You are listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Jim, I work in communications and produce this fine podcast. Producer Jim, behind the mic. Exaggerated as usual, calling the podcast fine. Yeah. Hey, I'm Chris, I do wine-related things. I'm Lexi, I'm on social media and things. And things. Roger, I work in beer and hard teas, hard lemonades, hard oysters. Smooch. Which is extra appropriate for today. Yeah, we're gonna do an episode here about drinks of summer, what we think maybe will be hot this summer. I know it's kind of impossible to predict that, but there's always some things that, you know, around August or September, we look back and we're like, whoa, that was huge this summer. We are exposed to what we're being pitched. So like, we will oftentimes be told it's going to be the summer of fill in the blank. They're lying to you. You know, like the summer of Ranchwater. RIP. Yeah, the summer of rum. Rum continues to, I mean, rum is always the summer of rum at Binny's. I will still advocate that every summer is the summer of rum. Yeah, well, absolutely. Agreed, agreed, agreed. Every weekend is the weekend of rum. The weekend of rum. So anyways, we're gonna go through some beer, some wine, and some canned. The other category is starting to take up more and more of our shelf space. Do we have any THC products? No, we don't have any yet. Because I think that is gonna be trending this summer. That probably will be trending. Definitely gonna be trendy this summer. That's the thing with, you know, we really are first and foremost, Binny's Beverage Depot and the beverage categories are really starting to get blurred. So when it comes to as far as like what department handles which product, you the consumer, I'm sure, gets puzzled when you walk down an aisle and see all these. We sometimes used to call them RTDs, so like ready to drink cocktails. Those typically contain hard spirits, so they'd be more the purview of the spirits buyer. But then we had things like wine coolers, so you're probably too young to remember these, Lexi. Perhaps. Maybe ask your parents about Bartles and James and wine. The thing is that now there's things that are made with wine. It's coming back around again. But it's not called a wine cooler, but it is wine-based. We still have a lot of those. And then of course all the malt-based. Yeah. So then there's the malt-turnitives. So things that we're like, so you're Schmiernoff and whatnot, like Schmiernoff ice. Those are all made, not all, but a lot of them were made out of, from a malt base. So kind of think like you're making a beer, but you're not adding hops. You're filtering it out to make it a blank canvas. All you Zima fans and Miller Clear. I know about Zimas. Do the kids still do ice? Do they still ice each other? I iced my boyfriend on Friday. It's coming back. I watched my niece and nephew do that all the time. Oh yeah. I had no idea. Everything is cyclical. It's coming back. But then a lot of these, once people became more gluten conscious and some people besides even celiac, they felt they had a gluten sensitivity. A lot of these purveyors wanted to offer something that would be acceptable for that. Now, the problem that they run into from a marketing standpoint, is that they're usually fermenting sugar to make a sugar brew or a sugar alcohol. And the consumer hears the word sugar and thinks, oh, there's sugar in this. It's going to be sweet. But they're literally fermenting the sugar out completely. They're just using the sugar to make alcohol. Yeah, it really doesn't matter what fermentable you start with, whether it's fruit or grain or whatever. It's all sugar and it can be fermented dry. It doesn't matter if it's cane sugar or beet sugar or whatever. It's just food for yeast. So I did bring some hard seltzers, which are made that way by fermenting sugar, and then they're flavored with some tea. So they're crossing the two categories here. They're hitting both hard seltzer and hard tea, which everyone's saying that this is going to be the summer of tea. That's what we've been presented more than anything else. Spill the tea on it. The list of brands that are into this is gigantic, including some of the heavy hitters in the non-alcoholic game. Arizona has hard tea, Lipton has hard tea, Arnold Palmer has a spiked, New Belgium, the Voodoo Rangers series, it's wildly popular. They now have a hard tea. Theirs is a little bit higher in alcohol too, so they're definitely catering to the people that enjoy the really high alcohol Voodoo Ranger IPAs. There's a product called Hoop Tea. Loverboy is in the game, Jack Daniels. Bravo fans out there. Yeah. There's no arguing that the amount of teas has exploded. That's because Twisted Tea has been around for quite some time, but for whatever reason, it's just exploded in popularity over the last few years. Everybody's