Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Pat Brophy, Director of Spirit Sales here at Binny's. I have some Monday to Friday friends in the room with me this week as well. Look at Pat taking his job description seriously. On one where he has a special guest he cares about. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's. I'm Jenna, I also do communications at Binny's. I'm Roger, and I do beer. And we got a special guest in the room with us today, Jack Summers, founder of Jack From Brooklyn, and Sorel Liqueur is here, welcome. What's up y'all, how you feel? We're feeling good. We're excited to drink this stuff today and taste it and talk to you about it. So Jack, for those who don't know, is the first African American man post-prohibition to be granted a license to produce liquor in America. And that was what, 2011? 2012. 2012, okay. And was that the birthplace of Sorel then? You want to kind of take us through how this came about? So it's really interesting in that I like to tell people I didn't create this beverage as much as I'm the first person to bottle it. It's been around for centuries. Okay. If you went back to West Africa 500 years ago, the West African's new hibiscus was a powerful medicinal plant full of antioxidants, full of antimicrobials. It's an antifungal, it's a, it's an aphrodisiac. This is a great all-around plant. And they would take the hibiscus flowers and they would boil them and make this tea and serve it as part of their ceremony in the celebration. Then the transatlantic trade starts and there are bodies and spices that are being moved out of Africa into the Caribbean. So this flower, hibiscus, literally takes root in the Caribbean and every island does a slightly different version based on what spices are being traded through their port. So it's not, and it's not a native plant in the Caribbean? It's not native to the Caribbean. No, it's native to Africa and it got transported to the rest of the world by the spice tree. Man, just like sugar cane too. We just moved everything everybody wanted down there. You're looking at me, but you should be looking at Roger. Roger's our resident sugar cane expert. I make them do things like make simple syrups and talk about nerdy different types of sugar. So that's why they're all having a laugh. But the story matters so much. You're absolutely right. If you went to the Caribbean and had Sorel, S-O-R-R-E-L, if you went to Jamaica, for example, they would do a version that had hibiscus flowers with ginger and cardamom and allspice and of course rum, because everything in Jamaica is rum. If you went deeper into the spice route, say Trinidad and Tobago, you had East Indian influences, so you would get hibiscus again, but maybe with clove or cinnamon and ginger. But not always rum, because the Trinities aren't as big a drinkers as the Jamaicans, maybe nobody is. That's a challenge I'm willing to accept. My grandparents came from Barbados, so again, rum and everything. You have a cold, rum. You have a toothache, rum. You break your leg, rum. So this is a beverage I grew up with. I made a version of it in my kitchen for friends and family for almost 20 years. I never thought twice about it. Twelve years ago, I had a cancer scare. My doctor found a tumor the size of a golf ball inside my spine. And he said, you are probably going to die. And if you live, you might be paralyzed. You should organize your paperwork. Short version is I lived. Yay! Spoiler alert. Well, it would be weird if I was giving this interview from the grave. We got real high-tech equipment here. The experience adjusted my perspective. I had 25 years invested in corporate America. But what I really wanted to do with my life is day drink. That is the most admirable pursuit of all humankind. We just call it drinking here. We just call it work. I want to hang out with cool ass people in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, talking about things that matter over good food and good libations. And I wanted to monetize it. And when I couldn't think who was going to pay me to do that, I thought to myself, I know what I'll do. I'll launch a liquor brand. How hard can it be? Pay yourself to do it. How hard can it be? Famous last word. It's actually really pretty hard. Really, really hard. Yeah. A few things are stacked against you when launching a liquor brand these days, you know? Well, the interesting part is when I got my license to make liquor in 2012, I was the only black person in America with a license with a DSP. Turns out I'm the first black person post-prohibition that we know to have gotten a DSP license. We don't really have good records pre-prohibition for obvious reasons. Fawn Weaver, friend of the podcast, probably a few years after that then, right? Fawn Weaver 2017, but it was Chris