00:00 Introduction You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Jim, I work in the Communications Department here at Binny's. With me today is... I'm Lexi. I'm on socials. Roger, I'm in beer, but also a cocktail enthusiast. And a fortified wine enthusiast. Indeed. Yeah. And I'm Chris. And I like all alcoholic things. And speaking of fortified wine. Except myself. Pickled. Last week we did a fortified wines episode, and Chris or Lexi, no one will take the blame, had the idea to quickly turn around and do a episode on fortified wine cocktails since you have all these bottles, and most of them last fairly long, but still you buy a bottle of this, and maybe you want to try something else other than just drinking it straight. So you dipped your toe into sherry or whatever, and maybe you loved it, maybe you didn't. Maybe there's a way that you'll love drinking it if you didn't like it plain. Just like when we did that chartreuse episode, like what do you do with a whole bottle of chartreuse? Well, there's a whole bunch of different cocktails you can make. Exactly. Yeah, plus like, you know, there's a bit of a time clock on some of these products. Well, yeah, that was one of the other reasons I suggested turning around quickly is, yeah, a lot of the Madeira, some of the fully oxidized cherries will last forever, but we've got a bottle of Teo Pepe open, which will last a few weeks in the fridge, but it doesn't last forever. I love the idea. I love it. Let's do it. So, you guys have got some cocktails. I'm going to sit here and drink them. Yeah. Yeah. Huzzah. Yeah, I got to edit all this. Another victory for Jim. Yeah. 1:49 Classic Sherry Drinks Okay, so who's going to start? Who are we starting with? I can go first. Lex is going to go first. I've slide some ice over this way. Oh, yeah. I've got two cocktails for us today. I've got an old one and a new one. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. You're making some blue curacao? The first one's going to be a bamboo cocktail. It's got two ounces of Fino Sherry, two ounces of Dry Vermouth, and two dashes of orange bitters. Typically... I can't undo this, so I'm just ripping it. What is it on there with? She's come undone. Two different things with staples. I'm not a fan of the ice bags closed with staples. It doesn't really... So the bamboo is like a martini riff with the gin, or if you're a heathen, vodka replaced by Fino Sherry, right? Yes. And then there's also the Duxedo, which we're not making today, where you replace the vermouth with Sherry and leave the gin. Both kind of martini riffs. Nice. I don't know if I said it yet. So this first one's older. It comes from 1902. So I also am curious about what this stuff actually tasted like in 1902. You're talking about my wheelhouse. I was a mere 21-year-old in 1902. Playing stickball in the alley. That's right. Also playing with that wheel and the hoop and stick. Yes, hoop and stick. A little ring of levio. Yeah, of course. Whatever the hell that is. What candies were you eating during this time? The prune candy, very popular candy. Sugar plums. Sugar plums. Sugar plum fairy came and hit the streets. If you couldn't tell. I've got a bunch of those here, Roger, unless you need a bunch more. Lovely sound. This is a stirred cocktail. I didn't want to steal your garnish. I don't care. You're always doing the garnish work. You're a hardcore garnish thing. The real Joseph Garnish. Garnish your garnishes. Garnish your garnishes with crisp. I missed your wrist technique. We've all seen it. I know. Lexi's all about the wrist technique. It's important. I know. You weren't allowed to do anything in the bar until you got it down. And look at that. Perfect. And with those nails too. I mean, those are some great, serious nails. Thank you. They're a little longer than I prefer, but that's okay. I had a photo shoot once and they had a bunch of cocktails and the bartender was behind, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I can stir that for you if you want. And she's like, it's okay. I got it. And I go, okay. And then they got, they were still behind. I was like, are you sure I can do it? She's like, yeah, whatever. And when their manager came over, he goes, yo, that's a really good stir. You want a job? Do you want a job? All right. So what are we working with here? Two ounces of Fino, two ounces of dry vermouth, and two dashes of orange bitters. I went with Regans today. I mean, it does exactly