In this episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, Chris gets oil all over everything. Probably mostly me. Chris gets oil all over his laptop. Chris gets oil all over his microphone. But it will be authentic Andalusian olive oil. Okay, this looks delicious. I love these things. But you're presenting a specific problem, which is am I just going in for it? I got forks. I got forks. Where are they? In the bag? In the bag. Oh, okay. Man, it's going to smell funky in this room. We're going to have about an hour. It's already getting there with four dudes in here after an hour. Yeah. We're going to talk all about this food and sherry. Greg just wants to eat something immediately. I'd skip lunch. Go for it. Yeah, and here it is. So take a plate, pass the plates. Mussels in Escovèche. Is that like the way mobsters say Gabbagool Escovèche? Hey. I have a fish plate. You don't have a fish plate. You can just pass those fishes right on to Roger. You're not in for the fishes? No. What about the mollusks? Nope. Seriously, James? Pass on both? I'm not a, I'm not a, like a... What kind of Italian are you? How do you know? Don't worry about it, Roger. Okay. What kind of Italian that doesn't eat sardines? I have been known to say they're a junk fish. I mean, I kind of assume they're a junk fish. They're so cheap and they're packed in a little can. So cheap and juicy. All right. This looks great. Are we, are we ready? Yeah. You guys ready? Do your calf stretches, kids. We're going to hit it at a sprint. Yes, we are. So we're doing all of this food and we're doing sherry, but you also have cocktail making stuff. We're doing sherry cocktails too, huh? Yeah. I've got a little s***load of cocktails. You guys, this cannot be a two-parter. It's going to be a two-parter. Let's get it going right now. I can't wait until there's a two-parter on this. Right now. You are listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Hop it up in your feed with an episode about Sherry. And it smells great in this room. I'm Greg. I do communications at Binny's. Jim, also communications and producer of this fine podcast. Roger, beer and fortified wine enthusiast. Chris, I am doing a lot of stuff today. Greg, how come you're not narrating like you usually do? So before us is a spread of meats and cheeses, fruits, nuts, bread, toasted bread. The hallway smelled like somebody was having a stroke. That was just you having a stroke. Pongree, right? Am I saying that right? Pongree. Pongree, which is a fancy French way of saying toast. Yeah. That's how you make wine review even more pretentious than it already seems. Aroma of Pongree. Pongree, yeah. Will you just hand these right back to me? Yeah. Oh, these are going to the dome, dude. Yeah, I know. All right. So not only do we have some amazing cheeses, and Chris has some cheese bonafides. Bro ran a cheese shop. A monger. So, yeah. I get some mongering in my day. Apples and grapes and a few different kinds of what look like cured meats, some Marcona almonds. Are those the legit ones? Legit Marcona almonds, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. And some cocktail making garnishes. You have the whole bar here. This is insane. I don't know. Yeah, this isn't a food episode. We are going to actually drink something. I don't know how I'm going to manage all this. Yeah, this is going to be a real mess. Serrano Ham, Chorizo. All right. And so the theme of this is food. We're doing food today? We're doing sherry today. Are you kidding me again? How many damn times have we done sherry on this podcast? Like zero. You're explaining fortified wine with sherry. You're probably right. I feel like we've done a few. Sherry is fortified, but not all fortified wine is sherry. All right. The squares and rectangles. One of our themes is that we like to highlight things that are a great value, and there's no better value than sherry. I mean, it's one of the most well-respected amongst the wine community but undervalued by consumers. We have done a sherry episode before. Sherry is a fortified wine made largely with grape called Palomino Fino. 97 percent of the acreage apparently in Spain. What? Outrage. In just Jerez now. Yeah. Not in Spain. Just in Jerez. Yeah. The surrounding environs. I'm so hungry and there's so much amazing food, but I feel like I'm not allowed to touch any of it until you tell me what to do. Well, what are we doing? Let's eat the fish. You have permission to eat the fish. Let's just jump in and taste the first wine. Oh, yeah. Right. Grab that Manzanilla. Do these have a little airplane on the back still? Airplane? Yeah. Remember that whole thing they were talking about? It was just to convey that they keep track of how fresh they are. And if I remember correctly, I think they said that they used to fly this instead of- Yeah. They put it on boats. Like the every Italian restaurant that has their buffalo mozzarella overnighted from Campania. There's like one- Campania, Wisconsin. Buffalo, New York. Yeah. Like one smuggler like Aqua airplane that takes off from Italy and lands in Akron. Most cherries, one of the benefits of them is that they have a long life to them and you can open them and then keep them in the fridge. But Manzanilla is the most delicate, fresh, need to drink it right away. When you open a bottle, it's basically like any other wine. Does that mean it has lower alcohol? It does have slightly lower alcohol than some of the styles. Unlike some fortified wines, the fortification happens after fermentation is done, completed to dryness. Whereas in say something like port, they fortify after the yeast is worked through to about 5% alcohol, and then they kill the fermentation with the alcohol, thus preserving the natural sugars. Still sugar in there. Yeah. Is the alcohol high enough that it keeps secondary bottle fermentation from occurring? Yes, exactly. It does exactly that. It kills everything. Here, we're not looking for residual sweetness. We're looking for totally dry but fortified. This is the class of sherry called Fino, in particular Manzanilla. This one comes from Sanlucar de Barameda. Sanlucar de Barameda. Yeah. This is a coastal area. What makes this special is that the casts are aged in houses that are exposed to the sea air. One of the things that people always note about this is that it's particularly briny and tangy and intense. This is Lustau. Lustau. Manzanilla papirusa. Yes. Manzanillas are definitely one of those styles where they're very associated with tapas. Yeah, they are. To that point, I want you to make your own tapa here. We've got something very simple here. It's pan con tomate or pambacat. Bruchetta? Yes, but I think you'll enjoy how this is done. The first thing you're going to do is you're going to take one of these toasted pieces of bread and then you're going to take a little garlic clove that's on the plate and rub it on the bread, just like you would with bruschetta, right off the grill. Where's the garlic? It's in there. Oh, there it is. Okay. Then you are literally going to use the rough texture of the bread to grate the tomato onto the bread. What? Yeah. Yeah. Some people will grate, literally grate the tomato with a cheese grater into a pulp and then put it on. So rub the garlic. Roger is rubbing the garlic. Rubbing the garlic. On the toasted bread. We should all have had these props before we started this portion of the podcast. We'll pass her on. So you're just expressing the garlic. Yeah. You don't have to have pieces of it on it. You're just rubbing it on. The essence. Yeah. Then you take the tomato and yeah, rub it, rub it. You just rub that pulp in there. Like you're juicing an orange. You're rubbing the tomato on the bread. You're juicing a tomato. If the bread was a little bit crustier, it would be better. Now, hit it with just a little bit of salt. Yeah, pass that on. A little crack of salt and then a little drizzle of olive oil. And there you have Paan Tombaquet. And you can top that with sardines or manchego or serrano or whatever you want, or you can eat it as it is. Whoa! Roger hit it with the oleo. This should do nicely with the first two wines. Trying the Manzanilla here. And the next up will be the Fino. Manzanilla talk. It's bright. It's fresh. It is a little bit briny. It's not overwhelmingly briny. And it's super nutty. Yeah, nuttiness is there. There's almondiness. But it's not as nutty as some of the expressions that are later oxidized. So this kind of wine, Finos go through what's called