I love Manhattans. Yeah, that's kind of established. Really? Over the last 20 years, you've consistently chosen Manhattans over food. Yeah, have. So that's how we started an episode in January 2020. We don't remember that. Well, not after so many Manhattans. So anyway, we finished that episode. We did a bunch of different Vermouths. We tried a bunch of different Vermouths, and then it devolved into this mix and match bitters thing where we just started. Roger complained about Fee Brothers for an hour. That was most of it. That was literally most of it. I crushed your favorite bitter, tasted like Red Hat candies. Yeah. At the end of the episode, Pat said, well, in a couple of months, we're going to do a follow-up where we taste a bunch of bitters. So now we're going to do a bunch of bitters. I lost count. It's either 18 or 19. So we can't **** around. We have to just plow through this one. So roll the music and let's go. Hey, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's, and we have the team together. Hey, I'm Pat. I do spirit stuff at Binny's. Hey, I'm Jenna. I communicate for Binny's. Roger, beer, seltzer, hard tea. I've been thinking about this for a while. I went through the last of my Fee Brothers Old Fashioned Aromatic Bitters. And I was like- And Roger shamed you into not a repurchase? And I was looking on my shelf, and I had the cherry and the peach because of the BroFatten, which has been just wildly disappointing. It is not very good. And then I bought some mint bitters, which I don't know why. I don't know how to use that. Yeah, what the hell are you- And I was thinking like, which one should I buy next? So part of me wants to do this so that we'll have a whole bunch of bitters sitting around. So what we're going to do is we're going to- I batched a whole bunch of Manhattans without the bitters, and we're just going to do lightning round after a lightning round of bitters in identical batched Manhattans. So to keep it easy, the whiskey we're using is Clark and Sheffield bourbon. And I like that because it's a good bourbon and also because it's not going to get in the way, like rice spice would get in the way. It's a little bit more of a neutral canvas. And after some deliberation, we agreed that Carpano Classico would be the vermouth for all of these. I had considered Cokie Americano because I love it so much, but it's just big and sweet. And we had considered Dolan. Considered Dolan, but it's a little too herbal. So we tried to split the difference. So we have a relatively neutral, easygoing Manhattan, and we're just going to slam through a bunch of different bitters. Perfect. Perfect. How many dashes? Sounds like a terrible day. I knew he was going to say that. Yeah, of course. How many dashes? One dash per Manhattan, I would say. I think we should go a little heavy on the bitters since we're focusing on them. So I'm going to go like this. I'm going to go like this. Greg made the shake weight movement. One, two, three, maybe? Until you guys tell me to stop. I'm just going to keep going like this, okay? Oh, we're playing Olive Garden choose game. All right. So I got these little adorable jars, and I'm just going to shake some bitters into the jars. Every single jar has ounce lines on them. So it's two ounces of Clark and Sheffield bourbon and one ounce of Carplano Vermouth. So just total scientific precision. Has Roger told you about this thing called the Reverse Manhattan? That's a good option for even if you're trying to, you don't want to do dry January, you can do like a low alcohol January. Pat, we have like 19 bitters to go through. All right. I handed these guys a list, but just for everybody's sake, Angostura Aromatic Bitters. The classic, here it is, Angostura Aromatic. How are you going to keep that voice on when we get to like Slappy Rick's, you know, slapping hot bitters or whatever it is. Payshouds Aromatic Cocktail Bitters. Jack Daniel's Tennessee Cocktail Bitters. Are those bubblegum flavored? When did that become a thing? Fee Brothers, Old Fashioned Aromatic Bitters. Cinnamon Redheads. All right, enough of this. Pass Manhattan. I'm doing the voice so I can be consistent. Okay. So shut the f**k up. Midnight Orange. Midnight Orange. Classic. Angostura Aromatic Bitters. This Angostura Aromatic Bitters came from my basement, so it's already mostly empty, so a little dab will do you because it's going to come, like a little shake gets a lot out. So bam, bam. This is already scientifically going off the rails. All right. We each have a cocktail glass with one Chicago Classic Cubes. Roger's favorite ice. Should I just pour the rest of this out? Is that how this goes? Yeah, whatever. Angostura Aromatic Bitters, the classic. I was going to ask you guys why they put the paper on the way that they do because I have to squinch it down because it just comes as a tube that the ball sticks out. Because ever working at the factory every day is like, you know what? I'm not squinching this. Screw these guys. Is there still plastic spoons around the corner? Yeah. I can taste all the bitters. The best way to do that is to dump them into soda water. That's how I always do it. They have a few dashes in the soda water and then it scrubs and it doesn't overpower you. Or you could just taste the bitters. I mean, you could. What do you guys know about Angostura bitters? Because it's the classic. On my nose, I get a lot of clove and nutmeg. Other than that, I don't know what the flavor is. There's a bunch of quinine in there. That's where it came up with in Venezuela. So the Angostura River Valley in Venezuela. This local doctor there had invented them as a medicinal tonic back in the day. A European guy, I want to say he was German or something. So the herbal complexity just jumps out on the nose. I know Roger always slams Fee Brothers for being one-dimensional. I think that this is complexity in a bottle, and it's going to be a real challenge for any bitters company to actually come up with something more interesting than this. I like the Fee Brothers just because it has a little more openness and sweetness. You know, like just easier to read flavors, and this seems a little more severe, but this is such a good bitters, and it's in like every gas station in America, every grocery store. I don't know about gas stations. It's in every bait shop in Wisconsin. You can get this anywhere. The most Angostura bitters consumed in the world is at a bar in Wisconsin, in Washington Island. What a night that was. So, I mean, this is classic, right? This is the Steakhouse