You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I am Pat Brophy, I handle specialty spirits here at Binny's. Along with me is Roger Adamson. Hey folks, I do beer marketing and education. And Hillary? Hillary does stuff. And Greg. Hey, I'm Greg Varsh, I do communications at Binny's. Hillary does Greg's bidding. And we have a special guest with us. Go ahead and say what you do, Hillary. I'm Hillary, I do communications. All right, and we have a special guest from the Chicago craft distilling scene, Sonat Birnecker Hart. Yay, such a pleasure to be here. Yeah, we're going to talk about all the cool stuff going on with Koval and kind of how you've built this thing from the kind of cool little darling Chicago distillery. Now I see it everywhere. I was in Scotland a couple of weeks ago and I saw Koval barrels at at least three distilleries. At distilleries? Yeah, at distilleries. The people at Glen Allocay were like, yeah, these are great barrels. We love the flavor. So you got started in 2008 when you opened Koval and you were the first distillery within the city limits of Chicago. That's true, yes. First of all, how did you cut through that red tape? Well, our desire to start a distillery was really coupled with our desire to be in Chicago. It was important for us to figure it out whatever it took because we wanted to live in the city. I love Chicago. I'm from Chicago. What we had to do was when we gave up our careers, we were living in the DC area and instead of buying a home, we'd saved enough for a down payment, we decided to buy a still instead. At the time then we moved in with my parents, invested everything into the company for about two and a half years until we were able to get an apartment near the distillery and invest in a still and all the infrastructure. But when we first started, there hadn't been a distillery in Chicago since the mid-1800s, and there hadn't really been any changes to the laws since 1934. And in going over everything that we needed to do to start the distillery, we realized that there could be some changes made to the liquor laws that would make it more beneficial for business. And so I immediately upon getting the license to start the distillery, started working on trying to change the laws in Springfield to make it possible to have, first of all, a different license, a craft distilling license, one that would allow for tours and tastings and some retail on site. And so that was an immediate recognition that things needed to change. And I think that once we got them to change, it really did a lot for the craft movement in Illinois. Totally. It opened the door for so many others then. And for the record, I would much rather own a still than a house. Owning a house is a tremendous pain in the ass. We still don't own a house. You're not missing out on anything. There you go. And then Pat had kind of alluded to, you've gone from being this little upstart in Chicago to being around the world in at least four continents. Yeah, we're in 55 export markets. Holy cow. I think we're the only completely independent American craft distillery that is all over the world like that and so many export markets. And it was a part of our business goals, so to speak, was to be international. Robert comes from Austria. I lived abroad for about 12 years. And our desire to take things full circle, Robert learned how to distill from his grandfather. They have a working distillery and winery outside of Salzburg, where the hills are alive with the sound of music and a lot of brandy. And in doing that, it was sort of a goal to go then bring our products that were made in Chicago sort of also back to the shelves of Austria. And so his grandfather could see that his grandfather did it. How do you manage all this? I mean, are you with like an agency or something that handles export markets for you? Or is this all on you? We do it all ourselves. In fact, in addition to, we've got a great team, so we don't do it all ourselves. I mean, we have wonderful people who work at Koval, who we enjoy seeing every day. And they are really moving mountains. But when it comes to export, Robert and I did that very early on in the business, and it became a focus. And we do it all ourselves, so much so that we are our own importers into Europe. We even have our own warehouse in Europe that we export our products to and then import ourselves into Europe. And then we work independently and directly with every single one of our distributors in Europe. So that we can organically and carefully build relationships in a meaningful way, as opposed to just relying on a general importer to do it for us. Yeah, I mean, it thinks it's like handing over a child to an importer at that sense. And it's like, all right, take good care of this. I'll see you in six months. And like an orphanage with a bunch of other kids there, too. But mine's special, so. Yeah, but it's a lot of work. But if you love what you do, then you don't mind doing a lot of it. I always assume that Chicago is completely full of people like me. Fat white guys? Who are not originally from Chicago, but they desperately want to cling to the identity, so they eat the pizza, and they only order the hot dogs without ketchup. So what I'm saying is it's easy to sell Chicago to Chicago. People want to buy local here, but how do you take that, and then how do you sell that around the world? You have to have a different approach as you're trying to break into a new market? Well, I love Chicago so much. I feel that it is like a shining star in the world. So I feel that everyone should be able to see that beacon. But you're right. Obviously, internationally, we focus on the other things that are very much a part of our identity as a brand. First of which is when it comes to distilling whiskey, we take a brandy approach that Robert learned from his grandfather, who makes a lot of different fruit brandies. And when you're making a fruit brandy, you're only going to use the heart cut of the distillate. And that is something that we've applied to whiskey making, which was not a general approach that whiskey makers had in the United States. So no