00:00 Introduction Usually when Chris has six bottles of wine in front of him, I know it's going to be a nice casual pop in pop out, but no, that's not what we're doing today, is it? Who will let these two team up? Hell yeah, high five. Dan and Chris are high fiving right now. Party. They'll tell you all about why this is going to take an hour and a half to record. Right after this, here we go. You're listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, where we have a spirits and wine collaboration event today. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's. I'm Lexi, the same-ish, and I'm really confused for today. I'm Chris, I do wine, and I'm here to increase your level of confusion. Yeah. I'm Dan, and I work in spirits, and this is the best I could come up with on short notice. Wow. This is a great concept. One of the first Barrel to Bottles that we did in-house was slightly related to this. It was all things sherry, including the wine and then the cask finishing, but that was as far as we ever took it, and I'm really stoked on this. Well, what's going on? What's the plan here? We do internal education with staff. We had this idea to do a staff education that was essentially a wine class mostly focused on fortified wines for spirits people. Not that they can understand the different types of sherry, port, that kind of thing, because there's a lot of spirits that are finished in these wine casks. So there are. So there was the idea to do that, which we haven't done that yet, but my counterpart Rob took that idea and did an event at Lincoln Park last year where it was, essentially, you would taste the sherry, and then you would taste the scotch that was finished in that style of sherry. So you could relate and understand better the influence that the cask has on the whiskey, and where do you separate the nuttiness from the scotch being from the sherry cask versus it being from the malt? Yes. And more and more people, like these producers, are doing different finishes. Instead of blending together a bunch of different casks to make one batch, they'll say, this is going to be just PX sherry, this is going to be port, that kind of thing. So the idea is that we're going to taste a spirit alongside the type of wine cask that was finished in. Dan, can you tell us just briefly about broader barrel aging regimes, and what is a finishing cask? What is its role and how long does the liquid generally stay in there? It's just really wildly variable. We're seeing more and more finishing in the world of bourbon, which is, once you take a mature bourbon and put it in a finishing cask, you can no longer technically call it bourbon, but you'll see language like bourbon finished in port wine cask, Indeed. It's been historically just how scotch is aged. We always feel that malt whiskey does much better in used wood. So with scotch, you're most often seeing that scotch spinning, it's been around for the entire life in the sherry cask. Then maybe if they want to spice it up, they'll finish it in something different. I thought they bought a lot of ex-bourbon casks because bourbon guys can't reuse them. So bourbon, a lot of bourbon casks, a lot of sherry casks. You'll hear people say, I like a heavily sherryed scotch or I don't like a heavily, I prefer bourbon, that kind of thing. So they transfer it from one vessel to the next to finish it. How long does it stay there? And how long between the bottle or the barrel holding something like bourbon versus then getting filled? Does it have to be like a fast thing or is it like a? Oh, so, okay, so the first thing I'll address, I think you're talking about once the bourbon's dumped, how fast you have to refill it. As fast as possible. So they'll often like wrap the barrels in plastic to keep them wet. But as soon as that barrel starts drying out, it's not as critical with like, when we do a lot of collabs with beer, putting beer into our used bourbon barrels, that is critical because you have an infection potential with beer. That's not as much of a problem. But as the barrel dries out, it starts to get leaky. So you don't want to put a bunch of scotch you've made into a leaky barrel. So very, as quickly as possible and taking measures to prevent. The other side, how long it finishes is just depending on what their goal is. Like what are they looking for? Some distilleries will have like a regimented, we're doing this for three months. Others are just tasting and saying, okay, this is what we're looking for. But we can say without question that it's a small fraction of the total time. Yeah. So if you've got a 12-year-old scotch that says it was finished in another cask, it probably spent 11 and a half years potentially in its original cask and then was finished in something to bring it to that accumulated. Think of it as like the end of cooking and you're doing the final seasoning adjustment, right? So you want to add a little salt and pepper or some kind of flavoring that maybe you've been bad at adding all the way along, but you just want to make sure you've dialed it in, so you put the seasoning on at the end. So we're going to taste things today that were finished in casks. We're also going to taste things that just spent their whole life in those casks. Cool. It's all right. All right. 