How many flavors of Fever Tree are there? We are up to 18 at this point in time. We have an absolute boatload of mixers. That's ridiculous. So Tide has like 18 different flavors of like Meadows and Lavender, Strang. Flavors, yes. And like- That's very 2018 talking about me and Tide. Ranch dressing has, I don't know why they have so many ranch dressings. No, they have ranch and hot. What are you talking about? There's not like ranch, there's not- No, there is. There's like Cheeto dust ranch, and there's like bacon apricot ranch. If I wanted those things in my ranch, I would like put them in my ranch, but I just need ranch, right? But you're a lazy jerk, so we know you wouldn't. So it's a lot easier to just buy it pre-made. So my theory is you're just trying to dominate shelves by having so many different flavors. Oh, that's 100 percent true. Absolutely. I will fully cop to that. Again, Fever Tree Beverage Depot. I want those mini fridges everywhere. I want those racks everywhere. Let's just deck it out. I dig it. All right. Great episode, everybody. Thanks for having me. This has been Overall Yut. Hey, you're listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's. I'm Pat, I do spirits at Binny's. And if you go back and listen to our Highball episode, when we were going to set it up, I was literally, I called Pat on the phone as I was staring at this wall of tonic waters on our shelves, trying to figure what tonic water I should use for my Highball. And I was like, why are there so many fever trees and what is the difference? That's a very good question. True story, true story. I probably ended up buying the wrong one, like the club soda or some bulls**t. Yeah. So we actually have to answer the mystery of why there needs to be so many fever trees. We have Alex. Alex, what's your role with Fever Tree? I'm Alex Brick. I am the Central Region Account Manager slash Mixologist for Fever Tree North America. And yes, I do have to have two business cards end to end to fit that whole type. It means he wears fashionable sweaters and makes gin and tonics. I do. You basically defined me right there. That's my entire life. Give us a little background on Fever Tree. This is something we've carried for a while now, but I know this is an 100 year old company or something. How did this all come about? Absolutely. So we launched officially in 2005. We're a UK based company, but we really started in 2003 with a conversation over a G&T in a pub in London. So our founders and CEOs had formerly worked in the premium gin sector. They were bemoaning the fact that they had been working so hard to launch all these excellent gins, and they couldn't actually have a decent mixture to go along with it. They were burying all of their good gins in this awful sugary tonic with fake ingredients and just trash. That's where our lovely slogan came from of, if three-quarters of your drink is the mixer, mix with the best. They're thinking, why isn't there a premium mixer out there? So that's what really spawned the company. From there, they went on a literal worldwide search. One of the things I love about our story is that our actual CEOs literally traveled the world to find the ingredients that we have in all of our mixers. So to give the sort of detail spiel to just to make sure that it's out there before I go too much further, everything we have is naturally sourced, non-GMO, almost everything is gluten-free. So we're trying very hard to make all of these mixers things that people want to put in their bodies. I laugh and say, we're what adults like to drink. We try to keep everything low sugar. And again, it's all naturally sourced stuff. So that's kind of the spiel. That's the background here. So we officially hit the United States in 2008. Our US office and US sales team launched in 2018, I believe, and we have been running ever since. We have 18 different mixers that we make. And our whole goal is to, as we like to say, elevate every drinking experience. We try to take just that day-to-day or that bar top experience or going out with friends. We're trying to take that and simplify and streamline and elevate every single drink you make. And what's really cool about all the different mixers is that it takes the mixology work out of a lot of it, right? I come from a bar and mixology background. I'm a former bar manager and beverage director, all those things. And so I know how much work goes into a cocktail menu, right? And this allows you to take that home, right? And we'll talk about that more when we actually get into the details of the products that we're tasting and going through that stuff and getting your candid opinions on our mixers. The slogan really nails it and it's, you know, people spend this time making good cocktails at home and then they spend all this money on good alcohols and, you know, and then they just throw some garbage tonic or soda water in it. And I think, personally, I think this is the most impactful $2 you can spend in our stores. And like a $33 bourbon versus a $35 bourbon, you're going to have a pretty good bourbon experience either way. But the difference in paying $2 more for a better tonic water or, you know, a better club soda or, you know, we're going to, we have a ginger ale, whatever we're going to taste today, that is, I would argue, the most impactful $2 that you can Plus, they're good on their own. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of our stuff stands alone really well. We have new stuff like we've got our sparkling lemon, a sparkling lemonade. We've got a sparkling pink grapefruit that we just launched. Those are great to just have in your fridge and drink, and they're all super low sugar. That's the other cool thing is that it's just, like I said, it's how grownups like to drink. Yeah. Totally. Where should we start? Let's start with the flagship. Let's start with the actual Indian Tonic. I get asked a lot, why is it called Indian Tonic? The reason it's called the Indian Tonic is not because there are Indian flavors in there. It's not like curry flavored tonic or something, though I don't think I'd object to that. I'd be interested. I don't know. You let me know how that one works out. I'll sit on the sidelines. Tonic weirdo. The India Tonic is named just like an IPA. It doesn't actually have anything to do with India, other than the fact that British people were there ruining everything. Yes. Okay. You are entirely correct. This is an accurate statement. Tonic was really created by the British Army in India. We are paying tribute to the origins of Tonic. Quinine is the, or quinine is they're going to say in England, if you're hearing any of our British counterparts