Hey, you're listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg, I do Communications at Binny's. I have Pat with me today. Hey, I'm Pat, I do Spirits at Binny's. And Chris. Hey, I'm Chris, I do wine. Expert on everything. And Roger. Beer department and cocktail enthusiast. And Jackfruit expert. And yeah, wow. Broke that barrier at record speed on this episode. So apart from Pat, who says there's only one kind of Highball, you've probably had a Highball without realizing that you're having a Highball. And today we're focusing on Highballs, which is the best cocktail if you're only have Coke and whiskey. If you have something made with alcohol, ice and a glass, and you're going to combine something else, you have a Highball, which is why it's bullsh**. If you've been waiting at the bar in a crowd of people and you want to order four drinks at once, do not order a drink with more than two ingredients. Correct. This is the drink then. Just for a slightly finer definition, we can probably say- Just for the actual definition, Chris. Drinks that go into actual Highball glasses, so tall drinks served on the rocks with minimal ingredients, invariably refreshing, usually just a spirit and something sparkling and a garnish of fruit perhaps. But you can extend that out to include things like fruit juice based to ingredient cocktails as well. But basically, it's a broad category. The glass is almost the defining characteristic. Tall glass spirit mixer. Wikipedia says it's an alcoholic based spirit and a larger proportion of a non-alcoholic mixer served over ice in a large straight sided glass. That's what I just said. Except it took you twice as long. We always talk about glassware in the beer episodes. What are you guys pouring your Highballs into today? A stemless wine glass. Come on. That's the best you have. No, it's the easiest I have. With an actual chilled Highball glass. Chilled? Yeah. I think this drink should be extra cold because it's a great category of summer refresher. A chilled glass is not a bad idea. Even chilled spirit is not a bad idea. What's very important is that the glass be narrow because you want to preserve the carbonation. Don't put this in a stemless wine glass. Exactly. Or a shaker pint or anything, a solo cup, anything that's big and is going to let you lose all those bubbles. You want a Collins glass is a good option, or as Chris said, a specifically themed highball glass. Tall and narrow. The two are virtually the same. A Collins glass is slightly taller actually, but they're virtually interchangeable. Pat, you failed on all counts. Yeah, I don't care. Are you going to make a highball with your stupid muscatel? What other sub in do you have? His muscatel mistel. Mistel, not a muscatel. Mistel. A muscatel mistel, though. That would be good. Actually, there are those things. See, where was Chris coming to my defense weeks ago? What the hell? Every time he uses it, he ruins whatever he's trying to make. It's true. It did ruin every cocktail I put it in. No, I'm going to make a pretty basic one that's one of my favorite cocktails. No, I'm going to go first. I'm going to make it into stupid glass. Let's go over, for context sake, let's talk about some of the common highballs that people are probably going to order. All right, number one is scotch and soda. Yeah, if you order a highball, you're going to be given a scotch and soda. I would argue there's a good chance you're going to get bourbon and ginger ale. That's a very common. True enough. There's also a good chance you're going to get a follow-up question. Like, what do you actually want? A 7 and 7? Yeah. Odds are the wedding bartender is going to ask you what spirit you want in your drink. Right. I like ordering scotch and sodas at weddings, because it's normally like some retiree dude who works for the catering company who's bartending, and they always get a kick out of when a younger person orders a scotch and soda. Always, without fail, it's like, I didn't know people your age drink this, and then they pour you a double just because they're so impressed that you ordered a scotch and soda. It's great. It's a good wedding drink. You get your dollars worth out of that one. Totally. I drink my Red Label and soda or Dewars and soda happily. Screw you guys. I've made friends with quite a few wedding bartenders by making them make every stupid old-timey cocktail I can think of. Every time I come up, I order something different. Can I have a rusty nail, please? You call that making friends? Roy. Roger is the reason that the wedding bartender has to crack the bottle of Galeano. Yeah. Harvey Walbanger is literally what I was going to say next. Well, that fits the definition of a Highball. Yeah. Harvey Walbanger, great drink. Screwdrivers for chumps. Walbanger, good drink. Can you break down the Walbringer recipe for us, Roger? Yeah, it's beautiful. It's orange juice, vodka, and Galeano. And Galeano. The end. You just throw in some of this weird black jelly bean flavor on top. You float the Galeano, but I prefer just build it and let it mix. Build it in a Highball glass and you've got a nice Highball. Yeah, you don't want to just drink all the Galeano once. That seems silly. But anyway. What is Galeano's flavor, honestly? What is it? Vaguely like herb, honey. Yeah, honey or herb, yeah. It's all proprietary. They don't say. So a Highball is usually fizzy, sometimes it's not fizzy, and then some kind of spirit. So you're Jack and Coke, you're gin and tonic, you name it. Those are both of the examples. You're dark and stormy. Two of the key things here. Look for a tall, thin glass, put lots of ice in it, preferably bigger cubes that fill up as much as this diameter of the glass as possible so it doesn't melt right away. Limit your amount of stirring. This is going to be a built cocktail, which is nice for everyone who thinks mixing drinks is too much work. Especially Greg. It's true. All of my cocktails are built and I didn't even realize. You build this in a glass, so