Hey, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg. Jumping up in your feed, I do communications at Binny's. I'm Jenna, I also do communications at Binny's. Hi, I'm Chris, I do wine, Roger, beer. Hey, I'm Pat, I buy the CBD dog treats. And also spirits, which is why we have everybody from every department on, so that we can answer your questions. It's a Q&A episode, Q&A Palooza. Well, those CBD dog treats are pretty good, and they never make it to my dog though. Listeners, that's how you know we're out of ideas. No, we ask our listeners for questions. All right. So we still do this thing, we still get questions pretty frequently, but these guys talk too long to jam them into episodes. So we're going to do them all now in this episode. Write your question to us for a $20 Binny's gift card if we answer it on the show, and we're going to give away a bunch of gift cards today. You guys ready? Let's do it. Our first question comes from Nick via email. Thanks for writing in Nick. How long does it take typically with distribution being involved for barrel picks to get to our shelves after it gets bottled? Well, how long does it take after it gets picked? After we pick them, I guess. Typically, it takes 60 to 90 days, sometimes less, sometimes much longer. I've been waiting on a cask of Highland Park we picked like a year ago now. So does it take longer for like scotch and other European spirits? If it's got to be imported, it takes longer. Sometimes like, for example, we just recently picked some MGP picks, some George Remus and Rossville Union. And even though we pick those in March, they won't be bottled until like June. And then they'll be delivered to us in like August, just because they have to outsource the bottling there. And it's complicated. But typically, it's 60 to 90 days. In the last couple of years, it's running closer to 90 than 60. Hey, Pat, I'm going to piggyback on next question and ask one too. When we do some handpicked casks, I know that there's like a TTB label approval process. Do we ever trigger that and then our own labels have to get approved? Yes, all our labels have to get approved, actually. I was tasting a single cask of Glenn Scotia earlier today, actually, that they're pressing on us if we're going to take it or not because they have to get a COLA approved, which is like the certificate, COLA is the, I think it's just certification of label approval. But that goes through the TTB, they authorize the label, then the labels have to be printed, the product has to be bottled, and in that case, it has to be imported. It's a bit of a process. Most distilleries have like a blank label approval, where they have the single cask label approved, and they have like a waiver where the ABV can vary, so then they can just write in the ABV each time based on the single cask. And is that why you guys have rolls and rolls of stickers that just say Binny's, so you can stick them on stuff? We don't, unfortunately. So every time, there's a lot of moving parts. Stickers get printed up separately every time at each distillery. It's crazy. Yikes. So there's a bottling component and distribution, but also a labeling component. So a lot of stuff has to come together to get these. That's amazing. It's crazy that they managed to get it to us in 90 days usually. Yeah, for sure. Thank goodness they do. Cool. Nick, I hope that was worth $20. $20 Binny's gift card coming to you. Who's next? Our next question comes from Unstable Race Fan on Twitter. Love this guy. This person writes, what is the best beer you sell and why is it PBR? I want to take this one. The best beer we sell is PBR because we have it on good authority that it's the exact same beer as hams. Hams, and everybody knows that hams is the best beer. Therefore, PBR is also the best beer. Wait a second, didn't you pick that blind over hams not that long ago? Yeah, but they were from the hams. We didn't, well, whatever. We don't need to give away the secret of that episode, but let's say the hams wasn't at its freshest. He's worked up this whole Play Tool, the Tool album from the Middle Conspiracy Theory, and he's completely rationalized that whole discussion. Roger, will you answer this one? So did the listener actually put the PBR part in there or not? Yes, he did. Yes. Okay, good. So he's in the no. This is the first that I hear of this steadfast excuse that it was due to freshness. Oh yeah, he's been spending this one up for a while. He's got to make the result fit his world view somehow. Come on. This is one of those impossible questions where my response is usually, you know, I can barely pick a favorite for each style of beer that exists, which is in the dozen. So it's kind of hard to just say what's the best. That's why we sometimes have done these blind taste tests where we put things in categories. So that's why these beer rating websites always suffer for beers that are, you know, especially loggers, things like Pilsners. They're never going to get the right, you know, high score because people are rating them compared to all beer that's ever existed. So in one breath, you have like a barrel-aged pastry stout with 10 ingredients and then you have like a really clean, impeccably made German pills. Well, the pastry stout is obviously going to taste more complex because it has a million things in it. Oh my God, Roger, just tell us what the best beer is. Well, right. So long story short, unstable race fan, the best beer that we sell is definitely PBR because it's your favorite and you can buy a tremendous quantity of it with a $20 Binny's gift card. Next. I bet Roger has a favorite T-shirt. Oh. When we did those desert island beers, I always say Duval is the best beer in the world. There you go. There you have to try that. Our next question comes from a user on Instagram whose name is the word Aaron and then an alphanumeric combination of characters. I'm not going to repeat. So we're just going to call this person Aaron. Aaron writes, is it bad to place vodka slash rum slash gin in the freezer after opening? Do these drinks lose any flavor or anything after being opened? Can my vodka sit in a decanter for two plus years? Extreme, extreme spirit aging we're talking about here. Yeah, of course, it's fine. If anything, it slows down the oxidation when it's cold and frozen. I mean, you don't want to drink it when it's that cold and frozen. I mean, vodka maybe because it has no flavor anyway, but like rum, all it's going to do is completely kill the aroma and the taste of it, and it