biological aging, in which the finished wine ages in a barrel under what's called a flora or the flower. Like flora, right? Yeah. Flora. This is Saccharomyces yeast that is growing on top of the wine and eating glycerin and surviving. And also, it's a blanket against oxidation. So you can see that the color is relatively clear, right? The palest of straws, right? Yeah. So any nuttiness should be minimal compared to things that go through oxidative aging. But this biological aging creates a lot of aldehyde. So Sherry's a very aldehyde-ic wine. It's that distinctive aroma and tang that you get. Jim hit the aldehyde-ic horn. Acid aldehyde is a molecule that is composed of both alcohol and acid. It's kind of unique, although there are some other styles that do this aging under floor or under veil. Raj, how do you like the Manzanilla? I didn't try it yet. I was going to make Chris one of these things here. Oh, thanks. Look at us, just four fancy lads sitting in here. We are fancy lads. Fancy foods. Lusty for Lustau. Yeah. So, happy for Tio Pepe, manic for Manzanilla. Whoa. Have you been saving these? You've been working these up. I just came up with them right before the podcast. Okay. We're amorous for Amontillado. Oh, look at you. So, this is made with 100% Palomino Fino. That's the great variety that's grown here, as we discussed earlier. And you're doing the Lord's work there, making that quite good. I was going to say Palomino Fino is the main grape variety here, and it's fermented into all the dry wines, and it's grown in a very chalky soil called Alba Ritza, which is you can hear in the word Alba, meaning it's white from the chalk. So Manzanilla is the style. Palomino Fino is the grape. Correct. Yeah. And Manzanilla particularly is a Fino. You were asking when I thought of the sherry. One thing that I probably come to this at a very unique perspective and that a lot of breweries over the years have been interested in doing like barrel fermented sour and wild ales. The type of biological fermentation that's going on here is very similar to what can happen with these beers. So this definitely reminds me of like sour, barrel aged sour beer. I mean those always remind me of like the most venice of beers. Right. So yeah. Let's see. Coming back around the other way. What's the food we just ate again? Yeah. I haven't tried it yet because I've been waiting for- Tomato bread. The tomato bread. Yeah. You just have it with the- It sounds better in Spanish. Yeah. Pombacat, it's a Catalan dish. It's eaten all over Spain and at all times of day with everything. You can put manchego on it. You can do whatever you want. It really takes the- There's an edge to, I think, the sherry a little bit, like maybe a little acidic edge. It takes that off, but then it amps up the brininess, I think. I think I agree with you. Also, I never cook with that fresh of garlic and man, that is spicy. Yeah. Spicy pop of garlic. Raw garlic is intense. Yeah. All right. What's the next? That's a fishy sardine. Hello. So what's the next sherry? The next sherry is Tio Pepe. We've had this forever, and it's relatively inexpensive, right? Yeah, Tio Pepe is the biggest selling Fino style sherry in the world, I do believe, from Gonzalez Bias. Very old and well respected sherry company that makes an array of styles and does really excellent work. But Tio Pepe, when you say Fino in a lot of places, this is the first thing that comes to people's mind. So this is very similar to the Manzanilla, except it is not aged near the sea. It's a little less briny, maybe a little more robust. It has green apple and fig and all kinds of interesting flavors. So very versatile wine for, again, pairing with tapas or seafood dishes, things like that. I think this would probably be really good with the mussels. Is the difference between this and the previous wine literally just producer? Like it's the same style, the same? Manzanilla is a specific subsect of Fino. Based on? So it's a Fino, but it's based on mostly where it is aged. Okay. So it's aged in proximity to the briny sea. Okay. And is Tio Pepe, Palomino Fino, aged somewhere different? Yeah. So there's a lot of inland vineyards and aging houses and wineries. This area is in Andalucia, which is kind of the southwest corner of Spain. The Jerez area, the broader area where these come from, part of it faces the Mediterranean that curves around to the Atlantic. This is on the Atlantic side. Okay. Let's try it. But how about that label? Pretty adorable. They got the little guy with the guitar. Is that Tio Pepe? Everybody's favorite uncle. So this is very similar. It's super light on its feet. It's very refreshing. It doesn't have the brine. Yeah, no brine. Fruity-er. Fruity-er, yeah. Fruity-er. Less acidic. Yeah. Like lemon tart. Yeah. The floor is known to grow particularly thick in coastal areas. It's cooler. It gives you more of that acidic tang. Well, these wines strangely are not particularly acidic, although they come off that way. You have to think of them as aldehydeic. Okay. Palomino Fino is straight. Roger said okay, but aldehydeic. I've never thought of anything in my life as aldehydeic. Well, a lot of the acid has been converted into acetaldehyde. How does that change on your palate? What do you perceive instead? It's interesting. Palomino Fino in particular is very low in malic acid, but acetaldehyde tends to have a green apple flavor just like malic acid does. I don't know. It's tangy. It's distinctive. It is like a sweet tart quality to this. Yeah. I would say this is more approachable. When I was learning about sherry and wanted to try them all, you start from dry to sweet. I remember trying a Manzanilla and not really thinking it was for me. I was asking you about it and saying, do you see these much? They seem to be more of the connoisseur, maybe at a restaurant where they're actively pairing it. Know that Manzanillas might be to the unaccustomed palette, a little challenging. Weird. Because they're weird, they're dry. They're fruity, but you expect some sweetness too, and it's not there at all. The nuttiness, the savory qualities, the salinity sometimes. You know who I think would like this, this specific one, Tio Pepe? If you're into weird, funky sake, there's some of that like earthy mushroom in here too. Sure. I think a lot of people who just generally like kind of edgier, funkier things might enjoy this. Yeah, and you with the sour beer too. Yeah, it is. If you like weird stuff, folks, we do. Do you ferment at home? Are you a pickler? It's kimchi-er thing? Do you have auto-brewery syndrome? All right, can we pair this with something too? I still have a little bit of this tomato bread. I can't believe you haven't just instinctually grabbed an olive, but I'm going to guess that this is an olive. I have been trembling. Exactly. Olives, for sure. Bam. Almonds. The mussels, I think, would be really nice with them. The tomato bread still. All of these fit in that wheelhouse. Oh, yeah. It brings out the funkiness in the Calamata olives. Oh, yeah. I mean, this is classic. Little fino sharian, some olives. Can't beat that. I'm having it with one of these sardines, too. Yes. Just going to smush you on there. And these don't have to be reserved simply for tapas. You know, you could definitely serve this with steamed or roasted fish, you know, easily. That's incredible with the sardine. A, thank you for bringing all this stuff. But again, I think that's a key point to drive home here is that people might not know the opportunity to enjoy sherry. And the answer is, you know, extremely versatile with food. And obviously, the go-to is tapas. But just any appetizer charcuterie in general. Yeah, the only limitation, it seems, with food is that it's not going to be your your heavy, steaky main course. Um, you could even do that. All right. Well, you could. We'll get to that. Seriously? Yeah. You got steak here? I didn't bring any steak, but there are sherrys that can handle steak. And that is actually the driving factor behind this whole podcast, is that people don't know, in America, I think, don't know what to do with sherry. I think that's true. They might think of it as something that Brits have, you know, at 11 or... 11sies. Or just something that old people used to enjoy. Yeah. Something that old people used to enjoy. But the thing is, it is amazing with a wide array of food. You don't have to really be an expert to figure it out. It's delicious and versatile, and there are so many different styles that