I'm looking forward to this, because I haven't tried many of these. It's Sober January, what do we call it? Dry January? Sober January? I don't even like that angle. Dry-nu-ary. Dry-nu-ary? It works on the page better than it does. Dry-nu-ary? Yeah. No, that's horrible. I know. Yeah. It sounds like a real nightmare. I might be skipping breakfast, but I'm not skipping the evening cocktail. Yeah. Obviously, none of us are participating in that, but some people are. And back to my mantra of, I don't care what you drink as long as you buy it from us. So we sell these things and let's taste them. Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle. Back in your feed, I am Greg. I do communications at Binny's in the room with me today. I'm Pat, especially spirits Stuff. I'm Shannon. I also do communications, and then social media. Roger, beer. All right. So we are recording this in January. It's going to come out in January. 2020, baby. Yeah. So thank you for downloading in 2023. A lot of people take this month off. You know, you got to reset the buttons, whatever. Yeah, except weed's legal, so everybody's high. I'm going to not drink for January, but also I can't find my car keys. Pat, have you tried a lot of these? I've tried none of these. So we're all headed. Shannon, have you tried these? I have tried both of the rituals and the other seed lipids. Not the one with a picture of a rabbit made out of ginger root and orange peel on it? No, not that one. Okay, so just to frame it, today we're talking about non-alcoholic spirits and beers. A lot of people are doing it. There's low alcohol movement too. We should start with the beers because I have a feeling we want to drink these as cold as possible. Yeah. Let's drink these beers. Okay. All right. Good idea. This is going to be crucial. Non-alcoholic beer has been a thing for a while. Quite a while. Everybody's got that uncle. It's always been pretty typically terrible. Right? Well, we're going to run the gamut here. So we're going to start things with the one that if you were to just say non-alcoholic beer, this is probably what comes to mind. O'Douls or sharps. The old O'Douls. So yeah, a lot of people, if they've ever, for whatever reason, end up trying a non-alcoholic beer, I would say O'Douls is they have the PGA affiliation, they're the one that you're going to see the most in public. Or there was always just old O'Douls and sharps, and then there was Coors NA on the outliers, and then a couple of German options like Kloss Taller. Kloss Taller has been around for a while, Beck's, St. Pauli's Grill. This really is a perfect example of that NA beer is nothing new. However, the way it's produced and the types of beer that are non-alcoholic or low, nearly zero zero are changing. So we're starting to finally see some craft NA beer. This smells like corn water. Yeah. It smells like how I remember like the can recycling center, you know? Yeah. When I used to work at the golf course. It just smells like day after party beer cans and around the college apartment. Which means they nailed that lousy beer smell. Yeah. Yeah. Ironically, I want a spit bucket more than usual. So yeah, I mean, obviously, so for those of you that are unfamiliar, non-alcoholic beers are typically brewed like a normal beer, and then the alcohol is removed after the fact. So the way that they do that can vary depending on the producer. They're usually pretty cagey about it, and they just kind of act like they have a special process. But the old way of doing it was simply just heating it. So you're essentially much like with distillation, you're counting on that alcohol has a lower temperature, which it vaporizes, so they're just kind of cooking the finished beer to remove the alcohol. So that cooking process is then what makes them taste a little weird. Yeah, heating up finished beer normally makes it taste pretty good, right? Yeah. I mean, one of the things we always tell people when they worry about beer getting skunky, or can I let beer go from cold to warm? We always tell people, especially in the summertime, a lot of people tend to keep their beer in the garage, which is not a good idea because your garage can get really hot, and then you end up essentially cooking the beer, and you'll notice then this beer doesn't taste good, it's something is weird about it. So that's the thing that breweries have always struggled with. So in the more recent past, there's been some improvements on the methodology. So some of these are actually go through reverse osmosis, filtration, so then that can, you can avoid some of the pitfalls of the cooked kind of aspect of it. The other thing that they can do is apply a vacuum to it. So then the vacuum ends up changing the temperature at which space beer. Yeah, so, I mean, there's been some improvements made, but again, we'll just kind of keep popping these and see. All right, so Vertigonal Duals, would you drink it if it was handed to you at a party? Thumbs up, thumbs down. No. Yeah, it tastes exactly like what I imagined it. It just tastes like inexpensive beer that always, if you just were craving that flavor without the 3.2% alcohol. Just reminds me of the golf course, all the guys golf course. Right, or like that bar with the peanut shells and the PGA Tour machine in the corner. Oh yeah, I was at one of those in Chico, California once and a roach crawled out of the peanut basket on the top of the bar. Why did you say that? And then the guy was with continued eating the peanuts and he was