talking about it. Quinine is the active ingredient in Tonic that gives it that quintessential tonic-y bitter taste. That being said, quinine is an anti-malarial, and it was discovered in Peru from a tree that's called the Sinchona tree, nicknamed the Fever Tree by the local natives. Hey, this guy has made us taste so many different Amari. All the Chinaquina and the Chinato, yeah, we've heard it. But it's worth saying again. So quinine comes from the Sinchona tree bark, and it is anti-malarial. Absolutely. So very handy around swampy Rome and in India. And so these British soldiers had to take their daily quinine ration and these awful bitter tasting pills. And of course, to rehash the story, they would combine that with a little bit of local mineral water, some citrus and some sugar. And because British soldiers, they had a daily gin ration as well. Thus, first tonic was born and shortly thereafter, the gin and tonic was born. That's great. Taking medicine and just making it into a cocktail. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that's really where the cocktail world came from in the United States, is trying to take awful things and make them taste better. Yes. You know, Europe wouldn't send us the good hooch, so we had to make our own. It wasn't good, so we put in sugar and tried to doll it up from there. There you go. We each have two glasses in front of us. One is just the Fever Tree Indian Tonic, and the other one is, I guess we all did our own measures of gin and tonic using the Sipsmith. Sipsmith London Dry Gin. I poured a very small amount in a small amount of tonic. I went a little heavier on the tonic than I usually would because I know what gin tastes like. There you go. So the Indian Tonic you're looking at here, again, like I was saying earlier, we very much simplicity and ingredient, everything is naturally sourced in here. So you're looking at our English Spring Water, our carbonation is fantastic. We'll talk about, I can go on and on about our carbonation. We have a little bit of a Mexican Bitter Orange in there just for that classic tonic citrus. The oranges, quick sidebar, the oranges have a super cool story behind them. I won't go into full detail, but they are literally harvested using an ancient Mayan technique that follows a lunar growing cycle. It's super cool to hear about. That's a bunch of horse sh**. No, I wish I was making it up. I'll make up stories like that for all the different ingredients then. You have to hire a coven of witches to handpick. No, I'm just kidding. I wish Roger was here. He'd be like, oh, that's the Mayan orange. We have a resident fruit expert who would have an opinion on this. Yeah, for sure. Awesome. Either way, then we have our naturally sourced cane sugar in here and our quinine from the DRC from the Congo. That's it. That's all that's in the bottle. That's all. This is the classic tonic. This is what your OG gin and tonic drinker is going to want to drink. So if you are a G&T drinker, go for the Fever Tree Premium Indian Tonic. That is your drink right there. It's so good. It makes a really nice gin and tonic with the sip smith. I mean, it has the perfect amount of sweetness and citrus that works with that natural kind of citrus tone in most London dry gins. Yeah. And the bitterness there, it doesn't overpower the juniper. It doesn't fight with the juniper. It just seamlessly melds into something. Well, and again, don't forget that this company was founded because we wanted to elevate premium spirits. Again, if you're already buying a good spirit, you should be mixing it with a decent mixer. Yeah. And that being said, we're not here to bury the spirits. We're not here to hide anything. We try to design everything to highlight these premium spirits. Yeah. I love seeing people in the aisle with like a $60 bourbon. Oh, I love making old fashions or I love making Manhattans. And they have like Tribuno Vermouth. I'm like, man, and it's like, you got to compliment them on their taste in the bourbon. It's like, you have such good taste in bourbon. Why are you doing this to that good bourbon? Like spend four more dollars on a bottle of Dolan or something. Yeah, exactly. It's like walking into a bar and ordering a shot of Blanton's like, oh, how dare you? Why are you doing this to me? So you mentioned the cane sugar. It is a little bit sweet. So I guess, how does that affect the calorie content compared to one of those big American soda company tonics? So we're looking at the 200 ml bottles here, and this whole bottle has 70 calories in it, 16 grams of sugar, which is very low. You're looking at an average soda without naming names of other companies. You're looking at other tonics that are with a sugar count, looking like an actual off-the-shelf soda. Oh, really? I didn't realize regular tonic water that much sugar. It's supposed to be bitter, and it's got Coca-Cola-level sugar. It's so insanely caloric. It's like a serving is 170 or 180 calories on one of those. It's bonkers, and you don't taste it. I think it's there. I'm not here to shill your product, but I think it's there just to cover up some of the flaws and the bitterness. Yeah, probably. Give a little body to it, maybe. Yeah, maybe. Absolutely. A little substance, a little bit of... It can also be there to cover bad carbonation. All right. That's the Indian tonic, and that's also available in a diet version. Is that right? We do not use the word diet because we're not using anything fake in there. There's no aspartame. There's nothing like that. We have what we call a refreshingly light lineup. Thank you, marketing. We have the refreshingly light lineup, which actually uses a naturally sourced fruit sugar rather than our cane sugar. That's going to have half the calories. I have been told there are several different sources on it, but one of them at least that I can reveal is that some of it comes from Golden Beets. I have been told by our production team. Yeah, literally sugar beets. Now, that is not to say that there are any beet flavors in there. No, no, no. That's not a fruit, that's a tuber. Just saying. Yeah. Well, if you're going to get specific. All right. Well, now I'm going to get in trouble with marketing. So there's Indian Tonic, refreshingly light Indian Tonic. What other? Then we have there's Mediterranean Tonic, there's Lemon Tonic, there is? There's going to be the Citrus Tonic as well. That one is awesome. We made that in partnership with Patrone. I can go through the whole line up if you like as well. We have the refreshingly light Cucumber Tonic that was launched last summer. I've got a bottle that's in over here. We're going to try as well. That one is