You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. We're here in January 2023, talking about non-alcoholic wine, spirits and beer. I'm Alicia, I'm the wine educator. In the room with me. Yeah, I'm Pat. I'm being held against my wills and help. Roger, I do beer, hard iced tea, hard lemonade, hard seltzer, hop water, NA beers. All the beverages. And I'm Chris, and I'm here. Excited to try NA wines, aren't you? Yeah, I actually tasted the room earlier. It's going to be phenomenal. So we're here today to talk about the growing trend of non-alcoholic consumption as we are now in dry January and we have picked up so many new products. So really something for everyone. But yeah, this category is nuts now. It takes up so much space. Why is this considered better than just abstention? That's what I want to know. Well, this is more inclusive. You know, your friends are going out drinking and stuff. And if you don't want to, like, you can still be included in the frivolity. If you want to lord over them for making better life choices than you are. You know, some of us have the discipline to not drink alcohol for one month. What's interesting, though, is I think that while dry January is certainly a thing, we see the numbers about the younger generation drinking less. And also, it's now reported that 82% of non-alcoholic drink buyers are also still purchasing alcohol. So this isn't just now a one month thing. This is just a lifestyle change that we're seeing of more moderation, but yet still wanting to go out, still wanting to have. Well, I think some of it too is there are, I do know people that are, they're mixing the two. It isn't abstention. So like we are stuck in boring, dry, jang, wait, what was the term we were calling it? Dry-annuary. Dry-annuary. Drainuary. Who was calling it that? Nobody's ever called it that. Oh, we did. Someone in an email put it and I called it out because I'm like, I don't know what that means. It was Greg, the person who's conspicuously absent on this episode. So, there's people that are, I mean, people choose non-alcoholic drinks for a lot of different reasons. We happen to be in January right now. Definitely, there are more and more people turning to these. But it may be a good idea to end your evening at a bar that way. So, you have a few drinks and then maybe your last one or two are non-alcoholic. Yeah, I know people that do that for sure. I think that makes a lot of sense. My favorite story is that at Oktoberfest in Germany, if you are too out of it and just schnackered, they just switch you to NA beer and don't even tell you. Just decide, he's too drunk, put him on NA. Give him a chicken, give him some NA. So, as mentioned, we brought in a ton of new products and even just July 2021 to July 2022, there were 72 new NA skews introduced in the US. So, I think we've each taken our category and picked out some that we want to stand behind and want to encourage you to try. So, the best of the categories, Roger. Roger, do you bring any cookies this week? No, no cookies. You can't have an NA beverage and then like load up on sugar and somehow feel good about yourself. I mean, you can do whatever you want. A lot of the people enjoying these are high out of their mind. I was just going to say, do we have statistics on like, are dry Januaryans doubling their weed consumption during January? Strangely, Nielsen did not report that. I can't believe it. I mean, I know for a fact, there are lots of people that are digging hot water that are also choosing to use now legalized marijuana, so. All right, just show your shit. All right, so I figured where we would start off is the thing that's making quite a splash right now. Pun intended, Sierra Nevada's hop water is called Hop Splash, and it's so popular that we're actually sold out of it right now. So we're gonna taste a different hop water, a few different ones. Hop water is kind of an interesting enigma in that it's being billed almost as like an NA beer now, since it is made with hops. But originally, the one that really hit the market and was a lot of people's first experience with hop water is this one. It's Laganitas Hoppy Refresher, which when this first came out... Oh, that's in cans now? Yeah, exactly. When this first came out, it was in four-pack, 12-ounce bottles, and you typically would find it in our mixer aisle. So it'd be next to things like club soda. And Laganitas initially thought, you know, there'll be some people that just enjoy drinking this on its own, for sure. But they definitely thought it would be approached as a drink mixer, that, you know, people would be making gin drinks, tequila drinks, all sorts of stuff with it. But... It smells sweet. Everybody started really just drinking it as is. I think obviously the popularity of hard seltzers, this actually became kind of like an NA hard seltzer, which, yes, we've jumped the shark, nuked the fridge, and two points. Like, it's a weird world we live in. But yeah, there's NA... How does that work? NA seltzers are a thing, even though obviously they don't have the alcohol removed. Yeah, there are things... That's La Croix. Yeah. I know, it's just seltzers. This is just sparkling water with... Flavors... . some flavors. Okay, so make sure I'm not over... It seems like lemon, lime, soda flavor. Like, it smells a bit sprite-like. There's something a little tropical going on here. Yeah, it's very fruity and sweet smelling in the nose. So, I think in a deep call back on Barrel to Bottle, Chris, you're going to get a kick out of this. I'm pretty sure that they add... So, some people told me that there's mango in this. But really, when you go on their website, they say that the magical flavor additive to this is sulfur compounds. Of course. It all comes back to mango camera bags. Right. We know that sulfur compounds are common in fruits. So, yeah. What