You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Today, we're going to talk about hot drinks for cold weather. I'm Roger, I do beer for Binny's. On today's podcast, we have, I'm Chris, I do wine. Hey, I'm Pat, I'm the spirits guy. And this is Jim, I am the executive producer of this podcast. Producer Jim on a show? The man behind the magic. The best thing about Jim being on so far is that he got to hear live all the obscene jokes that happened before we started recording. Roger, hot drinks? Come on, really? Yeah, hot drinks. It's cold out. I know. Come on. It's super labor intensive, especially for recording purposes. But yeah, the last couple of weeks have been absolutely freezing. We were spoiled with all this really warm weather, and then winter arrived in a big way. This is definitely the time to have a hot drink, especially with a lot of people staying home these days. I thought we'd bring back the good old Quarantini, Quarantiki, Quarantati edition. Yeah, we've all been lulled into a false sense of security about the weather. People are forgetting what Chicago weather is like in that winter. So this is your reminder, drink toddies. Yeah, it's below freezing now, and toddies, it's a little labor intensive for us trying to do this with the recording. But when you're at home, they're actually pretty easy to make. They can be as simple or as complicated as you want them to be. So I'm sure Chris' toddy is going to be amazing and be about 20 steps. He grew his own lemon tree in preparation for this episode. I flew to the Amalfi Coast to get the proper lemon. But at their core, to give some background, a hot toddy can mean a lot of different things. So we've joked in past episodes that when you look up drink recipes, a lot of times mixologists and cocktail historians will argue about who invented what, and what's the proper portions and ratios and ingredients in a cocktail. But with the toddy, there really is almost no universally agreed upon recipe. Spirit wise, it can be all sorts of different spirits. It can be brandy, rum, all manner of whiskeys. Some of the only absolutes in it is that it always tends to involve something hot. But usually that, I was going to say it's usually water, but people often make them with tea. So that's another variable. They usually involve some sort of citrus. A lot of times it's a lemon peel, but it can also be orange peels. You can riff there. It usually involves some sort of sweet spice, I would say the most common is clove. But again, here's just another avenue where you can experiment and add all myriad of different things. Cinnamon, star anise, allspice. So it really is a drink that you very easily can make your own and build it to suit your taste, as far as what kind of spirit do you want, how strong do you want it to be. But the idea here is that it's a warming, comforting drink. It literally used to be prescribed as medicine by actual doctors. Wait, Roger, in no part of the process, does a human being named Todd have to be involved? It helps if he stirs it with his finger. Well, this is good because I've found that all the Todd's I've encountered in life have been on the lower side of the trustworthy spectrum. You guys know that the derivation of Todd is actually Indian. It originally referred to palm wine. So this is a popular throughout Southeast Asia and also africa. Somehow the English took that name and turned it into this combination of sugar, liquor, water. I'm not sure how that made the leap, but kind of cool. Well, that reminds me, I was supposed to bring up sugar for one of these cocktails. God, so many ingredients, Roger. Speaking of which, the same sap can be used, Roger, you probably know this, I'm sure you do, can be used to make jaggery and various kinds of natural sugars. Yeah, I was going to say if you really want to take this back to its roots, you could play around with some palm sugar that is more regularly available now. You'll see that in some regular grocery stores. You don't even have to necessarily go to an international market. So look for either as Chris said, jaggery sugar or sometimes it's just called palm or date sugar. Date meaning it's referring to date palms or the other thing I was going to- Dates grow on palm trees? They sure do. No kidding. That's right, folks. You didn't think you were going to get another sugar episode, but we're sneaking it in on you. Yeah, grab your sugar loaf clippers. That's right. Now that everyone has a little bit of a background on hot toddies, I figured we would go around the horn here and talk about, do our own riff on a hot toddy. And then we'll also talk about some other hot cocktails that you can prepare at home. So who wants to get us started? I'll go first. My riff on the hot toddy is pulled from the influences of both Pat and Greg. I made a hot toddy with tea. The whiskey is Clark and Sheffield, of course. You really should have used Greg. Greg. Oh, yeah. They're sold out. They're sold out everywhere. He got an email about that yesterday from a fan who loved Greg. Oh, yeah. Which is hilarious. The whiskey or the man? The whiskey. And he wanted to know the story behind it. So Greg's like, hi, I'm Greg. Yeah, I was like, you're going to blow this guy's mind. I'm the Greg. All right. Enough about this guy. He's not even here today. All right. We miss you, Greg. So what kind of tea did you use, Jim? Raspberry herbal tea to give it a little