I was weirdly aggressive in our last episode. I told you to shut up, I told Alicia to shut up, I told our audience, f**k you, go f**k yourselves. And I'm surprised I made it back. I was a side of character. Sounds on track. I'm still on this show, you guys. We just need somebody to work out the audio output from the Zoom meeting badly enough that you're still a technical necessity. Right. Greg, push the button. All right. Greg, push the button and go sit in the corner. Stop sharing your opinions. I mean, not everything we have to, not every pick has to be a you must go by this pick pick. And I pulled a little bit of privilege to have some bulls**t. Well, enough with your unavailable picks because it is time to get aboard the hype train. Whisky Advocate Top 20 Whiskies of the Year. That's awesome. Choo-choo, mother f*****. Hey, welcome back to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg, and right here in the room with me right now. Hey, I'm Pat. I do spirits things. And? Roger, beer. Hey, and I'm Chris. I do wine. Awesome. Well, the gang's back together in 2022. We're gonna keep it rolling. More Barrels to Bottles. You know, second only to our Bourbon County episodes, our hype Whisky episodes are some of our most downloaded. You might even say we're pandering to our audience right now. Listen, man, it's what people want. Everybody. How many times in the last month has some person who has been sent in on some goose chase, Oh, this I'm getting a gift for so and so in my life. They really love whiskey. They gave me this list of things to buy, and it's the Whisky Advocate top 20 list. And practically every year we're like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, and you'd say nope 20 times. But this year there's actually a bunch of stuff that was largely available, and about half of it still is largely available. Do you think that's the strategy with the list? I have it on pretty good authority that they were essentially told by their publisher that these things have to have been very broadly available at some point throughout the year in order to make the list. So not just $20,000 ports. Yeah. The, you can't have this, you can't have this. I always felt bad for customers when they would come in and ask for that because they probably have no idea how rare some of this is. Somebody sent them on a goose chase. And the last thing you want them to feel is like, of course we don't have this, like we got six bottles of it. Yeah. And that always annoyed me with this list. So I remember talking to Brof and I'm like, this would be a good opportunity even if, you know, it is great that we have more to try, but it's also a time to just talk about, you know, okay, they had a habit in the past, especially of offering a whiskey from a distillery we carry regularly, but it's some like limited edition one-off that we got none of. So you could still, you know, what I would tend to do was I'd be like, you know, we don't have that specific bottling, but can I show you other stuff from the distillery? You know, different age statement, different type of barrel aging, and then at least they'd get, you know, something somewhat similar. Well, I'm glad you brought it up, Roger. This podcast is right in my wheelhouse in that we're talking about whisky, and I get to pour way too many samples for a single podcast episode. There's 20 on the list. Depending on how you count it, there's either eight or 10 bottles on the table right now. We have to motorhead through this one. All right. Well, let's get started then. Their number 20 was something that we can't get, so. I don't think we explicitly stated this. This is the Whisky Advocate top 20 whiskies of 2021. Yeah. Their number 20 was a single malt from Texas called Andalusia Striker. We have no comment on that, haven't had it. Number 19 though. Number 19. Wheel Horse Bourbon. That's what we got right here. You guys got your samples? Speaking of wheelhouse. Yes. So Wheel Horse Bourbon. This is awesome. It's inexpensive. It's like 30 bucks. It's a hundred and one proof. This is Owensboro, Kentucky distilled. So now it's called Green River Distilling. It used to be called OZ Tyler Distillery. That distillery does have some like fast aging type of technology in there that they do for other brands. This is not one of them. This was just traditionally distilled and aged and aged four years and then bottled up. How much is this? Like 30 bucks. There's a $30 bottle that's number 19 on their top 20 whiskeys of the year. We have it. I don't know how many states they're in, but it's available at every Binny's. That's awesome. Yeah. It smells awesome too. Well, it smells like bourbon. Listen to that bourbon fans. You don't have to necessarily, I can't stand the way everyone thinks you have to start at $50 with bourbon now. This is an awesome bourbon. I got a bottle, it was only 50 bucks. I'm like, only 50 bucks. Only 50 bucks. Roger, are you going to fight whiskey people this whole episode? Yes, he is. Pretty much, yeah. This is the shut up, Taters. I'm sick of hearing that you have to spend $100 for a quote unquote good bottle of whiskey. Drives me up a wall. That's just a misinformed statement there, if somebody is saying that, because the world's your oyster in bourbon right now. There's never been more awesome bourbon available, and you can get great bourbon for $50 or less. How old is this distillery? The distillery itself, probably like six years old or something, eight years old, something like that. Yeah, it's new, is what I just wanted to get across. Yeah. Okay, so cherry and caramel on the nose, in the typical well-built bourbon fashion. Yes. And a little bit of menthol too. It's nice, man. It's fat, it's round. I think it's very well-aided by that higher proof. There's not a whole lot of water in there. The proof gives it some lift and some structure. I think it's great. I think this is a awesome $30 bottle. Good cocktail proof. This, I would say, has a well-earned spot on the top 20, but in the back end of the top 20. I'll put it that way. I would say that it has enough either wood or rice spice that it would be great to mix cocktails. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, there's plenty of oak spice here, I would say. What is the mashmill? Back of the Bottle mashmill says 70% corn, 21% rye, 9% malted barley. So that's a rye forward. That's high rye, yeah, but it's not crazy high rye. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of the spice is coming from oak rather than the rye, in my opinion. What do you think about that? Oh, more spice from oak? Yeah, I agree with that. It shows a firm backbone of oak, but it's not overly oaky and not dry, which I really like. It's definitely a powerful whisky. It has a lot of depth. It does wear its alcohol on its sleeve neat, but I just added a few drops of water. Total revelation. It really blossoms. The mouthfeel almost becomes rounder and more viscous with water. Interesting. Oily. It's good. Roger, final thoughts before we move on. It is a great example of the hidden gems out there. Please don't look at price and make that just be the only thing that influences whether or not you're going to purchase something, because there's some stuff that's affordable that's still excellent. It's nice to see that because there's times where it can be frustrating if you feel like you have to always spend so much money on a good bottle of bourbon, and this is a really good bottle of bourbon. Listen to your liquor consultant. I think anybody who's looking for a bottle of Buffalo Trace and can't find it should pick this up. Yeah, yeah, looking for Buffalo Trace is in that wheelhouse. I think it has the cherry note to it. It's a little higher rye content than Buffalo Trace, but it's a good bottle of bourbon for 30 bucks. Is Jim in the room? He's going to like that one. You just said wheel horse is in the wheelhouse. No, Jim's not in the room. Greg sent him packing today. Let me do the Jim. Sorry Jim, I love you. We need an off mic giggle. You snuck that one in like a Trojan wheel horse. All right, enough of this s***. Let's move on here. So that was number 19. Number 18. Number 18. Is Glyndronic Portwood. So you guys both should have that. This is a $90 bottle. It is non-age stated. It is 46% alcohol, which also means for scotch, it is non-chill filtered. Let's check this one out. Pat, if there's a port scotches that people might be familiar with, that would be like what? Glenn Morangy has the one. Yeah, Glenn Morangy's got that 14 year. You know, that's the predominant. There's port barrels in a lot of different ones, but it's not as common as Sherry, like by a long shot. This is 100% Portwood finished? Yeah, and it tastes just like 100% Portwood. I mean, it smells very glossy. So when I first tried this one, this one actually came out, I think it might have come out in 2020. When I first tried this, I found it to be a bit one-dimensional and flabby, despite the non-shell filtration there. It's grown on me a bit. I think it's really a Portwood Scotch first. Yeah, it's fruity. Yeah, it's fruit cocktail for sure. Okay. I really love Portwood finished bourbons and rice. I used to be a big fan of the Angels Enby before they dialed back the port a fair amount. You hate it, but I love that Basil Hayden port. It's not even whiskey. I know. I don't care. Whatever. I have a Port Le Coeur with a whiskey base. It's awesome. You know what makes a good old-fashioned that? Port Le Coeur. I don't think I have that much experience with port hanging on scotch, because scotch is so much lighter and it's more of a frame for all these other flavors. Yeah. Whereas bourbon or rye has such more body to hold the port. I don't know, man. It's kind of out of whack. It's not the most balanced of single malts. It's not terrible by any stretch. I just find it to be very one-dimensional. I mean, it's got those typical port notes, that drier red fruit, like dry cherry type of thing, a bit of fig. But it still has all the pears in the fruit cocktail. It's the whole fruit cocktail cup. Yeah. But I would like some more actual oak spice character in there, that I think would balance out some of that bright red fruit. Yeah. I agree. You don't have to work for it. I'm picturing the Kool-Aid man blasting through the wall going, flavor blasted, oh yeah. We have a flavor blasted scotch. Well, it's number 18. Yeah. I agree with everything that's been said. There's plenty of orchard fruit in here like pear, but you definitely get that sense of dried cherry or prune from the portwood. Yeah. There's even a subtle hint of something leaning a little savory in there, almost soy-like to me. Yeah, I get that. That's interesting. Yeah. I think it's pretty good. I don't know about top 20, but it's pretty good. All right. Controversy. I think that's a fair assessment. Pretty good. All right. Number 17. 17 is Kentucky Owl the Wise Man. So this is their first release from their new master blender after they drove the founder out. Kentucky Owl the Wise Man. Couldn't find my sample bottle. This is a blend of bourbons ranging from 4 to 8 years old. It is bottled at right about 90 proof. I think like almost 91 or something, 60 bucks. Kentucky Owl as a brand has historically been very overpriced and overhyped in my opinion. So listeners, we'll get back to you on this one. Is $60 for a 375 or a 750? No, no, it's a 750. For $60? Yeah, 60 bucks, which is kind of a pretty standard price for a lot of bourbon these days. All right, number 16. Number 16. You can't have it, as Roger would say, is an old Fitzgerald 11-year-old bottled in Bond. This was the fall 2021 release. These have generally been pretty damn good, but I have far from taste them all. I've had like two or three of them ever. Older, old Fitz, that's the highest wheat content of any weeded bourbon in the business at 20 percent. At that age too, it makes a very soft, fruity, easy drinking bourbon. But you can't have it. You cannot have it. It's in a real fancy bottle. Hey, Pat, I asked you this before, so our listeners understand. I find the larceny rebranding kind of ingenious and funny. I remember buying old Fitz back in the day when you could get the bonded and handles. Yeah. But because it looks like something you'd find in your grandpa's garage, most people that weren't whiskey nerds just never gave it a go. Not a day. So larceny came out and larceny, again, I think is one of the few sleeper bourbons right now for how weeded crazy everyone is looking for weller. Weeder madness, dude. That's still priced in the 30 some dollar range, isn't it? Oh yeah. I know. Larceny is cheaper. A 750 larceny is like $22. It's ridiculous. Oh, wow. All right. Number 15. Number 15. Nika Taketsuru Pure Malt. This is an awesome whiskey. Let's see. What are we selling this for? I think $80. This isn't very special. Yeah. $79.99. Isn't this like kind of an everyday item? It was hard to get for a few years, and now it's coming to come back into broader availability. That's great. This one's 43% alcohol. It is a pure malt. It's a blend of malts from their Yoichi and Miyagikyo distilleries. Yoichi makes a oilier, heavier, smoky whiskey, Miyagikyo, lighter, fruitier. This is named after Masataka Takatsuru, who founded it. The nose on this is incredible. I know. I just keep going back to it. Yeah. It's as complex as any scotch. There is a subtle whiff of smoke in there, but it's so subtle. And the fruity, floral aspects are really amazing. I love the finish on this whiskey. This whiskey finishes just like it's light and floral and freshly fruity up front, which I kind of associate with a lot of Japanese whiskey. But then it finishes more scotch like with this like caramelized. I don't know. It's like a caramelized apricot or something. It's crazy. Candied fruit and ginger, but candied ginger. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely some spicy ginger in there. It's this is really good. This is really good. This is excellent whiskey. I haven't had the nose like this since the treasured. I used to buy our hand pick Rosebank. We did a couple of Rosebank. Like the signatory Rosebanks? Signatory, yeah. I wasn't sure if it was just signatory on its own, but yeah, I would assume it was our hand pick. That was a regret once. It was a long time ago and then it was like, oh yeah, they're defunct. They're coming back. Somebody's reopening Rosebank and charging a lot of money. Do they have the stills? I mean, like the building was apartments, isn't it? Yeah, no, they don't have the stills and they're re-engineering the whole thing. And it's like down the block because they did. The distillery got mothballed and then decommissioned and then turned into condos like right on the riverside there. But dude, this nose totally reminds me of that. It's not like a masterpiece. It's like a really well-crafted study of a painting. I think it's totally deserving of a top 20 nod. This whiskey is but approachable and there are a lot of layers to unravel here. And at 80 bucks, I think you're getting absolutely bang for your buck here because this is a whiskey that's going to you're going to taste and smell and find new things every time you go back to this. Yep. It's like walking through a garden full of flowers and fruits and somebody like a mile of way is cooking bacon for breakfast and you're just occasionally catching a whiff of it. Like what is that? I think you nailed it, man. And painted a vivid mental image. Walking through a garden while the neighbor cooks bacon. Love it. Love it. Cool. All right. Number 15. Well-deserved. All right. Number 14. Number 14. We have and I did not have a sample readily available, but this is widely available. Bibb and Tucker bourbon. This is a Tennessee bourbon, a six-year-old bourbon. We do hand picks that are 12 years old, and we actually just had some in actually this past December, but this is widely available. It's got a real fancy bottle with this cork that kind of sticks out like some kind of pirate bottle or something. And it's pretty typical Tennessee bourbon. It's got a bit of the Flint Stoney vitamins character to it. I like it. I don't love it. I wouldn't put it on the top 20 personally. I love the very folksy name. Bibb and Tucker. That means fancy. Yeah. We are selling Bibb and Tucker for $57. That's my kind of issue with it. I think it's a $45 bottle if I had to pay. All right. Number 13 is Aaron Barrel Reserve. That is a single mall from the Isle of Aaron, Scotland. It's supposedly only 50 bucks and 43% alcohol. Aaron recently changed distributors and their new large distributor is doing a less than stellar job keeping things in stock. So you're just talking about all kinds of insider baseball right now. Well, whatever, we're going to try to get this bottle in, but we have not seen that yet. Let's move on to number 12, which we have, I've talked at length about this already, so I'm kind of curious. Chris hasn't tried this yet. So we'll see what he says. Number 12 is Arden & Merkin AD321-02, which was their first broad US release. Arden & Merkin. Arden & Merkin. Yeah, that's right. We said Chris is going to like it more than Roger. Roger thought it was too iodiney and smoky. Yeah, Roger was shitting all over this one. I loved it, though. And we did not pick up what Roger was putting down. Roger, you were thinking this was too phenolic for you? Yeah, I think I'm pretty sensitive to that, and I get that. When Pete presents, it's kind of hard to explain to people without them tasting it, as people always equate smoke with Pete flavor. The last time I tried this, I got more of that medicinal character that's sometimes hard for people to grasp when you describe it because it's so bizarre. Like a whiskey can be real Petey and it's not just smoky, it's that iodiney, band-aid-y, phenolic character. And I'm not getting as much at this time. I think it's because I had this poured in a sample bottle for so long, and I think it kind of blew off some because I took some a long time ago, Chris, and then that's what I ended up doing. It doesn't taste as intense now. Now, I'm getting more of the kind of smoke-peatiness. Yeah, I don't know, the last time I had it, and it could have just been the way, you know, your palate can get numb to certain things and accentuate others. Last time we were trying all those whiskies was when we tried it, but it's not a bad whiskey by any means. It's just not something I care for. Every single day is a new tasting day, Roger. You never know what it's going to bring. This whiskey is gorgeous. I've talked about it at length on our Picks episode. I think it's well-deserved in the top 20, certainly as a new whiskey for the year. If anything, this is under ranked. It was easily in my top five of the year. Well, yeah, it was in your top three. Yeah, I know. It's so good though. It's so good. It's just spiced fare with a wisp of smoke. I don't pick up all that smoke. It's starting to sell out. Obviously, I was helping out at Geneva over the holidays and I sold them out of this within two days of getting there. You can find it at most local Binny's, but not all still. Chris, what do you think of it? Having never tried it before, I don't find it to be overly phenolic or particularly smoky. But what I do get on the nose is a sense of, maybe this is what you're talking about, Roger, a sense of almost like herbaceous or mossy peat and seaweed, like salinity. I really agree with the salinity thing. Yeah. It speaks of something of the sea and something slightly vegetal, like peat might be, rather than a massive amount of smoke. The smoke is really nicely integrated. I think it's, I'm going to have to say, sorry, Roger, I'm digging this. Yeah. No. Again, I'm enjoying it more this time. But