Manhattan, right here. This is a nice Manhattan. It's pretty tasty. It feels so fancy. All right. Otherwise... It added a nice little layer of baking spice to this. There's certainly some comparable flavors in the Vermouth we're using too. You know what I don't get that you guys talk about all the time? I don't get orange out of this. And you say that it's an orange forward thing, but I don't... it's not there for me. There's some orange in there. Is it? Raj? Yeah. I get bitter orange peel or like grapefruit peel. I'm gonna bottle again. On the nose? No, on the finish. On the finish. I think the nose is pretty dominated by that spice character. All right. Next up, another classic. Aromatic cocktail bitters. I poured my ice cube into my spit cup. I don't know why you did that. I did the same thing. Long way to go here. I really should have pre-opened these. Luckily, you're one of those weird guys that keeps a knife on you at all times. Dads are very popular on Christmas. I believe he carries knives. Note the lack of dexterity with said knife. Shut up. All right. Shaking the Peychauds. This is a brand new bottle. Oh, man. Good man. We need to experience the bitters. That's the point. Jim, I need another ice cube. All right. All right. We've heard the pitch about Peychauds enough times. Roger, you can tell us this is a big New Orleans one. I think it's, is it brandy-based? It's probably neutral, somewhat of a neutral bitters. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's the classic bitters from New Orleans. It famously is much more botanical driven and floral than some of your more herbaceous bitters. The key ingredient in a Sazerac cocktail, which is the official cocktail of New Orleans, it's not the hurricane. So just smelling the bitters on its own, it always smells like the black jelly beans. It has an anise and a violet quality. Roger, also your classic Manhattan was a couple of shakes of Angostura and a couple of shakes of Pechauds. Yeah. I like mixing this with Angostura. I think the two work together really well. I'm guilty of picking up that technique in the last two years. Good. That's a common thing with cocktails to call things perfect. If you use like, if you make a martini and use dry and sweet vermouth. So I like calling it a perfect Manhattan when I use more than one kind of bitters. The anise really comes out on the nose here. Pass. Pass? What are you talking about? I'm not a big anise guy. Oh. Never into the blackjack gum. Shockingly. Anything, Jenna? I like the way it pops. I love black licorice. I like this one. I do prefer the Angostura though. I like the shocking. I like the more fruity aspect of the Angostura. It is. Yeah. It finishes with a lot of pizzazz though on the palate. It finishes with a lot of pizzazz. So I upped it. I'm giving it a good plus plus on this Manhattan. Oh no. He's back into this system again. Whenever I taste anything, that's my system. Okay. Cancel our blog page to understand Brophy's weighty rates things. Yeah. All right. Cool. Anyway, that's a classic and you need it on your bar for all kinds of drinks. Yeah. And great mixed with Angostura. Jack Daniel's Tennessee cocktail bitters. I didn't know this was a thing until I was standing in the aisle and I went, huh, it looks like a tiny bottle of Jack Daniel's, so I better try it. Also, it says old number seven. Is that the thing? That's the thing, right? Yeah. I'm just going to shake heartily here because this is tiny drops. I feel like taking the little plastic thing out. This is nonsense. There we go. All right. Wait. All right. So scientific method on the window. How long have these been around for? I don't know. They're somewhat recent. I mean, we had them for the holidays. So Brown Forman actually makes cocktail branded bitters for a lot of, there's old Forrester ones out there, there's Woodford Reserve, there's Jack Daniels. We used to get asked for them a lot, so we brought a couple of them in. They're over there. I'm just sniffing this bottle and I'm going to hand it over to Roger. This one seems more like caramel, like a lot of caramel on the bitters themselves, and maybe just like a little bit of musky, like men's cologne, but it's not very much. It's kind of weird. There's like a woodsy bitter, like a wormwoody bitter in there. We know nothing about the Jack Daniels cocktail bitters, but strange, right? Like so, like Irish Spring or something like that. Yeah. Huh, I don't dislike it, you know? I mean, I'm like all kinds of weird flavors. God. That was Roger trying the bitters on their own. How's the cocktail, Roger? They do have an Irish Spring type of aroma. Yeah. It's very cloney. Soap. I imagine this is what it's like when the old-timey punishment of putting soap in your mouth. Whenever you say swears. I don't think it's that bad. It finishes with like a real caramely like caramely sugar, oaky character almost. It's interesting. Too cologne-esque. It gets a plain good in my book. If I had to describe this, I would call it manly. It is manly. What was the scent you guys are going for? Manly. That's one of the things that I like about the Manhattan, and especially the bitters that go into it. It feels like a, sorry, it sounds sexist or whatever, but it's like a guy smell. It's like the right bitters and it becomes a guy drink. I'm a monster, huh? Yeah. That bitters was monstrous. I'll see myself out. I mean, we haven't learned anything new yet so far. We'll put it that way. Well, we still got 17 more to go. We learned how bad that bitters is. It's not that bad. It wasn't that bad. I don't- Try it on its own. Who tries bitters on their own? I've done, you do shots of Onderberg. What are you talking about? Onderberg's different. But like this is, Onderberg's not a cocktail bitter, it's a digestive bitter. This is like expressly designed to only enhance other ingredients. Yeah, right. Roger, you're like, these noodles are gross. They're fine. You're like, well, try them before you boil them. A handful of raw noodles. I mean, you can still get a sense of, if you were talking about it from a spice standpoint, you can still taste. I am no defender of the Jack Daniels brand, but these aren't as bad as your advertising. Even in the cocktail, it made it weird. Fee Brothers Old Fashioned Aromatic Bitters. Ooh, Roger's favorite. My favorite, Greg's favorite. I can't even deal with your irony. It's not coming out enough. There's a ton in there now. It's fine. What are you doing over there? Roger, you need to smell this one. You want to know what a handful of Red Hots smells