All right, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Dan, I work in spirits. Once more with feeling. No, I'm just kidding. I'm Chris, I do wine. Alexi, I'm in socials, I'm socials. I'm Kevin Aslan, I'm the head distiller for Hirsch and the other Hotaling-owned brands like Old Portrero and Junipero Gin. Exciting. Yeah, thanks for having me. How'd you land that gig? So Hotaling and Co. used to be part of Anchor Brewers and Distillers out of San Francisco. So dearly departed. Yeah, dearly departed. They might be coming back though through a yogurt company. I'm hearing rumors that it's coming back maybe end of this year. I want the full fat version though. I don't like that no fat yogurt beer. So all of my friends at Anchor Brewing who are still involved, like they always big time me now. They're like, oh, I can't tell you. So I'm like, oh, need to know basis. You're not high enough on the food chain. I'm not. Come on, man, head distiller. That's the distiller's life though. Last to know. First up in the morning, last to know anything? Pretty much. Pretty much. That's going to be my tombstone. We were part of the brewery. The distillery was founded later in 1993. But we were basically one company until Sapporo bought Anchor Brewing in 2017. So we changed our name and became independent. We changed it to Hotaling & Co. We're still based out of San Francisco, still doing Junipero Gin and Old Portrero Rye Whiskey out of the city. So we're still going and still just trying to bring high quality spirits to the market. Well, Hirsch is a brand with quite a history to it. Do you want to guide us through a little bit of that? Let our listeners know more about the brand. Yeah, absolutely. It's a very long history. I won't go into all of it because there's actually a book about it called The Best Bourbon You'll Never Taste by Charles Cowdery. It's literally just about the AH. Hirsch 16-year reserve and the whole history behind it. But basically, there was a man named AH. Hirsch, and he was always behind the scenes whiskey financier throughout the 20th century of American whiskey, involved with probably every brand at some point, at some level, just behind the scenes or just doing his thing. He was so well regarded that in the 80s, a group of Kentucky bourbon retailers created the label Hirsch in honor of him. But there was never a Hirsch distillery. It's always been a sourced product. But in 1974, Hirsch was working at the Schafferstown distillery in Pennsylvania. Where the original Michter's started, and a lot of brands came through that distillery. They were on the verge of closing and Hirsch didn't want to see that happen. So he gave them a bunch of money. They gave him barrels in exchange, and this was just a way for them to operate. He didn't have any intention to release these barrels, it just happened. The distillery did close, I believe it was in the late 70s, and it wasn't until the mid late 80s that this group of Kentucky bourbon retailers, like Gordon Hugh, I don't know if that name sounds familiar. They started the label Hirsch, they got Hirsch to sign off on it, and they released those original barrels that Hirsch had commissioned to make 16 years prior, and that became the AH. Hirsch 16-year reserve. Those bottles now are anywhere between $5,000 and $30,000 a bottle depending on the variant. Given its origin, what was the match bill? Is it high rye? So, I've gone into the history a lot, and some people confirm it, some people don't, but it sounds like it was a pretty classic Kentucky match bill, somewhere between 75% corn, 20% rye, maybe 5% barley, somewhere in that range. They weren't doing anything too crazy with the match bill. It's just really having a 16-year-old bourbon in 1990 must have been drinking something from the future, right? So I think that was sort of why it became so coveted. Have you had the Hirsch 16? Yeah. I believe there's seven bottlings of it, and I've had maybe three of them. Not often. It's hard to find. I've had a few of them. Yeah, they're pretty phenomenal. It lives up to its rep. Yeah, it definitely does. Again, every time I had it, it reminds me of a modern 10, 12-year-old bourbon. I think barrel quality has changed. We can talk about that if you want, but it's a very interesting whiskey. Have any of you had it before? No. No, I have a buddy who bought a bottle like 20 years ago. Oh, nice. I'm kind of stunned you didn't bring one. He's been sitting on it. What's happening there? I know. I've never owned one, if that makes you feel better. So I'm assuming, based on what you're saying, that the quality of barrels has gone up over time? Is that what you're implying with that? Or the char? People toast a lot these days in addition to char. Is all that playing to it? Sorry, Dan. No, it's a great question. I don't want to ruffle too many feathers with people who have their own feelings about oak verse now and then. But I can tell you that working with Old Portrero, Rye Whiskey, I have an interesting background in just barrels and