I like a lot. Speaking of grandma candy. Yes, speaking of old people. Little droplets. Filling ripper outer candy. Is this why grandma was so happy? If you're going to give a Charleston Choo to a caveman. That's great bourbon and that's available pretty much at all our stores now too. Twenty bucks. Cool. All right. You're ready to go back to the flavors of Mexico? Yes. Love the flavors of Mexico. This time through a filter of Chicago. So we do serve food at our tasting room. And one of our chefs, Pablo, I was working on it tomorrow, just sort of playing around. I wanted something spicy. And he said, my grandma has this amazing mole. She's from Mexico City. And I've got the recipe here. And I said, oh, can I take a look? And immediately that was that was it. That was the inspiration for this next one that we're going to try, which is called a Margot de Chile, a Margot being the Spanish word for bitter. And this is fashioned after Pablo's grandmother's mole recipe. So like any good mole, it's got tons of ingredients. I'm actually just going to kind of pour it on top of my bourbon because it goes pretty well. It's 19 different ingredients, seven different chili peppers, some dried, some fresh. It's got chocolate. It's got vanilla. It's got a couple of obscure things that I just like, like Shishandra, chinensis, and barberries. What did you call me? Looking at you, Roger. But it's all about the chilies. Hurry up and pass the bottle. So what's the spirit base? Your vodka? Yeah. So our vodka is at the base of this as well. Rad. Yeah. What a nose. Like every time you go back to it, oh, chocolate, vanilla. Coffee. All kinds of peppers. Coffee. Caramel. And what do you use to color this? Just regular caramel coloring for any other spirit type of thing? So the sugar we use in this is caramelized sugar. So it gets both its sweetness and its color from that. Nice. Yeah. Orange peel. There's orange peel in here. Yep. If you name it, it's probably in here. The spice. Oh, it's a creeper on the spice too. Yeah, it's good. It finishes with some zip. Yeah. This is awesome. All right. Do you think after we all have a sip of this, we should go eat some more pizza? With the gastric juices flowing. Yeah, this will get the endorphins going too, right? Yeah. They were making fun of me when we went in the Amaro episode because I kind of likened them to hot sauce, and Roger's like, but Greg likes the kind of hot sauce that gives you euphoria. The crazy hat. I do. This isn't that, but this is cool because it's an Amaro. It's a bitters like we were having, but it has this heat element too. It's got a tingly on your lips heat element, which I really like because who doesn't like a good lip tingle? Yeah, it's almost like a Szechuan peppercorn heat. That's interesting. Great nose. You can tell there's the dried chilies in there, like darker dried chilies. This is another one that would go really great with espresso and a lemon wedge. Oh yeah. Yeah. Espresso and a lemon wedge, huh? Yeah, buddy. That sounds maybe a little snooty, but good. Snooty in a good way. Yeah. That's me. Snooty in a good way. Ready to move on to Malört? Ladies and gentlemen, the single product that has been featured more times than any other on Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. It has been in literally like six or seven episodes. Jepson's Malört. Jepson's Malört. What have we done? We have good taste. So, we brought a surprise for you. We brought a Floridort. Oh. Yeah, from the archives. All right. Well, now that we have warmed up our pallets, let's destroy them. CH Distillery took over the Malört brand when, Tremaine? A year ago. Yeah. We purchased the company and the brand just a year ago. And Chicago is proud to have it back in Chicago. It's funny. I get people thanking me, which makes me laugh, right? That's not what Malört is for. Yeah. Like, why are you being so nice? But I think people have such pride about Malört in Chicago that they're just happy to see it come home. We're very proud to have done that. I describe having bought Malört and making it now in Chicago is like adopting an 85-year-old baby. It's cantankerous and it's, yeah. It's somehow even shallower than a normal baby. Taking over the household and oh my goodness. Yeah. So what was your experience with Malört prior? It was something that you had. First of all, does everyone have a second glass? We got to do them side by side. Yeah, for sure. I need a fresh glass. I'm not originally from Chicago. I moved here about 20 years ago. I'd argue you've been here than most people in the city then. Than they are longer. My first Malört experience is vague, vaguely remembered. I know who it was with, a friend of mine who was from here originally, and it was late night at a dive bar, of course. He said, oh, we got to try this. What's the classic Malört experience? Yeah. Meaning you wouldn't want it any other way. Yeah. I did the shot with him and I said, why did you do that to me? Then I said shortly after, may I have another please? Pretty typical experience. Little did I know that many years later that this thing would move into my house. Emphasis on thing. Yeah. All right. You want to pass the other one around? The Chicago bottle. There we go. Also we're going to accuse you of making