like? Yeah, let me revisit it. Yeah. My bitters cup kind of smells like Worcestershire sauce. This is my favorite. Roger, I'll tell you it smells like Red Hots, but I'm telling you there's a healthy dollop of clove and nutmeg in it too. As well as Red Hots. Pumpkin pie spice? Yeah. Back on that cinnamon train. Okay. I love it. It makes this already caramely and fruity kind of cocktail just taste even more like cherry pie, even more like pumpkin pie. Cue the warrant. It does smell like red hot. It's so spicy. In a very good way. It's so spicy. So spicy. I love this. I love this drink. It dominates the drink though. I mean, maybe it's because you also tried to put half the bottle in there. Yeah, no, I'm just getting bitters on that one. For me, that wasn't really that much more than usual. It's not bad, but it's so one-dimensional. You should put the top back on the jar and do a little slip. Pass me the jar of that Fee Brothers or the bottle of that Fee Brothers. Roger. Okay, I'll give them swishes from that one. It's all cinnamon, man. They have a good intro. It smells like those cinnamon pine cones that you can get at the store on Christmas time. It totally is. I have no idea what you're talking about. She ruined it, Greg. I bet those pine cones smell like nutmeg. You put it in your fireplace to bring up pleasant holiday charm to your home. I can get my Trader Joe's. You go to the stores at Christmas and you're just like hitting the face with that. I know that scent, yes. It's like the local pharmacy gift department smell. Yeah, buddy. I'm generally an ardent defender of most things, Greg, and this is not going to be one of them. All right. I'm excited for this next one. A whiskey barrel-aged version of the same cinnamon. Well, okay. Thank you. Fee Brothers whiskey barrel-aged bitters. It doesn't actually say whiskey barrel-aged old-fashioned aromatic bitters on here. I suppose it's not then. Who the hell? Fee Brothers two-age aromatic bitters is probably. Yeah, probably. This is a fall and winter seasonal from Fee Brothers. So if this is still in the store, that's all there's going to be for a bit because now they've moved on to the- so they split half the year with gin barrel-aged orange bitters and then whiskey barrel-aged aromatic bitters. I saw that in the system. That sounds good. So the whiskey barrel ones just stopped shipping two weeks ago and we just started sending the gin barrel orange ones into everybody that had run out of the whiskey barrel ones. I thought you were going to say it's a seasonal bitters so we have it all the time. No, it's a hot commodity. I mean, we sell out of these barrel-aged fee brothers, honestly. I think this one's splitting the difference for you guys. Roger, you got to like this one because it smells like that red hot quality only with more caramel and more- just like more vanilla. You know what? You're not wrong. There's definitely vanilla in there. That's an interesting melange, honestly. I've had a bottle of this at home for about seven or eight years. It's got a little spicy kick at the end. I think it brings out more orange quality in the cocktail, too. It's really nice. It's not Angostura level yet, but I'm putting it almost right up there in the grand rankings of Manhattan bitters. Yeah. It's really nice. I like this one. And it's less obvious. I guess I do like obvious things, just really obvious things. Yeah. Well, it's better than the regular, but still pretty cinnamon forward. So, so far we've had the classics, and then we've gotten into the spice train. We're about to go into several, what do you call these boutique? Yeah. I was looking for mixology focused, higher end boutique brands, exotic flavor type of something like that. Yeah. So we have some more classically spiced aromatic bitters, like aromatic bitters, in quotes, aromatic bitters. Yeah. But I don't think I've had any of these next few, so I'm excited. No, because they're all like 19 bucks. Yeah. But Angostura has gone up in price quite a bit, so these are looking a little more attractive these days. All right. So next up is the Bitter Truth, old time aromatic bitters. All right. I'm going to wait till Roger has this in his nose before I say what I'm thinking. But- Put it in the nose. Roger, as much as the Fee Brothers is- No, no, no, no. Don't worry about it. All right. As much as the Fee Brothers is cinnamon, cinnamon, cinnamon, this is clove, clove, clove. Yeah, clove studded orange. Yeah. Wait, orange? Yeah. I love- Nothing wrong with that. I like these bitters a lot. This smells terrific and not in a Angostura serious way. It's like pie spice, pie spice, baking spice. I hope you fall in love with the expensive bitter, so you have to make a Sophie's choice of more expensive bitter or switch your beer consumption purely to Dragon Lake. Yeah, jokes on you. I'll drink Dragon Lake. No, he's going to drink that box line now. Drink that Francia Pinot Grigio. It smells great, like barrels of fun. That's very tasty. It's a good bitters. I get an ice. Let's also take a moment to appreciate how this Manhattan is a wonderful canvas and that how much these bitters change the dynamic of the cocktail overall. It's like the deal breaker maker. Hey, Pat, here's a cap for that other and then the- Gee, Pat, thanks for making breakthrough, bringing the best Manhattan, Vermouth we've ever had. A Carpano Just. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty real good. Carpano only wants you to drink the Antica. Since Jim's not on this episode, I'm going to just sell him out right here. He was like, I don't know how to go through an entire liter. I'm like, what? In a glass like this with an ice cube. So use a pint glass. I don't see the issue. Yeah. I mean, I can attest that you can keep vermouth in the fridge way longer than vermouth snobs say you can. No. Yeah. I think I agree with that also. You don't have to get through it in 14 days. Well, that's good because I definitely have some old vermouth in my fridge. Interesting. So here, pass that Bitter Truth bottle over. Yeah. What are you tasting now, Thomas? I haven't even gotten to it yet. It's really good. I get a lot of orange from it. Wow. It definitely is clovey and orange on the bottle here, but the cocktail itself is okay. I mean, it's not particularly jumping out of the glass. Not jumping out of the glass. It's one of those? All right. Yeah, it's pretty good, Manhattan. Is it better than Angostura? No. I don't think so. I don't think it is. But I think it's almost as good. So it's different though. I think it's better than the