Montana right after me. Oh yeah, Chris Montana. In 2013, we Denort Spirits. Yeah, Denort Spirits. Now there's a handful of us, so progress. For those of you who might not know, Denort was pretty heavily damaged in looting and rioting in Minneapolis, and the craft distilling community came around them and really took care of Denort, though, and have helped build it back. They make some really cool stuff. So you're making Sorel at home. Question number one I have is what kind of rum were you using? See, this is the really interesting part is what makes Sorel, different from Sorel, is I don't use rum as my base spirit. Every Caribbean family that's ever made this puts rum if they want an alcoholic version, but rum has its own dissolved particulate matter as you know, it's got its own dissolved sugars. So it never on a molecular level bonds with the particulate in the base mix. I was the first person to use a neutral grain at medicinal strength. It's actually a neutral wheat certified, kosher certified organic. They bonds on a molecular level to any particulate. So anything bigger than an atom bonds to the sugar in the alcohol. It forms complex polysaccharide chains. This manifests as pectins. We remove the pectins, we filter it, and what's left is crystal clear and shelf stable. It's literally color and flavor in alcohol and nothing else. And that's, is that natural color in there? That's actual, that's all natural color. It's just hibiscus flowers giving all that beautiful redness. Let's taste some of this already, huh? Let's taste this stuff. We are sitting here talking, we're not drinking, it's a travesty. Yeah, we're actively fighting you on your day drinking for a living thing here right now, so we failed. When do you get to start hanging out with people and talking about fun stuff and drinking? So traditional, we're calling it Sorel, and we're pronouncing yours, Sorel. There's a reason for this. I have a speech impediment. I can't pronounce the letter R. So for me, trying to say Sorel is like trying to say Rural, or Teror, it's an awful word. But I had eight years of enunciation class in public school. Other kids got to go play when I went to see a speech pathologist and here's one of the things that I learned. Words that end in a down sound are sad. Sorel is a sad word. Sorel is happy and I can pronounce it. It's literally called Sorel, so I don't sound like a dumbass if you see my face in there. There's some subliminal messaging going on there too, for sure, though. So there's a lot of clove on the nose. Yes, yes. But when it hits your palate, the acidity of the hibiscus takes over and then it's fruity and floral. There's a little bit of burn in the sides, that's a cinnamon note. It finishes dry, that's a nutmeg. And the ginger is almost perfectly masked in the heat of the alcohol. So you never actually taste booze, you just feel booze. There's not a lot of residual sugar. You see something like this with that list of ingredients. And in the liqueur aisle, you kind of assume it's going to be a bit on the cloying side. And this is light enough on its feet. It's weighty, but it's not cloying. And it's not way far from overly sugary. This is really nicely balanced. There's no thickening agent, there's no adaglycerin. It is literally botanicals, alcohol. No adaglycerin? No, absolutely not. You're full of s**t. There's no way. There's just enough sugar to cut the acidity of the hibiscus. So what's your favorite way to enjoy this? With friends on a Wednesday afternoon. With friends during the day. Caribbeans tend to drink this straight over ice. We do not mix it. But I will tell you that the bartenders have done amazing things with this beverage in that it's probably the most versatile modifier out there. You can mix it with gin, rum, mezcal, tequila, vodka, whiskey, rye, bourbon, sake, whatever you mix this with, it does one thing very well. It pushes the alcohol back and the flavor forward. So if you put it with a gin, you'll get more botanicals. If you put it with an agave, a tequila or a mezcal, you'll get more fruit. If you put it in something that's been aged, a whiskey or a rye, you'll get more barrel notes. If you put it with a sake, you'll get more rice. So Sorel hides the alcohol and pronounces the flavor. I totally want this in an old-fashioned. That's so good. Right? With a lot of citrus too. Absolutely. Yeah. Roger always calls elderflower Liqueur, the bartender's catch-up. But as soon as I tried this, I thought this would work better than elderflower. Way better. In anything. It would go in tiki drinks, obviously, with all the making spice, and gin, in a Negroni. Anywhere that you would use for mousse, but you want something more spicy and mellow. We actually commissioned a Negroni to honor Gas Regan. They'll be called the Gas. We have a