00:00 Italian Wine Picks Hey, Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Happy Holidays, everybody. We like to do this thing this time of the year where we go and bug all of our buyers and ask them what their picks for the year are. And it's like herding cats, right? I was going to say pulling teeth, right? It's like pulling cat teeth. Pilling cat teeth from a herd of cats. So this has been a project, and we're going to bounce around, you're going to hear different people throughout this thing. But we are excited to share the Binny's Beverage Depot Buyers' Picks for 2025. First up, we have Bill Newton, Wine Buyer Bill. Hello. Hey. Alert, as always. Thanks for bringing your buyer pick of 2026. You always pick 20. Wait, what year? 2025. We're all totally on today. Let's not lose a year, seriously. 2026. I could jump ahead three maybe. Your buyer's pick for 2025. So as I've been liking to do lately, I actually picked a winery, a couple of wines from the same winery. We let you get away with this. Yeah. So you could get an idea of what the winery is all about. So I picked Uccellera from Mantolcino. I decided to go with Italian this year. Italian wines are really hot. I brought them in so that we can taste them. Bill, you're the Italian wine buyer. Chris, did he say it right? Brunello di Mantolcino. Uccellera. Mantolcino. All right. You have the Rosso and the Brunello. I do. Can we try the Rosso? Yes. Let's try the Rosso. What is this, 23? This is 2023. The difference really between Rosso and Brunello, because they do come from the same area, is in the aging. For a Brunello to be a Brunello, it has to be aged for two years in oak, and then at least a couple of years in the bottle. Whereas Rosso, it has way shorter aging rules. They only require six months in Barrel, and then an additional six months before release. Yeah. Like I said, less time. You could tell because the Brunello is 2020, and the Rosso we're trying now is 2023. This is Sangiovese. This is all going to be Sangiovese. Well, it smells delightful. They call that Brunello there, strangely enough. Well, okay. It's a clone called Sangiovese Grosso. Back in the day, they didn't really know what they had, because they were calling it something else. I think they were calling it, I don't remember Brunello maybe, but and then they test it and they're like, oh, this is Sangiovese. Exactly. It smells like cherries. It smells like herbal. Yeah. What's the trademark of the grape? Of Sangiovese? Yeah. Definitely bright tart cherry fruit. Yeah, cherries for sure. Is a signature. But then in Brunello, you tend to get a lot of savory notes. Savoury, that's the word I was looking for. Leather. Herbs. The fruit too can vary. Rosos are meant to be drunk young. What you're really supposed to do is you're supposed to buy a bunch of the rosso and buy a bunch of the Brunello, put the Brunello away and while you're waiting for the Brunello to age, you drink the rosso. Oftentimes, the rosso will have a bright red fruit characteristic, where the Brunello will have a darker fruit characteristic. That is definitely the case with this producer. It smells like tart bright cherries, but it's got a really herbal savory lick across it on the palate. It's pretty herbaceous. This definitely will go well with food. Yeah. These are food wines. Yeah. This is about 26, 27 bucks, something like that. It's really, really highly rated for a rosso. Yeah. There's a little structure there. I mean, the tannins are super fine, but they're there. There's really good length on this one. I mean, there's tons of flavor, good length. I am two for two on spitting on my belly. Wow. Two for two, two times in a row. So, Greg brought in a white shirt today, and it looks like he was... It looks like it spilled red wine all over. Stabbed. Stabbed, yeah. Gross. I do have my shiv, but I haven't deployed it. So, now when you say it's very herbacuous. Herbacuous. Yeah. I like that one. I like it too. Herbacious. When he says it's very herbacious in a slightly snarky tone, and then spills wine all over his shirt. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, that's me. The wine's mad at me. It has an elegance, though, even for being the less expensive of the two. It has an elegant structure and an elegant grace note. The herbs bring a perfume-like quality to it. That's pretty good. So, it's good. It's easy drinking. It's to drink tonight. And if you want an idea of what the wines, you know, taste like from this area, this is a good one to pick. You said that was 22? 