I've been talking about this cocktail for about three years, as long as I've been on this podcast, and they've always ridiculed, nobody has rhubarb to make strawberry rhubarb anything. Yeah, no, we got the Versh family rhubarb in the house. That sound is why we want to do this part. Nice, about goddamn time. Yeah, and I'm going to make a cocktail with it out of that gin and that lemon bitter, which says lemon tonic. This whole episode is an excuse for Roger to talk about fruit. Let's be serious. Syrup, sugar syrup. He wanted to do fruit syrups episode, and we're just like going to give him a pass. I wanted to do sugar. Yeah, it's sugar. Sugar should be your bag, man. Oh, I could have brought demerara syrup. What do you think he did? Three different types of sugar syrup. Is demerara one of them? No. Oh. Pissed bad off. So Roger couldn't find demerara syrup. No, that's too basic, bitch. I think you're adding even weirder stuff. I feel like we're diving into the 301s without the prereqs first. Barrel to Bottle, Fruit King syrup spectacular. If I knew then what I know now, I maybe wouldn't have booked us sugary PX on top of ice cream right before doing the sugar episode. We're going to get cavities. Hey, you're listening to Barrel's Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. We're here with a bunch of nerds today. It's true. Who's at the table? Roger's here. I do beer, a hard iced tea, sparkling water. He's really suffering an identity crisis. And I just love cocktails, so everything, a little bit of everything. That's the bona fides right there. Hey, it's Pat. I do liquor stuff. Yup. I'm Greg. Communications. Jim, a little bit of everything, I suppose. He's a Swiss Army knife, guys. And I'm Alicia. I do wine, but very excited for these sugar syrups that we have coming up. Roger pitched this and he was like, I don't know, what do you think? And we were all like, yes, this sounds awesome. I want everyone to realize that yes, sugar is not good for you. So if you're going to eat and consume sugar, you should treat yourself to the best sugar possible. So today, it's going to be all about steering away from refined white sugar, which has been highly processed, sometimes with nasty stuff like bone char. Oh, seriously? Yeah. Oh, that sounds like it's full of protein. That's right. Some sugars are not vegan-friendly for all of our vegan listeners. So today we're going to talk about real sugar, the good old-fashioned types of sugar. And if you've walked on the aisle, these are the kind of sugars that used to have to mail order, buy on the internet. They're everywhere now. You're the only one who used to do that. Simple syrup is named as such for a good reason. It is extremely simple to make. So if anything, this is all just a commercial to try to get everyone to take a minute, make some simple syrup, and all your cocktails are going to taste better. I always get a joke that we should call this episode, making simple syrup anything but. Really, it isn't. Other than that, it complicates simple syrup. We do offer a type of better sugar called Demerara, but these other sugars that I'm going to talk about today, which are very similar, that's the hardest part of it is just finding the sugar. Other than that, I made three simple syrups today. They're just equal parts sugar and water. That's literally it. That's all I did. Okay. And stick around because after Roger nerds out about sugar sources, Jim and I also made, I asked my wife to make. I know. So fruit syrups, which you're going to be shocked at how easy it is to make these and how delicious they are, and how easily they uplift. How would you know you didn't make it? He watched. It was really easy. Did you even watch? He stood there and drank PBR while his wife made them. No, I worked late. Okay. He was at the grocery store getting those ****** donuts. That is true, actually. You'll be shocked at how easy it is to make these very few ingredients. It just takes a little bit of time and patience, and just how easily they elevate your cocktails. So yeah, check it out. I mean, wait, that was bad. Yeah. Enjoy this episode of... All right, Roger, cut them off and start this thing. All right. So let's talk about the different options you have. When you want... You've decided that you want to make simple syrup. So I'm sure you've all seen a bartender use simple syrup. It's usually just a squeeze bottle that's, you know, white in color, clear, and clear syrup comes out of it. We have simple syrup. It's clear bottles, squeezy roses makes one, and it's just sugar, right? Right. Yeah. So that's going to use refined sugar. So when you're putting that in a cocktail, it's going to add nothing but sweetness. So my argument is that if you're going to make a cocktail, why not introduce a little bit of character and flavor with a more interesting simple syrup? Yep. It depends on the cocktail. If you're making a really fruity tropical drink, maybe you don't necessarily want a little character in it. But once you try these, I think you're going to start to think, hmm, I could see these blending well with a wide variety of spirits. We're going to use rum today because that's the classic partner, because sugar was so widely grown in the Caribbean, along with rum being the popular drink from there. A lot of the rums have similar sugar sources, right? Exactly, yeah. Sugar you can obtain from different sources. For hundreds of years, the most common source of sugar was sugar cane. A lot of sugar now is made from sugar beets. The sugars that we're going to try today are all cane sugars, which are making a big comeback. Cane sugar in general, more people are starting to talk about it and try it, because it has a bolder, richer flavor. Has everybody had molasses before? When you're harvesting sugar cane, you're cutting these stalks of cane, they wash the stalks of cane, and then they're chopping up. You know, if you've ever seen sugar cane in a grocery store, it kind of looks like bamboo. It's like a big stalk. It's fibrous. It's got, you know, woodiness to it. Is it in the produce? Where is it? It's in the produce. Right. So some people like it's a tradition to just kind of like peel a sugar cane, a piece of sugar cane, just chew on it because it's sweet. People would use like pieces of it as almost like a