trying to chase these twisted numbers. I just saw a display for Twisted Tea. It was Statue of Liberty. It said, we celebrate liberty with tea. I'm like, oh. Doesn't make sense. I mean, you guys are missing the tea. I mean, yeah. Are they harkening back to the tea party? I guess. I don't know what I'm saying, but I don't understand. Liberty. I think it's just liberty. Yeah. There's all these dumb plays on tea. But you guys want to try some tea. Let's fire up some tea here. Fire up some tea. All right. So this is from Owl's Brew. Owl's Brew has been around for a while. I think they, unfortunately, fly under the radar a little bit. They have now diversified their portfolio. So they have lots of different products, which I understand why they're doing it. But from a consumer standpoint, it might be a little confusing. We're drinking like the original, what I think they're best known for still, it is their boozy tea line. They sell these in variety packs that are six packs, which is kind of cool. So you can kind of make your own by buying their two different variety packs. You can actually try six different flavors. There's three different flavors in each variety pack. This company is women founded. They really wanted to produce something that had no junk in it. So no artificial flavors, no additives, no sugar substitutes, which I really like about it. I can't stand when they put in artificial or even the natural ones like monk fruit and stevia. I don't like that stuff. They don't taste like sugar, I'm afraid. These are sweetened with fruit juice, and that's it. In the can there, it says, no funny stuff. Yeah, no funny stuff. What is the flavor we're drinking? This is green tea and peach. Green tea and peach. This is good. I think the key is no fake sugar, because that is always what throws me off in any of this stuff is the fake sugars. It tastes like tea. It's supposed to taste like tea, and this was the first one I've tried that truly tastes like tea. Yeah, and peach, too. It actually tastes like it. It's supposed to be. Yeah, the green tea flavor is subtle, but very present. And I also like that they're carbonated. So a lot of the hard tea options are going to be flat, which throws some people for a loop. Yeah. They're kind of just so expected between the popularity and seltzer and just carbonated beverages and cans that can feel weird to pop a can of something and have it be flat. Right. You can drink this right out of the can, but you could pour this over ice and put a little citrus garnish on it. Right. You might with tea. Has like a really subtle kind of rosy coral hue that's nice. Probably from the peach, right? Peachy heel. Read the ingredients. I think they might even put a little hibiscus in this. Close. Fresh brewed organic tea, alcohol, peach juice concentrate, apple juice concentrate, and raspberry juice. Raspberry, yeah. There you go. I was wondering because it was tasting kind of berryish to me, but I was just going to leave it at that peach. So speaking of which, let's try the next one. This is jasmine and blueberry. And then this one does have, this one's got the hibiscus in it. So it's in addition to blueberry, it's got some, they kind of essentially made like a herbal tea. Right. I was going to say there's no actual tea in here. Right. So it's jasmine tea. Green rubios, never heard of that. I usually read jasmine buds, rose petals, hibiscus. And then we have blueberry juice, pomegranate juice, and lemon juice. I'm gonna like this one. Ooh, that one's got some purple right there. Oh, I love it. It is very pretty. I really, it's nice. Everything is super refreshing. I love that there's some tartness here with the lemon. I'm very surprised. Yeah, I mean, these are dry beverages. They're not, they're fruity, but no one's gonna say, this is too sweet for me, because it ain't sweet at all. And I think the really, the pomegranate, I think pops a lot in this. I agree. Yeah, this is really enjoyable. I mean, what is the alcohol content of these? There's, I mean, they're just so light and easy drinking, too. The alcohol content is 4.8. I ain't too shy. I mean, people are gonna be crushing me. It's kind of amazing that they still remain at 100 calories. So really, they're dropping it down from the more common five so that they can not rely on either fake or sugar substitute. Like, that's all you have to do to then keep the calories right, is to just reduce the alcohol a little bit. Well, I mean, yeah. I mean, it's stupid that we care so much about, like, like a tic tac difference of, like, you know, whenever we're making, like, craft light beers, it's like they have to be 100 or they have to be 95. It's a psychological barrier. Yeah, how about like 110? Like, that's those 10 are just like the 99 price point. It's just right. Exactly. Pleasantly surprised with these. Yeah. They're very subtle. Yeah. And very drinkable. What's this one? Last one is black tea and pineapple. OK. Oh, yeah. Interesting combo. Yeah. I get the pineapple there a lot. A lot of pineapple. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't get it a ton in the nose. No, it's very much all over the. I'm going to go ahead and say that the nose smells like fried chicken. You're not wrong. I don't hate it. Yeah. I'm not saying it's bad. I can see you where you're coming from on that for sure. There's a hint of salt, like there's a little bit of sulfur, but sometimes that blows off once. But it tastes really good because that pineapple just really zings in there. And a little bit of lemon in there, too. And again, the tea is there, but it's very it's very subtle. I'm not a huge tea drinker, so like, or at all, really. Yeah. So I usually shy away from these, but I would definitely drink these. Yeah, I don't I love tea, but thinking of these as tea is maybe not the most important thing here. I agree. Yeah, I agree. Less of like a tea forward like the other things. I feel like we've tried and more of just like a botanical herbal seltzer thing. I mean, part of the reason that I bring in the other tea is that they're very interchangeable. They're all kind of going after the same type of, for lack of a better word, because they kind of own the category like non-alcoholic, just like a Lipton tea bag. Yeah. Like that flavor of black tea that's been around for so many years, what other non-alcoholic brands modeled their tea after, be it Arizona, Snapple, etc. We all know what that tastes like. So when you go to the store and you buy the hard versions of these, they're all very similar. This doesn't taste like anything I would expect. I find in this one in particular, it might be the barest hint of tea tannin, which I think gives it a really subtle texture too. Yeah. Just a little hint on the tongue. So in lieu of having you guys taste a million different teas that just taste all the same, my other kind of what do I see, what direction do I see things going in? Couple, couple different trends that I find interesting. One I would call kind of the unconventional lager. The craft industry has always been trying to figure out a way to make an IPL without calling it an IPL. They tried making IPLs in like the late 90s, and they basically took these massive, crazy, those were the IBU days when everyone was trying to like outdo one another and make like 100 IBU beers where the macro world was calling it bitter beer face. And it was just such a mess of like, they were, you know, this really light Pilsner based beer with a ton of hop bitterness. And the hop flavor was mainly pine and citrus. So, yeah, they didn't work. But that was 25 years ago at this point. But instead of resurrecting IPL, which is extremely easy to understand and explain, we've had these variations of what should we call it. So, there were Italian style Pilsners, which is confusing because they're not from Italy. They don't often use Italian ingredients. They're basically just a dry hop Pilsner, which there's one Italian brewer who made these popular, so thus, it's a style now. Then there was the cold IPA thing. We've talked about this on the podcast before. Ridiculous to explain to consumers like, I'm not even going to get into it. Luckily, those have just faded away. The latest thing that a lot of people seem to be making is a West Coast style Pilsner or a California style Pilsner, which is a riff on what, for a lack of better term, I would call a modern West Coast IPA. The West Coast, especially California, huge when it came to IPA in this country. Arguably, no one else has made more IPA and better IPA than the West Coast. Places like San Diego in particular, there's a movement going on right now where they're reinventing the West Coast IPA. They are essentially brightening it up. They're taking out some of the Caramel malts and they're utilizing a lot of new hop varieties that didn't exist 20 years ago. A lot of these new hop varieties are things that are producing all the tropical fruit flavors. The classic American hops are all about like pine spruce and bitter citrus, like grapefruit. These new hops, crazy, you name it, tropical fruit. So with that in mind, I don't have any like California style Pilsners, but I think you're also right now, people are starting to make them though, including us. We have a collaboration coming out with Maplewood, so keep an eye out for that. But I do have a beer from Hopewell, who has been championing the hoppy lagers more than anyone else. And they again, part of the whole local scene where they cycle through a new beer all the time, they're bringing back a beer from, because people liked it so much, which isn't necessarily one of these, like, Lupo lagers as they like to call them, or like a cold IPA. But it is an