raspberry flavoring and nice color. And then I used a ginger. I used a honey simple syrup, but then I also steeped ginger in the simple syrup. But you know, lemon. No lemon wheel. I got my little Otter mug here and I'm going to drink it now. Well, that sounds delicious. I've won up to Jim on the mug game today. I'll debut that later. Yeah. So it's delicious. It tastes like raspberries and lemon. I break that down for us again. It's Clark and Sheffield. You got a raspberry syrup? No, raspberry herbal tea or raspberry herbal tea. Clark and Sheffield bourbon honey ginger syrup. Yes. So I did the two to one honey to water ratio. That's the way to do it. Yeah. And then I steeped some ginger. I sliced up ginger really thin like I was in Goodfellas with the garlic, like really thin. Nice. Just melts. Just melts right in there. And then I steeped it. And then I actually made that a few weeks ago during my COVID lockdown. And I actually made this during my COVID lockdown. And it was quite refreshing and delicious and really made me feel better. Typhoid Jimmy here turned into a home mixologist while he was sick. I've been editing enough podcasts that I've picked up all the mixology skills from you all. Nice. That sounds good. Yeah, it does. Again, make simple syrups, baby. It's the way to go. I thought the cranberry simple syrup from Christmas holiday episode might also be kind of good, but I didn't get down to the bog and get my cranberries. So, but I think that could also be a good option. I think that would work perfectly for this because cranberry and citrus go together perfectly. Yeah, I think right off the bat, we're showing with Jim's cocktail just how wide open to interpretation a totty is. I mean, there's nothing very conventional about what you did, but it sounds delicious. I mean, and there's so many different tea options that you could use in addition to just regular green tea going several different directions on that one. So that's that. All right, there's already been enough tea and sugar talk in this episode that I need a drink, so I gotta go nuts. God, you nerds. Okay, my hot toddy is kind of, was kind of going down the same path as Jim, but it's a little different though. Of course, I've talked at length about how a gold rush is like a cold toddy, but then I made a penicillin with the ginger syrup. I'm actually making a riff on a hot penicillin. So there's a few things going on. I'm using scotch, so I'm using old reliable here, Glenn Fidic, 12 year old. I'm using an ounce of that. This isn't a very strong cocktail. I warmed up some apple cider. There's going to be an ounce of apple cider in it. It's a nice riff. Again, I'm going to put about a half ounce of some fresh lemon juice in there. And then I have just some. This was, I don't know, some sample we got from somebody trying to sell stuff into the stores. This bottled ginger simple syrup that I'm going to open and use. And I'm going to use about a quarter ounce of this probably. We'll see how it tastes. If I think it needs more, I add more. And then I'm just going to kind of top it up with hot water. One thing I would recommend when you're experimenting with hot toddies is, you know, don't be afraid to, if it's a little intense, you know, you can do some correcting by adding a little more water. Oh, absolutely. Sometimes like, you know, that drinking a hot, warm whiskey is sometimes a bit intense until you get used to it. And I'm just going to drop a lemon wheel in there for a little aromatics and a little acid. And that's quite nice. It's not very strong. So we're going to give it another half ounce of scotch here, because it's Friday afternoon and I got to listen to you putz's talk about the sugar. Greg greggin it up. Somebody's got to be Greg today. Yeah, you're stirring it with a pencil. A pen. Good point, Roger. Did need a bit of a stirring there. This is quite nice. All right, you guys can talk about sugar again. I'm going to go on mute. The other thing, too, is sometimes you'll notice in recipes that it'll say to prepare the toddy and then let it sit for a couple of minutes. And again, that the initial burst of some of the alcohol can be pretty intense. If you were to just make it and then drink it right away, can be pretty intense. A lot of the recipes I saw advised warming the mug with hot water first. Definitely discarding the hot water and then building it in the warm mug. A lot of them I saw didn't have overtly hot ingredients being added, but all added into a hot mug. I would definitely recommend heating the mug for sure, personally. And I think part of the letting it sit also allows any brown spice additions to integrate. Like if you put a cinnamon stick in, you're probably not going to get much cinnamon in the first minute or so it's in there. So leaving it there for a minute, you get a little cinnamon character to come out. That's a good idea. Maybe I'll add a cinnamon star anise or whatever you're putting in there. Fat rails and nutmeg. Yes. Just whole nutmegs. Oh, see, I should have been stirring this with the cinnamon stick. Yeah, you should have. Of course. Well, I am now in my sweet Star Wars mug. It wouldn't have been right if I didn't have a pen stuck in it at some point. What's a nice looking mug? It's actually my 13 year old Star Wars mug. Nice. Oh, I didn't even use the honey in my hot toddy that I meant to use. Oh, damn. Well, what was it? So I have this honey that I got