this is your episode, baby. No shaker, no blender, just your glass and a pencil. Let's get started. I'm going first. All right, so I'm putting ice in my glass, and you know what I'm going to do? I like Chris' idea of having a chilled glass, so I'm going to put ice in two glasses, even though I'm only mixing one right now. Much like Pat was saying, I'm not that big into whiskey and water, into scotch and soda, because I've only had the, either at a concert bar or at a wedding, I've only had it with like Red Label or Dewar's White or something like that, and it ends up just being kind of a gross watered down version of a scotch that I wouldn't like on its own anyway. So we're going to try it with a couple a little more exciting than that. First up, Rofi's recommendation. Pat, what was the one that you told me to go get? I told you to get St. George Baller if it was available, which is a California single malt finished in Umeshu style plum brandy cast. So I thought with a little carbonation, it would really pick that up and be pretty cool. So ume is a Japanese plum. They make plum wine out of it, which is delicious, but also some of the most syrupy wine that's barely alcoholic that you've ever had in your life. But I had that ume on the mind. And as I was standing in front of the world whiskey section, ume on my mind. I like that. So I was standing in front of the world whiskey section, and there's this Japanese plum-flavored whiskey from Akashi called Akashi Ume. That sounded pretty good. It's down. It's only 30 percent alcohol by volume. I tasted a little bit of it last night to see what I was getting into. It's actually ume-flavored, so plum-flavored whiskey instead of aged in the casks like Pat was talking about. But what's nice about it on its own, like the Scotch malt-like qualities really shine through under the fruit too. So it's not just like, in America, we have these flavored whiskeys that are vodka and sugar and some chemical compound. Yeah. Yeah, often very much like a liqueur. So this is actually like a light, delicate fruit and an underlying whiskey quality. Bonus, right? So we're going to try that only on some club soda. Now, I didn't know what club soda to get. I was standing there in the aisle, I was talking to Pat on the phone, asking him for club soda advice. So if you need Pat's advice on your club soda choices, just call her Whiskey Hotline. Yeah, it's similar to my advice on vodka choices, which is they're pretty much all the same. Yeah, right. So he says they're pretty much all the same. Go ahead, Roger, what were you going to say? I was going to say that club soda is different than seltzer water or soda water. Is it actually different? Well, okay. There's club soda, there's seltzer water, and then there's sparkling water. I figured the difference there was how old you are. Seltzer is generally plain carbonated water in the modern parlance. Club soda has mineral salts added as well as carbonation to mimic like spring water. I would argue that some of your best drinks would be made with something like a natural carbonated spring water, mineral water. You're getting carbonation without salt. Like Perrier or something. Perrier, San Pellegrino, whatever. He says that to me on the phone. He says, it doesn't matter. Club soda is all the same. Get whichever one. I'm scanning the aisle, and I noticed that fever tree makes a club soda. We have the fanciest club soda I've ever had in my hand, and I'm about to try it. Okay. I don't know about your measurements, but I got a couple of fingers of whisky in there. Please don't tell me I need to get my jigger out for a Highball. This is definitely the kind of drink you can eye, I think, but. It's built. The top four inches are fever tree club soda, and the bottom is the whisky. I'll get back to you in 12 minutes when this thing finally mixes, or when I get drink down to it. You can stir it a couple of times, you just don't want to go to town. Where's my pencil? My stirring pencil. Use the eraser side, okay? Oh, he always does. Theoretically, your carbonation is going to do a lot of the stirring for you and the relative density of the liquids. It started mixing on its own. Yeah. You know what? Actually, my opinion still stands so far. It's like a waterier version of this whisky that I thought was pretty good, but you mix it with club soda. It's more drinkable, but it seems more like a cocktail that you need to have a cocktail in your hand, and that you're not drinking it to enjoy it. With that low proof, I probably would go with a pretty high proportion of that base spirit personally. It was about a third spirit and then two-thirds soda. We're going to do another experiment here. One more. Once again, hypothesis is I just don't like the Scotch, and when I have a watery version of it, I like it even less. I have three wacky Scotches, and you guys are going to tell me which one I should use in my Highball. Choice one is Glenn Morangy, 18. No. God, you shouldn't use that. Choice two is Talisker Storm. Yes. I don't think there's a year on there. Choice three is the Lagavulin Distillers Edition, 2014, which is double-matured, finished in... 17-year-old Lagavulin, finished for one year in PX Sherry casks. Finished in Pedro Jimenez Sherry casks. Everybody's favorite choice for a cocktail. If you use anything but the Talisker Storm, I will beat you mercilessly. Okay. Part of this was actually just to piss off Roger. But I think the Glenn Morangy would be best, actually. I kind of think so too. It's most in the spirit of this cocktail. Chris, what do you think? Well, I would agree with that just because 99 percent of the time, you're going to be drinking a pretty straightforward blended whiskey in this contest. Like mellow and mild and blend. Yeah. Mellow fruit bomb Glenn Morangy. Yeah. All right. I'm going with the Glenn Morangy 18. Can we get a quick price check on Glenn Morangy 18 that he's going to dump a bunch of soda water in? About 100 bucks, 95 bucks on sale usually. Yeah. So