Sorel Negroni, which I think he would enjoy that is always, of course, best finger stirred. That's awesome. We talk about Gary's orange bitters all the time. All the time. Yeah. That was sad to hear of Gas' passing. He's a legend. The Joy of Mixology, I think, is a book that everybody, I know books aren't big these days, everything is just your phone, but that's a book that I think is worth every penny. Absolutely. Another thing I would point out with this is the baking spice component of it with the clove and the nutmeg. It's almost cola-esque. Yes. So think of how many things you mix with cola. Yeah. This, again, just the mixability of this, it's delicious on its own. But with champagne, sparkling wine, like instead of chambord, this with sparkling wine, that'd be delicious. Yeah. So the really funny part is it's different hot to cold. If you serve it cold, it's fruity and floral. If you serve it hot, it's spicy and nutty. So what we see is it takes on a seasonal effect as the seasons change. So for springtime, we do see lots of the spritzes, and we see the margaritas come out. For summertime, Sorel and champagne, easy. Yeah. For the fall, again, it's the stirred cocktails, it's old fashions and Manhattan's. In the wintertime, we see toddies. So it really is all year round. Yeah. So what's your name for your riff on the Ker Royale? I feel like you got to have one. We call that the Rihanna. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Rihanna is our most famous Bayesian. We have to honor her in some way. She's a hero of Barbados. Yeah. And just a general bad ass. And just a- She is a self-made billionaire. I am not mad at her. No, not at all, not at all. Bergamot tea or Earl Grey tea, just top it off with a little bit of this instead of anything sweet. That's your toddy? Yeah. Well, I mean, with toddy, I would put in like a little bourbon too, but you know, that's just me. But just as the juice up your tea a little bit, take the edge off in the afternoon. Or in the morning. Yeah. Most importantly, during the day. So, Jack, when you started this thing, I mean, how did you make it first? Where did you go about it first? I mean, this has grown considerably since 2012. Are we talking about when I made it to get the recipe right? I guess when you got a DSP. Like how did you transition? Like it's anybody who's home brewed or, you know, made wine or something their house knows, you can't just like go, well, I made this IPA in my kitchen. I should just start selling it. There's a scaling involved there and dialing a recipe in that isn't just snapping your fingers. I should note that I'm not a food scientist. And before I did this, I'd never bartended and I had no experience in hospitality whatsoever. What I set out to do is make a shelf stable version of this. It took 624 tries. Wow. And that was after making it in my kitchen for 20 years. The joke I tell at this point is, if you have an idea that you think is so good, no one's ever thought of it before, it's probably a terrible idea. It's probably a reason no one had ever done this before. People tried and gave up, but you didn't. I didn't feel like I had a right to quit, given all of the sacrifice of the people who came before me. I don't ever think about what it's like to stop because my parents didn't and my grandparents didn't. I only get to do this because everyone else before me didn't quit. So I don't quit either. And now you're bringing the stories and histories of your ancestors and several other people's ancestors into homes all over the country, which is really incredible. Sorel is a beautiful drink, but it tells a story that goes over centuries of a culture that refused to be erased. There's an almost epigenetic memory among the African diaspora of what's known as the red drink. And this is where it all starts. It starts in Africa thousands of years ago with hibiscus flowers. So I really believe that this is an opportunity to tell a story of joy and perseverance through the bottle. It's beautiful. And it tastes really good. And it tastes good. Yeah, it is awesome. What was the big challenge? I mean, as far as going through hundreds of iterations of this, what was the biggest challenge in creating this to be shelf stable? Was it a color stability thing or was it just a shelf life thing? It was actually deciding to move away from rum and toward a neutral grain. That was a key difference. I actually tried 14 different kinds of neutral grains. Before I settled on wheat, wheat has the best mouthfeel. I felt it's more expensive and entirely worth it. Yeah. I mean, there's millions of gallons of cheap neutral corn spirit out there, but it wouldn't be the same. It's not the same. Yeah. How about sourcing the botanicals? I'm sure that was an adventure as far as you have specific places I would