Fee Brothers Barrel-Age, but not quite Angostura in my ranking. I don't even know why you're ranking them. They're just qualitatively different. Because I'm tasting 19 things. Angostura is- It will bother me personally if I don't rank them and judge them at the end. Someone has to win. Because there needs to be a winner. Honestly, what's your favorite color? You're like, only red. Red is the best. There are no colors better than red. There's all kinds of colors, man. There are two favorite colors, and it's like Forest Service green and red, because I want everything in my life to look like a cabin in the Northwoods. A National Parks sign, brown green. Scrappy's Aromatic Bitters. It says Bitters Aromotique on there. This one is way more subtle, and I don't know how I feel about that. It's the spices way dialed back. The nose is great because it really accentuates the caramel and vanilla in this cocktail. It's such a fat inviting soft creamy delicate nose. It's accentuating the whiskey. It's awesome. It's making the whiskey shine. It's a whiskey flavored bitters. That's great. I'm a fan. It's got some really interesting, hold on a sec. The herbaceous quality to me reminds me of like almost like the gentian type of. That bitterness? Floral bitterness? Yeah. It's good. It's very different. It really, that's a really nice. Fantastic smelling bitter. I think it's too subtle for me. I think I really only like obvious things. It smells pretty cologne to me too actually. Oh, it's awesome. I mean, it smells very good. This is awesome. I'm giving it a tie with Angostura right now. Really? Yeah. Wow. Really? I love the flavor of this cocktail. I love the nuanced aroma. It's a little more of a dessert-like aroma, I guess. Caramel. Yeah. And vanilla though. And it's confectionary. There's almost like a cardamom sweet spice quality too. That's really nice. This is interesting, man. This is not, I don't know, I've had a million Angostura bittered Manhattans, and I think this is a really great take on it. How much does this cost? It's another one that's like 18 bucks. But also think about this. 18 bucks, it has some of the most impactful flavors in the cocktail, and this will last for years. Well, I don't know. Wouldn't you drink enough Manhattans to go through this in like, I don't know, two nights? All right. So the bottle is one ounce bigger than the, it's a five ounce bottle. So I mean, per ounce, it's probably not that much more expensive than Angostura, because I want to say a four ounce Angostura is like 14 bucks now or something. Bitter Cube, Blackstrap Bitters. Blackstrap. So you got the bottle, Roger kind of knows of the bottle there. Getting a lot of cinnamon off of this one. So we're still in the heavily spiced ones, but these are going to start having more and more fruit. This one, I get all cinnamon from this. Really? It's clove heavy again for me. And raisins, like raisins and candied pecans. Ooh. Smell it. Oh, totally. It's got that like a no-cino quality to it, where it's like the dry husk of a nut, like the part that peels off the kernel inside the nut. The gross part, but yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, that's why you peel it off. It makes a nice cocktail, but I still think it's pretty cinnamon forward. Yeah, it is pretty cinnamon forward. I mean, it's got literally a bundle of cinnamon sticks on the front label. Well, there's your answer. But pretty low alcohol too. Cinnamon, Cola nut and nutmeg. It's decent. Chris would go nuts for this one. I'm not the biggest cinnamon fan, so. Honestly though, it's cinnamon forward in a way that still lets the whiskey shine. Yeah. And I think the Cola nut thing really comes through in the finish of the cocktail itself. So what is that? What is Cola nut? I don't think I would identify that flavor. It's Cola flavor. I get like a butterscotch-y caramel surge on this one too. Yeah. I really like this one. It's pretty good. This is cinnamony without being the Fee Brothers old-fashioned cinnamon. It's cinnamon with some- It's more cinnamon. A deft hand. Cinnamon bark, not cinnamon candy. I think it's very good. This is a good Manhattan. Bitter Cube, Cherry Bark Vanilla. Cherry Bark Vanilla. Is cherry bark fruit or what kind of quality is cherry bark? I don't know. That's been our most popular Bitter Cube flavor pretty much as long as we've carried Bitter Cube. Really? Which has been about as long as I've been in the office. It's kind of surprising. I think this one has a cologne musky quality to it too. Boy, these little jars you made all these Manhattan's in are adorable. They're adorable. Yeah. They're very easy to pour into. Where did you get those? Target. Of course. I love Target and I love many things. I'm expecting more vanilla though. It's not screaming vanilla. Well, I think that's almost a sign of good quality control with the vanilla because vanilla is not exactly subtle and it'll take over anything. Truth. Roger, do you agree with that? Yeah. This has a potpourri thing going on. I agree with that. Yep. Like quinkina or worm- Pass the binners over. You know what's interesting is one of the things they listed for ingredients is fennel and I definitely taste that. You know what we need to make? Huh? Everything bagel cocktail bitters. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is really floral spice. Yeah. Potpourri. What does a poppy seed add to it? Yanky candle fans. That is your grandma's bathroom. Yeah. I'm not- I can see the wallpaper. It's not bad in the cocktail, but it's not great. Really? I like it. It's not cherry. It's like- It's tied with Jack Daniel's for me. Whoa. Whoa. Oh, really? No. Fighting words. It's very cherry coke. I don't know. It's okay. We've had a lot better. All right. More fruit coming your way now. Check out this yanky dropper roast. All right. This should actually be a turn for something a little bit different here. So this is Bitterman's Burlesque Bitters. Sing the song. Oh, yeah. Can't find a bit of me. Roger's so mad he had to come into the office for this. Can I have a nice? These are spicy, aren't they? Like hot spicy? No, that's the you're thinking of the habanero shrub, which we conspired to include here and then decided it gets. Yeah. The bottle looks like the moisturizing serum I have in my bathroom cabinet for like this. Or like the thing that you put one drop of into the food every single day to kill someone. Yeah, it has a dropper. Poison is what you're. This has acai berry in it. Oh, yeah. Right. That's right. No matter what we do, it's a fruit episode. I think