will thicken up depending on how cold your freezer gets, it can thicken up a bit, but it shouldn't freeze. If you have alcohol freezing in your freezer, then you have teenagers stealing your alcohol. Yeah, right. Is that just the experience when you take it out of the freezer and it's cold? It's not going to like stay that way. If it warms back up, it's going to re---- No. No, no. Yeah. No, it's just very viscous because it's extremely cold. Yeah. Yeah. Right. If it warms up, it'll go back to its normal. Yeah. So it's fine. If anything, it slows down the oxidative process. But we have talked about this before though, and I would say that I would not recommend putting spirits that have an actual cork in the freezer. Yeah. Because that could potentially shrink to the point where you get some oxygen in there and then smells and odors from your freezer could get absorbed into the liquid. That's a good point. A good screw cap seal, though, it's not going to be any kind of problem at all. Like Pat says, like anything, reactions slow down at cold temperatures. So you're preserving it, if anything. Yeah. Sure, put it in there if you want, but you're kind of wasting your time. One thing I would say, too, is that people were asking about this with, people were making whiskey cocktails, and they were hypothesizing that wouldn't you want to not dilute the cocktail as much. And cocktail manuals are written with the idea in mind that you are using temperature spirits. So you are going to change and arguably not in a positive way, affect mixing a cocktail if you start with cold ingredients. So yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's the unspoken ingredient in most cocktail recipes is the dilution from the ice. Correct. When you stir or shake. And it's essential. You can totally notice the difference in texture in particular and intensity of the cocktail. And you're right, it's not a good thing to not have that dilution. All right. Well, Aaron got 20 bucks worth of an answer out of a $5 at Best Question. What's next? What about a two-year-old decanter vodka? Yeah. Well, that's another thing I was going to chime in with is, you know, there is a thing with a lot of people, you know, with decanters. I wouldn't recommend long-term storage unless you're positive that your decanters lead free. Lead. Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Yeah. And they usually don't seal up as well. Because alcohol evaporates faster than water, right? Yeah. And most decanters don't, like, if it's a glass top into a glass decanter, does that seal as well as a cork or a screw cap or a plastic cork, you know? It, I wouldn't trust it. It's nice to have a decanter of something in your mahogany library, but just make sure you're drinking it on the regular. Cool. The main reason to put any liquor in a decanter is to make it look fancy and so as not to be ostentatious and brag about your brand, but that's what everybody wants to do now. Or conversely, hide the cheap liquor you're giving them. Yep. Yeah, like, if you had a decanter of Blanton's and everyone would be like, well, no, it's not. You're lying. Why'd you take it out of the Blanton's bottle? You keep the decanter of liquor right next to your enormous ceramic cigarette lighter, you know? Like it's a Humphrey Bogart movie. All right. In any case, vodka's the last thing you'd ever have to worry about. Yes. Thanks, Aaron. $20 Binny's gift card coming to you. All right, Jenna's got our next question. All right. Our next question is from Gary via email. His question is, what is sediment exactly? I know it's stuff falling out of wine over time, but what is it? Yeah, pretty much exactly what it is, stuff falling out of wine. It's mostly dead yeast cells or sometimes tartrates over time, but it's just like a combination of stuff from the grapes. You could get yeast from the grape skins. You might get little particles from the stems or seeds that just fall into the wine. It's like stuff that didn't get fined or filtered out. Yeah. You'll see it as the wine ages. It doesn't hurt you. If you see it in your bottle, it's a good idea to decant, obviously. I have definitely put the last bit of wine in a glass and then swallowed a lot of sediment because I didn't notice it was in there. It doesn't harm you. It's just like, that's pretty and weird. It's gross. Yeah. That's the short answer there for you. Take red wine, for example. It's tannins and other anthocyanins dropping out of suspension as the wine ages. You get longer chain tannins that drop into a sediment. Some of those coloring, which is why you're going to have a lighter color over time or in a browning process going on. It's oxidation, but it's also anthocyanins dropping out. That's a glossary word. Anthocyanins? Yeah. These are just chemicals that are mostly found in the skins of grapes that provide pigments and tannic structure and things like this. So one of the reasons to age a wine is actually to get some of those tannins to bind into longer chains rather than short chains that feel rough. And once they get longer, they kind of glide over your tongue and feel smoother. But if they get a high enough molecular weight, they're going to start dropping out of suspension. So you get sediment. Now, you're not, you're going to see mostly sediments coming early on with unfined and unfiltered wines like Jenna mentioned. But over time, most wines will throw at least a small deposit. The other thing is tartrates are a really important issue. Jenna touched on it. There's a process called cold stabilization when it comes to wine that causes tartrates to form and drop out of suspension. So they can be removed beforehand. If cold stabilization isn't used and say your Alsatian Riesling or something is chilled down for a while, you might find tartrates starting to form and they look just like glass crystals. I've seen that. So a lot of times people freak out when they see them. Yeah, it looks like sugar sometimes if you see it on the bottom of the bottle. Yeah, sugar, salt, some kind of crystalline formation. And they sometimes grow on the bottom of the cork or drop down to the bottom of the bottle. But they're really nothing to worry about. It's really sediment and tartrates are a sign of a minimally processed wine and generally can be considered positive attributes by a lot of people because you're not filtering and stripping things away. I think that's super interesting, but Pat has lost consciousness, so we should skip on to the next one. I have a quick follow up