heads or feints get recycled into the next distillation at all? And no tails, yes. No tails? No heads, no tails, just the heart cut, sort of the fillet of the distillate. And that's all we use for our whiskey. You're not going to recycle the head or tails at all into the next distillation? No, we don't. It's expensive. It's very expensive, but it creates an incredibly bright and clean whiskey. And I think that becomes a hallmark of our style and also our identity. And it certainly is very appealing to places like Japan, where they also really like clean, bright whiskies. And that's one of our best export markets. Really? And we've been there for a number of years, and you can find us there in all their department stores, and we've really worked on that market a lot. But that's one of the things that I think really has identified us as a brand to seek out, I hope, around the world. Another one is our use of alternative grains. So we're always working with fun grains that were not the usual suspects. We were going to ask about that. What happened to the spelt whiskey? Funny. Spelt may make a return, but when we started, we were very academic about it. We both come from academic backgrounds, and we said to ourselves, wouldn't it be great for the consumer to know what each one of the individual grains tastes like as a white whiskey, as a whiskey aged in toasted barrels, as a whiskey aged in charred barrels? But then when you end up having like- Hey, remember when Koval launched and they had their own four-foot section? Yeah, when there was like 30 different lines, fried whiskey. It's not a very good business model. It's really nice for an academic look at different grains and how they change as they are aged in different ways. But it was not a good international approach or even just a local approach, because then one person has their favorite and then they can't find it anywhere, so except for Binny's. So what we decided to do is to cut it down, but we still work with millet, which I think is one of our highlighted grains. It makes an appearance in our bourbon, which is a mash bill of corn and millet. We also use oat, which we really, really enjoy. Oat shows up both in its single grain oat whiskey, as well as in our four grain. It's worth pointing out that your four grain doesn't have corn or barley. No. Well, it has malted barley. Malted barley? It does have malted barley. So it does have some malted barley, but its main grain is actually the oat, then it has a little bit of malted barley, and then it's rye and wheat. Then we also have the single grain, the millet whiskey as well. So focusing on just some of these makes it much easier to take it around the world. You really have to have your four products or your five products and stick with it. Yeah, you got to have a focus before you do it. I feel guilty. I'm making it sound too complicated. You have a couple of gins, like three gins. Yes. You have four main line bottled whiskeys, and then a couple of occasional, well, your Liqueur line, and then a couple of occasional fun things that you do. Exactly. So it's easy to remember. Now, during the single grain whiskey distillation, which grain was giving you the most challenge and which grain was the easiest? What had the highest yield and what might have gunked up the works the most? Well, millet is just vanilla frosting. I mean, to mash that is amazing, and it's sweet, and it's not viscous. It's not super sticky. Is it yielding as many liters of alcohol per ton as these traditional grains? Oh, yeah, if not more. So it's a great- It's magic millet. There you go. I mean, it's a very popular distillate in Nepal. There's international precedent for millet spirits, but it was certainly not at all popular in this part of the world. Let me ask a question real quick since we're still talking about the Lion's Bride, still fresh. In mentioning that initial phase that you had, it's probably worth asking because one of the defining characteristics of your products these days is really sharp design. Yes. The stuff that you launched before was good. Now it's great. Thank you. How was that transition process and what inspired it? Sure. Well, what inspired it is the original branding was not that great. When you're doing everything yourselves and when you're doing a startup and you are investing every single penny that you have, plus Visa, MasterCard, American Express, 26 percent. Well, and yourself too, right? Oh, of course. Day and night. Yes, of course. You're really pouring your soul into it. Absolutely. Well, everything we do is just all us. With that in mind, there are certain things that in the very beginning, you really can't necessarily afford or think that you can't afford. I actually now would look back and say, we should have taken out a loan and done it right the first time. But there's a term in German called Lehrgeld, so it's like the cost of learning. What we did is Robert and I did the original label, the original label and our original branding. If you design that package yourself, you're beating yourself up a little much because it was not that bad. I appreciate it, but I know that design is not our forte, and I'm very, very lucky that it happens to be my sister's forte, and she has an amazing design firm, and so she was telling us, although at the time she was only doing fashion, and so she was Is that really how she talks? No, that was after maybe her fifth time telling me, she was like, Sonat, come on, let's get going. We believed her, and as with all startups, there are fits and starts and issues that you have, and we went to actually a different design firm and paid a lot of money and they did a terrible job. I mean, it looked like a maxi pad was their proposed label amongst other. Yeah, it was not great. Yeah, I don't think that would sell very well. No, that's not what you want to think about when you are having some high spirits. Anyway, it's the most expensive laugh that we have ever had. Then luckily, my sister said, all right, you know what, I'm just going to do this for you. That actually shifted her business from being fashion into all liquor. So now she