unconventional lager, so we're throwing it in the mix, because it's something different to try. And again, Hopewell has really been leading this movement to try to think about lager differently. So they have a beer called Sharp, which they're calling a Japanese style dry lager. It is made with Hilsner malt and then a good amount of rice, and then hopped with some Noble. I'm going to find out what the specific hops are. They can be a little secretive over there. So this is interesting, because for a long time, Japanese breweries have touted their beers as dry. There was a period where major breweries went through this, like you were saying, the bitter beer phase, where they wanted the finish to just disappear. Bud dry? Yeah, bud dry. Just clip it off in that Japanese style. Right. Now, we're coming back around. Coming back around. They've done these, as they like to call them, like loopo lockers as a homage to the Italian style and the hoppier stuff. But this one in particular, again, I think is obviously meant to be super dry, but also has that very pronounced hop note that people who dig IPAs, I think this is in a lot of ways kind of the antithesis of the hazy IPA, right? It's got hop flavor, but it's just super crisp, super clean, super light, refreshing beer. It is absolutely all that. The thing that would distinguish this from that whole marketing campaign that came before is the hoppy bitterness lingers on the palate. It does not clip, so you actually have a finish to this beer, which is quite nice. It's very refreshing. I like this a lot. It really is just light and summery and crushable. Yeah. I think this would pair really nicely with a lot of cuisines. I mean, a classic pairing obviously with Japanese beers is like sushi. But they're delicate enough that they can pair well with more delicate foods that sometimes other beer styles would trounce over that a little bit. I agree. I think that you might even be able to get over with some oddball things like asparagus and some green, like a grilled asparagus or something. Yeah. Might work nicely with this. Yeah. This would be great with like veggie burgers, grilled veggies, salad courses, galore, charcuterie stuff like milder cheeses would be cool. It's certainly not getting in the way of much. No. The body is very light. It does have some aggressive hopping, but I mean, this will pair with all kinds of stuff. How much is that one? This one comes in four packs, 16-ounce cans for $11.99. Look at that. Do we say how much the Owl's Brew was? The Owl's Brew, this is from their Happiest Hour Variety Pack, which is a variety six pack for $12.99. All right, so next, we have another oddball lager because again, as much as some people are all about trying Pilsners, Pilsners will still confuse some drinkers. They will always equate Pilsner with less expensive beer or with boring beer, which is pretty ironic since the original Pilsner style is actually a very expressive, hoppy, and you drink a Pilsner or a Cal, it's a really hoppy beer. But there's a world of different lagers out there, and I'm always trying to shine a light on the weirder, lesser known styles. For as much as we seem to love celebrating Oktoberfest in this country, I feel like we are really missing out on another German festival occasion, which actually has roots in a lot of other cultures too, which is to celebrate. I will prancer on the maple. Mayfest celebrations. It seems like we're not celebrating Oktoberfest to celebrate the prince and princess getting married. We just want to wear goofy layerhose and dirndls, drink beer and eat good food. And we have an opportunity to do all those things in the springtime too. So definitely after a drought, Wisconsin has been a little more in tune with this. They've been more about the Mybox style. Now that there are more breweries popping up that are curious about lagers or classic styles, we're seeing more and more Mybox being brewed. You'll sometimes see them referred to as a Heller or Hellesbach. Hell and Helles just mean light or bright in German. So our next beer is from Offcolor. It is called Beer for Hell. I love that. Better be refreshing. This beer was initially conceived as a component part of their beer, Beer for Burgers, which is one of, I think, the finest creations over at Offcolor. Very few breweries are doing something as complex and complicated as Beer for Burgers. They brew a German Helles style lager. They age it in bourbon barrels. They're trying to emulate the pay homage to like the classic beer and a shot burger combo that's popular at a lot of Chicago taverns. Boilermaker in a can. Right. But so much more integrated and nuanced than either dropping a shot of bourbon in your beer or drinking them side by side, they end up blending a mixture of that barrel-aged Heller Bach with fresh Bach beer. So, yes, that means they have