automatically refreshingly light. We didn't like that flavor with the cane sugar, so we decided to just go straight on to the fruit sugar with it, and I think it's an amazing, amazing mixer. So yeah, and then we also have our Aromatic Tonic. That one is, I call that one the bartender's best friend because that's a classic. If you guys heard the sort of British tradition of the pink G&T, where you make a gin and tonic and dash a bunch of Angostura bitters in there. I was hoping you'd say that. Yeah. So we cut out the middle man there, and we made it basically our Indian tonic with a much more complex aromatic blend in there. It's got Angostura bark, it's got a little Madagascan vanilla, these little cardamom, it's got these little pops in there. So it's a very complex blend, but it's the bartender's favorite because the classic bartender Hangover Cure, and I'm about to get a million people in trouble by saying this, classic bartender Hangover Cure, when you get to work and we're out drinking the night before, is you pour some club soda and you dash a boatload of bitters in there. Because it's alcoholic, but you're not really drinking at work, but you're also drinking at work. So it's kind of a hair of the dog thing. So we cut out the middleman there, but there is no alcohol in any of our products. So just to clarify that as well. All right, well, what should we taste next? Let's move to the Mediterranean tonic. I think it's a pretty natural segue here. Cool. And I love, I love, love the Mediterranean tonic. Interesting different flavor in this Mediterranean gin and tonic. Yeah. Am I getting more citrus in this? Yeah, more fruit. There's actually more of an herbaceous presence there that we're looking at. So what I love about the Mediterranean tonic, this is one of our most popular flavors, and I have a lot of bars that use this as their well tonic, right? So this was really made to bridge the gap from the vodka soda drinker to the gin and tonic drinker. So first and foremost, one of the things you'll notice about this is that it has half the level of quinine as that Indian tonic. So there's a lot less of that tonic-y bitterness in there. It's a much less tonic-y tonic. There's also a little bit of rosemary and lemon thyme in there. Those are from Spain and France there, so that's the name of Mediterranean tonic. There's got to be some lime peel or something. There's actually more of that Mexican bitter orange in there. Mexican bitter orange. That citrus is a through line through all of our tonics. That is a citrus backing for every tonic that we make. This is amazing because again, it's more approachable for people if you're not a GMT drinker. The idea originally was that if you have this Mediterranean tonic and you're a vodka soda drinker, you instead drink a vodka tonic using this. It eases you into tonic. You don't have quite that gin juniper bite that people have, but it also has that herbaceous element in there, so you get used to that more botanical presence. They made a gateway tonic. We made a gateway tonic. I am using that from now on in sales pitches. Thank you very much. I'll expect my checks. I love the Mediterranean tonic. It's also very mixology friendly too if you're getting for a more complex blend, not just like a gin and tonic. If you want a more complex cocktail at home, start pairing this with vermouths. I love adding vermouth to a gin and tonic just for everyone's record. You have all these amazing new dry vermouths, these blonde vermouths out there. Apparently, you're sick of hearing about. Would you mix one of your vermouths with this tonic? Yeah, why not? Yeah, good point. It'd be delicious. Slice a lemon or orange in there. It'd be terrific. Well, this is really good on its own. We also made another gin and tonic here with Koval's dry gin. Yes, absolutely. Wanted something a little local to throw down here. Which is a pretty dry gin. But I think it kind of highlighted a bit of an anise character in the gin that I think is good, but I like the last one better. I wonder how this would taste with a different gin. Yeah, I think a lot of the citrus you're tasting is getting pulled out of the gin as well in this particular instance. So I'm not mad about the pairing, but at the end of the day, I think I also enjoyed the first one a little bit more. Yeah, this is very good though. Yeah, I think I would in the future pair the Koval with the classic Indian tonic or refreshingly light as it were. So the difference so far, Indian tonic is traditional tonic only amped up more than what you're probably used to. And this one is a step back in terms of bitterness, but a step up in terms of herbal complexity, you know, and a touch of fruit. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I love the stuff again for anyone that's just looking for a gentle approach. If you're looking for your gateway tonic, this is the one right here. While we're on the tonic subject, then let's move on to the cucumber that we have here as well. This thing's going to be a really fun pairing. This is one that I've been encouraging a lot. So we're actually going to pair. This is going to be a sake and tonic drink that we're going to taste here next. Can't say I've ever had a sake and tonic before. I agree. I remember when the sake companies were trying to show sake as a low-calorie alternative to vodka, which is just complete and utter bullsh**. Yes. You're trying really hard to tap a market. Which one did you pick? We picked Dasai 50 Junmai Daiginjo. The rice is carefully polished. The graceful aroma and delicate sweetness of honey brings exquisite enjoyment. Medium body and layered with smooth, rounded flavor. This is lighter bodied and halfway between dry and sweet, according to this fun little chart on the back. So trying the sake on its own, along with being subtly complex, subtle is kind of the key word there, and seeing how such a finessed, you know, like minor key, like little focus and flavor, how the tonic affects that and how it stands in this Well, that's why I particularly like, so I first tried the sake and cucumber combination last summer for a big event up in Wisconsin, and I totally fell in love with it for exactly that reason. So while the quinine is definitely a presence in there and it's very much a tonic, I still feel that this, it does, as I was saying earlier, it really supports the spirit. I think it actually highlights some of those notes in there. I'm losing a bit of that honey note that I know we were talking about from the sake itself, but at the same time, I still think the floral nature comes out really beautifully. Yeah. I think it takes a little more sake in the mix. Man, that's