you can pair almost anything with it. Let's try another style. Yeah. So next, we're going to do Amontillado. So here we have another... Ooh, that Manchego, that was pretty awesome. That Manchego? Yeah, it's a 12-month-old Manchego. Ooh, that's good. This is Amontillado by Valdespino. This is their Tio Diego. Valdespino, another old, old sherry house with just a great line up of sherrys. Been around for centuries. And Amontillado is another member of the Fino family. So this would be marked as Fino with the chalk. And what happens, though, is that the floor will live on the barrel for so long, and then when it runs out of food, collapses and dies. And then we go into, we move from biological aging into oxidative aging. Because now it's exposed to air. Right. So you get all those tangy aldehydic notes. And is that why this one's darker brown too? That is exactly right. So the first two were virtually clear. This one is a kind of golden brown. That is all due to the oxidative aging. So this is a style that combines biological aging under the floor and oxidative aging. Chris, can you remind me what is the floor again? The floor is a thick layer of oatmeal-y looking yeast that floats on top of the barrel. So they don't fill the barrels to the top on purpose. So there's room for the floor to grow. And also in styles that they don't want floor or where the floor dies, there's room for oxygen so it can age oxidatively. Do they actually still have open top fermenters? Well, they're in barrels on their sides and they're filled like, you know, 90% or 80% full. So there's a big gap on top that allows the floor to grow. Got it. The other weird thing about aging is the Solera system. So we didn't really address the Solera system. Real quick before you explain that, if you go online, some of the bodegas have this cool thing where they put a plexiglass top on it, so then you can see what it looks like. And you're like, well, it looks kind of gross. It's just kind of like a big thick, it's kind of like when cream floats to the top. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like a layer of white. Before we do Solera, let's talk about this one. Yes. So, Fino Sherry that has gone on to oxidize. This one's all Palomino also. Chris, you know, I've got a cask of this in my basement. If you want to come check it out. Yeah, working real hard. Help me lay these bricks. Will it be during Carnival? Chris, I tried a piece of manchego wrapped in this salumi and had it with the tomato bread and then tried the Amontillado. Holy cow, was it good. I couldn't agree more. This is what it's all about. All right. Similar citrus fruit notes. They don't really fade out, but the nuttiness and I don't know. I don't know how else to describe oxidative flavors. It has a breadth to it. Yeah. This is where the nuttiness really starts to amp up. Yeah. You get these qualities that are married together, the tangy fruit, a green apple, a rich, fresh fig note. Yeah. Along with almonds and hazelnut and things like that. So it's like a balance and it's like a paradox a little bit because you've got these different flavors going in different directions, but it's really just one big thing. Yeah. And it's beautiful because again, here we have the finest selection, the Fino barrels with just another added layer of complexity from this oxidative aging. This is really nutty in particular to me. It is very nutty. When you said hazelnut, that's like boom, very hazelnut-y. And almond. And almond, yeah. So the Solera system, you want to talk about that? You want to? Yeah. It's basically a fractional system where there are layers of barrels on top of each other. Like, their physical positioning really represents where they are in the flow. The easiest way to think of it is, yeah, there are barrels in rows on top of each other. The very top row, you put in this year's vintage. You put in the new stuff. You put in the new stuff. You pull off the bottom. Yeah. So actually, I should start with the other way. The bottom barrel is where, if you're ready to bottle, say it's mature, you pull off, say, 30% of the wine. Of the barrel? Yeah. Then the next row goes down and fills those barrels up again, and so on and so on until you fill the top layer with the new wine of the harvest. Sometimes you'll see a date or a year on a bottle of sherry, and the bottle of sherry cost $24. You're like, how could something 1918. 1918 Solera. But that's the year that the Solera started, and a non-zero amount of the liquid that they pull off of the bottom, was there then. And it's just like a forever blend. Yeah, that's exactly right. It's a perpetual blend. It's like the Jardinera at the beef stand. Yeah. So anyway, you get younger and older wines blended together, and theoretically you end up with a pretty consistent product. So kind of like the way they blend champagne, it's not like that at all. But a champagne house, when they're blending their non-vintage brute is always shooting for the same flavor profile. This kind of automatically does that for you. You don't have to even try. You just top it off a little bit. You just top it off with the last one and then keep going. Exactly. So this perpetual Solera. Even in the Solera concept keeps the freshest stuff. It definitely before it gets bottled has been aged. Every drop of it has been aged for a significant amount of time. Yeah. Exactly. Depending on how many layers, how many cradles there are, and they can date back. Yeah. I've had Cherries that date back, Soleras that date back to the 1850s. Amazing. Yeah. Roger said the Gabagool wrapped around the Manchego on the tomato bread. I don't know. I'm not going to have that. No, the Saloon, not the Gabagool. Sorry, the Saloon. The Gabagool is like the reddish. That one's- Why are you speaking Italian American? All right. So- The prosciutto is the other stuff. Anyway, I had it with the blue cheese and the salinity of the blue cheese and the creaminess of the blue cheese combined with the nuttiness and the freshness at the same time. Oh my goodness. It's a good thing that I am sitting down. I would have fallen over. I'm getting weak in the knees. Oh man. Get some sherry and eat. This is a really good one. Yeah. This is really nice. Next, we're moving on to Oloroso. Oloroso. So, Oloroso is a whole different thing. There is no biological aging involved here. According to the bottle, the symbol on the casks of Oloroso is Ghostbusters. It's actually an O with a slash through it, I believe. So Oloroso, no floor develops here at all. So you don't get all those tangy aldehyde notes. It's 100% oxidative aging, so very, very rich, nutty, sometimes savory, olivey, but none of that. What was the alcohol on the Amontillado, by the way? Most of the Fino should be somewhere around 15. Do they, you said this already, they fortify it after barrel? After fermentation is done. Okay, before barrel, after fermentation. The Tio Diego Amontillado is 18%. Yeah. When you start getting richer, the fortification goes up, and Amontillado can be fortified more than once. So you have to fortify to a level where the floor can still survive for Fino's, right? So that's around 15%. You don't want to go too much higher than that, I don't think, or 14. For Amontillado, after the floor dies, you might add a little more Aguardiente, a neutral grape spirit, to bring it up. And the Oloroso... I believe that's water of teeth. Yeah, water of teeth. Flawless. Flawless translation. The Oloroso might even be a little higher than 18%, it might be 20. Yeah, this is 20. It seems a little hotter. But it is 20. I mean, think about that for a minute, that's 40 proof. It's not too off from Fireball. All right, how is it? So here, interestingly, it's still tangy, but this is more acid you're tasting, more of the grape acid that you're tasting rather than aldehyde. This is amazing. It's incredibly layered and complex. I love when you can't just immediately say, oh, this tastes like fill in the blank. This is the beauty of some of these cherries. They're so complex and layered. There's stone fruit, there's honey, it's nutty. Yet it's totally dry. Okay, guys, hear me out. If you were like a kid and you never had bourbon before, and you wanted a simplified, easier, drinkable version of bourbon, that's not far off here. It has a lot of the same notes, but it's just obviously way lower alcohol. It's wine-based. I think you're right. It spends a long time in barrel, it oxidizes. The barrels aren't new, of course, like bourbon, but it