they're doing here is that they're incorporating a hop extract. Then, I actually got a chance to try Hoppy Refresher when it was in its development stages. It was just straight up hops and water. I think they thought that was too green. It wouldn't necessarily appeal to the masses. Then, they added some sort of natural flavorings to it, which I think you're spot on, Brof. It's a lemon-lime-soda-y kind of thing. Then, there's a vaguely tropical kind of the mango-esque. I mean, it's perfectly delightful. This hop extract though, is this a by-product in brewing or will they intentionally be making this from the get-go? They've been making it for years. Hop extract is like a derided term and a dirty word. It was when craft brewing was really took off in the 80s in America. One of the things was to go back to using whole ingredients. Rather than using malt extracts, hop extracts, cereal grains, we wanted to go back to the basics of malt, hops, yeast, water. That having been said, with extracts, they run the whole gamut. You can have pretty much an extract made for efficiency and cheapness, to save money. But in a lot of ways, like when Laganitis is using a hop extract, they like to point out that it's just as expensive if not more so. They're using things that... Sierra Nevada had to tap dance around this too. They did a beer where they were trying to bill it as a hop distillate, because in a lot of ways, that's essentially what you're doing. There's all sorts of different hop products being made right now and being incorporated into IPAs, especially like hazier ones. So hop extract in this, don't think of it as like a dirty word or they're not doing it to like save money. It's just a better way to introduce the hop flavor into something like water where there's literally nothing to be interacting with the hops. This is fine. It tastes like lemon lime La Croix. What's next? For a couple years, that was Hopwater from Lagunitas. Now they have a Hoppy Refresher Variety Pack that is coming into stores as we speak. So this is brand Spank & New. So there's two in each 12 pack. You get six cans of the regular one. And then this one is Berry Lemon. So again, clearly, this is definitely launching off how the interest in things like LaCroix. This is just LaCroix. Yeah, like LaCroix has exploded right now. So everyone's interested in other kinds of seltzer water. So what are we charging for this? This is $16.99 a 12 pack. You know, it's only $13.99 a 30 pack. Like when we get to some of the other NA options, if people enjoy drinking it, they don't seem to mind spending the money. And this berry one's got a bit of a funky finish to it. I like the first one. The first one's very nice. And the first one we tried was the classic hop hop water, right? Yes. Yeah, I think there's a there's definitely a customer for both. The the berry with the lemon, I don't know that I, I don't know, I don't typically find that combination. I like I like that about it. Really? Yeah, like I can't stand normally the berry. Are we opening another one of these? There's more. I was curious with these, whether- It's a cascade of refreshment. Whether or not that you would still get the hop character. And I feel like in the berry one, it's obviously more muted, almost to the point of not being there. I agree with that. It's hard to suss that out in that context. All right, which one's next? That having been said, I do like the way that one tasted, probably better than the original. I like that lemon, blackberry combination, but I've always really liked that. Like I like that in cocktails. So this is such a bizarre world we're living in where we create categories of drinks and then we just circle back around in this long arc to something that kind of already exists. You know, like I don't know. No, I do not deny that. Sparkling water has been around forever. Kind of what I've always said with some of these NA's is that when NA's first, you know, when they were a thing. One orange is good. 20 years ago, obviously there's certain social situations where people either can't drink alcohol or are choosing not to and don't necessarily want to get noticed for that fact, right? You just want to be holding a beverage and not be, you know, ask questions about like, oh, not drinking anymore or what are you, pregnant? That's where club soda and lime come in. So again, yeah, you should be confident and just drink whatever you please. But if it makes you more comfortable to be holding something that says Laganetus and then people just walk past you and go, oh, he's drinking a beer. If that makes you feel better, that's awesome. So I think that there's a real, that's a purpose that NA's serve and always have, is for people to just drinking is a very social activity. If you just want to still feel like you're part of the social activity and not be read the riot acts about, why aren't you drinking? These can help you just avoid that. Kind of amazing that there's still peer pressure when you're an adult. I agree. I mean, what else are you supposed to drink? Like milk or orange juice or something? I'll have a milk. I joke about that with my friends. What would happen? What kind of looks would you get if eight 40-year-old dudes walked into a burger joint and all ordered a meal and milk with it? So I do like expanding the variety of beverages that you can order that are in the NA space, but just aren't alcohol. I mean, also worth mentioning on these. So I mean, since they are beer adjacent in that they contain hops, they are as zero as you can get then. So if you're watching calories, zero. If you're concerned about alcohol, zero, not even like 0.5 percent alcohol, carbs, zero, gluten, zero. So I do think that that's part of the appeal of it as well is like some of these NA beers, they very much have carbs still. Some are extremely low-cal, others are like