at the Starlight Distillery and Huber Farm just when I was there last week buying barrels. It is a raw bourbon barrel aged honey. Nice. And of this honey, actually, the barrel that this honey came out of, we bought a barrel of bourbon that is currently finishing in that barrel. Now, that's freaking cool. And that's coming later this year. So I raved at length about our honey barrel rye from them before. I think most of you guys have tried it. Chris, did you? I haven't. I've not had it now. All right. We got to get your sample of that. But now we have a honey barrel bourbon on the way. And holy cow. That sounds right up my alley. That's for sure. Do you know, is that wildflower honey or any particular kind of honey? I don't know. They make it on their farm. They let the bees loose on. They have a lot of orchards. They're the largest fruit grower in Indiana. So I don't know if that's going to make it smells crazy. So it's got like this real like high toned citrus oil type of thing going on. But then it's also got a vanilla character to it. Last year for Christmas, my uncle got me a bottle of bourbon barrel aged honey, and I made a honey simple syrup out of it, and then was using it in gold rushes all winter long. It was delicious. See, Pat, you make fun of us, but we all approach these delicious natural products with our own certain zeal. I make fun of you because somebody has to. Is that necessarily true? Yes. Oh. Says the guy currently trying to take half a shot of honey to taste it, and it's not coming out of the literal shot glass. Yeah, Pat won't admit it, but listeners at home, he is a bourbon barrel aged maple syrup nerd. Big time. That's good. I mean, all this honey content is going to go into a bonus episode or something, Jim, but sorry. At least you get to sit through it. All right, so back to sugar, the important topic that you all want to know about. Listeners, please, please tune in again next week. I thought we'd be talking about tea. So I was really torn up here because, yeah, I actually literally prevented myself from using tea, so it wouldn't go off the rails in the discussion of tea. I was torn between if I was gonna use honey, which then could take us down a path of different types of honey. I made a hot toddy with a simple syrup that I made that I used mulling spices in. Oh. So it's a mold simple syrup. Into boiling water, I placed some mulling spices, which was a blend. Now, you're talking mulling or wassailing? This is the perfect toddy when you go out a wassailing. Yes. I'd rather be wassailing with that bumper sticker ready. So into the water went some mulling spices, which you can find usually. If not, you can make them yourself. It's a mixture of this mix that I used had star anise, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and orange peel. So steeped that in simmering water for about 20 minutes, and then made a one-to-one simple syrup with temerara sugar. So I used for the toddy around a teaspoon of that. I tend to like making hot toddies with scotch or Irish whiskey, but since this was pretty spiced, I went with bourbon. So I've got some bourbon in there, two ounces of bourbon, and then filled it with hot water, and then the garnish is a orange peel instead of lemon. That's studded with cloves. Oh yeah, I've seen a few of those. Yeah, this turned out really nice. Roger, do you think yours would have been improved upon with a floater of allspice dram? So I was the, you beat me to the punch. In lieu of a spiced simple syrup, you could use the most versatile cocktail ingredient, the true bartender's ketchup, allspice dram. And achieve pretty similar results, so. Excellent point. I think that a lot of spiced liqueurs work really well in tatties, like things like dram buoy, Irish mist, whatever. That kind of thing is very nice in a hot toddy. Yeah, I would say that the other riff, just to mention tea here, since whiskey and orange go so well together, using an earl grey tea, pretty tempted to try that as well, because I've made hot tatties with earl grey before, and that's a nice go-to tea because of the bergamot. If you're unfamiliar with earl grey tea, kind of the signature flavor with that is that it's flavored with oil of bergamot, which is a type of orange peel. It's very aromatic, like a bitter orange. So if you want to experiment with some tea, you want to give a little caffeine kick to your toddy, try subbing in earl grey instead of hot water. Earl grey is delicious. Did you guys know that you can actually get bergamot poisoning if you have a ton of it? Does that happen to you? It sounds like it's happened to you, Chris. Well, what you don't never want to do is mix bergamot and nutmeg, because you're in for quite a ride. Is that like a speedball? It's exactly like a speedball. A spice speedball? Little known fact, the real reason John Belushi is not with us anymore. Sorry, Chicago. Too soon. It's too soon. Too soon. Yeah, truly. Too soon. All right, Chris, so we now present Chris Spears. Well, you have very high expectation for this, but realistically, I borrowed it from this week's Confessions of a Mixologist, because it just looked pretty good to me. And I, too, kind of pre-prepped some things. So what I have in this little insulated mug is a preparation of sliced ginger and cardamom steeped in water. So just like an inch knob of ginger sliced, a couple of cardamom pods, and you simmer that for about 10 minutes, and