imagine each component is from. That's a great question. I actually consulted with a spice company named Galumbic out of Brooklyn. It's a guy that was running his grandfather's company, so he's at least third or fourth generation. Basically, what he told me was that botanicals are a lot like a grape variety in that, the quality of the soil makes all the difference. The same way a grape that grows up in an arid climate needs to draw up minerals and nutrients from the ground, the hibiscus that's grown, my hibiscus is always North African. It's either Egyptian or Moroccan. But because it's an arid climate, it has to draw up more minerals from the soil in order to survive. Yeah, it has to work harder. It's just punchier than the flowers that are grown in tropical climates. Interesting. I never thought about that with flowers, but I mean, it makes sense. It's, you know, you brought up agave spirits earlier and, you know, those agaves grown in harsher conditions, like in the highlands, tend to be a little more succulent and a little more sweet, just because they have to work so much harder to produce There's a weakness in having to fight to survive. Yeah, there really is. Huh, we're getting a philosophical lesson here today, along with our Caribbean mccore. I get woody when I drink. Man, this is good. Any specific recipes that are favorites? I like a Black Manhattan, a good Amaro, a good bourbon, and this. I like it in the Negroni. But really the thing to do is just get a couple of your friends, get some lines and get some like ginger beer or seltzer. The fun thing about Sorel as opposed to its contemporaries, which are all fantastic, is it's meant to be consumed straight. There are lots of terrific liqueurs out there, which you just can't drink. They're always components, but never actually something that you would drink by itself. Sorel, you get two, three friends, you get some ginger beer or some seltzer, you get a couple of limes, and the bottle's gone in an hour. And because it doesn't have fruit, you don't get sulfites, you don't get tannins, you don't get that headache afterwards. The kids aren't just sipping Benedictine on the rocks these days. Well, I think the important distinction to make, too, is that when people hear liqueur, they immediately think sweetness, and this is not overly sweet by any means. Not at all, it's, yeah. And you mentioned earlier, it finishes with a dryness, and that's, you know, there's a dry spice box, like the spice aisle at Whole Foods kind of character in both the nose and the finish, I think. It finishes spicy and punchy, I love it. I think what's kind of interesting right now, too, is we've been kind of joking about that the alcohol industry right now is kind of interesting in that there's lots of people in beer, for example, that are very interested in high alcohol beers. Right. And then there's another handful of people that are gravitating towards non-alcohol beers. So at the same time, we have people that are like, I think it was COVID, you know, it kind of made people stuck in their homes and they were drinking a little more during the week than they had in the past. And during the day. Yeah. So I think with Sorel, one thing to mention is that it's relatively low alcohol. So if you do want something that's very flavorful, but doesn't have a ton of alcohol, you could use it as just something to mix. But then if you wanted something that was higher, you can obviously mix it with other spirits. So it's pretty versatile in that way. So I can't do no alcohol because I'm my grandparents are from Barbados. But here's the fun thing. For reasons unbeknownst to me, low ABV cocktails and hibiscus are both trending super high this year. I've released this 10 years ago. So when you see the hibiscus products and the low ABV products come out in the years to follow, we can officially say we didn't jump on the bandwagon. The bandwagon jumped on us. So this has been around for 10 years and it started just locally in New York, right? I mean, and this is you trying to sell it into accounts and you're hustling trying to make this thing happen. And it's grown to now how many states? When it was just me and my vice president, Summer Lee, in New York, we headed up to 20 states in four countries. Wow. We got a couple of national deals that were offered to us that fell through. And then we took a pause to find the right partner and we talked to everybody. Uncle Nearest is the right partner. Yeah. So I was going to bring that up next. Were you guys the first brand to receive that funding? Uncle Nearest has this fund set for black owned alcohol enterprises, right? So we were not the first. I should make it a point to say Uncle Nearest is helping out about 20 different black owned brands in different ways. Fawn Weaver really believes that