highfalutin. I'm mixing it a little strong on the Glenn Morangy this time because I mean, I want to enjoy it and I don't want it too watery. I mean, granted, the storm probably wouldn't make a good, it would be watered down smokiness, which would be better. Yeah, watery smoke. But you're still an ass for blending a $200 scotch with soda water. So this is the scotch and soda. Don't tell him how to enjoy it, you fascist. Obviously overthinking it already, but on the nose, the scotch really comes across in a way that the ume flavored Japanese malt did not. So that's good. Yeah. You can taste more of the whiskey, always a good thing. I mean, if you were on your yacht and it was really hot out, this would be the preferred way to drink your Glenn Morangy 18. Exactly. You have to remember these are supposed to be refreshing drinks, not something that's going to be a nightcap or something. Afternoon on a hot summer day, boom. I'm definitely experiencing the scotch and soda effect where it's a watery version of what I was drinking. But I got to say that this Glenn Morangy adds to the refreshment. It's a graceful whiskey. You get the pear skin, fruity qualities to come across. It's not overbearing and doesn't have a peak character the way that some do. So if you're going to make a ridiculous scotch and soda and completely waste some relatively nice scotch. If you're enjoying it, it's not wasted. So all you yacht owners out there, take it out on a hot summer day. Glenn Morangy 18 and Club Soda. Put a little Hall & Oats on the radio. You got yourself an afternoon. People also drink Mixed Bordeaux and Coke. So, you know, Jim, roll the music before Roger can finish the sentence. I'm set up to do classic Gin Ricky here, but I can also do a Tom Collins. I've got the ingredients for that too. So those are two classic citrus based Highballs. So do a Tom Collins. Do a Tom Collins? Okay. I should do both, but yeah, Tom Collins, I think. I'll start with the Tom Collins for Roger. One of the most absurd things that we've always sold, or like every grocery store and liquor store sells, is the Tom Collins mix. Agreed. Yeah. Isn't it just like lemon juice or something? Yeah. It's absurd. It's shallow sugar. Yeah. It's just sugary lemon juice. I'm like, there's plenty of stuff you can use instead of that. Just one more skew. You know how there's like 12 different flavors? There's like 36 different flavors of ranch dressing in the ranch aisle in the grocery store. I think it's just a play for shelf space. So Chicagoans will also remember that the leading purveyor of said mix was Collins, which made it even more confusing to the consumer. Right. You got Collins mix and you're like, which one? No, I need Collins mix. Yeah, which one? It was like, who's on first? Oh, the Collins mix from Tom. Wait, is it Tom Collins or Collins? Here, you figure it out. It turns out that they wanted the olive, Brian. Yeah. Then they're like, I don't want this at all. You guys, just so you know what I'm doing here, I'm using an old Tom gin because- Old Tom, Tom Collins. Yeah. Most modern Tom Collins drinks will be made with a London dry style, but there's some debate about the origin of this drink, but old Tom was probably the original gin. Yeah, it is considered old. Old Tom is the original style of gin in that cocktail for sure. Yeah. I've got ransom old Tom. I have lemon juice and a little simple syrup, and I have my classic little garnish here. Can you see that? It's a lemon peel. No, it's an entire- It's a slice of lemon that I've woven across a pick with two cherries. Pretty classic presentation. Luxardo maraschino cherries. They are indeed. Yeah. That's pretty beautiful. Thank you. So generally, you're looking at kind of a two, one, to a little bit of simple syrup. So two parts gin to one part lemon, and then maybe half a part of sugar syrup. So Old Tom gin tends to be a little more oily, sweet, and round. You think that it's like that's the gin style, so it doesn't compete with the acidity and lift of the lemon juice? Well, I think there is a little simple syrup in it, but it does add a little more sweetness. It's still juniper forward, but not so much as a London dry. I will tell you, it makes a pretty refreshing drink, from my point of view. That's a swanky looking cocktail. I kind of feel like an asshole for stirring mine with my fingers. Well, you know, some of us have standards, others don't. I'm giving it just a little brief stir here. I don't want to knock the bubbles out of it, but some of that simple syrup was kind of sitting on the bottom. So of note with an Old Tom style gin, you can kind of think of an Old Tom as a sweetened London dry. So it's not as sweet and full bodied as a Dutch style Geneva, but a lot of the ones that we'll have available now are pretty traditional dry gins with added sugar. I think that there was actually the real early recipes for Tom Collins called for Old Tom. Geneva was called for in a John Collins originally, but now that's commonly made with bourbon. First time I've ever heard of a John Collins. Oh yeah? It's basically a Tom Collins made with bourbon. Is that like the French 95 where they just added 20? Sounds like a lot like bourbon and lemonade to me. Well, it is. I mean, that's exactly what we're looking at here. Basically, if you're the kind of person who makes fresh lemonade and has it in your refrigerator, you're one step away to refreshing Tom Collins anytime of day. So I would highly recommend that. In fact, I used to make a recipe that was designed for outdoor picnics, just a lemonade thing, but you'd make it super concentrated, so it'd be really sour and really sweet. None of that indoor lemonade crap for outdoor picnics. Well, the idea is you could put it in a pitcher with ice and some of the dilution wouldn't destroy your lemonade. So you made a lemonade concentrate. Yeah, exactly. If you do that, you're there, but it's so easy to build in a glass, who cares? To play what I think Greg is probably thinking, this sounds