what it's supposed to do. It's kind of saline, briny, and really, really refreshing and obviously very low in alcohol. This is a summertime cocktail. So could you garnish this with some olives or some capers, and make a chicken picatinny? Okay. Enough. Chicken picatinny. Is there going to be a thigh in there too? It's a chicken schmaltz fat washed. Oh, yes. Obviously. Spirit. If someone were to serve this on a very fancy boat, I think I would find a way to have too many of these. Yes. A yacht, per se. Or even a rusted out hull. Sure. Like sitting on the beach. Do I feel like we need to do the Adonis next? Because it's basically the same drink. Yeah, let's do it. But you just sub out sweet vermouth for the dry vermouth. Are you using Fino for that? I guess not. Fino. Well, dry. Yeah. I would personally use the Oloroso here. Because it's more whiskey like. What do you think? I've only ever made them with dry sherry. This is a bone dry sherry. Okay. Fair enough. But it has some of those richer notes that you... So it'll take it into the realm of Manhattan. Cool. Let's do that then. I think so. Equal parts cocktails for everyone that complains about. Every once in a while, I catch myself perhaps having a little bit too much fun on the weekends, and I may or may not occasionally drink a little bit more than I intend to. Never. I think one of the good ways that I try to pump the brakes a little bit, keep myself in check a little bit, is by drinking stuff like the bamboo or like a lower alcoholic cocktail. I think that this whole episode probably, or most of this episode will be lower ABV, which will be great for those times where even if you do one of every other, maybe a higher proof than one of these. Yeah. I mean, this is a big trend these days, and people are doing it with NA's. You alternate an alcoholic with NA, but you don't have to go down to zero. Come on. Don't have to go down to zero. No. That's crazy. What are they calling it? Zebra striping. Zebra striping. Yeah. All right. So the Adonis cocktail, popularized by the Waldorf Astoria Bar, where that bar book you can access for free online. It's so old. A lot of classic cocktails out of there. Made in honor of the musical Adonis, which had a 500 plus show streak on Broadway. It was the cats of its time. I laughed. I cried. It was better than Adonis. Yeah, I think it did have kind of a Bruleski element to it, supposedly. How risque. Nice. The sweet tinkle of stirring. I don't know, Roger, you're going to take some Lexi lessons. Yeah, I know. I'm not doing it. A lot of noise over there. That's all right. A lot of noise and not enough action. I figured the noise was good for the podcast, so this isn't visual. True. You're right. And I'm watching for the visual clue of if the outside of the vessel is starting to frost up so that we're actually... I'm going to foley in Sound Effects for Lexi's later in post. Fix it in post. I'm going to fix it in post. That's definitely a hallmark of a swizzle style drink. True. You got to have that frosty glass. I had a Queen's Park swizzle at a bar not that long ago. Nice, and they frosted that glass up pretty good. This does look like a whiskey cocktail. See, I think that's really good. Wait, what's in there again? So very similar to the drink you made, but I'm glad this is why we have you here, Chris, to point out that dry vermouth isn't necessary, that a Monteato could be an option that is definitely, or no, Oloroso. Either one could work. But Oloroso, so a dry sherry, but this has a little more character than say like a, you know, Fino sherry, and less like vegetal, more like oxidative. So as Chris pointed out, that's going to make you think more of like the brown liquor component that would normally be in a Manhattan. So you could see this as like a very sessionable, low elk option for fans of Manhattans. So it's equal parts dry sherry, sweet vermouth, and then some orange bitters. And if you wanted to lighten up a Manhattan, but still have whiskey in it, you could split the dark component, I think, and it would work nicely. Yeah. Honestly, I went through a kick where we don't have it in many of our stores because it is again, the category is pretty woefully underappreciated. But the Sherry House L'Estao actually makes vermouths as well. So they are delightful. I was making Manhattans and Boulevardier's with the L'Estao vermouth. Yeah. And that's what's bringing back memories when they try this. So I bought some of