question. So in some beers, it's very common to have yeast in there. Sometimes if you have a beer that's cellared for a long time, you want to leave the leaves or the yeast sediment in the bottle because it can have a negative effect on the flavor of the beer, as opposed to intentionally mixing the yeast in, which is Yeast on its own is kind of gross. Is that a factor with decanting some of these, especially a cellared wine, like you wouldn't want to drink the drugs because they'd impact flavor negatively? I don't think they inflict impact flavor so much as just texture. They're unpleasantly gritty and not something you want to drink at all. Yeah, it's like getting dirt in your mouth or something. It's not very pleasant, but they don't taste weird. The main difference between the beer scenario and the wine scenario is the beers you're generally talking about are bottle condition. They have yeast in there. Bring on the horn. See, I worked it in. Drop out of suspension over time as the yeast cells die. But most wines don't go into bottle with live yeast cells going on unless you're buying something like Pet Nat or some version of a natural wine. Got you. All right. Thanks, Gary. $20 Binny's gift card coming to you. All right. Our next question is from Glen Kadas over Facebook. I have to start watching carbs, any craft beers that won't run up the carb intake or am I stuck with the big boy brews that have the robust taste of crafts? Low carb craft beer with flavor. This is a good question. So there's not a ton. What's prohibited for some craft brewers is that they don't have the equipment to sufficiently measure it. So they would essentially have to send out to a lab. I think if as there becomes like higher demand for low carb beers, you might start to see some of that. Some of the best nutritional facts on craft beer are actually in the growing NA craft scene. I think because basically those products have to be analyzed to make sure that they're sufficiently NA, you're starting to see some of those labeled with the amount of carbs. But unfortunately, if you're looking for specifically something that's really low, everyone's idea of low carb is different. There's always long drinks. I will say. All the craft adjacent things offer some good options. Things like long drink, ranch water, some of those are low, others are not. But off the top of my head, I'm trying to think, we did have a brief little bit there where there was an emphasis on low calorie craft, and there's still some good options for that. But a lot of those still have, they're not like low carb beers like say, Mick Ultra or something where we're talking like under 10 carbs. It's pretty difficult to make a beer low carb that still has any significant body to it. Your best answer, if a beer is low calorie in craft, it's going to be lower in carbs, but it might not be as low as you're looking for. Some options for low calorie craft beer would be slightly mighty from Dogfish Head. I think that's one of the best low-cal craft beers. The good folks at Shiner make their light blonde is actually a very clean and crisp option. Laganitas does a good job. They reformulated their daytime IPA. Originally, it was a pale ale, now it's an IPA and it definitely tastes a lot better. Yeah, originally, it sucked. No, it doesn't. I would attest, I'm going to have to try it again. Bell's light hearted ale would be kind of the last thing I'd say. That's another low calorie light IPA, so those are a few options. We've seen different grain sources too, like sorghum beer. Do you think that makes a difference? Or is that just for gluten? Gross. That's more for, yeah, gluten free. The other thing that brewers can do is that they can use enzymes to remove gluten, which in the process, I think, tends to offer you something that's generally lower in carb. Again, it's kind of hard, difficult for me to answer because a lot of these craft beers don't emphasize the carbs. If they do analyze it, they're emphasizing the calories. I'd have to circle back, but... And a lot of those are coming from alcohol, obviously. Right. If you don't need to hit a specific target, but you want to keep your carbs low, seek out beers or wines that are very, very dry. So the more well attenuated anything is, the lower the carb count is going to be. Yeah, less residual sugars. Exactly. You want to avoid residual sugar, which is where the carbs are coming from. You can't avoid the alcohol calories unless you're drinking NA beers or you combine low carb with moderate alcohol. For me, some of the best options may not even be craft beers. They might be big established beers that just happen to be flavorful and also relatively long carbs like maybe a well attenuated German Pilsner or maybe even a dry Irish stout. Things like this that just naturally have had most of the sugars fermented out of them. And the same is true with wine. If you're drinking a wine that is light in body, very, very crisp and dry, then most of the sugar has been fermented out of that and it's going to be very low carb. Sweet. You could also just never eat bread again and only drink beer. That really is kind of what Jenna just said is what I kind of joke about is, if you're really going to limit your carbs that acutely, something like Guinness, for example, which we were pointing out, Guinness draft is actually very low calorie. It's only 125 calories and 12 ounces. It's still 10 carbs. So again, that seems high compared to like mick ultra. But also if you're eating a traditional slice of bread, it's nothing. So it's all relative. So it all depends on how strict your diet is and your choices. So it's hard sometimes to give like a really easy catch all. It really depends on like how closely you're watching the numbers. Perfect. Thank you, Glen. $20 Binny's gift card coming to you. Our next question comes from listener Robert from Facebook. Robert asks, with different spirits able to be finished in a veri... What is with people's syntax? Come on, people. Look, I have been saying that the Barrel to Bottle listening audience is intelligent and good looking. So please just prove me right, all right? With different spirits able to be finished in a variety of barrels now, what would be a combination you would want to see a distillery or distilleries do? This guy must be very good looking. That's all I can say. Personally, I'd like to see more obscure stuff. I'd like to see more Tokai barrel finishes in different styles of American whiskey. I'd like to see more Carcavalo casks. Those are