this is about us. As spectacular as she is, she truly feels and is out to prove that others could do what she does if they had access to the same resources. The Uncle Nearest Fund officially has two so far beneficiaries, Equiano Rum. Okay. Run by Ian Barrel, the World Rum Ambassador, and Sorel Liqueur run by me. So we're having a great time with this, seeing it spread across the country. We're in right now 14 different markets. We're launching eight markets this quarter. We'll be in half the country by the end of the year, and then we're going to have some more from it that next year. And they're just running you ragging on the road for the Dog and Pony Show with this and that. You know what? I do not complain about the fact that I get to drink How many crappy liquor store podcasts are you going to have to make up in the next five months? Here's the thing though. The fun thing about Sorel for me from a demographic perspective is it doesn't skew to any specific demographic. It doesn't go white, black, young, old, straight, gay. It goes straight across all of the boundaries and says, can we just sit down and have a conversation and a drink? I'm a person who believes that much of what we fight about in this country could be solved if we could just sit down at a bar and have a conversation and a drink. I think when a lot of people are considering entrepreneurial pursuits and starting a business, they don't necessarily think about how challenging it's going to be at times. What have been some of the hurdles that you've come across in making this a success? Because I know it hasn't been easy, right? So the joke I tell at this point is going crazy is easy. Staying crazy takes commitment. The challenge always is money. If you don't have a few million bucks lying around to begin with, or if you're not born into a liquor family, it's pretty much impossible to do. Oh, yeah. I had been incredibly fortunate in that I was able to raise just enough money to get this off the ground. The first few years, it was literally we lived on what we could sell. If we didn't sell, we didn't eat, which is motivating. I've grown accustomed to eating. Now, we're in a different spot where we are partnering with Uncle Nearest, and we've got the resources to make sure that this gets the proper marketing, the proper distribution, and me on the road doing all the things that help people become aware of this. So, the biggest challenge is always money. But I really want to say, as the founder, you have to be out of your mind to do this. You have to be crazy. But you have to surround yourself with sane people. Crazy idea, good accountants. You got to have an accountant you trust, you got to have a lawyer you trust. I get to be crazy because everyone around me is stark raving sane. That's the old thing with the whiskey business too. You know, how do you make a small fortune in a whiskey business? Start with 10 million. Start with an even larger fortune. All right, cool. I really like the idea that this is so complimentary in stronger stirred drinks but can also just be a refresher with a sparkling water or a champagne or something like that too. This is arguably one of the more versatile things we've tasted recently. And flavor packed and complex. Yeah, there's so many layers to this thing. So alcohol has a problem that people genuinely don't want to talk about and that is that alcohol does not taste good. And bad alcohol can kill you. And as humans, we've spent thousands of years trying to figure out how to make alcohol taste good so we can enjoy the effects. We put it in barrels, we add limes, we add fruit. We do all sorts of things to make alcohol taste better. And what the big liquor companies generally do is they take their alcohol and they add flavor. My methodology reverses that instinct. Instead of taking alcohol and adding flavor, I take flavor and add alcohol. And it's just enough alcohol to make sure that no matter what you put it in, the flavor is going to be first. I don't even know what to say to that. I want to talk about the hibiscus flowers for a minute though. So these are coming from North Africa. What do they look like when they get to the point where they're going to be processed into the liqueur? I mean, are these things like dried and turned and powdered and crumbled, or are they whole petals? I've only ever seen a hibiscus flower as like a garnish on a tiki drink or something. Or floating in that syrup, in the hibiscus syrup thing that we sell. That we stack by champagne, yeah. We are buying dried botanicals literally by the ton. Whoa. So it's dried hibiscus, which literally just looks like a dried flower, dried ginger, dried nutmeg, dried cinnamon, which is cassia bark, and whole cloves. We make sure everything goes through a mincer so we have an evenness for