like, whatever, they're in shells. Okay, now we have PBR, NA. How long has PBR had an NA? I don't know the answer to that. I think it's relatively new, though. I've never had it, so that's why I wanted to pop one. Ooh, O'Doul's is better. This is funky. It's weird. It's weird. Yeah. So this tastes more like how I remember O'Doul's. So I think O'Doul's might have improved a little over the years. O'Doul's stepping the game up, huh? I mean, when you're arguably the leader, you'd think they would keep innovating, but this is kind of weird. Same question from Pat as before. Would you drink this one? I would not. I would not drink this one. No, this one sucks. This has like a vegetal character to it. Yeah. Maybe they tried to get some hop. It seems like they tried to get some hop flavor into it, and then that kind of gave it this funkiness. All right, what's next? So this is the one that's really leading the charge. So this is what's put non-alcoholic beer on a lot of people's radar because Heineken has developed a non-alcoholic Heineken Zero. Most non-alcoholic beers, we call them non-alcoholic, but they have this tiny amount, like 0.5, and then there's a few that are actually 0.0. So this is one of the ones that's completely 0.0. So Heineken 0.0. The only other 0.0 I'm aware of that we've had before was the Bitburger Drive, is that right? As far as I know, yeah. But we have some craft offerings now too, right? Did you bring those today? Yeah. All right. Are any of those 0.0? No. Okay, cool. So it's still just, this is the only one that we definitely have everywhere. Right. This smells more honest or more true to the Heineken name. Yeah, it still has a little bit of that skunky Heineken character. Good old skunky Heineken character. It's part of the flavor profile, right? They're really leaning hard into the dry January pitch. They even did a promo where if you- Do you mean dry-nuary? Yeah, whatever the weird amalgamation. Can we just all grow facial hair in a month? Sure. But they basically made an advent calendar. Someone asked for a 31-pack the other day of this, and I go, 31-pack, what's that all about? Go away. So, that's when I had to dive into this and go, oh, so it was a promotional thing for the first 1000 or 1500 people that signed up, they would just ship you one. By the way, if you're like me, and you can't let this go without calculating, it's eight by four with one missing. Yep. They're pushing it hard. There's always been one interesting thing about non-alcoholic beer is that in Germany in particular, it's been pretty well-known and popular for some time, and athletes are really into it. So especially people like in the cycling community, there's a trend to after you're done, like after a long exercise or bike ride or something, or big runners, they drink non-alcoholic beer because they believe that it's more refreshing, it has some This reminds me of those Prohibition era ads that we have hanging in our store bathrooms. It's like Miller's Malt Syrup, good for you and the baby too. Also classic Guinness advertising. Yeah. It's like, grow strong, grow Guinness, for sure. Now, my question here then is, how caloric are these? Are they listed on the back of the can maybe? So the Heineken one listed, Heineken is pretty low. We're going to try the Kronbacher one in a minute here. That one is 90. So I mean, they're not high. It's a lot of calories for not a lot of drunkenness. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of the joke is that it's like, it's like half the calories of a can of soda. You're six calories away from having yourself a cool, refreshing Miller Lite. Or one of those 4% alcohol beers that Roger put in the beer buds this week. Yeah. Wowza. What was it called? Wowza is the one from the shoots. Yeah. Yeah. The low cal craft movement, there's some really decent low calorie craft beer now, but that's a downside to these. And that's kind of what the challenge is now, where NA beers in the past, the focus was more on like, you can be more responsible by drinking these. You could be a designated driver and this is an alternative. But now they're kind of more this bent of that this is like a health conscious effort. So I think some of the breweries are struggling to kind of make sense of that. They still have calories and carbs and in some cases, more than you'd think for, quote, no alcohol. So we'll see how they navigate that. But again, they're not high by any means. All right. So what's the verdict on the Heineken one? Drink or no drink? It's a little sweeter than I'd like, but I would drink it. I would drink this. I think this is not bad. I think it has a little bit of citrus characters. Okay. Next follow up, is it better than regular Heineken? Yeah. I think it might be. I haven't had regular Heineken in a while. All right. What's next, Raj? So this one is Claustaller, and they make two versions of Claustaller. And for years, this is one of the only Ambers. O'Doul's has an Amber as well, but this was lauded as the, if not the best non-alcoholic beer, definitely the one with the most flavor. Okay. So Amstel lights the beer drinkers light beer. This is the beer drinkers non-beer. This is the ultimate old guy beer. This is the ultimate Uncle Randy kind of beer. Old man beer style in an NA pack. You're a guy who requests an NA beer when he comes to the party, you have O'Douls and he's like, oh, O'Douls, huh? I'm more of a Clausteller guy. Well, that are Caliber. I was looking at Caliber and- Now, Caliber is supposedly