Welcome to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Today we're gonna talk about Gin. Joined with us for the first time. Joined with us for the first time. I'm always gonna do it now. It's a new growth. I'm always gonna do it now. Adjoined. In the studio with us today for the first time, long time listener, first time guest. Hello, hello, I'm Greg, category manager. Other Greg. Other Greg. Greg 2.0. He's actually known as Good Greg. It's usually the Greg we like around the office. Okay. There are Gregs we like and Gregs we do not like. Why am I on this one? It's only gonna cause confusion. First things first, I want to point out that you are the fourth Greg to be on the show, just for the record. Also, I'd like to point out that he's exactly half of the size of our other Greg. I settled down. I'm a dad. Exactly half. I said exactly half. All right. Greg's in the studio. He's gonna share his passion for gin. I'm Greg 1. Can I do that? Oh, gee, Greg. Pat's here too. Yeah. Hey, I'm back. That's the best Pat intro so far. I'm back. Okay. All right. Greg, what do you have in store for us today? I'm looking at some gins here. There are a million gins on our shelves. It can be very overwhelming. It looks like wisely you've narrowed it down a bit. Instead of just trying to tackle this massive category, it looks like we're mostly going to explore local gins today. You're exactly right. I want to do a little bit deeper dive on gin. We've touched on it a little bit in the podcast before, but I want to focus on some flagship gins from the local area, Chicago and the surrounding suburbs that all fit into what we're going to call the modern contemporary new western style gin. Pat, can you give us a little bit of a kind of brief on what it involves? Modern American gin, so generally not as quite as Juniper heavy and dry as London dry. They tend to have a lot of citrus character in them. They're not really beholden to a particular style, so they tend to be, like I said, citrusy. They have interesting botanicals, florals, fruits, other experimental things. We've got one here with a T in it today. So you're saying they're all over the map, but also you could drive to most of these places. Yes. Yes. So remember that the Dutch invented gin, but it became the British darling, and the British are known for the being stodgy, old, tied anchors to tradition. And also having poor taste in general. So they kind of become hyper obsessed with Juniper, and it was always by law had to be the most predominant flavor. Which is still the law, but it's like, is there really someone sitting at the TTB at the federal government, nosing every gin that gets a label, but we're like, hmm, that is not of the predominant aroma of Juniper. Getting way too much Angelica Root on this one. Yeah, like some bureaucrat. Well, he's got a special stamp to reject it with. It was a big affront when Hendrix started to catch on, and I always thought that was so funny because it's a Scottish gin, so you know how much of the Scottish revere the British. They're like, screw your rules. How many other brands have swooped in with essentially Hendrix, but they're not calling it gin, it's just botanicalized vodka. You know, they were way out ahead of that trend. Yeah. Also, Malfi, it's like that's a lemon liqueur. Yeah. So for our listeners that don't get that, that might be worth explaining with gin. People just, I think, think of a distillery and think, oh, they make the liqueur in a still, but gin is a little different. Gin and it's, all gin really is, is flavored vodka, right? So you start with a neutral spirit, a spirit that's been distilled to neutrality, and then you aromatize it and flavor it, essentially, with a teabag, with, with botanicals. Sometimes that's in the still, that's a distilled gin where you have like a gin basket in the still where the vapors pass through it. Sometimes, it's a macerated gin where you just take the spirit and you dump your botanicals in, and it sits in a tank for a couple of days. What's the difference there? I mean, it seems like actually including it in the distillation would pull off more chemicals, right? More flavor or? Generally, yes. But there's also sometimes some flavors are too delicate to be vapor distilled through like that. And back to Hendrix, the rose in Hendrix is added in post-distillation because it would all disappear in distillation if you had actual rose petals in your distillation. What I always think of when I'm drinking Hendrix? Cucumber and rose. So if you visit one of these distilleries, you might be wondering like, okay, so this seems like a really small space and a small footprint. So they're different from say going down to Kentucky and visiting a bourbon distillery where they're mashing in, they're using huge trucks of grain, they then have to dispose of all the spent grains. With this, they're just getting these totes of alcohol that they're then redistilling. Yeah, but that's not necessary what's going on with the gins we're tasting today, but gin in general though can just be redistilled, bulk spirit that then gets flavored and aromatized. There's a couple here on the table I don't recognize, so I'm looking forward to this. Nice, should be good. Greg, what did you want to talk about first, now that we've explained what gin is? Well, you weren't talking about it. No, I wasn't. That joke is going to keep coming up. I think it was interesting what Roger said. The gin section, it's not a huge aisle in the store, but I do think it can be a little confusing to two customers coming into it. Interesting, among all the different styles of gin, we already talked about there, the only legal requirement really that binds them all is that juniper is in there. There's some distillation specifics. For most folks, they all taste like juniper, so they've