2023. That's 2023. Yeah, which gives you another idea about the aging, because remember Chris said six months, oh, six months in bottle. And this is 2023. The Brunello is 2020. Can we try that one? Sure. He thinks he might spill the whole bottle on your shirt. Let these guys get a shot before. You better watch it, Bill. You're wearing white too. Yeah. Could come back to bite you. Yeah. Beautiful nose here. Much more floral, which is typical. Whoa. Deeper if that makes any sense. Yeah. Still cherries, but we've got some plum note too and some raspberry. So this comes from the south eastern corner, lower elevation area called Castanuevo de Lobate. There's a big volcano there and there's a river nearby, but it is one of the warmer areas because it's down low and gets some southern sun exposure. Because of that, these are like known of lots of fruit. They're very brooding, deep. Yeah. I mean, if you compare this to some other traditional Brunello's, this has much more weight, much more extraction of color. Not necessarily of tannin though, but sometimes Brunello can be very pale and extremely austere and elegant. This is a richer style. It's one of those with Brunello's. You sort of want to maybe sometimes read reviews before you buy them and see what you're going to like because there really is a huge variety of styles you can get with Brunello's. You can get Brunello's that are very leathery. There are Brunello's which quite honestly are kind of weedy. Then there's Brunello's like this, which I think are, I've tasted this particular wine like three or four times, and it's just really good wine. This is gorgeous. It's deep and plummy. Yeah. I think I was telling Bill the other day that I had pulled some 2012 out of my cellar from this producer, and it was just drinking like insanity. It was so good. So bright future here too, I would say. The other thing that plays into it is the traditional aging is large Slovonian oak like you see in Piedmont too, but some producers do use small French oak barrels. It just depends on what they're going for, and the rules don't stipulate what you use just as long as it sees wood for two years. Even multiple barrels? Yeah. So this producer also makes a Reserva, which we also have. It's much more expensive. It's like, I think around 150. This is around $70. It's on sale though, so I think it's $62, $63, something like that. This Brunello di Montalcino is just over $60. Yeah. That's a really good value. Yeah. I mean, this drinks classically. Yeah. This is a very fine wine for the price, no doubt. The Reserva, it would rock your world. It's an amazing wine. Yeah. Bet it would. Bill. Where is this said Reserva? It's on the shelf. Not in my glass, is what I'm saying. Reservas require an additional year in the winery too. Whether that's in wood or glass. Yes, correct. You can exceed your minimums, so we're talking about minimums. I mean, this is 2020 and it's the current release. Right. It is still 2025. So the requirement is 50 months from the harvest. So they usually come out after the first of the year, four years and two months. And the Reserva we have is the 2019, and 2019 was an amazing year for Brunello. Yeah. So just that one additional year. And it doesn't require, I don't believe it requires more time in wood. It still is two years, but at least then three in bottle. But you could do four of those years in wood, if you thought that was a good idea. All right. Well, this is, these are great picks. These are values for what you're getting, and really world class wines. And I think the Rosso is a legitimate value. I mean, 25 bucks for a really juicy good wine. Seriously. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned that you got to know your producers and your growing region, because there's a huge difference in elevation and aspect in Brunello. It's a very pretty large area, and some places are just much more hotter and some are much cooler. And there are northern slopes that are being planted more as the environment warms up. There are a lot of differences, but it's true in Rosso too. So some people shoot for what they call, quote unquote, baby Brunello, a bigger wine. And some, they're really, really straightforward and fruity. They call a baby one the bigger one? Yeah. So Rosso di Montalcino can be known as a baby Brunello. Gotcha. But only if it's made in a robust style. Not all of them are like that. I think this is somewhere in between. Yeah, I would agree. The two styles you mentioned. Well, I hope people are able to try these at some point. I really recommend both, actually, Rosso and the Brunellos, just other producers too. The region's doing really well right now. Cool. The wines are great with food. Good call. Thanks, Bill. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Happy Holidays to everybody. All right. Right back. We have Cigar Buyer Jack with his Cigar and Accessory Picks of the Year. Oh, man. Tell me that is not satisfying. That is great. Okay. This is going to be a lot of fun, too, because they... I didn't just get them for cigars. What goes in there? Whatever you want. Nice. That's a great sound. Okay, this segment's almost always the most fun, because, Jack, you bring toys. I usually do. I don't know, do people know that we have pop filters on the microphone? So when I do this, it actually kind of is a dangerous thing. This is probably made out of plastic. Anyway. I should know better than to give you both lighters. I know. Right before we record. I don't smoke cigars, but I love lighters. And I bought the pink... You bought the donut. You bought the donut lighter. The pink donut Zippo last year, and then I put the Zippo... The dual torch insert. Yeah, the dual torch insert in there, so I could have the dual torch. You've got a premium... You're just waiting for somebody to have a cigarette and not fire on them. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Right? You can use it for little mini crème brûlées also. Should not have given this to us before the recording. No. No, but that's a great point. Crème brûlée, or if you need to torch the top of your non, you can get that nice burnt crisp from your cast iron. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect use. Nice. All right. All right. Yeah, lighters aren't just for cigars, folks. You can just have them. You can just start fires. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I've used that lighter multiple times throughout the last year to start fires. You should always keep a butane lighter in your car. You never know when you may need it. Yeah. Never know when you may need it. Right. Perfect. I feel that way about knives also. Well, yeah. A good knife and a good lighter. I mean, you've got yourself a campfire anywhere you need, right? There's a lot of trees out there. Exactly. Yep. Feather a stick. Yep. All right. All right. What's going on in the world of cigars this year? 12:49 Cigar Selections Should we talk about other combustibles? Yes. Consumables? Yes. For my pick this year, I decided to go with the brand new Cohiba Rubicon. So this came out a couple of months back and has been absolutely flying off our shelf. This gorgeous orange box. I love this box. Greg loves orange. Yeah. It comes in three sizes. You can get a Boxpress, Robusto, Attoro or Gigante. And this is going to be a product of Honduras. A Honduran Cohiba. Yeah, a Honduran Cohiba. Brand new edition of Cohiba. Cohiba is known for luxury and very high price points. And for guys, when you're in the Bahamas trying to sell you sticks from Cuba. Yes. All of those are not Cubans. I hate to burst anybody's bubble out there. But if it looks like the band was printed out on an inkjet printer from the late 90s, you're not getting the tobacco you think you are. Get it at Binny's. Sorry. Yeah. Come by from us. You know everything's legit. This new Cohiba, it's a perfect balance of that traditional Cohiba luxury with an exciting new five country blend. So you've got some great tasting notes in there like cream, toasted nuts, dry cocoa, some sweet oak, light pepper, a little earthiness. But but yeah, it's been absolutely killer for us. Outstanding presentation. The box press, can I can I pop it open? Please. Okay. The box press makes it a little bit square. It's pretty cool. That's what this one is, right? Yeah. So the Robusto is going to be the only one that's got a box press on it. And it's it's not a super tight box press. So it's not perfectly square. But but yeah, I'm dropping them. I'm not going to pop that though. Go ahead and pop it open and smell it. It's fine. We've got a few in stock. OK. Popping it open. Well, these guys are smelling it. It's an Ecuadorian habano wrapper with a US broadleaf binder, and it's got fillers from the Dominican, Honduras and Nicaragua. That is a multinational stick. So you get your five country blend. That smells great. Nice. Yeah, it smells nice. It's a perfect thing to step away from the family table after a nice big meal. And yeah, get some alone time. It's it's a argument repellent. You got it. I'm sorry, were you speaking? All right. Awesome. The next one I want to bring up is I always put our stuff almost as an honorable mention because I think it's kind of cheating to pick our cigars and my hard work as the number one cigar for us. That's my own personal opinion, not reflective of Binny's as a whole. Well, I can pick yours. I appreciate that. The one I brought in is our extension on the Four Star Society. So this year we decided to come out with the second of our society. This one's known as The Architect. Very cool. The second release in the Four Star Line references the building of our humidor. So we decided to name it The Architect. The theming on the box is tied into the gentleman who does all the drawings for all of our humidor and our store setups and his lineage. This blend itself is quite unique. Once again, not going to break the bank. We're talking $9.25 a stick, you know, $166.55 a box. It's been an absolute banger of a release for us. Usually