going to be hard to come by because there's only one producer. If there's any, like Riva Salt is a cool fortified wine, you don't see a lot of finishes off. I've had a few. I like that suggestion. Yeah, Cadillac is another one. I've had one Cadillac finish whiskey from High West once. It was awesome. Really, you got to explore those little weird micro DOCs of all those different French fortified wines that nobody's ever really heard of. Obviously, we love Madeira and stuff. We talk about that all the time, but I'd like to see more of these obscure ones get used. What about non-alcohol product barrels? The maple syrup barrel that you had was amazing, and we've seen some honey barrels and that kind of stuff. Yeah, and we've got some more coming. Those are always great. No more Tabasco barrels, though, please. Yeah, that was interesting to taste, but what the hell do you do with the rest of the bottle? There's also an option for obscure woods like that Method and Madness Irish Whiskey and the Chestnut. That was cool. Just this week, we have a tealine single malt that was aged in bourbon barrels and then finished for the last two years of its life in Ambarana casso. Ambarana is a real cool Brazilian wood. It has to have a lot of sweet cinnamon character and floral spice to it. What about mixing barrels? We saw Angels Envy, especially originally, their whole shtick was, you've got three different barrel treatments, including one with extensive port aging and blend. What if people started mixing these kinds of barrels? You could make some cool results, but I don't think you would have a lot of much of an identity of that older barrel. If you're mixing port and sherry and Madeira and stuff, you can make a delicious whiskey, but it's not identifiable. It depends what you want to do, I guess. Whistle Pig Old World is their 12-year-old, and that's aged in a blend of sherry, port, and Madeira, cask or maybe it's southern. Yeah, those were awesome. Then it's very common in scotch. A lot of scotches might be aged in port and sherry and bourbon. Right. That works well for malt whiskies because malt hates new wood, but it'd be cool as a finishing thing. A whole episode where we get a bunch of single wood, single malts and then blend them together and just have it be the most expensive episode ever. I'm down. That's funny. I was just going to say that, Greg. All right. Thanks, Robert. $20 Binny's gift card. Reach out to us. Our next question is from Kathy from Facebook. Is the global pandemic or the war overseas affecting the different hops inventory availability for brewers or supply chain issues becoming prevalent for all the different hops varieties? Hops specifically. The majority of hops used in craft beer are coming right from here in the US and the Pacific Northwest. The majority are grown in Washington, Oregon, Idaho. There are a good number of hops grown in continental Europe. There's a lot grown in Germany. I have noticed, I was talking to some brewers, there's a little bit of a strain on some traditional European lager hops, like the Noble hops, things like Hollertal, Saz. I think that is actually more to do with just more brewers are starting to brew lagers. And those were typically in such a low demand for the craft segment. They were definitely purchased in large quantities by bigger breweries. So, their hops are all locked in with hop contracts. But since so much beer right now that people are interested in is craft, they're essentially at the mercy of an open market. They can have hop contracts and they do for especially American-grown ones, but they usually don't brew enough lager to say that, you know, they have a hop contract on that hop. But there are, if it's obscure enough and they are committed to brewing a brand over and over again, you'll sometimes see even a really tiny guy or a tiny brewery have a contract. I was talking to a brewery that said they had a contract for East Kent Golding, which I found funny and it makes sense because no one uses it here. So it might not be, you know, always consistent in price and availability. So it's up to the brewers. I don't think right now you're seeing anything like, I don't think you're going to see prices go up or anything grain wise. That's more of an issue. That could potentially be a problem in the future. Aluminum was an issue. We heard lots of complaining about aluminum can availability. True. Yeah, that's the real supply chain issue is the aluminum cans. But what about hops that are grown proprietarily, that can't be grown widely by any farmer who wants to? Does that restrict things? Yeah, I mean, East, there's always some oddball things, right? So in the craft industry, Southern Hemisphere hops have always been kind of an interesting and popular. You know, I'm a huge fan of things like Nelson Sauvon. So hop prices on those have kind of always been high, though. So they're high because they're always in short demand. We almost need a Nelson Sauvon horn. There's definitely, you know, some of that New Zealand stuff and some of the Australian hops. But these hop growers start to change, you know, what they plant. So Galaxy is a great example. So Galaxy for a while was one of the most sought-after hops, and the prices were, you know, off the charts high. You're seeing a lot more Galaxy use these days. Brewers are kind of complaining about the quality of it, though, that they've kind of, a lot of them have kind of moved on and looking at other hops because of that. Yeah, the hop market is a market and it always fluctuates. So there's always ups and downs and demand, you know, can change pretty quickly from year to year. So, what you're saying is the war and the international pandemic got nothing on the popularity of zombie dust. All right, say thanks, Kathy. Thank you, Kathy, and enjoy your $20 gift card. Our next one is from Steve, also from Facebook, and his question is, bourbon has exploded in popularity the last 5 to 10 years. What is the next spirit to take off? Tequila, we're already seeing it, followed by mezcal. Next question. Well, thank you, Steve, and enjoy your $20 gift card. Rum always grows, but always at a same little percentage every year. So hopefully, people should start drinking more rum. But right now, it's bourbon and then tequila. That's it. All right. Until there's a rum explosion, be thankful that the prices are reasonable, and buy rum while you can. Rum is your best. If the part of this question was, what should I get into or be interested in, you should check out rum. That