to brew multiple batches of one beer in order to blend it at different times. If they were to just put the Heller Bach in the bourbon barrels, it would be really bourbon-y. But they want it to be a balance of some nuanced bourbon, but some fresh unaged beer too. So, what we are tasting is just the unaged Heller or Maibach from Off Color. Also a funny story, they ended up canning this for the first time because so many people, so many of the employees, as their shift beer, they were drinking the beer straight from the tank, from the Zwickle tap. Of course they are. That they were starting to panic. Yeah, why not? Panic about that they weren't going to have enough beer left to make beer for burgers, so they had to brew another batch. So, I kind of love that story. So, if you're wondering, I always love to ask when I meet people in the industry that are actually working at the brewery, what are you guys drinking? More often than not, it's always some kind of lager. So, in the case of Off Color, people were just loving this Maibach. So, this is Beer for Hell available in stores now. It's a four-pack for also $11.99. It's quite good. It's really clean, really well made. And there's a nice Munich malt quality to it. And Noble Hop character. I mean, what more could you ask for? It's interesting you mentioned Wisconsin, because I think Wisconsin was the torchbearer for Bach in general, even in the darkest years. For sure. A lot of a lot of breweries in Wisconsin. We're still making Bach's. And you remember all of the capital, my Bach and all of that stuff? Oh, yeah. Capital, Sprecher. Yeah. Lake Shore, Lake Front. Serious Bach culture there. And my Bach has has always been well, maybe not always, but it's been part of it since the craft movements come along. And it's interesting. And this is a really delicate and delicious example. It's not as heavy as some my Bach's. I think this is a good beer for those days like today where it's not quite summer, but it's a spring. It's a little bit chilly, but it's not chilly. The sun's out a little bit. This is what this is. Totally agree. So you get a little bit of that warming alcohol, but it's by no mean like it's not a strong beer, but it's got a little more than your typical lager. This is made with Pilsner Vienna malt, as Chris said, some Munich malt, hopped with Magnum and Hirsbrücker, so classic German hops. Definitely a beer that would work super nice with all sorts of food, great beer for grilling. You're starting to clean your grills and get those fired up again, and this is the weather gets better. This is perfect for anything you're cooking on your grill. Yeah, another super versatile food beer for sure. All right, so the last berry we got is rolling back to what I was initially saying. We always want to try like lightest to most aggressive, so we're doing the IPA last, but this is a very friendly IPA. This is the direction I see things going with the IPA style. So I would call this that more modern West Coast style IPA. This is a collaboration between Firestone Walker and Odell, two of the best craft breweries that America has ever known. And Firestone is just such a master of the style. Matt Brindleson, we've had him on the podcast before. Few people know more about hops than him. So devoted to seeking out these new cool hop varieties. The base of this beer incorporates two newer hops. One of them is still an unnamed experimental. It's the Hop Quality Group. So HQG4. And then... It's the name of the hop. Yeah, exactly. So then like, they usually have some acronym for whatever the company is that's in charge of breeding it. So then the other hop, which was recently named Crush, you're gonna see that in a lot more beers. It was HVC 586 and we've been watching that hop for the last three or four years. So much time goes into breeding new hops, getting breweries to believe in them. If they really make it worthwhile for farmers to start growing it, then they'll actually eventually name it. So this features Crush, HQ G4, and then there's some Chinook in there as well, which is probably more than anything else for just like its bittering properties but. Yeah, going old, totally new and totally old. Right. So this is Wandering Don out now. It was the beer for the Farsenwalker Invitational, which is their big beer festival that they do each year. They hand select everyone that they invite to that. One of the most revered beer events in the craft world. That is pungent from even where Roger is sitting. You're next to me but you're still like three feet away from me. I can smell that. I could smell it when you poured it. Oh yeah. Wow. Orange and... Hops are an agricultural product. If you've heard the word terroir, we usually think of it with the wine world. Hoplots are extremely important. They change from year to year, when they're picked during the year. The