all got some quality in there. The best way a lot of times is to pick up the bottle and read what's on it to find out a little bit of what's in there. I think that's something cool and unique about the gin aisle is that there's usually a good amount of transparency. With that being said, with the modern contemporary ones, like we said, it's a lot of more interesting botanical selection, other things that are sharing that forefront with juniper. Is juniper in America required to be the main flavor too? Yeah. Now, but he alluded to different production types. Like in Britain, you have to label your gin differently if it's distilled or compound where it's just like that maceration. We're over here, it's just gin is gin is gin. So I wanted to go on just a little historical diatribe as to why we've got modern gins. You know, what white word is British colonialism? Absolutely. So it's the HP sauce of liqueurs. Every single thing in that gin, none of it is native to the British Isles. You can rape and pillage all over the world and this is what you get. All right. Sorry. I hate the British. It's becoming increasingly apparent. The British approach to gin historically has been wonderfully bureaucratically futile. Gin was a pretty wide encompassing term, I think. For distilled spirits that had some sort of any medicinal quality herbs, fruits, you name it, steeped in it. Gin was made by compounders, which were literally just the town pharmacist. You'd have someone who's whipping up a batch of whatever is going to cure what ails you. Gin is the original suicide. No. It's like the apothecary shop. It's medicinal. Basically, everyone and their mother starts distilling in London, and the price of gin drops, which drops us into the gin craze as we know it. The solution to get out of the gin craze, this terrible public health thing that was created by an act of the government, was to try and tax their way out of it. So, like anything throughout British history, if it tastes good, they're going to levy a tax on it. And, you know, good old Britain. Bringing this guy back with all these British jebs. When Sipsmith, a setup shop, to start producing gin, realized that this nice 300 liter still that they had just purchased, they couldn't make any gin and sell it. It was violating this law from 1751 to that ban distilling on any system smaller than 18 hecto liters. So, crazy enough, they went through and, you know, petition their government and got it removed. They got the law removed. Yeah. Yeah. So micro distilleries, craft distilleries, couldn't flourish. And then the gin scene just exploded in England. Just exploded. Yeah. Led to immediately, you know, giant micro distilling scene that kind of predated a lot of even the craft distilling in the US that would start up kind of right there. Yeah. That's about the same time. Everybody was making white spirits so they could age the brown spirits. Yeah. Bet you the few massive big guys didn't like that. Probably not. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the funny thing is after 1751 is when you saw all of those big distilleries come into play and a couple of big names dominating the scene for, gosh, 250 years. Hey, new Greg, quick diversion. If you had to choose between these two gins, which would you choose? Bombay Sapphire or Bombay Dry? Oh, really? Yeah, that's subtle about it. I know this is contentious. The first bottle of gin I had ever purchased was Bombay Sapphire. Of course, it's everyone's first gin. It's children's gin. Mine was bumpy face. The London stands up though. London stands up. If I'm just doing a gin and tonic, I'm doing Bombay all the way, but if I'm doing cocktails, dry. London dry. Boring. No, he's right. All right, carry on. You want a stronger gin with more character, go with Sapphire. Go with Sapphire. FWP. Yeah. Pat brings up a good point though. It's everyone's first bottle, but it was the bridge piece that would start moving from all of these London dry gins that had just risen to the top throughout the 20th century. In 1987, you had Bombay, Sapphire. Really not a lot of innovation again until right around 2000. Hendrix gin technically started up then. Didn't see distribution, I don't think, until much later. As we're thinking of modern gin, it's still a really young category. If you were to look at the layout in front of new Greg here, I think you're looking at the reason why gin has been a struggle is that it's more of a cocktail spirit. It's not something that you just drink out of the bottle. Yeah, he was slicing up orange peel with patterned shears when I walked in the room. You brought your pinking shears to cut the orange? All right, can we drink some gin already? I was waiting till we got to 100 gins, but we were only at 97. I suppose. Real quick before we jump into the gin. So, no. So, what do you guys look for in a gin that you're going to put on your bar at home? Like, what makes a great gin? That's liquid. Cut and vibrancy. More than just juniper. More than just juniper. I can't stand the ones that are just, some of those old stodgy ones taste like nothing but juniper gin. Because I'm looking for proof and- And yet he doesn't like saffron. I was expecting Greg to say proof. That's why I like 10 grade 10. Well, so that's what I mean by cut and vibrancy. I don't think there's anything worse than a mellow round gin. Yes, I agree with that. I want some balance. I want some layers. I want it to be greater than the sum of its parts. Usually when I'm looking for something I'm willing to take home. I think gin, some examples these days are really flavor blasted, which are great for a single cocktail. I'm hopeful that the ones we've selected today are kind of a good example. You're talking about Whitley Neal Quince gin? No, I'm talking about Bloody Shiraz. Bloody Shiraz. Yeah, that just came in. What is that? Orange or something? No, it's a gin made with Shiraz. All right. So you guys want to crack open some gin? Yeah. Let's crack open some gin. Pass on some cups. We got ingredients for a Martinez or a Negroni. Everybody gets one bottle of Fever Tree. Make it last. Everybody gets one. So first gin, did we announce this already? Finn's Gin. Finn's Gin. From Chicago to Stilling over in Logan Square on Milwaukee Avenue. This is their gin. They are now known for CBD waters. Yeah, a couple of pre-made cocktails. 