just like knowledge of American oak because Old Portrero was started in 1993. And that's the Rye Whiskey we make out of San Francisco. It was like the first pot distilled Rye Whiskey in America since Prohibition. But the reason I'm bringing this up is the first batch of it was only 12 barrels. And our old owner, Fritz Maytag, had to go to Independent Stave Company to get barrels custom made because he wanted basically handmade barrels. He wanted them 24 months air dried before they start working with the oak. He wanted them toasted before charred. And this is all sort of how wineries would do it. But yeah, that's a very progressive way of thinking. You know, all that natural curing and toasting, that's way ahead of the curve, right? Yeah. And my understanding, you know, like in the early 90s, all bourbon barrels were made on the assembly line. They were, they used propane to char them, right? So Fritz had to really get them to think differently about barrels and how they were made. So I don't want to say that, oh, quality has gotten better, but just barrel technology making has come a long way. So I often wonder about that with, you know, vintage spirits and modern day spirits. Yeah, that's interesting. I would say Fritz is a quality minded man from cheese to beer, to my sparkling clean clothing. Yes, yeah. That seems like everything that you hear about him touching, you know, especially in our industry. He improved upon or was progressive thinking in a lot of ways. Yeah, definitely, definitely. A lot of firsts, you know, like first pot distilled gin, since Prohibition, Junipero, just a lot of forward thinking. And I think Hirsch landing at our company was serendipitous because we're sort of of the same mindset, high quality, you know, no surprises, no tricks, just lean into the history and I feel like it was a very fitting union. And that Maytag Blue, I mean, an American classic, one of the great raw milk cheeses in America. It's really good. It's very good. Well, tell us more about your background and how you, where you started, how you got into this and where you are now. Yeah, I wasn't going to say anything, but your humble approach to this, you just glossed over my question about- Oh, sorry, sorry. About how you got into this, so whatever. But now that Dan asked it, I'm sure you'll get it. We'll get it in detail, Dan. I'm very good at not talking about myself. I noticed. I was going to SF State and finished there, and didn't know what I wanted to do. I had a friend working at Anchor Brewing Company, and they were paying more than I was getting paid at a market research company at the time, which was wild to think about. I didn't go to my job one day and went with him to interview, and I just fell in love with the brewing process. Anchor Brewing was rooted in history as well, so copper kettles, everything was hands-on, nothing was automated. Yeah, it's super cool brewery, those old open top fermenters and everything. Oh yeah, you've been there. Oh yeah. Yeah, really unbelievable. What year was this? I started in 2011. I first went to the Anchor Brewery in 1995. Wow. I'm an old dude. Oh no, that's come on. That's okay. Yeah, but it's- You bring that graphic top. No comment. It's not just due to my math, but mostly. But yeah, so 2011 started just in the brewery, and back then it was open. But once they liked you, they started throwing you in different departments, and they asked me where I wanted to go, and I told them I wanted to be in the distillery, which was, they were surprised because everyone was going in to beer at this time, you know, 2010, 2011, craft beer is taking off. And there are only two people at the distillery at the time, one of them being Bruce Joseph, our master distiller for Old Portrero, who he actually just retired two weeks ago. Former guest of the podcast. I'm not surprised. Yeah, he's a good talker, Bruce, for sure. Well, we've done some Portrero picks in the past, they've just been outrageously good. I saw you guys have some. We used to not do single barrels for the longest time, so I'm glad we're doing them. It's really cool. I just started at the distillery that same year and just got a really hands-on practical education in brewing, distilling, fermentation, really all of it. So that's where I started. I'm still same company, same not so much in the production because as you progress, you start to think about product design and doing podcasts like this. So, you know, I should probably literally be making gin right now, but it's all good. Way more important. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Speaking of whisky, why don't you guide us through some of the stuff that you bought. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, maybe we'll just go in chronological order. Is that cool? Sure. Are you all gonna taste with me? Yeah. Okay. All right, I'm gonna open this. You might hear it on the microphone. Try to stop us. So this is the Hirsch Horizon. Here, I'll just pass this down. So let me just finish the history real quick of Hirsch, but essentially that 16-year-old I talked about earlier, that was one of the only releases from 1990 to about 2010 from Hirsch. There were a few other bourbons, a few other Canadian rye whiskies that had come on to the market before we owned it, but there wasn't really like a cohesive strategy, it was sort of just bottling the previous owner, like whatever they wanted to bring to market. When we acquired the brand in 2010, we literally let it just sort of fade away. And Bruce Joseph and I, we started sourcing whiskey from Indiana, Kentucky. This is around 2012, in anticipation of relaunching the brand. So 2012, 2013, we're sourcing, we're tasting whiskey from places like MGP, distilleries out of Bardstown, Kentucky, just looking for high quality whiskey that we like and stuff that we thought we could blend well with. It wasn't until 2020 that we released the Horizon. So it took us, we've been working on this for over a decade now, which is pretty wild to think about. But the Hirsch Horizon came out in 2020. We wanted it to be approachable. We wanted to be high rye. So this is a high rye bourbon. It's 92 proof. So it's approachable. It's not too high proof, but it holds up in cocktails. You can sip it in a dram, however you prefer. But we really just wanted something quality, something versatile. Since we came from rye, Old Portrero, we just thought high rye was a good place to start. That makes sense. I mean, we're all for our higher proofs here for the very reasons you mentioned. We have access to water and you want it to stand up in a cocktail, but also be palatable on its neat or on the rocks. For sure. Are you based on how you're putting recipes together? Is this based on the history of Hirsch or trying to play upon that? Where you're coming from, that kind of thing? Yeah. It's definitely just trying to be, again, like kind of classic bourbon mashbills. So Horizon is all MGP. All of it has been out of Indiana. So I guess it's safe to say Horizon will probably be an Indiana sourced bourbon for its lively, like the whole time it's going to be existing. But again, we sort of just looked at the history of Hirsch and like the classic Kentucky inspired mashbills. So this is 75% corn, 21% rye, 4% malted barley. The entry proof was 125% into the barrel. So just like really classic production elements. I will tell you though, back in 2012, 2013, when we were sourcing from MGP, we were requesting as many samples as they would send us. We tasted about 150 barrels individually. It took us months to do because we just, we didn't know what we were doing, to be honest. We were used to making every drop of whiskey ourselves or gin, whatever we're making. And so the idea of blending someone else's distillate was new to us. So if we didn't like one barrel individually, we would basically not take it just to be simple. We really just wanted to make sure everything that went into the product was going to be something that we would ourselves consume just as like a baseline. Not that we have to particularly like it or anything, but just this has the quality we're looking for. So tastes about 150 barrels. I had like a stack of cases next to my desk of samples. It just took forever to do. I don't think MGP was used to that level of scrutiny. Yeah. It was just a different time back then. But we worked with them. They're a great partner. Once we found all the barrels we wanted for the first blend, we just found our way of doing the blends and it just came together. Everything aged in Indiana? Yeah. For the most part. We typically age in Indiana and bottle at Barstown Bourbon Company. Now this is just nice. There's a lot of fruit. I was going to say this is a very beautiful expression of bourbon. It's, as you say, very fruity in the nose. I was almost thinking there might be some a little more malt in it or something because it's so fruity. It is fruity. I think it's also just that 92 proof. It just kind of, again, like you're kind of in the middle there of high and low. And I just think you get a lot of that rye flavor and like that pepperyness as well, which I sort of look for in High Rise. But yeah, I feel like it's a good balance. Yeah, you definitely get that kind of wintergreen and pepper on the finish. But I also find it to be quite elegant. I mean, it's not a pounding you over the head with anything and it's very nicely balanced. It's a little caramely, it's floral, it's fruity. Yeah, elegant I think is the name of the game here. I mean, easy to just pour in a glass and sit with it for a while. For sure. Do you like it, Lexi? I do. I am not a huge whiskey drinker. That's okay. So I always get excited to try these because it's something new. There's a nice sweetness to it, but still is balanced with the spice and it's not too much. Rye tends to punch me in the face a little bit sometimes, and it's got a really nice level. Yeah, elegance and balance. There is a little sweetness up front, but it's not a very sweet as far as the broad spectrum of bourbons