best breweries are going out to places like Yakima, to Idaho, to Colorado. They're hand selecting these things. So, the Firestone team and the Odell team have always been really into seeking out the best hops. So, I think that's really highlighted here. For fans of IPA, you'll notice this is sparklingly clear. Remember when there were IPAs like that? Thank you. This tastes like they care about their hops. Yeah. It is very hop forward and it is complex. I mean, there's so much tropical fruit, but then so much earthiness too. I love the apricot, Yeah. Ashen fruit. I mean, it's such a mix of stone fruit, tropical fruit. There's some old school citrus in there. There's some pine. I don't know. I think Firestone is really nailing it with some of these beers. I think the color is beautiful. Obviously, old school West Coast, by today's standards, they look dark. They're like amber. And I've seen some people making West Coast style, and then some people are kind of looking at it like, why is this so dark? This seems off. It's like, well, that's how they used to be. So, that's why I think a lot of these breweries, if they're going to, I think West Coast is really going to be a buzzword this summer between Pilsners. I even saw one called the West Coast Amber Ale today or Amber Lager. So, I mean, I don't know. West Coast is definitely buzzy enough that people are attributing it to different styles now. I think West Coast is to beer what Elevate is to Gen Z. Yep. Well, if you want to elevate your IPA game, this beer is phenomenal. It's a West Coast style that yes, a lot of local breweries are brewing West Coast style, this West Coast style, that. If you're curious about California and West Coast, try a beer from one of the best breweries in California on the West Coast from Firestone Walker. Hell yeah. Six packs are only $1,199. Nice. Thanks, Raj. That's our tour through my side of things. Yeah. Let us know if you try any of these, if there's throughout the summer things that you think. If you're declaring it the summer, fill in the blank, drop us a line. All right, on to wine, Chris. We're going to go on to wine. OK, we can do that. My selection is is less predictive on my part because, like you were saying earlier, anything can happen. Who knows? Who knows what's going to catch on? Who knows what Taylor Swift is going to tweet about? Exactly. I was going to say, if anyone knows, it's Lexi, not us. Who knows what Taylor Swift is going to put on? Lexi, what's it going to be? Instagram. I don't know about Taylor Swift or Beyonce or any of these people. I know some trending things. Pitbull. I'm just kidding. Anyway, you never know. There could be some movie that comes out this summer that has something in it that people start drinking. That's how it happens. When everyone tried to figure out why Twisted became so popular, a huge part of it was that viral video where the guy was disrespecting the cashier at that convenience store and then a guy in line was so sick of this guy listening to this guy badmouth the worker there that he took a can of Twisted tea and smashed it in the guy's face. Oh my God. Wow. And like Twisted Tea Sales went way up after that. That is twisted. Boston Beer like embraced it and was like, sometimes you gotta get twisted, you know? All right, let's get in your wine. Oh yeah, so my point being that like recently we've got these crazy 18% alcohol, fruity, neon colored wines have been super trendy, but who wants to drink that during the summer? That might be waning already anyway. What I did do was I looked online, which is not something I normally do. And if you put in... We don't even email you, we have to send you facts. What are wine trends for 2025? A lot of them, I think, have been going on for a while, but you know, they're still touting them. One of the most interesting things is white wine is now overtaking red wine in popularity. So people are drinking more white than red, which is definitely unusual in this country. Low intervention wines, you know, less manipulated, of course, biodynamic, organic, all of this thing. For me, it's hard to suss out what's a trend in the populous, because we're so deeply ensconced in everything here. Like, you know, people have been in the wine industry, we've been talking about biodynamics for decades. Yeah, like, you know, is it a trend now? Yes, I guess. Low and no alcohol, better-for-you type wines are, of course, still trending. That NA thing is crazy. It's still going through the roof. And then you get like this really interesting dynamic with some people saying there will be a flight back to traditional regions because of tariffs and uncertainty around wine. And then there's a whole other side where people are seeking unique grape varieties from established areas. You know, maybe not necessarily the grape that they're most known for, but