2021 is weird. Yeah, canned cocktails. There's a lot of innovation. Yeah. So this tastes like cleaning products. Okay. Roger is starting in on the cleaning project. So this is going to be our most traditional one of the day here. It's a Illinois Yellow Corn Spirit, known botanicals. You got some green cardamom, cashew, coriander, kubeb, berries, hibiscus, juniper, orange, and sejuani, peppercorn. Orange is the citrus. There's no lemon. Orange is the known botanical. There might be some unknown lemon. And the cardamom really pops out. Yeah. Yeah. I like this gin a lot. I do too. And it's 90 proof. And Roger thinks that, where are you getting these cardamom flavored cleaning projects? I mean... You ever had your hands and knees scrubbing the tiles with cardamom salt? So initially... Have you passed the bottle opener down, Roger? It's more hand soap than cleaning products, I guess. All right. All right. This being Fever Tree Beverage Depot, we're of course using Fever Tree Premium Indian Tonic Water with this. You know, my one big problem with Fever Tree is I can't open the bottle with my mitts. Gotta have a bottle opener. No, it's because they're keeping it classy. With my mitts! You gotta partner up with Line of Cougles. Yeah, they want a little more class. Yeah, ever since I chipped a tooth, I've been avoiding these kinds of caps. You're savage. All right. So I like this, Jan. Roger doesn't like it. Pat, you like it. I like it. It is classical-styled and definitely more on the Eastern spices. Why do you say classical? This is like super different. It's like potpourri. It's a pretty traditional assortment of botanicals. But I do think the juniper is there. It's low on the juniper though. But it's in the crowd. It's fighting for headspace. Yeah, but I mean, some of the oddball things, like the cardamom in there and the szechuan peppercorns, I think they're pretty pronounced. Yeah, they are. This isn't juniper forward. No. So stop calling it traditional styling. Point seeded, point seeded rug. For each of our gins today, we're going to mix them down a cocktail too. We've got a Negroni or a Martinez. I'm going to suggest Negroni on this. All right. I have a bottle of the Capoletti in my basement right now, but I still think that Campari is the best Campari, but I just can't cough up 30 bucks a bottle. I just can't do it. Capoletti is more like Aperol. Yeah. Again, it's still cheaper than Aperol and better, but it can be problematic subbing it in a Negroni. Because it's not quite bitter enough. It doesn't have the chutzpah. I agree. Well, then what should I be buying? Grand Classical Bitter or St. George Brutto Americano. Brutto Americano. Yeah. That's what I use at my house currently. All right. Remind me. Yeah. Brutto is delicious, just a little bit more kind of earthy and like Backwoods, California. I'm down to climb up the Backwoods, California. Backwoods, California. California, hey. So that was Finns, let's try gin number two. Gin number two is gonna be few breakfast gin. Ooh. I'm excited for this, I'm a big tea guy. The tea man, I don't know if he's ever brought it up before, but Roger's a big tea guy. All right, so this guy, Bay Spirit Barley, corn and wheat go in there. Known botanicals are pretty simple. Earl Grey tea, juniper and lemon. And when you think about it, it's a different take on it, still a pretty traditional assortment. You got some herbs, the tea, you got your juniper, and then you got just a little bit of citrus. Watch Roger, who can't handle cardamom, love the tea. Yeah. That's quite enjoyable. It's still very floral, very botanical. Juniper is very secondary in this. I actually was thinking you'd get more bergamot to it. It's there. Yeah, it's there. This is a pretty mild gin. And what's the proof on this, Greg? This guy, a healthy 42%. See, this is kind of like that soft, flabby gin that I could see this being, this is a good gin and tonic gin maybe. I don't know. Let's try with some tonic. But I would worry that if you're not careful with your proportions, this can get drowned out in a cocktail. It's got the flavor for a cocktail, but you got to watch it with the other stuff. I agree. Also, it's not going to go great with a lime wedge, which I love in a gin and tonic. So maybe not the first one for that, but with that said, let's try it with it. It's pretty nice with the Fever Tree Tonic. One thing I would suggest is I prefer lime with tonic. It's pretty classic combo for a reason. But if you have the right gin, gin used subbing in lemon can be really nice. I think lemon would be good if you were going to mix this with tonic. Yeah, with the tea and lemon goes apples and. Well, yeah, and especially because of the tea component too. But in general, for your more floral modern gins, try thinking about it's about the easiest sub ever. If you want to put some citrus in there, try putting in lemon instead of lime or both. Or orange, yeah. Or Meyer lemon. Then it's both. This does have lemon in it actually. Yeah, beautiful tonic water gives a little lift. It's a great gin. Wouldn't make it in the Negroni. Absolutely great gin. Fuse American gin is very, very good. I just like this one because there's really nothing else like it. This one's year-round, right? Yeah. Don't they have a limited one too that's on the shelf a couple of months ago? Yeah, noted Breakfast Drinkers few did put out a coffee breakfast gin. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. I never got it because coffee and drinking late at night. Mixing your uppers and downers. Yeah. Right. I don't need to speed ball my gin and tonic. They said it's for the morning. You're supposed to be drinking it on Saturday and Sunday morning. Also Tuesday and Wednesday morning. All right. There was a quote I wanted to share with this one from famed American actor and comedian WC. Fields. Roger? Do you know WC. Fields? Noted old man, Roger Adamson. Yeah, personally. He knows him personally. WC. Fields says, I exercise strong self-control. I never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast. There you go. So in this case, you can do both. He was an old mate of Roger's at boarding school. Okay. Out of these two so far, I think the Finn's is the one that goes in a Negroni. I would agree with that. I agree. We're going to martinisize. Suck it, Roger. We're going to martinisize the few. That could be actually interesting to martinisize actually. Little more vermouth heavy. Yeah. Let's cue up North Shore, gin number six. How many numbers of gin do they have? Two. Oh. Six and 11. 11 is a traditional London dry style. Really small pour in this. Yeah, so the way to look at this is the number 11 is in a green bottle. That's the really juniper heavy one, green juniper. The number six is in white, and that's more modern. Now, they have since gone through a label design. This is an older bottle. Now, Pat, North Shore are some of the O.G.s of Chicagoland Distilling, right? Yeah, they were the first distillery in the area, for sure. See, you like to see skipped numbers, because that means they made something and didn't sell it. They tried a batch of something and went, this is shit. I agree. Let's not try to be like, I agree. Here's the newest seasonal gin. You'll love it. Roger, laments that a bunch of breweries don't put out. They put out every integer. Yes. Well, we made it. Here you go. Well, let's tuck on into this as the British would say. All right. Huh. I like this gin a lot. Maybe I just don't have enough. I always have. I'm smelling some wet dog here. Wet dog. Is that Athena? This guy is getting a lot more of the baking spice. Might be your beard. Lot of baking spice. Lot of baking spice in this. So North Shore Gin No. 6, we're looking at lemon peel, cardamom, cinnamon, and floral accents. Do you guys at least agree that it's soft? I mean, it's very soft, right? Yeah. It's 90 proof too. No, I'm still getting wet dog and no, it's not my beard. No. I don't know about your sense of wet dog, but I smell floral. There's like a lilac character. There's a beautiful citrus. This is a gorgeous gin. Greg's wrong. I mean, double size Greg. Both this one and the last one. He's the wrong one. He's the wrong Greg. Give you a distinct purple impression. That's just my floral. Yeah, that's your jelly bean, your purple jelly bean. Yeah. Yeah. That's a violet kind of quality. This is good. This is, it's really good with the tonic. Yeah, you spread that out. Yeah. Suddenly, lemon comes out. Oh, wow. Yeah, and like cardamom and pepper too. I think this, honestly, Negroni and Martinez, both are going to, this thing's going to shine in both. I think maybe the Martinez more, just so it is because it's a little delicate. You all can see this at home, but Greg just picked up the bottle and shoved it right up the schnoz. The fever tree. Greg, what were you looking for there? The fever tree premium Indian tonic water bottle, because I want to know if some of the spices in the fever tree are overpowering the gin. You asked us in the beginning, what do you look for in a gin? I said something potent, and I think this one's too soft for my sensibilities. Elegant. I like it. I really think the floral- It's an elegant gin. If you had to sum this up, it's floral. It reminds me of those violet candies, but in a good way. You used to go down to the dime store with WC. Fields and pick up lavender candies? What kind of- Because they were all out of bit of honey. Violet, man. You never had violet? No. Talk about your soap smells. That's one right there. It's in a good way, though. This guy. What's the next gin for Crane Island? Next gin is going to be Maplewood Spruce Gin. Oh, so brand new, right? How long have these guys been making? A year, year and a half, something like that. I mean, we had them at a couple of stores. It was hard to get for a while. They were really just on-premise. They got a pretty tiny still. Yeah, very tiny still. The last year, year and a half has been a pretty wacky time. Yeah, that's true. So can I just pour a big old glass full of this since we have almost a full bottle? Yes. So this one is going to pay a little bit more homage to some of Maplewood's brewing chops. They say that the base comes from barley spirit fermented with ale yeast. No word on if there's any hops in there. Hazy gin. On top of that, they've got Colorado spruce tips, rubus tea, citrus lavender, and other traditional gin botanicals. That, however, is not a traditional tea. It is from a African bush and I don't care for it. It tastes like dirt. Why does it make a tea that tastes like dirt? It's weird. It is weird. It's a weird tea. Roger, did you give me a rubus? Yeah. I was like, Roger, this is gross. No, I gave you the dandelion root tea. That was even worse. That was gross. Oh man, that was horrible. It was great though that he shared it because it was one of those times he was like, oh, you got to try this. Yeah, rubus, notably not camellia sinensis, not real tea, an herbal plant. Listen, you and Roger can host a spinoff podcast on the damn teas, okay? Yeah, right. I would love to. Roger, I've got some first flush Darjeeling in my drawer at my