goes. Right. And Lexi, I think you put it perfectly. We really tried to balance that corn sweetness with the rye, so I guess we did it. Yeah, you did. Lexi, seal of approval. Awesome. I'll take it. How long in Barrel did you say this? Did I miss it? So this is our ninth batch of Horizon. So on the bottle top here, this is actually the bottling date, and we use this for the batch ID as well. This is the ninth batch. This is five years, three months. So Horizon, we basically shoot for between five and seven year in the blend. That's sort of the range that we tend to play with. Very respectable, good age. Yeah. Good age for bourbon. Don't want to go under five. You get a touch of oak, but it's not overly wooded. And the other thing for those listening, on the back of their bottles, they tell you more information than most people are looking for, but it's great to have that because you can see their mash bill, the age of all the elements that go into their blends and everything. So that's always nice to see. I like that. I like the way that the mash bill is put on there, too. Sorry, I took it from you guys. Oh, that's all right. Yeah, we really wanted to be transparent with the labeling, because again, we're not physically distilling it ourselves. So we just thought we need to be transparent. And again, we've been working on this for so long that when we were starting to do the label approval back in 2019, 2018, sourced was still not taboo, but people were starting to not see sourced as a taboo, but were like, let's just be transparent I mean, who doesn't these days? Right. Right. Right. You got a million startups, and you got to source if you're going to put out an age whiskey in any amount of time. Speaking of transparency, am I imagining things or is there text on the interior of your label? There is. There is. It's a brief blurb about AH. Hirsch and the brand. There's Easter eggs all over the bottle. I'm putting on my marketing hat now, but even on the bottom, it says, no stone left unturned, and it's just like an Easter egg to anyone who's curious enough to find it, and we're always looking for whiskey, so we thought that this would be a fun Fun, I think it describes a package. The labels are very vibrant in color, very modern. Are any of your distilleries doing custom recipes for you, or are you just drawing from their stocks, or a mix of both? So all of them except for MGP are doing custom. MGP is more, they'll start from nothing. We didn't buy barrels, we contracted them to lay it down, but it's not as a la carte as you would imagine. They have their mashpills, they made them. Yeah, they have like three or four core recipes, right? Right, right. And you sort of pick from that lot, but the majority of our whisky is coming from Bartstown Bourbon Company. It's the opposite. You're working like literally recipe writing, barrel type, entry proof, sort of all the things you'd want to do as a distiller. They kind of expect you to do it. I mean, they'll help you out, right? But I go there quite a bit. I'm actually going there next week just to hang out with the distillers and just try to talk about whatever production stuff. I enjoy it, but I just feel like it kind of helps have us close to the brand as well. Well, if you need any help finding the best cured meats in Bardstown, the Whiskey Outline is your source. Okay. Here we go, here we go. You're going to be willing to only purchase them at gas stations. Yeah, mostly gas stations. There you go. Nothing wrong with that. Biscuits, cured meats, fine country hams. Last time we went, I think I gained like seven pounds and just sausage. Dude, yeah. I don't even know what the ham is. Every man's dream. What else you got over there? So, 2020, we came up with The Horizon, and at the same time, we were working on our Kentucky bourbon out of Bards & Bourbon Company. This is called the Bivouac. Does anyone know what a Bivouac is? A makeshift shelter? Yes. Wow, exactly. That's usually no one knows what this is. Yeah, the amount of stuff that Chris knows is quite shocking. About Bivouac, I can go deep. All right, let's hear it. Five-minute riff on Bivouacs. So, no, he's dead on. It's basically like a makeshift campsite used in like military extreme camping. It's also known as like a bivy. Anyway, it's sort of like if you could carry one thing with you, you take your Bivouac. So that's sort of where the name, just kind of a fun name no one can pronounce. It is not obscure to me in this list. The idea with this is we wanted something from Kentucky, obviously. We wanted something in higher malted barley as opposed to higher rye. Because I don't know, I feel like you don't hear about malted barley being like the focus or the call out. So there's actually two different Kentucky bourbon mash bills in this. One has 15 percent malted barley, the other is eight. Those two mash bills together just gave us a very unique flavor profile. We're also going into the barrel at a lower proof. It's about 110 for the aging. So just to try something