a little boring. What are some things that we can add to this to jazz it up a little bit? Because I think the beauty of these Highballs is that you can start adding your own little additions. Indeed, I'm prepared, Roger. I've got several riffs on the Ricky, and I happen to have some fresh blueberries here. So I'm going to muddle some blueberries in the bottom of a glass and then build a Tom Collins on top of it. That sounds good. Blueberry lemonade is outstanding stuff. Yeah, indeed. In the summer, you can make all kinds of riffs on lemonade like raspberry blueberry. Now, are you going to muddle the blueberries in with the simple syrup? Mash that all together and then add ice and then add your liquids? That's exactly right. The best way to build a Tom Collins is to put your lemon juice, your simple syrup, and your gin in first, then add ice, and then top it. If you're muddling any fruit, you're going to start with that base and the muddled fruit, and it will be delicious. I'm going to propose a Hemingway treatment to this cocktail as well. Nice. Forget about the sugar and you can introduce different liqueurs to provide both flavor and sweetener. And booze. Exactly. Again, I was talking about Apricot Brandy the other week. I think that works great in these kind of drinks. Your fruited liqueurs, your raspberry framboise, things like Chambord, creme d'etat, noil. As usual, Roger, you're one step ahead of me. In my Ricky program, I was going to make a straight gin Ricky, which is just really lime and gin and mineral water. Then I was going to put a little bit of this in. See that? Yeah. That was literally what I was just going to say. It was underrated Luxardo on the shelf. Everyone always says the Maraschino and is perplexed by it because it looks like, oh, these are like those cherries. They're the best cherries on earth, but this doesn't taste like cherries really. Well, that tastes like cherries. Speaking of that almond component, you get a lot of that almond component in Luxardo Maraschino. They're talking about Luxardo Sangua Morlaco. Indeed. Yeah. You guys don't need to know what we're talking about. Yeah. For all of you who can't see us, which is everyone. Sangria Morlaco is made with fresh cherries that they ferment and then fortify, almost in the way that you would make a port. So it turns out deep red, the color of blood as the name suggests. Hang on, Chris. Pat, you obviously know that this has existed. How have you not told me that this is a thing? Once again, how is this catching me by surprise at this moment? How do I not have this in my basement? Yeah, it's kind of surprising. It's so good. No, I opened Cherry Qeafa for you, and it didn't even come up. Yeah, I don't know. You're not talking to me enough. So I'm going to move on to building this Ricky here, and I'm going to start with the plain one, and I'm just going to drop the Cherry Lacour in it for the variation. If you're just going to make for this from scratch, of course, you would start by mixing it in. But I want to try the standard Lime Ricky on its own first. For this, I'm just using Tankeray. Any solid Linen Dry will do. And there's generally no sweetener in a Ricky. So unlike the Collins, it's very light and refreshing. So you're just looking at your spirit and some lime juice. And in this case, going back to the soda water discussion, I'm using San Pellegrino today, which is a great way to make an excellent cocktail. Okay, there it is. Let's see it. There it is. Very thin sliced limes. Indeed. Very elegant. Translucent, allowing the light. Yeah, those are some beautiful lime wheels. Those are some big limes. Why, thank you. That's what you call knife work. It's also a real thin glass. They look bigger by contrast. I mean, it's so incredibly refreshing. It's a lighter version of limeade. There's nothing getting in the way of the gin or the lime. It's just simplicity and refreshingness at its best. Now, I'm going to drop this cherry liqueur in here and see what happens. You could certainly do this just like I did the blueberry Collins by muddling some fresh cherries in. Do it in front of the camera so we can see it mixing in. Okay, here we go. I'm just freehanding it. A little drop, maybe a little more, I think. Okay, it sinks. It's not floating at all. True enough. It is sinking. Well, it's got a lot more sugar in it, so it's got a higher specific gravity, I would imagine. So I'll give it a quick stir here, breaking all the rules. But there, that looks better. And I also have some really beautiful fresh-baked cherries. Now, I could have muddled these, like I said, but I'm just going to drop one in. It's good. Actually, I'm going to hit it with a little more cherry and see what happens. I think that's more of a function of all that cherry sink to the bottom. Yeah, I gave it a quick stir. You know, if you were using a wide stemless wine glass, that wouldn't have happened. Well, check it out now. It's relatively uniform now, and it is absolutely classic cherry lime ricky flavor. It's really good. You know what? There's nothing wrong with the stratified cocktail. If you drink down and it transitions from bitter lime down into sweet cherry, that's fine. Yeah, it's an experience. That is good. Yeah. The Poose Cafe proves that in spades, but nobody drinks those. I can build this last ricky if you guys want. It's a cucumber and basil ricky. Do it. Sounds amazing. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take some cucumber and some fresh basil, and I'm going to muddle just one piece of cucumber and the basil briefly, in the bottom of the glass, just to bruise it a little bit. I personally find cucumber to be a really intense and pervasive flavor. So a little bit in a glass of water is a lot for me. But I'm going to build in a few pieces here. So far, I've taken fresh basil and a slice of cucumber, did a little muddling. Now I'm going to add my lime juice. In this case, to accentuate the cucumber note, little Hendrix. Nice, Hendrix. Hendrix takes flack from the obnoxious gin nerds, who don't like that cucumber and rose petal is added after the distillation process, but they're added afterwards so that they don't disappear. That makes it a flavoring. Right. Whatever. It's still delicious, so. Right. Shub nerds. Okay. So top with more San Pellegrino like the last ones. And then I'm going to throw some cucumber slices and lime slices into the glass. And there you have it. Beauty. You can see the basil on the bottom, cucumbers and lime. Let me taste it. Yeah. Wow. That is amazing. I would highly recommend people make this drink. It is so refreshing. That vegetable cucumber note is so clean and present, and tastes amazingly refreshing. And in the context of lime and basil, wow, it's really good. You could use mint too if you want. I feel like you're selling it short though without a basil garnish. You are absolutely right, but I had only a little bit of basil left. I would definitely put a little sprig of basil on the top if I were not short on basil. I mean, basil is just so crazy aromatic. It definitely screams a perfect garnish if you're going to incorporate it in the cocktail. Yeah. And just like mint, you can pluck off a nice little cluster and it looks really pretty on top of the glass. So Roger, yeah, that's right. It would have been in my recipe had I not run out of basil. I preferred to muddle it first. So anyway, great riff on the Ricky in my opinion. I highly recommend it. Looks awesome. Super refreshing. This is another one of those times where I wish we were all tasting in the same room. Yeah. I've got to say all the drinks I made today were pretty stellar. Hey, let's have a gin and tonic lightning round real quick. Okay, I was just going to bring up the gin and tonic, so let's do it. Yeah, for sure. I would have picked gin and tonic for my drink here if Chris hadn't wanted to do a gin Ricky, because it's so easy, and there's so many different kinds of gin, you can have such a different experience. And now that it's getting kind of hot, it's like a great way to cap off a day outside or whatever. If you don't want to go with the bitterness of tonic, like your assorted fruit-flavored sparkling waters, like your La Croix's and your La Croix Rip-Ops, that's fine. That's fine. Yeah, those all pair really nicely with gin, especially the citrus-heavy ones. So much American gin now, and London Dry, for that matter, is citrus-forward. So gin isn't as herbal and piney as it once used to be. So any of these kind of sparkling fruit waters are going to work great with gin. So on that note, Pat, I got in this kind of argument with Roger about the St. George terroir and the St. George, what's the other one, Roger? Botanivore. It's too much. So it wasn't for me, it's too round, and his argument is, well, Greg, you got some hot sauce, so you don't have taste buds anymore. So, okay, Jeff was sampling a Navy strength gin for me, and it was like, oh, the spritz of life that I love in gin again. You get that first time, and then you're always chasing that first time. Navy strength gin is like the punch that I got the first time I ever had gin. It's super boozy and you like it, I'm shocked. It's explosion of flavors. Chase that dragon, Greg, chase it. Right. So once I deaded my palate with Navy strength gin and tonics, then I'm going to need your help in finding another way to reach it again. You didn't name the gin and you need to name what kind of tonic you're using. For gin and tonics? Yeah, focus. The tonic is a pretty important part of the gin and tonic. I would argue that lots of people don't give it the chance it deserves because they use **** tonic. Just like a scotch and soda. Yeah, I agree. Listen, the most important thing with a good gin and tonic is a good tonic. Mine, of course, as no surprise as top note tonic, my gin is probably Tanger A10. I like Tanger A10 a lot. There's so many good gins out there now. I like everything St. George makes. I like a lot of good gins. I think something that really differentiates and sets apart a good gin and tonic, though, is a garnish. And people make a gin and tonic because it's simple and it's two ingredients. But like you cannot underestimate the impact that just a toothpick with some fruit on it adds to a gin and tonic or like a sprig of herbs, whether that's something like rosemary or blueberries or raspberries. Try this stuff with your gin and tonics. And it makes a world of difference. So a while back, I proposed that we do a gin and tonic episode based around the idea of the Spanish gin and tonic, where they really go wild. Yeah, the Spanish gin and tonic is like the Wisconsin Bloody Mary of gin and tonics. Yeah, exactly. All kinds of fruits. Anything goes. A side of beef sticking out of it. In my case, I definitely go for the classic style. It's usually just lemon or lime. I think both are acceptable. I lean toward lime most times, and something really classic like Tancoray and I use fever tree tonic personally. Because I think it has the biggest hit of quinine bitterness on the market these days. Go check out that top note, bro. Yep, agreed. I've had it. I think it's very good. I think their products are excellent, but I do think that there's a little more bitter. Which fever tree are you using? I am using the Indian. Indian, yeah. That's really quinine, everyone. That's good. Yeah. I am also going to mimic what Chris said. Love top note stuff. I really dig fever tree though. I especially like the Mediterranean one. Yeah, that one's really good. Also, if you're watching Calories, their light tonic water is awesome. That is the refreshingly light one is the bomb. Why does tonic water need so much sugar? Yeah, it's just less sugar. It's not like artificial sweetener. To calm down the bitterness of the quinine. That's why they add sugar to it. If you can handle the bitterness, yeah, you don't need. What's refreshing about it is that instead of putting an artificial sweetener in there, it's just less sugar. Big fan of that. Less sugar, less