All right, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. We are here today to taste seasonal flavors. It's that time again, pumpkin spice season. Didn't that already start like two months ago? Yeah, that's the funny part, right? So they've already been coming in for quite some time, and with this recent heat wave, nothing says pumpkin spice flavors like 90 degree weather. Yum. Yeah, this has been an interesting trend to watch. It's been interesting to see how many different products and categories it's become a part of. Pumpkin beer popularity and that has kind of waned a little bit. Now, I feel like it's back on the uprise. My name is Roger. I work in beer, and I brought with me a bunch of pumpkin beers today. Also, in the studio with me today, we have... Hey, I'm Chris. I do wine. I've got a handful of actual pumpkin-based wines, some with just pumpkin spice, it seems. I marketed it as pumpkin spice, so. I'm Lexi. I am on social media, and therefore, I have brought exactly what you think I have brought today. This is so exciting. It's going to be great. We're going to find out what the kids are doing with the pumpkin. Buckle up. Let's start with some beers since they're chilled. What's interesting, I've written about this before in the Beer Buzz, is that there's actually some historical precedent to making a beer with pumpkin. Even pre-American, during the colonial times, malt was not always easy to come by. So if you were, you know, we had big brewing traditions, I'm sure many of you have heard the old story of the Pilgrims, you know, running out of beer, and that was part of the reason that they stopped where they stopped. People knew that brewing was important. Water sources were not always safe. You know, malted barley wasn't always easy to come by. It was often expensive. So you'd be looking for other things that were fermentable to put into beer, to kind of boost up the potential to make it strong enough, add some body, add some flavor. Once, you know, people had their taste of pumpkin, you know, hugely important to the native peoples here, growing squash, it was kind of like a natural thing to turn to, to add to the brew kettle, to add some source of sugar that was a lot easier to grow and didn't require, you know, the whole malting process. So, you'll actually see sometimes some historical recipes for pumpkin ales. George Washington made, you know, beer with pumpkin. So, some breweries have done a good job kind of like hearkening back to that. But I think the other reason that they're worth mentioning with our historical past is a love for early Americans love sweet spices. So, this is absolutely nothing new. So, when people say it's so trendy to love pumpkin spice flavors, we've always loved pumpkin spice flavors. That is true. Nutmeg was such a beloved spice that nutmegs were so valued that people would counterfeit them. That's how much a nutmeg corn or whatever you call it, like the actual nutmeg would go for was that people were like whittling them out of wood and trying to pawn them off. I can't tell you how many times I've been to one of them open-air nutmeg markets and gotten burned. All the time trying to get me some nutmeg. When it comes to pumpkin beer, the big question is, is it actually have some pumpkin flavor to it, or does it just sort of seem like it's pumpkin spices? So I think that's probably something we're going to come across today across the categories is, pumpkin pie is so synonymous with the spice component. So your cinnamon, your nutmeg, I'd say those are the two indispensable pumpkin pie spices, but you'll also see some other things like allspice, clove. Ginger even. Ginger, maybe if you're really feeling crazy, some cardamom. Woo. I see a lot of vanilla as well. Yeah. Something about that combo that it's everywhere. I agree. Well, because vanilla is pretty irresistible, right? Like it goes pretty good in just about everything. So maligned, like why is something vanilla if it's boring? Because vanilla is exciting. That's why it's in everything because it's awesome. Yeah. You know, and just sort of in general, I feel like this category is getting maligned. Like as much as it became a little, you know, tropey and silly that there were so many pumpkin beers, people kind of overcorrected, like they got bullied into not drinking pumpkin beer, which I think is pretty silly. Like if you like pumpkin beer, you should drink pumpkin beer. Don't let somebody tell you that it's too basic. I think it was the way I learned the term basic was like pumpkin beers are so basic. If you like pumpkin spice, you know, drink it, eat it, do it. You know, don't let somebody else tell you what you're supposed to like. Wear it in a lotion or a candle like my house. Wear it in a candle. It is in all sorts of products. The first beer that we're gonna try here is from a craft brewery that's actually been around for quite some time, just kind of flying under the radar. They're from Murphysboro, Illinois, so again, maybe it's sort of that they're not up here in Chicagoland. We don't think of them as much, but this is a pumpkin beer that has lasted a test of time. We've been selling this beer for years, and it's always been reliable and dependable. It does use real pumpkins. So we're talking about Big Muddy Pumpkin Smasher. Yeah. I was going to say right off the bat, you were asking the question, is there going to be pumpkin character in these? Yes. The answer is definitely yes in this one. It smells dead on like pumpkin pie when you smell it, and there is a real pumpkin flavor on the palate. This I think is one of the ones. So I wanted to start with this because this was always, I've tried a lot of pumpkin beers over the years. This was always one that I could count on for delivering that pumpkin flavor. Yet, there's balance here. This was not an overly sweet pumpkin beer. Some of them get maybe a little cloying. They really lean into the pumpkin pie flavor, but here we've got a pretty normal beer level of sweetness. I don't know what that means, but it's not particularly sweet. I think another thing that I personally run into with pumpkin beers is, a lot of times they are so sweet that