does a lot of liquor design. So a lot of what you have at Binny's, she's done a lot of the designs for it. That's really cool. Yeah. So it's a very family. Everything at Koval is all family business. All of our inspiration comes from our family, all of our knowledge, a lot of it is derived from our family, even our factory itself. My great-grandfather, Monik, who's from Vienna, he walked on the stairs at the turn of the century one day and he says, Mom, I'm leaving. He had a single mom, his father had died. He said, Mom, I'm leaving. It's all about America. He walked out the door and moved to Chicago and he started a battery company, not too far from where the distillery is now. And in our new factory, when we first went to rent it and it looked so big to us and it was such a big throw and we were nervous about the move and the rent and what it would cost us. There was one thing in that factory and it was a battery from my great grandfather. And it was actually, we called the company Koval because that was his nickname, was Koval, which in many Eastern European languages means Schmid or blacksmith. But in Yiddish, it has a little extra meaning, means someone who like a blacksmith forges something new or forges ahead. And so we took it on as the name of the company because people thought we were crazy to leave our careers and health insurance and everything and go start a company at the time of a huge economic crisis. And so we thought there was a little bit of that Koval forging ahead in this, but also Schmid is the last name of Robert's grandfather, whom he learned distilling from. So and then we find this, then finally the factory that we end up purchasing, when we go in there the first time, there's actually a battery from his company and it works and we charge all of our forklifts with it. So don't build them like they used to. There you go. We're pretty familiar with your portfolio, but for listeners, can we just take a couple of steps back and just talk about what your original vision was and how you got there? In leaving our careers to do this, our original vision was to create a whiskey that was different in its nature from a lot of the whiskies on the market, and using only this heart cut, taking this brandy approach and bringing it to the whiskey market. In addition to that, using all of these unique grains, but more than that, we wanted to make sure that our company was doing things in a way that we felt happy about, and that was supporting sustainable agriculture. I mean, this is an agricultural business. We work with farmers. We actually work with a cooperative of organic farmers in the Midwest, and that was something we wanted to do from the very beginning and did. Xana, it's your question, Roger. You're satisfied? I think everyone's ready to taste. What would you recommend me to taste first? I don't know. Do you want to go whiskey or gin first? Probably whiskey first. Great. All right. So we've got, let's start with the bourbon, I guess. Okay. You want to break down the mash bill here again for us? Sure. It is corn and millet. Obviously, it needs to be more corn than millet, so it's 51 percent corn and the rest is millet. That is so weird. I mean, that's cool, isn't it? It is so vanilla heavy. This is awesome. You know what? I sniffed ahead, and the rice smells like cocoa powder to me, and just that combination of one, two, punch it. I mean, vanilla and chocolate, it's like- I never thought of that, but it does smell like cocoa powder. The breakfast cereal dream team. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, the crumbly bits at the bottom of the breakfast cereal. And the bourbon is overproof, so it's 47 percent alcohol by volume, so we wanted something that would really hold its own, but yet still because of only using the heart cut, it's smooth and bright even at the higher proof. What coopers are you working with? We work with a few, but mostly all of our barrels come from Minnesota. This seems like more of a cutting and bright style of bourbon that I'm used to. It doesn't have any spice like from rye, I would expect, but it seems more linear and more, I don't know, like butterscotch, but it's not candy. I don't know how to describe it. For something with that mash bill and in a 30 gallon barrel, it's not nearly as like it seems, you would think it would be grain forward or barrel heavy and it's neither. I mean, it's just, it's beautifully balanced. It really is. Thank you. I mean, we want them to be very sipable. So yeah. And Pat, how much is this bottle? $39.99. How did you arrive at Millet? We were thinking about the necessity of differentiating ourselves as a brand. And one of the ways was our process in using just the heart cut. But we felt that we needed to do even more to differentiate ourselves because we were competing against a lot of very established companies for the same shelf space. And we thought that one way to do that was to really offer something very different. And we traveled a lot and we looked at different spirits that were popular all over the world. And we did notice that millet was well-liked in a lot of places. It's actually one of the more popular grains in the world, just not in America. It's sort of the oatmeal of China, Russia, in different parts. India, they use it as well. And it's also a really interesting grain. The habit in which it grows is it's beautiful, and they're like little golden beads. And there's just a lot of beautiful, aesthetically pleasing things about millet in general, but also their taste is very earthy, but mild. It's a really nice flavor. It's in a lot of health food breads for people that look for more gluten-free grains for their cereals and for their breads. But millet, it was also, we started experimenting with different grains. And when we saw how beautifully it mashed and also what the flavor profile was and how we thought that it married just perfectly with corn, it was a no-brainer for us. Was sourcing it difficult at all? Not really. It's a rotation crop that we wanted to use. It was really great because it gives a lot of the soil a nice and needed rest. It's an interesting grain and it's good for the farmers and it's good for us. So it was a win-win all around. When I had run into you at an event earlier this year, Bourbon Women Night, you had said it was really cool because you saw a lot of the people that you had helped influence within their distilleries and make their product. And I think that's something maybe a lot of our customers don't know about you is that you help other distilleries get started and come up with recipes. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Sure. I mean, we were educators beforehand. I mean, I was a professor. Robert did some teaching as well. And it's sort of in us to want to teach. But when we first started, the Tribune wrote about us and other people wrote about us when we were changing laws and we started getting all these phone calls. And I had my baby with me and was mashing and nursing and reading Sylvester and the Magic Pebble and you name it. And then these phone calls would keep coming in and they would say, well, we've been making product in our backyard for years and we want to go legit. And I said, well, don't talk about making it in your backyard too loudly. But they would ask and I would tell them and I'd be on the phone for hours. And so finally we realized that it just was not efficient for us to be doing that. So we said, well, guess what? We're going to have a workshop. And so we started organizing workshops and now, and that was, you know, it happened very organically. And then we were sharing the information with people and brought in the TTB and help, you know, they were helping us with our workshops to teach compliance. And now we've educated over 3,500 people in how to distill in our own workshops. We also teach at the Siebel Institute. We lecture at different trade shows all over the world, but we have been doing it for years. I mean, that's a tremendous list of bona fides. But, you know, Chicago again. Yeah, there you go. And in addition to that, we also, when we started, we recognized that the equipment that was available for smaller scale distilleries was not as vast, you know, in the United States as it was worldwide. You know, with Prohibition, it really put a stop to a lot of things. Whereas in Europe, you know, they had a continuing industry that kept going. So we started reaching out to a lot of these companies that we had thought had great equipment for smaller producers, and we also became their manufacturers' representatives. So then we represented all the equipment. Robert also is technologically very good at coding, and so he's coded a lot of automation for small scale distilleries so that nobody has to fly blind. So they can find out what the flow rate is, what the temperature is inside the still, basically everything to the second. So if there's a slight variation, or variation, what's going on, they can adjust it immediately and have consistency in product, which is really, I think, important for quality control as well. So that's something that we've done. Now, in addition to educating all of these people, we've set up 190 distilleries for people all over the world, US, Canada, Europe. Robert set up the largest rum distillery in Uganda a few months ago. He's going to Israel to set up the first distillery in Jerusalem. And really, we've been to the tip of Finland all the way to actually a lot of cold places, but also a lot of very warm places to set up distilleries for other people. So it's been great. We've seen the industry grow. Your impact is huge. Yeah, that's incredible. We love bringing them to Chicago too. So they can eat the pizza and the hot dogs without the ketchup. Yeah, no ketchup. Right, no ketchup. You want to try the rye? Yeah, let's try the rye. Like some orange marmalade under the cocoa powder. I am very into chocolate covered orange peels, so. I think that there's some of that that comes through for sure. What's the rye percentage? It is 100% rye, 100%. No malted rye. None. You just enzyme the hell out of it. Yep, we use some enzymes. That's a ripe rye, right there. No, that is, it's great. That's really like a breadth of flavors that people don't associate that with rye. They think streamline and spice to a point of aggression. And this is a really round, really round experience. Thanks, yeah. I mean, we really want it. I mean, I love rye, and we really wanted a very sippable rye. Also, I love this in a Sazerac. But I feel that having 100% rye, you really know what rye tastes like, you know? When you're adding malt, I mean, it changes the actual nature of it. And this is a white whiskey, which we also make, although it's sold primarily in Italy. The white version of it, it's very floral. So you have this incredibly floral nose, and it's interesting to see what the barrel does to it. What's that at 47% too? No, this is 40%. 40%? Mm-hmm. 80%. Yep. So when you were choosing grains, did you like experiment with lots of different types of rye, or did you kind of happen upon one that you liked right away? Well, we love the rye from the Midwest. We have distilled other rye from other parts of the world for other brands. We have done some contract distilling, even for some big brands. I mean, we've distilled some rye from Vermont. Very different. I mean, when you see it, even just physically, it looks different. But we like this. We like our rye. Yeah. This is a soft, pretty fruity rye too. Yeah. I mean, it's not as minty and menthol-y and herbaceous as you would expect some younger, lean or 100 percent rye to be. It's not lean either. It's round and soft. It's very approachable. Yeah. I mean, we love rye. Rye also serves as a base for our gin. There's organic labels on a lot of these products. Yes. And you've emphasized the charitable and the sustainability and the positive impact. Right. How local is the grain that you're getting? It's a cooperative of farmers. So they all work together to fill our orders. So when some doesn't have enough, then other ones chime in, but they're all in the Midwest. Okay. Yeah. So our corn, however, is always from Illinois because there's really only one guy that has a completely organic certified corn farm. It's