absolutely was not part of his question. It was not. Tiki fans, all right. What about Irish whiskey? Irish whiskey is growing like crazy. The vast majority of that growth is coming from Jameson. But the industry has been pretty revitalized in the last few decades. Yeah. I mean, we've went from two distilleries to like 32 or something in the span of a decade. So that's good. It's a good sign. Thank you, Steve. Enjoy your $20 gift card. Hey, Pat, speaking of mezcal, our next question comes from Kaz, listener Kaz. Where does the smoky flavor in mezcal come from? It comes from the way the agaves are cooked. So if you have a smoky mezcal, how that agave has been processed, you have to cook it to convert the starches into fermentable sugars. You know, similar process you have to do with anything else like malt or whatever. It's like starch, right? Yeah. So you dig a pit in the ground and you put a big fire in the pit, a big wooden fire. You cover the wooden fire with rocks. The rocks get really hot and then you put the agaves on top of those rocks, and then you bury the whole thing with dirt for a few days, and it cooks. Just like making Kahlua pig. Yes. However, though, it doesn't always have to be smoky that way. There are plenty of people out there that would argue that a smoky mezcal is a poorly made mezcal. I like smoky things, so I don't mind it so much, but smoke does vary pretty wildly from one mezcal to another. Some producers go to great lengths, even though they're roasting their agaves in a pit, to try to minimize the smoke impact, and others just let it rip, so it depends. Do they ever filter or find out the smoke flavors in mezcal? I don't think you really can. That's not a, at least that I'm aware of, that I don't think it's technically possible. Yeah, that would be very difficult, and it's evidenced by the fact that wine producers, in years where there are forest fires and stuff, cannot just rid their wines of smoke taint. Yeah, you may remember when Maui Brewing originally launched in the Illinois market, the batch of, I think it was Big Swell IPA, or maybe Bikini Blonde that they sent in, the sugarcane field next to the brewery had been burned that day, because you Okay, cool. Well, that's how the smoke gets in the mezcal, it's from the smoke. Well, can you contrast that to the way agave is cooked for tequila? You could do the same method with tequila if you wanted to. People generally don't expect that kind of flavor or profile with tequila. So agave is for tequila, which is only the Weber blue agave, is going to be roasted in a brick oven that's, you know, heated with steam, or it's going to be in an autoclave, essentially a big, you know, pressure cooker type of thing. Or, you know, if it's bad tequila, it's going to be done in a diffuser that really is just there to strip the sugars out of the agaves without, you know, really actually cooking them just by shredding them and rinsing them with hot water, essentially. And sometimes rinsing them with sulfuric acid to even take the last remaining bits of the sugar out. It's not a good process, and it doesn't make good tequila. Surprise, surprise. Thanks, Kaz. $20 Binny's gift card coming to you. Lightning round question, one word answers only. Our next question comes from Paul. What's a good double-oaked bourbon? Trick question. There's no such thing. Eat it, Paul. Really? Not a single one? I don't know. Do you like over wooded messes of whiskey pretending to be bourbon? Sure. Then there's a couple options. You know I do. Right. There are brands that market it that way. I'm kind of kidding. It's not for me. But if you like it, obviously Woodford Reserve double-oak kind of started it. I would argue that the Old Forester 1910, which is part of their Whiskey Row series, is the same concept that's a double-oaked Old Forester, which really just means your Woodford Reserve is the same thing. We have a hand-picked Binny's Old Forester double-oak coming this week. It was annoyingly good when we picked it. I'll put it that way. What about Makers 46? In a way, that's kind of double-oaked. I mean, it's extra-oaked. Okay. So when we say double-oaked with bourbon, generally that means it's aging in one new charred American white oak barrel, and then it's going into another new charred American white oak barrel, where Makers 46 or the Makers Barrel Selects have 10 individual barrel staves inserted into the barrel after six years of aging. So they're not nearly as exposed to new fresh wood like that. Thank you for saying that because I was going to say, we need to make a distinction between double-oaked and a finishing barrel, which is a totally different thing. Double oak implies a second aging period in a second brand new barrel, which is that's a lot of wood to be putting on a younger whisky like a bourbon, even a heavy oily whisky like bourbon. How's that one word answer? Thanks Paul. Lightning round. Yeah, let's go. Yeah, that's a lot of words. All right. Our next question comes from Wusk. Your name is spelled W-S-K. This question was from Facebook. Can you explain what light refraction does to alcohol and why some breweries like Guinness use dark glass bottles while other breweries use clear glass bottles? You saved this question for the lightning round? This isn't a lightning round. I was just hoping you could hurry up for the last one. I said my piece quickly, then you guys demanded more. Yeah, right. But you failed to mention the hand pick we have coming up. Come on. I would suggest this listener check out our podcast on Czech beers because we go into great detail about the process, but essentially it's a photochemical reaction that's breaking down the hops and the by-product is what you perceive as a skunky taste and smell. That is the easiest answer as to why people are typically using brown glass or a can. There's a couple ways around this. Some breweries claim to have hops that are resistant to being light struck, like Corona claims this, but I've had plenty of skunky Corona. Yeah, it's all skunk. Now, you have not had a skunky Miller Highlife, however, because it's not actually brewed with hops. It's brewed only with a hop resin extract. And when that is produced, it doesn't have that acid, that specific acid that reacts with ultraviolet light to create the skunk. I didn't know that. So that's why you can have, so yes, and so that's why you can have a Miller Highlife in a clear bottle, and Mgd64, whatever the light Mgd was, is in a clear bottle. And that's because those, they're made with