not any more than beer, but they're about the same as beer. So that's the thing about making NA beers, there's a lot of different ways to do it. So I do think that some people are enjoying that with these, they feel beer-esque in a way, but they're completely zero. Yeah, I mean, easy to do when you're shooing all grains. Next, we're gonna do a hop water that literally just hit the market. This is from our friends over at Noon Whistle. They started in Lombard, Illinois, and they have a second facility in Naperville. Even though it's barely been out for very long at all, a lot of people are telling me that they love this hop water. You're also like the founder of their fan club, though. They're great people. I'm not making that up. A lot of people, this definitely tastes more like hops than... Are they touting a particular hop or...? No, they're not. This is what Laganitas hop water used to taste like. The Laganitas hop water, they had the hop extract, but they were adding in some aromas or flavoring, right? Right. Sulfur compounds. Sulfur compounds. But here, though... The hop blend for hoppy refresher is supposedly citra, equinox and centennial. Okay, but they're not adding in any flavors then. It's just... No, that was in Laganitas, but yeah, this one is just hops and water, as far as I know. Again, a lot of this stuff is very proprietary, and they don't want to talk about what they're doing, but... And this again is brand new. I haven't really done a deep dive on this yet. According to the ingredients list, there are natural flavors in this one as well. And just forced carbonation, obviously. Yeah. Supposedly, Laganitas uses some yeast in theirs to react with the hops. So, I think that's probably maybe to produce some thiols. But I don't know what Noon Whistle is doing when they make theirs. Like I said, Sierra Nevada has one as well. If you guys think this is a little like dank or a little bit musky, Sierra's is even more so than this one. Yeah, not for me. We can move on. I mean, what you're running into with any of these, I mean, with hops, they're definitely meant you're used to drinking them with a malt profile behind it. So when they're laid bare next to water, you're getting the vegetal character, for example, is here in a way that it wasn't in the Laganita Swan. So there's like a chivey element here. True enough. I mean, imagine a beer without the malt, but without the counterpoint of hops or some other ingredients. It just doesn't come out as balanced as you would expect. So again, hop waters, maybe not for everybody. I think they're definitely worth trying. If you already enjoy them, there's going to be more and more available for you to explore. Check out Sierra Nevadas. Like I said, that is the hoppiest one that I've tasted so far. Is Sierra Nevada doing like classic old school cascades? They're doing Citra and Amarillo. And the Amarillo is a bold choice. So I mean, it's super dank and some people are going to think a little stanky. So I originally, like I said, I wanted to try that one because if you reacted intensely to this one, I think you really would have. It would have been fun to see your reaction to that one. So maybe we'll incorporate it into a future podcast. Last year, I was pregnant, and NA beer was by far my favorite category to drink. Beer dominates the market in this, but there are some that actually do taste pretty similar to beer. So, can we get to those? Yeah, NA beer, thanks for bringing all the NA seltzer. All right, so this is from Big Drop. They are regenerated, probably why Alicia likes it, in jolly old England. They are now produced in the great state of Illinois at Distill down in Bloomington. So, this is Big Drop Paradiso. It is made with barley, oats, wheat, lactose, and then the hot bill is Chinook, Cascade, Simcoe, Citra and Columbus. It actually has a bitter finish. It does. This is pretty, this is better. It's acceptable, right? Yeah, it's acceptable. This was, yes, definitely one of my go-to's and I drink a lot of NA beer. This was up there. This and the Untitled Art Series. The name just begs some Dante comparisons. I would put this at Purgatorio rather than Paradiso. Using some oats and wheat, it's by no means hazy, but you're always battling not having much mouthfeel. Yeah, I was going to say, between those and the lactose, you actually get a little bit more mouthfeel in this beer for an NA. It's fine. Remember, lactose, that is, people sometimes hear lactose or milk sugar, and immediately their mind goes to sweetness, which if you use a ton of it, you definitely will get sweetness. But one of the main benefits of it is mouthfeel. Here, I think it's used very sparingly because this is again, very low cal. This is only 61 calories. To Chris's point, there's 31 IBUs, so this definitely has some hop character to it. It's available in a six-pack, 10.99. Pretty reasonable. It's on sale right now too. I think you're getting some nice value here. This feels a lot like beer. It has a good solid hop profile. Again, I think by incorporating the oats and the wheat, you get a little more. I think oats are a great call for a lot of these beers. More people should be doing it because of the added mouthfeel that it brings because, yeah. Otherwise, it tastes like hop water, strangely enough. But yeah, it definitely adds something to it. There is some significant bitterness to this one. I mean, your typical light beers are more towards like 9,000 calories. So 61, that's pretty solid for something with this amount of flavor and beer adjacent. One thing I'd say is because of the body of all these, I mean, it's the middle of January, but on a really hot summer day, this seems like something you just pound a can of in no time. Yeah. And it might even hydrate you and not dehydrate you. I think too, I was torn here because again, whenever we do these podcasts, I