5:20 Fino Sherry So if Chris has six samples, how many samples do you have? Eleven. Wow. We got to grind stone this one. You guys ready? All right. What's the first one? I don't know. I was thinking like Fino. Yeah. I think we should try to amplify toward or move toward more robust flavor. So Fino would be the place to start. And what we have here is probably the world's most famous Fino sherry, which is Teopepe by Gonzalez Byass. And then, so when I was choosing the spirits, like some of the stuff, they're one-offs that we just have in our sample room. So it's not about the brand for this side of, for the spirit side of it. It's more just about what can we suss out the influence of this wine. So this bottle I'm handing around is a Glenn Scosche Campbeltown Malts Festival unpeated Fino sherry finish. And so all of my wines will just be the style, not the exact barrel that it was finished in. I would suggest trying the wine first. The smell of this whiskey is filling the room. Glenn Scosche. It is just Scosche. Scosche too much. If you guys ever had a sherry cobbler, I'm sure you have. I have not. That's a cocktail, right? Of course. Not a dessert. That's my only knowledge of this kind of sherry, I think. Yeah, cobblers are very old-timey cocktails, but they're delicious. We have one of the top-selling Fino sherrys ever, Tio Pepe. Correct. So what you'd expect here is, and this is the interesting part, it sets it apart from all of the other finishing barrels, is a very tangy, aldehydic, somewhat briny style of wine, very dry. Every time that I smell like volatile something on a scotch, like spray paint or something like that, Bret or Dan, they're always like, oh yeah, that's the sherry barrel. Why do you keep using it then? This one's interesting, it's dry. Yeah. It's a little bit lemony, a lot nutty, like almonds, like Marcona almonds. Right. And there's, if I was blind, I might guess that this is sake, because it's got this like musty, kind of subtle dried. Savory kind of, yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah. So these are the kind of sherrys that are made with the floor that grows on top of the wine in the barrel and produces a lot of acetaldehyde. Uh-huh. That is bracing and refreshing and bright. Yes. Oh, and it's oxidized already, right? So you can keep it forever? Only, no, not in the case of phenols. The phenols spend their entire time in solera underneath the floor. So they don't really oxidize that much. I'm not saying there's no oxidative influence here, but this is what in sherry you refer to as biological aging. And the floor is a thick layer of yeast that protects the wine from oxidation. Here's my historical theory. Lexi, tell me if you think this sounds realistic. I don't think anybody in Scotland was like, Ah, we really like that sherry flavor. Ah, let's get some sherry barrels. I think there was a bunch of sherry barrels left over somewhere. They started using them and then they all were like, all right, it tastes fine. I'm used to it. Well, I think they were shipping sherry to the UK in barrels. So they had these barrels. Absolutely. And as we've already stated, you know, malt, we really strongly feel that malt whiskey does better than used wood. This may come as a surprise to some people, but like most wine was shipped in barrels back in the day rather than being bottled at an estate. So Bordeaux, you look on a Bordeaux bottle now, it says, mise en boutie au château or bottled at the château. The reason that's on there is because it didn't used to be the case. They would just like Sherry, barrels of the finest estates in Bordeaux would go to London and then be bottled by Englishmen there. Sounds like the wine merchant was doing the bottling. The wine merchant was doing the bottling. In historical American retail, originally, everything was on-prem. So you'd buy a barrel and then you'd tap it and you'd pour it off. Then when people started wanting to buy off-premise, they were limited in the unit that they could sell to the package that the producer put out. In a lot of cases, that was a keg. So a package store originally was not a re-bottler, but it was selling from the original package. That's why you got growlers in the beer industry. That's why we ended up with all these blended scotches, because your British retailers would want to tout their own blends, and they started naming them after themselves. Yeah. Boy, are we getting... How about this Glen Scotiabank? Anyway, so yeah, I went ahead and tasted the Glen Scotiabank, but this is... Glen