toothbrush. Brush your teeth with some sugar. Yeah. Yeah, cavity up those teeth. Once you have the sugar cane, you crush it and you press out the juice. You're left with juice. Now you need to turn that in, cook it down and reduce it some to lower the water content. After you do that, there's different methods to turn it into like a usable sugar. So, the most common type, and we're going to taste this first, because this is the most refined of the bunch that I brought, so I want you to taste from lightest to richest, is called Turbinado Sugar, and it gets its name from that. It uses turbines or a centrifuge to spin the sugar and remove molasses from it. Interesting. Is it related to geography, or could Turbinado Sugar come from anywhere? Turbinado Sugar can come from anywhere. That's a really good question. So a lot of these sugars take their name depending on what part of the world they're processed, or where the sugar cane was grown from. So Demerara Sugar, for example, is from the area of South America that is now known as Guyana. The Demerara River Valley. Yeah. Formerly known because of that river, as Pat said, as Demerara. We get some of our best rums from there. The rum that I'm going to use today is from El Dorado, which as you see on here, the label says, Demerara Distillers LTD, Guyana. Is there only one species of sugar cane? Is the cane identical now? It's just place and how you extract that? There are multiple species. None are actually native to North America or the Caribbean. It was brought over from Southeast Asia when we started colonizing. My brain is melting knowing that all grape varieties are the same species, but different, what, varietals. Is that they're literally different species of cane? I'm not sure. That could be the same thing in cane then. I don't know for sure. But yeah, Pat brings up a good point. It's big in India and you see a lot of sugar still produced in Mauritius, which is off of Madagascar. So Africa, a lot of sugar production still, India. But we know it a lot from the Caribbean famously, South America, especially the North Eastern Coast. And then there was a decent amount of cane sugar grown in Hawaii for a while. And one of the big comebacks for this type of sugar was that product, I'm sure you guys have seen called like Sugar in the Raw. So a little like brown packets. I think we have that in the break room by the coffee. Yeah. So that's that company in particular was, was I think for the most part using Hawaiian cane sugar to kind of reintroduce people to like, hey, this is what real brown sugar is. Is it legit? Yeah, it is good sugar. So when you go to the grocery store and see brown sugar in like the box, you know, and it comes in a bag and it's real moist, what's kind of ironic about that is that most of those brown sugars, they take white processed sugar and then they add That's not irony, that's lies. So these are sometimes called like sugar raw sugars or sugar in the raw because they haven't been processed all the way. They still have some of that molasses in there. All right, so one more dumb question. As you're going to the store and you're buying these kind of much more natural sugars, if you are to not only make syrups with it, but if you were to bake with them, how would you adjust your proportions? Good question. So typically, it's one-to-one, surprisingly. It's usually just on par. So with these, depending on the sugar producer, they are going to have a different consistency. So the first one here, I'll pass this around. There's finally, I need some sugar. Here's a spoon in here. So just put some in your bowl and try this. This is turbinado sugar. The crystals on this, check out the crystal size, are pretty large. And this type of sugar is popular in baking. I'm sure you've gone to a bakery where they're producing things like scones or cookies where there's like some sparkly sugar on top, has a little crunch to it. That would be this type of brown sugar. I just kind of wondered. So this one is a much larger crystal, so I would think that you probably have to make slight adjustments in your recipes if you were to use this. This isn't going to dissolve quite as quick because it has a lower moisture content. Just take a spoonful of sugar to the dome. So remember, if you're like Roger, you're just having a seat sugar, this is ridiculous. If you drink a can of Coke, that is 10 sugar cubes worth of sugar. Oh my gosh. So when you put a tiny little bit on a spoon here, may seem like a lot, but we consume a ludicrous amount of sugar in our types of foods and drinks that we have. This is a fruity tasting sugar. Think so? Yeah. There's like an orange nectarine. Yeah. This tastes like the sherry we just drank in the last episode. Yeah. Citrusy. It tastes like raisinine. I think it tastes like raisinine kind of. Yeah. I could see that. Maybe even like prunes. Yeah. I don't know how to describe it other than the word molasses. This would be my descriptor. Like this is the flavor of the descriptor. Although it's softer than that. Yeah. Yeah. So molasses can be bitter and burnt though. This really is more like caramely, chocolatey than molasses. The next one you're going to try, you're really going to get the like Pat saying, like the much more pronounced bitter molasses note. So, that was interesting. Now, the next kind is what? So, this one is called muscovado sugar. So, that's kind of a general term that can refer to quite a bit of sugars. It essentially is just an English corruption of a Portuguese word, azúcar, muscovado. It basically is kind of an all-encompassing term to just mean that it's a brown sugar that did not use a centrifuge or like a turbine to separate it. So, it's going to have a much higher molasses content. This one, you can see, has a much higher moisture content than the last one. So, this looks basically just like... Smells interesting. This looks like brown sugar you'd buy in the store. But once again, it's true brown sugar. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's molasses. That's a ginger snap or a gingerbread. Yeah, that is intense. So again, think with cocktail wise, what kind of drinks you'd like to add that baking spice quality to or something you'd associate that with. So like, if you're talking about whiskey drinks, using this, like whenever I use a sugar cube in an old fashion, it's never a white sugar cube. You know what we need to put this in? I don't know if you guys remember it, but the year old eggnog is about a half year old now. It's still in the back of the fridge. I was just about to say, something with a creamy dairy component would be- We got a quart of the aged eggnog still sitting in the back of my fridge. Okay. Along those lines, I think it would go well with cognac drinks. Yeah. See, I think the first one would actually, because I like, Alicia said, orange or apricot or something, you tend to get a lot of dried apricot character out of cognac. I think that could be cool too. Never thought you'd be able to just use sugar as a spice. Another one that I think this is a no-brainer for, an excuse again to talk about apple brandy, laird's. It's a great make in an old-fashioned, just sub in apple brandy. Or what I actually prefer is to use half apple brandy, half either rye whiskey or bourbon whiskey. Sounds legit. I thought you were going to talk about that purple thing that you like. Oh, the creme de violette. Creme de violette. That didn't come to mind. I'll have to work on that. I don't know. I'm sure it could work. So, even going further down the rabbit hole of weird sugars, which yes, you're right, Pat, I could have gone even stranger. Falling in kind of this natural dark brown sugar category with Muscovado would be things like panela, or piencillo is usually what it's referred to around here, because that's the Mexican specifically term for that type of sugar. It means little loaf, and it refers to that lots of these sugars were poured into little molds, and they would make like a little conical loaf out of the sugar. And that's why you get references to like the sugar loaf mountains, like sugar loaf holders, like this was an old thing that you would see on colonial tables, was like a little holder for the little loaf of sugar, and you'd have little crimps to cut We'd see this on your table right now. We're missing out on some culture, man. Jaggery sugar is becoming a little more popular, so that can either refer to 100 percent sugar cane made in the similar way in places like India and the Philippines, or they also harvest sugar again just because it's what's on hand, and what's easier from things like date palms. So they'll use like date palm sap, and they'll process it in the same way as they would sugar cane sap. I've had some beers with jaggery sugar in them. Yeah, and there's definitely some brewers that have used it as a way to kick up some like bigger beer styles, things like quadruples and whatnot. Yeah. Oh yeah, the flavors would go with those styles. So in a past episode, we made drinks with cane syrup. So that would be another thing that you have access to. It's something we sell. That is essentially a syrup that's made at the beginning of the sugar production process. So they're taking this cane juice, and they're heating it to a certain level of dilution. And then, instead of continuing the sugar making process, they just turn it into sugar cane syrup. So depending on how much they process that, how much they cook it and dilute it down, or if they filter it at all, it's going to affect the outcome, the flavor. The closest thing that I could get to just showing you what cane sugar tastes like without doing anything to it, is this product called Sucanut, which is actually a contraction for Sucre de Cane Natural or like natural sugar cane. So it is literally just they're cooking it and then they beat it with paddles to break it up into nice little pieces. So totally like this looks super weird. It looks like a dried spice or something. It looks like instant coffee kind of. Yeah. It's really interesting stuff. Is this the most expensive of the three? Not really. They're all about the same price. But yeah, this was actually just originally come up. The name, the goofy name is like just a brand name by one company originally. But so yeah, if you can find this, it's the oddest of the bunch. But I really like- Where did you find this? It's covered. So there's a company called Wholesome Sugars. Great name. They're starting to be in more stores. You can order their stuff online too though. But they have a full lineup. They've got Demerara, Turbinado, Muscovado, they have everything. This one looks like bird food. Yeah. Very different texture. Almost gets grainy on the palate. Interesting smell. Yeah. It's got like a granola smell. Exactly. A real syrupy or sugary granola or even like an oatmeal. It has that kind of nuttiness. Oh, wow. weird, right? Roger, I'm such a moron when it comes to this. I had no idea how little I knew. I imagined cane sugar. I imagined green stalks that wept like a clear liquid. Am I imagining right or wrong? It's somewhat clear. It starts to turn brown as it cooks. And they need to get liquid out of it, some water to cook out of it. Right. Okay. Well, talk about a natural thing. I mean, it kind of looks like cat litter. So, what cocktails would you, what cocktails come to mind with this more granola grainy flavor? Good question. So, I would say you have a couple of different options. There's another apple brandy one. Yeah, like apple brandy, anything that would make you think of Christmasy stuff, so dark rum drinks, things that you wanted to spice with. I would say some blended scotch. That's interesting. I'm telling you, the limits are only your imagination. So, once you make these, and again, they couldn't be easier to make, just start totally subbing it in to your drinks whenever you want to add a little touch of sweetness. Also, if you're looking to try it, it doesn't have to be alcoholic drinks. Adding it to your coffee is going to totally add a whole new dimension to your coffee. Man, Roger is really putting some rum in the shaker. Good thing it's the end of the day. Alicia, you've never been in a cocktail episode with Roger. You just basically watch him do this, what would you say, athletic shaking? This calisthenic shaking. No, he does it easy. He's just like, shake perfectly, where I'm getting all sweaty and driven into your cocktail and it tastes just exactly the same as old casual shaker Roger. I mean, there's a lot of people here. I need to end up with enough. I always feel a little guilty, Roger, because you