has that rich nutty flavor. But it's still sharp. Now you're getting to a place where some olorosos, you could definitely pair with meats. Amontillado, you might pair with poultry or things like that. The finos with fish. Oloroso, you can go full meat. That amontillado would be good with a smoked salmon bagel with a lot of capers. Wacky capers. Wacky loves capers. I love capers. It's a strong flavor. Yeah. I mean, I would- They have like an herbal pop and this is like a broader flavor underneath. I would relate their brined like olives. Okay, I'll have another olive. Okay. Think about the olive as a- Yeah, a lot of salt on the table. The closest substitute for a caper right now. I just had this with olive, manchego and what's the cured meat we're eating this with? Which one are you showing or looking at? Are there two different kinds? That's guapico, capicol, chorizo, chorice, serrano, serrano ham. Yeah, so I had it with olive, manchego and serrano, and I can't overstate how amazing it tastes. It's like they're made for each other, right? Yeah. It's very weird. It's unbelievable how good it is. Yes, I agree. Wow. So this is exactly right. This is the point where we should be getting into those meats heavily. You guys want more meat? Sorry, Greg. I've already gotten in pretty heavily into these meats. Roger. Get the mitts and the meat. What's the next sherry? The next sherry is Harvey's Bristol Cream. I have been selling this as long as I've been selling alcohol, which was before I was 21, and I'm far from there now. I don't think I've ever had Harvey's Bristol Cream. Well, this is one of the reasons that I decided to bring this in. There are other cream sherrys on the market, but Harvey's is again, like Tio Pepe. It's just the biggest. Yes, everywhere, every grocery store in the Midwest. It's huge. So cream sherrys are blended sherrys. Cream sherrys are generally a blend of Oloroso with Pedro Ximenez to sweeten. Now, we haven't talked about Pedro Ximenez yet. This is another grape variety that is grown in the area and also in the neighboring area of Montilla Morales, where this often blows minds. In Montilla, they make all the styles, including Fino's with Pedro Ximenez. Dry Oloroso sweetened at the end with Pedro Ximenez, which is like I was saying, most people, if they know PX, they know it as a sweet syrupy wine. Yeah. But it can be made into a dry table wine and in Montilla Morales, instead of Palomino Fino, they use Pedro Ximenez for all of the styles, all the super dry styles. That's amazing. What's a little different here though, is that when they're making it sweet, these grapes are dried out, so they're raisined. When you drink a straight Pedro Ximenez wine, which they're out there, they're syrupy, really thick, really intense and tastes of raisins and dates and things like that. They still go through the same slur process and they're still fortified? Yeah. So this one, Harvey's Bristol Cream. So blend of Palomino, Fino and Pedro Ximenez. Palomino, Fino, Oloroso and PX. All right. Here we go. Served at Christmas parties everywhere. For sure. Okay. So this is also immediately caused to mind bourbon. Because of all of the barrel, the vanilla, the, I don't know, like orange peel, marmalade kind of thing. But it's super lightweight and super drinkable, super fresh and obviously a little bit of sweetness here. Yeah. A little bit of sweet. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. Cream cherries vary in weight. You can make a cream cherry or a milk cherry with Amontillado if you want it lighter too. I feel like stylistically Harvey's is famously on the sweeter side. I think it hits right down the middle. I mean, yeah, it's sweet for sure. And it's generally served on the rocks. It's really what it's probably most famous for is being a shortcut to Sherry Cobbler. So classic Sherry Cobbler is in its most basic form is just Amontillado or Oloroso with some sugar in it and then maybe a little garnish. Why? But so this is already ready made and you serve that over pebble ice and- That is exactly what I was looking for. This tastes like a low-alch ready to drink old-fashioned. Yeah. So serve it over pebble ice with a little wedge of orange and you've got like a pre-made Cobbler. And that sounds like summertime. And a splash of soda for some lift. You associate this with holidays and cold weather, but that would be great on the beach. Yeah. And Cobblers can be that simple or they can be super complex. You can add fruit juices. You can, I don't know if you guys remember, I made the crazy shrub out of tart cherries and herbs and made a Cobbler. Yeah. Chris, if you're involved, we know it can become complex. I remember that. I asked you to make that, I think. So at the root of it though, it's as simple as this on ice. Awesome. Now I know. You know, everybody knows Harveys as the Bristol Cream people, but this is a really, despite it being ubiquitous and everywhere, it's tasty and they actually have a really serious cherry program beyond the Bristol Cream cherry. They do other styles and they do them incredibly well, but whether you'll see them in the States so very often, probably not. They also have some hilarious old advertisements. If you go on YouTube, you can watch some commercials. Like 70s era? Yeah. One that comes to mind is it's perfectly acceptable for you to bring a bottle of cream cherry to a man's apartment. Whoa. Racy. That was the pinnacle of the ERA moment. I always associate Pedro Ximenez with Scotch, because so many of them use these barrels to finish Scotch. Yeah, true. That it must add the sweetness and the fruitiness. Yeah, so most Scotch that's finished in sherry barrels is either going to be in PX or Oloroso barrels. So you just poured for us a blend, but this one's all PX. Yeah, so here we're going from the cream style, which is a blend of Oloroso and PX to a straight PX. You'd note that it's like chocolate in color. Yeah. Very dark. Darker than cola. Wow. Yeah. It looks like a really aged port. It's just straight up raisin. So like just. Yeah, a lot of raisin. The red box, sunshine, whatever the hell that's called. Did you get one of these figs? Sun made. Sun made raisin. It just smells like a sun made raisin box. Yeah. So here's where you're going to want to hit those dates and the blue cheese and almonds and all that. Twist my arm. I'm going to have some fish, too. I'm just eating tapas now. Is this tapas? Does this count as tapas? Don't eat the fish until after you try this. Everything counts as tapas. Oh, I tried it. This famously, too, is served sometimes straight up over ice cream. Yeah. I mean, it's that sweet. Unreal. It's so good. So yeah, smells like raisins, tastes very figgy. It's delicious. I like it. I'm looking for more complexity, but it's just like hedonism. It's just like pleasure. It is hedonism. That's what these are all about. There are some that are incredibly complex. You may know Alvear in Montilla makes some, has some very old Saleras of Piax, which are pretty incredible. With the blue cheese, I'm going to go lie down. It's good, right? Yes. It's a great combo. Anytime you can put together a salty, piquant blue cheese and a sweet luscious wine, it's almost always heavenly. All right, Chris, that was dessert. I think we're done here. I think that was about the pinnacle. You think we're done. No, in part two of this podcast, we are so far from done. There's more. That's the best it's going to get, right? So pretty good, pretty great. Everybody should be drinking sherry and eating delicious foods. And none of this is complicated. I didn't have to cook any of this. I just cut it up and threw it on a plate. And it was so good. Yeah. This is this is like a beautiful Saturday afternoon with your friends knocking back sherry. All the kids do it. Kids love that. Anyway, the point is. The point is, too, if you've been to a Tapas place, you know, it's really easy to just keep racking up because you just want to keep ordering them. Yeah. You can very easily do this experience for yourself. And instead of having, you know, like big buckets of sangria, you could be doing your own guided sherry pairing where you taste through a bunch of different sherrys. Precisely. And even if you are at a Tapas restaurant, you should be thinking that way, because people tend to go to Tapas restaurants in the States, I think, and drink sangria or drink, you know, Rioja or something. And that's fine, you know. Beer is fine. Anything is fine. But you should really be exploring