non-alcoholic, right? Basically, yeah. But so one thing that's worth mentioning here that's interesting is that they rebranded this and it's no longer Clausteller Amber. It's called Clausteller Dry Hopped, and then it says specifically with Cascade Hops and Unfiltered. I found that interesting. They're actually shooting for a beer drinker here. Yeah. It's European yet they're using arguably one of the most famous American hops. Yeah, the American hop. Yeah. I mean, right when you smell it, it's super different in smell. Ironically, even though this is a finished beer, it reminds me of visiting a brewery because it reminds me of the smell of- You're right. Like wort. Like bread, bread and hops. Oh, it smells like under attenuated wort. That's what it smells like. It just smells like a mash cap. Which is super weird, but kind of pleasant. Like if you've been visited a lot of breweries, like we have, like, I don't know, I kind of, this reminds me of brewing, like home brewing and- This just smells like beer before it goes to a fermenter that has a bit of hop added. Like the hops are in the boil. This just smells like unfermented beer. That's been- And tastes like it too, which I think is kind of pleasant. That's been my experience with non-alcoholic craft beers is that they taste like under-brewed craft beers. Yeah. Like somebody's second home brew project. Now, on the other side of that though, this smells and tastes like it has a pretty decent chunk of residual sugar in it. Yeah. I wonder how caloric this one is. Which it's only 89 calories. Oh, these are no duels. I was going to do Kronbacher next, but this is a new one from Brooklyn, and I want to do this next because this reminds me of the old Pauliner non-alcoholic, which tastes like Klossdaller. Is that a lager style or a Weiss style? This is called Special Effects, and I believe it's supposed to be a lager, maybe? I don't know for sure, but they bothered to write non-alcoholic hoppy beer. So again, color-wise, aroma-wise, this kind of, they really made a big stink about, I probably should have pulled it up, that this was like a whole new type of non-alcoholic beer. And I was like, I don't know, it kind of tastes like Klossdaller to me. It pours the same color as Klossdaller. When was the last time you heard somebody call a non-alcoholic beer a near beer? It's been a while. That's a real old man term. Yeah. Well, that can sometimes be those 3% beers. So, some states have these really antiquated weird laws where there's a separate category of beer. There are states out there that would slander my beloved hams like that. Yeah, it's crazy. So, like in Utah, for example, for years, the only beer you could sell was near beer, where it maxes out at like 3.2, I believe. 3.2. Happy New Year. That law got off the books and they dumped a bunch of 3.2 beer and now they have real beer. Oh, cool. Well, we got legal weed, so screw you, Utah. I mean, they did just step into where everybody else was in like 1978. So again, this one has the most hop character, but it still has that kind of warty. It's a beautiful looking beer. So it is crystal clear and this gorgeous amber color. It pours the same amber color as the Clasthaler, except that one was hazy a little bit and this is just- Yeah, this is a gorgeous beer. Yeah. It tastes good too. I really like this. I would drink this. It's a little peachy. Yeah. I've never had any non-alcoholic beer, so this is very strange for me. All the aftertastes are quite interesting. Yeah. It's definitely not beer. It's not the same thing, but you can't look at it that way. You got to think of it as an alternative, right? We've just been tasting these and I can't quite imagine drinking a whole one of these and then wanting another one. Even a whole one, I think, would be a little... Because it's sweet and heavy? Yeah. Well, I bet you that somebody who drinks a lot of these feels the same way about a beer. Yeah. Or not. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I mean, it's serviceable though. I mean, this has gotten better over the years. I mean, I remember some of these 10 years ago where the kind of off and strange note that we're trying to describe was more pronounced. So I feel breweries are kind of getting a little better at this. The next one, I think, is if you are interested in non-alcoholic beer, this is where you should start. This is Kronbacher Weizen. So if you've ever listened before, we've talked about Weiss beer. These German wheat beers typically use a very specific yeast strain, which during fermentation produces these esters that have kind of a banana-like flavor to them. Banana and clove, baby. And clove. So again, since some of these struggle with some strange off flavors, this I think is great because those banana clove flavors cover that up. So you still get the defining characteristics of a Weiss beer are the main flavors. Yeah, it's just that intense flavor covers up what we would otherwise think of as flaws. Right. So if you like Weiss beer, so like your Polliner, your Hockershaw, Kronbacher, this I think is a great option. 