they're a dessert beer. Then you have one and then you think about a second, and you're like, I'll just drink the lager or something else. Exactly. I think this one is not the case. I agree. It's drinkable. You could have two of these without any problem. Six percent alcohol, so not- Maybe three. Not super strong, but not- That has been one of the bizarre trends with pumpkin beer is, a lot of them are strong or at least the ones that get talked about the most, are very high alcohol. This one is, to your point, like one you could actually order two of. It's made with pale aromatic and caramel malts. I think that's something that I like to see in a pumpkin beer, is a little bit of that amber malt. Caramel, synergistic with sweet dessert spices. But again, this is well-fermented, so it's not too weighty, it's not too sweet, really nice beer. Available in six-packs, it is in bottle, so take a step back in time and drink out of glass. It wasn't that long ago that that was all anyone wanted, and now it's like people are so glass-averse, it's bizarre. As I've said before, like a broken record, you should be drinking your beer out of a glass anyway. That is how you're truly going to get more of the aromas from a well-crafted beer. So much of taste is smell, you're not going to get that out of a bottle or a can opening, you need it in a glass. Why would you drink something with this many layers of aroma out of a bottle or a can? You're missing the whole point, the pumpkin spice aroma. Pour it into a coffee mug. Sure. Yeah, there you go. Nobody can see it that way. If you're just casually perusing the shelves, you might think that this is going to be a big, burly high-alcohol beer too. I would also put sweet in because it's got literally- Like a Sasquatch on it. Bigfoot Sasquatch smashing bumpkins with his giant feet makes you think power, but this is balanced and restrained. Good point. It's friendly. It's a little scratch. This next one is, it's not just me that thinks this is a pumpkin beer worthy of your attention, it's won medals at the Great American Beer Festival five different times over the years. What category? They have a herbal spice, like historical pumpkin, it's mainly pumpkin beers really, but it can be like, I think, I'd have to see how they actually categorize it now, but I think it's called like herbal spice. This is Whole Hog Pumpkin Ale, I'm sorry. Whole Hog Pumpkin Ale, there's no clever name, straight into the point. Whole Hog is an offshoot of Point Brewing Company up in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. I'm not really sure why they shed the Point connection, probably because beer people can be snobby sometimes, and Point is very affordable, well-made beer, but it's not cool enough, I guess. A historic Wisconsin brewery, come on, people. Anyway, Whole Hog, this one used to come in four packs, I believe, years ago. It's a little higher alcohol. At one point, then they just made the transition, and you get it in a six pack now. So it's 7% alcohol. This is a good value. Like Big Muddy, it's 11.99. It also comes in bottles. They actually do list the IBU on here, which I thought is interesting. I know a lot of breweries are moving away from IBU these days, because of, again, beer nerds arguing about perceived bitterness. But to the layman, it's still a valuable tool because it gives you at least some sort of sense of where we're at. Right. So this is 38 IBUs, which again, if you think pumpkin ales, you know, I do not perceive that bitterness. Yeah. If they're all created equal and they're not hoppy at all. I mean, the perception I'd say in general is that they have like no hops to them. 38 IBUs is the evidence of hops. Yeah, for sure. I would also say that my first impression of this is little fuller body, which makes sense because it's higher alcohol. But I think here we're definitely seeing ginger in the mix. Am I crazy? I don't know. They list a lot of them kind of more often than not. They'll list cinnamon and nutmeg and then they'll just say pumpkin pie spices, which is essentially a blend you can buy from spice purveyors. So I'm guessing they probably do that. They add a little bit of the pumpkin spice, which has probably a mix of everything that we said, including possibly ginger, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, maybe allspice. But then they want to lean into cinnamon and nutmeg, since those are the two that I think people could identify the most commonly with the style. Well, I could be wrong, but it seems very gingery in the nose and on the palate to me. I get that ginger a little bit. I think it's a little bit almost greener than the last one, if that quite makes sense. You could see that, yeah. Don't forget, pumpkin's a squash. There's one called Ichabod from New Holland that I always said it tastes squashy. I was like, you taste the squash. You could definitely have a little bit of a greener taste from that. I think this is fuller in body. It's a little sweeter, which is interesting, considering there's definitely those IBUs we talked about. But good beer is all about balance. So I think the hops are there, but they're just there to balance out that sweetness. There's still a little that sneaks through, but in a nice way. Maybe a little more of that perceived vanilla richness, even though there's not any added per se. There's something here that's making me think a little bit of vanilla. Could just be the spices. I don't want to burst anyone's bubble, but when you talk about pumpkin being squash, pretty much all the canned pumpkin you're using to make your pies and everything is not pumpkin per se, but some other squash like butternut. Really? Yeah. It's a real scam. It's a big trick they plan. But yeah, that's true. You go out and buy like Libby's canned pumpkin. It can technically be called that, but it's generally not pumpkin. Interesting. It's like the dental industry. Two scams. The next one is Feet to the Fire, the pumpkin beer that I probably recommend more than any other one. I still remember when we were able to sell this for the first time, and the orders and the volume I saw moving of it was hysterical. I mean, it was just hundreds