then you throw in some... What color cardamom? Green. I use green. Which I like because it has kind of a minty, menthol-y aspect to it that really goes along with those kind of medicinal ideas. And the way that the blog post explained it is like every ingredient here has some kind of folk benefit as far as health goes. So, ginger root, cardamom, a cup of water, and then some organic chamomile in there, which is known to be an anti-anxiety herb. It's actually made out of flowers. Yeah. You know, a lot of this stuff is not necessarily proven, but believed widely. And there is something to the chamomile's property. Chamomile is like a daisy, and you can brew tea out of the flower. It's easy to grow too. Yeah. But then also, I use honey as a sweetener and lemon juice per the recipe, and I use manuka honey, which is from New Zealand, and sometimes Australia, that is actually graded for its anti-biotic properties. Like all honey is anti-biotic, has peroxide in it, hydrogen peroxide in it, kills a lot of things, but this has other chemicals that are anti-bacterial in it. So we've got that, and I've added it to my warmed mug with a cinnamon stick and a lemon wheel, and I'm just going to throw in an ounce and a half of whisky. I'm using very old Barton, because that's what I got right in front of me. Here it goes, and there it is. That's a good looking drink. Yeah, smells wonderful too. So if you've never had chamomile, it's like earthy and floral. And let me see how that ginger expresses itself here. That's amazing. It's really well balanced. It's sweet enough, has just enough lemon. And what really pops out is the cardamom, kind of that cooling menthol-y minty flavor, alongside ginger. You know, that stuff. I think cardamom is an underappreciated spice. That's kind of the secret ingredient, I think, and in a lot of baked goods, it's like you don't necessarily know that it was there, but it has a very pleasant, unique flavor to it. I agree. I mean, if you look at Indian cuisine, like if you've ever had a biryani, you know, their whole cardamom pods put in there, combine that with basnati rice and you get this like amazing aromatic punch to the dish. But then, you know, due to the spice trail, you see so much cardamom used in like Scandinavian baking, in breads and sweets and stuff. Really delicious. The Stolen. Yeah. Give it back. Anyway, I'm going to highly recommend this version. Like it a lot. Check it out on Confessions of a Mixologist, then. That's where you stole it from. That's exactly right. Yeah. I stole it from Confessions of a Mixologist. I know Pat doesn't want to, but Roger, given the topic, I know you mentioned Earl Grey, which is a great idea, but are there any other favorite teas you go to just because? You're right. I don't want to talk about it. I think that one of the teas that doesn't get enough credit is white tea. It's kind of a misunderstood. Dan, it's a tea that you have to seek out either ordering it from a tea shop online or going to a brick and mortar tea shop. But it's more of a delicate tea. Usually, you're only steeping it for a minute or two on the tops. It has very nuanced flavors. You'd have to be careful with what kind of spirit you use. But I mentioned before that I think one of the more popular toddy alcohols is Irish whiskey. A lot of Irish whiskeys are real delicate. I know I've made hot toddies before with Irish whiskey and white tea. I really liked that because I think the floral nature of a lot of white teas plays off in the floral honeyed nature of a lot of Irish whiskeys. That is a super interesting choice. Now, I, on the other hand, would go to the other extreme because there are so many strong flavors in a lot of toddies. I would recommend Indian Assam tea, which is pretty robust and deeply malty. So if you have really strong bourbon or a lot of strong brown spice, I think Assam is really good. What gives it the maltiness? Tea is made from the leaves of camellias. Tea is Camellia sinensis, and then there are two main varieties, sinensis sinensis and sinensis assamica, which is grown in the Assam region of India. And it just has a more robust, deeper flavor. Okay? Got it? I'm sorry I asked. Yeah, I think that that's a great idea. And Rolf, I think you would dig some of the Scottish tea blends tend to have a lot of that really Scottish blends are usually one of the strongest teas because Scottish people tend to drink their tea with milk. But they're crazy strong and they're usually very malty. Yeah, indeed. I still got a lot of fruit I got to try before I delve into tea here. Let's make some more hot drinks, huh? Yeah, let's do it. All right, who wants to go next? My water is getting kind of cool. I'd like to heat up my water. I can go while your water is heating. My next cocktail is the Cascara, which was recommended by a friend of the pod, Jake Parrott. His recipe is espresso and a cherry liqueur. We did not have the Rothman in winter, sadly, but we did have Luxardo Sangre Molaco, which I've been looking for an excuse to buy for some time now. So, actual Cascara is the dried husk of the coffee cherry, like the dried skin of the coffee cherry, and it has a cherry kind of flavor. Indeed, you can actually make a tea out of it. Yes. It's not a tea, but you can make a tea out of it. Right. It's like an herbal tea. This is what's removed from the coffee bean when it's processed, either through wet or dry