difficult because you need a buffer crop around it. No kidding. Yeah. It's because of the GMO. What's usually the buffer crop? I'm not sure. I have to ask him. It may even just be a different kind of corn, like a corn buffer crop too, but yeah, it's hard. Organic is obviously very important, but so is kosher. All of our products are kosher certified. As I said, a lot of things, we're inspired by our heritage, we're inspired by our family, and that's part of it too. Here's a question then on that note, do you have any kosher for Passover products? Ooh. That's a tough one, and we struggle with those questions from customers, obviously only for one week a year. Exactly, exactly. You know, it's something that logistically is difficult because we would have to close down the entire facility, make it, then ship it all out, and then start back up again. Oh, yeah, forget that. It's something that we have thought that we are going to do, and I think maybe before we give up our one facility and consolidate both, we'll do a whole slew of kosher for Passover products. Just keep a 10-year supplier. And keep it there, and then, yeah, and then at least have that. So that's a possibility of something that could happen. So, I mean, we could do that. That's cool. I mean, it's good of you to at least be tuned into that business. Oh, for sure. Most people wouldn't bother taking the time. Oh, yeah, no, for sure. I mean, we care, we, you know. What's happened to the gin, then? So, the gin here, you said also rye base, 100% rye? And is this also made on a pot still? This is, yes, this is made, well, we have a hybrid still. You have a hybrid still. So, you can distill this up to a neutral proof before going back through the botanicals. If we want to, but we don't. So, we like to have the base come to our gin with some character. Okay. So, it's not completely neutral. You have a hybrid still and you're still making cuts? Yeah, absolutely, because our hybrid still allows us to distill all the way up to a vodka. We have two columns. Okay. So, we can completely rectify it, but we can turn off an entire column. We can turn off a column and a half. We can only use three plates. It is completely flexible, and that's the beauty of it, because for different products- You can sell your stills on another podcast. Taking them up, putting them in a micro distiller, reach out to Koval. There you go. Reach out. So, you can open and close all these different plates, different columns on. Then, let me get a broader picture here. So, the whiskeys we tried, do those go through the pot and the column? They go through part of the column, because you would do a double pot distillation traditionally for a lot of things, but it's not as energy efficient. You know, you'll lose temperature. There are all sorts of things. And there have actually been studies done that Robert, like, reads these PhD theses from various universities that do fermentation in Austria or in Germany, where they've done studies that show you can get the exact same results if you're going through a hybrid still. It's just more energy efficient. Yeah, and a hybrid still is what you see in most craft distilleries, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. So the gin probably goes through more of a column than the whiskeys? Yes. Okay, and you still have to make a cut even though you're going from pot to column? Well, we still get heads, hearts, tails. So when we're distilling, we get heads, hearts, and tails. We cut off, and we do very stringent cuts. So we even go in to the- How narrow is the cut? Well, we go into, obviously, all of the heads are removed. We can lose up to like 30 percent in cutting out the tails too, which is usable alcohol. But for us with the tails, we redistill them all the way back up. We have other uses for them. So we distill it up, rectify it, get hearts again, obviously, but they're too rectified for any of our mainline products. So it becomes a base for lacquers. Lacquers, stuff like that. Okay, yeah. Because just an important sense, because anybody doing pot-cell distillation is taking a cut and making a heart cut. That's why I asked earlier about whether or not the heads and tails are getting recycled. Yeah. So when you're making the whiskey, can you share where you start taking alcohol and where you stop taking alcohol? I mean, we really only use the heart cut. So as we see, it's starting to change into tails. That does not- And are you doing this on temperature and taste or just somebody's- Temperature and taste, yeah. Obviously, back in the day, before we had a, we were tasting, we were tasting, we're figuring out where the head to the heart cut was, and we're getting a headache. Now, we can see when it's coming, and then you can taste it, but we're doing it based on tech as well as- Yeah, experience... . art and science. Yeah. I think that there's both involved. We love technology. We think it's important. It allows us to, we can even collect big data to be able to figure out is there a difference in grain that's harvested at a particular time, that has a better yield, and over the course of a number of years, we'll be able to determine those kinds of things. But so technology is wonderful, but we also feel that the art of it is important too. So in that is tasting. Sorry, I didn't mean to distract from the gin. Yeah. And speaking of- So a while back, we did a gin podcast and one of the games we played was Guess That Botanical. Oh yeah. Mind if we take a crack at this? Sure. Go for it. Legally Juniper. Oh, come on. Yeah, I know. I got the easy one. Ding. I'm going to guess lavender and something licorice related. No lavender. Really? Really. Coriander in this? A little. Okay. So far, I'm winning for the record show. How about the roots? Is there oris root? Angelica root. There is licorice? No. Aniseed? Yeah. Orange peel. Very little, but that's not what you're getting the citrus from. Lemon peel. No, very, very little. We're running out of ideas here. Lime peel. No, no, no lime. Why don't you tell us what the citrus is coming from? The citrus is coming from rose hips. Wow. Now, that's a real delicate botanical