I think, again, like I said, I think it, I don't know, when did I pour this sample? Two weeks ago, so there was two and a half ounces in a bottle. So I'm sure some of the aromatics faded off. But that having been said, I never meant to imply that I didn't think it was a good whiskey. It just wasn't for me. I think for somebody that's not accustomed to single malts that have this kind of character, it might be a little overwhelming. But if you're well-versed with ILA heavily peated whiskeys, I think you'd love it. Yeah, seek this out for sure. All right. Pretty good. Moving on. Number 11. Number 11 is Port Charlotte, PAC01. This is a limited release 2011 vintage distilled Port Charlotte. That is the heavily peated malt from Brookladdy. This one is cast-strength 56.1% and was aged in a red Bordeaux wine cask. I do not have a sample of this. This is available. It is selling out quickly, but it's around at a few Binny's still, so check it out. Is this one we tried a couple of months ago? No, that was the regular Port Charlotte 10-year-old we tried that we all love. We made a Rob Roy with it with Jake Parrott, I think, or he suggested making a Rob Roy with a heavily smoky whiskey and the Cokey Dopo Teatro, which I've been doing with Port Charlotte 10 and Dopo Teatro at home, and it's been awesome. I actually had one last night. So Port Charlotte, big fan. That sounds delicious. Yeah, it was awesome. Again, haven't tasted this one personally, but I have not been let down by Port Charlotte whiskey. I get that it's on the top 20, fine. It is going to sell out and sell out quickly. Yeah, that standard 10-year-old, I thought was fantastic, personally. Yeah, okay, moving on. Now we're into the top 10, number 10. Number 10. Roger, say you can't have this. You can't have this. Wild Turkey Masters Keep One, that is this year's release for their Masters Keep line. It is a blend of 8-10-year-old turkeys and some 14-year-old turkeys, and it was finished in a mix of toasted and new charred oak barrels. Have not tried this? I don't try the Masters Keeps most years, but I do some. They're usually pretty damn good. If you like Wild Turkey, you probably are trying to hunt that one down. All right, number nine. Number nine. We've got this one. Compass Box, No Name Number Three. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, the sample we have is No Name Number One, which we're gonna talk about why this is slightly different than No Name Number Three here. So No Name Number Three just came out. It is 48.9 percent. It's a blended malt. Let me pull up the spec sheet. The majority of this bottle is 74 percent of it is Laphroaig, 11.3 percent is Beaumont, seven and a half percent Mortlok. Give it a little structure. Six percent Kleinlich from a Sherry Butt, and then a tiny, tiny half a percent fraction of their Highland malt blend, which is Compass Box's kind of like secret sauce that they put this blend of Highland malts in French oak into a little bit of Is that the number three? That is the number three I'm talking about. So that's such a minute blend of esoteric barrels, that reproducing that seems like it's going to be pretty tough. Yeah, it's a one-off. So they started the No Name series three years ago. No Name number one, which is what we have to taste, which that backbone was predominantly Ardbeg, and that was older Ardbeg, like 17-year-old Ardbeg. So obviously, no shock, this No Name number one is totally incredible. No Name number three is like equally aged Laphroaig. Oh, wow. So No Name number three is going to have a bit more of that phenolic character that Roger was talking about with the other whiskeys, a little bit more band-aid-y and stuff. Not quite that briny smokiness that Ardbeg tends to show. It would be so cool to do a side-by-side of those two, and just see the difference in foundation that Ardbeg and LaFroy. I asked for a sample, supplier hasn't, this was in the middle of Christmas and stuff, so nobody's gotten back to me yet. Also, it's number nine for the year. Yeah, I get it. There's almost always a Compass Box in the top 20, it seems, and they are well-deserved. We love Compass Box. Obviously, we did that special anniversary blend for the Binny's 70th anniversary a few years ago. Can't speak to No Name number three specifically, but if it's anything at all close to the quality of No Name number one, it's well-deserved in the top 10. This is amazing. It's so well-integrated and complex. Oh man. Yeah. Again, this is a real surprise for me and it's really fantastic. Well, the mouthfeel is so round and lush. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous mouthfeel. Yeah. The nose is so complex. It's crazy. I don't always expect that much round, and the supple oiliness from malt whiskeys. Yeah. This really has a viscosity to it, but it's still light on its feet, and every aspect of it is perfectly integrated. There's certainly smoke and peat here, but it's just beautifully done. There's so much more too. There's so much more. There's a nuttiness and an orange peel, like orange oil and a wisp of that kind of- Burnt citrus. There's toffee. There's a lot of awesome stuff to look at. It's brighter toffee on the, I don't know what, more buttery, brighter sugar. I suppose. Yeah, that lighter colored. Roger, do you like this or hate this? It's interesting. It's incredibly complex. I agree with what you guys are throwing out. The mixture of smoke with some of that fruitiness to it reminds me of like when you slow smoke something with a fruit wood forever. Yeah. Fans of barbecue, it has a pipe tobacco quality to it that I really like. Yeah. A cherry barkum riff. A savory quality with some, like pickled, like dill. Yeah. It kind of reminds me when you mentioned Arbeg. I'm more familiar with like the, I used to enjoy every once in a while having some of Corrie Vrecken, I think is a pretty phenomenal. Corrie Vrecken is the cast strength offering that is aged in French oak. So your regular Ardbeg is on the shelf. The five-year-old, five-year-old bourbon cast, ten-year-old bourbon and sherry cask. Then there's Oogadall, which is cast strength and predominantly sherry and Corrie Vrecken, which is cast strength and predominantly French oak. And Corrie Vrecken is really a kind of, in my opinion, the sleeper of the line. I love Oogadall and I love the balance that sherry gives to smoke that's very Lagavulin-esque. But the Corrie Vrecken with the drier French oak spice, with the Ardbeg, that meaty smoky Ardbeg character is just awesome. Yeah. Enough said. This is a great whiskey. It reminds me of like applewood