it too sweet. Oh boy. No, no, no, no, we're not. Well, we're going to accuse you of having once made it too sweet. We're going to taste and see. All right. But again, from what I've heard, Malört ages a bit in the bottle. I am a big proponent of the theory that Malört changes in the bottle, and I think only happens once it's open. Greg and I tested this actually eight years ago. This is something that I got from my brother and another guy. We're bartending. We had a taste room in our South Loop store at the time, and they were swearing up and down that a bottle of Malört that had been open for a long time was significantly more bitter than a fresh bottle of Malört. And when you crack a fresh bottle of Malört, it had this nice balancing sweetness to it. And so I told this to Greg, and of course he's like, you are full of **** and so what did we do? We decided to waste a few hours of a day once doing a taste test. And there is definitely a difference. Single blind, single blind taste test of a grungy old bottle from the back of the bar that had been open for like eight months, versus a fresh one right off the shelf, freshly cracked. Now the one we have on the table today, should we give away the answer? Well, we can give away what we found then. What we have today is different bottles. What we found then was, yeah, for real, it gets worse. And then we even ran it through a Venturi wine aerator, but then we ran the fresh one through a Venturi wine aerator, and it definitely made it a little more bitter. The poor Venturi wine aerator. We were selling a lot of Venturis at the time. We just threw it away. So it's important to note that we have an archival bottle from Florida here, but it's a freshy. It's a fresh one. We literally just cracked it. So we have a few bottles of Florida ones set aside for academic purposes only, of course. So I grabbed one out of our office down in Lincoln Park, and I just cracked it open though. So this should have the classic, that fresh cracked Malört experience. By the way, love, love, hate, love, hate, love, love. All right. Yeah, there's no in-between opinions here. By the way, if you're sipping, you're tasting wrong. All right, take it to the dome, everybody. Old Malört. New Malört is the closest it's ever tasted to old Malört. I will say that. So a particular loud-mouthed colleague of ours kind of was needling Tremaine about this when he took over Malört. It doesn't taste the same, it tastes too sweet. And he was like, you know what? Then you guys come do it better. And so we went down there and we got to one of the privileges of my career in beverage alcohol, was helping to plant a batch of Malört. And I will say that this bottle Tremaine brought today, I don't think tastes very far off from this OG Florida bottle at all. It's pretty close. Yeah. It's pretty close, respectfully close. Like very, like if I wouldn't assume it was particularly different if I didn't taste them side by side. They both taste like bile. Spot on. You're making me blush. When we bought the formula, right? So there was the magical email that came in. I would like to say that it was a scroll and it had frayed edges and everything and it had the Malört formula on it. But it was like everything, it was an email. So I got the email and I'm like, here it is, the formula. I looked at it and I was like, all right, let's build a test batch based off of this and we did. It was absolutely nothing like Malört. It was not like Malört at all. Now, there was no malice in this whatsoever. It was just that it had evolved over the years. So we had the fun and daunting task of basically reverse engineering it from scratch. The first batch that we made, I think we just drank too much Malört. Actually, I know we drank too much Malört. We're like, yeah, that's good. That's good. It was too sweet. It was. We had Malört fans who were- They were twirled mustaches around Chicago. Turning downward into mustache frowns. What have you done? You've made it too good. Yeah. I can actually consume this. Yeah. But people were so cool about it. That's what was very heartening is, we're always willing to admit a mistake. So we said, yeah, we kind of effed it up. Sorry about that. They're like, well, just make it better slash worse. So we have, we listened. And yeah, Pat, you and Bret and Joe were, I don't know if it's something you want to put on your resume. We tasted Malört for about four hours one day, including which I'm still, every time I see his sales rep, I'm like, hey, you know, a real good Christmas gift for a particular customer would be just a bottle of the pure wormwood extract one before it gets blended back. It's powerful stuff. Powerful stuff. If you don't ask. So next time you're down there, maybe ask him if there's a certain special bottle back there. So tasting notes on Jepson's Malört, new and old. Roger kind of nails it with bile. It's got a particular yellowness to it, an aroma and taste that can be connected to, I think, various bodily fluids. The worst part of a grapefruit. Oh yeah. So that was always my class thing. You're using way too many words here. Bitter grapefruity. Yeah. Very bitter grapefruit. Poor Roger is smiling through the pain. There is a little bit of a clove is also another thing. I think