too. Do you have two passes through botanicals? Well, we do a maceration and we do a distillation. Does the rose hip go in the maceration or the distillation? Both. Both. Okay. These are the fruits of bush roses that are very, very popular in jams and in Sweden, they make a soup called nykpon, which is like a rose hip soup. And rose hips are actually what most vitamin C is made out of. I was going to say it's a huge supplement. It's very big. And what's funny is, it became a problem for us because we wanted to source the rose hips very locally. And this was one real issue. And all the pharmaceutical companies bought up every single organic rose hip anywhere near. I thought you were going to say, because all the Swedes were eating all the new puns. The new puns, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, yeah. They definitely enjoy that. But it's tasty. It is tasty. But yeah, no. So we had to fight with the pharmaceuticals to get our rose hips. Roger, have you ever had a new pun? No, but I've eaten rose hips. And I suggest that you crack them open before you put them in your mouth, because there can sometimes be bugs. Yeah. Roger just said he ate bugs. Also, of course, Roger ate rose hips. Yeah. They make a great jam. They're very tasty. Well, this is a lovely balanced gin. What's the bottling proof here? This is 47%. 47%, nice cocktail proof. It starts delicate on the nose, really graceful. And then it's kind of a bruiser on the finish. It's really peppery. And you said there's no cracked black pepper, but it's- They're grains of paradise. Oh, okay. It's one of my favorite gins. It's really nice gin. And we can't talk about the gin without talking about just the gorgeous excess that is the label. Oh, yes. How did this label- I remember the first time I saw it, I was like, holy cow. There's cutouts in this and it's a sticker. This has got to- I mean, I assume like somebody like, sneezes too hard on the bottling line and then you have labeling issues for a whole run or something. Like there's a guy with an X-ACTO knife. Exactly. Well, it's actually mathematically very sound. It looks incredibly delicate, but the math behind the pattern is very strong. So basically, it was one of the first labels that did- it's a paper label that is laser cutout, but it's also foiled and embossed. And our label company was very nervous actually to do it for these exact reasons, but they're also very nervous because to have a laser go so close to foil, they thought it would be- the metal would just melt. But it worked. And what happened was is when we did our redesign, we were so happy with it that we just gave complete artistic freedom to Dando Projects, my sister's company, to just do whatever. We said, you know what? You did a good job. We're not going to even mess with you. Just do it. And they did it. And we're very, very happy. And in fact, it has won every design award that we've entered it into, and it's in a design museum in Italy, and it was in a design show in Vienna. And so we're happy. We see people on Instagram turning it into like vase or candles or things like that. I mean, it's so pretty. You don't just recycle it. Yeah, yeah. But you should still recycle. Yes, of course, or use it as a vase, you know. And you can have this work of art in your home for $29.99. There you go. And the gin ain't bad. I think it's neat that it speaks to... You were talking about your love of Chicago, and it feels like it has a genuine art deco feel that's not kitschy, and it really speaks to that, I think. Yeah, well, I mean, they had such a love of, you know, an art deco, and you can still love of patterns and, you know, repeating forms, and absolutely, I can see that. What is your bestseller locally and then kind of nationally and globally? It's the same, actually everywhere. So worldwide, our bourbon and our gin are our bestsellers. So literally, it does not matter where you are, France, Australia, you know. Everybody's knocking down the door for the Millet whiskey. Japan. You know, actually, it's funny you say that there are some are in it. Millet actually does pretty well in France. It's, I'd say maybe it's up there. It might be our third bestseller in France. In different places, different products tend to be like second or third or fourth, well, third or fourth, but it's really the bourbon and the gin. You're so well traveled. What's like your favorite bar around the world? My favorite bar around the world is any bar I can go to with my husband while the kids are well-taken care of. There you have it. That is a married with family response I've ever heard. Really, we don't get too choosy. Well, we're always happy when it's a Koval bar, where they have Koval. Luckily, we were in Austria and we went to a ski lodge, and it was there and that made us really happy because we were like, oh, we should go talk to their beverage director and see if they'll bring in Koval. We're like, it's there. It's there. We're like, yeah. I'm going to go on break. Right. We don't have to do it. We can disorder it. What's your favorite Chicago bar? Oh, girl, my favorite Chicago bar. Koval Spirits Tasting Room. Yeah, it's tricky. I don't think I would do that to anyone in Chicago because we just love all of Chicago. And people in Chicago are petty AF. Yeah. Every other bar in Chicago would call her up the next day. No, I mean, I think I would also say it's wherever we can go when our kids are well taken care of. It's funny. My kids know so much about the liquor industry now, too. They'll walk into somewhere and say, they're only two skews. Yeah. Mom. You know, they use that kind of terminology. Can we try this one before we get too far? This is what? Cranberry gin? Yes. Which is not a slow gin. Is it inspired by a slow gin? Sort of. It is inspired, actually, by the entire European aperitif culture. So we spend a lot of time in Europe, obviously, dealing with our business there, and we have seen over the past few years the importance of low ABV cocktails, the importance of being able to spritz something. Hold on a second. I'm sorry to step on you. Why have you not told me about this? You have never