Scotiabank makes pretty... They do some peated stuff. This is unpeated. This has a pretty delicate style. This would make perfect sense for a fino. You don't want something heavily peated or really intense, I would say. For fino, it will be overwhelmed, I think. Yeah. But you can still see the notes. Yeah. The nuttiness or is that from the malt? No, I think the nuttiness and then I'm getting this just high note of lemon on the nose. That is probably... I mean, that could be a little bit of both. If you're... Sometimes you're matching flavors and enhancing rather than creating. I would think in this case, this is what they'd want to do is enhance some brininess, some seaside aromas and flavors. I bet that sherry barrel, since it's already used, would have less impact than new wood, right? Because it would just trounce it. Say that again. I'm sorry. The fact that the sherry barrel has already gone through its first life, and that unlike a bourbon where it's just blasted with vanilla. I mean, as far as for woody notes, yes. The purpose here is that this wood has been saturated in another liquid. We're trying to extract that. As you know, as things age and temperatures change, the liquids go in and out of the wood. So when that happens, you're extracting the actual sherry, and the sherry aromas and flavors. Still probably some wood tannins and things, but those have already been worn away a bit. That is a delightful little pear salad of a scotch. Yeah, a fun little one. There's like a weird, I mean, I guess it's just the brandiness, but there's this, I don't love olives. They're too oily and acidic for me. That's why they're great. But this does that weird little combo situation. Yeah. I mean, olive notes and sherry are not unknown, and they're fantastic combo if you're in a tapas bar or something. We went to a distillery in Scotland and we were picking barrels, and the samples that they brought us were all in New Wood. We were like, why did you give us all New Wood? They're like, well, you're Americans. We're like, well, okay. No, we didn't. We are. Right you are. I mean, it definitely influenced the scene, and I think of that style. 12:44 Oloroso Sherry The next thing I was thinking, maybe Oluroso? Sure. Does that make sense? Fine with me. Chris, did you bring an Oluroso? I did. Is it Lustau? It is. Yes. So Lustau, Don Nuño, Oluroso. Oluroso is a style of sherry, unlike the last one that never sees any biological aging. It is purely oxidative. No floor on top? No floor on top. This is a style where floor does not develop. For whiskey, I've got a Glenaleke 13 signatory pick. So this is a strong one. Yeah. Which also makes sense. So the flavors in Oluroso are quite aggressive and they are fully oxidized. So particularly nutty. You might see some of that olive in there too. The color shirt echoes across these two liquids, which is the previous ones were this citric, yellow, light, bright, and these are both like watered down Coca-Cola. This is, as with all our signatory stuff, cast-strength and natural color. Boy, howdy, this smells good. It's just, sherry is just a pleasure in the glass. Ain't it though? Where do you think are the popular places that people drink sherry in the world? The world, definitely Spain and England. England, retirement home, Roger's Basement, Roger's Basement. Sherry took me a really long time to get into. I had a lot of false starts and I still, it's not my favorite. I mean, my favorite fortified wine is Madeira by a lot. There's so many styles of sherry that it takes a lot to learn them. Then when you're constantly like, I don't know if I like this, it gets hard. But now I do love sherry and I think Scotch had a lot to do with that. I love sherry. I've been drinking sherry for decades and I'm crazy about it. So this is broadly very nutty. Yeah. A little saline. Yeah. Exactly. It's cool because it's nutty and not quite warming spices, but inching that way. Yeah. Maybe maple-y, but it's still really light. Yeah, and completely dry. Less people are still thinking that cherries are sweet wines. It smells like it's going to taste like molasses. It does not taste like molasses. No. It's really nutty on the finish. Really, really nutty. Then of course, mid-palate, there's this burst of citric acidity also. Absolutely. So this is a grape called Palomino Fino, grown in chalky soils, pure white soils known as albariza. It is very high in acidity. Whereas interestingly, biological styles start out pretty high in acidity, but that's metabolized partly into acetaldehyde through the biological aging, and that's where you get that tangy aldehydic note, which is the kind of thing that you were Spray paint. Yeah. So what do you think of the whiskey? It has that heavy smell too. Yeah. And then it's super lifted on the palate. I can see it just sucking some acidity right out of that barrel. Yeah. And it's kind of like there's almost like a little