90 calories, 9 grams of sugar, 21 grams of carbs, 135 milligrams of potassium. All right. That's where the banana is coming from. This tastes like a Weiss beer. I mean, this really is. It does taste like a Weiss beer. Nailed it. Bananas and cloves. Would you drink this? Good head retention. I'd drink this. Yeah, I would for sure. You could fool. I think you could blind some people on this and fool them. I agree. Especially people that aren't huge in a Weiss beer. If they have one once in a while, you could pour this, put a lemon in it, which obviously is not traditional, but lots of people do. If you like it, you like it. That's cool. Put some citrus in this, so it's even more aromatic. Like this is a nice beverage. This is really good. This is a nice beverage. So yeah, we carry. So this is Kronbacher. It's pretty affordable. I think it's even on sale right now. Erdinger makes one. That's one that over the years has always sold really well, and was well received. I would say it probably sells just as well, if not better than the regular Weiss beer. As far as like people starting to talk about Kraft and a beer, this is one that really kind of sparked a little bit of interest. It is well-being, and they make a variety of different beer styles. So their attitude was pretty much everything we tasted today was either a lager or the Weiss beer. They wanted to just tackle like American craft. So American wheat style, a pale ale, and then this one is a coffee cream stout. Coffee cream stout. Which is also spiced, I should mention. Why did you bring this one? Well, there's nothing else like this on the shelf. That's true. Yeah, except like they can make this for you at Starbucks, and it'll taste the same. We'll see. Pour it. Well, I didn't really know it was spiced until I just read it on the side here. Nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves. I've had a bunch of well-beings because that was the one that was recommended to me. Yeah. I had somebody ask for this at St. Charles recently. I was like, what is this? Stings the nostrils. Wow. They tasted like underbrewed beers, underbrewed craft beers, but they're offering something that is very hard to find these days, which is an interesting thought out on alcoholic beer. You're not just holding the bottle to fit in at the party or whatever. This has a really weird nose. This reminds me of bullion cubes or something. Looks like a little soy sauce. Yeah, like meaty. There's a meaty umami character to this. Like beef soup. Yeah, it's umami, but it's not like an autolicist character, though. This is weird. This is just meat umami. That is just terrible. It's not that bad. Oh, this is gross. If you like the taste of pennies, you know? Yeah. I'm sorry. So this is where the integrity comes in. Just because a lot of people are talking about these. Oh my God, this is bad. first of all, I don't think it's as bad as you guys do. There's too much nutmeg in there and it has this dry woodiness on the finish because it has these woody spices in there. But that's a really good description. I don't think it's horrible and offensive, but it's certainly not good. Like the Kronbacher is a better beer. The Brooklyn is a good beer. This is not a good non-alcoholic beer. I'm sorry. It's not. But it's not offensive. I mean, come on. Yeah, it is. No, somebody put this in the cans and they were like, give me $11 a six-pack of this. It's got like a tomato soup quality to it that another brand that we don't carry. 10.99 a six-pack. Of non-alcoholic beers have that too. And people have been asking me, I got to try to figure out what that is all about. But I was hoping you were going to get their wheat beer because it is all of the worst qualities of a poorly made wheat beer without the alcohol. I mean, this is, it's kind of amazing how weird this is. I keep going back to it and I keep picking up all new gross flavors. Yeah. Yeah. Like if you left a plastic spoon in a coffee grounds, like you get a little bit of that. Yeah. There's some shoe leather and that shoe rubber in there too. So here's your palate refresher. Last but not least, we have something that's kind of beer adjacent. This is Laganitis Hoppy Refresher. Oh, I want to see the bottle again. Does it say lime juice or something on it? It says zero carbs, zero alcohol, zero calories. This ipa-inspired sparkling beverage is a fresh take on an old tradition, a zero alcohol, zero carb, and zero calorie refreshment made using everything we know about hops. Look at Pat being able to read out loud. My goodness. Good job, Patrick. Yeah. What do you mean? Carbonated water, dried hops, nutritional brewers, yeast, and natural flavors. Roger, they changed the formula on this since the last time I tried it. Yeah. So I'm surprised that it doesn't say citrus on there because- When this first came out, it really sucked. Yeah. Does it not suck anymore? That's what I meant to say. This smells like Sprite. I liked it better, so I must be in the minority because when this first came out- Yeah, this has all kinds of citrus peel added to it. This tastes like citrusy soda almost. Minus the good part of citrusy soda. Yeah, minus- This is better than it was. It's like a gummy bear that just isn't quite juicy enough. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I don't know about this. It's not a beer. You got to not think of it like that. Yeah, it's true. But it is a flavor that- I mean, I think if you're- Obviously, another draw of the non-alch beers is women that are pregnant. If IPAs are king right now and someone misses drinking IPAs, this isn't an IPA, but it is at least going to deliver some of that citrusy fruity hop flavor. Yeah. Yeah. It's something. It's better than those hop candies. Oh. Oh, yeah, those were gross. So, I don't know. I liked the original rendition of this that was more hop forward and didn't have any kind of sweetness or citrusy. I thought it was imbalanced. But it's okay. I could slam a couple of these. How much does this cost? I think it's $4. I think they're like a dollar a bottle. I think they missed the boat on the packaging. $5.99. Oh, a four-pack. So, they wanted this to be like a premium. They really want you to like mix this, and they kind of packaged it that way. And it's a shame because Laganitas is famously just such a tremendously good value when it comes to beer. Like all their beers are almost underpriced. A lot of their six-packs are crazy high alcohol, and they're like $10.99. So, it was very odd to see this package this way. I mean, to be honest with the craze with hard seltzer right now, I mean, this should be in cans. It should be in cans and really affordable. So, I agree with that. They need to pivot on this and just scrap the four-pack bottles. I was trying to think, who are they competing against? Is it bottled water? Is it soda? It's not. It's tonic. That's what this is the most like. It's the most like tonic. Yeah. That's why it's in a four-pack of clear bottles. Yeah. We should make a gin and tonic with this. All right. Cool. We will. What's the ritual? With one of these alternatives. So, that's beer. Go buy Kronbacher. Kronbacher is good. Yeah. Kronbacher wins. I like the Brooklyn. Claustauer is pretty good. Claustauer is pretty good, yeah. And actually, Heineken and the O'Douls are fine. Yeah, fine. Heineken for all the buzz, I mean, I don't know. It was okay. I ironically think O'Douls was just as good as the Heineken. Deep in a classic. Maybe better. Perhaps you come in last. Yeah, that perhaps really stunk. The well-being was, that's not even on the table. Different kind of last. Yeah. Found substance last. Next up is spirits. So how do you make a zero distilled spirit? Yeah, what is it? I don't know. So Seedlip says that it's a... Glad we got the product expert in this session. Um, really they're just like distilling water through botanicals or something on the Seedlip thing. So they are actually distilled. The Seedlip is actually distilled. Oh no. Yeah. That one's real weird. I just let that poison well. Spoiler alert. It smells gross. It's just so different. Minty Caramel is what it smells like. And the capsaicin like... That's what it is, right? Yeah. That's what it is. So they use capsaicin, the heat in hot peppers to simulate the burn that you would get from alcohol. Now, when I read that, suddenly I lit up like I'm a hot sauce fiend. And if they can take a similar sensation and bottle it in a spirit, like that doesn't sound good to me in the slightest, but it sounds neat. Yes. All right. So for spirit side, let's start with kind of what I think is the original, which is Seedlip, which is a British brand. These are distilled non-alcoholic spirits. So they are both, I think, best used as like gin substitutes. When you're distilling something, you're pulling off these oils and aromatics, and you have this intensely aromatized liquid here that's probably going to need to be paired with some kind of mixer. So the first one we'll do is the Seedlip Grove 42, which is their citrusy one. And it's got a picture of a squirrel made out of ginger root and some citrus peels and stuff on it. And it is a sophisticated warm citrus blend using three varieties of Mediterranean orange, lemon peel, ginger and lemongrass. I like the sound of that. And there is a cool prickle of Japanese sansho peppercorn. Oh, is that Roger? What is that? I'm not familiar with that. There's a lot of pepper, different peppercorns and a lot of gins. It might just be one of those like adds a little bit of earthiness to it. I like how the rabbit's face is like the like a ginger texture. This one smells more like sprite than that Lagonius Hobwater did. I like how the liquid just keeps collapsing down the side of the bottle. It doesn't. I just spilled it all over myself. It does smell like sprite. They did not design the pour on this bottle very well. With this like green, like this green peppery. Yeah, this bottle stinks. It stinks. What are you doing? It's a big, heavy, expensive bottle though. That smells like sprite, grapefruit. Yeah, it is. And cucumber. Yeah, it's a cucumber. Interesting that they don't list that. Well, a lot of things could give you that flavor, like watermelon rind. Like it's kind of watery. So notable about these seed lips, they are non-alcoholic, sugar-free, allergen-free, sweetener-free, and no artificial flavors. So whenever I've tried these for me. Yeah. It's like I'm drinking nothing at all. The mouthfeel, like where's the mouthfeel? Is that what it is? I don't get any of that body. Yeah. This is truly watery. Yeah. Yeah. It's just water. That's what you're missing is the grain. That's essentially what it sounds like they're doing, right? They're flavoring distilled water. They're distilling water through flavoring botanicals, through flavoring agents. Which is ironic because when you're making a flavor, alcohol is the basis, the medium for vanilla extract and almond extract. So, these are $40 a bottle. Yes. Distilling is expensive. Yeah, these are $40 a bottle. We only have them in a couple of stores where people have looked for them, but we get a lot of requests for this. Since they launched, we have gotten a lot of requests through the Whiskey Outline or spiritsofbinnys.com, people looking specifically for Seedlip. Let's try maybe with some tonic water. Yeah, you were saying that the point of this isn't to drink it straight. You're not gonna just up and chug a liter-sized bottle of flavored water. A $40 bottle of flavored