had this? Why have you never told me about this? This stuff is incredible. Oh my God. You've never tried this? This is so good. This was like the great headache of my holiday season, was trying to make sure the stores had enough of this stuff. I have a bottle of Aperol that's open in my office right now, which is bullsh**. We have this. Oh my God. All right. Sorry. I can't believe you've never tried this. It's so funny. A way to bring it back to European spritz culture though. There you go. European spritz culture. This is right in that wheelhouse, right? Yeah. We wanted something that was very American, but could really go head to head with this European spritz culture and just do it American style, which is all about cranberries, which are very American. The closest you can come to that in Europe are lingonberries, but cranberries really pack a lot more of a punch. You needed something if you're going to be in this culture that could mix well with sparkling wines, obviously also champagnes, and just with sparkling water, which this and sparkling water is easy peasy. It's great with just- Prosecco. Or any combination of the three, Prosecco, sparkling water, cranberry gin. And it's patio weather, and it's also a pretty color. I mean, aesthetically, it's pleasing. And is that from the cranberries? It's all natural. Cranberries come from Wisconsin and Michigan, the bogs up there. So it's all natural. This is the real, this is our answer to European spritz culture, Chicago style. Is this certified agranic? It is. Wow. So even the back sweetened sugar, all that stuff. Every little bit of it. And there's no artificial color. Nothing. I don't believe you. There isn't. Come and check. I will give you our logs. Coming for those logs. You can come for the logs. No, that's actually what happened. So our organic certifiers will come, as our kosher certifiers will come, and what they will do is they'll take a product and then trace it all the way back. So make sure everything is natural, organic certified, that there's no break in the chain. Yeah, I mean, this stuff is great. Obviously, anybody who tries it goes absolutely gaga over it. We were constantly flirting with consumer issue, customer service issue out of stocks during the holidays. I mean, it came out, what, last fall? Yeah, it did. It just immediately exploded, and it's just like every four days, I'm calling up your distributor just in a panic, like, we have to get more of this product tomorrow. You would suspect that it was designed for the holidays, and I bet it's perfect for the holidays, but it's super fresh and bright. Exactly. So great for the summer, too. Absolutely. I mean, it's so funny. I mean, it came out around the holidays, but the intention was really summer patio, and we had a delay in the label, and so we originally wanted to launch it last spring, but couldn't. Yeah, we don't even know what this product can do yet. I mean, it hasn't even been around in time yet. Yeah, it hasn't. Yeah, but it's coming into that summer spritzer season. Is this available in your whole footprint, too, or is this just some- It is. It is, and it's actually been crazy because we've had to- I think I need to have contracts with all of these cranberry people to make sure that they're supplying us all the time because we were a little bit surprised by how well it took off, especially in Europe. I mean, when we first launched it in Europe, I mean, the orders were crazy. It was getting so much distribution and in chains, like retail chains, which was surprising. Well, I mean, gins with a color like that now are the thing there. This is really all natural. So it's not- I mean, this is just a really natural product. The Singapore Sling is one of my favorite cocktails, and this is really nice to sub in for the cherry liqueur. I've made them before. You got to put gin in it anyway. Cranberry and pineapple is obviously a natural combo. Right. I've never heard that as a natural combo. I'll take it away. I mean, you are the fruit king, so I defer to fruit combos. It's one of those drinks that has a bad rap like daiquiris, and we were talking about before, and people think it's cheesy, but a sea breeze is cranberry and pineapple juice with gin, or vodka. Absolutely. I mean, the possibilities are really endless, but it's also just the fact that you can mix it with some club soda and ice and call it a day. Makes it very, very easy for people to make something with it. Does your sister do your social media too? No. We've collaborated, so all the images on Instagram, I mean, everything's done in-house, so I did some of that with her. We were lucky to grow up with a commercial photographer as a father, so we learned a lot of these. It's pretty sharp. I've been checking it out for a while. When I was Instagram stalking last night and just collecting ideas for this thing, I'm scrolling back and I saw a post from about a year ago, maybe a little more, that I remember at the time too. This picture on Instagram is a bottle of one of your whiskies, and a well-worn maple neck black telecaster, and a chase bliss audio warped vinyl hi-fi guitar pedal, and apparently some fancy cookies that I guess are called Alpha-Four. Alpha-Four. You're cross promoting a cool cookie company and a not local super boutique guitar. Right. Is that like out of the goodness of your heart? Well, here's the thing, is that for us, fine spirits are about, it's a lifestyle, it's about enjoyment. I mean, we're in the happy business, at least we hope we're in the happy business. And so there are a lot of things that make us happy. We are all about the things that we love and enjoy and are inspired by. You'll find all sorts of other types of things like that, that come into our Instagram and other things. Pretty clear from that, but also just from what's on the table right now and in talking to you. The way you do, you said a combination of art and science, but you also do like a combination of art and business. Art for the sake of business and also the other way around. And that's pretty cool. So what's next for Koval? What's the next cranberry gin? Well, I think we're going to be