desk. Anytime you want, we can tuck into that. Nice. He's speechless. Something, something, the British tapping you guys. This now sucks that much. That's why he's speechless. If you've never had a Darjeeling, especially a first flush, I mean, I don't know what to tell you. We can do a cupping later. Flush doesn't go with things that go into my mouth. Here's the spruce gin from Maplewood. It's not that sprucey. Yeah, I was going to say, Greg is going to be disappointed. OG Greg is going to be disappointed because this is no St. George as far as getting hit with pine boughs angrily. We both defend Sapphire back and forth, but then he doesn't like the St. George and I don't get it. It's just so aggressive. I feel like I'm in a weird Turkish spa, or they're beating me with pine boughs. Do they do that at Turkish spa? It sounds delightful. Just not with pine boughs, it's some other foliage, but yeah, it's hilarious. They hit you hard. Okay. Speaking of hitting you hard, actually not hitting you hard. This is 97 proof. Is it really? Yeah. Roger, do you feel the spruce uses in any way like a throwback to some of the beer styles that incorporates spruce? Yeah, for sure. So in a lot of brewing there, there are a few breweries like Laskin comes to mind, Dogfish, who use spruce tips. Spruce tips are actually much more lemony than they are piney. So I think that maybe that's what we're getting off of this. That makes a lot of sense. Spruce they used, it's more of a citrus, which is nice. Yeah, you're right. So it's not mislabeled, but it sends the wrong impression. Because this is very citric, and it's like a tunnel for me. At the start, a lot of these gins just hit you with a wallop of a bunch of different flavors right up on front, and this is closed at first. And then on the finish, the fruit expands, and then the alcohol, which is high, also expands, and it's like this weird explosion of flavor toward the end. At the beginning of my sip, I'm like, I don't like this at all. I don't make a Martinez with this, but it gets bigger. I think you speak to a good point. That's the most common gripe non-gin drinkers have about gin is it tastes like a Christmas tree. I think that's exactly what you're expecting when you pick up the bottle. It says spruce. But it comes out just more like lemon balm. It's nice. It's more spread. I think it's pretty good for tonic, but it takes away a lot of the angular piney notes and it just sweetens it up. It just sweetens it up and it wasn't explosive in the beginning, so now it's even more mellow. This is a really interesting gin. Yeah. But I don't think I can make cocktails out of it. That was going to be my question. It's got a peppery finish. Peppery? Maybe that's the tonic water. See, that's it. The tonic water has so much character too. Fever tree is coming back to bite us. So, do you think I'll make a cocktail? I'm thinking maybe a little mint and lime, you know? Roger really likes manhandling fresh mint. So, I mean, if you need somebody to slap some f**king mint on a paw, this is your guy. Yeah. The mint doesn't see it coming. I think this is great with the tonic. It totally brings out maybe almost what's hilarious about these gins is that they're so, the juniper is so subdued if basically almost missing, that when you add the tonic, you're like, oh yeah, you almost remember you're drinking gin once you get That's true. Yeah. I think it's great with the tonic. It almost fills it out. I think it would be good with fruit. I wouldn't put gin in a lot of fruit juices, but I think with lemonade, this would be good. Then you could put some mint in the lemonade too, or something like a lighter orange beverage, like an orange sparkling water with this would be pretty good. I just think you need some cut, a little tartness. This would be good in a Pimms cup that you doctor up with gin, and instead of using ginger ale, if you added sparkling lemonade. Uh, make us one? No, I agree. Well, that's my problem with the Pimms cup, is that it tastes like a flat diet coke, and you got to gin up that Pimms cup. Yep, you definitely do. All right, Leather B, is that it? So, I'm always used to seeing the autumnal. This is just the normal one, right, Greg? Absolutely. This is the original label, plainest looking gin bottle on the shelf. My house gin, most months of the year. It looks like they put- This fancy guy with a house gin. This is your house gin? Yeah, I don't want to oversell it, but yeah, yeah. Okay. Nobody on Leatherby Gin. So what are we working with here? Botanicals, almond, angelica cardamom, cinnamon, coriander, fennel, juniper, of course, lemon, licorice, and orange. This smells amazing. A respectable 96 proof. Quite herbal. This does smell like a couple of different jelly beans in your hand. You're purple and you're black next to each other. You ever have a couple of jelly beans? Good and plenty? I didn't go to a movie theater in the 1950s, so I don't know what you're talking about. This guy in the nose, I think, is unique from everything else we've gone through so far. Yeah. Spice, but not baking spice. I've always found this to be more savory, peppery. Yes. Very peppery. This is the spice mix that I put in my chili. It is. Well, I use a lot of fennel in my chili. Bison? That fennel brings that anisey character through on the palate big time here. Yeah. Just no garlic. Anyway. Oh, man. And then the peppery quality on the finish. Black pepper and cardamom. Is there cardamom in this one? Yeah. Yes. And it just lingers. This is so good. That was a, it's so good. Oh, man. Okay. But does it cocktail? Extremely well. Well, spoiler alert, Greg said cocktails are extremely well. It's a house gin for Christ's sake. So it has a lot of spicy complexity. And then if you're going to mellow it out with vermouth and an aromatic bitter or whatever that thing