different, you get different flavors that way, a little bit softer aging. But yeah, it's just sort of a unique product. That's funny because I was almost thinking that about the last one because of its fruity nature that it might have some malted barley in it. But now here it becomes very clear what you're doing. This is also a very gentle and approachable bourbon. I think it's delicious. Thank you. Nice job. One question I have for you, given the fruitiness of these and this, I just am going to continue to conflate Anchor Brewing with what you're project for no reason. Oh, go ahead. No, please. They took a really unusual approach to yeast and the style of beer they're brewing. And I imagine a lot of the fruitiness in both of these are esters that your yeast strain they're throwing. I know MGP is doing what they do, but in Bardstown, any control over that? Any thoughts about it or is it just their standard strain? So it is their standard strain. To be honest, the reason for that is we thought heavily about doing something different with the yeast. But Old Portrero, we actually use an ale yeast for that fermentation. It's the Liberty Ale basically strain. So we thought, hey, you know, with this, let's try to just keep it as close to Kentucky as we can, just to kind of be in line with consumer expectations and then have the innovation come from things like the entry proof or the barrel type, the location of the barrels in the rick house. All of the bivouac barrels are on the lower floors specifically. It's 100 proof and the barrels will go down and proof on the lower floors and they get closer to 100. So we don't have to add as much water for proofing down. Those are the things we wanted to focus on with bivouac. Do you have an estimation about what proof it's showing before you bottle it or at that point? Yeah. Some of them get down to 102, 103. It's surprising. It's pretty low in the barrel. It is, right? I think we were talking about our white label single barrel. I know we don't have it today, but if you guys see it, part of that is from bivouac. It's the same barrels. It's just single barrel. Some of those are 103, 104. So when you see that, that's all just from the barrel naturally proofing down. Awesome. Wow. How old is this again? So it's a blend. It's between four and six years. I think it's very well balanced and I think that the wood extraction is very gentle. It's sweet and caramely and vanilla-like, but it's not tannic. Right. I think it's delicious. Yeah. It's got this maple like peanut thing going on. Yeah, for sure. You know, the thing about whisky is like it tells you what it's going to be. You know, like we kind of anticipated that flavor, but something about that lower proof aging really brought that sort of peanut brittle flavor out. So we just kind of focused the blend around that. Yeah, very nice. No, thank you. Yeah, I'm glad you enjoy it. And then we can talk briefly about the hand picks we have coming. Yeah, please. By the time this launches, we will already have them. Cast Strength White Label, I believe. Right. I haven't seen the bottles themselves, but I think they're 52.4%. Okay. 2.2. Okay. I guess that's on. Yeah. Yeah. And for people who are used to buying Cast Strength at Binny's, that's going to be a surprise. Yeah. I mean, talk about that program, the Single Barrel program that you guys do and how that works. Yeah. So again, Bifflewack is a blend, right, of two mash bills. The White Label is just one of those mash bills, right? So just not a blend, it's just single barrel. I do a lot of blends. Every time we have a new batch, I basically have to come up with a new blend based on the barrels we have available. And often I'll find barrels that sort of stand out, right, just as you do with tasting. So every time I find a barrel that's just more unique or interesting, I put it aside and then bug marketing to bottle it. You know what I mean? So that's essentially what the White Label is. It's about four years, eight months typically, and it's just sort of the standouts from our Barstown Bourbon Company barrels. So all coming from Barstown and... Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And then one of the two Mash Bills, depending on how they taste to you. Yeah, exactly. It's typically 74% corn, 18% rye, 8% malted barley. That's all that the White Single Barrels have been. Okay. But yeah, it's all from Barstown Bourbon Company. Cool. Awesome. Look forward to having those. Yeah. What was the other? Silver label coming too. Okay. Awesome. Do you want to speak to that? So yeah, we've done three versions of it, so I'm not sure which one you're getting. But essentially, we have our white label, we have our silver label, and then we have our gold label. You can tell which one is our oldest whiskey is usually the gold, and the silver is in the middle, and the silver is the same kind of thing. It's whiskey that just I feel like shouldn't be in a blend, it's just special, and we've done, again, we've done three different releases of it, and you must be getting last years because I'm just trying to think of like the samples that we sent out Do any of these have age statements on them? Yes and no. We put the age on the back, we call it the back grid, so we got the mash build, the ratio, and the ages are on there, but we don't have like a, it's not in the front. Are you shooting for rebooting the 16? Probably. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, come on. You're still wearing your marketing hat. I know. I know. I got to wait a little bit, but you know, the 16 is something we have to really do right. Obviously. Absolutely. It's in the works. I'll say that. It's just, it's like, how do we do this sort of thinking? I mean, you got a built in marketing strategy. Right. Right. Don't miss your opportunity. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. Yeah. We don't want to do, yeah. We don't want to miss the mark. We don't want to do some 15 and a half year. That would be hilarious. Yeah. Right. Just couldn't get there. We'll bring it back basically when we have the whiskey ready. We have so many different barrels, so many different mash bills. Hotaling and Co. has really set me up to do well, I think, with the liquid side of this brand. I'm really excited about all the things we do have coming. So I can't wait to come back here and maybe next year, if you'll have me and keep talking about what we're doing. You're not determined yet. TBD, TBD. Just kidding. Welcome any time. Oh, thank you. Just bring whiskey. I can do that. That's your key to the kingdom. That is. Easy key. Easy key, okay. Okay, I can do that. Maybe some gin next time. Sure. We're big gin fans. Big gin fans. Okay, nice. Do a lot of gin as well. Should we keep going? What do you think? Yeah, let's try that bottle you got over there. Yeah, so this is- You're trying to give us the 15 and a half year- Yeah. Short podcast version here? 15.5. This is something I never thought we would release. Honestly, I never thought this would see the light of day. So like I said, we work with different distilleries like MGP, Barstown Bourbon Company. This was actually sourced from ourselves. This was American Single Malt that we made at the Anchor Steam Brewery and Distillery. It's some of the last distillery that we made there because we had to move out in 2020. But one of the last projects we did is we made a bunch of American Single Malt. And it was really sort of an experiment to see how it would come out on our stills with our yeast, all of that. We had never done anything but rye. We'd done some beer distillations, but nothing just 100% barley. So we did this 2017, 2018. It's about six years, eight months. It's pot distilled as well, which this is the only pot distilled Hirsch products since we've had it. But the other two are column distilled, whereas this is double copper pot distilled. So just keep that in mind as you taste it. Well, that's exciting. And I don't recognize that. So is that not scene distribution yet or? I don't even think this is, I think this comes out at the end of this month. Okay. So I guess next week, I guess. I mean, it's good timing. American single malts are trying to gain traction. Right. Right. And again, like we, I feel like we've been having this conversation since 2017 that American single malts were going to take over. So like that, that's sort of like, okay, like, let's try our hand in it. And it's been like a slow, slow burn with American single malts as the category just got recently established and all that. But we wanted to do pot distilled and we wanted to use Morris Otter Barley, which is like a high quality bar. Famous British bar. Exactly. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. A lot of people don't don't know about it. But since we come from a brewing background, we always had nice or kind of different malts around. So we were like, let's try this. I mean, Morris Otter is pretty much gold standard for British ales. Exactly. Exactly. They don't grow a lot of it. It's expensive to compare to like the regular two row barley. But you just get this really luxurious spirit from it. It's got a good barnyard smell that I like. Sorry, is this new oak? Yeah. I mean, so rules are changing around American single malt, right? But at the time that you probably put this in barrel, you felt obligated to put it in new chard oak. Yeah. So it's a mix of chard and toasted barrels. Old Portrero, we've always worked with toasted barrels surprisingly. So we haven't been shy using them. This is a blend of char three, char four, and toasted. But yeah, it's all new American oak though. Okay. That's very nice, real fruity, as expected and sometimes new oak on malt can be a little abrasive, but I feel like the malt stands up shockingly well to the barrel. Very much why I asked because yeah, this is pretty well balanced given that it went into new. We considered used for a long time, but the thing we had to keep in mind is, we're doing all the aging in California, and it's a much more even climate. We don't get those swings like you do in Texas or Kentucky, Nashville. Well, you want to have something left in the barrel when you're done. Yes. You don't want the insurance to pay for your whiskey. That Texas agent is a challenge. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's still very dry in California. It's dry, but we get an even evaporation of ethanol and water, a little bit more water evaporating, but because of that, we wanted this to be full flavored in the way that Old Portrero is. We wanted to use the new barrels and really have that full body, that full flavor come out. We were concerned that with the used, it might be too light, just given the way California's aging is. We do have some aging in used, I'll tell you, and it's coming out really nice, but it's not quite where we want it for bottle ready. What kind of used barrels for those things that we don't have in front of us? Like X-Berbin, just like Scotch? X-Rye. I mean, they're all used Old Portrero barrels, and I can tell you. Our Old Portrero barrels are, and just even this one, they're 24-month air-dried, like the highest quality you can get from- Missouri-sourced? Yeah, exactly. You know it. We'd like reusing those barrels because they're high quality. Makes a big difference. So, just to drill down on this humidity thing, where are you aging exactly in California? Because I think of San Francisco as one of the moister places on the coast because, you know, it's a fog city, baby. Right, right. It's spent some of its time, maybe about a year in San Francisco, but the majority is in Sonoma. Oh, okay. Yeah, not temperature-controlled warehouses, but I mean, Sonoma gets hot, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't get as humid and the heat doesn't stick around like it does in Kentucky. For sure, and it depends on how close to the coast you are. If you go inland in Sonoma, you definitely can get pretty hot days. Yes. Oh, yeah. The further you get toward the ocean, obviously, it's cool and moist. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Again, this isn't like saying it's better or worse. It's just the reality of aging and we just want it to be mindful of it. Well, and humidity is relative when we're talking. Indeed. Kentucky versus California. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's what I call it relative humidity. Oh, wait. I don't think that's right. I'm not a meteorologist but I don't think that sounds right. I don't even do that. What do you think of this? Is it what you'd expect from a single malt or is it... I'm just gauging people's reactions because we just coming out and it's been fun tasting it with people. Yeah, I think it's nice. Yeah. I mean, like I said earlier, the Barrel is there but it doesn't. Sometimes with single malt and new oak, it's just a little much and the malt gets lost. But I think the malt stands up to the Barrel here. Agreed. Nice orchard fruit notes, stone fruit. Definitely a little bit of that barnyard funk, you know? Little funk. But a welcome hedge of funk. It's also 98 proof, I think, which is higher than a lot of single malts you just pull off the shelf. Yeah, our stuff tends to be higher proof. I'm realizing more and more. It's not super high, but I feel like a lot of the American single malts I'm seeing are like 45% or low. I mean, which is great. But something about the pot distilled, I feel like it's nicer high proof because you get that like viscous. Yeah, I was going to say that unctuous, oily feel is definitely present here compared to the column still stuff. Exactly. And this is also with the ale yeast from Anchor. Oh yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So this is a very different Hirsch release for us. But at the same time, it feels really close to home because it's from California. We literally distilled it. This is some, again, we had to get out of the Anchor Brewery by the end of 2020, and it was crazy with COVID. And this is some of the last stuff like I distilled on the still. It was a stressful time. So I'm glad that it's like done now, you know what I mean? Yeah, I bet. Yeah, it's cool. It's a very interesting project. These are all great whiskeys. Thanks for sharing them and telling us about Hirsch and your background and all super interesting stuff. Yeah, thanks for having me. And I'm happy to talk more in the future about, you know, whatever, Old Portrero, if you guys are ever doing a pick or Junipero. We're always got something going on, so always happy to chat with people. Yeah, like I said, we can't overstate how much we enjoy gin around here. Especially as the warmer weather approaches, little gin and tonic. Yeah, we have the core Junipero, and we just released a smoked rosemary version of it. Oh, it's interesting. I mean, with a name like Junipero, you're leaning into traditional gin, but something... I would stand after the Junipero Cera. What do you mean? What? It's named after... Kind of, kind of. It's sort of like a play on words, right? Like Juniper, Spanish