don't want it to seem like we're just, this one's not good, this one's not good. If you drink these compared to some of the lager, like bigger producer NAs and the ones where, they're just brewed and then the alcohol is removed, there's a lot more going on here. For people that have struggled with some of the NA choices in the past, there's a lot more going on here, mostly thanks to the hops. And then again, these grains here are given a little more body to it. This new big drop used to be kind of billed as their milk stout. I think there's some legalities now and arguments about calling certain things ales and porters and stouts and everything if there's no alcohol in it. So now they're just kind of sticking with descriptors. So things will be called like a pale or a blonde, or this is big drop galactic extra dark. But for all intents and purposes, this is their take on a milk stout. So milk stout again, getting its name from the addition of milk sugar, which is otherwise known as lactose. Calorie wise, stouts are all over the map, especially milk stouts can be very sweet, higher in calories, but you can also have things like dry Irish stout. We always talk because Guinness is one of the best light beers there is. So this is somewhere in between. This is only going to cost you 91 calories a can. So we're still very much in like... Like roasty smelling. Light beer territory with 91 calories. This is made with barley oats rye, hashtag ryeuary, hops, cocoa nibs, and the hops here are Brambling Cross. I haven't heard that name in forever. I don't think I've ever heard that name. It's a very old school English hop. That's a hop that was very popular around the Victorian age. Ride a cock horse to Brambling Cross. I wouldn't even be surprised if they probably just sub in a different hop when they brew it here. I highly doubt they're bothering to import Brambling Cross hops. It'd be cool if they are. But hops obviously aren't a huge part of the profile here. But- I don't know if it's because of the flavor intensity that you get here, but the middle part of the beer on the palate just feels a little more hollowed out than I've been able to assess in the previous big drop. I think some of it is that a lot of people that drink, say like a Guinness is a dry Irish stout, they might perceive it as thin just because they're so used to drinking stouts that are really rich and heavy and that beer is just lean. It tricks your mind because it's so dark and you're so used to dark beers having a lot of body. So you may have tried brown ale, stouts, porters that are thick and rich and heavy. So it plays a trick on your mind when you have something that looks like those, but then is pretty lean. But there's definitely beers like that with alcohol in them that are dark, but still don't have a ton of body. So things like Schwartz beers, Dry Irish Stouts, this I would put in that category. So some people might try this and go like, oh, this tastes washed out or too thin, but maybe to like a pastry stout or something, sure. But I think the flavors are actually really nice here, in large part probably because of the addition of cocoa nibs. Absolutely. This has this really nice like dark chocolate. Yeah, the nose is very chocolatey and roasty. It reminds me, I don't know, this may be before everybody's time, but it has a flavor like KO or yu-hoo. Oh, yeah. I agree with Alicia that the middle seems very hollow and watery, but there's a big punch of that chocolatey roastiness on the finish. So it's pretty nice. I think it smells like roast malt. It smells like black patent malt or something. All right, pretty good, which will be relevant to the home brewer listeners. Yes. Yeah, I think in general, this without a doubt has the most flavor of anything that we tried. I think. Interestingly, I think going back to taste this again and thinking about Guinness, there's definitely the lactose is present here, which certainly wouldn't be in Guinness, but there's also that kind of signature dry Irish stout tang to it. You know what I mean? That little subtle tanginess that you got out of Guinness. I find that in here. I agree. I think some of that's probably maybe coming from the rye maybe. The stout category has been a real mixed bag with NA's. There's been some atrocious ones that have tasted like you dumped water in an ash tray. Yo, Ailsmith, huh? Yeah, so this is new. I've never even tasted this. This is supposed to be your favorites. Like I said, ran into some stock issues next door. Ailsmith is one of my favorite breweries, so I'm just going for it. This smells like just hot pellets. This tastes like a- This isn't bad. This tastes a lot like a lot of them. It's, you know, especially the Brooklyn special effects. This kind of reminds me of that, but not quite as grainy. So again, different ways to make NA beers, removing the alcohol versus, you know, brewing the beer, but in a way that it doesn't allow for any significant amount of alcohol to develop. It can get really nerdy and complicated. And for the sake of time, we're not going to dive too deep in that, especially with this. Again, they're kind of proprietary here. They're not exactly going into detail as to like what they're doing to make theirs. But I can tell just from tasting it that there's, it's definitely not one of the ones that's fully fermented and then has the alcohol removed because there's some warty, you know, pre-beer beer flavors here. But again, there's some nice hoppy characteristics to it as well. There definitely is actual hop character to this, whereas with the others, I was struggling to like, just decide whether I liked the hop character or whether I could even find it. Here, it's pretty clear there's actually some bitterness and it's very in that chive onion family. With some nice like lemon, lemon grass. Yeah, certainly not just