or cherrywood smoked barbecue. Oh yeah, by the way, if I could buy this, how much is it? Can I buy this? I want to say we're charging $160 for this. It's high, but it's a really great whiskey. You know, that's what really great scotch costs, especially when you're talking Ila stuff that's pushing 20 years old. $160 is kind of a bargain. It's hard to beat Compass Box for a gift presentation as well. Yeah. They really kind of set the bar, I think, for their packaging is stunning. Greg, let me put this in perspective. LeFrogue's 25 year old that they bottle is like $800. Okay. What a bargain. So, if you get a near 20 year old LeFrogue bottled by Compass Box with a couple other balancing acts blended into it for- For arguably a more complicated- Arguably around 150 bucks, I think you're doing pretty good. That's amazing. Yeah. Moving on, number eight. Number eight. This came and went, but we'll be back. Kentucky Peerless Double Oak. So, Peerless is a newer distillery. They really hang their hat on having DSP. I think it's DSP 1. I think it's 5. DSP 5? Yeah. They make really good, but very expensive whiskeys. Roger was lamenting the fact that a lot of people consider $50 bourbon now, you know, kind of the price for bourbon. And honestly, though, like their bourbon now at 60 or 70 bucks, whatever it is, is pretty damn good. DSP 50. Sorry. So, that's an old DSP. But either way, so they did a double oak release. They did a couple of them at the distillery only. They got a lot of hype about it. I know we tooted the horn of Hype Train at the beginning of the episode here. And this is definitely part of that. This is tatery Hype Train bourbon. I want to say it was around 90 bucks. It's cast strength, because all their stuff is cast strength and non-chill filtered, which is cool. I think they make some really, really great stuff. I tried the last, the previous release of double oak at the distillery the last time I was there. It was outstanding. Top 10 is pretty high, though. I'd put a top 20, but I'm not sure I'm putting a top 10. All right, moving on. Number seven. Number seven. This is a whiskey we normally carry, but it's been out of stock for like a month and a half now. Which is Rampur Aasava. Rampur is an Indian single malt. Aasava here is in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels. It's about 90 bucks. It's 90 proof. I will say it is an outstanding whiskey. It's typical to subcontinent style single malt. It is very tropical and fruity and juicy, but it gets a little bit of balancing dryness from those Cab Sauv barrels. I wonder where they get the barrels from. I am not sure. Whisky Advocate says Indian Cabernet Sauvignon barrels. I was going to say India has a pretty sizable wine industry at this point. Really? As is China. Okay. I mean, I knew China did. Actually, I have a bottle of Indian wine not too far away from me right now. No. I had this bottle of Ron Peresava open somewhere, but I could not find it in the entirely, immensely, immaculately organized Whisky Hotline sample library. Because it's brand new. It will be back and it's definitely worth checking out. I'd say it earned a spot on the list. I like seeing world single malts on this list. You saw how good Taketsuru was, obviously. This is a newer distillery, but they make really exceptional stuff. All right, moving on. Number six. Number six is High Coast Hav, which is some Swedish single malt. Have not tried it, cannot get it. You can't have it. Number five, we have number five. Number five is George Dickel, eight-year-old bourbon. So unlike the other Dickels, which they label as Tennessee whiskey, this one is labeled bourbon. It's about 30 bucks and it's 90 proof. It's really interesting. This is different. I mean, I would say fruitier, less honey, caramel, maple, vanilla, things you would associate with bourbon, more. I don't know, I'm getting a lot of fruit character. But it's a weird fruit. It's like a very high-toned, almost fruity pebbles or fruit loopy kind of fruit. Am I crazy? No. I was thinking like strawberry bubblegum. That is the calling card of that distillery. Flintstones Vitamins is what a lot of people will say is kind of the Dickel House character. Sometimes it is just way over the top. Sometimes it isn't there at all. Well, it's definitely here in my opinion. Yeah, it's here. But there's some caramel in there too. Like I get a solid shot of caramel in this. This is a nice bourbon, but I don't know if it's top 20. A $30. A $30 obtainable bourbon right there at seat number 6. Yeah. I mean, if we're taking price into account, but I have to agree, I don't know this is top 20 material. I like it. I think maybe it's appealing to people that because it's almost untraditional bourbon, maybe that's what makes it stand out. I mean, if you're just putting this next to like say the wheel horse, I would flip-flop these. I'd rather have the wheel horse where this is at. Yeah. Hey, Roger, do you see this bottle? I want to know what Roger thinks of this schmaltzy bottle. This is 35 bucks, dickle bourbon. Roger, what do you think of this schmaltzy bottle? That's like the bottles that people find in old rivers. Yeah, right. It has this gold foil on it, but it might actually detract from the look of elegance versus if it was just like matte paper. You know what I mean? I mean, the minute I see that bottle, I hear ragtime peony in my mind. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A Scott Joplin drink from this very bottle. I mean, this is good whiskey for 30 bucks. Totally good whiskey for 30 bucks. It's different, I think, for people that like, people that like, okay, so one thing that might be beneficial, Pat, is to talk to listeners about, you know, I think Tennessee whisky fans like this. So are Jack Daniel's drinkers like, when they're labeling this bourbon, what's the decision process there versus labeling a Tennessee whisky? I think they forwent, did not do the Lincoln County process here. Lincoln County? So, okay. They proudly proclaim on the front label charcoal chill filtered. So it gets chilled filtered through some charcoal before it's bottled. The white dog doesn't go? Not through the wood. Yeah, not through the wood. And this was a 2020 release, right? A brand new release of the kind of a line extension for Dickel? Yeah, it was a brand new release in 2021. What's the proof on this again? 90. 