a cucumber-y tonic. Oh man, yeah. It is very cucumber-y. It's awesome with the sake though. It is really awesome sake. On its own, the cucumber is there, and I do appreciate the lack of as much sugar as the others, that this is dry in cucumber-y or at least less sweet. Yeah. If you're doing a G&T with this, so we found that apparently cucumber is the number one requested flavor profile along with vodkas and gins worldwide. I don't know where we got that information, so don't quote me on that. From William Grant and Sons? There you go. There you go. So wait a minute. What do you mean there? Like people are like, I want cucumber in my tonic. That's what they're saying? Cucumber in their gin and their vodka. So vodka martinis. And again, I saw this behind the bar. People would always, if they're ordering just a classic gin martini, vodka martini, which again, I will not get into the debate about the difference there or why one of them is real and one of them is fake. But I have opinions, damn it. People would always be asking, people would always be asking me to muddle cucumber slices into their gins. Muddle? Just throw some cucumber wedges in there and muddle them in, shake it in the cocktail, stir it in, something like that. I mean, that's good. And then garnish it with an olive with an anchovy stuck through. Wrapped in bacon and blue cheese like, I don't know, man. So this is really good. It seems a little more one dimensional as a tonic compared to the previous two. It's a little more specific. But cucumber isn't like very subtle though, you know? Like you put cucumber in something, you taste the cucumber first. This is again, as I was saying about the Mediterranean, this one is very mixology friendly. So this one, I really like to place on menus, but it does tend to take a few bells and whistles here and there, right? Rather than just a straight gin and tonic, I've used this adding vermouths, adding amari, adding different elements. I was going to say, adding some fruit to this, I think would be interesting whether it's as simple as like some like bramble fruit in the drink itself. Or a brighter vermouth. Use this as a topper on your white sangria, and it will give it like a nice complexity. I love that. One of my go-to's for this was empress gin, which I'm sure you have familiar. I love empress. They're our friends up in Canada. A little bit of empress gin, a little bit of dole and blanc vermouth, and then the cucumber tonic, I think makes a really beautiful complex G&T kind of feel. Dash some orange bitters in there and you're good to go. Oh, you know what we should also talk about? Roger would want us to say, if you're looking for a complex drink that's low-cal, or if you're looking for a complex drink that is no-cal or no alcohol-free, you can make low-alcohol cocktails with these and still have a lot of that complexity. Yes. You can dial back the vodka or gin or whatever you're putting in there, and still have a really flavorful experience, which is pretty cool. Or put sake in there. Or put sake in there. Or put sake in there. The cool thing is, too, we're also, I mean, a lot of studies are coming out saying that millennials in particular are actually starting to reduce the amount they drink. Part of that is coming in response from the pandemic where a lot of us have been sitting trapped at home and doing nothing but drinking all day. Lord knows I had a few weekends there. Ends. But that being said, we have all these new non-alcoholic spirits that are starting to hit the market. We have these brands like Kin and Seedlip and Ritual based out of here in Chicago, which are all producing these either non-alcoholic spirit replacements or like the Seedlip draft of things, which are their own botanical spirit-like experience. All of those compare really nicely with these. What I love about that is that since you're using a tonic, the flavors in that tonic can be very inexorably linked in our heads with the taste of alcohol. You almost trick your brain, if you're doing a Seedlip and tonic, you're almost tricking your brain into thinking you're drinking more of a complex cocktail, and you tend to think that there's alcohol in there, right? So again, if you're just trying to reduce the amount you're drinking, those are really good ways to go, and we have a lot of cool stuff in there. We are going to move on to, well, let's do the Club Soda first, because we spent so much time talking about soda earlier. We have this lovely Amaro Montenegro that I've been staring at this whole time. I adore it. Let's create Amaro. I adore Montenegro. And a Montenegro and soda is one of my go-to drinks. So this is- Okay, cool. But I also have, so you guys are actually about to, Binny's just decided to bring in our wonderful adorable 150 mil can. That is an adorable little can. Isn't this just the most- That is an adorable little can. Although I assume that if I got to the bottom of that can, it'd be a pretty serious ellipsis, like a to be continued at the bottom of that can. Yeah. Well, the funny thing is there's only 50 mils less than in here. I feel the same about the bottles. Oh, fair enough. I have a problem not drinking an entire four-pack at a time because I find it quenching and delicious. It's the quenchiest, I dig it. The quenchiest. It's the quenchiest. Hey, Jim, that's the title of the episode, Fever Tree, the quenchiest. The quenchiest. It's like the Old Ham's Beer Logo. You thought you're going to get an episode in without a Ham's. It's the refreshiness. It was the Old Ham's Logo. All right. We're going to bring the Montenegro around it. It's the quenchiest. Okay. Amaro and soda is not in my wheelhouse, so what blend do you go with here? Similar gin and tonic percentage-wise, proportion. I would say that. Montenegro in particular is pretty, I mean, as you know, it's got a presence. There's a lot of Montenegro there. So I love these Amaro and soda feel because it's like that classic long drink. It's that sipping just, you're going to go nice and slow. It's got that lovely bitterness to it. This also does go really well with the Mediterranean tonic. I like Amaro, so I went half and half, Greg. Yeah. I also love Amaro, so I'm in this. Whereas like a gin and tonic, I would probably go to like one to three. Yeah. I went a one to one here. That's where I went too. That's where I'm sitting. I love it. It really, so what I love about the blend, doing it Amaro and soda is it just stretches out the Amaro. Totally. It breaks up what can be a syrupy texture in some Amaris. Yes. That's what I love about the whole combination. You can do it with this Mediterranean tonic as well, as I said a second ago too. Again, it