processing, correct? Yeah. So, you get this little skin on the outside that looks like a cherry, and the inside is a pale colored coffee bean that then gets roasted. But if you can't find that, Jake Parrott, his suggestion was just making espresso. So, one ounce of espresso and one ounce of a cherry liqueur of your choosing. And again, I went with Sangre Morlaco, podcast favorite, and then I also added Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters. Wow, nice. Sounds exciting. So, it tastes like kind of a chocolate covered espresso cherry. Yeah. It's a confectionary riff on a Cafe Coretto or corrected coffee that they like in Italy. Yeah. Where you just put a shot of Grappa in your espresso. Right. Right. And it's also speaking of speed balls, this is a speed ball. It's an upper and a downer. What were the proportions again? So, it was a shot of espresso and then- Yeah, one ounce of espresso and one ounce of cherry liqueur. Oh, wow. That's interesting. But I guess you could probably also just make a Cascara tea if you have access to the Cascara and then just put in, I don't know, whatever you want, whiskey or- I like those proportions because the Sangre Morlaco is not that high in alcohol. It's like a fortified wine, cherry wine. And yeah, I would like to knock one of those back. Do you have the ability to make an espresso properly at home? I made the espresso as per the specifications of the stovetop espresso maker. So not unlike tea, coffee can be parsed out if you're a coffee geek. And espresso is normally made with Robusta beans. And the rest of the world's coffee is Arabica, of course. I bought espresso beans, so I think they were the right ones. Yeah, I'm sure they were. Don't let Chris's snavery here make you second guess yourself. Did you make a real espresso, Jim? That's not what I'm saying at all. How dare you? I have two other kinds of beans here, and I wanted to make sure I have my morning blend beans, and I have another one like a medium roast, but I'm like, no, I got to buy the actual espresso beans. I mean, yes, you can grind it very finely and tamp it down and get an espresso-ish kind of thing. But yeah, so I was also thinking about if I could do, not that this would kind of go away from the Cascara thing, but coffee, orange liqueur and chocolate bitters and kind of an orange chocolate thing. I had that thought as well. I did not make it. I did not make that riff. Yeah, there's a lot of different ways you can go, Jim. The Spanish like Carajillo, which is generally brandy or rum and coffee, and usually an orange peel. And if you have the same drink in Mexico, they make it with Flickr 43? No, Cuadranti Trace. Cuadranti Trace, yeah. Nice. Yeah, there's a lot of different ways I think you could probably riff on this thing. Endless. Who's next? I was actually kind of hoping that Chris was going to make a cafe brulat. Yeah, you know, that's... That's another classic combo of chocolate or of a coffee and orange. Yeah, very old school recipe, but I am not making that. But I think maybe I should go anyway, just because I am making a coffee drink. Is everybody cool with that? Yeah, let's hear it. Okay, so I am just going to do your very traditional Irish coffee, which, you know, given its popularity, it may surprise some to learn that it only dates back to like the 50s, maybe the late 40s, allegedly, you know, invented in an Irish airport perhaps, or maybe a bar. Sounds about right. But then brought to the States, particularly to San Francisco to the Buena Vista Cafe, which is the, I think this is true, the biggest Jamison account, on-premise account in the world because I have heard that from multiple sources. Yeah. Because they just crank out Irish coffees like they're no tomorrow. So it's really crazy seeing them make those things there because they make 20 at a time, and the bartender's like running open bottles up and down the bar rail on all these glasses that are set up. It's really, it's a tourist trap that's worth the trip. Indeed, indeed. Yeah, you're exactly right. So what I've done here, I pre-made my coffee mixture and I've got it in a glass now. And all it is is about four or five ounces of coffee, couple teaspoons of brown sugar. Now, you may be surprised, but probably not by this. I happen to have some coconut palm sugar around. So to tie everything together, I use coconut palm sugar. It just so happens. So coffee, coconut palm sugar, and then I'm going to put in an ounce and a half of Irish whiskey, of course. Jamison is probably the most popular choice. However, we're better than that. I'm using Red Breast L'Estelle edition. Oh, wow. Hello. Yeah. I don't mess around. Okay. So in that goes, so coffee, sugar, and whiskey, and then the last ingredient is, of course, to float a thick cream on top. If you do it right, this drink ends up looking like a pint of Guinness. So what you need to do is whip your cream lightly. So it doesn't form peaks or anything, but it just turns into like a light, thick, pourable foam. However, mine's been sitting around for a while, and it's separated a little bit. So anyway, here it is. Wow. Look at that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know what they sell now are these little teeny battery operated whisks that are perfect for that little frothers. If I'm making a small amount of whipped cream, I do it by hand. It's way faster than you think it would be. Oh, yeah. You just have to have a supple