just make these masterful cocktails and I'm just like, this is good. And how long will these syrups, these simple syrups, last? Good question. Couple of weeks and you should keep them in the fridge so they don't start fermenting. But they'll last a while. It shouldn't be a problem for at least two weeks, two, three weeks. I don't think you'll have them. I don't think they'll last that long because again, you don't need to think of them as just something you would put in drinks. You're hydrating this so that you don't have to, so it mixes better in a cocktail. But you can use the syrups on anything. You could put them on- You could put it in banana bread. I feel like these would be quite good in banana bread. All sorts of stuff. They're great on oatmeal. They're great on yogurt. Literally anything you want to put a little sweetness to. These in a cocktail with the Tempest Fugit creme de banane, the banana liqueur that tastes like liquefied banana bread. These would be good. Yep. You can make a Bananas Foster cocktail. You guys are not talking about summer drinks right now. It's like 90 degrees outside. And in here. And in this room. Some loud ass ice. Yeah, those are the big Chicago classic cubes. Better ice, better cocktails. He is a Papa John's owner. Now you're not making one for Chris. You got four cups. There we go. I'm bummed that Chris is missing all these fat rails of sugar. Oh, man. It didn't seem right, yeah. He would perk right up for this. We miss you, Chris. Chris is on vacation, everybody. It's not like he wasn't invited. Way to kill the mystery. Roger, thank you for another delicious looking cocktail. Yeah, it smells amazing. My pleasure. Looks like a margarita, but something tells me it's nothing like that. So the classic Caribbean cocktail known by many names, Grog, daiquiri, punch, tea punch. This is simply rum. So I did El Dorado Three Year, which is clear rum essentially, but like most other clear rums, it has aged a little bit. Fresh lime juice and the sugar syrup. What's your code for it? Strong, sweet, sour? Yep. Simplest cocktail concept, proven and tested for hundreds of years. And which syrup are we starting out with? So this is Turbinado. Turbinado. This is a three-year cask-aged rum. Okay, delicious daiquiri. It's always surprising how such a simple, fundamental cocktail can be so complex. I can't believe how much liquid Roger is getting out of these limes. These are either great limes or you're forgetful. By just juicing them with the paw instead of the juicer. Yeah. It really gets a lot with the mitts. Yeah. Well-cared-for limes. Don't keep them in your fridge. Way to manhandle that citrus, Adamson. I got a lot of experience. I insist on fresh citrus. While I respect Roger's intricate cocktail method of measuring shot after shot, I'm just going to eyeball it when we get to my part. We had no doubt. Because it's fine. If it was only one cocktail, I wouldn't measure it, but since you're doing three, I wanted to make sure that there's some semblance of congruity. You traditionally shake this? Shake a daiquiri? Yeah. Yeah, you can. It doesn't really matter. I mean, I guess it's stirred more. It's probably people would say, you know, if you don't want it to be cloudy, you stir it as opposed to shaking it. But convenience wise, it's always easier to shake cocktails. So if presentation isn't an issue, plus if it's not a clear cocktail, it's definitely not as important. We spent a lot of time on the daiquiri and other rum cocktails in the rum cocktails episode, which is a good one. Go back and listen to it. Not as good as this daiquiri. We were all sitting in the front. Make sure you save a little bit, Pat. You got to compare it to the next one. Put it back. Put it back in the cup. Spit it back in the cup. Also props for not using your hands. I don't know if I got that in me. So right off the bat. Oh, look at that color. The color is totally different. So the first one was made with... Turbinado. Turbinado. And this one is... Muscovado. Muscovado. Got it. When he poured that, I said it looked like a margarita. That means it looks relatively clear and green with a little bit of brown tinge. This one looks like watery tea, I would say. Yeah. You know, like Brett's tea after he's let it sit out for an hour. Yeah. So every day. Every day. Yeah. In that two pound deli coleslaw thing. Brett's tea every day. You could use these to sweeten tea, right? What a richer aroma. Indeed. You absolutely can. Yep. I do it all the time. Yeah. Oh, it's fuller bodied too. That's right. Oh, yeah. It's a thick boy. Really? Two C's? Of course two C's. The first one's like the daiquiri that you have after like cutting your grass in the summertime. And then this one's like the end of the day, back porch, fan on. On the list of things I know you've never done before, cutting grass near the top. I am an only child and I did cut the grass growing up. It was on a rider and we only had a half-hager, but. Dude, look at Roger just massaging the s**t out of these limes. Yeah, he really must be tearing up those limes. His fingers must be covered in oil. So sticky. Yeah. No, it's like the manhands episode of Seinfeld. Lobster. Yeah. Roger's about to crush shellfish bare handed. So real quick, just again, on these ones that we had, it's crazy just the sugar difference, how it changes the texture so dramatically. Exactly. Yeah. The texture is really remarkable on the second one. Yeah. I can't wait to taste the granola sugar in this third one. Yeah. Roger, do you say in flavor profile, the last two are a lot more similar? Yes. Because I agree with that. So this thing that looks like it's basically- No, no. The one you just had and this one are going to be, well, you know, I just, I don't want to implant the ideas. Just try it and see what you think. So as you're shaking, how does it, since it seems so plant like and organic, how does it melt down into water in the boil, just like any other sugar or do you have pulp left over? No, it melts down, but this one takes the longest to melt. Yeah, that makes sense. But it actually does all melt. I don't know how to suspend the milk with it. Yep. You just got to take a whisk and it's really does not take a long time at all. So everything's just with filtered water over low heat. Yep. And so how much