and hundreds of cases. You're really hyping this up, Robert. It's an easy beer to love. Well, if I remember correctly, this always presents as a little sweeter, richer, and deserty. The of age kids, the youngins, they fell in love with this because it's 8% alcohol, and it really does not seem like it. This is Schlafly's Pumpkin Ale. Did you know Illinois is the biggest producer of pumpkins in the country? I did know that. Really? Yeah. We got ourselves some soybeans, some corn, some pumpkins. Is it just because there's lots of land? There is lots of land. Part of the reason probably is you're saying that they use other squash when possible. If they're farming pumpkins for pumpkin puree, is it not the pie pumpkin, the little smaller ones? That is a really good question. I've always heard that, so if you wanted to do a historical recipe and make your own pumpkin pie, they specifically say roast and take the pulp or meat from a pie pumpkin. In any store, whenever I've found a pie pumpkin, they're tiny. Yeah, they're small and sweeter, generally speaking. You usually have to buy at least a couple to make one pie. They're nothing like the giant pumpkins you carve or use on display. Which is, if you look as someone who bought pumpkins this week already, if you look, they're about a dollar or two, which is crazy because the big pumpkins are seven, eight these days. Well, I have done such a thing, but I also find that the canned pumpkin does pretty well in most recipes. I think so too. I remembered making all that effort once. It's like I'm not doing this again. I've done it for pies. I've done it for soups. I've done it for all kinds of things. I will say I made soup from what they call a Cinderella pumpkin haunts, that have the paler flesh, they're like a flatter pumpkin. That was delicious because I feel like any fruit, if you have one that's clearly a different cultivar, that brought some different flavors to the- Sure. Yeah, there are lots of things that fall under the pumpkin category, not just the broader squash category. Right. Did you serve it from a glass slipper in the back of the carriage? No, I did not opt for that serving presentation. Whose soup is this? I'm going to find out whose soup this is. I really missed out on an opportunity there. I once had pumpkin ribs. Really? So corn ribs, which are trending these days. I've seen those, yeah. Pumpkin ribs, they just cook them the same way and roast them, take the seeds out, and you can eat the whole outside when it's cooked that way. Interesting. Is that a German restaurant? There's lots of ways to prepare pumpkin. I mean, I put it in stews. Pumpkin and curry? Highly recommend. Pumpkin and curry are fantastic together, in fact. I once made, okay. Tangent. This is a tangent, but I once was invited to a Halloween party and I'm like, well, I need to bring something, what am I going to make? I made a hot layered dip that was pumpkin and that was spice with curry, and then chipotle sauce, and then pureed black beans that I cooked with some hot peppers and stuff, and then sour cream and I baked it. You scoop it with a chip, and it's like a Mexican Indian thing. People went ape over it. That sounds really good. I don't know. Never made it again. I did it off the top of my head. My birthday is next month. Yeah. I was going to say when it's October and we're all craving pumpkin. Well, that was the idea because it was orange and black. It was like a spooky layer dip. Cute. Write it up. Let's talk about this Schlafly. Again, this seems to be the magic presentation here. Six-pack bottles, 11.99. I'll repeat that. It is only 11.99 and is 8% alcohol. The alcohol keeps going up. Price has been staying the same. It's made with a blend of spices, cinnamon clove and nutmeg are listed. The hops are actually Polish hops, which is pretty interesting. Marlinka and the grain bill, I think, is the standout here. This uses pale, crystal, Munich, wheat, and chocolate malts. That Munich malt definitely going to bring that caramely classic think Oktoberfest flavor. It does. But that chocolate malt, I think really it's aptly named. It can bring chocolate flavor to things, and I think there's a little tinge of that here. The most malt complex of the bunch so far, the wheat is adding a little bit of softness and rounding the edges. Really, I think just delicious beer that again hides its 8 percent strength dangerously well. Yeah. I would have never guessed. It's a glorious golden orange too. I don't think it's quite as sweet as I remember it being from past years. Maybe that's me. I definitely get some sweetness here. The IVUs are very low. It's only 16 IBU. It's delicious. I mean, it's richer. Yes. I don't think I've ever had more than, let's say, two of these at a sitting, which is probably a good thing since it's 8 percent. Completely new to this year, Schlafly expanded on this wildly popular beer that they've been making for years, and they added some vanilla. What? Lexi, how did you know? For the first time ever, we have Schlafly vanilla pumpkin ale. This is my favorite flavor and scent combination. At my house, I think it's already been overdone, and it's not even October. What's next? What are you moving to next? Cranberry? I'll probably have to go back to lavender or something. To your point too, I think there's something about the color of this, the color is looking pretty much the same on the vanilla, as you can expect, that fits in with harvest and full time. It does look like a harvest ale, doesn't it? No, it's good. Absolutely incredible. I was getting a little nervous. I'm like, please be good with vanilla flavor. That is. Is that also that 8%? Yes. Wow. Doesn't seem like it does it? Not at all. As far as what I could tell from the website, everything and talking to our rep too, it's the same pumpkin ale you know and love, just with the addition of vanilla, which obviously works so well with these flavors. Think of all the baked goods that we love that have dessert spices and also have vanilla. It's quite apparent too. I mean, it broadens out on the palate, and then by the finish, it's like vanilla. For those of you who have been naysayers in the past to the potential