malaria. Another thing I want to tell people, so I've been trying to get people that are beer drinkers, especially IPA fans, to give gin a try, especially gin and tonics, because there's so much overlap in flavor, especially with old school IPAs. I mean, old school IPA is big, bitter, piney. That's exactly what you're looking at with a gin and tonic. Consider this drink, give it another chance, use a high quality tonic water. Also, the other thing you can do, put some soda water in there, not just all tonic. If all tonic is too much for you at the get go, you can kind of like soften the blow by making it kind of a cross between a Ricky and a tonic. So Fever Tree again is the bomb. I really like Citadel Gin. I think that doesn't get enough attention. I was going to say it's a bomb, people. I love them both. Citadel's Bomb, Bombay Sapphire is a great workhorse. We use that a lot. Plymouth makes great gin as well. Plymouth. I might change my answer from Tangray and such to Plymouth actually. Plymouth is so good. It is great. Little more kick, little different than the London Dry, but great gin for mixing. One last thought about gin and tonics. If you want to spice it up a little bit more, add a dash of bitters or two. Definitely an option. Roger, you call Elderflower Liqueur, St. Germain, the bartender's ketchup. I'm starting to realize that- That would be good to gin and tonic too. Oh, yeah. Bitters are my hot sauce, and if I want any cocktail that's a little boring, just throw in a couple of dashes of bitters of various flavors. Yeah. It's great. You can literally put bitters in food too. People do that. They'll put bitters in like Angostura says right on it. They're like, put it in your salads, put it in soups. It is. It's a seasoning, baby. That's the marketing on the package. They're like, just shake some on the ground. Just come in and buy a bottle. Yeah. Think of it like Worcestershire sauce or something. Yeah, it is. It is very much like that. It adds a lot of umami and depth to anything you put it in. So, Pat, what's yours? I'm making a Dark and Stormy, which is one of my favorite cocktails, and it's really easy to make. And if you haven't had it, think of it as a Moscow mule, but with rum instead of flavorless bland vodka. Or think of it like a Cuba Libre, only with ginger beer. Yeah, I guess, but a Cuba Libre is mostly going to be lime juice. And this has, like, a touch of lime juice or a lime wedge garnish, but it's mostly ginger beer. This is generally going to be like three parts ginger beer, two parts rum, and then just garnish with a lime wedge. Some people add lime juice. I'm going to add some lime juice. You're making some weird Cuba Libre. I mean, what's the difference between rum and Coke and a Cuba Libre? Nothing. Oh, Cuba Libre is rum and Coke with lime, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The lime part. I was looking up recipes online on the scene if anybody actually does it different and a couple of recipes I had where you stir it all together. I was always under the impression that a dark and stormy, you're supposed to float the rum on top, so the ginger beer gets dark and stormy as it trickles down. I saw a few recipes online with it stirred up, but I was like, what the hell is this? That's not how you make this. Yeah. I think you're going for the look of a stormy sky rolling in. Chris, I'm impressed by your ability to say that without making the trickling finger technique gesture that we were doing. Jazz hands? For the first time, I'm not using bottled lime juice. I squeezed some limes. All right. He's learning slowly. No, I had limes downstairs that weren't reserved for carnitas tacos or something. Drink your limes. Use your bottled lime juice for your food. So this rum I'm using is our first single cask of Eldorado rum. And this is Eldorado, one of my favorite distilleries, one of Roger's as well. It is Demerara Distilleries Limited. So that is the amalgamation of a bunch of old estate distilleries from Guiana and British Guiana. They make nine different styles of rum down there, nine plus I think now on a bunch of different stills. So our rum is a blend of three different column distilled rums all from 2012. One made on a metal coffee still. So coffee, C-O-F-F-E-Y named after Indias Coffee, the Irishman who patented continuous distillation. A French Saval style still, which is very rare for El Dorado. Almost none of that stuff gets used on its own. Then the third still in our blend is the wooden coffee still, which is the last functioning wooden coffee still in the world. This thing's been in operation since, I believe, 1880, that still in continuous service there at DDL. That's a wooden still. That's like a scientific marvel. Yeah, that's so cool. Yeah, totally. They have three wooden stills there. They have the wooden coffee still, and they have two different wooden pot stills. One's a double and one's a single. Their wooden pot stills make very heavy rums. These three column stills that we used for our blend all make medium bodied, very fruit forward styles of rum. And so these are all about seven and a half years old. It was, again, it was three distillations from 2012, blended and barreled together here, that then we chose a single barrel of. And it's really nice. It's got that typical kind of rich molasses, kind of grilled banana character. It's just gorgeous rum, full bodied. It's just beautiful rum and it's 40 bucks. And it's going to be pretty limited though. I mean, we got one barrel worth. So possibly by the time this episode airs, it might be gone, but there'll still be some hanging around somewhere. I can't wait to get some of that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Coming to the stores today, dude, guys. Willowbrook's only getting 12 bottles. Like, damn you. No stores getting more than 12. No stores. Even Marcy's only getting 12 bottles. If you can't get our first round, I'm sure we'll do another one. Yeah, I'd like to do more with some different stills and