longer are we talking compared to say the first one? Barely any time at all. Oh, okay. All right. So here I still have all three right here. So you can see the color differences is pretty pronounced. So again, the issue at hand is mainly the molasses factor. This seems thinner right off the bat. Maybe not. This seems more spicy too. Smells like a Subaru driver. It's a granola joke. It just smells, and it smells kind of funky, like they've been outside for a while. That's the BO in the room right now. So when you taste it side by side, it is funky smelling. This is actually drier, even though it's a darker. So it's going to have less sugar. It has more of the molasses-y content to it. So least sweet of the three. I agree. It brings a spice. Least favorite of the three. Yeah. Well, so you want that sweet to go up against the sour of the lime. And actually, it does expose more of the spirit of the rum, too. You pick up more alcohol in this one than the other two. Yeah, I agree. This does taste boozier. So when you go back and try it next to the first one, crazy different. So the first one, the lime shows through more, and the vanilla-y kind of quality to the rum comes through. That's right. You're right. Absolutely. It seems like a creaminess. And number two, now at this point, it seems to have some orange peel. It also tastes the most notably sweet. Yeah. I think I would reach for one or two if I was going. I'm going two. And they're so distinctly different though. One seems fresh and one seems like baked, like the difference between a fresh pineapple and a baked pineapple. Right. Or a grilled pineapple or whatever. I think in terms of showing off that sugar is number two for me, it kind of takes the take. Yeah. I think two is a good medium. Yeah. But at least this way, you can get a sense of kind of the differences that you're working with. And then I also, if you want to just try the syrups by themselves, I'll pass those around as well. Here's the turbinado. They're all labeled. I'll just pass it on. What did you like, Jim? I like number two. I think that's the best one. What's really interesting is that I wanted to have you do this last, because when you just try them as syrups, they taste very similar. But once you make them in the cocktails, I feel you can almost notice more difference when they're part of the recipe as opposed to just on their own. These are the most adorable little ball jars. Yeah, those are great. Yeah, these are cute. Once again, his pillow that says, gather. Gather. No, he totally runs a country knick-knack store on the weekends. You have such quaint little cute items, Roddy. Rodgers country cocktails. Gather around. They make brandy alexanders. Yeah, you're right. They're a lot more similar when you try the syrups just on their own. Yeah. And maybe once it's like laid out, spread more thin across alcohol and other flavors, that it actually makes them show more subtlety. Maybe? My working theory? I don't know. So all that experimentation, all these delicious sugars, and I used less than half the sugar that's in one Coca-Cola. Wow. Total. Total. For everyone's drink, these drinks. Okay. Why do they put so much sugar in Coca-Cola? Well, there's kind of a lot of theories on that. It's got an addictive quality to it. When you start, you know, needing sugar that much, energy boost, you, when you eat that much sugar, you get a sugar rush, sugar high from it. And how many corns does it take to make the corn syrup to equal all that sugar? And then you use more sugar. So then the people who make sugar, they like that. So that was my little foray down the road. Hopefully it shows that it's worth the time, which is very little, to treat yourself to some better simple syrup. Really cool. This is definitely something worth seeking out and trying at home. Nice work, Raj. Yeah. I found this fascinating. Love it. And as you said, Alicia, when you buy these sugars, you don't need to just think like drinks. Sub these into your baking, top your baked goods with them, put them in things like your oatmeal, your cereal, your coffee, your tea. Stop eating simple white sugar. It tastes like nothing. You're just adding sweetness. Cool. All right. Stick around after the music break. I got a surprise for these guys. It's going to be fun. Way back, we were talking about cocktail ideas, and I was like, oh yeah, I have this summer cocktail idea with this strawberry rhubarb syrup. And Pat was like, rhubarb, nobody has rhubarb, the first family is the only family. Yeah, it's true. So my mother-in-law, who was incredibly sweet, brought these humongous rhubarb plants and put them in my yard. And I was like, that was the f*** out of my yard. They're huge. Actually, Roger will appreciate this too. They went over an area that was swarmed with mint before, and they actually took out the mint. Whoa. These things are a biological weapon. Yes, they are. But unlike mint that spreads everywhere, what they are is maybe three or four feet in diameter, humongous elephant ear leaves, and it just flops out. And the stalks are really gross and maybe poisonous or something. But when you boil them, they release this tartness. And when paired with something like fruit or sugar, it's wonderful. So she makes my wife. So the lovely Mrs. My wife. My wife. I'm making this a syrup. So the lovely Mrs. first makes a jam, which is basically just strawberry rhubarb jam. And this liquid is the by-product. This is the leftovers. And one time we're like, well, we should put some gin in there. So we did. So basically this cocktail you got in front of you, is, I guess, the syrup first, it's fresh strawberries, it's rhubarb, it's boiled together in water with sugar. It's just sugar, water, fruit. What kind of sugar did you use? Yeah, like the bone ash sugar. Bone char. I was thinking about that the whole time. I'm like, man, I'm using sugar. I am too. I did too. Don't fail that. I did too. So it's so easy to make. I mean, basically, you cut the stuff up, you boil it for a while. The fruit. You got to hit the syrup straight. Dude, it's good, right? It's so good. It's so good. It just turns to mush and you pull the mush out. It's not like thick. It never gels like a jelly does. It's wonderful on ice cream. It's great on toast, on its own. And this liquid that comes off of it