this one's a little bit more designed for your New Orleans style. You guys sure left me a lot of Manhattan. Roger over there with the gentleman's measure. There's not a lot in there. This is good. It smells like musty basement. I had these years ago. No. This one used to be my go-to way back. Well, if I had enough to actually taste, maybe I'd know better. Which flavor? It's Bitterman's Burlesque. This is a lot of cocktail bars. You see this used partially, I'm sure, because of the sexy label here. Yeah. If you're from the 20s, it's sexy. A lot of ankle on that label. A lot of cartoon ankle. What are you talking about? There's everything here. We're kidding. Is there another spit cup because I'm maxing out this one? Thank you. Wow, Roger's really going ham on the Burlesque. Sometimes you got to go overboard to get the... I thought I wasn't. I'm going to have to retaste this one when we batch some more because I don't have enough to smell anything. We're almost there. Almost a half time. We're going to pass that over. I don't think I did too healthy of a pour that time. These are really good. I like the berry element. There's hibiscus in here too, which expresses as kind of a berry tone. A spicy little tart that is sure to tantalize your taste buds. All right. Problematic ad copy aside. The one and only. I do think that this goes better in your New Orleans cocktails. I think it's getting toward the Peychauds end of the spicy spectrum. Yeah. It's fruitier though. I mean, it's not as floral. This would probably mix well with rye. Yeah. The spice up against the spice. You know what? Again, with the Vermouth, we didn't want something too herbal, and we didn't use rye so that the spice wouldn't conflict with some of the spices used in the bitters. So we're about to get into the really fruity and candied ones. At this point, we'd probably start appreciating some rye and Dolan instead of this blank canvas that we have. But we'll see. That's a good one. I think that one's reputation is deserved. Like I said, you'll see that in a lot of cocktail menus and places. It's a good, good bitter. Gonna need a re-taste. Bitter Cube, Jamaican number one. Who set this thing on Jamaican? Oh man. Okay. Prominent. Okay. There you go. Prominent note. I'm picking up across the top and I could be wrong, but Roger, you smell this? Szechuan peppercorns. I thought you were going to say allspice berries. I mean, it's got to have allspice in it. It's for sure allspice berries. Pimento dram? It's my jam. I had a cocktail at a barbecue place in Cincinnati yesterday. It was essentially a gold rush with some pimento dram. Nice. Holy cow. That sounds great. That sounds really good. Yep. This tastes like exactly what it says. Allspice, ginger and black pepper. That sounds great to me. It's a different dimension of spice than I usually get from bitters. You said ginger, right? I don't think that I get as much ginger as I would like. Oh, there's ginger on the nose on this cocktail for sure. Pat Brophy knows it's ginger. It's true. I am intimately familiar. So I would say this is there's nothing subtle about it and you're probably either going to like it or love it. You're either going to like it or love it. You're going to like it or love it. I would agree because there's nothing to hate here. This is so good. It's spicy. This is super good. It has made this identical cocktail to all the rest of them super bright. It is bright and expressive and wow. I mean it. That's the ginger, huh? It's very hit you in your face. Yeah. It leaves a heat on your tongue like you ate chili pepper. This is awesome. This is awesome. This is Jamaican number one. They have another Jamaican we didn't get. It's number two. It's on a three-way tie in the number one spot on the Grand Bro for ranking of bitters. This is really good. I don't think we're going to have time for a- The GBRB. Pack some heat. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is spicy. Pack some heat. Yeah. This would be great in a- Get out of here, white bread. If you really want to take a Dark and Stormy or a Moscow Mule to the next level. Yeah. Yeah. This would be great in there. Piling on top of the ginger with other stuff too. Or just drink one of the best Manhattans we've had all day. Or just drink one of the best Manhattans in the box so far. I mean, it turns it in to something that's almost not Manhattan-esque though. I mean, it loses a lot of its Manhattan identity. You know what? I will admit to that, but... What, did you break something over there? No, I have one more sample, but right now I'm calling it, this is half time because that was the last of the spicy, spicy ones. Oh, that one was so good. And we're about to go on a tear through orange, cherry and chocolate. So once I hit the reset button, we'll be back in a couple minutes. So, what is only seconds for the listeners has actually been three and a half weeks here at Barrel to Bottle. We all desperately need a shower. We haven't left this room once. All right, it took a longer to spot. Longer than I thought. All right, next up, Roger's favorite. We left the Bitter Cube bottles so long they became clear liquid again instead of this cloudy mess. Yeah. Fee Brothers Orange Bitters. Are we gonna play REM. Orange Crush for Roger while this happens? That's a good song. I've got my Sprite. I've come around to Roger's way of thinking on that particular. Hey, so I just realized I hate this. I don't say I hate it, but boy howdy, if you just want a blast of orange, this is what you put. There's nothing else. Oh yeah. It says other stuff on the bottle. What does it say on the bottle? Who? I don't have it. It says West Indian Orange Bitters, which means- That just means Curacao Orange, so bitter orange. Look at me giving the fruit information out. Look at that. I only know that because of one of my favorite baseball players, Andrew Jones. That's like the high C orange at McDonald's. Oh yeah, it's high C orange. I love the McDonald's high C orange though. Yeah. Like, oh yeah. It's delicious. Yeah, so good. Well, this is a Manhattan for eight-year-olds just like you. Yeah. Here's my argument pro-Fee brothers orange bitters. The cocktail doesn't taste like anything except orange when you're done with this. Here's the argument for it. Put this in to augment another bitter and I think you're going to end up with an interesting and complex cocktail. I have been to seven distilleries in the last week tasting barrels. I've tasted hundreds of barrels in the last week and in the Grand Pat Brophy Rating System, only like