that. Yeah, it has like a grass like freshly, like when you mow the lawn and you go over kind of a weedy patch. It's got kind of that, you know, blades of grass with some. Yeah, some dandelion greens. And I definitely think you're on with lemon grass. I think it smells a little bit like you're bruising up a piece of lemon grass. So with this one, benefit too is that, you know, being under those.5 is the like threshold for NA beer. Without the alcohol, you're obviously, that means less calories. So this one is only 75 calories a can. That's a bonus. What do you think the most successful beer style has been in the NA space? So far, it would be, you know, last time we did one of these podcasts, we really showed a lot of love to Athletic. And I think, you know, just because IPA is the best selling, you know, craft style, I think their IPAs are definitely probably the best sellers in craft. Heineken is moving a lot of Heineken 0.0. So I definitely think that appeals especially to some older demographics that are used to like imported loggers and want to take a break from alcohol or have to. But in the craft scene, it's a, it's a mixed bag and I think the Guinness, you know, we tried that, that was another one we've had on the podcast. That was one of the best. That's one of the best by far. So I think that's going to continue to impress and do well. Yeah, I think, you know, there's always going to be the mindset of that, you know, you can only drink so many stouts. So things like loggers and IPAs will probably sell more volume. But taste-wise, you should definitely give like this big drop a chance and the Guinness and a chance. I think they're well-made products. For beer and beer adjacent, those are some of the new ones. Obviously, go back, give a listen to some of our previous walk down the NA path. There's some nice options out there now between stuff that, you know, athletics doing, Guinness. Alicia, you mentioned Untitled Arts. They have some good options too. So the category has definitely expanded. So there's a lot to give a try if you're interested. Very cool. The NA path is nowhere near as fun as Gin Alley though. Like beer, like spirits, we're seeing huge growth in wine as well. It's up 23% over just one year ago. I will say that the wine options are definitely improving. And some of the early ones we weren't too sure about, but Chris and I tasted a lot of NA wine earlier today and picked out the ones that really stood out to us and are ones that are quite enjoyable. So we're starting with a very large and well-respected Cava producer, Fresh and Net here, and we're doing their, what they just call kind of their 0% low calorie sparkling wine. And this one to me was just like lemon drop all the way and was pleasant and kind of citrusy, a little bit of candied quality to it. And it's pretty candied, yeah. A little on the sweet side. This says it has alcohol removed on it. Yes. So why is it so sweet still? Why wouldn't they just ferment it out? Well, once you lose the alcohol, you lose so much body in the wine. Yeah, sugar is doing these a lot of favors, believe me. When you put some sugar back in, yeah, you're boosting up especially the mid palate. We'll get into some other examples that you'll see that are dry and you'll see structurally. Realistically, Roger, if this did not have the sugar in here, it would taste incredibly neutral, in my opinion. Here, it makes a little bit of- This isn't bad. Lemon drop candy, I think, is a very apt description. Yeah, almost like a lemon head. I'm surprised it's only nine. One thing of interest, it has a nutrition label on the back, which is interesting. This is only two servings. Seems kind of weird. Yo, a serving is half a bottle? Yeah. It's only 90 calories in half a bottle, which seems not bad at all, especially for how crazy sweet it tastes. Are you sure it's not misprinted serving size is two ounces or something? I almost feel like this is incorrect because total carbs is 20 with 19 of them being sugars. Yeah. I mean, the RSC is 38 grams per liter. Yeah. 90 calories in a 12-ounce serving. 38 grams per liter. That's not insane, and I don't think it tastes terribly sweet. I think there's good acidity to it. It's refreshing. Wow. This tastes really sweet to me. I don't know. I definitely do get the lemon heads as a spot on. For sure. Or lemon drops if you're feeling fancy. So this is 11.99 on the shelf. Little bit of sweetness, lemon drop all the way, but perfectly pleasant. In this case, we know that all of these wines that we're going to talk about are done via spinning cone. Yeah. They've really mastered this technology. Euro-style? This technology here. We're now going to go to a producer in New Zealand, the Geeson Brothers, and they have their own spinning cone down there. They're the only ones right now that have their own. Others are using a co-op. Nobody else can play with it. The Geeson Brothers spinning cone sounds like a carnival. You're right. But Chris, can you give us the 30 seconds on what this technology can do? Sure. I used to be with a traveling circus and I ran the spinning cone. Step right up, folks. That's right. Five-ticket ride. Let me tell you about bananas. I'll guess you're waiting, bananas. Tragedy at the banana stand. Anyway, spinning cone is simply a form of distillation that uses pressure and steam. What you're trying to accomplish is to evaporate volatile compounds including alcohol at a low temperature. High pressure and relatively moderate temperature allow you to separate out things that are particularly volatile. The first things that generally come out are the really bright aromatics. The way they do this so that the wine isn't completely stripped of flavor and aroma is to put those aside. They can be captured and then re-send it back through to get most of the alcohol out. You can get down to below 0.5 percent