the magical pairings that Tapas and sherry represent. These are great. The food pairings were phenomenal. Now you're going to talk about how very few people today know that you can make drinks with Sherry, but back in the day, it was very commonplace. In all the old drink manual reprints, I brought something with me today. Booths, maybe? I left it in the other room, but they always have a little section in the back that explains Sherry. That's what a crucial part it was in your bar. You know, it was just like, of course, you're going to be using Sherry to mix cocktails. Just like liquor, it can sit around after being open forever. Well, let's put a fine point on that because- He's back, baby. Because the unoxidized versions of Fino, like Manzanilla and Fino proper, and to some extent Amontillado, although those are hardier, they need to be consumed relatively quickly and kept in the refrigerator because they're not pre-oxidized and you don't want them to be. You want them to be bright and clear and tangy. If you're talking about an Oloroso, you can have that baby open or a PX or a cream. They can be open for months and months and months and it's fine. So what are the cocktails? Okay. So this is a lesson in how versatile Sherry is beyond pairing with food. And as Roger says, a classic component in cocktails. So we've got a bunch of cocktails here. Does that mean I have to stop eating? No. Do you think I'm just cruel like that? No, thank you. So we're going to start with a real classic called the bamboo, which you can think of as akin to a dry martini. Okay. So instead of gin or vodka, we have Fino sherry. Shake it up, Daddio. Okay. So Roger is shaking up the bamboo for me. It's half Manzanilla, half dry vermouth. I use the Tio Pepe because I didn't have Manzanilla. I wanted to use the Manzanilla because I wanted to lean briny. I was thinking something akin to a slightly dirty martini. So you could even put a little olive brine in here, I think. Do we have olive brine? We do. We do. So you can choose either a lemon twist or an olive in this one. It's up to you. So it's half and half dry vermouth. I use Dolan Dry and Tio Pepe and a dash of Angostura Bitters, a dash of Regan's Orange Bitters, and a lemon twist. Like I said, if you want, you can go the briner route. Going to try it on its own first and then add some brine. I would recommend that. Roger is always talking about low-alk options and it seems like this is a lower-alk version of a delicious cocktail. Don't forget to express that lemon in there. Like this? Bad. Bad. Bad. This is your martini replacement. Very low alcohol. It smells fresh enough. Actually, I expressed the citrus too much. It's all I smell. It's bright and fresh like a really clean gin martini that's made with a significant amount of vermouth. It kind of smells like Sprite. Well, you got too much espresso. There's a lot of lemon peel in it. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Totally. I'm getting total martini vibes. Now I am adding olive brine. Right. Total martini vibes. But I mean, could it be easier to drink? I mean, it's just clean and bright and fresh. How's my brine application method? Pretty good. I appreciate how judicious you're being. Brined it up. Now, if I had used that Manzanilla, you would have noted a brine-ier element to begin with, I think. Yeah, for sure. And that would totally pop in this drink. Yep. So with all of brine, yeah, it gives it a little bit of salinity. It doesn't overwhelm anything. Yeah. No, it's good. Yeah, that's great. It's fresh. It's refreshing. It's lowering out. Yeah. I mean, if you want to drink a martini on a hot summer afternoon and not get a headache in the sun or just not get hammered. Or once again, I just want a shaker pint full of martini. Right. This is a... Maybe just throw one of these olives in there. You can just have this on ice in a glass. You could. Float a little Campari on top or something. You could. Very refreshing. Yeah, it's incredibly refreshing. It seems like you would have this at a sushi restaurant. Well, it's not too far off from the idea of the Soccatini, right? Soccatini. Yeah. Low alcohol, wine, or in place of a spirit. This would be great with raw fish, crudos of all kinds. Yeah. Yeah. That's the bamboo. Once again, the recipe is half and half. Half and half, Fino Sherry and dry vermouth, and then just hit it with some Angostura and some orange bitters. Twist a lemon or make it dirty. All right. Crisp. Yeah. With oysters, that would be great. Totally. Oysters. With popcorn. Popcorn, sure. With chips. Greg's like, I should just drink this instead of water. We're going to use the same glass, I guess. That's fine. We're going through too many plastic glasses on this podcast. The next up is generally a relatively similar cocktail. I would also say it's kind of martini-esque. It was developed for the coronation of King Edward VII. Got to love that guy. Yeah. One of the best. He was Danish. Those Danes, something's rotten in Denmark. He's British. He's British, but I mean, you know how those royal families were. So he was German. Right. Exactly. When was Edward VII coronated? 1902. 1902. This was the Edwardian age after the Victorian age. But before the Elizabethan age. Exactly. So this is where all the crazy kids in Britain in the 60s learned how to dress. The so-called Teddies who wore all their, like if you look at an early Rolling Stones album and Brian Jones, Jones is in a frilly Edwardian ruffled shirt. Also Austin Powers. Yeah, exactly. They're Teddies. Okay. I want to look like a pirate. I love Roger's enthusiasm when shaking. Where the? Roger is shaking this cocktail to the Newman Numa dance. My-a-hee, my-a-hoo, my-a-ha, my-a-ha-ha. This qualifies as like a reverse martini. So we've got for one drink, two ounces of dry vermouth. Again, it's Dolan. One ounce of Fino Sherry. This is the Tio Pepe in this case. A little dash of Maraschino Liqueur Luxardo, of course, which will bring some of that almondy nuttiness to the game alongside some fruitiness. So you can see how Maraschino Liqueur would dovetail with Sherry. Flavors play right into Sherry. Right. Three dashes of orange bitters. We use Regans. Again, a lemon garnish here. That's three dashes and a dot. Yes. Wrong cocktail, sir. This is a very similar drink. Yeah. Just a little more orangey. A little more citrusy. It is. Do you get the Maraschino, though? I think yes, without a doubt. And it amplifies the nuttiness of the Sherry, too. Yeah. I think while it's equally refreshing and has a lot in common with the other one, there is a subtle nuanced difference here. I would argue this is the improved bamboo. Yeah, the improved bamboo. Right. I agree with Roger. Yeah. But it doesn't need the salinity. It needs a little more of the other flavors. I was going to say the bamboo, I wanted to lean towards saline, but I didn't use the Manzanilla. Here, I wanted to lean into those fruitier flavors. Yeah. Do you think it needs more Maraschino? I don't. More orange bitters? Maybe. Maybe. That's pretty heavy dose of orange bitters, three dashes of orange bitters. That is. How about an orange peel? Can I have an orange peel? Yeah, absolutely. That might. I really like this. I think it's just the right amount of the Maraschino. Yeah, I think so too. I think any more and it would kind of dominate. I'm glad you said that because the recipe calls for two dashes, like literally like you're using bitters, but I went a little heavier than that. I can't say what the measurement was, but it wasn't two dashes. Yeah, but you get the feel for it, right? It was total feel. Yeah. I think it's very present without overwhelming, and I think it's good. I like this drink even more. It's nice with the orange. Man, the orange really, it's funny how just a small little garnish changes so much. Aromatic takes over. Yeah, give me an orange peel. Just whip it at him. Chris's orange swaths are like impeccable. You can basically see through them. There's no pith on here at all. There's no white. It's like you use the ludicrously professional. The meat slicer, like at the thinnest setting. The only pithy thing here is my wit. Greg, this is like your orange carpaccio. You better be eating this now. You're right. That's exactly what it's like. Put some campers on it. Oh, man. Okay, that's a winner. What's next? This is going to be the classic Sherry Cobbler. Is this the debut of Pebble Ice on the podcast? I think it is. I think Roger came in with a Styrofoam cup at least one time. Did