two barrels that entire time got the much maligned meh ranking, which is where this just landed. Seriously? Yeah. It takes a lot to get a meh. Also, the other dimension that it adds to the cocktail is not just on those of oranges, but it also makes the finish more bitter. It does. It doesn't add to any dimension. I agree that I don't taste anything but orange bitter. Yeah. What a turd. I discarded my ice because I didn't want to. All right. Well, the orange hits are going to keep on rolling. My day is ruined and my disappointment is immeasurable. They're only going to go over that quote goes. They couldn't go down from there. So meh. Wow. All right. This next one I've never had, so I'm kind of stoked on the opportunity to try it. Angostura orange bitters. Yeah, you have. We use this in a podcast. Yeah, you're. Oh, barely any came out of there. There you go. Okay, now you over-bittered it. We're going to need a new one. He didn't shake it up. It's fine. Shake it up, shake it up, shake it up. So anyway, Angostura orange. This also adds just a wad of orange, but you would hope that there would be other spices too. They're there, but way in the background. Woo, flavor country. It's orange. I can see why this is a better orange. It's brighter. It smells way better. It smells more natural. Like mold orange, like Thanksgiving cider. Spiced orange. With the rest of the potpourri too, right? Yes. Some vanilla, some cinnamon, some nutmeg. This one does not make me want chicken nuggets. Oh, wow. The last one did. But the fin of the palate is just all like, the nose is like, oh, this is a little restrained. This is much nicer. And then you taste and you're just like, nope, more of the same. It's a little more natural tasting though. It gets one step up from meh, which is okay. Meh plus is okay. It tastes like Christmas in my mouth right now. Bitter Cube, orange. Oh, this next one is another reason why I wanted to do this. I was on vacation and I didn't take any booze with me, so I had to go to the store. So you just drank vanilla extract after kids went to sleep? Well, the idea was we were going to drink local beer but I couldn't find much, so I went and bought a bottle of Basil Haydn's. I am in a grocery store, right? Okay. So I buy a bottle of Basil Haydn's. You couldn't have found a bottle of Bullet. I mean, I take Bullet over Basil. And then I went to the bitters section of the grocery store I was in and they literally had Angostura and this. What? So I bought this. Wow. What did you pay for it at a grocery store? At a grocery store in Western Wisconsin, I paid 19 bucks for it. I was saying, we sell it for 20, so. Yeah. And I was shocked at how bland and one-dimensional it was, but you be the judge. No, that's in my head. And how I just wish I had a little bit of the spice of a few brothers' old-fashioned aromatic bitters. Dude, how Roger get rinsing water bottles and we got shafted over here. He probably had the foresight to get them for himself. No, they were just sitting here. They were just sitting on the table. Yeah. Great. All right. Did you pass the... Okay. So on this one, Raj, compared to the previous couple of oranges on the bitters here, I get more rind. Yep. And so that makes it seem more natural, but otherwise, it's orange. Oh, but it's like an orange oil. It's like, if you twist a rind and extract that kind of oil and express the oil, that's more of what I'm tasting here for sure. I think it's the better of the three so far. So far, yeah. Just based on nose, it's the better of the three. Yeah. It also lends a bitterness to the finish that some of the other spicy ones don't necessarily. Oh, this is excellent. You like it? It reminds me of like a- It's one note, but it does that one note very well. It reminds me of some of the butter orange liqueurs, like Cointreau and Grand Marnier. We're giving that baby a good plus plus. Whoa. That which ties it with Peixots. That was salad. Ah, lost my ice cube. Help me. Waluigi here just lost her Mario Kart race. It's a real shame they never brought you into Smash Brothers. I'm pretty pissed too. Yeah, that was good. All right. I'm sure Roger has the biography- Dude, bitter cube orange. Well, that's about this next one. Regan's orange bitters. Is Regan's going around here? Yeah. Okay. I will once again reiterate how much stuff has changed in the last two decades. Not that long ago, you literally could not buy orange bitters in stores. Gary Regan put a bitters recipe in the book about bourbon he wrote with his wife. So we've come a long way. We're basically spoiled with choice now, but Regan's- Lord and Savior, Gary Regan. The name of the Regan and the beach bum and the holy jackfruit. How about you play that Manhattan? You're bogarting the Manhattan. This actually smells great. I think this is the most complex of the orange ones. It's got more of a spice component to it. Yeah. And caramel too, which probably is just the whiskey shining through. I mean, I'm biased. I've been drinking this for years and telling people to drink it. It's worth mentioning that... It's really good. The value here is off the charts. So, fee is $7.49. Angostura is $10.99. Bitter Cube is $19.99. This is $4.99. What? What? It is? Yep. Wow. Very tasty. Man, this is better than Bitter Cube, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. More restrained orange. It gets yield very good. That's what it gets. All right. I think that's real good. I think it's real good. This is one of those must-tries for the price. Like every bar should have a bottle of this. It's $5. Come on. Every bar should have this. You should have this at your house. Everybody should have this at their house. All right. Pat is bittersing the table. Do you think that was enough? It's fine. You did too. Give it a couple more of the peach. That's almost out that cherry. There we go. The Brofatton, aka Fee Brothers, Peach and Cherry Bitters. The Fee Brothers, both the peach and the cherry. This is a rerun from the last episode two years ago. I know everybody was groaning. They have to listen to the same content again. But Pat likes to compliment the one-dimensional cherry and one-dimensional peach Fee Brothers with each other. I'm a big fan of two dimensions, making his own fruit cocktail, Manhattan. So I figured we could get two bitters is for the price of one with this pour. Hey, don't give credit where credit is due. This is a creation of the other Brofee, not Pat. Seriously? It's twin brother. Oh, this is Jim's? Oh, this smells gross. It smells so fake. It smells like medicine. It smells