water. The point is not to think of this as gin. The point of this is if you cannot drink or don't want to drink, but you enjoy gin or gin cocktails, this is the alternative. And you have to use this mixed with other stuff as you would a gin cocktail. So I grabbed a bottle of the old fever tree elderflower tonic. So the other seedlip here is Garden 108, which they describe as herbal. So we have citrus and herbal. And this one has peas, homegrown hay, and traditional English herbs. Oh, yeah. What kind of peas? Snap peas, no peas? Hand-picked peas. Oh, that's terrible. It smells like gerbil food. Oh, weird. It's so peppery. Yeah, there's that green earthy asparagus-y note. It's like green peppers in a puree. Once again, so we're going to mess on the bottle. Oh. You know, I actually like this one better than the first one. It's so herbal. It's so herbal. It's so bright. So we have citrus and we have herbal. It's very like rye, like I get a lot of dill and rye. Yeah, it's kind of dilly. Dill. All right. Well, let's. Yeah, it smells like a jar of pickles. Again, this is just like you juice cucumbers. Like I've made a cocktail before with cucumber water. Like that's totally what these tastes like. Yeah, these tastes like the cold, the big glass pitcher of water and ice and cucumber slices that's like next to the bathroom at a banquet hall. Yeah, I know. It's like you're like, hey, you know, that's free stuff. Yeah. Encouraging wedding revelers to have a glass of water after they come out of the bathroom. Like the public water jar at the off strip Las Vegas hotel. Yeah. Hey, this place isn't too bad. There's melon in there. Yeah. Chunks of melon. Well, I'm going to try this one, I guess with the elderflower, Tommy. Honeydew melon, cucumber, maybe a little watermelon. Give me that other one. I want to try that one with the... Zzzz, blend it up, filter it. All I have is tonic water. The herbal is actually pretty nice with that tonic water. Like this is just a refreshing water beverage. This is the most expensive bottled water I've ever seen. It is. I mean, 40 bucks, I think is too much for what you're getting here. It's, I mean, we'll see. Maybe if it's so much better than our other gin alternative, then we'll see. It's going to be a lot different, like completely different. At least for me, I'm good on that one. The tonic water almost has more flavor than the alcohol-free gin. Can I get this like cheesy? You can take almost out of that sentence. Here, let me see that tonic. There you go, bud. I mean, my running joke is that if you're looking for a great non-alcoholic gin tonic, you should drink a really high quality tonic water with some fresh citrus in it, because you have some very similar flavors. If you only like citrus-forward gin like a Philistine. I mean, citrus-forward gin is pretty good. Okay, it's fine. I mean, or alternatively, throw some of this cucumber water in there. Oh, man. All right. Well, maybe a ritual is throwing something a little more exciting out there, because Seedlip is definitely not doing tricks like capsaicin or anything to give it frame. So for the record, I really like the flavor of both of these, especially with this Fever Tree Elderflower Tonic. I agree. But I mean $40 is a highway robbery, possibly. I mean, it depends what you're looking for, of course. But it's a really fancy bottle. That pours liquid on your hand. Yeah. Yes. Well, see, I- Bottle, you had two jobs. I think what's kind of interesting is, so which fever treat have we? Elderflower one. So I mean, maybe some of it's that that's elderflower is a stronger flavor, but I added a decent amount of the seed lip to a very small amount of the tonic water, and I think it got pretty lost in the tonic. So that's my concern is that, especially in tonic water, you're just kind of where'd the non-alcoholic spirit go? I agree. Well, now that we've adequately trashed something. You know, it's a good flavor. People are going to like it, but... Can't all be winners, Bobby. So next up is Ritual, this is actually made in Chicago? Or just, what, run by people who? The company is based in Chicago, I'm not sure where it's made. It is made with filtered water, natural flavors, cane sugar, xanthan gum, citric acid, all these preservatives. Hey, they're bringing out the chemistry set, this might actually be good. So this is, first I'm gonna try, now they go out of their way to call it a gin alternative. So Ritual, zero proof gin alternative, they list the botanicals on there, quite extensive. Siberian pine, coriander berries, angelica root, hemp leaves, sweet basil, English cucumber, juniper berries, green lemongrass. What's capsicum fruit, Roger? It's another, I don't know. C-A-P-S-I-C-U-M fruit. Green peppercorn, prickly ash and peppermint leaf. What's prickly ash? It's probably like tree bark, I would think. You can tell just pouring this that it's thicker in texture. Now, to be fair to these, you are not supposed to drink these on their own. Like these are absolutely supposed to be mixed. Supposedly, they taste like crap on their own. I have not tasted them yet. Capsicum fruit is what my initial response was, peppers. Peppers. Capsicum. Oh man, there is like a hot pepper thing going on. It smells like a head shop. Yeah, essentially. With these, I had a hard time getting past that, like the peppery-ness just on its own. And the peppermint. Yeah. This is kind of interesting. It's super weird. At least it has structure on your palate. Yeah. Or it replicates structure on your palate. It hits my throat. It's not just water like the other ones are. It's a spicy meatball. Yeah. Why is it so spicy? So you're not supposed to have it on its own. Is the tonic coming around? It's so thick. Just open another tonic. Yeah. The pepper still comes through in the tonic like pretty... It is really... Powerfully. It's unsettlingly thick though on its own. Yeah. Oh, look. It's even like oily in the tonic. Cool. Pat, you've known some hippies over the years. That is true. This is a very hippie vibe to me. And you were right though. I mean, this definitely smells like a head shop of this combination of hemp and Nag Champa incense. Yeah. I mean, it's very incense-like. Patchouli. I like it. It's pretty interesting with the tonic. Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad with tonic at all. It's got to have tonic. Like if this was served to me, I would drink this. If you've ever thought, I really want to eat my incense. I can just drink my incense. Yeah. But this is an interesting flavor. It's actually an interesting flavor. A lot of times, like the alcohol-free cocktail movement, is like, what's the point, especially if it's an alcohol-free mojito or something. You might as well just be drinking pop soda. But this actually has some other characteristics. Complexity. No, this is cool. Now, comparing this general alternative to those seed lips, I'd rather chug. I would just like to drink one of those bottles of seed lip. Yeah, it's just flavored water. It's delicious flavored water. It is delicious. It absolutely is delicious. But it's so goddamn expensive. Yeah. And this actually has some character. You don't want that much of it. Just like a spirit. You don't want that much of it at once. No, like an ounce and a half with a bunch of tonic water is good here. And it's complex and it's interesting. And you can see that they put a lot of effort and thought and the flavor is going in there. It's it's 20 bucks. It's not bad. Not bad at all. I am pleasantly surprised. Pleasantly surprised. Like I'm going to drink the rest of this. I wonder what keeps their cost down versus Seedlip's cost. Like what what are they doing differently? They didn't hire the artist to make rabbits out of their botanicals on their label. The bottle probably. Seedlip's got this big, rounded, heavy bottle. Marketing and consumer demand analysis. Ritual's bottle, to be fair, is an actual liquor bottle too. Like it's got a big, heavy base. It's got this fake cork. Yeah, it looks legit. Now, notable with ritual, it says, good for six months after opening, no refrigeration required, do not freeze. So you can't rip frozen shots like you would with whatever absolute flavor your parents kept in the freezer in high school. Because it's water. That's kind of foreboding. Drink within six months though, it's interesting. Now, that was another question I had about that seed lip. Like those are very aromatic. How does that blow off evaporate over time? I wonder how that bottle of seed lip is going to taste in four months. We'll report back. Cool. Keep it in the archive. Yeah, it's just going to be in the archive. No one else is going to try it. How would you not want to try it? I want to try everything. weirdly, on the table is the whiskey alternative. Have we seen one of these from Seedlip or are they just doing gins and vodkas? The only Seedlip we've seen are those two. I'm not sure what else they're doing. Okay. The Ritual Zero-Proof Whiskey Alternative, American Oak, Madagascar vanilla, capsicum fruit, sugar floss, mesquite smoke, warm caramel, hemp leaves, green peppercorn, prickly ash, and toasted spices. Yay. I know. It smells like caramel and mint, doesn't it? Yeah. This is another real thick one. Yeah. Give me. It pours viscous as- It smells like oak too, though. This does have an oak aroma to it. The syrups you put in coffee, like those Torino syrups or whatever they are. Exactly. It pours just like that. Yeah. Amaretto syrup. Of course. Thank you. What vermouth are we going to put in? We're going to make a Manhattan out of this, right? Yeah. Might as well. So it smells definitely a little bit of mint, definitely a little bit of that caramel flavoring. And then like, oh, smoky taste. Tea? Yeah. Like a smoked tea, like an oolong tea. Well, you said mesquite, right? Yeah. It's kind of got a- Look at that bottle again, Shane. Got a furniture polish thing. I can't really get past. Yeah, I'm not digging this so much on its own. Like too much caramel? But again, we weren't expecting that nobody expects to drink this on their own. It kind of tastes like those root beer barrel candies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's got an interesting, like oily sheen when you pour vermouth into it. Yeah. Yeah. It did that with the tonic too. Well, this flavor really stays with. A lot of bitters. It's four dashes. I wouldn't drink this on its own, but I don't think that's what it's about. This is the thickest Manhattan I've ever had because the vermouth itself has got some body to it too. All right. So it takes some pouring back and forth between two glasses to get that kind of oily separation to go away here. I am not making a Manhattan out of this. You can give me your review. Oh, this is not bad at all. I mean, it helps if we are using really great vermouth. Yeah, but at that point, why don't you just drink some of the vermouth? Yes. We are missing a point of a crucial point of this is not just non-alcoholic cocktails, it's low alcohol stuff. A big play for these guys is going