that when I came out for sure. There's white and red. Yep. But yeah, this is great. And I mean, this is a perfect example of something that can be really high flavor, but very low in alcohol. Yeah. And it just that low alcohol makes it go down so easy. It's just it's delicious and easy drinking and dare I say, refreshing for this drink that doesn't have a big citrus component or anything like that. Doesn't get much easier than equal parts. Yeah. 10:57 Madeira Brandy Mixes Speaking of which, I'm going to do an equal parts cocktail called the Creole Lady. And this is equal parts brace yourself, because rarely do I use this much maraschino liqueur in anything. Oh, hello. Yeah. It's equal parts maraschino liqueur, bourbon and Madeira. We're using Blanny's five-year-old Momzi. And do you have a spoon? Yep. At least I think I'm using Momzi. I just realized there's a sarsila on the table. I didn't even know it was here. I wonder if I use that. It looks kind of light for them. It does. This might be a drier cocktail than I was expecting. But that's okay. So this, I didn't even know we had this. We did the Momzi the other day. Where did this sarsila come from? I don't know. I don't know. I had it for a while in here. On the shelf. Yeah, we had them in here. I think that's probably what's in here, which is a drier style of Madeira. But it'll be interesting because that sarsila often has really bright orange citrus notes to it. And I think that'll work nicely in here. All right. Yeah. So again, we've always been trying to sing the praises of Madeira here. And if you've only had one Madeira, there's a chance you might have had a Rainwater Madeira, which is kind of the more affordable one. They don't have age statements. They're about medium dry in character. So Cerceal is going to be the driest and Malmsey is going to be the richest. So this is a perfect example of how you can just tweak cocktails to your liking. It's also pretty common to use a float of Madeira in old-fashioned cocktails. So if you wanted, you could always, if you want to add a touch of sweetness or some nutty complexity to something, try floating just a teeny bit like a bar spoon worth of Madeira, Sherry, Port, just play around. I'm actually really glad I used the Cercele because the other components that the Maraschino brings a lot of sugar to this. Yeah. It's a sweet cocktail. Kind of like tea. Yeah. It does have a sweet tea-like flavor. That's really interesting. If you went through McDonald's drive-through and they gave you this with an ice, you might not know. Almost. It still has that very distinctive Maraschino liqueur. Yeah, absolutely. I think that might be what I'm getting is that, like I meant the earthiness of tea. The earthy, yeah. It's kind of like that. Because the Maraschino, as we know, is head to toe, everything in between on the tree. Yeah. The Maraschino, it's like everything. It's the bark, the tree, the leaves, the sticks, everything goes in there and macerates. Pits. Pits, yeah, everything. Get that almond-y thing which definitely dovetails with. Boy, I learned some of the leaves, really? Yeah. Were you not on that episode? Yeah, when the guy from- Luxardo? Luxardo was here. Interesting. Yeah, no, I wasn't on that episode. I don't remember that. So everything goes in there. Well, one thing it doesn't taste a lot of is the fruit of the cherry tree. Yeah, the Maraschino liqueur does not taste like cherry, which is what people need to be aware of. If you're buying a Luxardo cherry, you want the sangre more local. The blood of the cherry. Yum. I like this. I would drink this. Yeah. Pretty tasty. It has the floral combined with the fruitiness. It has like a, it definitely reminds me of fall. It reminds me of like the potpourri. Potpourri. Yeah. Don't eat that stuff. Those aren't chips, but they're so crunchy. I get like a weird cherry blossom and it's probably from that floral situation. Yeah. There's definitely cherry blossom and almond in here. For sure. Yeah. Very interesting. Creole lady. Yeah. Creole lady. Did you use Pishode in it? I didn't put any bitters in it, but we could have and that would have brought it there. This is also from, actually it's not from the Waldorf Historia book. It's from Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens, which was published in 1931. Okay. So it's a pretty old cocktail. Yeah. Reminiscing about the old 1880s wild days. Right. Anyway, there you go. Interesting. Thanks, Chris. Yeah. What's