those hop resin extracts. They are chemically impossible to skunk. Yeah, that would be isoalpha acids that are susceptible to being broken down by ultraviolet or blue wavelengths. Yeah, it keeps like the beta acids from hops, but ditches the alphas or something in the hop resin, so. Cool. This can happen to some wines too. And it's just a matter of having sulfur compounds available that can be broken down like this. So certain champagnes can definitely show a skunky or a cabagy note if they're light struck, just like beer does. So you may note that one of the most sought after high-end champagnes, Cristal, always comes in a yellow plastic wrapper, and the bottle is clear, but they put it in that yellow wrapper to protect it from UV light. Wow, no kidding. And here I thought they were just being fancy. Yeah. I think the most interesting part of this is how quickly the reaction can happen. You can experience this when sitting outside drinking a beer, especially if it's a really heavily hopped beer. I experienced that a couple of summers ago where it kind of blew my mind. It was a matter of minutes, literally. Yeah, absolutely. It was really, really sunny, like direct, direct sun. It skunked a beer in minutes. So our question, ask or learn something today, it's not alcohol, but it is the hops or other sulfuric compounds in the beverage you enjoy. Thanks for the question, $20 Binny's gift card. Okay, our next question comes from Julia via Facebook. Julia writes a bunch of stuff, but where we're going to stick to is, my good friend says his tongue is sensitive to pot still whiskeys, like it dries out in the middle of his tongue. Does anyone else experience this or is there an explanation behind this effect? I always love your podcast and listen regularly. Thanks, Julia. Thanks, Julia. I think she's talking about Irish whiskies with the pot still thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Do you get that? I mean, pot still style Irish whiskies are notably spicy, so maybe they're just sensitive to that spicier note from the unmalted and malted barley style. Maybe it's a proof thing. It dries out in the middle of the tongue. I mean, what's your taste bud that's there in the middle? I mean, it's the intersection of all of the different, the five different flavors or whatever, right? It sounds like alcohol to me. I think there might be a couple of possible explanations. One of them I would discard immediately, which is tannin from oak, because no matter how the whisky is distilled, it's still going to pick up with some oak tannin. The other thing that might be contributing, and particularly with pot-stilled things is, as Pat mentioned, the unmalted barley, I think definitely gives you a spicier flavor profile and a grainier, almost husky texture. Like it actually feels and tastes like the grain itself, because there's no fermentable sugar, and it's starch and husk. And anyway, that's what I think, if there's anything to that at all. But I haven't noticed it personally. So we're kind of stumped on this one. I think that the key thing here, which has been highlighted, is that if it's Irish whiskey, that style traditionally uses this unmalted barley. So for instance, if he were to drink single malt scotch, all those are also pot still whiskeys. Or even a single malt Irish whisky, as opposed to pot still. Although they're both distilled in a pot. An interesting experiment would be to have him try, does he experience this with a single malt scotch? I'm guessing it's probably what Chris said, that it's probably the unmalted barley that they're perceiving as spice. I think so. I mean, I think it's definitely a perceptible effect. For sure. We're only one way to find out. We're going to have to do it blind. That's true. Well, then that question is worth at least $20. The other thing you can do is, if the pot still whiskey is high proof enough, drink it with some ice. That might tame it down a little bit. Or with some orange juice. No, not with vermouth or orange juice. Thanks, Julia. $20 Binny's gift card. All right, our next question is from Brian, again, from Facebook. Why is the neck pour frowned upon and why not just turn it upside down back into the bottle? What the hell is Brian talking about? I Googled this, because I didn't know what he was talking about. A neck pour has got to be of all the dumb bulls**t that is involved with bourbon culture online. The neck pour is arguably the most dumb and the most s**tiest of all the dumb bulls**t. I'm just guessing. Is this an error thing? This is a thing that came out a few years ago. There are people online who have convinced themselves that the first pour of a bourbon, which they call the neck pour because you're getting the liquid out of the neck. We're not even going to get into the physics of how liquid moves. And when you pour it down the neck, half of it's going to the back of the bottle. Fluid Dynamics. We're not a Fluid Dynamics podcast. The idea is that the first pour sucks. So like if someone's coming to your house, you want to impress them. You don't want to give them the neck pour. But why? Or you open a whiskey and you tasted it and you regretted buying it. You're like, well, maybe it was just a neck pour. I'll give it another review tomorrow. I think what it mostly is, is it's somebody's first taste of alcohol of that day or whatever. And it's just a blast of high proof alcohol hitting them. And they're just like, and that's it. Now, I am a subscriber to Oxidation with my bourbon. And I've advocated before. That's what I was going to say. Certain bottles, especially in my personal experience, Old Rip Van Winkle 10 Year 107 Proof, that is a bottle that when I buy it, I pour out two ounces, drink it, and then I cork it back up. Not because I think those first two ounces suck, but because I do like introducing a little bit more oxygen in the bottle, and then I don't touch it for two years, and it oxidizes and softens up a little bit. We're talking minute details, though, but the concept of a neck pour, of the first pour being bad, or the liquid at the top of the bottle being exposed to more oxygen, and that's why for some reason it's bad and bitter or harsh compared to the rest of the bottle, is complete nonsense. It's complete nonsense. Patently absurd. It's not even worth talking about. That's so absurd. But it's crazy how much people argue about this online. And again, of everything, all these nerds ruined beer and now they're ruining bourbon. Take your neck pours back to the beer world. And