very fake. Yeah. Welcome. We've had a lot of really other good stuff today. We've had a lot of other really good stuff today. It smells like the fruit Tootsie Rolls, the fruit flavor. Orange and green are the only ones I know. Oh, they have a cherry one and it smells exactly like this. It's super almondy. Oh, you're right. It is super almondy. I still like it. But it's a- This is a simple man's Manhattan. That is a simple man's Manhattan and I've put too much bitters in. I think that's true too. Oh, my God. No. Listen, you're too new here to be reacting that way. This reminds me of what is that ice cream flavor with all the bull in it? Spumoni. Spumoni. Yeah, there's some nuttiness. Spumoni because it's got that cherry, the almondy. Pink, green, and white. Is it chocolate or vanilla in Spumoni? Pink, green, and brown? That's Neapolitan. Yeah, you're thinking of Neapolitan. Spumoni's got a bunch of stuff in it, too. Spumoni's got all the junk mixed into it. Well, it's cherries, pistachios, and it's vanilla, right? I need to rinse my glass after the peach cherry bomb, yeah. Spumoni meltdown. Give me a little of that, too. Interesting flavor combination, peach and cherry. It's been good when I've had it in the past, but I've never had it against 18 other good things. Have you had it sober before? Of course not. SoCo fans will enjoy it, it definitely is a southern comfort type. Well, there was too much bitters in that. I'd like to try it again with the right amount, except Greg literally brought in empty bottle of cherry bitters. Let's take it from the top then. There was enough cherry bitters in there that ruin that Manhattan. There definitely was. All right guys, we're on the homestretch. Now we have candy flavors, so here we go. The last one was candy flavors as well, let's be serious. The brothers molasses bitters. I just discovered that this is a thing and I saw it on the shelf and I was like, yeah, we need to include this. This is weird. This one's weird. I don't think that this is supposed to go in Manhattan's. Dude, this smells like Worcestershire sauce. This is crazy. I haven't had this one. Or like a bullion cube. You guys have to reuse those. Beef bitters? Yes. This is beef bullion bitters. Whoa. Molasses. That's super weird. It is definitely beef stock bitters. What the hell? What's in it? Am I consuming an animal product? No. Blackstrap is the darkest. Blackstrap is the Danny DeVito of the twins of sugar production. Blackstrap is the darkest molasses left once. All sugar has been extracted from sugar cane. Fee Brothers has combined this robust molasses flavor with nutmeg and coffee. Yeah. They took the- For historical Caribbean taste. The savory quality of molasses and added even more savory and bitter qualities to it. So interesting. Interesting concept. Is it good in Manhattan? Ingredients, water, glycerin, natural molasses flavor, which is- Which ingredients are flavor and propylene glycol. Other natural extracts and flavors, water, alcohol, propylene glycol flavors. Stop reading the ingredients on the bottle of Fee Brothers. They can't just use real molasses? Come on. It probably doesn't dissolve correctly. All right. I'll tell you what it tastes like. Tastes like beef bouillon cube. It's not that, does it really? Because it smells like caramel. It smells like caramel mixed with beef. In your Manhattan? Yes. I'm not picking up the beef. Hey, where's the beef? You haven't had beef in 10 years. What do you know about what beef tastes and smells like? Beef stew. 19 years. 19 years. That's truly the dinty more of the bitter line up. It tastes like salty preserved canned beef. Not in a good spam way, which is pork obviously. With a healthy note of coffee. Hey, Jim, wait till you try this one. It's the dinty more beef stew bitters. Yeah, I don't get it. I like the coffee character in there. What the hell would you use this in? Heavy caramel too. I imagine teaky drinks. Soup. You literally can. Roger, stop saying that. This is a good time that Angostura, if you go to their website. I'm still rating it higher than Fee Brothers Orange. Yeah, I would too though. You can cook with bitters. You know what bitters are a nice accent for? Salads. Get out of here with the bitters on salads, bulls**t. No, it's great. They're good in soups, stocks, sauces. If you want to flavor blast stuff, they're the original flavor blasters. All right. Well, so Roger doesn't like that one, but that's fine because next up is Roger's favorite Fee Brothers flavor, unironically. Oh, I thought it was Gin Barrel Orange. No? It's not here yet. Fee Brothers Black Walnut Bitters. Black Walnut. Black Walnut. My glass still smells like beef bouillon. I need that bottle of water back, Greg. Much underappreciated in the nut family. Black walnuts are very difficult to process. You basically need it to be like a controlled fermentation before you harvest the nutmeats. My ice cube was beefed up. They have a super unique flavor. Most commonly, if you ever are going to come across black walnuts, you'll see them in black walnut ice cream, which is typically like a maple-based ice cream with bits of black walnut in it. It's funny you say that because I think that vanilla and maple syrup are right up front on this bitters. This is so good. This is like a shot up with the love for Fee Brothers now. Turns it into like a one-dimensional flavorative. This is like a brunch Manhattan. It's maple. That's all it is. Tastes like a Danish. It's a lot of maple. It's like an ice cream flavor, man. Well, I'm not alone. Brof said that it's probably the number two best seller on Fee Brothers. That's pretty good, but I don't want candy. It's a really tasty but really candyed Manhattan. I'm going to give it a good plus. Good for one. I don't know if I'd have to pull over. Interesting. So candyed. It's so maple-y. Yeah. What's that Wisconsin Danish? Kringle. They tend to have fruit in them though. Oh, do they? Or pecan kringles. That's the thing. This is like, wow. Yeah. So smelling the aroma hole of the bitters bottle, it's more of like- Hashtag aroma hole. It's more like a dusty, chalky nutty shell type of thing, but then in the cocktail, it's more of the maple. I actually give them credit that black walnut is such a strong flavor that they did it well here. It could have easily become kind of just like overpowering. That also is nice in rum drinks. That makes sense. You know what it would probably be pretty good in? That warm tiki drink you made. That'd be pretty good in there. What was that drink? I made one after you made it on one