next? I have a bunch of lime juice. Are we done with just the bases? Or do we have any more cocktails that are only remouthed samaros? Are they all citrusy from here on out? Well, mine doesn't have any citrus in it. I have one already mixed that has citrus, but it's just for balance. Let's go the one without citrus. We'll go to citrus next. That's a good idea. Pass me the Laird's. Now, this is going to be an exciting fall riff. Yeah. I like this idea a lot. What are you making, Raj? I am going to do a riff on the old fashion, since that's such a popular cocktail. I've often joked that when you're walking down the whiskey aisle, I would always ask, how do you like to enjoy your whiskey? Do you drink it neat? Do you drink it on the rocks? You're making cocktails. If they said cocktails, I would always say what kind. I always found it somewhat humorous that 99 percent of the time, they said they made either an old fashion or a Manhattan. Yeah. I mean, they're classics for a reason. Yeah. We could branch out people. Unfortunately, I think people get nervous sometimes when they're at bars and restaurants and especially at a bar where you don't want to, if it's chaotic and you're at talking to the bartender and you're like, well, I don't want to ask for something weird or piss them off or, I'll just go with something that's tried and true. It is cooler now that cocktail culture has really taken off in the last decade or so. Cocktail menus are getting a little more interesting, so you are able to drink some of these classics that 10, 15 years ago you walked in and said, could I have a Boulevardier? Sigh and looking like, what? I have to go look that up. I was at a show a couple of weeks ago and they had batched Boulevardier. Whoa. That's cool. It was pretty sweet how the times have changed. An old-fashioned cocktail, the basics are very simple. You can, of course, like most cocktails, change it to your liking. You can make it as strong, as sweet, as you like. The base spirit even as people typically tend to play around with. I would say with the bourbon popularity going off the charts lately, a lot of people think of it as a bourbon drink, but you can make, it was extremely common to be made with rye back in the day. If you're north of the border up in Scanson, going to the Supper Club, odds are they're making a very different version of a old-fashioned that is- Behind the cheddar curtain. Most likely a brandy-based and uses some grapefruit soda from the gun, maybe garnished with some strange things like marinated mushrooms. It's popular for a reason. It's very simple. You do the classic combo of a little bit of strong, a little bit of sweet, a little bit of weak. In this case, the unique riff that we're going to do, you would either, with old fashions, typically be muddling a sugar cube. You want to up your game, use a better sugar. Listen to our episode. Yes, we did an entire podcast episode on sugars. Something like Demerara, Turbinado. You can make your own simple syrup ahead of time. You can buy simple syrup, but you should really make it yourself because again, you can use better sugar. Or alternatively, sometimes I will make an old fashion. I'll just use an orange liqueur because I feel like a lot of people garnish it with orange bitters anyway, so that kind of covers both bases. Today, we're going to think outside the box and use PX Sherry. So PX Sherry is the very intensely flavored of the Sherry. It's the sweetest. It's what's mixed in to develop cream Sherries. It's so decadent, so thick that it's served poured over ice cream as a dessert in Spain. It definitely has this very voluptuous, raisinated characteristic to it. Thinking outside the box with that fruit character, it might be fun to amplify that. Instead of using a rye whiskey or bourbon whiskey, we're going to use a brandy, but instead of a traditional one, we're actually going to use an apple brandy. We're going to use it from Lairds, which is a producer that we've talked about many times on the podcast before. They literally are the first distiller's license, the oldest continually running distillery in the United States. The Laird family, it is still in their family, not owned by some big corporation or anything. They actually showed George Washington how to distill. A ton of history in this bottle. Relatively unknown until the last 10 years or 20 years now, time flies. Mixologists really fell in love with it so much so that it was