is, what do you call them? Bitter, Italian bitter liqueur? Bitter liqueur. Oh, yeah. And Amaro? Yeah. I don't know if mellow is the word. You're going to zhuzh it up. Well, but so that's it. I think that your Campari's are going to give it bitterness, but undercut the spice a little bit. Look how strangely milky it gets when you add tonic to it. That's weird. Yeah, something unique about Leather Bees spirits is they don't filter them, even the clear ones. So you've got a lot of those oils that will start to separate out. Ooh, the luch. This is kind of like when your whiskeys are non-chill filtered, you know. Big fan of extra oils. The anise comes across even more when you put in the tonic water. This is so good. This is really good. Is this like $35, $40? $29.99? $29.99? This is actually- We sell handles of it in some stores. Plastic handles. Plastic handles. Do they have the same masking tape label? Yes. This might- Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's the essential question today, I think, is- Do you have a house gin? Yeah. No, because part of gin is discovery and variety. So I actually kick myself every time I buy another handle of beef eaters. And there's so much to- obviously from this spread, we can see there's so much to discover. There's something to be said though about the average consumer who doesn't have like maybe six bottles of gin in their cabinet like I'm sure we guys do. And you know, finding something that's like really good and really multipurpose. So I mean, do you have a house gin, Greg? Is it just beef eater handles? It's either it's either Citadel or sometimes beef eater or sometimes Bombay Sapphire. But again, I'm always looking for something a little more exciting. So like when I got a bottle of that breakfast gin, I had a lot of fun. But after I finished the bottle of few breakfast gin, delightful as it was, I'm standing in front of the gin aisle going, there's so much variety here. How can I have the same one again? One thing I would say about this is, let me give my beer world two cents. It's sad that it's this way, but branding is such a gigantic part of our industry, whether it's wine, spirits, or beer. I disagree. I think it's cool. I think it's cool. Package design is cool. They're talking, it resonated with you, but it was a bold move to make this super minimalistic, what's inside is all that matters type strategy. With this particular bottle. Yeah. I mean, there are plenty of people that will walk past that and just go and never even consider giving it a chance. If you look at it and go like, what the hell is this? Again, their reasoning, I think, is that it's what's inside the counts or they think it does look cool. Or it stands out on the shelf of otherwise big paper labels in fancy bottles. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely the bottle is very simplistic. Also. The label, I think, is there's other hipster-y minimalistic labels, but- At a backlit bar or an underlit bar, that bottle is going to pop. Yeah. I mean, it fits in the hipster bartending, mustachioed hipster bartender world. It is leathery. Remember when they made a mallorte until they got a cease and desist? I just think that this could appeal to such a wider audience that unfortunately is probably just overlooking it because of the way it looks. So that's five. We have five gins. We're going to make two cocktails. Any nominees? I would say for the Negroni gin. Finn's gin. Yes. Really? Vito, I hate this. Your vote doesn't count. I'm in for it. Funny enough, we've done Leather B Negroni's on the podcast before. We what? We've done a Negroni. Oh, Leather B. Yeah, I believe in it. Leather B is awesome. I mean. Yeah. So we can skip that. So what is a Martinez? I think the Fuse got to be Martinez. So what's a Martinez? Remind us all. Yeah. So Martinez is generally equal parts sweet vermouth and gin. Splish of Luxardo Maraschino liqueur. That's the clear one, not the cherry flavored one. And then just a little bit of bitters. If you're in England, probably Bokers. Over here, I've got some Regan's Orange Bitters. That'll make a darn tasty Martinez. Okay. So that's actually a pretty complicated cocktail. But it's not overpowered with anything versus the 2 to 1 to 1 kind of mix of a Negroni. And like I said, even in our case, if we do that few, we might do just a little bit more sweet vermouth in there. Really let that kind of be the base. If you look at some of the old, old cocktail recipes on a Martinez, they tend to be sometimes like more like 2 to 1 sweet vermouth to gin. It ends up being almost more of a vermouth cocktail than a gin cocktail. I think a maple wood Negroni. Yeah. Yeah. Put it through the pace. Yeah. Cool. Let's get stirring. So you have one cocktail mixer, right? We got one cocktail shaker and one Roger. Does somebody have a Chetti? We need a Chetti. So I mean, both of these are stirred. They're stirred? Okay, give me a glass on that one. Nobody trusts me to make cocktails. Roger's like, you're eyeballing it. I'll make the Negroni. You make the Martinez. All right. There's a train coming in. All aboard! It's stirred. Moving out. You gotta loosen the wrist a little bit. Let it kind of glide. Now, give me the stirring spoon. Yeah, he used to use his supple wrist. I feel like we're at opposite ends of a kingly feast. Yeah, too bad there's no fireplace in there. There's not a whole pig in between Greg and I. Yeah, right. No judgmental butler. Just a judgmental Roger. Oh, man. I love spitballing with you guys. What is this? Martinez? Yeah. Greg, thank you for making this drink. Yeah, this is really nice. So your Martinez here, we used few breakfast gin, Luxardo, Maraschino, L'Cour, and it was Dolan's Sweet Vermouth. Dolan's Sweet Vermouth. And Regan's Bitters. Yeah. Roger, are you familiar with this guy, Gary Regan, and how