that reminds me of that phenolic clove. People want to know what wormwood tastes like. This is it. Dandelions. Woody bitterness. Yeah, dandelion. What's your tea that I'm supposed to try now? Dandelion root tea. That's it. Yeah. Dude, it's Malört. I mean, listen, it's just like, you know, what are you? You're not supposed to use the word in its definition. Like, how do you describe Malört without using the word Malört? It's just it's Malört tastes like Malört. I mean, I've gotten many different reactions from people like rotten eggs. A lot of people say vomit and stuff. A lot of people say bug spray, which I never really got. Deepwoods off. Yeah, I can see bug spray. I don't mind bug spray. Yeah. Me either. But I drink a lot of vermouth, and vermouth is wormwood. And to me, this woodsy bitterness, this woody bitterness, that's wormwood. That's what wormwood is. So what kind of cocktails are we making with this? It's a shot glass and Malört. Well, I've seen Malört cocktails. Yeah, my cocktail is a glass and some Malört. But there are a lot of really cool Malört cocktails out there. Even, all right, so this, I don't know if this means we're selling out, but you know, the big new Starbucks that is going up on Michigan Avenue, that's Starbucks Reserve, that's a cocktail program, and they have a Malört cocktail. Whoa. You know you made it when you're at Starbucks. Yeah. A Malört cocktail at Starbucks. I've always said if you're going to sell out, sell out for a good price, damn it. My favorite Malört cocktail was introduced to me as a bum fight, and it is a shot of Malört dumped into a glass of Stiegel Grapefruit Radler, which you then chug like a bomb cocktail, and it's pretty damn tasty. The house pub out in St. Charles pours a lot of those. Nobody's ever had a bum fight before? I've seen a bum fight. I mean, the classic, of course, this is a Chicago handshake, so you're drinking this with a tall boy of old style. Yeah, this is a sidecar to a tall boy old style. It's remarkable because, to me, what Malört is, it's that little bit of shock, but it's how long it hangs out. Oh, it doesn't. It's not going away, right? It's a house guest that just doesn't know when to leave. Yeah. But a swig of a good beer kind of mellows it out a little bit. A swig of a lousy beer does too. I love that a swig of water, though, intensifies the bitterness. For those of you who want to be masochistic with it, we had Greg Cook of Stone Brewing on, and we ended up dumping it into Arrogant Bastard. Yeah. So you really want to just go up the bitterness to crazy levels. Arrogant Bastard Malört Depth Charge. Yeah. Nice. So we are not afraid to innovate. We have innovated with Malört Packaging. Yeah. Let's talk about these cool things. Yeah. So they're the cute little six-packs. It looks kind of like a lunchbox. Six-packs of miniature Malorts. We've been selling those since about the middle of summer. Airplane-sized bottles. So six of them. You can bring it to your favorite lunch party or tailgate. Be a Johnny Appleseed of acid reflux. I think you mean spreading cheer. And for the holidays, Pat, if you don't get a bottle of the actual extract, you can buy the Malortiment gift set. Oh, I'm buying one of these for sure. So we got Malört gift sets coming. It's a bottle of Malört with a Malortiment, a Malört Chicago flag Christmas tree ornament. This is literally all you should want for Christmas. All other gifts you should resell and send the money to Hong Kong, protestors or something and just keep the Malortiment. That's more Chicago than a deep dish covered in hot dogs. It's quite easily the best holiday gift set I've been presented with this season so far. So when are these coming? So those will be in stores soon. All right. When you're drinking a beer and you have a shot of Malört and you throw up the whole thing, that's called the Malortian. No abortion jokes. I mean, it's a Malört podcast, so it's kind of okay, I guess. Things happen. This is incredible. That is. The Malorniment. What better way to say my dad left during the holidays. This is the liquor that dad went out to get when he got a bag of cigarettes 34 years ago. I highly suggest you bring back the I was at a bar in Woodstock, Illinois, and I think I have a picture of it on my phone. They have a Malortian mirror that every year I go to the Groundhog Day thing and I take a picture of it. It says he's right to laugh at you. Anyway, it's a great time. Don't knock until you've been there. It says tonight's the night you fight your dad. You're welcome. That is one of the great Malört slogans. There's still more. One final thing, the Barrel-aged Malört. This is probably a bad idea. In fact, I'm sure it's a bad idea, but- But that's why it's a good idea. Exactly. So this is some Malört that we put in a barrel about six months ago. Actually, we're taking- Do you need another glass? One of the barrels is going to our friends at Three Floyd, and they're going to- Yeah, you better give me a rinse. I need a clean glass for this. I will pass it to Tremaine. All right. So now, here it is going around. So this is going to our buddies at Three Floyds, and they're going to put some Dark Lord in the Malört barrel, and then that will be, well, a bad idea perpetuated. And now, your piece of