doing it that way. Basically, the reason it's called a cone and a spinning cone, because it literally spins and there are these cone shaped. The spinning allows a very thin layer of the liquid to be spread across these cones and thus, things can evaporate very, very easily. So yeah, we put in our wine, we remove the aromas, capture them though, remove the alcohol, leave that out, add the aromas back in. Exactly. So next up, we have the Geese and Brothers Rosé. Again, they're on the South Island of New Zealand, German brothers that went over there in the 70s, ran out of their Riesling neck, so get that German connection. But this is the Rosé Pinot Gris and Syrah. And this is dry, all right? So this is a dry expression, so I feel like you'll see that structural difference because we haven't added any sugar back in here. This is much better to my liking, personally, than the first. Yeah, it's bright and fresh and has those red berry notes you might expect. It's so watery though. It's a thinner expression for sure. Yeah, I think that's exactly what she was saying. Without that much residual sugar, it's going to come off as- Yeah, I mean, this is actually a total case in point of what you were both saying earlier. This is 45 calories. So exactly half the calories for the same serving. Wait, it's still a half a bottle as a serving? Yeah, 12 ounces. Must be industry standard. 45 calories. Definitely a light body rosé, but very much appropriate for a group patio setting, that you're not thinking too much about it, but it's refreshing and checks the boxes of what you expect a rosé to taste like. Yeah, I agree. It tastes like if you had ice and sangria, and this is the end of the glass. Right. There's just a little bit of fruit, a little bit of water. Yeah. I was thinking, what would you do with this other than just drink it? But if you wanted to make a wine spritz, it would be very counterproductive here. All right. The next one that we enjoyed, so same producer. You might know them too for their Sauvignon Blanc because we have had that for a while and that was their first in this zero line. They started that pre-COVID, well before a lot of this caught on. The Rosé followed and next came Pinot Grigio, which we have on the shelf, but this is their Riesling. This really stuck out to us because it does have some sugar in it. So again, the structure will be very aligned with what you would expect a normal wine to taste like. Yeah, exactly. I think that this style of wine just leans into or is very well suited for this process, having that residual sugar. Oh yeah, it's quite nice. And expecting it to be that way. It's not like you don't expect the sugar to be there and you're like, oh, this is too sweet for the style like Roger was thinking with the sparkling wine or whatever. It's exactly what you want it to be and it adds weight and character. Oh, 80 calories. I'll be the judge of the sweetness level here. The last thing I'll just say on Gieson and one thing that I think speaks to the quality here, that sugar that we're getting and that kind of grapey quality is coming back. They're adding grape juice back in. A lot. They sure are. No, but this is only 6 percent. That is compared to, I think, 20 is kind of the standard here. 20 percent of grape juice that has not been fermented, so it has sugar in it back in. So compared to others, that's why I think we're seeing a little bit closer of a profile to a normal wine. That's really interesting. To me, the rosé very much tasted like a rosé. This to me is grape juice. That is recently now acidic and fruity. It is acidic. So, we tasted a lot of reds. I do think the white wine, that definitely has the advantage when it comes to the NA stuff. So, if you're just venturing into the category and or getting a few bottles for you and friends and just want a safe bet, I would definitely lean towards white wines over red. That being said, we picked the free Cabernet Sauvignon, this is made by Sutter Home, at a very affordable 9.99. Sutter Home Free. So, interesting observation on this one, there's three servings in this bottle, they choose to go with eight ounces, which seems to make a little more sense to me. Instead of one serving is half the bottle for all you curly straw drinkers. But it says refrigerate after opening, which is probably worth mentioning because that's something people might not occur to them and there's no alcohol in it. Yeah. It's juice. They still have sulfites for preservation. I don't mind this. I don't think this is terrible. I would rather drink this than this. This is your favorite? It's not disgustingly sweet like the last one. I don't mind this either. It's got enough of a hint of a tannic something in the finish, that it still reminds me of wine and not just grape juice, but I will say that the Riesling was by far better. See, I think this tastes like the juiciest. This tastes like grape juice. Yeah, and it's 18% grape juice. But it's dry. This almost reminds me more of cranberry and tart cherry juice. But it does taste like a juice. Yeah. I agree. Cranberry is dead on here. I mean, this could be cranberry grape cocktail from Ocean Spray. So fruity, fun. Alcohol-free. And alcohol-free. Fruity, moderately fun. All right, cool. I think people will enjoy this quite a bit. Yeah, no, I mean, solid picks, especially that Riesling. The Riesling is the most wine-like. One thing I will say about all of these. I'm going out for seconds on this. Is that- Watch out, the serving size is only eight ounces. I'm still under one serving. I'm loving it. It's great, it's great, Roger. Roger is going to incorporate Sutter Home Free Cabernet Sauvignon into an artisanal soda. I'm so glad you like it. But honestly, I will say that having had tasted non-alcoholic wines over the years, the trajectory is definitely upward. Yes. The quality is undeniably getting