is the syrup. And it is like right at the start of the bomb. The strong, the sweet and the sour. It has the sweet and the sour in it together in such a perfect way. So, you take this, you mix it with gin, and I basically go one part gin, one part this syrup, and then you top it off with as much like fizzy, whatever you have as you want. Sometimes I'll put lime juice on top, and that is why this Fever Tree Lemon Tonic is the perfect thing to top it off, because it has the citric lift in it already. And then you have basically Greg's refreshing summer after mowing cocktail. So, you love margaritas. Tell me you make margaritas with this. It seems like it would be perfect. We've made tequila drinks with this, but I've never put orange liqueur in it too. But that'd be good. Yeah, or just tequila, yeah. I don't necessarily need the orange. OK, so this here upon its own, right? It's the essence of fresh strawberries. And then this like this bitter twist, this herbal twist. I filled up the rest of my glass with the lemon tonic. And now it's just a strawberry lemonade. And I think it needs a little bit more gin. Oh, gin that up then. See, that's the delight in a cocktail. Pour a little more on. Little gin floater. So the real reason that I bring this to the table is not to enlighten our audience, but to show Pat how good this drink is and how he shouldn't have given me a lip for like two years. Listen, I'm still licking my wounds from my macrologer defeat. You had to jump on me so soon. It's pretty good though, right? This is pretty good. Of note, we are using Aviation Gin, a nice gin. It's not particularly high proof. What is that, 42% Roger, 43%? 42. 42. Ryan Reynolds Gin, fine. Whatever, it's good gin. It was good gin before he bought it. More importantly, we have it on like a tremendous sale right now, and I think we're going to for a while. So check out your local Binny's. Aviation Gin. When we did the Celeb Podcast, I got a Snapchat from my brother-in-law and he was sad face. You're on Snapchat? No, it wasn't. It was an Instagram story. Was it a Snapchat? I don't know what it was. What are the kids doing? How old are you? I got a notification and I touched it, and then there was my brother-in-law looking sad. I touched my phone. That we didn't include Aviation Gin. So here it is, Mason. It's fine. There you go, Mason. Yeah. I thought you were going to say you got an angry Snapchat from Ryan Reynolds. Oh. Yeah, that would have been much better. Snapchat Ryan Reynolds. Right to us, Ryan. We love you. Well, well done, Mrs. Versh, on this syrup. It's very good. It does make a very refreshing summer cocktail. Right? This is great. Can you do rhubarb with raspberry, with blueberry? Certainly. I like the tartness of raspberries and blueberries. I think that would bring out the tartness. It brings out the tartness of strawberry. You have a fruit question and you're directing it at the wrong podcast. But he's a rhubarb guy. Roger is not a rhubarb guy. Rhubarb is a vegetable. There you go. It's still taking over my yard. I wouldn't call myself a rhubarb. You're the rhubarb king. So yeah, I would say blackberries are famously pretty acidic and they're more tart than a raspberry depending on the season and the type of raspberry. So some raspberries can be pretty sweet. Yeah. Other ones would be pretty tart. So you just dial it in and especially if you're making it as a syrup, you just very easily adjust that with sugar. Yeah. Don't forget that there's a ton of sugar in here. Apparently less than a can of coke, but there's enough sugar that it's going to balance out any of the tartness. Well, you need the sugar if you're going to introduce the tonic, because the tonic definitely has some bitterness here. So I tried it before I put the tonic in. It was good before. It was really good that way too. So I could see just putting a little bit of seltzer water in, because I feel like some of the nuances get lost. Break up the texture, break up the thickness. The lemon took over to a point where this is a really good lemonade cooler now. Sometimes we'll use like a lemon sparkling water, but I didn't want to hear you guys give me s***. It's still delicious, but on its own, it kind of reminds me of there's this really esoteric tiki ingredient called fashioniola syrup, which is like a Louisiana wild strawberry. I thought Salernum was an obscure one. This one's even harder to find. That's just shaking his head. Fashioniola syrup. No, I've read about it in that f*****g book, Smuggler's Cone. Beach bum berry. No, no, no, not beach bum berry. Although there's a beach bum zombie like pre-mix rum mix coming in from Hamilton, like this week or next week, that essentially takes the overproof, the light and the dark and blends them into one bottle. And then you just mix that with your zombie mix or something. Oh, nice. Well, he already has the Navy strength, which is like a shortcut for making a rhyme of the ancient mariner. Okay, my segment is over. Is that your favorite? Fetisab. That's your favorite Iron Maiden song, isn't it? Yeah, so cue in the Iron Maiden song, please. All right, so I have two syrups here. I've actually made a lot of these syrups, and they're no cook. They are made with crappy white a**hole sugar. Huh, you don't cook them? No. weird. During the pandemic, Serious Eats sent out this email for people panicking and thinking they needed to like use every part of the buffalo, like for everything. Here's what to do with your leftover fruit husks. So, I was making a lot of cocktails, as everyone was, and I was juicing a lot of limes, and they had this recipe for, basically just take any fruit husk and do one part sugar and two parts husk, and then just put it in a bowl for a couple of days, In the fridge? No. They just let it ferment on the counter for a couple of days. It's not fermenting, it's just for like a day. And then I refrigerate it. But yeah, it just kind of pulls out the liquid and- Low ABV syrups. Yeah. There's no alcohol. I give it to my kids, it's fine. And then they sleep really well. Yeah. I'm not sure why. They did say cook the peach one, but I haven't done peach yet. But I've done mango, I've done lemon, I've done- I wonder why you have to cook the peach. It varies on fermentation potential. Yeah. But the sour cherry, I did it once