such an obscure product that their best offering or their most iconic offering is their bottled and bond. They sold so much so fast that they ran out of four-year-old brandy. For a while, it lost its bottled and bond status and it was just Laird's 100 proof straight apple brandy. But they ramped up production. Thankfully, we're back on track. So a really fun bottling that we always turn to in the fall. So this would be a fun riff on an old fashion, especially during the fall. I have to point out that you have missed a couple of episodes and we've been making old fashions with weird sweeteners just like this. Oh, cool. Yeah. You won't believe some of the old fashions we made last week. What was the sweetener? Oh my gosh. That's pretty wild. We made old fashions with the new Angel's Envy, what is it, apricot or peach barrel brandy finished, and Chateau d'Iquem. Incredible. That's pretty wild. I suggested that we make it with the most expensive pappy vanilinco we can find, just to do like that, the black velvet we did with Bourbon County and Cristal. Yeah, we made two though. I can't remember what the other one was. We didn't do the one with the Angel's Envy on the air. We have an Angostura. Yeah. Let's go. Anyway, yeah, we've been working this riff a little bit lately. All right. Maybe I'll pour it. I could either pass it around or pour it in the cups, if you want to just hand me some new ones. Throw mine in there. Fair enough. Thank you. Let me put yours in the glass. Sure. I don't know what was in there, but I'll take it. An Adonis. Yes. I'm going to put an orange peel in mine. Would you like one? Yeah. Sorry. I cut them and forgot to give it a squeeze. Express. Express yourself. Where's mine? You don't get one. You don't get one. All the way down here. You're well-expressed already. No, I'm in a cocktail. Oh, yeah. Smells good. Yeah. I mean, anything with spritz of fresh orange oil on it, always smells delicious, right? Oh, yeah. That's really good. It tastes just like fall in a different way. It's delightful. It really does. That's crazy. Do you want more fall? I was thinking about talking about pimento dram. We've also been putting pimento dram on like everything. I anticipated your needs, Rodger. We've done some slush cocktails that we've added pimento dram to several times. You know, there's so much spice character here that I almost think it would be too much if we put it in, but that's hysterical that you had it at the ready. Especially that stuff. That stuff's pretty strong. Just a drop. A pinch between the cheek and gums. Look at the way she wields that bar spoon. It's incredible. It really needs a bitters restrictor on top of it. Yeah. I don't know if you can add that. Can you add a bitters restrictor on top of that? No, but you could. I mean, the Luxardo does have one. We could pop one out. You could just put it into a different container. Or you could, honestly, you know, it would be really good if you were to throw it into an atomizer. Oh yeah. I should do that. I should because I have a bottle and I don't. That'd be really good. I keep putting too much of it in stuff. Despite the fact that this is made with a 100 proof brandy, this is a very mellow and delicious. Right. Yeah. Here's some allspice. Yeah, very mellow. I was looking at cocktails on the Miles Madero website and they had one where they used fig preserves in it. Oh yeah. I'm kind of getting that dried fig. Sure. Flavor from this, from just the. I mean, the PX is going to bring that dried fruit. I mean, we're coming up on figgy pudding season. So bring it to us. Oh, flambéed. I love that. Have you never had a good figgy pudding? I'm guessing no. No, Roger. It's full of beef. Not even 30. She's like, she's like. Why would I have a figgy pudding? The best figgy puddings are about as old as you are. She's not celebrating a happy Christmas in the UK, so no. She is not. Plus it's full of beef suet, so. Oh. I'm just saying. Beef suet. Fruitcake. Delicious. Figgy pudding? Panatone. It's not a pudding though. It's a cake. It's just that you boil it. You steam it. Steamed. It's not boiled. It's just old fashioned British terminology. It's cooked in a pan in a pot of water. Oh. It's gently simmering. It's what they call a bain-marie. French? But when you take it out, let it cool, then you like wrap it in a spirit-soaked cheesecloth and let it like cure. So it's very much a cake. The longer, the better. It's like a good fruitcake. It's where