better and more Venice than it used to be. Indeed. Some solid picks, I think, in wine, definite improvement, really good alternatives for you this January or whenever you want to lighten up. You might have to fight Roger for the free Cabernet. I know they like the idea of dry January because a lot of people have overindulged in the holiday season, and people make resolutions and everything, but January is also the worst. Like, could they pick a worse month for people who is depressed, it's gray, like, is it the time to stop drinking? Absolutely not. That's why we should switch gears to Rye-u-Larry, right, Roger? All right, non-alc spirits continue somehow to be a thing. And we are coming out with some hot enthusiasm over there. I have a stat, okay? I have a stat. Okay, let's hear it. Despite when you look at our shelves, there are a ton of NA spirits now. Tons, yeah. But yet. And they all sell. Of the, in the NA space, spirits is only 1.3%. Of the 0.47% that is the NA, of non-ELK space. But the big, definitely the biggest momentum, as you're saying, they're up 88% from last year. So this is definitely the biggest. Well, they're up by nothing. I mean, a year ago, two years ago, we had Seedlip and Ritual and now there's a whole bunch. There's, we're about to taste this Liar's Gin Alternative. We have Spiritless is in the market now, which has like what they have Kentucky 74 here, which is like a fake bourbon. We'll taste that too. Martini and Rossi got into it with the alcohol-free Aparitivos. It is growing quite a bit and it's a big thing. I think the mocktail thing has really carried the torch on-premise for quite a while. For sure. There's no doubt about it. Think about how obvious this is that this should be the most popular category because you can add fresh juices and all kinds of other mixers and flavors to it. The most important thing is none of these are meant to be tried on their own. We're of course trying them on their own and I brought two little cocktails too. But as we're tasting these, let's think about what's going to plus these things up. Hashtag our good friends at Fever Tree. This smells very gin-like. Yeah, it does. Very citrusy. Yeah, I get a lot of citrus, but I don't get much juniper. Well, there's juniper there, but I think it's citrus forward for sure. Yeah, but I think that's going to play nice in most gin cocktails, you know. There's some other subtle botanicals going on there, too. It's not just those two either. A little bit floral. The florality was what I first noticed on it. And then what's... This is not everything. On the palate, it's like this... What's the botanical that's like dried bark, but not that? Sinchona? I don't know. Something... Cassia bark? I think it's the lingering bitterness on the very end. Yeah. That could be like, yeah, the quinine-esque element. Yeah, you're right. That's what it is. Yeah. So this is Liar's L-Y-R-E apostrophe S. There's a couple of different things of theirs on the shelves. They make a malt whiskey alternative. This gin alternative. They have some canned cocktails, mocktails ready to go. I think this is solid. So this is the whole space seemed to start with gin alternatives because it was just distilled water that got distilled through, you know, botanicals. So it's just flavored water. It's very expensive flavored water. But this this has more body to it, though, too. This isn't as watery as something like a seed lip is. Yeah, I definitely would stress here. This is not for, as you already said, drinking alone. These are for cocktails. You got to think of it that way. Yeah, this is absolutely gin tea. I know. Gin tea, this is great. Yeah, definitely got that like bitter grapefruit peel. I just did kind of the swish it around in your palate to emphasize and it's intense on its own, but yeah. I don't think. Greyhound, Gimlet. Yeah. I think all of the, especially just simple, a few ingredient cocktails, this would work pretty well. Well, it could be interesting with the next one I'm passing around. So the next one is Martini and Rossi's Vibrante. Vibrante, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to pronounce it. They have the Florial and then this one, the Florial is more floral, a little lighter in color. This has that deeper, more Campari-ish color to it. It smells like pizza sauce. It kind of does. Wow. Why does it smell like pizza sauce? Well, I mean- Just because it's Italian. Jim doesn't smell like pizza sauce all the time. It smells like oregano. Yeah. I was going to say like Martini and Rossi, red vermouth, sweet vermouth. It smells like oregano. Okay. I kind of like the way this one tastes. If you really think about it on the finish and let the finish sit and linger, it gets like a dryne, a woody dryne kind of character on the finish. The oregano is just. I can't. It's over the top. It's like someone's beating you in the face. I'm mixing it 50-50 with the Liar's Gin alternative. Let's see how this, or the Liar's Dry London Spirit. It's not bad with gin. I think I like it better on its own. I think you could add like a teaspoon of this to a spritz cocktail and just to give a bit of a dimension to it, but. Well, I don't know. It's interesting, sweeter than I was expecting. Yeah, it is, what are they calling a serving size on here? Two and a half ounces, 45 calories, and it contains less than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume. So they, from the botanical extract. So that's why it has, so the botanical extracts are made with alcohol the way like a vanilla extract is, and just putting botanical extracts into it gives it a little hint of alcohol. So does Martini make an NA sparkler to make spritzes with, like NA spritzes with this? Is it the idea? I don't know of a sparkler from them that's NA. Well, that would be a smart marketing move. I wish it had just more bitterness