of having a beer float, have often recommended it over the years and the beer buzz, this would be great as a beer float, whether it be pumpkin ice cream, coffee ice cream, I think it would be awesome in this. Nice call. We all know the pumpkin spice lattes appeal. Beer floats are awesome. Try them. Enough people don't give it a chance. They really are different with the foam on beer, really makes it special compared to just using like soda pop. Not to mention that just pumpkin ice cream is one of the great flavors, Seattle flavors. So delicious. Okay, the pumpkin parade continues. This is a very unconventional one, which makes complete sense when we see who it's from. Off Color, that's kind of their thing. Always innovating and having the guts, and I'm not saying this just facetiously. Too many people just sort of toe the line, look at other breweries, what are they doing, what are they doing, what's popular. Off Color has always just been like, we're gonna do what we wanna do, we're not gonna worry about the trends, we're gonna believe in better ingredients and using unique things, and they certainly have done that here. So they called this Pumpkin Beer for Cafes. So you're immediately gonna think there's coffee in it, right? Nay, there is tea. And it's not normal tea, it's not the traditional tea that you see all over the map from especially places like India and China. This is Rubio's tea. African. The African kind of bush. Not a tea at all. Yeah, that's not even the true tea, but is very interesting in its own regard. So true pumpkin used in this. So there's pumpkin, they specifically say pumpkin puree. There's vanilla beans, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and the red Rubio's tea. The hops are Nugget, Classic Bittering, Old School American Hop, and Lotus, a newer floral hop. Maltbill, very interesting amalgamation here. We have pills, wheat, flaked wheat, flaked oats, and flaked barley. I think they're really trying to work on the mouthfeel here. I was going to say, that's going to lead to some creamy mouth action here. The back end on this, incredible. Wow, just the nose is pretty different. I mean, that tea just pops, right? Holy cow. The tea, and I think it works really well with the, I mean, it accentuates the hops. This is only eight IBU. So, I mean, there's almost no hop bitterness, but they also make, I love Off Color's transparency about their process. They said, to maintain as much of the aromatics as possible from the spices and the tea, we only heat them to pasturation before steeping them in the final beer. Highly volatile aromatics easily escape with extended heating times or hot side brewing, which makes the brewery smell great, but take away from the beer. Very deliberate process here. I think they very much captured the tea here. It's like hugely coming through. What a nice melding with those sweet spices. It's so interesting. It's herbal, it's savory, it's earthy, but then you get the sweet spice. They've done a really, really, really good job of standing out when a lot of these start to taste similar. Yeah, we've tasted nothing like this at all today. This is kind of dink. It's got a cannabis element that's pretty interesting. Yeah, and it's obviously, I mean, it's probably not Bob's, I mean, unless there are a lot of herbal mobs, yeah. I think it's a combination of the tea and the lotus. Yeah, the tea is just like blasting out of the glass. It's also orange. Look at that, straight up orange. Some of the first beers I ever brewed were pumpkin beers, and I can tell you if you use a lighter mash bill, the pumpkin color really affects the way the beer turns out. I think the tea, so the tea takes is named red rubios, it's red. That's red as well, yeah. Yeah, so I think the combination of the malt pill but also the tea is giving it this legitimate orange color, which is pretty cool. All right, excellent job of color. 5% ABV, so this is totally a sessionable one. So if the 8% ones are not your speed and you want to not end up on the floor after you have a few of them, this is one that you could session. Comes in four packs, 16 ounce cans, 10.99. Great price. The next one that we were going to try, figure how can you talk about pumpkin beer without talking about the king. Southern Tier, Pumpkin, by far, the most well-known of the pumpkin ales. What? Is that a new package? So this is a new variety. Oh, I was going to say, that looks crazy. They've been doing some line extensions on this. They've done some experiments with coffee. They made Warlock, which I was debating bringing Warlock. I've never been huge on Pumpkin. It's just not really for me, but I think Warlock is a very nice beer. It's essentially a pumpkin stout. So it's a nice change of pace. I think those spicy flavors work well with the chocolatey, darker malts. But I totally agree. I don't know why people don't do that more often. So the first time I ever made pumpkin beer, I'm going to go back to this again, I made a lighter ale and then I made a pumpkin porter, which I thought was fantastic. Yeah. I think it speaks again, sadly, to that porters in general used to be much more popular than they are now, and warlock is more billed as an imperial stout because they're real popular. But I think porter is an excellent option for pumpkin beers. Geez, I'm struggling to think of if we even have any. Right. I'm sure Elysian maybe at some point has made one, but I'm trying to think if maybe that's in their pack. O'Fallon used to dominate the space. I think they're actually in limbo right now, sadly, might be no more. More pumpkin porters would be welcomed. I think Sam Adams has made pumpkin porters over the years as the really historical approach to the style. But yeah, I would like to see that again, those malts, good potential. So this sticks quite the opposite approach. This is definitely lighter in color. The malts are two row, Munich and C60. The hops are CTZ, classic old school American ones, Columbus, Tomahawk, Zeus. 28 IBUs, just basically I think the hops are there to balance. The star of the show here is big malt, a little bit of booze. I mean, this is the strongest of what we tried today, clocking in