when you find the Four Star, just know that I've worked for years on trying to nail down the perfect blend. Everybody and their mother wants to make a cigar for us and there's a lot of saying no. So when you get a really good trusted partner like team over at Espinosa, it just works. That's another banger. Right. Tasty notes on that guy. You're going to find some white pepper, some dark cocoa with little hints of espresso. Once again, fantastic after a nice big meal. Don't tell anybody, but I like the Sans Serif Heavy Blocky Binny's font work. I won't tell anybody. Don't worry. No one will hear this recording. Yeah. So our hope is that the society continues to grow. We'll see what happens in the future, but keep on the lookout for more exclusives coming to Binny's in the next couple of months as well as some more expansions on some private labels. Only at Binny's. Very cool. Yeah. Nice. All right. 16:52 Cigar Accessories So now what I know both of you guys are waiting for because you've been looking at them the whole time is my accessory pick of the year. This is like the iPhone-ist looking cigar accessory I've ever seen. My pick this year is brand new to the stores. It just started to head to stores last week, I believe, possibly the week before. It's brand new company called Tuber, and what they're making is they're making these fantastic two-finger sleeves for cigars out of a hard plastic PVC-ish material. And just for the ASMR, well, you can hear that seal. Nice. It's a great sound. You can hear that seal. Well, what's so unique about Tuber, especially in these gordo two-finger cases, is the hermetic seal that they've gotten on it. So they've got two O-rings on the portion where the cigars go in. Yeah. And they have an engineered couple of holes at the top of the case. So as you push down, you're going to get a seal and it's going to seal that humidity in there and keep your cigars fresh. So that pop you're hearing isn't just fun to listen to, but it actually does serve a purpose. Nice. Nice. So we've got two different color options right now. There's a white and a black. Should be another option coming out pretty soon. Absolutely not. I refuse to. So the Gordo is their two finger sleeve. And we also decided to bring in their small stash can. And the stash can is just one chamber on the inside. It can be used for anything you want. As I told the rest of the company, you can use it for loose tobacco or other plant-based combustibles. But it's a small container. I'll keep my charred rosemary in there for cocktails. You know, I'm just thinking vanilla beans. Yeah. Oh, man. Quite a different pop for that. You can also get a little sound. Yeah, it's all that when you push the air out. Yeah, all that ambient air getting pushed out to seal in your freshness. It's an audio medium. I'm having too much fun. Is recording wine this much fun? I have to know. No, you only get one cork pop. One cork pop and that's it. This is the never-ending pop. And they're also professional about their champagne, their sparkling ones. They never want to give the pop. That's true. All these wine professionals don't know how to open a bottle of sparkling wine and make the sound without having it just blow everything. There's like a happy medium and they don't know how to do it. This is great. These tubers, it's like a modern take on it. It's not like faux leather and it's got a seal. It's very strong. It seals in any odors. It's lightweight, crush proof. It'll float in water. My suggestion is grab a tuber for your cigars. You can throw it in your golf bag. You're good to go. For small items you might need, I've seen people use it for packets of liquid IV. I've seen people use them for Advil, any type of medication, anything like that. The stash can works great. We're going to start to get the stash can out into more stores. It's slowly leaking its way out there, but those two-finger tuber cases are out right now. We've got the, do we describe that the Chicago flag is the white one is got, it's a white container with the Chicago flag. So that four-star print is on the way in. So right now, we've got them in plain white, plain black. You can sticker them up any way you want. Then we have our four-star version that should be heading to stores in a week or two. I'm very excited about. Just in time for the holidays. You got it. These are great. Yeah. They're so much fun. I've literally been playing with that pop sound on the sample I got for the last month. You can put your cinnamon-flavored toothpicks in there. Yeah. 100 percent. It's so addicting. Okay. This is going to be the longest segment of this episode. Yeah, really. Seriously, I'm just playing with this stuff. All right. All right. Nice, nice, nice. Very nice. That's it. Is that the run show? That's what I got. Cool. That's great. Awesome. There's always something going on in the humidor. Yeah. All right. Where are we going next? Somewhere. Thank you, Jack. Thanks for having me, guys. Great picks. Will you throw in from the music break? 