writing this cranberry gin for a while, but we always have something new up our sleeve. So we love collaborations, whether they're just in shout outs to other brands that we think are great and inspire us, or collaborations with others in the industry. I mean, we did that collaboration with Mikkeler. Collaborations are always something that we've done and will continue to do. We also have a bunch of other products that have yet to be released, to which we'll get it released eventually. Spill it. No, but we're- 20 questions, does it involve rice? No, it does not involve rice, but sugar is sweet. Oh, fucks, you heard it here first. They're getting goosebumps again, Pat. Do you see yourself playing around with Cooperage at all? I imagine in your startup, for most distilleries, the decision to use smaller Cooperage tends to make sense, but then sometimes as they grow, they might expand in the larger. We have been experimenting already, and so there will probably be a transition. I mean, we've been experimenting, but for us, the issue is very much consistency. While our whiskies are about three, four years old, we pull them based on flavor consistency because we don't want someone picking up a bourbon and then having it taste so dramatically different when they pick up another bottle because they're all single barrels. So that is hugely important to us. So part of our experimentation is also making sure that things match. So that's part of the art and science of this. But there's definitely some of that because we're doing more, we need to put away more. So yeah, for sure. And it's fun. And we've also done some experimentation on some finishing, some little small projects that have maybe yet to be released. So we'll see. We love the feeling of being in the kitchen. Do you have time to stick around for our Q&A segment? Of course. All right, cool. I love Q&A. Yay. Folks, that brings us to the Q&A portion of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, where we answer your questions for a $20 Binny's gift card. Write your questions to us via email, the comments at binnys.com or hit us up on social media, at Binny's Web, on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Sorry about this. These come from our customers, so you can blame Aaron, who stopped by the booth at Bourbon Women Night. Aaron asks, if Animal from the Muppets drank bourbon, what bottle would he choose and why? Animal. Animal doesn't strike me as being very choosy. He also strikes me as probably being a little bit dehydrated to begin with. So I probably would want to steer him far from any alcoholic beverages, straight over to the drinking fountain. He would have a friend that might bring him something. Whatever is around. Whatever his friend brought him, the real answer is clearly fighting cock bourbon. I was going to say some kind of flavor, some peanut butter flavor, root beer flavored bourbon. He's an animal, so he drink high proof. Wild turkey. Yeah, wild turkey 101 or 114. That could be. I could see it. I still feel like I want to mother him and give him water. I fear for him. Your mother is so strong. You want to hydrate a muppet? I do. You say it, go home animal, you're drunk. Right. Animal, I think you need to take a shower. Animal, you've really disappointed me today. Go to your room. Right. All right, Erin, there you go. Also, maybe don't take this advice for yourself. No, drink fighting cock. Drink fighting cock? All right. Erin, we have a $20 Binny's gift card coming to you. Everybody else can write your questions via email, leave the comments at binnys.com or hit us up on social media, at Binny's Web on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Visit the Binny's blog at binnys.com/blog. Really just drink this cranberry gin. You know what? Animal is red, right? Yeah. It is. Probably drink this cranberry gin. Okay, that's possible. There you go. There. Bring it full circle. Yeah. Branding. Yeah. There you go. Exactly. Yeah, this has been pretty eye-opening, pretty great. I've had the gin a couple of times, but I don't know if I've had some of these others. I've never had the cranberry gin before. The bourbon and rye are standouts. They really are. Standouts, thank you. It's great to have such a becoming iconic. It's great to have such a quality thing that's going around the world that is still we can call it our own from Chicago. It's our neighbor. Yeah, I love it. I mean, I love going places and seeing it and being in Rome and going to some rest of La Zanzari and then seeing it on the shelf. And it's fun. It's fun. It's rewarding. We love what we do. Do any celebrities like Koval? I know there are some celebrities who've gotten it as gifts, but who knows? But they never posted it on their Instagram. They have not posted. They have not posted, so I can't say it's official. Before we sign off, what's the Swedish soup recommendation? Newt Pund. Okay, cool. That's rose hip soup. Yes. But you got to crack them first. Otherwise, it's bug soup. See, we're so close to Andersonville. There you go. So I've got the Swedish recommendations. Sonat, thanks a lot for joining us today. Always fun to talk about local spirits, especially when there's such a story behind them. Fun distillation, fun products, and it also helps that they do not suck at all. So I really appreciate the time coming in today. Thanks a lot. So folks, that has been an episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Join us again next week. I'm Pat. I'm Roger. I'm Hillary. I'm Greg. I'm Sonat Birnecker Hart. Keep tasting. Did you know that this was your exact target demographic for that Instagram post? So this fat white guy who likes vintage guitars and drinks too much. I'm glad you liked it. We do everything in-house. No, here's the thing, you can only like something on Instagram one time, and I felt like just do it justice, so. Well, thank you. I mean, everything is done in-house. We don't outsource anything, so. No, whose guitar is that? It was actually somebody who used to work for us. Do you want me to hook you up with him? Yeah, that's awesome. Gregson just like that post. And there were hashtags involved?