the most possible surface area. It's amazing to do because every time we brew this, people come around for miles and they want to know, what are we doing? Because it smells like home. The joke I tell is if you took mom's apple pie and dad's liquid cabinet and they got busy, and you put it in a bottle, that's Sorel. As you alluded to, Hibiscus is definitely having a moment right now. I mean, it's the last few years, we're starting to see it pop up everywhere. Hibiscus is having a moment which is again, interesting to people of Caribbean background because we've had it all our lives. But what most people don't realize when they start to play with Hibiscus is, it is a monster to work with. It's so acidic. It's got more citric acid than most citric fruit, that most people just bury it in sugar, and then it is syrupy and cloying and not fun. There is no definitive version of sorrow because again, every island did it differently, and the people who were doing this 500 years ago weren't allowed to write down recipes because you weren't allowed legally to read or write. So what this tries to do is instead of having Hibiscus be a single note, have Hibiscus be the star in an ensemble cast. So there's clove for brightness, the cinnamon's adding a little warmth, the ginger's almost perfectly masking the alcohol, and the nutmeg is giving it that dry woody finish. So you get all of those notes who would like to compete, but the proportions are enough so that they just play instead. Yeah, none of those are on their own a particularly subtle flavor. But here they really work well in harmony. It's interesting. Roger, you were talking about Hibiscus and you brought, of course, you couldn't help yourself, so. Roger brought a treat. He's either gonna love it or trash it. So one of our favorite breweries here in Chicago is Revolution. One of their most popular beers is a seasonal that they do called Rosa. It is made with hibiscus. So I thought it would be fun to try this, maybe even add a little sorrel to it. Absolutely. Sorel, Roger. Happy, happy, happy inflection. Here's the thing. Caribbeans, when they see this, will automatically try to correct you if you say sorrel. That's sorrel. And I go, with all due respect, this is sorrel. Would you like to try some? And they look at me and they go, my grandmother make the best sorrel. You have to excuse my accent, it's terrible. And I say, with all due respect to grandma, try this. And then they look and if they try it and they go, it's not bad. Which is the best compliment you're ever going to get from a Caribbean person. It's not bad. I'll take two. Can I have some more? When you go around explaining this story to everyone, so again, to your point, to some of us, hibiscus might be a new thing, but to others, it's very old. It goes by several names then, right? So a lot of people might be more familiar with it as... If you go to West Africa, they call it bisop. If you go to Mexico, they call it hamaika. There are lots of different versions of this. I feel that Sorel is a new chapter on a very, very old story. This thing has been around for at least 500 years. This is my opportunity again to help spread this story of perseverance and of joy through the glass. So however people have enjoyed it, I don't want to feel like this replaces any of those things. It does not. We want to contribute to the story. And I feel like I always have to tell people, this isn't, it's not my story. I'm the custodian of the story for this generation. It's only my job to make sure the story goes on after I'm gone. I bring it up because I know Rosa has been extremely popular with the Latin American, Latinx community. And I think that they might not be familiar with your product. And I think would love it because making Hamayka tea is such a ubiquitous thing. You know, you'll see it in a lot of taquerias and stuff. They'll just be that available. So Rosa on its own is pretty good. It has like a grainy, pretty simple. Is it ale or is it lager? It's an ale. It's ale. But it's a real simple, like golden ale base. And then there's this kind of red fruit and a little bit of floral note on top of it. I'm really looking forward to trying them together. Try it because it's awesome. I had already jumped there. I had him pour me some more. Absolutely. I think it adds just more flavor and a lot more body. When you pour a little bit in the beer, it's awesome. Oh, it is awesome. And I'm a noted hater of beer cocktails. That's true. But this is really good. This is really good. It fills out those spaces in the middle. Yeah. Oh, that's good. It's springy, but it would work in the autumn too. There's nothing wrong with this. No, it's a funny thing. People think cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and they think autumn, but this comes from a place