written on tape on this sample bottle here says Rum Barrel. So this is a Rum Barrel that then held Malört? This is, yeah, this is some CH Rum that we aged for a few years in a bourbon barrel. So this is actually a twice-used barrel. So only the finest supple flavors for such a fine spirit. Yeah. Basically, I want you guys to rip this apart. I was going to say other breweries, not just Three Floyds are going to want. You age Malört all day long. You could sell those barrels for. Wow. It's got to, it's, it wimpified the Malört. This is like kids Malört. So it gave this vanilla oak sweetness and softness and fuller body to it, that has no business being in my damn Malört. I didn't know Malört can come with training wheels. It is still very bitter and on the back. Take your kids Malört and get out. Yeah. This would go great with biscotti during brunch. Yeah, this is a drinkable product. What? All right. I can't even know what you're talking about. I'm out of here. Is it served in delicate China? Oh, yeah. Pinky up while you're drinking this Malört. It's not aptly named. Barrel-aged Malört, bam. You dare besmirch the good name Malört with this crap. What are you doing? We actually refer to it as- This is nice and fun, but it's not Malört though. Yeah. It's weird, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. But you're still drinking it. That's the problem. Yeah. That's my problem. That's a personal problem. That's Malört for the holidays. Thankfully, a little splash of water afterwards brings out more of that classic Malört bitterness. The gift packet comes with doilies. I wish I could put this expression into words just like, oh, Malört face. That's what it's called. Yeah. This actually brings out Malört face in Malört lovers is what it does. Yes. Those who don't experience Malört face. Roger, is it more palatable? Oh, big time. I actually think this is nice. The caramel notes, the sweet spice notes. There's still enough bitterness. Yeah, there's still bitterness there. It's actually not punishing. Wussified Malört. So if you're drinking Malört as a gag or some sort of badge on or like, yeah, this might not be for you, but if you're like an Amaro fan, I think you'll actually, wow, this is pretty interesting. I think it shows off the versatility of Malört. Yeah, make an old fashion out of it now. What is that, a black old fashion? What do you call that? A black Manhattan. A black Manhattan is made with Amaro, so yeah. Use Malört instead of Vermouth in your next Manhattan. Use Barrelage Malört instead of Vermouth in your next Manhattan. That won't ruin your Blanton's at all. All right. That's an incredible breadth of stuff coming from a single. So when are we going to get some Barrelage Malört in the store Tremaine? Well, first you're going to have to say something more bad about it. I don't think you went far enough. I mean, I got to get creative here. Challenge. I mean, Roger said it was good. Isn't that Malört opposite enough? How about you do a for one fisted drinkers and there's a pinky out. Oh yeah. Bravo. That's a marketing campaign. There you go. All right. See, we delivered your marketing campaign, now deliver the goods. That's a fair trade. Well, that was great. Thanks for sharing that. You only made like 18 cases, huh? Do you like it? We can make more. I think it would be cool. I think this is somewhere. I think it will sell. You make a seasonal Malört, the Malört Holiday Special Edition every year in a different barrel. You sell it only locally in the month of December or whatever. You make a couple barrels worth, people go nuts for it. Christmas 2020, you make Malört Nog. Yeah. Yes. Can you imagine Malört mixed with a cream? Can you say curdle? Malört Chicago Cream Liqueur. Right? It just slaps out of the bottle like clumps. Oh. Cottage cheese. It smells like the canal. You know, someone was doing like snow cones with Malört, I think. I could see this being good on the, in that application. It would be quite as hideous, really bitter. I like my Malört to smell like the sanitary and ship canal, personally. You know, that one we ship all the poop down to St. Louis with. Reminds us of why we're all here. Yeah. Well, Tremaine, thanks a lot, man. That was really cool going through arguably the widest-ranging distillery portfolio in the Midwest. Yeah, you're all over the map. All over the map. From vodka to gins to esoteric fruit brandies, Mezcal's, Bourbon's, Malort's, Barrelay's Malort's, Amari, like this guy's got everything. CH is actually just short for ADD. You want to go ride bikes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it would be hard pressed to find a more diverse range from a single distillery. Really looking forward to these Malört gift packs this year. That's cool. Thanks for showing this off today. Thanks for your time here today. Thank you. That was Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Until next week, I'm Pat. I'm Greg. I'm Shannon. I'm Roger. Tremaine. Keep tasting. Pat, do you want to do it? Or who read the outro last time? I read the outro. Shan, you want to do it? Is it written, like, I don't... Oh, that's a good start. I will, just tell me what to say and I'll say it. You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, the Binny's Podcast.