you, Rich? Are you sure? Yeah, we've talked about it enough. We basically have a Pebble Icehorn, but... Did you guys knock over a Sonic on the way here? I stopped at a Sonic too. I was a little concerned because there aren't many of them, so I'm like, didn't want it to melt. Thanks to the good people at Orca Coolers, the Pebble Ice made it here without melting. Man, those Orca Coolers are second to none. So can that yeti. Who has the scraping tomato? The scraping tomato is over there. Damn it, boy, that's a scraping tomato, not an eating tomato. Not an eating tomato. Once again, guys, is it okay if I just keep eating? Yeah. Oh, my God. Eat the scraping tomato. Now, if you didn't like the amount of pulp you got on there, you can try this at home, like I said, with a box cheese grater. That would be such a mess. And just grate the pulp. I bet that would just be a giant. Oh, it's great. Yeah, grating a tomato. No, it's fine. I believe that it works. But then you can smear a big layer of tomato pulp on it. It's a nice little... Yeah, I like it. I mean, even in Spain, you go into restaurants where you do it yourself. They have scraping tomatoes just all over the place? Yeah. Some restaurants might serve it to you, you know, pre-made. Some will just give you the setup. You guys are like a doctor's setup there. Salt. He like throws it goes in there. Tomato. Like you're a dishwasher until you become the tomato scraping guy. And then after that, you move on to saucier. Saucier. Tomato scraper is garbage. I know what all these words mean because I watched the bear. That flew right over my head. And I've seen Ratatouille. Okay. So Roger's going to shake up this Sherry Cobbler. All this is is three ounces of dry amontillado, a quarter ounce of simple syrup, and an orange, half an orange wheel thrown into the actual shaker. Whoa. And you're going to shake vigorously. Roger's going to shake the hell out of that thing. Bruise that orange up and really get juice and essential oils out of the skin. I thought he was shaking with enthusiasm before. Nope. No. Roger, you are outshaking yourself. Well, he's two handed it. I mean, before he's just one handed with enthusiasm, and now he's two handed. Two-fisted shaking. Okay, so here it is. Three ounces dry Amontillado. In this case, it's the Tio Diego Amontillado. Quarter ounce of simple syrup, orange shaken together and we've garnished with some fresh aromatic mint. Aromatic mint indeed. Oh my God. Wow. Whoa. Yeah, the mint really, can I put the mint over here? You can do whatever you want with them. The mint lingers. I'm going to express it all over this thing. Cut it out. I mean, when you drink it, your schnaz goes right in. See, well, I like that because it's a sensory experience, but it doesn't really inform the flavor, but it does because you're smelling it. Yeah. Plus, it's neat to have that all up front as you're smelling it, and then it's not on the palate when you finish drinking it. I'm getting low-key diet cola notes here. Looks like creme soda. Nice like citrus. There's almost like a white grape flavor that I really like in this. Very easy to drink. Again, total low-alcohol cocktail. It's the simplest of cocktails, just a little sugar and wine, but you can knock these back, right? They're delicious. Yeah. Absolutely. Tall. Tall drinks. I feel like I need some cucumber sandwiches with this. I would love to have a cucumber sandwich. Anyway, pretty good. This is the simplest form, the classic sherry cobbler. Like I said, you can embellish with juices or all kinds of fruits and things and whatever you want to do. This is it at its root. Thank God for pebble ice. The pebble ice is what makes it because it's icy cold. It's a little diluted from it. Okay, that's the sherry cobbler. Where do we go from here? From here, we're going to... Where do we go? We're going to a very exciting cocktail called the Queen Bee. Yes. Now, Greg, you know how you always say this cocktail would be better with bourbon? Uh-huh. Well, this cocktail is going to be better with bourbon. Thank you so much. So Queen Bee, this is a modern cocktail. Mikey Kilbourne made it up at One-Eared Stag in Atlanta. It's got some really interesting elements. Producer Jim was nice enough to make some simple syrups. That simple syrup isn't so simple. Well, the simple syrup is simple. The honey syrup is a little more complicated. What sugar did you use for the simple syrup? Just a regular cane sugar. Basic cane sugar. Unrefined cane sugar for the simple syrup. But it's brown. Yeah. Because it's got the molasses in it still. He made a honey thyme syrup. Yes. A cup of hot water. When you steep some sprigs of thyme in it for like 15 minutes, and then you mix in a cup of honey. That's about it. It smells fabulous. Yeah. It is a delightful smelling simple syrup, and it is going to inform this cocktail in wonderful ways. So this is an ounce and a half of bourbon. We're using the straight up Clark and Sheffield bourbon for this. Three quarters ounce of Amontillado. So we're using again the Tio Diego. Three quarters of an ounce of honey thyme syrup, homemade. And three quarters of an ounce of fresh lemon juice. And then they say add a little simple syrup to taste. I didn't taste. I added a tiny splash of simple syrup expecting the balance to be okay. I like your guidance. We trust you, Chris. And there's a little hit of Angostura bitters in here too. Was that equal parts? Three quarters, three quarters, three quarters? So an ounce and a half of bourbon and then three quarters Amontillado, three quarters honey syrup, three quarters lemon juice. Cool. It's like a gold rush. Yes. Yeah. It's kind of a gold rush. It's an Amontillado gold rush with thyme. Honey thyme. And we're going to garnish it with a fresh thyme spring. Right from the garden. Straight from the garden. The mint, the mint, this is an interesting little fact. Months ago, I bought a mint plant because we needed mint for a podcast and I took it home and planted it and this is the mint that is still growing. Wow. Thyme is not a frequent cocktail garnish in my world. In your world. Yes. But it is not unknown at all in the cocktail world. I'm being very, very casual about my thyme garnish here. We've always said you were very casual with your thyme. Yes. All right. The thyme takes over the nose just like the mint. Very, very. So you have the same kind of thing going here. The herbs right in your face when you go to take a drink. Oh, man. That's good. That is very good. Yes. It's a gold rush with a little more think, a little more think layered on top. It's not as the honey syrup is not as thick because it's not a honey simple syrup. Like there was no reducing really. Plus, Pat's recipe for the gold rush honey syrup was like three parts honey to one part water, which is an insane, just slightly diluted honey. Yeah. This is thoughtful. The citrus gives it so much lift. It's like a blast of flavor. I agree. I think the balance is really good here. I'm glad I did not add more simple syrup. I think a lot of people might lean in that direction. I go out to a lot of cocktail bars and drinks are often very sweet. The lemon is just on top of the sweetness. There has to be some take on this that uses gin instead of bourbon. Yeah, you would think so. I mean, that's like the bee's knees or something. That's another classic cocktail. We could probably make a sherry-based bee's knees if we wanted to. I'm sure he was influenced by that. It's called a Queen Bee, right? Well, it's got honey in it, so I guess that's all of it really. Right. Hard to know. It's called the Apiarist. Nice drink, Mikey. I don't know. Get thee to an Apiary. Boy Pat, you're really missing out. You would love this one. He would be going nuts. It's pretty good. This is a pretty good drink, I have to say. Very nicely done. Me and Mikey. I have to say, I did the next one. I did so good. As you guys prepare the final cocktail, I want to take our listeners into a deep dive here. Though Editor Jim has cut this down to a tight 45-minute episode, we have been in this room for four and a half hours. The cheese has sweat so much that it's now dehydrated. I have not even had a bite of cheese yet. Oh, you better get that before I get at it. Get in there, Chris. I ate all your cheese, man. I didn't eat any of your meat, though. We've gone through all the Amontillado cocktails. We're at Oloroso. Okay. So this is the one, as you recall, that is aged oxidatively, not biologically at all. Yes. Okay. So, rich, full, nutty, very whisky-like for a cocktail purpose. And what we have here is a classic called the Adonis. It's been around for well over 100 years, maybe more, 150, who knows. It's not named after you. It's named after, actually, it's named after some play or musical that was playing in, now that you mentioned it, in New York, anyway, about Adonis. Yeah. You're saying that I am not an Adonis? No, I'm saying you are, but because it's 100 years old, it couldn't possibly have been named after you. Yeah. Unless you are some sort of time-traveling Adonis. Time-traveling Rep Van Winkle situation or something. That's how I keep my muscular physique. Has big, sexy vampires. So definitely cats. So the original version of this, I do believe, calls for Fino Sherry, which makes it akin to a Martinez. Oh yeah. The Martini precursor, which uses sweet vermouth, right? But here, I'm bringing it more toward the Manhattan profile. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Chris, were you thinking about me? I was. Okay, so the Adonis, like a Manhattan, in my opinion, with Oloroso doing that rich brown spirit impersonation at a very low level of alcohol, 20% alcohol. It's half and half Oloroso and sweet vermouth. Now, you can play around with those because of course, the Manhattan is two to one. But however you like it, we'll see what this tastes like. And just a little orange peel garnish. What's your sweet vermouth? Sweet vermouth is coquille vermouth di torino. Cool. I admit that I fall back on my favorites when it comes to vermouth. But I also chose things that came in half bottles for reasons. Reasons. How much bitters you put in there? There are zero bitters. It doesn't call for it, but you can add them if you want. I bet this would be pretty good if it had bitters. Wow, this is interesting. That's like a creamsicle. It is like a creamsicle, but it has the bitter back edge. Yeah. But there's definitely vanilla and orange. Well, this orange peel is right on the nose. But I mean, I think that's delicious. Yeah, I know it is. It's kind of chocolatey, caramely. It's really... It tastes like you're drinking some sort of orange upside down cake. Yeah, like orange frosting on a carrot cake. Yeah. It's rare that I can say I've never had something like this when I have a cocktail. This is... Give the vermouth some credit, the spiciness and the bitterness. Yeah. It carries it in a way that a lot of other vermouths wouldn't. I think you're absolutely right here. The vermouth is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in this cocktail. That would change if you change the proportions, of course. It's so chocolatey. Why? Yeah, I agree. Which vermouth is this? Cokie vermouth de Torino. Hey, once again, listeners, Pat Brophy should really be here because I feel like he's just missing out huge on this cocktail. You fool jerks. I also could guzzle this. Exactly. I could slam this. It's pretty delicious. It's weird. I agree. It's not like anything I've ever tasted. It's not like a Manhattan. I want this as like a frosting for desserts. The Sherry nuttiness comes through too. Oh man. It's like captured confectionary qualities with none of the sweetness. Just incredible. Yeah. The bitter edge of the vermouth really, and the end really make sure you don't think it's sweet at all. Like a caramel dipped in an orange chocolate. Yeah. I'm imagining the conversation with my wife goes like this. I'm like, don't worry honey, it's Sherry. Look at the bottle. Wow, that's super interesting. Pretty cool. That's really, yeah. So run us through the- It's so simple, it's ridiculous. It's just half and half Oloroso and sweet vermouth, and then an orange peel for garnish. Hot take, add more Sherry and add bitters. Right. So if you wanted to lean toward that classic Manhattan feel, yes. Change the proportions to two parts Oloroso, one part vermouth, add a couple of dashes of Angostura. As you know. And you're there. Pat Brophy would substitute in coquille vermouth de Torino for the Sherry. Just a big glass of vermouth. Yeah. This is the Lusty for Lustau. This is the Lusty for Lustau. Don Nuno, I think, is it not, the Don Nuno Oloroso? This is one of those, if you buy the bottle of Sherry and you're hesitant, because you're not sure how often you would drink Sherry just as is. Perfect example of its ability to create something completely different in a cocktail setting. Absolutely. Yeah. If you're not familiar with Sherry and you want to take a flyer, feel comforted in the fact that there are things you can do with this stuff that are probably going to taste pretty delicious to you, even if you don't think you love the Sherry itself. It will not go to waste. Yeah. It would be awesome if you could get a Hawaiian shave ice with this as the flavor. Right. Oh my. Then some condensed milk on top of it. Yeah. Or pistachio ice cream on the bottom. Like a butter finger stuck in there. What are we talking about? You're going way too far, Greg. Why you got to ruin everything? All right. I'm still hungry. I could keep eating all this food. Quick shout out for apple and manchego. Apple and manchego. Dynamite combination. Apchego. There's my manchego. Sorry, Greg. No. Yeah, I'm sorry. I ate all of the other ones. All of the manchego. So much food, Chris. This episode puts the man in manchego. It's right from the region of La Mancha. I heard there's a man from there. The man from La Mancha. Greg's just tilting the windmills over here now. Yeah. The real Quijote. I learned something today. Just how much cheese and meat we can eat one sitting. You've learned that it's important not to be sitting right in front of the food because you will just keep eating it. Yeah. These little sons of bitches are delicious. Right? What, the mussels? Yeah. Sherry. It's just not for sniffers anymore. I mean, it's so rare that people are just clamoring for the sherry, but they're missing out. They are. It suffers from stereotypes. People think it's only a Christmas cold weather type of drink. They think it's only an after dinner type of drink. Stuffy old people. Yeah. But there's vibrancy. There's a huge swath of flavors from electric vibrant acidity, not acidity, sorry, aldehyde. Aldehyde. Aldehyde-ity. Aldehyde-ity. Like rich nuttiness and vibrant fruits and just layers of complexity. And it's mixable to? Highly mixable. Highly mixable. As a lower alk substitute for a lot of spirits in cocktails, or as a flavoring component. We've seen both. And is it ever food friendly? And it is it ever food friendly. Absolutely everything on this table goes well. So when you're looking at it on the shelf, think of it like, you know, what you usually spend on a bottle of wine, it might be more, it might be less, but what you spend on a bottle of spirits, it's going to be on the low end, right? Yeah, and Brown Spirits fans should get in on this because you don't always have to, you know, drink gasoline. Right. And Chris, thank you for bringing all this food. Is this literally tapas? I don't know. I haven't been to a tapas place in 20 years. It's literally just food. Food of all kinds. This is more like a spread of charcuterie. A tapas is sometimes the like pre-prepare. You know, you are essentially making your own tapas. But instead of paying, you know, six dollars for three of these little things, I mean, make a whole plate. Yeah. If you went to a tapas bar, you could get a platter of the tomato bread with serrano ham and Manchego cheese and olives. That would be a classic tapas. That tomato bread is like one of my main takeaways of this thing. That is so good. It's easy. And this is the time of year to make it. Get out there and buy some freaking tomatoes and do something good with them. It's like Spanish antipasto. Yeah. Kind of. Meats, cheeses, nuts, tomato bread, nothing cooked. Tinned fish. Yeah. Mussels. Olives, all that stuff. Ponservas. Once again, the world is full of enjoyable things. Life is full of sensations. Get out there, experience it. Some people might say things like keep tasting. Leave us a review. Just make sure you tell lots of people about this. Your friends, your neighbors, your mom. Your mom. Chris, thanks again. Everybody, thanks for listening to this episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Back in your feed, probably in like four days with a bonus episode. Keep an eye out for that. Until next time. I am Greg. I'm Jim. I'm Roger. I'm Chris. Keep tasting.