is Junipero, but also being from California, Junipero Cera, it's kind of all of it. The Smoked Rosemary is the first line extension we've ever done, and they kind of like let me run wild with it. They're like just marketing was sort of saying, you know, just do whatever you kind of want to do. And we landed on this smoked gin, which I don't think there are any smoked gins on the market in the US. No, but that aroma is so incredible. Like, you know, you go to fine dining restaurants and they'll light a sprig of rosemary on fire for your dish or something like that. Right. What is the smoking process? So that was the hardest part to do it. I wanted it to all be done in distillation, nothing added past the still, right? Basically, we make our own tea from Lapsang tea, which is like a smoky Chinese tea. Lapsang oozhong. Yeah, exactly. So we make a tea for the distillation because when you make gin, there's basically three things you put in the still. It's your botanicals, obviously, ethanol, and then water to cut it down. So we started thinking, what if we added tea instead of water for that cut? Yeah, and lapsang is notoriously smoky. It's very smoky, but it's hard to distill that flavor and get it to come over. It doesn't want to come over in the spirit. So we had to modify the still a bit. Luckily, we know a copper worker in Sonoma County who was able to make us a line arm that we could use for this specifically. But once we figured it out, the right temperature, the right equipment, it just comes out naturally. It's like light smoke, almost like Mezcal, but even lighter. Speaking my language. Yeah. Mezcal is a huge Mezcal thing. Okay. I should have brought it. Yeah, she's gotta have some of that at some point. That will be the sequel to this podcast, maybe. So how do you actually smoke the rosemary? So the tea has been smoked when we got it. So the rosemary- Or is the rosemary not smoked? It's just smoked rosemary. Yes, yeah. So the rosemary isn't smoked, but it is part of that tea recipe. So there's no rosemary in the still when we're distilling. It's just the oil from the actual leaves. Rosemary is super oily and it really wants to take over the distillation, which- It is a powerful flavor. Yeah. And we're using dried rosemary leaves, so couldn't put them in the still during the distillation, so it became part of the tea process extraction. How about some spruce tips, take another few. Yeah. Right. I've seen that a little bit and I've always been curious to try something like that, but maybe we should now because we definitely have the process down for that botanical. Right. Well, so yeah, I was actually leading to a broader question about the botanicals, obviously Juniper. And in the case of the smoked rosemary, you gave us some of that. But are the other botanicals sourced worldwide like a lot of Jun companies or are you leaning into California? They're all from all over the world. You're not growing your own auris root in your backyard. No. Thank God, no. That would be really great to be all local, but Junipero sort of became, the identity of it became sort of larger than just like San Francisco. Like it just became, we wanted it to be nationwide and not feel just like a local San Francisco thing only. I mean, it's a big thing in San Francisco, but we wanted to be ubiquitous, so the botanicals reflect that as well. We really look for high quality botanicals, and I know that sounds obvious, but every time we get a new batch of Juniper, Angelo Carute, we really go through our own process of making sure it's going to come out the way we want it to. And it's hard to do that locally, like it really is. But it would be cool to have a variant that's all California. Or just an ingredient or two to give it a spin, like the rosemary and the tea. If you use your regular recipe and add spruce tips for a tiny lemony lift. Yeah, that's a good idea. Even just, I mean, we're constantly talking about it, so I'm sure we'll do something someday. It's just- Well, I want to dictate everything you do. Okay. All right. That's what I'm trying to say. Let's try it. No. No, I love the talk, you know. I hate it. Generally, I just shut up. It's a very quiet person to work around. All right. You guys have good questions. I like it. Great. Well, thank you. Thank you. Of course. Yeah, thanks for coming. Yeah, no, my pleasure. Yeah, if you guys are ever out in San Francisco, please let us know. Love to show you the Argin distillery and drink some, we've got some crazy experiments there, so anytime. Yeah, there we go. We're all highly experimental, so. Okay, that's true. Okay. Well, thank you for listening to this episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Great whiskeys today, great bottles. If you like us and you like this, tell your friends, tell your loved ones, and listen next time we're in your feed. I'm Dan. I'm Chris. Tell your haters. I'm Lexi. Tell your dog. And I'm Kevin. Keep tasting. Well, this has been another bottle of, another... Another bottle of barrels.