wrist as they say. Pinball wizard. Indeed. And that's freaking delicious. I actually really like these proportions. There's just enough whiskey in there to make its presence known. The coffee is just sweet enough. The cream is rich. I mean, what more could you ask for? Warming and rich. I always found it funny that this has an origin story or has a recipe. I mean, it's like coffee with whiskey in it. For part of my life, I thought it was like a joke, like a bad joke, like, oh, yeah, Irish coffee is coffee with booze. Right. It just tastes like a bad joke most often. One of the origin stories has the bartender being asked by the customer, is this Brazilian coffee? And he answers, no, it's Irish coffee, which is the joke, you know. And realistically, coffee beverages with booze in them date back at least to a couple centuries. The origin of high school? As long as there's been high school teachers, there's been coffee with booze in it. Right. Wow, slinging mad accusations out today. Jeez. I'm pretty sure like Aristotle was in the town square drinking booze and coffee. I can't believe I've never thought about that before, Roger. But looking back on some of my high school teachers, that is undoubtedly correct. Everybody open your geometry book. Booze Lays Coffee is going back to Austria, Vienna, big hub for coffee drinking, of course, in Europe, centuries before the Irish coffee became a thing. One that I would recommend people give a try is to toss a little Benedictine in coffee. That's a pretty interesting addition. Add some nice herbaceousness and you can sometimes even skip the sweetener then because it's a pretty sweet liqueur. Yeah, exactly. That's another one that I failed to mention when I was talking about the toddies. Drambuoy, Benedictine, all of those work nicely in there too. Yeah, there's a whole mess of honey liqueurs that you can use. Krupnix, Berenjager, all that stuff. Yeah. So, I consulted friend of the podcast, Jake Parrott, on some hot drinks before we recorded this. And I have, I got a couple good ideas from him, one of which he mentioned before, it was either in the episode we did with him, or in one of like the 12 different Zooms that are on YouTube we did with him. But- I couldn't believe how many of theirs there were. I mean, honestly, we've given that portfolio and Jake a lot of love. But in my opinion, it's a 100 percent justified. Yeah, absolutely. Alpen's carries is amazing. And he has a great sense of how to blend things together. I've noticed. It's great, awesome, authentic product. That's a lot of fun to drink and mix with. So of course, we're going to talk about it. Yeah. So we were talking about Dolan Geneppe. I'm not sure if there's a fancier French way to pronounce that or not. Geneppe. Geneppe. I don't know. It's a very intense herbal liqueur, like an alpine style liqueur, like alpine flowers, alpine herbs from the French Alps. And it's apparently very, very common to put it in some hot chocolate after a day of skiing in the French Alps. Yes. Nice. Me, a true pleb, has no idea what skiing in the French Alps is. But I decided to put it in some hot chocolate here. So pretty standard. Eight ounces of hot chocolate instead of making my own, like Chris probably would have and would have been delicious. Definitely. I just used a packet of Swiss Miss with the little dehydrated marshmallows in it. So it's just eight ounces of Swiss Miss and two ounces of this Geneppe. How's Alpens refers to it as a vert showed, vert shawed. How would I say that, Chris? Vert shawed. That means hot green, basically. I thought this sounded ridiculous because Geneppe on its own is herbal and bitter, and it's not something you think of to be mixing with sweet stuff necessarily, but this is just mind-blowingly good. I can't get over how good this is. Good God, two ounces of that is probably intense. Bro, this is incredible. Oh, wow. You need that much to, because hot cocoa is really sweet, man. The only way it even comes through is when you get into that kind of quantity, I think. But like, holy cow, I was very skeptical of this, and holy cow was this just fantastic. I'm going to be drinking this all winter long. It sounded really good to me from the get-go. I've never tried this, but I'm definitely going to this winter. Do you think if you had, say, green chartreuse on hand, you could sub that in? Absolutely. This definitely has a green chartreuse vibe to it. Yeah. It's 90 proof too. It's like four liqueur, that is incredibly high. Yeah, indeed. I wish I had some whipped cream. I didn't have any made up and I wasn't going to make you guys wait while I whipped up some cream down there. I've got plenty right here. But the only bad part of this cocktail is those marshmallows that are dehydrated and then the Swiss Miss packet, they slowly just dissolve on the top in a rather unsettling way. So I wish I had some real marshmallows in here or some whipped cream. But other than that, this is quite exceptional. Those are always weird because they're dry as a bone and then kind of rehydrate but then fall apart immediately. Strange. This really is something else. Oh, you're going to love it. Absolutely love it. Right on. I think my liquid speedballs are catching up to me. I've got a beard full of whipped cream at the moment. Right. And I made one more hot drink after yours, Roger. I already made it and it's a Roger showstopper of a drink. It's got everything