Thank you for listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Jumping into your feed with this bonus episode, we had a bunch of sherrys, we had a bunch of food. Chris made a bunch of sherry cocktails. We didn't want you to miss out on any of it. Chris, what the f**k is wrong with you? I'm insane. We couldn't fit it into a single show. We're gonna have some more sherry cocktails in this bonus episode. Enjoy. So, the reason that perhaps that there are so many cocktails here is because I had chosen a lot of classics, and Jim found a couple of modern things that sounded so interesting that we had to try them. And I'm glad we did, because the Queen Bee was one of them, and now we're going to try what's called the Good Samaritan. It's another modern one by Paul Rogers from Bad Company. Yeah, randomly, we were talking about doing the Sherry Cocktail episode, and then I randomly got an email from some spirits website or whatever about summer bourbon cocktails. And so I looked at it and I'm like, oh, there's a Sherry Cocktail. And you were like, what's the deal of making love? So there was three Sherry Bourbon cocktails in this summer bourbon cocktail article, which is like, as we've been saying the entire time, all these cocktails are very refreshing. Yeah, with the Sherry alone. So it makes sense that you add Sherry to them. Right. So yeah, this is a really interesting one. It's kind of weird, but I can't wait to try it. I believe it was met with a green puke emoji from Pat. Well, we'll see what this is. The Good Samaritan. Everyone knows the tale. Be kind to your fellow human and get thee to an apiary. Anyway, it's one ounce bourbon. This is one of these weird equal parts drinks, just like the last word, if you all recall the last word from the chartreuse episode. They do. Equal parts of four different things. One ounce of bourbon. Again, Clark and Sheffield. Again, Amontillado, tio Diego. Banana liqueur. Oh man. Yeah. That's the crazy one, I think. So this is Banan do Brazil. Creme de Banane? Yeah. Creme de Banane. Gaffards. Gaffards. Banan do Brazil. Yes. Exactly. One ounce of that, and one ounce of freshly squeezed lemon juice. So four items, bourbon, Amontillado, banana liqueur, and lemon juice. I mean, it is like the last word because those last two ingredients, as being equal parts is kind of- Kind of wacky. Kind of bonkers. Yeah. Kind of bananas. Yeah. What kind of banana though? The Gromy Shell. Cavendish. Is there a garnish for this one? Or we just go for it? This sounds like a tiki drink. Yeah. Lemon is the garnish. Lemon wheel or lemon peel, whatever you like. Wheel or peel. I got a peel here for you. Banana boy. I like it. That's a sweet tart. It's interesting. I'm getting like banana candy though with all that banana. Yes. Yeah. But I think it leans pretty sharp in the acidity. Because of the lemon juice. Two out of four is what I'm tasting here. The sherry is muted underneath the fruits, and the bourbon is way at the bottom. Yeah. It needs, yeah, you know what it needs is up the bourbon. Yeah. Or use a funky rum. Yes. An estuary rum in here would be very interesting. Yeah. I agree with that completely. And also, I think here's a case where it could use a little sugar. I mean, this is a pretty tart cocktail. I think a little bit of simple syrup might make some of these flavors pop a little more. This reminds me of some flavor of 7-Eleven Slurpee when I was a kid. Probably banana. I can't remember like what the, I never would have gotten banana. But they have a banana. Yeah. Are you serious? Yeah. I just thought they had blue and red. Back in the day, they had banana. Maybe it was like a lemon lime mixed with orange, mixed with fruit punch kind of. Yeah. This is weird. I think in an effort to do an equal parts because everyone wants to find equal parts cocktails, that's the flaw here. Like dial back this banana. Yeah. Well, here's the thing is the banana is literally the only sweetener in here, the banana liqueur. Yeah. So put some simple syrup in. Yeah. You should dial the banana back, pump the bourbon up, and use some simple syrup. When in doubt, it's often good to dial the banana back. And pump the bourbon up. Yeah. Pump it up. Pump it up. Pump up the jams. There are certain people that will love this. I mean, we are living in the sweet tart sour patch kid generation. Every person at Three Dots and a Dash, when I was there last Sunday night, would have loved this. Especially if it came with like, you know... Yeah, like a big dumb fuzzy dice hanging off the side of it or whatever they... Oh, a banana dolphin obviously. Yeah, the banana dolphin. The banana dolphin was adorable. Yeah, but you know, it's banana liqueur. You gotta have banana dolphin. Maybe just a small banana porpoise. Do you put that in a hammock? Banana porpoise hammock? Yeah. I don't know what it by means. Banana porpoise hammock. Banana porpoise. Banana hammock. Yes, I know. You were frazzled. I just want to make sure. So we got one more cocktail here, and it's probably an after-dinner cocktail. It's called the Tootsie Roll. Oh, man. You have Tootsie Rolls. Yeah. Is this one on the rocks as well? Surely you serve this up. Yeah, you would serve this up. I mean, any of these, you can do whatever you want, but this is generally... So I don't have to fill four cups of ice? Is that what you're saying? You don't. Okay. But you have to put cherries in them. Cherries? Yeah. Roger spent years talking about pebble ice, and now he's manning the pebble ice station as he is. He's sick of it. With a plum. Hoisted by his own petard. Hoist of his own petard. Hoisted on his own petard? By his own petard. Of his own petard. Last cocktail. Tootsie roll. This looks like a hazy IPA that's been on the shelf for three weeks. It is a little hazy. Brown. More brown. Roger often says that you drink with your eyes. Yeah, and this- This one looks a little bit like a watery Yoo-hoo. Like you're- I did shake it. Maybe you stir this one. Might be a little less cloudy if you stir it. What's in there? Yeah. Stirring is called for, but we're heathens, so. So what's in here is two ounces of Rittenhouse Rye. Oh. One ounce L'Estelle PX. Yeah. Six dashes of Angostura Coco Bitters. And a Luxardo Cherry. It is chocolatey. It delivers what it promises, which is Tootsie Roll. I almost feel like this is like a shooter. Like it's very strong. I guess you would serve it up in a. In a coop. In a coop. Yeah. This is where we have veered far away from the low alcohol cocktail because Rye is the driving force here. Sure is. And for me, I can taste that minty herbal Rye essence and raisininess of the Pedro Jimenez kind of comes off along with the chocolate bitters as rich chocolate brownie or Tootsie Roll. Well, like that rich, rich plum where it starts to get like a cocoa or a cocoa gets to be like a little bit like a cherry. Well, right. Right in that like like a prune. I think a prune. Yeah, or a dried plum, as the kids say. This is not a classic, is it? This is like. No, this is some bull****. Tootsie McShooters, somewhere they invented this one. Tootsie McShooters. All right. It does kind of taste like a Tootsie Roll, though, I have to say. I agree with that. Orange peel. Yes. Orange wedge. Do whatever you like. Wedge it up. I feel like someone made that was playing around with ingredients, tried this and went, this tastes like a Tootsie Pop. Then they're like, yeah, it does. We should keep it and call it that. Yeah. Yeah. It needs something. It's a little too much on its own. Too much rye. Too much cocoa. You could double the rye and this would be pretty good. Weirdly, I want to put a little bit of heavy cream in it or a cream liqueur to round it out and make it smooth and rich. I thought you would want to grate some nutmeg on top. Well, I would after I added the cream. Exactly. Yeah. Or put it on the rocks maybe since it's so rich. Yeah. I guess there are two different ways to go. You put it on the rocks and it dilutes it a little. You add something creamy, it makes it richer, but it brings it more into that deserty category and cuts down on the intensity. Anyway, that's the Tootsie Roll. A one, a two, a three. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop? I mean, it's more Tootsie Pop than Tootsie Roll. It's got that cherry. What color? So red Tootsie Pop. You're a wizard owl. Podcasts Shows barrel-to-bottle-the-binnys-podcast Sherry Bonus Episode - More Cocktails for Fino Fiends and Manzanilla Maniacs Copyright © 2025 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.Terms of ServicePrivacy PolicyContact UsResources and Help