are we to believe that if you pour the neck pour and then immediately pour the second pour, that second one's better? There are people that would make that moronic argument, yes. Yeah, because the oxidation can't even come into the picture at this point. You're just pouring two glasses immediately from the same bottle. It's insane. It's insane. Yes, it's not a thing. Please don't buy into that. Just drink your bourbon. If you find the first pour harsh, maybe you bought a bottle you didn't like, or maybe it just needs to oxidize a little bit. But the concept that that first pour is universally bad or universally more oxidized is totally incorrect, patently false. You're listening to Barrel to Bottle, but not the neck part of the bottle. It could have been started as a joke on one of those forums, and then people just ran with it. Is Q a whiskey drinker? Because I feel like this had to come from somewhere really ridiculous. It's possible. That's exactly what it is though, honestly. It's just as ridiculous. All right. Our next question is from Jill from Facebook. Just a regular wine gal, but with some knowledge, just recently heard about natural wines, no sulfates added, etc. Do you think these will become popular to the general wine gal kind of people? It is quite interesting, I will say. Well, that was all Jill. They are gaining in popularity as a strong trend toward natural wine. But the real question out there is what constitutes a natural wine. There are no real governing rules, just some loose ideas. Although some people are trying to codify things in Europe. But Chris, there are specific USDA labeling requirements, but that's only for USDA organic and USDA organically produced grapes in wine. But that's about it. That is true, yes. Those would broadly fall under the category of natural wine, for sure. And yeah, the government just stipulates how much sulfur can be added to the wine. One thing you should know about natural wine, since the question mentioned sulfites, it is generally accepted to add sulfites to natural wines to a certain extent, but a lot of people try not to. But what sulfites do is stabilize your wine. It generally leads to wines that can go off much sooner. They can either oxidize very quickly, or they might have an infection, a bacterial or wild yeast infection, that can run wild without sulfite. And they have been used for centuries. And even in the natural wine world, they are accepted. In a lot of things other than wine. Raisins and dried fruits and fruit juices have sulfites too. French fries, canned goods, sodas all have sulfates. Yeah. And usually much more than wine. Eat a handful of apricots and you'd have to drink bottles of wine to equal the amount of sulfite that's used. And they don't give you a headache. Right. So I think the ultimate answer to this one is, if natural wines keep getting better, and if people keep seeking out interesting things, they will discover natural wines. Yeah, I agree. The main problem in the natural wine movement is that what are traditionally thought of as wine flaws have become broadly accepted in certain sectors of the natural wine movement. That is true. What needs to happen is just very, very clean winemaking and probably very reductive winemaking is going to be your best bet or very oxidative winemaking. Either one will be somewhat protective against some of the things that can go awry. Yeah, it's definitely a growing movement. I like tasting the really out there wild, funky natural wines and not buying them. But I also enjoy tasting things like vinegar. I love funky wines. Sometimes natural wines turn into vinegar relatively quickly. Yeah. But it's fun. It's an experience. Yeah, they're fun. I'll buy them too, but they're not something I keep on hand all the time. I have to be in the mood for something like that. But I've tried some pretty interesting stuff. Yeah, there's definitely good stuff. One of the biggest pieces of advice I would give is, if you taste a natural wine you like, buy it, drink it quickly, don't age it. The more time it spends in bottle, the more time it has to go awry. If kombucha actually takes off like you keep hearing it's going to, maybe people will start liking more natural wines. Yeah. A lot of overlap. Thank you, Joe, and enjoy your $20 gift card. Next question comes from listener John via Facebook. Weeded bourbons. Some say they are on the, wait, okay. John, John, we get another syntax guy here. Okay. I'm going to try to parse this. Another looker. Weeded bourbons. Some say, I'm assuming some say what the blend is on the bottle. Some say that it's weeded on the bottle is what he means, I think. Others don't, but are weeded, why the mystery? Is it a percentage thing? No, it's just a branding thing, that's all. Yeah, it seems to be something that is desirable these days since Pappy and then Weller got hella popular. Well, yeah, I mean, the Taters love it. So your choices are Old Fitzgerald and Larceny, Weller, Makers Mark, Rebel, and a couple small craft guys. You know, Whiskey Acres is weeded, Wilderness Trail makes both a rye and a weeded. Yes, you're at the mercy of their labeling or being in the know with it. Why it's a mystery, I don't know. Some people, like Makers Mark, it's always been a point of pride that they're made with soft red winter wheat, despite the fact that it's like less than 10 percent wheat or something. Don't you think there's something to the idea that, say, 40 years ago, the world wasn't full of whiskey nerds and people weren't questioning what grain and what percentage their bourbon was made of. They just bought the brand they liked. Now, it's become this thing that everybody wants to take a deep dive into. Well, I mean, that's cool. It's a sign of a more educated customer base, for sure. Agreed. But they don't say it because it's just a decision from their marketing department, I guess. There isn't a law that they have to. To Chris's point, one thing that I think is interesting is that when we were talking to Jimmy Russell, I still remember, it was great, his answer as far as, have you guys ever done a weeded bourbon? He just said, no, that's maker's thing. To some people, that just wasn't necessarily the flavor profile they wanted or going for. It's important to remember that weeded bourbons, I think, have taken off because there are a lot of people's entry into the category, but the wheat is contributing arguably nothing compared to the rye. If you're interested in flavor, then I always find it ironic, the obsession with