just adds that complex botanical blend in there and it's a lot of fun. But this really lets, I mean, as a club soda just gets out of the way of the Amaro and let's- Absolutely. You're not going to over put orange peel into an Amaro that might not be citrus for it or something. Yes. Okay. This actually takes me back. This was the one that I got for the Highball episode was the club soda. Okay. First of all, first question and second question. First question, these bubbles are bigger, right? From the cans? No, it should be the same size bubble in everything. Well, in the club soda versus the tonic, is it a bigger bubble or is it just the same process? It's going to be the same process, yes. Maybe it's just my brain. Second question, what is the difference between the Fever Tree Club Soda and any other sparkling water or club soda? A lot of it boils down to again that mineral content. Water tends to represent the tier war of the area it comes from. Actually, I used to say this, I used to work for our wonderful friends at CH Distillery here based in Chicago. Did you? Yeah. I was there, bartended there for a while. Love their products, wonderful people, wonderful place. They make a big deal out of the fact that their product would all be entirely different if they weren't using the Chicago water that they use, because Chicago has a very heavy mineral content. We have, for our club soda, we use a very soft English spring water. There's a very small amount of mineral content in there to begin with, because we know there's going to be some minerality coming from the carbonation process to begin with. The big difference though is that, again, with the minerality, we're trying to, as you said, get out of the way of the spirit. We're trying not to have a big mouthfeel, we're trying not to have a big presence from that soda. Taking that mineral content out and taking that down really allows for that to happen. You don't feel it on your tongue as much, you just feel the bubbles, you don't feel the weight of that actual club soda. On top of that, a lot of other brands are actually salinating their club sodas because you want a little bit of that salt flavor in there, I guess. I don't know that I agree with that necessarily. I definitely agree with the presence of salt and craft cocktails. A lot of people are starting to use saline in their cocktails, and I'm here for that. That definitely enhances the flavors of both alcohol and sweetness. Makes sense. Food tastes better, right? Absolutely. But that's even like big bottled water companies add like minerals, which is salt, right? Yeah, for the most part. Yeah. So we don't do that. We leave the water nice and soft, which is why you can actually really get that spirit in there. Because again, we're here to highlight the spirit. We're not here to be the main voice in any of those cocktails. We are here to elevate the drinking experience. All right. This is carbonated water. I appreciate that it's well made. It's good carbonated water. As far as I'm concerned, it's just watering down my Amaro now. Yeah. I was afraid you were going to say that. No, but it is good. It is good. You know an Amaro that I think would really benefit from this treatment, would be Mileti because it's so syrupy. It's a gorgeous Amaro and it's got this nice high-toned saffron character that tends to get lost in some of the syrupy-ness of it. I think this would break that up and still highlight what makes that particular Amaro unique. I'm going to have to try that now. This Montenegro is so good on it. It's so good. I love. We were joking about Gateway Tonic earlier. This is the Gateway Amaro right here. If you want to introduce some of the Amaro, put a bottle of Montenegro in front of them. Montenegro and Nonino. Those are the two Amaros we got to start with. It's like butterscotch cola. It's so good. It's so good. I dig it. I dig that description. All right. Question I got to ask. I noticed I'm looking at this adorable little can. It says ingredients carbonated spring water by carbonated soda that's just baking soda, right? And that helps the carbonation? Yeah, it's part of the carbonation process. It also says best before end, see base of can. And I see that this expires quote unquote in June of 2021. So what are the shelf life on these different things? And does it vary across the products? No. So our R&D team does a lot of testing when it comes to shelf life. That's something that they really focus on because we are an international brand. We're all over the world now, but we insist that all that production happens in the UK because they're very, very picky about what goes in these mixtures and how they're being made. So they don't outsource any of this stuff. Like we make everything that we have. So that being said, once they're made in the UK, you can't fly this stuff over because of just the nature of carbonation. So as we were joking about the British Armada earlier, we got to put it all on boats and it's got to come across the Atlantic and then land in the United States and Canada. In glass. In glass. In labels, in packages. Everything. That is all like it will come off the boat. How do we have it as cheap as we do? Honestly, I've never understood this. You're welcome. You're using all natural stuff. You're using real quinine, you're using actual cane sugar. You could, for the same level of sweetness, you could use one micron of aspartame or something and get the same level of sweetness. But you're using all these actual ingredients. They could tank it. Or they could make it in Canada. You're putting in this little packaging and stuff, and you're getting it on our shelves for like six bucks or something. That's pretty ridiculous. Well, and believe it or not, it's even cheaper in the UK. We actually just had a big old debate about that, and we have recently done a full price repositioning throughout the United States and Canada because we realized that we were sitting in what people were identifying as a luxury category. We were that mixer that, oh, you'd buy it on special occasions every now and again. Our CEOs in the UK basically said, that's not who we are. That's not what we want. We want to be your go-to. We want to be your everyday. This should be able to be on everyone's shelves. Where we have a price now, again, it's priced as an everyday thing. Worst case, again, you're paying $2 more than some garbage domestic tonic brand A or B. It's really the most impactful two bucks you can spend in the store. I'm going to stand by that. Yeah. If you're debating between one bottler and other $5 difference in that whiskey or that gin, just like you were saying earlier, that's really not