those bitters came about? He made orange bitters, Roger. Yeah, I've heard about him once or twice. He's a pretty good guy. Didn't he write a book? Yeah, he's a great cocktail guide if you're looking for that kind of thing instead of Internet recipes. Wow, he's never said it that explicitly before. He's like, read a book. Sorry for my impersonation of you, Roger. It's a book, read it. Anyway, this is a delight. Cocktail is nice. Very nice cocktail. It's a little bit herbal, a lot of bit fruity. Yeah, still has that purpley core. The patterned cut on the orange peel is really putting it over the top. Oh, yeah. Chris, when you want to talk. You're pinking shears. Beverage garnish off. Greg's coming for you, Chris. You got a long way to go. I mean, didn't he, what did he garnish? He used an oyster or an anchovy or something recently. Remember the time he made meringue? Smoked clams. Yeah, smoked clams. That's right. He put a smoked clam on a bloody Caesar. Ridiculous. So I'm going to have to say Grand Classico, not for me. It is too intense. A spicy meatball. Yikes. I want to try it on myself. This is all wormwood. Really? Yes, it is. Okay, you guys, I'm not getting that. I mean, it's great because of that. I need to have this now. Real quick about the cocktail. The definitely a good call on the few breakfast gin. The backbone that the tea has, it comes across in the cocktail too. So it's like this peppery tea flavor. This is wormwood and this Negroni tastes only like wormwood and gentian. There's something wrong with me in the iPad. So in the Negroni, we have Maplewoods, Spruce, Gin, Dolan, Rouge, or their sweet vermouth, and then Gran Classico by Tempest Fugit is the bitter component. And it's a... It's very bitter. It's doing its best to out muscle the other ingredients, that's for sure. It's more bitter than Pat Brophy and it has completely taken over the cocktail. I love this. Yeah, this is Campari. I love this bitter. I love this Amaro. How much is this Amaro? It's kind of pricey. It's Tempest Fugit. I think it's 40 bucks. It's $39.99. Oh man, and my complaint about Campari is that it's $30, and this is more than Campari. It's twice the price. And it's weaker, I think. I think Campari is 40% alcohol, or is Campari 28? Campari is upper 20s. Okay, then that's the same. 26 to 28. But it's so wonderfully bitter. Good news for all you vegans out there. Grand Classico. Doesn't have crushed up insects. Just colored by the maceration of herbs. Does not contain coquineal, crushed up female bugs. What do you think about that, Pat? That's a wimpy way to color a bitter. And you know, when the apocalypse comes and we just have roving barbarian clans, you know, we'll think back to these times and be like, that's why this all happened. Because people, people wimped out on coloring their amari. Because they didn't want bug juice. Yes. Gross. Worth, worth noting, we're serving these up, I think, with a cube. If you spread out the Grand Classico a little bit more, some of that would soften up on your palate. I definitely drink my Negroni's on the rocks, which makes me the outlier. No? You drink them on the rocks, too? No, it's a spiritus cocktail. I drink it on a big ice cube. Should be on a single large rock. One big cube. Yeah. Well, I don't have those often. I could if I went to Binny's Beverage Depot and bought the big quarry ice cube. Pat, when you sit at home and just drink for Muth, just for Muth, is it on a lot of rocks or just a single cube? It's out of the bottle. It's out of a glass. He doesn't want to go get ice. Hold it, guys. Let me get out my funnel and tube so I can make a vermouth bong. Let me tell you about one of my best homeowner purchases. It's called Formafunnel, and it's essentially this thing that you can form into any shape funnel you need. So it's really handy for funneling vermouth into your gullet. I know a joke. Also changing the oil on your- I can contest. I've been at his home before where I'm like, Pat, you've worked in this industry for how long? Will you please get us glasses? He's literally just drinking things out of the bottle. And when I'm looking at him, he's like, all right, so he doesn't lip them. But he's just drinking it out of the bottle. He's looking at you like, I'm not lippin it this time. Yeah, exactly. No, that's when we're like in my storage room, like looking at all these bottles. Like there's a bar in my basement. Now, Roger hasn't come over in a long time. And there's a lot of glasses down there. I mean, I've got nothing but Glen Cairn glasses everywhere in the damn house. So, when I'm drinking vermouth at home, I'm half and half. If I have an easily accessible large ice cube, because I have a couple of those molds, I'll do it. But if I'm drinking a lot of vermouth... So, 95% of the time, folks... Like if I'm pouring like... Dixie cup, leather glove, whatever's around. Shoe. I don't chew, never drink vermouth out of a shoe. The Bottle, the bottom half of the bottle. If I'm drinking 8 to 12 ounces or so of vermouth, then I usually just load up a glass with fridge ice, like I would just a big glass of pop. You have a lemonade glass full of vermouth. I have, yes. So again, folks, if you're saying like, boy, I have to refrigerate vermouth, I don't want to do that. Brof just said 12 ounces, which is literally a 375. It's half a bottle of vermouth. It's half a bottle of normal vermouth. Yeah. Pat drinking out of his bottles in his basement is like every eight-year-old kid on their first little league team. Like the only the nerdy kid remembered to bring a water bottle and everyone's trying to drink from it. They're trying their hardest not to put their mouth on it. Yeah, like he tries. All right. Okay. I want to bring it back home on this Negroni. I am going to buy this Grand Classico, but I pause it to you. It would be better