stuff. So we'll see where it goes. This is just the beginning for this with us and El Dorado. I think we can do a lot with them together with what we do with the Barrel program. So look for more in the future for sure. That's a Binny's hand pick. It's only 40 bucks. It's totally awesome. Jeff poured it for me. So that's Pat's take on a rum highball. Roger, you think you can do better? Oh, I know I do. Well, actually, Pat, I have what is arguably the improved version of A Dark and Stormy. It is the Añejo Highball, which you probably assumed was a tequila drink, but actually it's a rum based cocktail. So it is an homage to the great Cuban bartenders that squeezed literally millions of limes at places like La Florida in Cuba. So again, it all leads, all roads lead back to Hemingway. Indeed. This cocktail was created by Dale DeGroff, one of the absolute masters of cocktails. He was in the 80s when everybody was going to TGA Fridays and watching Tom Cruise idiots flip bottles in the air and make super sugary bull**** drinks. He was trying to actually bring classic cocktails back. So he started making his own riffs on true classics, kind of like modern classics. In fact, I came across this drink in Gary and Marty Regan's book, New Classic Cocktails. So Gary Regan, of course, of Regan's bitter fame that I've talked about in the past, he also is the author of The Joy of Mixology, which is a book that should be in all of your libraries. You should have a good cocktail book, not just the Internet or Mr. Boston's. So anyway, this is a little more involved of a Highball, which I bet you're all shocked that I have something that's sent on two ingredient drink. So it's still not that complicated. It uses what Dale deGroff calls the Holy Trinity when it comes to island drinks. So that is curacao, orange liqueur, lime, and rum. So you're going to start with one and a half ounces of a nice aged rum. The word in Yeho means aged. So you can use all sorts of different options here. I'm using Eldorado 8, which I think is one of the best options for a rum that is super complex. You can still drink it on its own. It's that good, but you can mix it in cocktails and just make really high end beautiful cocktails. As far as orange curacao goes, the best choice would probably be a Pierre Ferrand dry curacao. Or I'm actually using Clement's Creole Shrub, which is a super interesting liqueur here. It's from Martinique. It uses rum agri-col, both unaged and aged, as well as obviously the bitter orange peels, and then some Caribbean spice. Probably there's a little bit of pimento in there, with all spice is what they refer to in the Caribbean as pimento. And Dale de Groff sometimes puts a little pimento liqueur in this drink, so I felt that was a nice addition here. Why is it called a shrub? That's a really long winded, you don't want me to get into it. Chris and I will geek out about shrubs and what they are. Next time on Barrel to Bottle, the shrub episode. Exactly. We don't need to get into shrubs right now. I was going to say, Roger, I have all of these ingredients on hand, so I'm going to make one of these later. You put the one and a half ounces of your rum, a half an ounce of the orange liqueur or curacao, and a half an ounce of lime juice, and then two dashes of Angostura bitters. Stir all that together and you have a beautiful cocktail as is. If you want to make it into a highball, you can then top it with a little bit of ginger beer, which is the traditional recipe. But I'm not going to lie, a lot of times I just omit that part and do my own riff on this. But if you want to make it a true highball and be true to the style, and have it be as Dale intended, you're going to top off with some ginger beer. Again, use a nice ginger beer. Ginger beer, if you're unfamiliar, spicier than ginger ale, uses typically real ginger, whereas some ginger ales don't. There's lots of excellent brands out there. Again, Fever Tree, Top Note, Barrett's. It's very popular in Bermuda, so you got Barrett's, you got Gosling's. But yeah, this is going to be familiar to fans of Dark and Stormy, fans of kind of daiquiri-esque, it's kind of mojito-esque. It toes the line with a lot of cocktails, but it's easy. It's super refreshing. A four ingredient Highball, Roger. This is insulting and a waste of our time. Chris made ones that were four, right? Or three. I insulted Chris as well. This is bulls**t, all right? The whole premise of this being more than club soda and a malt whiskey of the Scottish tradition is bulls**t to begin with. Now, I've got to sit through all these complex, build in the glass things. Come on. Roger's leading into the bar. He's like, I want a Dark and Stormy, but here's what you're going to do. Add these four other things and make sure you give it a floater of banana liqueur. Hey, when I order Dark and Stormy's, I basically would make them do this in a lot of ways. I'd be like, I want lime juice in it and I want bitters in it. When I heard about Dale deGroff's cocktail, I'm like, oh, improved, perfect. Angostura bitters, I assume? Yeah. Also- Well, I just put a couple of dashes of your favorite Fee Brothers orange bitters in mine. We'll see how that goes. Yeah, orange crush. Unlike the Dark and Stormy you made, the ginger beer in mine is just a little bit. It's not the proportions are a lot different. Interesting. Now, I did use a really good ginger beer. Mine's from Lyft and Elegance. I used Kerr's Ginger Beer, K-U-R-E-S, and it's some Colorado Craft Ginger Beer that we sell. It's really good though, but I had a can of this in the fridge. I'll just point out that this is just like harkening back to the after the Gold Rush episode. It's so easy to take a delicious three ingredient cocktail that's wonderful on its own and turn it into a Highball just like that. And they're good both ways, but super refreshing when you add that ginger beer, that bite of the ginger. Fantastic. Oh man, it is so good. Quick recap, one and a half ounces of aged rum, half an ounce of