with just sour cherry, and then I did it a second time with just throw some almond extract in there. What makes a sour cherry a sour cherry? The type of cherry it is? Yeah. My parents have a tree, and they just have just a load of cherries. Just so many. And they did 25 quarts of cherries. I got them a pitter, and they pitted 25, a nice, it really works well to pit the cherries. Okay, settle a bit. The thing that pits the cherry, how different is that from the thing that pops the seed out of the olive? I think it's the same thing, but it's more of a bigger, it has a hopper that you put the cherries in, and then you push down this plunger, and it stabs through it, and then pushes this pit into this little cup, and then you have the cherries for- That's some high-tech s***. It was only 20 bucks on Amazon again. So they used the cherries, my mom bakes with them or whatever, and then I said, save me the pits, and so- This is just made with cherry pits? Yes. Well, this is made with cherry pits? Yes. It's gonna taste like real nutty, isn't it? No, it tastes like- I think he's gonna poison it. It just tastes like- That's peaches, peaches they, well, peaches they say had a lot of cyanide. He's gonna kill us all at once. Yeah, I'm gonna kill you guys at once, all at once. So I don't know what- Next week Barrel to Bottle will have a new host, it will be Jim. Who's the engineer now? So yeah, I mean, I think that the sour cherry, like I've had it in tiki drinks, I've tried it in like Manhattan's, I've definitely used the lime syrup in margaritas instead of simple syrup, because it just gives you an extra kick. Wow, that's a thick syrup. Yeah, it's not, no cook. Roger, try this syrup. I can't believe you don't have to cook it to get that viscosity. It's shocking. I think this is going to be good with bourbon. I'm going to put some in bourbon. I like your Manhattan idea. Roger's sauced up his microphone. That's really good. Yeah, and it does it. It tastes like the cherry, not as much. Yeah, and I think the almond kind of helps, but even just the regular like- Oh, that's right. Okay, so almond extract and cherry. And cyanide. Yeah, and cyanide. It's tasty. It's good. Oh, man. Dude. Roger's already cocktailing with it over here. He's making something with rum. Give me that bourbon. I'm going to make a bourbon drink. Boy, it cherries up that bourbon. Seriously, you just get this viscosity and flavor from seeping. Yeah. Steep it. And how long do you seep it? Like a couple of days. Long enough for it starts to ferment. I don't know if it starts to ferment. Roger, what did you make? I just tried mixing it with rum just to kind of see how it would go with the white rum. It's okay with the bourbon. Actually, the bourbon is pretty good on its own, and I just added sweetness. It needs other things. I think it has a Manhattan or a Boulevardier, something like that. Because I usually use cherries that Luxartor or whatever in there. So a little bit of it, a little bit of vermouth. Can you pass the? Do this good. What am I passing this? That, yes. Thank you. Really touched a lot of fingers there, Jim. That's all right. Sorry. That's how I grab stuff. Sorry. Wow. Really extracted the flavor, but it's not just sweet cherry and it's definitely not. Well, it's sour cherry. I mean, so it's already, it's going to be sour. It tastes more like legitimate cherry, like your maraschino cherries. This smells and tastes more like cherry. I think some of that is the almond too, though. It's excellent with the bourbon. It's good, right? Yeah. And it makes the bourbon a bit dry on the finish, unless you gave me some dry-ass bourbon. No. So I added a little bit of the turbinado to it as well. Add a little depth of character there with the molasses-y note. Pretty darn good. And Roger's using the El Dorado three year before the record. We can't stop experimentation. All right, Jim, you have one other fruit syrup, and this one really raised my eyebrows when I heard you were making this. Well, it's just a lot. It's the same thing, same concept with lime. I should have made it on Tuesday night. Today is a Thursday. I should have made it on Tuesday, but it didn't quite dissolve, but it's still pretty viscous and sweet. When did you make it? Last night. Wow. My mind is reeling with the possibilities of what I could do with lime syrup. This was just from lime peels for one day? Juiced limes, yeah. Oh, so lime juice is in here too. No, no, I juiced all the limes. No, so it's just the leftover lime husks for one night. This is the husks of the lime. Yeah. And they're making these delicious ramps with garbage leftovers. I know. That's why sirius Eats sent it out during the pandemic, like in May of the pandemic. Yeah, my sister was doing it. We were doing stuff with peach syrup with this. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Are you submerging these lime husks in sugar or you're just making sure they're all coated? They're kind of just coated, because like there's... Oh, so it's still got gritty sugar in it, because it's only been one night. Yeah, and it usually dissolves. Wow, lime syrup. The cherry is definitely fully dissolved. So there's a fix for that. It's called caster sugar. So what you need is super fine ground sugar. You can do what's called a dry shake, so you don't have to heat it up and it'll completely dissolve. I probably should have used a super fine last night, but it still tastes like lime. Gimlet time. Yeah, gimlets would be good. I'm doing a lazy man's margarita with the tequila we have here. And yeah, my mind is reeling because I use limes more than any other fruit when it comes to cocktails because they just go with the drinks that I like. I mean, the lemon tonic water might be good with it too. Oh, yeah. Leave that close by. Leave that close by. So the lime syrup with Casa Draganes Inejo is pretty good. That's so flavorful. Can listeners tell who tasted these in orders? They can hear the bottles going around the room. It's so flavorful. It's so limey. I need more of the syrup, though. I didn't put enough in this tequila. Yeah, you need a good amount. Yeah, you do. We're all mixing random cocktails. We're all experimenting. Folks, this is why it's fun. This is what you can do. You take a couple of minutes. You make these syrups. You take a couple