after lower alcohol cocktails. So like I could drink seven Manhattans and it's no worse than drinking what, a glass of vermouth or something? Yeah. And you're not going to be totally f***ed faced when you leave the restaurant. Yeah, the vermouth and the bitters definitely balances it out. Yeah. It still has that weird hot pepper capsaicin heat on the back though. That's the only thing to get at any grip on your palate. This is good. This Manhattan is good. This Manhattan is good. Manhattan is my cocktail. And this is as close as you're going to get to a non-alcoholic or very, very low alcoholic version of my cocktail. I'm not disagreeing with the concept. I just, I think that that, that whiskey and big air quotes is a mess. It's fine. The pe- no, it is not fine. It's, it's spicy and weird. But maybe it's because I like spicy stuff. I don't mind that spiciness. It actually makes it feel like I'm drinking something. The flavored waters in Seedlip are delicious, but there's no viscosity. There's no nothing. It's just like grassy flavored water. This actually like gives your non-alcoholic cocktail some kind of character. I don't know, man. I can get behind this. Have you ever used Pledge? Listen, your world of taste goes from big awesome beers to floor cleaners with no wiggle room at all in between. Yeah, there's some nuance, Roger. Yeah, I pick up on the nuances. That's why when something beats you over the face like this, just can't endorse it. Is it actually really spicy to you? Yeah, it's very spicy. It's lingering. It's still in my mouth, like my lips, like I ate a pepper. Seriously? I love spicy food probably as much as Greg does. And this is, I think, has a lingering heat. I don't get it. I don't have it. But there is, I was hitting the habanero sauce last night. You have a forever lingering heat in your mouth. Yeah, not your receptors. I've blown out my receptors. So, you know what, Roger? I don't like all your non-alcoholic beers either. fair enough. I think, end of the day, there's a bunch of reasons. There's as many reasons to want to have an alcohol-free cocktail or an alcohol-free beer as there are people, you know? Maybe it's about wellness. Maybe it's about control. Maybe it's about a little abstaining for some amount of time. Whatever reason you're not drinking alcohol or even moderating in a single night, you know? There are options and they're less bad than they've ever been. Totally. The next time I go to a dinner downtown and I know I have to drive home afterwards, I'm going to ask for a ritual whiskey alternative Manhattan, and I'm going to have two of them and I'm going to feel great. And you're going to say, charge it to the corporate suits. Yes. My two cents that I would chime in with is that if you enjoy cocktails with tonic water, you should start playing around with making things that you would normally make, like let's say gin tonic, and just try using a really tiny amount of gin, and letting the bitters and the tonic do the work. And if you've never purchased really high quality tonic water, like Fever Tree that we're drinking today, that makes a world of a difference. High quality tonic water is all the difference. We will do an episode of all the different tonic waters we carry in the store at some point. Even coming to the Elderflower for this was a tough choice, because there was like eight different flavors. I'm like, oh man, there's always tonic. I like the Mediterranean Fever Tree personally, but there's a bunch of good tonic out there right now. My favorite is Top Note, which is out of Milwaukee actually. The other two cocktails to consider is Bloody Marys, virgin Bloody Marys. All you're missing is just a spirit that's designed to be tasteless and flavorless. If you enjoy bloodies, just don't put the vodka in. Moscow Mules. Again, if you love good ginger beer and with some lime in it. But also, a drink I made the other day was a Dark and Stormy. Again, a really good dark rum like Meyers. If you just try putting like a teaspoon in, you're still going to get that big like Potsdale, Jamaican character that's going to come through and you barely need any. So you can make like Pat was saying earlier, the lower alcohol cocktails that still have a ton of flavor. It's a lot easier with these things though than just trying to teaspoon foolproof spirits though. I don't know. I would disagree. I would say that we've tried some really interesting over-the-top spirits in the past. Some of the rums in particular that we had, those pot still rums, if you put an eyedropper of something crazy like Ray and Nephew or Smith and Cross, any of these really estuary rums, you can barely use any and it's going to have all those crazy You're also crossing the line from no alk to low alk. Yeah, for sure. And that's what I'm saying, that it's a reaction to this Manhattan thing that we were just talking about. So I think that rather than rely on one of these non-alk spirits that may get lost in the shuffle, just using a small amount of a very highly flavorful spirit could be something worth playing around with. Well said, Roger. Well said. Non-alcoholic spirits, non-alcoholic beers, world different than it used to be, and interesting stuff. Worth drinking. Hey, next week, let's do something with alcohol in it, okay? All right, everybody, we'll be back in your feed next week with something a little boozier. Thanks for listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Until next time, I am Greg. I'm Roger. I'm Shannon. I'm Pat. Keep tasting.