45% alcohol by the way. Pretty easy to drink for 90. Yeah, that's true. It is for sure. But I for one cannot escape those Flintstone vitamins now that you mentioned them. Yeah, sorry. They're definitely there. And it's like that fruitiness combined with that minerally taste. And maybe it's like limestone water combined with fruity esters here or something. I don't know, but it has a dead on minerally vitamin taste too, or aroma. Did you guys ever eat Welch's fruit snacks as a kid? That's exactly what this reminds me of. As a kid, I ate them like last week. Yeah, my kid eats two bags a day. So if you're a fan of that, that's what I'm getting off of this. I can see that. I get the vitamin thing, but yeah, in a little more pleasant mindset than vitamins. Cool. Well, I was never going to get at scurvy as a kid because I used to eat Flintstones by the handful. Number four. Number four. You can't have this. This is Jack Daniel's 10-year-old. This was about like 70 or 80 bucks. Was this good? I've tried older Jacks at the distillery, but nothing this old, so. Jeff said it on the buyer picks episode, but their single barrels were shockingly good. Oh, so good, so good. We actually just got some more last week, so single barrel Jack is, don't sleep on that. All right, number three. Number three, widely available at Every Binny's. You guys have it. It is Tealine Black Pits. We are selling this for $70. This is 92 proof, non-chill filtered. This is a Irish single malt, heavily peated Irish single malt because it is Irish. Traditionally Irish, it is triple distilled, so they have to really peat the heck out of it. Otherwise, all that peak gets lost in the third distillation. It is then aged in sautern barrels. The peat is not screaming across the front. No, but it's there. Right. That triple distillation really strips a lot of it out. It makes it quite subtle. I like that, actually. The sautern shows up, though. It smells like peaches and cream. Yeah. Yeah. That's dead on. Peaches. It's crazy. This is an absolute delight of a whiskey. I'm glad it got a top 10 nod. This whiskey is awesome. We got it. It came out in February or something last year and made an initial splash, and then it's sat around. People who like peated scotch get on this. For 70 bucks, this is tremendous whiskey. Its evolution on the palate really surprises me because it's pleasant, but it's simple on the nose. But on the palate, it really evolves. There's a sweet mint, a spearmint kind of thing at the front, and then it turns into this candied fruit, like spearmint gum. Yeah, and then, I mean, yeah, it's like explosion of candied fruit, like peach preserves or something like that. I was going to say like a citrus marmalade or something. Yeah. The finish is super interesting. I get a lot of raspberry, almost like a black raspberry character. It's really lasting and interesting with that bit of smokiness. It's also super drinkable. I was a little worried that it might be a little too simple. The nose wasn't showing all that it has to deliver, in my opinion. But it really just fans out on the palate and becomes very, very complex. 92 proof, drinks very smooth. Yeah. This is an awesome whiskey. Oh, God. Yeah. I'm a big advocate of always telling people, if you want to drink something with ice, people get ice shamed too much. Like Bill Macy at that place in Scotland he was talking about. Yeah. Usually, it's like if it's over 100, it's ridiculous to give anyone any guff about ice. But this is one that at 90, I probably would just drink this neat. I wouldn't even put any ice. Hell yeah. It is so smooth and delicious, whatever that means. But I mean, it is drinks easy at this proof, neat. It's awesome. Everything Teeling so far has been very good. We've had some great phenomenal handpicks. We've got more on the way. We're going to be doing more handpicks with them this spring as well. I'm really looking forward to anything new Teeling at this point. When Pat was saying, for people that are into Isla, they should check this out. This is also, I think, a great opportunity for people that have shied away from smokier whiskeys, especially the Isla stuff. This is a good introduction to what Peake can offer without being like ashtray, campfire, like this is far from one dimensionally Peake. This is dipping your toe in the water instead of cannonballing. Right. Not only is it not overly Peakey, but it has so much else to offer that a whisky drinker who doesn't like Peake certainly is not going to object to this luscious peaches and cream and fruity profile that just fans out. It's great. I agree. It's a perfect introductory whisky for smoky things. Man. All right. Pretty damn good. All right. Before we get to number two, Pat, how many bottles of Greg did you buy? How many bottles of Greg did I buy? Yeah. None. You didn't buy any bottles of Greg? No, because it wasn't the best one. We're going to get hung on extra bottles of Greg. Aramis was the best one. Yeah. I bought three Gregs. Did you really? Yeah. I don't really like them that much. You made it, you a**hole. He's bringing up. So we brought Greg with us to a couple of distilleries to do some handpicked casts this past summer. They felt bad for me. Yeah. Because Greg doesn't get to leave the office much. So one of them was Makers and we did four new Makers blends, which were named after the three Musketeers and Greg. And he was very proud of his Greg blend and he's bought three of them, but now he regrets it. Eight out of ten staves are French oak and it is a spicy meatball. Yeah. I tried to tell you that when you were blending it, but you were insistent on it. To be fair, that's pretty on point for Greg. Yeah, that's true. It's fair. Spicy meatball. He brings that up because Whisky No. 2. No. You cannot have this, as one Roger would say, but we can. You should have bought it earlier in the year. It was Makers Marks Wood Finishing Series FAEO1. So this is the first year they've done two special releases in the wood finishing series. There was FAEO1 and FAEO2. FAEO1 came out in the spring. Ten Virgin Toasted American Oak Staves. Correct. So it was blended and created to highlight the fruitiness in Makers Mark, and they used ten toasted American oak staves as the finishing staves. I absolutely adore this whisky. I think it's the best Makers Mark product I have ever tasted, and I think it is well deserved and number two on the list. The best Makers Mark product I have tasted. This is the best Makers Mark I have tasted. Is the monolithic ten American wood staves. Yes. No, no, Mondiant or whatever they want to call it. I love this bourbon. We've had some really, really, really, really good private select blends over the years, but I just love this. It smells as American as bourbon can get. I am such a sucker for the flavors