Roger loves except $12 bourbon. All right, so I am back after going to heat up some milk here. Big surprise here, I'm going to do a Tiki drink. And it is from, of course, the Tiki disciple himself, or not disciple, to get some. No, you're the disciple, Roger. I'm the disciple of the god of Tiki. This guy's been hitting the Tiki syrups. Are you saying that Jeff Barry is Jesus? Just amongst Tiki files. Pat does try to crucify him regularly on the podcast. Hey, I'm the only one who's paid 10 bucks for his mixology. That's true. That's true. No, I have a convert. I'm making some Singapore slings with it next week. So you can find the following beverage on his Tiki app. This is called a white cap, one of several hot Tiki drinks that exist. A lot of times you'll see like grog, coffee grog, or you'll see hot buttered rum, obviously. For those of you who have the Smuggler's Cove book, I believe, don't you have that, Bro? Yeah, I've got that. They have a pretty elaborate hot buttered rum recipe. Their rum batter is very heavily spiced. How did no one end up doing hot buttered rum today? One of those things, you got to make a whole big batch of it. You can't just make a glass of hot buttered rum. Yeah, I saw the words batter and I was like, I'm not doing that. Yeah. Because we're all still so full of butter from a certain Binny's Food Writers Shrimp Dijon recipe. Yeah, that's true. By the way, should we say a fun farewell to Lost Lake? Yeah. Oh, what a bummer, man. Yeah, totally. What a bummer. Lost Lake's closing for good. It is a serious loss for the Chicago dining and beverage scene. Yeah. Hopefully, Paul McGee and team open up another concept soon. That's just as awesome. Yes. To tie into that, one of the rums that I'm using in this, this drink features an overproof rum. So they suggest using like 151, which these days you're pretty much looking at Edward Hamilton is your go-to for that. But what I would suggest as an alternative because this... Oh, you used the OFTD, didn't you? Yeah. So OFTD didn't even exist when this recipe was created. But Paul McGee of Lost Lake and Jeff Berry sat on a panel of rum enthusiasts, like basically the rum experts of the world, in putting together this overproof rum, which isn't quite 151 strength, but it's close and arguably better than most of your options for overproof rum. It is an incredible rum. I highly suggest everyone pick up a bottle. So I'm actually out. So I am using Edward Hamilton 151 in this. But if you're interested in this tiki drink and others that call for overproof rum, check out Plantation OFTD. It's 138 proof now. And I want to say that's lower. It used to be 145 or 148 proof or something. Isn't that right, Roger? I've got one of the old bottles left that's higher proof. It had a metal twist off cap and now they have a cork. Interesting. But it used to be higher proof than it is now. But it's still amazingly higher proof. OFTD stands for Old Fashioned Traditional Dark. But they really only named it that because when they first blended it up, the first words out of anybody's mouth was, Oh, that's delicious. And so that's what it actually stands for. Amen. And it is $31.99 for a one liter bottle. Oh, how can you afford not to drink? That's a deal. All right. So on to this delicious drink, which I guarantee you will be proclaiming OFTD after you try this. Hey, Jim, can we get a little surfari's wipeout for this white caps? Sure. What the hell? Why not? No, Greg won't pay for licensed music. I'll have to record my own version. Or a surfing bird. You're just going to have to do it on the table with your hands. Everybody's heard about the bird. All right. So this recipe begins with three quarters of an ounce of coconut cream. To that, you add one ounce of 151 proof rum. Oh, getting after it on a Friday night, Roger. Holy cow. Then you add more rum. You add a half an ounce of dark Jamaican rum. So I've used some Myers. And then you put in a quarter ounce, just a smidge, of Puerto Rican light rum, which I don't have. So instead, I decided to just put in Eldorado 8. La-dee-da-dee, we like Bacardi. Yeah. So put in some Bacardi, some Don Q, whatever, or Eldorado white is an excellent white rum as well. So you put all that in a mug, which I have this nice little parrot mug. Oh, nice. Nice. The Jimmy Buffett edition. Also add three cloves and eight ounces of milk that you have brought to a boil. So a cup of milk. Roger, I am making this like later tonight. I have all these ingredients in my house. So you stir it all up with a cinnamon stick and then you put some cinnamon on top. This is unreal how good this is. Hey, Roger, when you open your Beach Bum Berries total tiki recipe and it gives you the list of browse all recipes you can make, this is a great app. Recipes you can make, recipes you're missing one ingredient for and recipes you're missing two ingredients for. Right now, how many recipes can you make? Oh, jeez. I don't know. I need to go in there and update some of the what I have on hand, but a lot. I'm at 100. Dang. Holy cow. That's pretty respectable. Do you have this app, Jim? No. What is it? Beach Bum Berries, Total Tiki. It's a $10 app? It's a $10 app, which is like very 2006 of them. Yeah, really. But holy cow, is this worth the $10? Yeah, I'm coming to the conclusion that I might need to get that. The best part of it is the functionality of enter what you have and it'll tell you what you're missing and