21:07 Emerging Scotch Distilleries We're back with Brett. This is how Greg does it. Music break, music break, music break. Music break, music break, music break. We're back. Today we've got Mr. Pantani from the Hotline. Hey Brett. How are you? Would you bring for us? Pardon me? Would you bring or what are you talking about today? My buyer's pick for the year is not a particular product, although we'll mention one product in particular, it's a category. Okay. Which is the rise of the fantastic products from the new Scotch distilleries that have been built in the last 10 years. Oh. So we have had and this year has been a great year for the likes of Lockley, Arden American, Torvayg, Clydeside, Nochnene, Lindor's Abbey. Can I tell you how I know I'm old? You said that and I went, Oh, Kil Homond. Yeah, Kil Homond is old. Right? Kil Homond is the legacy producer right now. With the rise in price of bourbon and the maintenance of very good entry-level pricing for these new Scotch entries, which are generally running somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 to $70, that's actually not a bad deal. Are they 10 years old yet? No. Is the product still properly blended so it's really, really pretty stuff in the bottles? Absolutely. I think this is an amazing opportunity because, I mean, with that other distillery as an example, I was able to taste throughout the years and watch their stuff mature and develop, and understand a character of the place as it grew, which is so cool. Yeah. You do grow up and you learn what Lockley is about. Lockley is a farm to table producer. There are a couple of them. Balandaleck grows everything on the Balandaleck estate. Lockley grows everything on their own farms. There's a producer up on the North Sea, north of Dundee called Arbiki, who actually amongst other things does an environmentally neutral gin and vodka called Nadar that are made with snap peas that they grow as a cover crop, because we all know that legumes fix nitrogen in the soil. And so rather than plowing under, they use the peas. They use pea protein, pea sugars to make a distillate? Pea sugars to make a distillate. They make a vodka and gin. And it is based on the footprint, recycled glass and everything else, it's actually a product that potentially returns energy to the world rather than sucking energy up in resources. How cool is that? We should get a hand pic sent to Peoria. What's the Peoria connection? Pea. Oh, I'm an idiot. And I don't do puns, we've done all of this. So if I needed to focus on one product and it's really, really difficult, there were a couple, and Isla Harris is another one that's there, and Isla Rasse is another distillery that I feel to mention and I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody. Sorry for cutting it off. Wolfburn. Two things on the sort of lighter, fruitier, really bright and pleasant and good entry level, but also with enough complexity and character to entertain somebody who's a veteran Scotch drinker is this New Ballandalic Estate Reserve Release that we've gotten in recently. It's just really, really pretty, sort of defies age. It's very light and delicate. A lot of times distillates that are lighter in style don't drink really well when they're young because the wood is too overwhelming and they need a little bit of time for there to be that subtractive aging for some of the more bitter elements to start to dissipate a little bit, which will start to happen around 10 or 12 years old. But this one is absolutely beautiful. And then sort of teasing a little bit because we've tried the product, we haven't gotten it yet. We just went through a fantastic Sherry cask of Arden and Merkin and a fantastic cask of Isla Harris. We have a Madeira cask of Toravag coming, which is the second distillery on the Isle of Skye that is absolutely gorgeous. It's peated but not overpoweringly peated, that thick, chewy, treacly, caramel, sort of, you know, caramel butterscotch character from the Madeira cask. People listening at home don't understand the Italian in you is making these grasping in the ear motions. Exactly. I'm squeezing, I'm either milking something or squeezing the spices of that. Reaching out and grabbing the treacle, hands full of treacle. The hardest thing about picking one in this category that's very exciting is, you know, picking one doesn't exclude how good everything that's coming out from these producers is. Cool. You know, they just, they continue to please and the lead of the pack is probably Ardnamerkin. They've been releasing product for about four years now, but they're just, all of these guys are fantastic and stop into, I mean, it's worthwhile to