wheat. I mean, the wheat is arguably making some of these softer bourbons, but I would look for a higher corn content bourbon, honestly, because that's all the wheat's doing is getting out of the way of the corn. Yeah, exactly. All you have to do is meet the corn requirement as far as the Mash Bill goes to be bourbon. You can have 49 percent wheat if you want or none at all. And it doesn't have to be on the label. I mean, coming at it from the perspective of, I'm always concerned about giving barrels to breweries to do our barrel age projects. I am always emphasizing that you want to hire rye bourbon. That's going to make a much more interesting barrel age beer because rye has flavor. So that's one thing to consider. I don't think that everyone always loves to hear that a beer was aged in a Weller barrel or a Pappy Van Winkle barrel, but they never contribute as much flavor as some of the other high rye bourbons do. All right. Cool. There you go. $20 Binny's gift card. Thank you. This next question is from Joseph, again from Facebook's Press Press. His question is, what is the newest hot variety that is taking the independent scene by storm that we should be on the lookout for? Question mark, question mark, question mark. Three question marks. Belma and Strata. Yeah, Strata for sure. Belma. And maybe Cluster. You know, that's on the cutting edge. Strata is something that I've been talking about a lot on the podcast and in the Beer Buzz. Oh yeah. It's kind of one of these hops that I think is really catching on because of the unique fruit character that has. So sometimes, you know, there's a lot of repetition when it goes to describing what the hop flavors are in some of the most popular hops. A lot of citrus, a lot of tropical fruits. Strata, I believe, has a very, what often gets described as a bubble gum or more specifically, juicy fruit bubble gum, which if you've listened to the podcast, you know what that means. Jackfruit. Oh God, why did you let them explain this? Put your helmet on. Strata hops have like that and then they also have some pretty pronounced like berry characteristics. That's something that we're starting to really see more and more breweries are finally catching on how awesome and unique those hops are. Belma is another one that I'm starting to see in a lot of like, you know, this is our experimental IPA type thing. And I particularly really like these hops. And I think, again, berry is not a descriptor that you saw as much when you're describing hops. It's usually citrus dominant or tropical fruit dominant. But this has very specifically a berry or black, almost like blackcurrant are two of the most popular descriptors for that hop. So, again, the game is always like trying to, you know, create these crazy flavor combinations as well as unique aromatics in IPA. So, you know, all like the focus is on aroma hops, and those are two hops that are pretty cool that you're going to see more and more of. Hey, Roger, have you heard about the French hop Barbe Rouge? Yeah. Allegedly has some red berry flavors too and aromas. So that's interesting. I think what binds any new hop together to make it popular is fruit. I mean, it's just they've got to be fruity and that's all there is to it. Yeah, nobody's talking about the noble stuff. All right, next question. The new noble hop on the cutting edge of hop bitterness. Yeah. Well, the ancient regime has been overturned. Cool. Keep an eye out for them. Cool. Thank you, Joseph. Last question comes from listener Ryan via email. Ryan asks, what is your desert island beverage? We not only answered this on a Q&A before with Greg Hall, but we also did an episode of Desert Island Beers, but this is beverage. It's different. So what's you guys' desert island beverage? Ham's. You sure that's not PBR? I think you meant to say PBR. PBR. Yeah. Chris? I drink so promiscuously, it's an impossible question for me to answer. I do not play favorites. I have no bigotry for any category of alcohol that we sell. I love spirits. I love beer. I love wine. And you're just, you know, Sophie's choice. Chris gets ocean water. Roger. Roger, what are you thinking? As long as I have a desalinization plant, I'll be fine. I don't know what Desert Island you landed on. Roger. It's a very technically advanced one. Yeah. I mean, I would say what's the most interesting about this question is that a lot of our answers, like when it came down to beer, it's not the kind of things that most people are excited to hear. Because I don't want to drink like a flavor blasted stout or a really like thick juicy IPA every single day. It would be like an impeccably made German lager. Chris might say some like Czechvar from- I would indeed say that. So what boring beer are you going to pick, Roger? Well, I famously, I always go back to Belgium, so Duval. Jenna, what do you got? Mine's boring, but vodka soda because it keeps you hydrated. You're going to need water on a desert island. Also, you're too drunk. And if you put a lemon slice in it, then you have food. Vitamin C and everything, yes. She's a survivalist in her desert island cocktail. It's also delicious. Warding off the scurvy. Yeah, right. The buoyancy of citrus. I also am with Chris in that I can't even pick a favorite color. I think it's kind of absurd, but I surprised myself how quickly I came to the answer that will surprise none of you, which is Manhattan's. I love Manhattan's. They're just so great. They're pretty tasty. But that's cheating. That's three different things. That's the three components. It was a beverage. I don't know. It was a beverage. Beverage didn't say one thing. Roger changes his to Orange Julius. Now it's probably a Singapore Sling. Jenna, you should be ashamed that you said vodka soda instead of ranch water. That is far more flavorful and does almost the same thing. If you love Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, as much as I love Manhattan's, you should definitely leave us a review on iTunes. No, it's Apple Podcasts. I don't know if that's possible, Greg. Yeah, I know. To everybody else, download and subscribe. Thanks for listening. And write questions to us. We still like your questions. $20 Binny's gift card. To everybody who asked questions today, reach out to us, Jim will hook you up. We'll be back in your feed next week with something serious? Something fun. Something fun. Maybe. Well, not wine, then. All right. Thanks for listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Jenna. I'm Chris. I'm Roger. I'm Pat. Keep tasting.