of minutes to learn some new things. Try some new things. Life is exciting again. That pitch could be word for word on the infomercial for some juicer. How do you think Jim got the lime peels? You are born anew each and every night. That's pretty good with that tequila. Plus, when you dial in cocktails like this, you get to name them. It's your cocktail. So much of drinks is just proportions and very slightly changing things. So I'm naming this cocktail more refreshing than the door opening after a long podcast session and the air breathing in. Sparkling lemon and lime margarita here. Yep. It's pretty good. Have that after mowing the lawn while riding around, basically playing. Have it while riding the lawn. Yeah. My lawnmower has two cup holders. OK, so what did we learn today, guys? Because this is just trailing on. Ingredients matter. Ingredients matter. Apparently, I got to shop at fancier grocery stores to get weird sugar. Is that true, Roger? Is it like a specialty? Where did you get these? Besides sugarclub.com or whatever you said earlier. nuts.com, Roger. nuts.com has everything you're looking for, not just nuts. They should call it notjustnuts.com. I got these at a local grocery store. I've seen them at several grocery stores. They're not that hard to find anymore. A few years ago, they were. It's just like when we were talking about these weird cocktail ingredients. I bet if you go to the Mexican grocery stores, they're easier to find. That's more like Peel and Seal. But no, like Peet's, Mariano's, yeah, they've got them. Mariano's has a lot of sugars. We have demerara sugar. Yeah, we have demerara sugar. Binny's here. You can buy demerara sugar cubes at Binny's. But yeah, like all this weirder stuff, it's around the inner webs, of course, you couldn't get anything now. So yeah, check out, like I said, Florida Crystals, Wholesome Sugars, Billington's, those are all things to look into. Sugar in the raw. Yeah. What's like the organic cane sugar? What exactly is that? All those companies have those. Yeah, and that's just like... Florida Crystals is kind of neat because they're actually growing Florida, they're growing sugar cane down in Florida again. Because for a while, sugar beets just destroyed the sugar market. Yeah. It was just whoever could make the cheapest stuff. But now you're getting USA grown sugar in Hawaii and Florida. Yeah. And that organic cane sugar is just like, it's just a light color and it's just that sugar from that. So it would be like kind of like we were talking about the turbinado, like turbinado just sounds weird. People are kind of like, what does that mean? They don't, it's really referring to the process. So they just figure like, let's say organic, that matters. Let's say cane, people get it. They're removing some of the antiquated terms that, unless we describe, explain it to you, like what does muscovado mean? What does turbinado mean? What does demerara mean? They've kind of just transitioned into cane sugar, light cane sugar, dark cane sugar. So make cocktails, play around with these. These are the kind of things where you can make, we don't even have to tell you what you can do with them. It's adding sweetness and a little bit of robustness to it and it works with so many different spirits. Obviously, the classic thing would be something like rum, but bourbon, scotch, apple brandy, really almost anything. Eggnog. Your simple syrups, Roger, how long did they actually take to make? Like five minutes. Like five minutes. And I made this delicious, my wife, made this delicious, refreshing syrup out of basically a weed in our yard in a very short amount of time. Yeah, that was a really good syrup. And Jim didn't even have to cook his. It's made of garbage. Right. It's made of the seeds. My parents just gave me a giant bag of like... If Jim had a compost bin, we wouldn't even have these syrups. And it's awesome. And all of these add an extra dimension to the cocktails that we've tried. And it's just an easy way to make things more interesting and fun and to own it even more than you do. Roger, earlier today, we were talking about syrups in the office as we often do. And you mentioned about mint, just taking simple syrups, but like steeping mint in there for like when you make a mojito or a very common whatever. Great point. So when you're dissolving this, you're getting it to the stage where you boil it, it just starts to boil, it should be all dissolved at that point, you shut it off. Then if you've been growing mint, which if you have any kind of yard container, grow mint, it's super easy to grow. You take a whole bunch of mint, like two fistfuls, put it in that pot of simple syrup, it wilts down, let it sit in there as the syrup cools for about 20 minutes, strain it, now you have mint simple syrup with a better sugar, so it has a little more character. Anytime you want to make a julep or a mojito, you don't have to muddle anything. This was a lot of fun, man. Yeah. I appreciate these syrups. I was skeptical at first because it's a Roger episode, but it turned out all right. Hey, this is the perfect thing for summertime. Get out there, if you grow mint or if you want to grab some of the farmer's market, you can make simple syrups with other herbs and stuff. People like Blackberry Sage is a real popular simple syrup. Get out there, play around with it. And like I said, doesn't even just have to be for alcoholic drinks. Use it in your baked goods, your food, your cocktails, your tea, your coffee. Just remember to give your mint a good firm slap before you use it. And express the mint. Roger really manhandled his mint a couple of weeks ago. He just really pounded the mint. Well, that was another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Roger, thank you so much. And Greg and Jim, your excellent fruit syrups as well. You're welcome. It was fun. Yeah. No one told me I needed to bring anything. It's all right. Wow. Really? Yeah. What's that? Inadequacy? You find inadequacy here? Maybe. It's fine. Well, were you going to make us gold? Somebody has to drink all these drinks. That's why I'm here. So until next time, I'm Alisha. I'm Roger. I'm Pat. I'm Greg. I'm Jim. Keep tasting. This is how Roger prepares his oatmeal in the morning, with a precise blend of three syrups and fruit juice.