stop into the stores because I know that we support with education and our staff the ability to taste and learn about these new whiskeys. So I think that if people are out there, it's well worth your time if you love Scotch, to talk to folks about some of the new producers. I'm just going to say this, I think our listener base knows, but if somebody just accidentally downloaded this episode of Barrel to Bottle The Binny's Podcast, Brett has his finger on the pulse and everybody's going to be talking about this stuff for Hopefully, they're drinking. Malandalek, we got the first bottling that we've had from them. My first impression was being a kid and having a bowl of Golden Graham Cereal, which is my favorite and almost like wept a tear when I tasted the whiskey because of that. But also, they designed it specifically for the American Palate. So it's actually at 100 proof, which is pretty cool to see that a little bit more proof in whiskey, which is what Americans tend to look for, but you don't see it in Scotch very often. So it's definitely we're checking out some of these things he's talking about, just great stuff. Cool. Also, if you want to see what their distillery and their grounds looks like, you can look at our socials and we just did a collab with them and it shows, it kind of walks through the distillery and all their gorgeous beautiful land. It's great. There's this disembodied hand sticking out. It's kind of cool. And it ends up at the Binny's. It does end up at the Binny's. Spoiler alert, spoiler alert. Well, I have, I also- I mean, it's a 30 second clip. How many spoilers can there be? Ballandalic is another one of the new distilleries. I have some connection to a few of these distilleries because I'm blessed with the ability to travel to Scotland pretty frequently and have been for a number of years. And at least three of the new distilleries at one point in time or another, I snuck into when they were under construction, including Ballandalic. A friend of mine and I made it actually into the building and right by what was eventually going to be fermentation before the engineer from Forsythe, which is the biggest still provider and equipment provider, asked us what the hell we were doing. And he just said we were not copper thieves, we're just admirers of the equipment. I had a nice chat with the engineer for a while. And this was before the Statute of Limitations kicked in. Correct. Yeah. Cool. Cool. And that's all? You only have one? No, Balandalic, we made it almost into... Well, I thought it was the only one pick. The replacement for... No, just, well, I mean... Just generally. I'm only gonna mention one. I mean, I could mention a few. These are all Binny's hand picks and just single casks that sort of show off the nuance of what the distilleries can do. And the everyday products are on the shelf and they're well worth grabbing if you happen to miss the picks. But we've done two Arden American picks in the last 12 months, a Sherry cask and a Bourbon cask, which is currently on the shelf. We've got the Tor Vag coming up in Madeira cask. We have the Isle of Harris, which is probably a little bit left, although that's pretty much blasted through. The Ballandalic that came is a US exclusive, which you mentioned. What am I missing that we've done? Those are some of the ones Locklee were working on. So yeah, all of those would fall under it. But that's why I just, I think that I'm really excited about what's coming forward because Scotch has been kind of more abundant, and got kind of stale and kind of lost a lot of its luster when bourbon was booming and didn't know how to respond. But now that, again, now that the bourbon prices are starting to go up a bit, and these producers at least have towed the line. They haven't been, they've worked into their business plan, the ability to absorb tariffs, at least in the short term. So that hasn't been an issue. We haven't had price increases. I don't think they can do it forever, but hopefully the tariff is not forever either. And seeing fresh life in a classic category, that's great. There's a world of flavor in that aisle that you just can't experience in any other aisle in any of our stores. All right. Thank you, Brett. Okay, guys, we don't have enough time in this episode to give you all of the material because of strict FCC regulations on the length of podcasts. If only that were true. Just kidding. That was, I don't know, maybe half of the buyer's picks for the year. We'll be back in everyone's feeds next week with even more. People need to stop saying such fun, great things about the products that we have, and then maybe we could wrap it into one. How dare they? How dare they? We're trying to stay in compliance here. Right. Okay. So, hey, we'll be back in your feed next week with more buyer's picks. Binny's Buyer's Picks for 2025.