bit of grip on it. Yep. Absolutely. There is. There's a tannic grip to this. It's sweet up front. Yep. It's much sweeter than the sherry itself. That is true. But yeah, Olu Rosso. I also have a bourbon. This is from Penelope. It's called Project X, and this is a bourbon finished in Olu Rosso. What? You think Wolverine is going to get us or something? Yeah. Finishing bourbon is not new, but it's becoming more common to see finished bourbons. Bourbon is one of those categories in our stores that there's so many rules about its production that you end up with a more narrow flavor range than you do with some other categories. I can see how carefully you're stepping around saying that bourbon gets monolithic and boring. I mean, I love bourbon. Don't get me wrong. So how do you innovate with bourbon? And what you're seeing is one of the ways is finishing. Unfortunately, the law is standing in the way. Yeah. But I mean, it's an overall net benefit that those laws exists because it means that if you buy a bottle of bourbon, you're getting a base level of quality guaranteed. So our base spirit, we've switched from a single malt to mostly corn. Well, it indeed smells corny. So these Project X bottles are still in stores too. Are they that small? No, no, this is a sample bottle. They're full 750s. What do you think of the bourbon? That's pretty good. Yeah. I honestly notice more of the switch to corn than I do the influence of the Ola Rosso barrel. Let's do the process again though because I just did that same thing. I'm like, this just tastes weird. Then I switched back and it's dry on the end. Yeah. It's like it focuses the bourbon a little bit, I think. But it doesn't show the flavor of the Ola Rosso as much as the Scotch does because, again, like I've said many times, malt is just a more delicate. This kind of powers through it. Yeah. But it softens it. Like you said, it dries it out at the end a little bit. All right. 17:51 PX Sherry Sometimes you see Scotch and it doesn't tell you what kind of sherry, it just says it's sherry finished. I think maybe it's a segue to the next one. We're about to see that sometimes sherry doesn't taste like this. Yeah. So sherry, I mean, the most common is Ola Rosso for aging Scotch. You'll see when they're using PX, you'll see that called out a lot because that's really popular right now. If it's one of the outliers. Yeah. PX. Do we have any PX? We do have PX. We have PX, everybody. So PX... Are we doing that next? I think we should, unless you want to switch it out. Yeah, because then we're getting into port and very sweet Madeira and then the Salteran. I mean, the PX is going to be really sweet. Yeah. So PX... Can we just say Pedro Ximénez? Yes. Is. Like once. So PX is a whole special situation in Sherry. They do grow some in the actual Jerez region, but most of it is grown in nearby Montilla Morales. Interestingly, they make basically Sherry style wines, but instead of fortifying them, they don't fortify them. They just get high natural alcohols, and every style, Fino, Amontillado, Olorosa, are all made with PX, whether they're dry or sweet, which may surprise some people because what we're going to taste here is a sun-dried version of PX that is like I'd say it's more like raisin syrup. Yeah, it's very raisiny. I mean, it's literally what they are. They're kind of desiccating these in the sun like you would do a raisin, but not going so far as to take all the juice out. So you can still press them. Chris, what's the difference between the golden ones? What are the golden ones called? Sultanas. Sultanas, yeah. And then the purple ones that turn kind of brown when they get really shrivelly. These taste like the latter. They taste like your box standard California raisin. Yeah. Raisin. Yeah, indeed. It's prunes, like prunes. The prunes. Spot on prunes. Yeah. Yeah. Any any number of dried fruits can come to mind here for sure. Which is not to reduce it to just that, but that was the soul of it. Yeah, there's like either my gums are bleeding or there's like a little bit of copper, like coppery metallic at the end. I worked at a cocktail bar and we had a drink on the menu called Ants on a Log, and it had celery bitters and celery juice and PX sherry. I don't remember where the peanut butter came from. It might have been something like that. I mean, I don't think so, but it might have been something like that. But it was amazing. No, I don't think so either. Okay. I'll have to find it. It's my guess. A different sherry, that other sherry. But this is crazy. That's the first time I'd ever had it was in that cocktail, so to try it on itself is like a raisin bomb. It sure does taste like raisin. So I passed around Luxro PX Finish Bourbon. This is around in stores still as well. I thought this time we'd reverse and do bourbon first. Good idea. Because I also have an Irish whiskey. Yeah. The cheat code of fruit sweetness that comes across in this bourbon. The corn already makes it sweet, so it's just fruity. It just adds fruitiness. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. But there's still a limestone crispness in bourbon too. So it's not like it completely falls flat underneath the influence of sherry. I agree with that completely. I think this finishes very minerally. That's good. The other thing I have is Dunville Single Mall Irish Whiskey that is PX Cask Aged. Cask Aged. So Dunville is, there's a distillery, Eklundville Distillery in Northern Ireland. They're actually resurrecting a bunch of older Irish Whiskey brands. Is this an old label? Yeah. So that's an old, that's a very historic brand. I don't know if the label specifically is old, but it definitely has that vibe to it, right? Yeah. I love this label. It's like an Altoids pastiche look got smashed up with a handlebar mustache apothecary. Right. It reminds me of like old-fashioned vermouth label or something like that. Yeah. So, yeah, they're bringing these older brands back out, and they're making these whiskeys in the style that would have been from that distillery. So, they're doing some really cool stuff there. Dunnville is the first thing we've gotten from them, and we have a few other items from Dunnville on the shelf. They're playing make-believe. I smell nuts on this Irish whisky that I don't usually pick up in Irish whisky. Big ol hazelnut bowl. What's that? Filbert? Filbert, yes. Why do I know all this bulls**t? It's from hanging out with these guys. Everybody needs to know all the alternate names for nuts. Come on. Remind me the big thing about Irish whisky. Irish whisky is traditionally triple pot distilled, and this is a single malt, meaning the malt whisky from a single distillery. One of the big things that you might be thinking of is the pure pot still Irish whiskeys, which are blend, the grain is a blend of malted and unmalted barley, which is uniquely Irish. This is a single malt, not to say just a single malt, but it's a single malt, so it's all malt, malted barley. It has that characteristic dry pear quality, but there's some lifted up fruit here too, and nuttiness. I mean the nuttiness just comes all the way through the palate. Yeah, I agree with all of that, and I think it's compared to everything else we've tasted, it's uniquely soft and rounded. That's probably just because it's Irish. Yeah, and Irish whiskey is, you know, with the triple distillation. So much pear, a lot of pear. You're getting rid of a lot of the heavy flavors that you'd find in, you know, scotch and other whiskey production. So, you know, that's pretty nice. I like that. 23:51 Ruby Port What do you think next? Anywhere you want to go, I don't care. Well, let's do port. Port's an easy one, for me at least. An easy one for you to pick, because this was one of our top four bourbons. So I'm passing around Angel's Envy, which is bourbon, aged, finished, and Ruby Port casks, which means that Chris probably has a Ruby Port, huh? I do, I do. I have a very well-known, what they used to call, well, what they call reserve port now. It's a non-vintage Ruby with a proprietary name, which is a whole kind of category. This is FunSec has been 27. You'll see this in restaurants and on our shelf very regularly. I don't think I've ever had port wine. No. Really? Really. I don't think so. Really. Well, tell us then, Chris, just a little summary of Ruby versus Tawny. Just kidding. All I needed to hear is Tawny. You have her. No, but please tell me. I've had Tawny port. Maybe you haven't had a Ruby port. Tawny ports are aged for a long time in barrel and are oxidized. Ruby ports are aged for a much briefer time. The highest level of Ruby would be a vintage port. They get two years in barrel and then age for a long time in bottle. However, this style is made to be consumed right away on release. They used to call this, in fact, vintage character. Now they call them reserve because I didn't want the confusion of saying the word vintage on it. But this was supposed to mimic what a vintage port would taste like, but absolutely ready to go when you get it and it is non-vintage. Is that not LBV? LBV is late bottle vintage. It still gets a vintage date and spends longer in barrel, so... More on the tawny side. Not necessarily, but softer and readier to go than vintage port. As opposed to two years in barrel with like the most, the richest, most intense grapes you can imagine because they only declare port vintages in great years. Late bottle vintage might be made in a year that they don't make vintage port, and then it's aged in barrel for maybe five, six, seven years depending on the house, and then released again basically ready to drink. Late bottled because it spends more time in barrel. I'm afraid to ask any more questions or I will get even more confused. This might be the first root report I've ever had, but the texture is more reminiscent