that toasted American oak provides. This was specifically designed to make Pat Brophy gush about it on a podcast. Mission accomplished. Yeah. Yeah, I can definitely see that because I'm immediately getting loads of caramel, coconut lactones. Oh, yeah. It's very rich on the sweet side. Definitely feel like I detect weediness in the nose, like a grainy wheat-ness, but I don't really get much of that on a palate. It's so rich in caramely and coconut-y. I love this. Yeah, the coconut is definitely there. I love that this drinks like some of the oak grace that you get in some of these older bourbons. That were fat and rich enough to begin with, but you could tell that by the time they're mature, they're not just dried out spice bombs. They really are complex. I think it's pretty neat the way they did this different technique, where instead of it tasting like a piece of lumber or something, like the oak character is really dignified. Well, let's not pretend like there's no wood here. It still has that wood spice backbone, but it's buried under all of this other stuff. That's a trick with the stave they use. They work with wood chemists at Independent Stave to create all these different staves. The stave they use for this was toasted Virgin American Oak, but it was only toasted on one side. Oh, so the other side is just raw American Oak? Yeah, but the intent there is that the raw American Oak doesn't provide that much flavor or anything to it. They wanted to get the toasted character without it being overly one-dimensionally toasty. But it is a barrel plus 10 additional staves. That's true. Yeah. I'm starting to pick up some more herbaceous notes, which are just subtle grace notes to the richness. There's a little bit of dill weed in here. Yeah, but there's like- It's super complex and interesting. Apple and toffee and there's some sweet brown baking spice thing going on too. This is excellent, excellent stuff. I mean, whatever, I don't mean to defend it in any way. I think grace notes is the perfect description. Some of those descriptors, usually when you pick up on it, they're loud and at the forefront, and more of like a rye whiskey type of thing, or like, well, if you don't like that, you're going to have trouble getting past it. Here they really are just accents. They're very subtle and they make this really complex piece that this is. Greg also hates it. That also happens to smell like a butterscotch and cherry syrup parfait. That's awesome. That smells awesome. That's what it smells like. Well, that's what makes it so interesting. I mean, there is a lot of rich flavors like that to the fore, but you can still parse out all these so-called grace notes, which are beautiful. It really is. I love this whiskey unapologetically. It's freaking nice. Yeah. Well-earned spot in the top two, honestly. All right. You were finishing up here. You actually stashed a bottle on number one. Number one is long gone. You can't have it. You can have it. But a certain friend of yours happened to buy a bottle, and I opened it just for this podcast. When we tasted this way back at the beginning of the year, this was something special. It really was. Yeah. The gimmicky celebrity tie-in, I'm looking the other way, but a lot of people liked it for that too. Yeah. Number one. Number one, Lagavulin 11-year-old Offerman edition Guinness Cask Finish. Guinness Cask Finish Lagavulin. So wacky. I got to say, typical to Lagavulin, they really did a stand up job with the packaging. The foil is colored like a creamy tan Guinness head on top and then black. It's pretty awesome. That's funny. Thanks for popping this. Oh yeah. I didn't buy it not to drink it. So I really love this. I couldn't, we had a sample because I tasted it before we sent an email out on this. So this was, you can't get this anymore. It's sold out. This was broadly available. Like we had this for a couple months. Yeah. And sent an email out about it, talking about how good it was, and I couldn't find the sample bottle from then. So maybe we drank it or something. So that's why I had to pop this one open. This is great. It's superb. Sorry, men in the Zoom, I defer to you. Maybe it's just me today, but I'm finding myself much more accepting or finding that the smoky phenols are just much more subtle than I'm expecting from a lot of these whiskies. Like even this Lagervulin is not blowing my mind with smokiness. I mean, it's prominent, but it's not over the top. Well, you know, you've grown bitter and tired and you've lost some taste buds over the years, so I think it's about time you revisit these things. Chris is docile. I'm barely clinging to life, Pat, let alone being bitter and old. Okay, so I smell cream. I definitely smell cream. Yeah. Interesting. When I tried it in the spring, I felt it had a pretty firm multiness to it that I attributed to the beer cask. I don't know that it's quite as pronounced now. There's wood. There's fruit, but I can't put my finger on it. Do you think this was like they seasoned a cask with Guinness? That's possible. They're real cagey about it. All the marketing around it isn't about the cask, it's about Nick Offerman's relationship with his dad and the stupid stuff he says about Lagavulin. Well, right. How much Guinness is going into a wooden barrel these days? I mean, what's that about? More than five years ago, though, since they opened that brewery in Baltimore and they're actually, they're doing some cool barrel-age stuff, but not a whole lot though. Yeah, that's why I was curious. And there was a lot of this whiskey around. Usually the stuff that goes into Guinness barrels is like, they did a stock ale one year, which is incredible then, but other than that, it's usually Imperial Stouts. It's not like you're, obviously, it's not like a Guinness draft. It's like pretty imperialized beers. So I was just curious if I didn't notice any real, I think they just kind of keep that close to the chest, as far as like what exactly the Guinness. Yeah, they're influenced. They're not some barrels. Totally wide open about it, that's for sure. And what did this cost? It was like 90 bucks. Yeah, it was like 90 bucks, I think. Whisky Advocate says it was 80 bucks. You know, it might have been 80 bucks. Did you know the gym has a Nick Offerman Funko Pop on his desk? I did. Yeah. I did know that. Jim's a big Nick Offerman fan. When we had this sample, it was like, Jim, get here. Like that. This Lagavulin changes in a pronounced way, the more it opens up in a glass. And warmth. It shows a lot more fruit than you normally get with a Lagavulin. I haven't