fresh squeezed lime juice. If you use bottled lime juice, I will come to your door, beat you mercilessly. Orange Curacao, high quality orange liqueur. You should use something like Pure Ferrand or Rum Clement Creole Shrub. You can sub in Grand Marnier or like Cointreau. Do not use a sh** triple sec. Again, I will beat you. Angostura Bitters, two nice big healthy shakes. Bitters are a star here and a key component. Then you top it off with a nice high quality ginger beer. Ginger ale in a pinch, but you really should use ginger beer. I think that was the most violent cocktail description I've ever heard. Full of threats. You can't even do the quick recap without doing two threats. Delicious cocktail, threatened with your life. Yeah. I demand that you follow the instructions and use high quality ingredients. This might be the time to point out a geeky distinction in broad highball categorizations. But generally, if you're using ginger beer in a highball, you would classify that as a mule. If you're using ginger ale, the much tamer cousin hits a buck. Right. I will say that with the mules, a lot of the times, especially in today's bar culture, they're using really, well, I mean, arguably you should have a standardized copper mug, so that wouldn't be too big. But with this cocktail, you really only want probably two ounces of ginger beer max. Whereas if you make a Dark and Stormy or a Moscow mule, they're using a lot of ginger beer, maybe six ounces. So that really changes the spiciness, the flavor, the dilution. You really just want a little bit of ginger beer here for lift from the carbonation and just a little bit of spice. That's what makes this category so easy to make and fun because most recipes don't necessarily prescribe the amount of mixer you add. It's up to your personal taste. If you want a strong drink, you could make a strong drink. If you want something really light and refreshing, go for it. Exactly. These are a perfect avenue for people that are looking for the sessionable cocktail or the low alk cocktail. I mean, this is perfect. If you want to be in a social setting, but you don't want to get hammered or you don't want people to even know you're not really drinking, a nice Highball is a perfect way. Even if you're watching calories too, you can have a really flavorful rum, like say a pot still rum. You can put a teaspoon in and it's going to flavor the cocktail and you're going to really enjoy it, but you won't have the extra calories and you won't be inebriated. And choose a mixer with some flavor too. I mean, I have club soda and I just water things down, but if you have a good diet tonic, you're right. It's going to lift up the flavor instead of watering it down. And bitters too. Bitters, again, like you said earlier, they're seasoning. And again, they're going to put a ton of flavor, but not much alcohol to the overall drink. So the bottom line is, this is the perfect category of cocktail for an afternoon of croquet. Yeah. When it's super hot and you know you're going to have to drink a lot of liquid to keep yourself refreshed and hydrated, you don't want to get, you know, collapse. These are a great way to, you know, extend your drink a little bit. The croquet is golf for the horse racing class. It's polo for the horseless. So speaking of esoteric stuff, Chris, what is your take on, like all things cocktail, it's disputed, but the etymology here, like the origin of the name, I think is a great story. Highball? Yeah. So the stories I've read are pretty funny. They're all associated with railroad. Yeah, that's true. So there are some old-timey terms when riding on a train was the classy way to go, and you were having cocktails in the dining car or in the bar car. If you were really opening up that steam engine and piling on the coal and head in full steam, there's a little meter that measured how high the pressure was in the boiler tank. When the ball rose all the way to the top, you were highballing, baby. Someday, we're going to put together a bonus episode of Esoteric Side Trivia. That's probably the most popular story. Yeah. Yeah, cool. I like that. I mean, it's a great story, highballing it, baby. I agree. Essentially, pedal to the metal, but in 1800s steam engines. Total steampunk cocktails. So, wrapping it up then, I learned something today. What's that, Greg? I don't know, I'm just doing the South Park joke. I didn't actually learn anything today. Yeah, you did. This is very information laden. It also is a perfect example of what you should drink when it's hot, and it's going to be hot in the next few weeks. Very true, Roger. I learned something today. You want to make a Highball? Jazz it up with a couple of other ingredients and make it super complicated. Or just open a nice can of Hell's Lager instead. Yeah. There you go. I mean, that's several recipes to get you started this summertime as it becomes sweltering in the Chicago heat. You want to make a cocktail that's delicious and easy, a couple of ingredients, a little bit of something strong, a lot of bit of something that's bubbly or something that's flavorful. Just drink what you like. Or instead of adding a bunch of extra liquid ingredients, don't be afraid to garnish it with something, some seasonal fruit or herb or vegetable even. Like Chris's beautiful cocktails. Highballs, they're like hard seltzer for adults. Wow. That is a really good piggyback because that's true really. All right. That's another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Next week we'll have something fun. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Pat. I'm Chris. He's Roger. I'm Roger. Keep tasting. I'm kind of disappointed because I had a whole intro prepared where I was gonna be like, so I'm gonna shit on Pat's basic bitch, Tarkin Stormy. Oh, why don't you just do it now? They can edit it in. Yeah, right. So I'm Pat, and I'm like, I'm a big blowhard, and I made the best drink ever out of two ingredients. Roger can't beat that. Here it goes, give it a shot.