our fruitcake tradition comes from what they would call pudding in the UK. So they're really fruitcakes. Chris is right. They were traditionally made with suet, the like food grade suet, not the s*** you put out for woodpeckers. Okay, because that's also what I'm thinking. I don't know how you're doing that. A little block of stuff. You can get vegan suet. You can just use a fat. So figgy pudding, as with tradition of all British names, of things, is not a pudding. Yeah, just like Yorkshire pudding is just a popover, basically. Like how Gravedigger's Biscuits means 630. Same thing. Do you ever hear people talking and the words aren't making any sense? They just nod. That's what just happened for the last 20 seconds. Jim's a funny member of the Gravedigger's Union. Yep. All right, what's next? What's next? That was good. Yeah, nice one. 27:01 Sherry Daiquiri Blends All right, so for our next cocktail, I took one of my all-time favorite. Is it too sweet or too sugary? Salty, limey? Salty, limey. I love it. Okay. Too salty? It might be too tart. Okay. I love it. I didn't know because of the sherry, so I went a little. Yeah, I went a little length. Typically, I would do two, three-quarter half for sugar, and I did two. I did that exact thing, but I think it, I wasn't sure if I needed more, so I can add a little more. I got a little worried about it. It is tart. Yeah. But it is refreshing. Yeah, it's very refreshing. It was just jarring. Sorry. No, it's good. After those first few cocktails, it's very- Yeah, this is the palate cleanser. This is the intermeta. Tastes like a tart apple cider. Yeah. Well, it's a tart apple cider. Let's see. I'm going to try to eat it. Yeah, this is very limey. Limey. The lime doesn't linger, at least for me. It's just an initial burst. I think it's because- Then I get that apple cider. Oh, yeah. I get apple cider. Yeah. I think it's because typically when you're doing a daiquiri, there's some sugar happening in the spirit and there's not that happening in the cherry. Did you tell us what was in here? Oh, yeah. I did two ounces of Fino, three-quarters ounce of lime juice and three-quarters ounce of sugar. So based on the thickness of the sugar that I did not make, that I typically would make, that's probably why it's not as sweet, is because I do prefer to do a thicker. I think it's pretty delicious. Oh, yeah. To limey for you? I think the cherry gets lost a little. I can handle the acidity as bracing, but it would be fun, I think too, to try this with the Oloroso. That's what I was going to say. I agree. However, I think that the cherry and the lime juice come together to make that appley flavor. There's citric acid, but there's also malic acid. There's all that aldehyde making this indescribable tanginess to it. It's kind of a little bit beyond words. Then I think you do get the sherry in the hint of brine that's in there. It is a tad overshadowed by the lime. It is aggressively dry, but I like it. I mean, a little more sugar might be good, definitely. Or the old school traditional daiquiri was served up, but a lot of times, not saying you should have it frozen, but you could serve it over like chip ice or shave ice, pebble ice. I mean, this would be incredible over pebble ice. It has exactly that profile. It's bright, it's tangy, incredibly cold. I could see this with a garnish of mint. I could see this morphine into a mojito with a sherry base. You could say put morphine in a mojito? Well, I mean, I definitely would do that, but... You could serve it with a cane garnish. Yeah, a little sugar cane. Yeah, I would like that. I mean, having this, yeah, like it would probably slush. That's what I was just going to say. Does this... I bet this would slush nicely. Any of these drinks, if you wanted to slush them, would be great because of the lower alcohol content. Yeah. Any of these would slush, I think. We can go to the next two, but if we have time, we should try the other, the Oloroso Dak. Let us do that. Let's return to Oloroso Dakery. Dare I say, you could even sweeten it with the Pedro Jimenez, if you want, for a pure sherry expression. Yeah. Next, I'm going to do something called the Flor de Jerez. Flor de Jerez. And this has a double entendre meaning, it means the flower of Jerez, or the flower of sherry, the sherry region. But the thick layer of yeast that grows on top of sherry is also known as the floor or the flower. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right, see? This is a little more complex than some of the other drinks, but it's not crazy. It calls for an ounce and a half of amontillado, a half ounce of rum, and a quarter ounce of apricot brandy, three-quarters ounce of fresh-sweezed lemon juice, and half an ounce of simple syrup. I use the Pedro Jimenez instead. So there's a lot of things going on here, including some fruitiness and some citrus. And this generally has a lime lemon peel in it. I don't have any. Do you want an orange peel? Sure. Or Roger will take care of it. Orange and sherry are pretty classic together. I think rooted in the idea of the sherry cobbler, always gets an orange garnish. All right. I'm going with orange. Okay. Sure. Okay. Flor de Jerez. That is interesting. It has a complex cocktail. Yeah. It's got a lot of stuff going on there. Do you mind repeating to me again? I will repeat to you. So an ounce and a half of a Monteado sherry. That is a sherry that is a phenyl that is biologically aged under the floor, and then the floor dies and then it is oxidatively aged. So you get the finest delicate sherry flavors, but then you also get the rich nuttiness of the oxidative aging. And then a half ounce of rum, a quarter ounce of apricot brandy or liqueur, and three-quarters ounce of lemon juice, and half an ounce of simple syrup, replaced here with Pedro Jimenez. What kind of rum do you use? I used, so normally I would use a slightly higher ester Jamaican rum to lift kind of the aromatics here, but we didn't have one in here. So I did a combination of 10-year-old Bacardi Gran Reserva and Plantation's White Rum through here. Nice. You know, three-star rather. Yeah. As we know, a lot of drinks are improved by a combination of rums rather than just one rum. And yeah, normally I would want more, at least I got the plantarade, which has a Jamaican component in there. I wonder if you could split your rum base with Plantation Light, so the three-star, and then a little tiny bit of Smith and Cross or something really big. Yeah, Smith and Cross would really give you that huge estuary pop. Or you could just go with something very straightforward like Appleton or something like that. I think the apricot really shines on the end. Yeah. I feel like you have that ability sometimes if you, when I think of the Monteato, I feel like you get some apricot as a common tasting note. Yeah. So then by adding the brandy, it really is amplifying what's probably already there. I agree. I think this drink with the Pedro Jimenez standing for the simple syrup came out really, I like the balance on it. It still seems citrus forward to me, fruity and citrusy. Maybe after the tartar version of the daiquiri, it's mellowed a little bit. I don't know, but I really like the balance here. You could easily lean this more sweet, but I like the way it is. Yeah, I like it. It's fun. This would be really fun to have since it's so fruit forward to serve this with a cheese course. Oh, yeah. It would pair well with a wide variety of all sorts of. I agree. My favorite cheese maybe, manchego. Certainly, why not? It's appropriate, given the ingredients. I agree with this assessment. A salty aged cheese would be really good with this to play off of the sharper acidity and the fruity sweetness. That's fantastic. I think like an aged gouda or like a gruyere, I think it would bring out the nuttiness that's already here too. I think all of these are excellent suggestions. That's good. Glad you made that, Chris. There's a lot going on there. Thanks. Yeah. It's an interesting one. It's Quint approved. Thanks to the April Cup brand. All right. Are we done? 35:52 Negroni Fortified Finish I've got one more. What I'm making here for all you fine people is a riff on the Negroni. We could have done a Boulevardier for sure. This is equal parts gin, Madeira instead of vermouth and Campari. Roger, I know you're going to love this one. Right. So it's a Negroni, not a Boulevardier. It's a Negroni. I said we could have made a Boulevardier in honor of Roger. Yeah. But he's referring to my distaste for Campari. Right. I am, indeed. Because it tastes like dirt. Dirt. Not good. We can just reuse this cup for me. So many better options out there. All right. There it is. What do you think? I also have a distaste for Campari. Campari, Campari, Campari. I don't know, man. It's like an all-it-taste. I think it destroyed the shit. It might have destroyed. Madeira was like, goodbye. It's there, but it's