at 8.6. The innovation here, this is with caramel. So, this is Caramel Pumpkin. It's very caramely, butterscotch-y. My first whiff, I thought it's caramely, but I thought Nilla wafer right off the bat. Wow. This is like big time butterscotch. Yeah. Yeah. The finish is real butterscotch-y. This kind of tastes like one of those beers that, you know, you go and you get a flight of little beers. And you're like, I'll just try it. And you try it and you're shocked. And then you order another one. This is like one of those little. The surprise, the little nugget. It's definitely, I think, and intentionally, it's trying to be big. I mean, it's called pumpkin. So whereas a lot of the other ones we tried were leaning into balance and hiding the strength and it being about, you know, like balance. This is about big flavor and not necessarily balance. Right. And I haven't had it in years, but is not pumpkin pretty bold and sweet. It's spicy. I mean, again, the spices are big. They want you to know it's there on both the nose and the finish. And yeah, this is a this is a spicy one. Yeah. If you like butterscotch, this is for you. Yep. Kind of those very much. Yeah. Butterscotch more than anything else. I was going to say kind of like, yeah, just straight up butterscotch. It's somehow sweet and bitter at the same time. I think some of that is from, I've always thought this was a very clove forward spice blend. And I feel like clove can have like a bitter peppery quality to it. You could glaze a ham with that. All right, last but not least, this is a beer that is hugely important in that it supplied the iconography for one of the most recognized IPAs in the business. This is New Belgium Atomic Pumpkin. You may recognize the little guy on here. It's part of the Voodoo Ranger series. So if I remember correctly, I'm going to try to do a deep dive on this. I don't want to misspeak, but I've been doing this for quite, quite many years. If I remember correctly, so Voodoo Ranger grew out of Ranger IPA from New Belgium, which the design for that was like Park Ranger, like a Ranger hat and stuff. So when they came up with this Atomic Pumpkin, it was an interesting concept. So it was to make a beer that was pumpkin spice, but spicy too. So it has hot peppers in it. I think because it was like, this is a little brash, this is a little got some guts. They were, when they're looking at the artwork and stuff and thinking about it, it's Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, came up with this punk rock skeleton guy. And that made such an impression that then that was like, we need to go with this for the voodoo element. We're just going to change Ranger into voodoo Ranger. So if I remember correctly, this is kind of what started all of that was their spinoff pumpkin beer. All the flesh was burned off by the atomic blast. I'm curious to see how spicy this is, because this beer has been around for ages. And some of the original batches, this was in like the time when habanero sculpin was a thing from Ballast Point. And like habanero is a very hot pepper. I know we have to feel the need to come up with a new reaper and all this other ghost and all this stuff that blows your palate to pieces. But habaneros are hot. They're blazing hot. But the nice thing is they actually have flavor. Yeah, and they're fruity, fruity, tropical notes. They're a great choice for beer because of the flavor potential. But they're so pretty darn hot. And if you're making it a true like if you're making an IPA like with sculpin heat capsaicin from peppers accentuates the bitterness from the hops and vice versa. So this is listed as 10 IBUs at this point, which I know is dialed back. So I think they wanted to make this interesting, but not as much of a like burner as it was back in the day. The Maupil is Pale Munich Caramel 120, the hops are Nugget, old school American Bittering Hop, and then Habanero for the spice. I'll just point out that this combination is interesting and not that weird. If you think about Jamaican food, where all spice reigns supreme, that is often with Scotch bonnet, which is a close relative to the Yucatan Habanero. Totally. Not only that, I think chilies in general go well with the earthiness of pumpkin, sweet earthiness, really works together. Yeah. The fruity element of things and spice, peri-peri is becoming more and more popular. This for people that dig that flavor profile, this would go well with that food. Again, it's reminding me some of that stuff. But do you guys get a little heat? I mean, there's a teeny bit. A tiny bit. Yeah, it's definitely there. Yeah. I think personally, they could ramp it up a notch. I'm getting a little more of the heat now. The thing is, we're just taking little sips and spitting. When you drink spicy beer, it builds. So by the end of the beer, you know it's spicy. Yeah. I haven't had a sip in a full almost a minute now, and there's decided capsaicin. Yeah. I take it back. This has some heat. Yeah. It didn't overwhelm at first. It's well integrated into the sweeter flavors, and it's just the aftermath is subtle. Right. Warming spice, yeah. But it's not crazy. You could do some really cool food pairing with this. I think this would be great with any fruit salsas, like your mango and your pineapple salsa. So anything you'd eat that with, be it fish tacos would be the first thing that comes to mind, but Thai food I think would be cool with this. Lots of potential here. For sure. Well, that's a walk through some of the all-stars. I wanted to bring some of the standouts, some of the ones that have been around for years. We carry quite a few more. There's not as many as back in the heyday. I think at one point we had over 50 different types of pumpkin beer. I mean, it did get a little weird for a while, but I think some of the best have stayed. There haven't been a ton that were great that are gone, which is nice. So these are some of the ones that I highly recommend everybody get out there and try. Yeah, I think this is a good array too. I mean, there was nothing at all like off-color. I mean, that was super interesting. With the heat on the atomic pumpkin, these were not one size fits all