going to cause that big of a swing, but this difference is huge. $2 makes a huge difference here. Are the cans competitively priced? Absolutely. People buy the cans. Yeah, they're little 8-packs, and you can recycle them. They're great packaging. It's going to protect the stuff. You pop a top, the bottle's not going to last just like a can isn't, and it's probably more environmentally friendly. It's lighter to ship, and it's going to save the earth. So buy the cans. What are we carrying in all the cans? All the different flavors? Yes, you are, and we're actually just in January, we're going to launch the ginger beer in the cans. Speaking of my R&D team being picky, they were claiming the liner of the cans was changing the flavor of the ginger beer, so they refused to launch it with the other cans. Interesting. So again, they were very picky about what we have. I love the cans. Speaking of environmentally friendly, we do use mostly recycled glass in our bottles, and we try to use recycled aluminum and all that stuff. We only source our aluminum from Europe rather than Chinese recycled aluminum. I literally just learned about this the other day, because apparently there's a totally different environmental impact from that, and that's something that's more- You don't just ship it as far. I mean, just on fuel use alone, much less the process of how they recycle it. Like recycled mass aluminum comes in cubes like this. I mean, I have a problem with theft because people can just pick them up. They're actually lighted up. You can carry off a brick of aluminum. Wow. That sounds amazingly cartoonish, and I want to watch that happen. I want to watch that happen. Well, cans is great. Oh, by the way, I didn't actually answer your question. I just started talking about shipping. We're looking about nine months to a year on all these products, right? Again, that's because they're being shipped over from the UK. What's next? Let's go. So we're going to move on to the ginger products at this point in time. In front of us, I have our traditional ginger beer, non-alcoholic. I always have to stress that because there's no alcohol in the ginger beer. Yeah, people hear beer and they think alcohol. Exactly. No fermentation. No fermentation. It is a brewing process, but imagine that almost more like steeping like a tea. And we also have our refreshingly light ginger beer, which you guys are just starting to bring in now, which is awesome because again, it's that same ginger. And then we have our spiced orange ginger ale, which is, I'm not supposed to play favorites, but fellas, I think this is my favorite that we make. So here's a question that we got from a lot of customers on the sales floor. What would you say is the difference between ginger beer and ginger ale? I get that all the time and have a very pre-canned answer for you. Perfect. That's our favorite kind of answer. There we go. Ginger ale is made with the cold pressed essential oils of the ginger. That's why ginger ale's tend to be clear in their texture, right? Ginger beer is made physically from the root of the ginger. And so that's actually in that steeping process. So that's why ginger beers tend to be cloudy. Our ginger beer will sometimes get sediment in the bottom of the bottle. That's again because it's a naturally sourced ginger. We're using real ginger in there. And so sometimes it settles. Don't worry. It hasn't expired unless it says so on the bottle. You just have to gently tip it upside down and you're good to go. Don't shake it before you open it. Please don't do that. Do not do that. In my experience, ginger ale's seem to be a little sweeter. Am I just fooling myself? Ginger ale's tend because you have less of that spice of the ginger because it's the oil, not the full root itself. The sugar tends to come through more. We're looking at the same sugar content in our product basically, but you can just taste more of that sugar given the profile. All of our gingers use the same blend. We have three different gingers that go in all our ginger products. One is from Nigeria, one is from Cochin, India, and one is from the Ivory Coast. This is back to that story about our CEOs literally traveling the world. They tried all these different gingers and settled on this three ginger blend that goes into all of our different ginger products. Wild. Cool. Let's dive into the ginger beer. We wanted to do something fun on this one. We pulled a bottle of Calvados. I love Calvados so much. I think Calvados and ginger beer is an amazing combination. We have Schofker VSOP Calvados because I had four sample bottles. That's funny. In the sample cabinet. Is this a cocktail you have done? I've never heard of this before. He mentioned it because we were in the sample cabinet. I was like, all right, what kind of weird things can we do? Should we get an Acavich? Should we get something else? He had mentioned, I said, we have all this brandy. Oh, do you have a Calvados or an Apple brandy? Boy, do I. Yep. Boy, do I. You're talking to a guy with an exceptionally boring collection of open bottles of Calvados. No, I love Calvados. I'm born and raised in Wisconsin, so brandy is part of my lineage at this point. I fell in love with Calvados recently and started with the ginger beer. I just love the Calvados. For the record, listeners, he's the skinniest Wisconsin person I've ever met in my life. As I said earlier, I'm comprised mostly of leg, so that's okay. You're waiting for the Fever Tree squirt alternative? Oh, man. What an awesome spicy ginger beer. Calvados is pretty good, too. Wow. Okay, so ginger beer is regular and diet, not diet. I like the regular a lot better. I think it has more body to it. The light is awesome, but you can tell that it doesn't have much sugar, I think, just in the mouth feel. And the nose. It's not as expressive on the nose. Yeah, I think that the classic ginger beer gets that amazing. I mean, both of them, again, have the same three gingers, so you still get that awesome ginger, that fiery kick from them. There are other brands out there that actually are using things like cayenne pepper, literally cayenne pepper in their- That's a cheat. Yeah, well, yeah, because they're trying to replicate, you can't get that same pop, that same fire from fake ginger flavoring. So they're adding things like pepper and spices in there. Ours, again, if you look at the back of that bottle, you are looking at that carbonated spring water, you're looking at ginger, little bit of citrus, and then sugar, and that's what's in that bottle. This ginger beer is so good. It's so good. Also, as a guy who drank too many Dark and Stormy's at a certain point in his life, it