personally. Here's the latest craze to hit our shelves, Spiritless Kentucky 74. I like the nose. And this is a bourbon alternative, I guess they're calling it. And they do a good job very much like bourbon cocktail alternative, I think they might label it. Distilled non-alcoholic spirit for bourbon cocktails. And then the nose, it's like all like sweet baking spice. And vanilla. Oh wow, it gets real bitter on the palate. Real bitter. Wow. And just washes right out, it's just bitterness. This is a lot of like all spice. It's wood extracts, clove, wood, wood, wood, wood, right in the lumber yard. And that lack of body is also. But not in like a pencil shaving way. I think the dominant thing here is dessert spices. Yeah, for sure. It's all vanilla and brown spice. All right. So what cocktails could you beef this up with? What's up? Well, I think this would be good with a sour, get some lemon acidity in there, get a little bit of sugar in there. Yeah, for sure. Ginger ale is probably great with this. Yeah, this would be great with ginger ale. Do like a fever tree ginger beer with this would be good. Or their Distiller's Cola, this would be cool with, because Cola to some degree has those sweet baking spices as well. Yeah, absolutely. That Distiller's Cola is much less sweet than your average Cola. I think this would work pretty nicely with it. But yeah, whiskey sour I think would be probably the best option for this. Well, funny you should say that. We have their canned whiskey sour here to try next, which is made with the Kentucky 74. There you go. You sounded so smart when you gave the sour suggestion. But really it's because I was holding the can of whiskey sour. Yeah. So these are in four pack cans. They're tiny little cans, 250 ml. A serving size is the can and it's 35 calories. It's all right, but I'm looking for like a foam on the whiskey sour. I was going to say literally if you shook this up with an egg white. It would be awesome. But it's just like missing something straight out of the can. Once again, I think body. Yeah. I think a lot of the flaws in all of these things, if you're going to call them flaws, is body-related. Right. But setting aside the body and the foam, just from a flavor perspective, I think it's good. To their credit too, they specifically call them out as pour over cocktails. I think the intention is that they do get diluted with some ice. Because they're really strong otherwise. Yeah. Because they're pretty intensely flavored. I mean, it tastes just like the Gatorade. There's no mistaking what the base is. Well, they got an old-fashioned too. Let's try that. The cans are cute. I can't get over the idea that it tastes like a cookie of some sort. So there's like a, it's beyond the spice. A ginger molasses cookie or something. Yeah, it's beyond this, just the spice. There's almost like a- What's the calorie count on this old-fashioned there, Roger? 45 calories in a can. Okay. Notably sweeter. Far better. This tastes like an old-fashioned. This is good. They're definitely cherry in here. But there's just more weight to the drink. Well, there's more sugar in it. Like we were getting at with your wine too. I mean, you need, like Chris just mentioned, the body is the downside of all of these things. Strangely, I haven't tasted it yet, but more even than the sour, this smells like an old-fashioned. It actually, the spirit in this context, or the spiritless, whatever it is, the non-alcoholic spirit in this context, it smells more genuine than it does on its own. Yeah. This is, I think, getting closer to, you could fool somebody with this. Oh, easily. I think this one's solid. Yeah. Lean's a little sweet, but it's fine. Yeah, but it's an old-fashioned though. No, I agree. I mean, 99% of the time, I think an old-fashioned is a little too sweet. Well, I think their whiskey makes more sense in it because you think of bitters in an old-fashioned and their whiskey's it and whiskey alternative or whatever is so spicy from a sweet spice standpoint that it makes more sense in that context. Yeah. I thought the sour is going to be the winner, but I think this is actually the best use for this. Definitely the winner of Pat's Line Up. Shout out to Big Drop and the Beer Space. Yep. The Geese and Rosé and Riesling, depending on the food I'm having. I thought the Rosé was the highlight of the wine line up. Cool. Except you went back for seconds on the Sutter Home Free. Because it was refreshingly dry. If you're participating in Dry January, there are some good options out there. I think wine was maybe the better options. Well, this Whiskey Sour is pretty good. There's always good NA beer options. We didn't even bring stuff that we've tasted before. That's been really impressive. I didn't want to be redundant. I was trying to show some of the newer stuff in the market. Yeah. The big drops are great. That classic Laganita's Hoppy Refresher, I think is really good. The Lemon Limey type one. Blood Orange was good too. Blood Orange was very good. You got options. You got more options than ever, if you're going to try to take it easy for a month. Or even if you just, if for whatever reason, you find yourself in a situation where you need to abstain from alcohol or you're choosing to. Yeah, the options are never, they've never been better than they are right now. Yeah. No need to drink milk, orange juice or water. I love milk. Now, hey, so this is interesting. On the Spiritless Cocktail Can packaging, it calls out on the side, go have these one can of the Spiritless Cocktail, one ounce of a full proof bourbon. And then you have a cocktail with half the alcohol it normally would have. Interesting. All right. Well, thanks guys. Sure. I feel very temperate. We'll see you next week with something more spirited. That was a very Greg like. I'm Pat. I'm Alicia. I'm Roger. And I'm Chris. Keep tasting.