by any measure. What do you think is important to remember if you are intimidated by or getting bullied by drinking a pumpkin beer? They are not all the same. It happened, I'm telling you. Those are the weirdest things I ever saw. People got shamed into not liking pumpkin beer. I blame Billy Corrigan. I mean, if it were like the only thing that you were willing to drink, sure. But they are very much a seasonal offering. So yeah, they can be fun. I really think one of the takeaways for me was, I'm excited to try that Schlafly vanilla as a beer float. Let me get out there and try that. We're going to start out by tasting Leland Al Seller's Pumpkin Spice, which strangely is an apple wine with the spices. Now, I can't tell or see that there's any pumpkin whatsoever in here by reading the label or anything, and it literally says, apple wine with pumpkin spices added. So here's an example of just a pumpkin spice, which ironically, aren't these spices also apple spices? Yes. These are the same stuff that goes into apple pie and dumplings and whatever you're making out of apples that's sweet. So this is Lelandau from up near Traverse City on the Lelandau Peninsula. Famous, of course, for cherries around there and other fruits. But they're making this pumpkin wine, and Lelandau has been around since the early 70s, and they make a combination of fruit wines. They do grow some Vitis vinifera, which is the classic European grape varieties. They do well up there, particularly some of the aromatic whites and things like Pinot. Of course, they are also growing some hybrid grapes. Anyway, this is Witch's Brew Pumpkin Spice. Man, I'm glad you heated this up. I like it a lot more heated up. I think that's where it really shines. Yeah. I mean, it's- I've never tried it heated up. This is, I think if you enjoy drinking wine in the fall, you can't get through the fall without someone bringing over a bottle of Witch's Brew at some point. Yeah. The pumpkin spice is newer to me. Right. Yeah, there are a few things under this name, so don't be confused. There's a red wine with spices, mold wine that goes by the name Witch's Brew, and then there are variations like this one. Interestingly, Lila now also makes a spiced apple wine. I'm not sure what the difference between the two are, except I think the apple is a little higher in alcohol. Also worth pointing out that in general, when people think of hard cider, it's traditionally appealed to a lot of people that liked beer. So if it's carbonated, it falls into that hard cider category, where people don't really think of it as a wine, but it is very much wine. It is indeed. So if you enjoy hard cider and you're skittish about like apple wine, it's like you've been drinking apple wine for quite some time. It just wasn't marketed to you as such, but it comes to how they make it. They're not brewing it per se. There's no hops, there's no barley, there's no heat even. It's just fermenting apples. Fructose, anything made from fruit is a wine, as opposed to a beer or something like that made with grains. And the fermentable sugars are readily available. There's definitely sugar here, so I think that's part of why I like the heated up version more, is that I might want like ice in the, or carbonate, or carbonation in the still wine. I prefer it heated, it tastes like straight up mulled apple cider. Yep, it's good. Oh, by the way, just so you know, the Lilanow was a mere 8.99 for the pumpkin spice. So next, we've got an actual pumpkin wine. So this is Prairie State Winery, and it's made with 100 percent pumpkin and spices, which is pretty cool. I'm sure there's water at it. Is there, this is down Central Illinois? Actually, this is west of here. It's kind of north of DeKalb. It's kind of in between DeKalb and Rockford, kind of. Oh, interesting. In Genoa, Illinois. Yeah, exactly. The home of American pesto. What? I'm just making stuff up. Genoa, Italy. Pesto alla Genovese. Took me a minute there. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? So yeah, pumpkin and spices. This is actual pumpkin wine. This is how all those, I feel like whenever I have one of these unconventional American wines, they're very sweet. When we had that, what were we trying that one time? Dandelion wine. It was like, I think I asked you if it was a safe amount of sugar. I was like, I don't know if I've ever tried something this sweet in my entire life. Yeah, that's pretty typical for American fruit wines and whatnot. I think this is on par with that. It's ramped up. Yeah. What do you think about the spice level here? I kind of like it. Are you going hot or cold with this one? Here's what I'm doing if it's cold. I want some ice and some lemon. I had a little bit of acidity. I think you could put some sliced lemon in the heated one too. Yeah. Much like tea is nice with honey and lemon, you don't need any honey obviously. No, you don't. We got a little citrus to make it pop and bounce off the spices. I mean, there's toddy vibes here with the spices. Yeah. I think it's really interesting. I actually lean toward the hot version myself because I feel like the earthier aspects of the pumpkin pop out a little more for me when it's warmed, and I like that. I mean, you put a teeny bit of whiskey in the heated one and you have a toddy. Yeah. True enough. Well, that was interesting, huh? Yeah. I like that. I mean, it's really sweet, but I like it. Yeah. Prairie State, I have to give you a warning. This is not widely distributed at Binny's. It only goes to Rockford and our so-called outstate stores, which would be Springfield, Peoria, Bloomington, and Champaign. Those stores can get this. So even though they're pretty close to Chicago, they do not have distribution here. Oh, that's a bummer. Yeah, kind of weird. But we got to send a little love to the Hinterlands. Well, if you're by one of those stores, this is worth trying. Absolutely. So now we're moving on, we're going back, back, back, back to Lexi's beloved Michigan. This is St. Julian Pumpkin Spice Latte. It is a creamy pumpkin cocktail, wine cocktail. And I have it again, both cold and heated. So we'll see how that goes. It says heated on there? Yeah. Oh yeah, chilled or warmed. Yeah. Wow. Ghee of little faith. What about all those fancy coffee drinks? Yeah, right? Exactly. Yeah, we missed that. We didn't try one of those. It's definitely rich and creamy and completely coated my wine glass in the cold version. And it's a creamy pale orange color. Okay. This is what I'm going to say. Marshmallow, an intense marshmallow flavor. Yeah. I want to not like it and I really like it. Hey, Jim, what's the alcohol on this? I mean, I can feel the warmth of the alcohol through this creamy richness. Oh, well, there you go. It's kind of an eggnog-y quality to it. It's interesting. It's all right, warm. Did you pass around the warm? Oh, yeah, I did. It just didn't go anywhere. I didn't want you to have it. Sorry. I think if you treat this kind of like a Baileys. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the way you've got to think of it. It's rich and creamy. I actually kind of like it warm. It brings out a more caramely aspect to it. Yeah. I think I like the aromatics better on the nose. Yeah. It smells really. It smells more like butterscotch. Yeah. Creamy, butterscotch-y, caramely. It's interesting. That's easier for me to wrap my mind around, heat it up. Yeah. I'm not too big on it, room temp. But warm, it's nice. I mean, I can see people liking it. The butterscotch comes out much more. It really does. That's an interesting aspect of. I think you're right. I did think more like marshmallow or like marshmallow egg on the cold, but the warm is a little more interesting. Yeah. So those are three interesting pumpkin spice wine category items. That was super interesting. I would have walked past. I think these are an example of things that people might just walk by and smile at, but these are worth trying. Yeah. I think you're right. I think there's a contingent who are all about pumpkin and pumpkin spice things, who are going to be excited and grab them up, and a large contingent of leery people. But they're not as unusual as you might think. Especially, like Lexi said, if you drink any kind of cream liqueur, I mean, that's basically what's going on here. Yep. St. Julian Pumpkin Spice Latte, $14.99 for a 750-milliliter bottle. I failed to mention that this is from St. Julian in Pawpaw, Michigan. Oh, the hillbilly mango. Right. I'm just noticing, we noted that the alcohol was a little higher on this. It's fortified. Well, it's not, but it's tantamount fortified. So we're about to try this cream liqueur, which obviously has liquor in it. But this is made with, and this is a category of stuff that most people would be like, what are you talking about? Other than standard orange wine with natural pumpkin pie flavors and certified color. So if you can believe it, other than standard orange wine is something that is used in the industry as a neutral wine-based but high alcohol component to avoid distillation or having to pay the taxes on distillation. And it's literally made with spent fruits, kind of like Grappa, but not distilled. So you would, in contrast to orange wine that is made with grapes, like say Robiola Gialla or even Chardonnay, whatever, where you ferment the wine on the skins, just like a red wine, and the wine becomes darker in color and has tannic structure. We call these orange wines. Other than standard, orange wine is a industry name for something that actually is made with orange peels and added sugar and water. But you could use other spent fruit if you want. Like, I'm on a night train. Yeah, exactly. You can get this up to maybe 20% alcohol and use it as a component in all kinds of things. This is where you get a lot of our hugely popular wine-based spritzer things in a can, or using other than standard orange wine, which sounds insane. What's the word Thunderbird? Exactly. Beautiful notes of citrus. Anyway, that's an interesting surprise and they call it out. I don't know why. Do they have to have ingredients on this? Because otherwise, I don't know why. But they don't address the cream component anywhere that I see. So I don't know what that is. Other than standard orange wine, natural pumpkin pie flavors and certified color. Oh my God. Let's move on because I can't wait to talk about this next liqueur. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. So, speaking of creme liqueurs. Here it comes. Here we go. We have a lovely Fulton's Harvest Pumpkin Pie Creme Liqueur. For a whopping $11.99 at a Binny's near you, you can get this delicious creme liqueur. Cinnamon, brown sugar, nutmeg, ginger. So there we have the first people calling ginger out, I think, right? Yeah. I think I got a lot of ginger from that one. No, not at all. The one beer. I'm just, yeah. This is pretty incredible. Where to go? This is like drinking cookie dough. I'm going to love it. Like, it's like pumpkin bread cookie dough. Oh, yeah. I'm going to love it. This would be, I mean, you were talking about Baileys before, and a lot of people put Baileys in coffee. Oh man, like this is to be added to coffee. Oh yeah, that's pretty good. The ginger's there, that's for sure. The ginger's there. Cinnamon, wow. So if you look this one up on their website, it recommends a whole giant list of things to mix it with. One of them is with a baked bread. So I think that that would be a delightful little bread. Another one is with caramel vodka as creamy martini. Sure. And then they also, of course, listed a fall mudslide. Yes. Which ice cream enjoyers rejoice. And the basic recommendations on the back of the label are serve chilled on ice or in coffee, shake well, refrigerate after open, which is always a good sign with creamer, of course. What people would look at this, look at the price and be a snob about it. And if you just pour this for people, they'd be like, what is this? It's pretty good. I want this. I might buy some of that. It's pretty tasty. Pretty good. When you go to the Buffalo Trace Distillery, they have you try the bourbon cream with the root beer that they sell. Oh. This, I think with that spicy component would be really cool with root beer. I was drinking, you would be very proud of me, Roger, I think. I was drinking Plantation Rum with Sprecker root beer the other