was tumultuous. The ginger beer that I was drinking at the time was so heavy, so heavy, and every one, like the combination of that rum and that ginger beer, was just cloyingly sweet to me. It's a diabetes and tonic. Yeah, seriously. Even the full octane, the leaded one, is not so sweet. It's all about the spice, and it's all about the lift of the ginger. Wow, it's so good. Yeah, I love our ginger beer. I love all the ginger products. I mean, obviously, I love all the things that we make. I love all my children equally, but I've always been a whiskey ginger drinker and a dark and stormy drinker myself, so I completely agree with what you're saying. There's just, I love the look on people's face. If I'm in a bar doing my whole sales gig, and I'm talking to someone who has a different brand, I'll say, pick up these bottles, tell me which one, I'll blind taste you and say, tell me which one has real ginger. And 99.99999% of the time, they immediately point to the Fever Tree. They're like, even before you taste it, you can smell the ginger. They're like, this has real ginger. And I say, great, look at the back of the bottle and tell me which one has more sugar. And to watch people's eyes widen when they realize that we're working with 15, 16 grams in these bottles, and others have in the 40s grams of sugar. It's like, yeah. As I've said now, I think three times, this is how adults want to drink. Not so good. So the cocktail with the Calvados? I think it's really good. What a good fall cocktail. Yeah, it is. Actually, it kind of reminds me of this cider drink that I make. There's nothing cider in here, but it kind of has that spicy apple juice kind of quality. Oh, wait, it's Calvados. Sorry. You're an ass****. But yeah, this stuff really, it's a phenomenal combination and I want more of the world to know about apple brandy and ginger beer. Yeah, great combo. Yeah, cool. The light is good. Awesome. Glad you're enjoying. Then we have one of our ginger innovations left to try here, the spiced orange ginger ale. As I have joked, I love all my children equally, but God, I love this one. Ginger innovations. That's what they called me when they hired me. It's an audio format. They can't see you. They probably know I'm a jerk redhead. Yeah. It translates across multiple media. Yeah, I'm going to drink that ginger beer very well. I got to try this bourbon on its own too. Oh man, spiced orange ginger ale. Pretty damn good, pretty good. I love this stuff. I think it's very fun. Hang on a second. I think that it's a little subtle. I think of it maybe compared to the ginger beer on its own. Oh, but this one's made with the oils of the ginger. Yes, that is a ginger ale, so you're not getting the same ginger pop in there, right? Yeah, I missed the spice. I think that it's... This is clearly delicious, but it's not the explosion of overwhelming flavor I was expecting. Well, and for a dark and stormy drinker as well, that makes perfect sense. You want that ginger presence in there. Yeah. It's good though. So the spiced orange ginger ale that we're drinking here, this has the same three gingers as I keep repeating over and over. It has a little bit of cold pressed South african Clementine orange in there, which I really like because Clementines have that very gentle round flavor to them. It's not particularly acidic. It's just very light. And then there's steamed distilled Sri Lankan cinnamon. Again, when I said we went all over the world for our ingredients, we really, really did. Is this legit cinnamon, like cinnamon, not cassia bark? Yes, this is legit cinnamon. And it's all very light. It's gentle. Again, you hear there's cinnamon and orange in here, and you're thinking it's going to be a very in-your-face spicy kind of thing. But as you commented, it's actually very subtle. It's gentle, but it was really designed to highlight the flavors that you get from barrel aging. So I have paired this, I mean, we're drinking this with this amazing bourbon that I've just been introduced to. Milam and Green. Oh my gosh. Bourbon. Yeah, Milam and Green. Is it straight bourbon or triple barrel bourbon? Milam and Green, triple barrel bourbon. Are you saying Milam and? Triple cask aged bourbon. Milam and? Milam. Milam. M-I-L-A-M. Milam. Triple cask aged. Straight bourbon whiskeys. I can do the narrator voice for the, read the back of the bottle to everyone here. But what I, so I've paired this ginger ale, again, it was made to enhance barrel aging flavors, right? I have paired this with a dark rum. You can pair this with a whiskey or with a brandy. You can use with cognac. You can do this. I've actually put this with a barrel aged chardonnay and it works. It all plays. If it is touched to barrel, then this all of a sudden you'll find that cinnamon and the orange are kind of pulling out and in amplifying those vanillans, all those little subtle flavors that you get from a well-barreled spirit. Well, so like a bourbon is almost entirely those flavors. It seems like you'd want something like complimentary to go with it. I bet this would be great with scotch. Yeah, absolutely. Reposado tequila, phenomenal with a good repo, really phenomenal with a good repo. If I wasn't such a whiskey head, I would have recommended that we bring in a repo for this, but I really wanted to try this because you said you were digging it. I have a repo in the office. Should I grab one? Yeah, do it if you want to grab it. Do it. Pat went and got us a bottle of tequila, which is Siete Leguaz Reposado, and everybody else immediately lost their sh** about how good of a tequila this is. Great tequila. Great tequila, just ask it. Just ask it. One of my absolute favorites. If I'm not mistaken, they're the one that Patron sort of stole the bottle. Siete Leguaz, well, Siete Leguaz was the original distiller of Patron, and when Patron got incredibly popular, they had to build their own distillery because Siete Leguaz couldn't keep up with the production demands. So Patron is modeled in the same production method in that it is a blend of roller mill and Tahona mills agave juices. So trying that with the ginger ale. With the spiced orange ginger ale, and it's f***ing awesome. This is a pairing I did not expect to rock as hard as it does. This is terrific. Really truly. This is one of my favorites. This is my favorite bomb to drop on people. Again, that and the Calvados and ginger beer, where people are like, really? That's going to go together? I'm like, oh yeah. I promise this is going to be a phenomenal pairing. This is so good together. That's your new poloma right there. Maybe. The poloma sauce, too. I like the grapefruit. I want to try their grapefruit soda whenever