podcast. Crap. What is that called? White cap? Yeah, that is. You're right. It's white cap. Angostura Cocoa Bitters. I don't like this one. Honestly, it's like the first one that I just- Never had this one. Don't like. Yeah, me neither. Cool color. Yeah, purple. It's the purple one. Smell the bottle itself. Because I get- Smell the aroma hole. Smell the bottle. Just stick your nose right in there. So, do you get like sweaty body and plastic? I don't like it. Like new shoes. Yeah. You're sure you're not too close to the plastic that surrounds the aroma hole? Why would they put body- rubber plastic on the aroma hole? I don't get it. Pat, smell this bottle. You'll see what we're talking about. Dude, I'm getting flashbacks. I'm not going to shy away from sticking my nose in an aroma hole. I'm pretty sure we did this on the last one. That what? The exact same conversation about smelling the plastic versus- Well, I get it on my cocktails. I get it on my Manhattan. Yeah, this is kind of strange. I don't know, man. I'll take the peach and cherry over this. Oh, yeah. A win. I get a win today. Holy cow. Really that? You hated it that much? Hey, pass that bitter over. I wanted to accentuate it here. Big plus on the color. I'm enamored with the color of the bottle cap. It's the purple. He really likes the purple. It's the color of royalty. The bitters formerly known as Prince of the bitters world. It smells burnt. Yeah. Yeah, smoke and rubber, right? It's not bad in the cocktail though. I like the way it tastes in the Manhattan. You don't have to shake it up and then re-nose the aroma hole, it gets a little more cocoa-y. Thank God we only have one more. That's neat. It's super different. Along with chocolate- Yeah, it smells great in the cocktail. It has some of the herbal qualities that Angostura brings, so it has more complexity than just cocoa. I think that's probably why the nose is weird. I think this would work well. Wow. I like this. This, I could see fans of who like to drink coffee in Amaro. This would go well with coffee. Oh, yeah. Why do you have coffee Amaro on the way? No reason. All right. Oh, man. I'm ready to be wrong. The more I drink it, I don't really like it. It has to be a newer flavor, right? I mean, it used to be two. Yeah. I like that one. I don't. No, I wasn't a fan. I don't want chocolate in my Manhattan. I think you will disagree after you try Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate Bitters. Jim, what were you using this for? You had it in a cocktail. Look at it. No. We all do that sometimes. Anyway, this smells like what it promises, which is Abuelita Mexican Chocolate. You put this in a brandy drink. I bet it goes good in cola. Brandy Alexander's? Brandy Alexander's. Do you have one more of these batched up? It smells like port. A little. A spicy cola and chocolate note. It smells great. It's better than the Angostura, but it's still not a style of Manhattan that I choose. It finishes with a little spicy kick. No, with like a fake chocolate. Like it just sits. Well, okay. Smell. I like the Angostura Cocoa better. Make them smell that because it smells amazing. No, it smells like cheap chocolate. I love cheap chocolate so much. It's like a Whitman's Samp. This is the Whitman's Sampler of the- Yeah. No, the chocolate that's a little bit white on the outside. It smells more like spice than chocolate. It's shaped like a rabbit. This is the Palmer Rabbit of Bitter's. That's the one. I'd say it's stunningly subpar, but we're talking about Fee Brothers. If this tasting showed me anything, it's that there's a couple standouts and then a lot of. Wow. This is like if Tootsie Pop made an air freshener. Yeah, it is Tootsie Pop. Yeah, you nailed that one. One, a two-hoo, a three. All right. So we talked about Vermouth last time, a year, two years ago. We talked about Vermouth, and we played with bitters a little bit. This time we got a serious run of show on bitters. How many was it? 18, 19, 20? I lost it. I don't have them all over here because somebody isn't passing well. 20, so when we got the black walnut. 21. Some are more interesting than others. All of them lend a new dimension of flavor to your drink. I would say that of the whole, the aromatic style really jumps out at me as a fundamental component to an old-fashioned or a Manhattan, that as I like to drink them, the fruit ones and the candy ones, the chocolate, I could take a leave honestly, but Scrappy's Aromatic, maybe my new favorite. The black strap, shockingly good. The Jamaican one, oh my goodness. By the way, just with preconceptions going into this thing, the Angostura and the Peychauds, classic flavors. Yeah. Yes. Peychauds and Regans get an award for best value at $4.99. I don't think Peychauds stands up to Regans and Angostura, personally. Regan, though, $4.99 is absurd. That's wild. It's half the price it should be. Who's asleep at the wheel on that brand? Yeah. Angostura, just the regular aromatic, that's got to be probably stable, that you should probably have in your house now. You should have every now, everyone should have that for sure. Any others, Roger? Remains my favorite. Any eye-openers? I think we've covered it, Bitterman's. Bitter Truth, I've always liked their stuff. I like their Traveler pack that gives you little taster bottles of each, so look out for that once you might come back in stock. Yeah, they're in little tins, they're hard to get sometimes, but we try to keep them stocked. All right, so some of these seem a little bit expensive because you're paying 20 bucks for a tiny little bottle, but the character that these instill in your drinks can be a game changer. It's not that tiny, honestly. They last a really long time. Yeah, it's not tiny when you're using drops. Think Tobasco. Upnote, Bitter Cube is a local mixology focused brand out of Milwaukee. We're considering Milwaukee local. Okay, cool. Fun fact. All right, there you go. Well, we're going to go take a nap. I like Manhattans. I am delighted that I got to try 1920-21 Manhattans. I bet you are. 23. We tried 23 different versions of this cocktail. They were all different. They were all interesting. Well, I like Manhattans. If you like this podcast as much as I like Manhattans, leave us a review on iTunes Podcasts or a bunch of stars on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Tell your Binny's wine consultant. Tell your mom. We'll be back in your feed next week with something succinct. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Jenna. I'm Roger. And I'm Pat. Keep tasting. Midnight Orange.