night. It was pan-freaking-tastic. I loved it. Such an underappreciated mixer to try things with root beer. So think of with the root beer float, what makes it great. I mean, it's a natural to try cream liqueurs with root beer. Yeah, for sure. Love it. This would be good with root beer. Really good. How much was this? $11.99. Oh, ****. $11.99 for Fulton's Harlequin Parvats. That's really good. Yeah. I mean, again, people would just walk by that and never give it two seconds notice, and it's really delicious. Yeah, Fulton's Harvest Pumpkin Cream Liqueur. Don't sleep on this, baby. All right. We can't talk pumpkin without talking about the infamous. Infamous? Uh-oh. Pumpkin buzz ball. Yeah. When I saw these hit the shelf, my immediate reaction was to laugh. And then I looked at it and said, I've got to try it. I have to know what it's about. So pumpkin buzz balls are only seasonal. They are only available in the giant buzz balls. Or I'm sorry, the medium buzz balls, not the tiny ones. Buzz ball biggie. Buzz ball biggie. In the last, I would say, four to five months, I have been seeing buzz balls all over the internet. I don't know what this spike is. Yeah, it's interesting because they've been around for a long time. Seeing new people. Maybe it was a TikTok thing. I'm not totally sure. Are people bouncing them because they emphasize how, there's two things they've gone for. One, they float. I've seen videos over the years of people throwing them to people in a lake or in a pool. They also bounce high like a super ball. Like a bumble? The normal ones. I don't know about that one. I don't know about this one. The standard packaging is made to be turned into a jack-o-lantern, that's for sure. Definitely. This is available for $21.99, but it's 15% alcohol and it's 1.75 liter. It is a premium vodka with, once again, other than standard orange wine. There you go. Cream and natural pumpkin flavor. How about that? Weird that both those companies put that on the label unless they have to. They probably have to. I tried to find out if Fulton's uses any bourbon. I don't think they do. Yeah, probably not. In color, it's white. It looks like skim milk. It looks like milk, yeah. But it's not even as thick as I would expect it to be. I don't know. Nothing's going to top my beloved Fulton's Harvest Pumpkin Pie, I'm guessing. So fans of Pumpkin will like how it smells, which I've always said over the years that Pumpkin reminds me of like a Sriracha and sniff sticker. Yeah. There's something probably like clove or something that they probably use in those a lot, because it has such like lasting power. If anybody out there is like just straight up drinking their coffee creamer. It was like an element of like coconut vanilla kind of. Yeah. Well, that's the other thing is it almost looks a little bit like coconut cream if you don't shake it up, you know, like the thinner part of a separated can of coconut. It's very sweet. I think that they could amp up the pumpkin flavor. Yes. A bit. So do they suggest, does it say like serve chilled probably, maybe, hopefully or heated up? Refrigerate after opening. Something besides the drink room temperature. I mean, I think coffee creamer is about the best suggestion I've heard yet. Yeah. I think this needs to be, I don't know how it would taste heated, but I mean, it needs to be iced, I think, if nothing else. I don't know. It's very intensely sweet. I can't picture just drinking this as is. I mean, what are people doing? They're just drinking buzz balls like a shot, right? Yes. I was under the impression that people are drinking regular buzz balls and you crack it and you just slam the whole thing. That's kind of- Well, this is a 175, so don't do that. But definitely don't do that with this. This is multiple, multiple servings. There is a screw top, not a peel back top there. Yes. Well, it's a cute Jack O'Lantern. It's a cute Jack O'Lantern. It could be fun at a party. I don't know. Maybe as shots with food or something. If you're eating donuts or some, I don't know. Just on its own, it seems weird. Coffee creamer is really, I think, the route. I would eat a cider donut with this. I mean, I would eat a cider donut without any coercion, but. It maybe why I'm thinking of donuts is that it reminds me of drinking frosting. Yeah. It's like drinking a donut glaze. What can we do with this? Can we put some booze in it? We could be adulterated somehow. I don't know what. You could probably put rum in it. I mean, think spiced rum. You could add rum to any of this stuff. Why hasn't anybody made something called rumkin? Avery did. Oh, did they? Yeah. It was like a really high alcohol. Quit stealing my ideas, Avery. This is a bourbon barrel aged pumpkin ale from Avery. It was great. It was crazy. It was part of that series they did that was crazy. High alcohol was like 13 or 14 percent. All right. Well, that listeners was our journey through pumpkin spice land. You have lots of interesting options. I think the theme today would be surprises. There were some big surprises here. That liqueur, everybody needs, what was it? 11.99. That's crazy price. Everyone needs to go grab a bottle of that and just try it. You'll be shocked. I think there's so many different things you could play around with that with. You could use it as a cocktail ingredient, put it in coffees, all sorts of stuff. The wines were surprises. I think a major takeaway from there was heat these things up. Yeah, great. Don't be afraid of that. That's something that used to be very common when drinking wine, especially around the holidays. So give that a try. And then lots of pumpkin beers out there. And if you love them, loud and proud. Don't let anybody tell you you can't drink a pumpkin beer because it's not cool or because you're basic. I'm both of those things when I drink them. So again, if you like our content here, please leave us a review. Until then, tell everybody that you know about our podcast and how much you enjoy it. We'll be back in your feed with something new in the world of wine, spirits, and beer in the future. But until then, I'm Roger. I'm Chris. And I'm Lexi. Keep tasting. Dudes, we totally squashed that episode.