if we adjusted the proportions so that there was less of this. So it just offered enough and more gin so that it watered it down, ginned it down a little bit more. I think we'd have a terrific Negroni. That's the important thing with cocktails, adjust those ratios how you like it. It's not dogma, it's not doctrine. Especially when you're playing with really powerful bottles like that Grand Classico. Yeah. Dial it back or customize it for the gin that you're using. Now, we're all doing the chemistry lab thing where we mix our own. You're not trying to be a tonic. Grande Cuvée, put them all in one glass. It devolves from here. Is it bad that all I'm going to take away from this episode is how great Grand Classico is? I'm not going to lie, I really like it. I'm definitely buying it. All right, folks. For all you listeners out there, Greg and Pat love extremely bitter, strange things. We encourage you to explore that, but just go into it knowing that it's going to be a very acquired taste. It's not even that bitter. And jumping feet first into the deep end. It's not even that bitter. It's just less sweet. Hey, that's Greg's and Pat's tube. Yeah. It's more like fans of Mallort might want to go check out Grand Classico. Oh, come on. No. It's almost that level of bitterness. I mean, fans of Mallort too. It's sweeter than Mallort. Right. We had five gins all actually local, which is so cool. And in a world of gin, we have five completely diverse, amazing expressions of gin. And we just barely scratched the surface because several of these distilleries, this isn't their gin, this is one of their gins. Two of them had tea in them, but one isn't a real tea because it's from an African bush or something. But yeah, very diverse. All kinds of stuff. And- It brings up a really good point that there are other expressions from these distilleries and some of them I think are exceptional, like maybe even better than these. Well, other Greg, what are you doing? And we had the opportunity to take that complexity in the gin recipe, which you don't get in a lot of spirits because they can customize with the flavors in a way that no other spirit can, outside of Rocky, I guess. And we got to make some amazing cocktails with them and customize those cocktails to our taste. Right? Cheers, guys. Yeah, that was good. It was good. Yeah. I'm going to drink the rest of this tonic water. Yeah. Mine's in here. It's in this glass. You tonic watered up your Negroni? Well, yeah, but it's also mostly your Martinez? Grand Classico because it had a cup of Grand Classico and Americano. I mean, let's be honest, that is a big part of why gin is taken off is better tonic waters. I mean, the s*** tonic waters that are just like one note, it's really sweet. The kind that a certain Roger Adamson might choose in a home bar draft? You know, Roger, at least you won't get malaria. Just like customizing proportions in your cocktail, these days you really can customize your tonic with your gin. It's awesome. The future is here. You could buy one bottle of gin. This is what I'm getting at here. So let's say you're like Brophy and you hate mixing cocktails. You could go and buy one bottle of gin. You could go buy a bunch of different tonic waters and make yourself the easiest drink in the world, a gin and tonic, but it'll express itself completely differently depending on what kind of tonic water you use. That's an episode we're going to do. We're going to take two gins and we're going to make a gin and tonic with each of them, with every single different tonic from Fever Tree. Why do all these episodes have to be a grid? Well, you have to have a decoder ring and a Venn diagram. People love listicles. They want winners. So Greg, new Greg, welcome to the fray. Thank you for being a guest on the podcast. You coming back sometime? Absolutely. I can't imagine why you wouldn't want to. They can't let you guys through them through. Two hours later. Yeah. You provided us with a little bit of background on gin. I think what I came away with with this is that there's a lot of micro distilleries out there these days, and gin is one of the things that is the most interesting thing in a lot of people's portfolio. Right here in Chicago, we're lucky to have some phenomenal distilleries that are making gins that are exceptional and deserve your attention. So we really only scratch the surface by trying some of their normal releases. They have seasonal ones and whatnot. So gin, again, is a very cocktail-friendly thing. Thanks for mixing us, you know, the Martinez. It's one of those spirits that people, I think, they come into it thinking they just do or do not like gin. Or it was grandpa's, right? It was grandpa's liquor, like with the cheap blended scotch and the kind of gross bulk gin. But it's so much better. And I have kind of this reputation as always trying to get people interested in the old school, you know, things and like, this is gone now. Why doesn't anyone like this anymore? Like some of the old school gins are pretty darn boring. Like they just are sort of juniper. This is a juniper flavored vodka. Yeah. And... You want to drink soap? So there's a lot more out there. I've always been a fan of some of these more modern, like Citadel, for example, you know, it's pretty modern gin. And I think these Chicago distilleries are doing the same thing. Like it's a modern take on it. So as fun as it was to taste these, I really encourage everybody to go out there and do it yourselves. Thank you, Greg. Hope to have you back. Please leave a review for us. Tell your friends, tell your family, especially your mom. Download us on whatever platform that you choose. Until next time, I'm Roger. I'm Pat. I'm Greg. I'm also Greg. Keep tasting local. All right, folks, thanks for tuning in. Here's our message from Chesterfield Cigarettes.