of dry red wine. It's sweet because it's sweet, fruity, spicy. And fortified. And fortified. It's a little boozy and grippy. And it has tannins and it has sweet fruit, but the sweet fruit is really tempered by the structure of the thing. Angel's Envy, they're standard bottling, Ruby Port casks. They've got all kinds of weird finishing that they're doing. By the time this comes out, they're rye whiskey finished in peach brandy barrels. Their new distiller really leans into innovation there and they're doing some cool stuff. How about that Chateau de Chem and peach finished Angel's Envy we had the other day? I made an old fashion out of the peach Angel's Envy with some Chateau de Chem. It was a delight. It was a delight. I'm not even lying. Do you pick up the port influence on this, Angel's? Hey, Greg, would you like to try one of your favorite whiskeys? Yes, I would, Greg. Thank you. If you immediately spit the port wine out and immediately put the Angel's Envy into your mouth, it gets really dry for a really long time. True. But if you're drinking other bourbon and didn't just have a sip of the sweetness, you'd pick up all this red fruit that's on this whisky. I find it a little easier to pick this stuff up if I do it that way and then wait a second, and then try it and try to find those again. Yeah. Because I feel like it's easier to remember them than to just pull them out of the air. Yeah. I mean, this is not the easiest tasting exercise. You're going from a sweet fruity wine to a pretty dry whisky that has it undoubtedly, as Greg says, has those red fruit flavor and stuff. But depending on which direction you go, they can be obscured by what you just tasted, right? I also have a theory that when Angel's Envy first launched a decade ago, a little more than that, I think they used more port. Yeah, it was portier. They used to be really, really porty. We've done a hand picked casks of Tawny too that they have. I think two years ago, the cask strength was a blend of Ruby and Tawny. They're just looking like when you see a new bottle from Angel's Envy, do a little research because they're master still our own Martin's doing really cool stuff. It's not just the same old bottle that you're used to seeing. So they're worth looking at a little closer. Yeah. 28:52 Sauternes Wine So, Taron. Yeah. So here we go. All you guys, Dan, maybe not, but you guys got to try the ultimate sautern the other day. Can I have a dribble of water? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. The ultimate sautern, we did get to try Chateau de Quim. We're going to try something called Chateau d'Oise-Vedrine, which is an excellent house and it's going to cost one-tenth of a bottle of Chateau de Quim. Quim is pretty much rarefied air. Yeah, completely. Pretty wild. So I've got Adener-Murkin, the sautern release. Working for your Adener-Murkin. So Adener-Murkin has peated and unpeated whiskey. I think this one's got maybe a touch. There's a touch. Or a peat here. It says peated. Oh, it says peated. And it smells peated, too. Yeah. This isn't like an aggressively peated whiskey like you'd get on Isla. What are you laughing about? Because every time you bring a peated anything in here, Jim and I just look at each other and it's this look of like, oh, shoot. Here we go. And then both of us are like, no, it's not. It's not. So the wine is like, I'm getting like lots of tropical fruit. Yeah. Yep. This is a 2022. I'm like almost like grapefruit juice. Am I out of my mind? Yes, but there's grapefruit notes. Well, I can't both be true. I can see that. They are. Yeah. That's lovely. And then the whiskey. For sure there's grapefruit notes. Ruby red grapefruit juice. Yeah. That just shocked me because I wasn't expecting it. Yeah. What a delightful wine. Shocked me. So I totally understand it's a hot on a hat, but I feel like you just kind of have to try these back and forth and back and forth to try to pull stuff out of them. That plush fruit really builds out the mid-palate of this whiskey. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe this was a bad idea. Why? Why? I don't know. I'd have to try it without the Sautern cask, you know, side by side to really figure it out. But this is really fruity whiskey. Yeah. And the peat is present, but it's just like a wisp on top. It's not overwhelming. It's like if you drank an unpeated version of this next to a bonfire, and you just once in a while got a little wisp of smoke. Would that bonfire be contained or just a pile of wood? I think it tastes like if you were to put a really peated beverage, whatever one, over ice in a glass, and you let it sit for a second, and then you chug it, and then you fill it with unpeated. That's what it tastes like. Okay. Yeah. Where there's definitely, like, I can taste that, but it's not bad. I mean, I'm definitely getting the Sautern notes in the nose. There's, like, pineapple. Yeah. Kind of tropical