muted. Okay. That's something I've learned on this podcast. When you are making cocktails with Sherry, you have to be a little bit more delicate with your flavors, unless you're going the PX route or something. Because this, again, I'm also getting maybe 95 percent, 90 percent Campari. Yeah. I think that's largely true with Negroni's in general. Yeah. I mean, there's some truth to that for sure. But it got lost in the lime a little bit too, so I'm wondering. Well, yeah. I mean, these are low alcohol and delicate. As far as mixology goes, I mean, they're very aggressively flavored when you drink them alone. But yeah, I agree. Do you think Campari and other things like that are popular when people like chain smoke or like get really old and lose their taste buds? I mean, they eat too much hot sauce. Listen to too much music, too loud. I mean, you mentioned that Campari is very earthy to you. I also get like tobacco ash from Campari. I think it's very ashy tasting. I mean, it's not as insane as something like Malort, but the same kind of trying to incorporate it into things. Yeah. Like you just, the fact that a Negroni is equal parts, I'm like, you got to be kidding me. The fact that it's become such a popular cocktail ingredient is kind of crazy because of that trying to incorporate it. I think some of it, I mean, it's striking in its color, which now is like fake, right? Yeah, that's a bummer. But like, I can see that it makes a beautiful looking cocktail, but yeah. I don't know. It's just such an extreme taste. I just don't think that Americans historically have had the same taste for bitter things that Europeans have. Yeah, for sure not. People in Europe love bitter to wet the appetite, and they do different things than we do. They drink Sauternes as an aperitif, sweet, because they think it heightens the appetite before dinner, rather than sates it after dinner. Yeah, I don't know. Capoletti, aperitivo. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if I had that, I would have done it. But that's a more delicate thing that does not last for it. Yeah. For sure. Well, nor does your sherry. So this is an excuse to buy both. Right. You're not mixing up your spaghetts, mix up one of these. I think that's the moral of this whole podcast is, yeah, if you went out and bought a bottle of sherry or Madeira or port or whatever, you don't have to sip them on their own if you find that they're not to your taste. Because, I mean- Or even if they are. Even if they are, agreed. We both love fortified wines. We drink them regularly and we still like to make things out of them. But I think it's a great outlet when you're exploring and you buy some Fino and you find it's really tangy and briny and maybe you're not used to it yet. You may grow into it, but you can make a delightful cocktail out of it. And good, especially for longer drinks, tall drinks, it can make these nice low ABV refreshing things that you can drink a couple of and be pretty okay. Yeah. I'm also just a big fan of a spritz. So any of these, I would do some Fino spritz, I think would be delightful. Or make a spritz and then float a little bit. You could do all kinds of riffs on high balls of all sorts with cherries and maderas. Yeah. All right. Well, cool. All right. Well, that was fun. I'm glad we got to reuse all these open bottles of fortified wines that are fortified but they don't last forever. As Chris said, if you buy something and maybe you're not into it, or maybe you're a little into it, but you can turn it into other stuff too and make it into cocktail ingredients. Fortified wines are not just for the holidays. They're here around all the time. I'm just going to say, Roger, do you remember the Reeves Salt that we opened in the podcast a few years ago, and everybody was raving about it? That made it onto our top 30 wines under 30. Awesome. Can you even believe somebody submitted that? That's awesome. I know. It's so good. Everybody buy that stuff. I went out and bought some of that after. I was like, you sold me on it. I'm a believer. Cool. I will thank you, the three of you for making cocktails and letting me sit here and drink them. If you have any questions for Barrel to Bottle, comments, suggestions, hit us up. Comments at binnys.com, at Binny's Bev on any of the social platforms. We do still do the question for $20 gift card if you have one. We haven't done it in years. All right. Well, until next week, I'm Jim. I'm Lexi. I'm Roger. I'm Chris.