what cocktails you can eat. The better part is what you're wanting greeting away from, because chances are you just need to go to the grocery store and get grapefruit juice. Yeah. That's the biggest gripe with when I turn people on to tiki drinks and they have properly made ones and love them, they often curse my name when they're like, I had to spend $200 at the liquor store yesterday, Roger. It's an investment, man. But it takes a lot of ingredients for some of these. Yeah. For me, that investment pays dividends of nights being told I have to sleep on the couch. Indeed. I have not spent $225 at Binny's in one stop, but thanks to Roger have also gotten in to Tiki. You use a little bit though. You add more. That's the thing with some of these ingredients. Yeah. You got that bottle of velvet fulernum and you're only going for an ounce of it. As long as you have fridge space for all these syrups and stuff, you're golden. That's the thing. I got a full size fridge in the garage now, that I got from my old neighbor who moved out to Rockford. It's just literally just full of cocktail syrups right now. Yeah. Right. The mixture of this is like, it really brings to mind eggnog, like warm eggnog. It's crazy because coconut is such a big part of this. That's there, but it totally, I mean, there's not even nutmeg in this, but it just immediately reminds you of, I guess, you know, there is cinnamon in eggnog, but holy cows is good. Nice. I need to drink this. It's clear. Yep. I'm going to make one. Do either of you have another drink? I've got one more drink. Nope. All right, go for it. So I mentioned earlier, I was consulting with friend of the pod, Jake Parrott. That's where I got the Dolan and Hot Chocolate. The one drink that was more actual kind of drink, building a drink mixology focused that I thought was interesting is in the House Alpens, like drink portfolio thing website, that is called, they call it Flurries on East Bay Street. I don't know if it's like a something else name for a different drink, but it is an ounce and a half of, they call for H&H five-year Doce Generoso Madeira. I did not have that Madeira. I used Rare Rine Company New York Malmsey. One ounce of Weeded Bourbon. I used this Binny's Wilderness Trail Single Barrel Pick Weeder, that is four-year, seven-month in an Char 4 ISC barrel. This was one of our picks from this previous year. This is 118 proof. One tablespoon of sugar. I did one teaspoon. That seemed like a lot of sugar to me. Half an ounce of lemon juice and then six ounces of hot water. And you just build it in a warm mug and put a cinnamon stick in it. And it is awesome. And I didn't think I was going to enjoy it quite as much as I do, but I like the soft fruitiness of the weeded bourbon, a little bit of acidic cut from the lemon. The Madeira, that kind of nutty dried fruit character is awesome in everything. It made a very nice warm drink. That sounds fantastic. Excellent. How acidic do you feel it is? Because it probably used that much sugar because of a half an ounce of lemon juice. It's funny that you bring that up. I do feel it is a bit lean and acidic. Well, pile that sugar in. Yeah, so easy fix. I should put some of this bourbon barrel honey in there. There you go. There you go. A little bit of honey really rounded that out. There you go. I like that idea. Bingo improved. All right. Well. Bingo improved. Dead. Yeah, that pretty much wraps it up. Hot drinks. Hot drinks. Pretty good. Get your drunk. Hot drinks? Yeah, these are. Hot times. These are nice too. I think the other thing that's nice about a hot drink is that it's something that, you know, you can take your time with and it's not something that you're going to start like pounding hot cocktails. Yeah. Right. And if you have a fireplace at home or even an outdoor fire pit, snuggling up in the inglenook is nice with a hot drink. Wearing your slanket. Yeah. When you're sitting around one of those new solo stoves, which are essentially like fancy garbage can fires. Right. It just ripped through wood. They're pretty cool. I have to admit, they're pretty ingenious. But yeah, get yourself some hot cocktails to drink around the fire. Well, Roger, I was a bit reluctant to have to sit here and drink warm stuff for an hour. But this is pretty damn good and I'm going to drink more of it. I'm most intrigued by your warm tiki drink. What was it called again? It is awesome. White cap, a white cap. White cap, yeah. All right, pretty good. Thanks for agreeing to do the... I know I had to twist your arm a little. There's some moving parts to pull off all these hot cocktails. But yeah, we worked our way through quite a few. And I think, like we've said in a lot of the corn cocktail episodes, the good thing about a lot of these hot drinks is that you can customize them to your liking. So, they really are apt for using what you have on hand. You can, you know, switch out sugar for honey for whatever kind of spirits you like. So, there's a lot to play around with with these and they can be fun. Totally agree. I enjoyed everything I drank today and I enjoyed being a voyeur. Thanks for listening. If you liked this podcast episode, please leave a review. Make sure to tell your friends. Tell your friends, mom. Tell your mom. Tell everybody that you know. To subscribe to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Until next episode. I am Roger. I'm Pat. I'm Chris. I'm Jim. Keep tasting.