where it's always 85 degrees out. My ancestors would never think of drinking this hot. Listen, we're in Chicago. It's cold. This is delicious hot. I was learning that about tiki drinks as Roger's been pounding this into my head for the last couple of years, that it starts with rum and lime, then you put baking spices on top of it and you can get some exquisite and also springy flavors, like bright fresh flavors. Super cool. I was surprised that you didn't use allspice. Was that one of the things you played around with? Because we always joke that allspice dram is my true play the ham horn. I can reference it whenever I can. Yeah, everything. Everything you could slip it into. I played with versions that had allspice. I played with versions that had cardamom. Eventually, I went with clove because I felt like clove worked better in the mix, the overall mix and allspice did. Allspice was again trying to compete. The clove is trying to complement. Interesting. What about other spices? Did you consider like anise or fennel? Fennel didn't really work, considered anise. But again, the real trick was to build things up around the hibiscus. Yeah, those are pretty strong flavors. All strong flavors. But the real question was, what can I build that will make hibiscus sing? This lets the hibiscus sing and you can't hear in the chorus, the faults of the hibiscus, because hibiscus is a tough product to work with. I want it to shine and if there were any, for whatever reason, if there's any bitterness in the hibiscus, it's compensated for by the other botanicals that it's surrounded with. So that was really the trick for me. You have time to stick around for a Q&A. We have a listener question that you might be able to help us with. Absolutely. Okay. Hey folks, that brings us to the Q&A portion of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's... Holy sh**, we still do these. Okay. Well, we have a question today. It's from Mary Rose. Is that right? John, you want to read the question? Yeah, sure. Yeah, our question is from Katie Rose. Katie Rose, yes. You turned Katie into Mare May? Mare Mary Rose, I made it up. My brain is, well, that's stupid. Anyway, Katie Rose asks, I've had two kinds of rum that I've liked and two that I'm lukewarm on. She liked Dovetail Florida and Plantation Pineapple Rum, not wild about North Shore Distillery, Double Wood Rum or Plantation Isle of Fiji. What should I look for in a rum if I'm interested in bittersweet smoky flavors but don't love funk? Should I throw in the towel and stick to tequila or am I mixing it when I should be drinking it neat or vice versa? I'm on team Katie Rose here. What a loaded question. I also like the sweeter and fruitier qualities without getting too- You can't handle that dunder. I do not like the dunder. I do not like the funk. It sounds like what she's looking for is Diplomatico. Yeah, honestly. Yeah, I was going to joke and say, just stick with heavily sugar-added rums. But Diplomatico would be a great option. It's on the sweet side because it's Central American, South American. It's not like cloying and syrupy though. So they do a really nice job. I think pot- So when she said funk, I feel like she's done a little homework. So some of the pot still rums, especially from Jamaica, are going to be that somewhat acquired taste. You either like it or hate it. I mean, if you're drinking rum punch with Ray and nephew, that's an acquired taste. I mean, it's funky, it's strange. I acquired that taste at like five years old. That's when he was day drinking in grade school. Right. So those can be fun, but I feel like you don't just go out the gate liking that. So I would suggest when you play around with those rums, those are good for mixing and you view it almost as a component of a bigger canvas. It's a spice to be added. Rum is a rabbit hole. This person sounds like they're going down the rabbit hole. I got to tell you, they're going to move through the diplomaticals of the world and they're going to end up in the funks. Yeah. You think it's a gateway funk? Absolutely. Well, gateway funk is what I think of the plantation Isle of Fiji as though, because it's got a bit of that grassiness to it and very low dosage they would call it, added sugar. But plantation pineapple is the other side of the spectrum, obviously. We just talked about that a few episodes ago. Yeah. I think you're spot on with the diplomatical. Diplomatical or El Dorado, I think would be good jumping off points. Who's been in Jamaica? Sadly, I've not. The person who asked this question is starting off at the resort and wandering off into the hills and they're going to end up in someone's backyard with chickens running around and a grill out in the fire and an actual pot still somewhere in the back and they're going to have a good time. But it's a journey and everyone gets to make the journey in their time. I have to admit it too because I don't like thunder, but when I have a tiki drink and it doesn't have a single bit of that, I think, well, this is kind of lame. I need a little, it's just a touch of it at this point. For context, we threw them into the deep end or making them try like a rum fire. So, I mean, it doesn't get more ester and crazy than that. But what's the 100 proof mix one? Denzin does one? Oh, Denizen. Yeah, you can try Denizen, aged dark or vatted dark, I think it is. It's a blend of Guiana and Jamaica. I think there's some agri-col in there too. Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Like a tiny little bit. What do you think about rum agri-col? It's a different part of the Caribbean, but it's very different. Rum is a gigantic category that is both unregulated and often maligned because I think it's terribly misunderstood. I think some of the best liquids out there are rums. If you give me a choice about it, I will always, and my whiskey friends are going to be mad at me about this, but I'll take a good one over a good whiskey any day. I'd fight him. I'll fight him. I've always been a huge component of that rum is the most underappreciated category in our store. It's one of the best values and you do need to work your way through it and you need to try all the different kinds of varieties and expressions because they vary tremendously. I think there's an educational component that absolutely plays in. People will see a six-year-age rum and a 12-year-age scotch and not realize it because of the humidity, the elevation. The barometric pressure. A six-year-old rum is equivalent in time to a 12-year-old scotch. Right. All right. The last thing to put a cap on it is we do have rum tastings and as tastings come back, get out there and try as many as you can. Be sure to spit. All right. So Katie Rose, thanks for the question. I think that's $20 worth of answer with a little bit of Jackie thrown in on top for good measure. Everybody else, write your questions to us at comments at binnys.com via e-mail or hit us up on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, at Binny's Bev. At Binny's Bev, social media of your choice. Your choice. Most of them. YouTube. Yes. Before we go, can I just say one thing? Yes. If I didn't say this, I would get in trouble with my VP Summer. Since we relaunched last year, we have won best in class, best craft to steal the spirits competition, best in show, great American international competition, best American or Billecourt World Liquor Awards, and gold San Francisco, double gold at John Billecourt, and a gold John Billecourt. So we are very much trying to follow in the significant Uncle Neal's footsteps of winning every award in our category. Just racking up awards. I mean, you don't have to sell us. We're already on board. The awards are consumer confidence. It's someone else saying to the consumer, this is good stuff. So I don't have to say that because I know it's good stuff. Yeah. And you're an experienced spirit judge too, right? You've judged some ACSA competitions, haven't you? I've judged a few of the competitions. I've judged ACSA, I've judged San Francisco. I have been a James Byrd judge in the past. I should mention, I'm a James Byrd nominee this year. Really? For literary. Congratulations. Congratulations. That's huge. I'm super proud of this because I really believe that while hospitality is considered food and beverage, they tend to treat liquor like the stepchildren in the equation. And this is not an essay that was about liquor, it was about food. So I really feel this is an opportunity as a distiller who's nominated in the food category to step into the light for the whole industry. Where can people find this essay? It is on Epicurious. It's called All the Food You Can Eat and Only the Family You Can Stand. Jackie, awesome. Thank you so much. An inspiring story, an amazing product. Thank you so much. And again, like my whole thing is I got to drink with cool ass people today. Then you had to come to us? No he wasn't looking at Roger. Well, I got a new favorite. I'm going to have to keep this at home all the time. Another one. Yeah, well. Is it hazards of working with these guys? I mean, mix it with champagne or like seltzer, I could down that whole bottle. That's a dangerous bottle. With this Rosa, this combo is pretty great, huh? I think they complemented each other really well. The things go best with his friends. Yeah. Oh. Jackie, thanks again, man. We really appreciate your time today. Listeners, hit us up with any questions. Check out Sorel at your local Binny's. If you liked it, do us a favor, leave us a review. We'll see you next week. I'm Pat. I'm Greg. I'm Jenna. I'm Roger. I'm Jackie. Keep tasting.