had regular Lagavulin in quite some time. They have a 16 year and then a 12 year. They have a 16 and an 8. A 12 comes out once a year. Oh, okay. I prefer the 8. Honestly, the 8 is slightly higher proof, and I think it shows a ton of fruit. It's not one dimensional with the smoke. The 16, the smoke's calmed down, and it's really heavily sherry barrel aged. So I get why the 16 is an icon, but for me, the Lagavulin to reach for normally is the eight-year-old. This has more iodine than smoke, I would say. Considering the talk about Arden Murchin before, I'm wondering how Roger feels about the presence of the iodine and smoke here. Tried the 8 at one point and wasn't all that impressed because I felt it was a little too overbearing, and that's what I'm getting here. I think it's a little more one-dimensional. I'm surprised for Whisky of the Year. I mean, it's good, but- Roger's saying nay. He's a nay-sayer on this one. I don't know about Best Whisky. It's nice, but I thought there was more complexity in the Irish peated than there is in this. I'm going to agree with that. Although I do think this is nice. I think there's plenty of orchard fruit showing through here. I'm getting a lot of pear and apple mixed in with the peat. But I agree with you. I don't think the complexity is nearly, yeah, what we've seen in some of the prior whiskeys. Very good whisky. Number one of the year, probably not. I would say the Arden American is better, the Taket Suru is better, the Teeling is probably better, the Maker's Mark was better, the Compass Box is better. I've got to try the Compass Box number three. Yeah. Because wow. I'm like kind of mushy and weak need for the Compass Box. The Compass Box number one is a showstopper. Yeah. What was touched upon earlier that I think definitely comes out in this one to me is the idea of like a maritime kind of character to Pete, where like this reminds me of like seaweed-y like it's that vegetal character. It reminds me of that big sweater that Pat got. I do love a thick cable knit. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's a bit aggressive for me. I don't think it's as dialed in as a lot of the other whiskeys. All right, wrapping it up. We've had somewhere between eight and ten of the whiskies of the year here. I guess nine, kind of, or eight, depending on how you count. Yeah. So I think, I mean. And we missed a couple. I should have found a wise man and a Bibbin Tucker. I should have brought them. So in total, you can get currently more than half of the whiskies of the year from Whisky Advocate out of Binny's near you. That's fantastic. That's pretty damn impressive. Which is a rarity. Total rarity. Okay. Obviously, there's not a stinker here, but my other takeaway is some of these are approaching 200, 150 bucks, and some of them are as cheap as $30, and there's some good whiskey for not that much money here. Yeah. That's true. That is true. Why don't we go around and say if you could have your choice of any of these, if you could just hand some on a bottle of this, what would you pick? All right. What do you want, Roger? I say it because I think it's going to surprise the s*** of you, what I'm going to say. All right. I would probably pick the Taketsuru or the Ardnamurkin. Yeah, you did pick the Ardnamurkin. As much as I love the Compass Box, I adore the Ardnamurkin, and I really, really, really like the Taketsuru. Somebody else can have the Glendronner. Let me tell you something. That gets bumped out of the top 20 for me. The Compass Box, if I'm drinking whiskey and I want to show what whiskey can be, I think that that is stunning and a momentous bottle, and I need to try the number three. But I don't drink that much whiskey, just straight whiskey, and I like a lot of cocktails, and I would grab the Wheel Horse any day of the week. Wheel Horse was awesome. Right? Really awesome. Chris, what do you think? Without even thinking about it, I don't know what my top would be, but definitely the Nika Japanese whiskey just stood out like a sore thumb to me. I love that. And I also think the Black Pits was pretty fantastic. So good. So I got two more, the Makers and the Compass Bucks. That's my top four. The Makers is so good, right? I love the Makers. That's a surprise for me. It's good. I would pick the Nika. I mean, I normally am always like, I try these Japanese malts and I'm like, they're good, but I always think that they're overpriced and overhyped, and they're such interesting stories. But I never really think, oh, well, the whiskey though is above and beyond what you can get from Scotland. This for the money, I thought was just an incredible whiskey, especially the nose. Gorgeous, right? That's why it was the first thing out of my mouth too. I was very impressed. It's really something else. Plus, I just want to be walking through a garden. I want to be walking through a garden while someone's cooking bacon. Maybe it was just that romantic description there that sealed the deal for me. I am going to treat myself to a bottle of that. That's how impressed I was. Treat yourself. Old $20 a bottle bourbon Roger over here is going to go pony up for a- For a malt. $80 Japanese whiskey. For an Asian malt. What the f**k is going on here? It's Bizarro World. Welcome to 2020, baby. Wild card. You're two years behind, but you're right on with your pick. 2022, no more VOB for Roger. It's 2022, baby. The whole new world. All right, guys, this was fun. If they're going to keep putting whiskies that we actually have samples of on the list every year, we're going to do this every year. Awesome. Yeah, no reason not to. Nice. Cool. Pat, this is a lot of fun. I've never been able to taste this many whiskies from the Whisky Advocate Top 20. Again, I screwed up and I left two on the store shelf. It's still quite a tour. I really appreciate it too. I'm happy for our customers. Again. How about that Ardnamerkin, huh? Yes. Yeah, that's good. I like that as well. If you like this podcast as much as we like tasting whiskey, leave us a review on the podcast platform of your choice. I think Spotify just added stars. Really? Install Spotify and give us five stars. I'm the only person on the planet that doesn't use Spotify, I think. I use Castro. What the hell is that? Exactly. All right. It's the Cuban version of Spotify. Yes, that's what I was going to say. The Latin American Caribbean version. Truly crowdsourced. Tell your friends, tell your mom. Until next time, thanks for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg. I'm Chris. I'm Roger. And I'm Pat. Keep tasting. You can't have this.