fruit. This is probably one that would benefit from a splash of water to kind of open up some of the more delicate things that you're talking about. Let's try this. Would anyone like a little splash? Gregory? But I remember when this makes great whiskey. It opens the nose up wide. Oh, yeah, like with the water, just lot all that fruit. Yeah, it's I don't know why you're resisting it. Not really. Give me the whiskey. Oh, because he doesn't have any more whiskey to go with it. I mean, it really brings out so much tropical fruit with a little water. Almost like mango, guava, pineapple. Half a cap. A hay cap. This is a pretty shallow cap to begin with. All right, three quarters of a cap. I have sparkling water and that was a fantastic highball. All right, hay cap. Yeah, it does. See? That soda water on the palate, you get this burst of really pleasant smoke right at the end. I just love it. People don't be afraid of a little water in your whiskey, even if you think you're real macho and you want to drink it neat. It changes it radically. Also, if you put a little water in your whiskey before anyone sees you, then it doesn't even matter. Well, and I'm famously one of the most masculine people in this company. I put water in my whiskey. That's absolutely not true. Dan and I are going to arm wrestle. It's not true that you put water in your whiskey? No, it's true I put water in my whiskey. I am not. We're arm wrestling after this episode. On the palate, it really plushes up the fruit. Yeah, definitely. This is the point. It makes the smoke recede even more. But I got this burst of smoke right at the end that I didn't get when I hadn't water it down, for me anyway. Yeah, that pita is definitely there. It's not crazy, but man, a little, few drops of water and you get tropical delight. 33:35 Madeira Wine How many wines do we have? Just one more wine, right? We're on our last round. This was easy. Is Sartre in the last round? No, that was just Sartre. Oh, we still have Madeira to go. So yeah, last thing we've got here is Madeira. Madeira. And as luck would have it, we have Blandy's five year old Momzee. Momzee. Which is a British bastardization of Malvasia, which is the grape. That's so disrespectful. Momzee. Bloody Momzee. They just ruined everything. I've got Nelson Brothers, Madeira Cask Finish, Cask Strength, Bourbon Finished and Momzee Madeira Cask. I keep doing that. I keep putting the wine in the wrong glass. The other exciting thing about this five year old Blandy's Momzee is that it's on our top 30 under 30 for the fall. Is it? It is. I was shocked. Wasn't expecting Chris to sneak in a promo, wine promo here. Well, you know, you know me, working, working overtime all the time. Yeah, I was shocked to see a Momzee Madeira nominated for our very popular list. And there it was. And I'm happy it's on there. This smells so much more dry. Yeah. Well, that's the thing with even like, like this is the sweetest style of Madeira. And at least of the white grapes, correct me if I'm wrong, Chris. This is true. Generally the richest than made in the sweetest. But even like even when they're very sweet, they play as a dry wine because of all the acidity. To me anyway, as a minimally experienced person. Fine Madeira always has really a great citrusy acidity to balance the nutty richness. Madeira is an oxidized style like some cherries. However, it's also historically heated in the aging process, either outside barrels in the sun or in doors in what's known as an estufa or stove or oven, where it's artificially heated by steam. This is a process called matterization. It's oxidation and heat together. Is there some heating that happens in, for lack of a better term, the attic of some of the aging facilities? Yeah, absolutely. Because Madeira is essentially an island off the coast of Africa, so it's a hot climate. Yes. The other thing that when I was in stores talking to people at Madeira, is the half joke is that they've already done everything that you can to ruin this wine. So you can open a bottle of Madeira and drink it for a decade, and it's going to minimally change. Yes. It's already been heated. It's gone through heat and oxidization. So what could you do to it to harm it? It is so acidic. I love Madeira. It's so good. It's literally bitter, sour. Yeah, and the thing about Madeira is it's not a monolith. They grow multiple kinds of grapes, some historic grapes, and then there's a grape called Tinto Negra that takes over the role of most of the historic grapes because they're not that widely planted anymore. But Malmsey is a traditional Malvesi grape that makes the sweet rich style. Otherwise, you have Cerceal dry, Virdeljo a little bit richer, and Buol going up from there. And then the rare Torontes, not to be confused with Torontes. And Rainwater is made with red grapes, correct? Tinto Negra. Yeah. Anyway, what about the whiskey? Yeah. Anytime you see a Madeira that gives you a style rather than a grape variety, it's probably made with Tinto Negra and it's mimicking the dry to sweet styles. This one says Mom'sy right in the label. Five year aged Mom'sy. You can definitely taste it on the end. Yeah. It's like an extra floral, the whiskey. I think here we get a lot of wood tannin too. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. A lot of wood tannin. Exactly as it was hitting my palate. I'm going, what the hell? You're welcome. And the acidity, the acidic influence from the wine. Yeah. It's right there on top of the wood tannin. Do you hate it? It's like a board. It's like drinking a piece of wood. This is not Brett's style. I kind of like it. Maybe I just wasn't ready for it. The wine is really good. There's so much orangey acidity to it. Oh, yeah. I mean, I am always drawn to some of this as it's in a Madeira cask because I love Madeira so much. Second sip, it does have a plushness in the mid-pot too. Underneath, like just, is it higher proof also? Yeah, it's casting. Yeah, I was going to say. 104-ish. Yeah, 103.6. To me, it tastes like sweet tobacco and orange zest. Yeah. That's a good way of saying it. Exactly. Well, I mean, that's what I had. Maybe this was too academic, but it's a- You are an academic. I used to be. But yeah, this was, I mean, it's kind of interesting to find and relate these things together. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I learned something. I think that this should be a class or a seminar or something that we offer. Yeah. We did a walk-around tasting at Lincoln Park last year that was this kind of concept. And then we've been talking, it's a matter of finding the person to teach the fortified wine class. I think a guided sit-down seminar is perfect for this. I found this a fascinating journey. Good. I think it really helps you, at least for me, I don't know what a port finish is going to taste like, because I had never had that before. Sure. So I think it really kind of, when you do that side by side, you're like, oh, and then it's easier to pick those out. When I used to be in the store, I would place bottles of sherry next to certain whiskies in the whiskey section. They sold like crazy because people wanted to do this at home. That's cool. That's a good idea. That's cool. Everybody gets caught up in like, I prefer spirits or I like wine, whatever. But if you're drinking scotch and finished bourbon and stuff, try some fortified wine. Yeah, I don't see the big walls that people see between those categories. I mean, fortified wines are high in alcohol. They're obviously not as high, but you get a lot of similar flavors and you can make great cocktails. You can make a low-alcohol cocktail by subbing in an Ola Rosso for a whiskey, if you want to. They're fabulous together in cocktails. What was that? Cobbler? Sherry Cobbler. Sherry Cobbler. Or maybe I didn't, but I had a Sherry Mojito once. It was also really good. Interesting. That probably was made with Joffino. Dan, you are a gentleman and a scholar and it takes one to know one and there's damn few of us left. Thank you for sharing, Dan, Chris. Speaking of your scholarship, I have some errata. Is this Corrections? Do we do Corrections now? Because I was enraged when I listened to this episode on Friday. Let's hear it. At my foolishness being led down a primrose path by Mr. Greg Fersh. What did I do? You didn't do anything. It was my fault because I knew what this word meant and I completely lost my mind in the moment, which is Beaty. Beaty. Yeah, yeah. Tower of God. Torre de Beaty. You said beautiful and I was like, yeah, that's right, but it's not. It's the Beatitudes, right? Yes. Yeah, it's a religious thing. It means blessed. It's a blessed tower. Yes, the Beatitudes, blessed are the poor, blessed are the peacemakers or beatification. Catholics certainly know this root word. I thought I lost my mind. I said these things on tape, but we said beautiful 800 times. I'm sorry, dude. I was so sad. Just a guess on my part. You wept? Yes, Jesus wept. Jesus wept there and no more worlds to conquer. If anybody else wants to fight Chris as much as Chris wants to fight himself, send us an email, comments at binnys.com. That's what you went home and were thinking about. Etymological idiocy. You know, he was just standing in the shower like, stupid. I've gotten that a lot too. Write us at comments at binnys.com and tell us what other stuff we get wrong or talk to Lexi on social media, at Binny's Bev. And give Dan a call at the Whiskey Hotline. And listen when we're back in your feed next soon, back in your feed soon with something good. From Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, I'm Greg. I'm Lexi. I'm Chris. I'm Dan. Keep tasting. You guys should keep tasting at the same time. Oh. One, two. Well, that- No. Ready? Are we doing it on three or after three? One, two, three. Keep tasting. I'll let you stay.