we get there. I can't wait till it comes back on shelves. Tequila and spiced orange ginger ale. You take nothing else out of this episode. Just go drink that. Put some fresh squeezed lime juice right on the top of that cocktail. I wouldn't hate a salt rim either, to be perfectly frank. Not that tequila aficionados would turn their nose up at that. I just really like salt, so that's fair. All right. How many did we try here? One, two, three, four. We've got six. Six of our 18 expressions. One third of our marvelous fever tree portfolio we've gone through so far today. That's pretty ridiculous. There is more. Again, we have not tried the citrus tonic. Speaking of tequila, our citrus tonic we actually made in partnership with Patron. That actually has three different types of bitter Mexican citrus in there. It's very floral. It's very astringent. I think there's a lot of acidity to it. That was meant to actually we wanted to popularize the tequila and tonic, the Blanco tequila and tonic. I was not convinced when this was first presented to me when I first joined this company. They're like, yeah, try tequila and tonic. I was like, okay. Love it. A Blanco tequila with our citrus tonic, of course, specifically Patron naturally. Or whatever we want. Contractually obligated Patron naturally. Really an amazing drink. We did not try the aromatic tonic. As I said, the marvelous bartenders. I really want to try that one. I'm like a Manhattan fiend and I got to try that. Well, the thing I love about that aromatic too is it's got that Angostura bark, but there's no alcohol. We were talking about non-alcohol cocktails earlier. Again, that flavor of Angostura is very inextricably linked with cocktails. We all know aromatic bitters. We all know Angostura bitters. Yeah, it's 2.30 in the afternoon and you're like, oh, that calms the shakes. Well, the good news is this one has no booze and it'll calm the shakes just as well. So try that aromatic though. That one is really good with the classic London dry. We didn't try the lemon tonic yet. That has these awesome rugged Sicilian lemons in there. So that's a very... Oh, that sounds great too. Oh, that's so tasty. I love the lemon. I drink the lemon tonic on its own. I will fly through a case of that in my fridge over the course of a week or two. It's just it'll disappear because it's my favorite like soda alternative because it's lower sugar, but you get that nice bitterness to it and a lot of citrus. That has a sibling that has our sparkling lemonade, same Sicilian lemons, same sugar, same everything in there. But there's no quinine. So it's just not a tonic. I love that for like your family restaurant kind of feel, because if the adults are getting their lovely 200 ml Fever Tree bottle sitting in front of them with their gin and tonic, then your kid's going to have their lovely 200 ml. And again, only 15 grams of sugar, so they're not going to be bouncing off the walls. And then the parent still steals a few sips off the top of that kid's soda too. There you go. We are also launching our Fever Tree 500ml bottles into your local Binny's locations. We've had those in the market for a long time. I love the 500ml bottles. They are taller. They've got a screw top. So these, you have to have a bottle open to open our 200ml, which is great. We refuse to use screw tops for those, just because it doesn't contain the carbonation as well, but it works in the 500ml size. Those are great. We are going to be having those coming in, I believe, we're looking at pretty much the whole raft. We're going to have that ginger beer, ginger ale, club soda, tonic. Those are going to be available in those 500ml format. I believe we're going to have those available sort of a mix and match kind of feel too. So if you're trying to learn more about the mixer brand, you can grab a big bottle of the tonic and a big bottle of ginger ale and the ginger beer and try those out and just see what's going on. Rather than having to go straight to the four pack. And if for some reason you're not a fan of that product, then you're stuck with three of them in the fridge, right? But that's the beauty of that 500ml bottle. Yeah, it's almost single serve. Yeah, absolutely. Really easy to up your cocktail game. It really doesn't take much. A couple of bucks more if you're buying a four pack. I'm not going to stop emphasizing that. I mean, seriously, the most impactful $2. These are things you can spend. It is worth somebody buying both of them and then trying them side by side just to notice the difference because, wow, these are fantastic. Absolutely. I will put that challenge down to anyone listening that if you have a favorite ginger beer, if you have a favorite tonic that isn't Fever Tree, try them side by side. They speak for themselves. I have the easiest job in the world because all I have to do is put a bottle in front of someone and say, here, taste this. It's like, oh, yes, clearly that is a better product. Pat, you've been a fan for a while. Yeah, of course. It's hard not to like these. We've done staff trainings where we've opened up and tasted every single tonic water on the shelf here at the Lincoln Park. Do you do that blind? Yes. That's amazing. Yeah. We go through and taste them all and people rank them, and then we reveal what they are. Obviously, Fever Tree stacks the deck a bit with 36 different tonics. But they all show really well. Really well. This was awesome, and it's always good to taste the better side of mixers. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I appreciate you guys having me. I appreciate you taking the time to talk about mixers, to talk about this entire channel, because I know everyone takes a lot of time to talk about beer and wine and spirits and all that. But again, the whole point behind this company is to elevate those drinking experiences, and there are so many mixers out on the market these days. Oh, yeah. Thanks for bringing these. Thanks for sharing your expertise and the diversity of the portfolio of Fever Tree. Pretty amazing. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity, as I said, to actually talk about our mixers and get on this amazing podcast. I love everything you guys are doing with Binny's, and I love the fact that we now are just, again, it is fever tree stores here now. Yeah. Fever Tree Beverage Depot. Fever Tree Beverage Depot. You are welcome. All right. Great. Thanks for listening to this episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. We'll be back in your feed next week with something probably a little more alcoholic. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Pat. I have been Alex Brick. Keep tasting.