looking for interesting indigenous varietals that, you know, maybe are not your Chardonnay, Cabernet. Scuppernag? Scuppernag is going to be huge. Yeah, so what do I get? Some examples of returning to old wine regions or to? With new grape varieties or traditional grape varieties that are less popular. Yeah. But the other thing you said was returning to traditional regions. Yeah. Just like going back to Bordeaux and Berkley and stuff. I don't think anybody ever left. Not Missouri. Not Missouri. Not. No. Norton is not going to be the big trend this year or Vidal Blanc or Save All Blanc. OK, so you're going to hate me for number one, but I'm going to do it anyway. It kind of. I think Rosé is still happening. Yeah. Yeah. This is hand on heart. Rosé. I wasn't going to pick a Rosé period, but this covers several things. It is. Non alcoholic. Well, yeah, so we're trying an NA wine here because they told us that just to see if we can get. You know, I thought about that and I decided to. This is made with de-alcoholized muscat and Pinot Noir. A lot of this is definitely I think we're going to see an NA wine. And I think we're going to see a couple of these, maybe not take over wine, but I think that we're going to see these pop up more and more and more. Yeah, I mean, if you look at how the dry January trend has grown just over the last five year, it is insane. Now, they use like very modern spinning cone technology where this is vacuum distillation, where a thin layer of wine is poured over a cone and you have very low pressure, but also low temperature, so you don't have to heat it really high. The best models, and they use this, you get the most volatile things evaporating first and they capture them. So all of the most delicate aromas and flavors drift off and then they put them on the side. Then they remove the alcohol because that's the next most volatile thing. And then they keep all the what's left of the wine, the water and some color and all of that. And then they remarry the really volatile parts. So you're theoretically not losing the nuance by doing this. Anyway, what do you think? Insane strawberry notes. Yeah. Insane. Like a very tart strawberry. Strawberry rhubarb. Yeah. Yeah. Rhubarb for sure. I mean, this is, I just tasted this. Very sharp but refreshing. I could imagine not just drinking this, but I would, you know, I'm not a fan of drinking wine over ice generally, but I would put this over ice. I would make a spritz out of it, you know. If you had a slushy machine perhaps. Yeah. Frosé. Frosé. Yeah. Throw a strawberry or two in this with your ice cubes or with your, you know, soda. Anyway, I think it's very refreshing. It's very bright. I would do something crazy, like put some dark rum in the. Oh, well, I'm all for it. But you're defeating the purpose. I know. Yeah, this is wild. The city is big. Like, yeah, it really is. The other thing is, I think that fits with current trends is this rosé in particular, they are promoting breast cancer awareness with it. So this is a socially active, you know, winery that that's trying to do some good, give a little back. And I think that's trendy, too. And I think that's a trend that should continue in perpetuity because it's good to help others. All right, what do we got next? Okay, so we're going to move on to... This is an example of looking for unusual grape varieties in their indigenous environment from places that may be lesser known. So this is Slovenian wine from Croatia. It's a Kucievo Grashevina. And Grashevina is the grape variety. By the way, let me just say that that Hand on Heart Rosé was $14.99. All right. $14.99. This is a mere $12.99. Oh, man. So Croatia has been coming up... Actually, they have a really, really long, long wine history, but... What is the wine grape that is from there? You're probably thinking of the precursor to Zinfandel. Yes. Yeah. That made its way from Croatia to southern Italy. Yes. And then... California. At some point, California. Mysteriously, this is another grape variety that's been grown for a long time. This wine growing area dates back to the 1200s. I mean, this is very, very old. I said it was $12.99, right? Yep. So this grape variety is also known in some parts as Welsh Riesling or Riesling Italico. And when I was learning about wine, there were every wine book I ever read warned you severely, do not conflate Welsh Riesling or Riesling Italico with genuine Riesling. Just don't do it because they're very different just because it's in the name. So this is a very light aromatic style. Extremely what? Extremely light. Yeah. I like this. But how about that nose? Yeah, it's really perfumed. You can also turn this into, it's pretty often made into a by Botrytis style wine. So late harvest. You get all those really perfumed notes and then richness and sweetness. Some great winemakers like Alois Crocker in Austria. Of course. Yeah, maybe Austria's most famous dessert winemaker uses, well, Schriezlin to make Botrytis wines. You know who I think is like this? Former Barrel to Bottle guest and fan of Sangani, award-winning director Steven Soderlund. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I mean, it is very floral. There's no doubt about that. The other interesting thing about this winery, they've been around for a long time. They have a cellar full of historic wines, 65,000 bottles of wine. Jesus. With vintages dating back to the 40s. Oh, it's just just a massive amount, a ridiculously massive amount of wine. And I don't know if you can get them in the States, but you can go on their website and see like you can buy like a 1960s Arabino Grigio or something like that must be interesting. I don't know. Anyway, so this exemplifies this this like kind of under the radar style, of course, in America, in Croatia. This is the most popular white wine there is. This is the kind of thing I always love learning about. And I think resonates with the younger crowd too, is just a turn off to wine is probably the era of pretension or the cost of half of some of the bottles, you know. So having something that's exceptional but is underappreciated then is, you know, less of a roadblock to getting into the category. Yeah, absolutely. I agree with that completely. There is nothing pretentious about this. It's a straightforward dry white wine with lots of pretty aromatics. And it's inexpensive. So explore Croatia. There's lots of exciting things going on in Croatia, honestly. Okay. Big fan. Especially for $12.99. Yeah. So now we're going to move on to an example of an established region with well-known presence in the States and a great variety that is less known. So this is allegedly another one of these trends. And this is made by a winery called Godeval, and the great variety is Godeo. Spanish. It is Spanish. This is why I picked it. Spain. You know, we sell tons of Spanish wine. The area this comes from is Galicia, way up in the northwest corner, kind of right where Spain meets Portugal. The scrape has actually also grown in Portugal under other names, and it almost had gone extinct. But in the 70s, it was revived in Spain. There are only like 3,500 acres of this stuff grown on the entire planet. Wow. And it's mostly in Spain and Portugal. So yeah, good ale. And this is another one. I haven't had this in a long time. What a nose. Yeah. Super cool. It has a really interesting nose. That's just what I was about to say. Get the horn out, Jim. Gooseberry. Gooseberry. It's interesting you say that. I'm sorry, go on. It lingers and it's got this really nice soft end. I like it. So people like to compare this to Chardonnay. I don't know if I agree with that. It does have some of the fruit characteristics, but it also seems to be related to Verdejo, another Spanish grape that often gives off the vibe of Sauvignon Blanc, and gooseberry shows up in Verdejo and Sauvignon Blanc all the time. So good call. It's my jam. I love that flavor. This is a great wine. How much is that one, Chris? Well, Lexi, we're going up a little bit in price here, but it's only $21.99. Oh, not bad. Yeah. No, I think this is a very high quality wine for that price. Yeah. I think Godavalla was the first version of this I ever saw in the early 90s. And I had no idea what was going on when I tasted it. And I was in this tiny wine shop and everybody was tasting it and talking about it. And the guy in the wine shop didn't know what it was. You were wearing vans and a plaid shirt. That's right. I skated over there. Yeah. I really ripped it up after I left. I see the cabal is, you know, you got a mohawk in high school. Did you really? I actually have no idea. It's true. Oh, my God. We need fun. I also had at one point hair all the way down my back too. So like really long. Good quantifier. I was a, you know, a hippie piece punk. That checks out. Now you work in wine. That checks out. That's right. Yeah. Anyway, so like I was saying, this list comes from an area called Valdiorras. This is kind of the epicenter for Gordeo in Spain. 2199. Fun stuff, huh? One thing I didn't mention, which is also on the list, and I've been talking about this. I think we always talk about this every time summer rolls around, is red wines that you can chill. So what we have here is from the Côte du Jura. It's Domaine des Carlines. It's made out of grape called Poulsard, 100 percent Poulsard. So this, again, checks a lot of different boxes. They're working sustainably, they're moving toward bio-dynamism in the vineyard. This winery is relatively new in a very, very old region. It's owned by a couple, and I think it's only been around since 2015. Poulsard is a grape with very, very thin skins. And as much as you try to coax it to get a lot of color, this is about as dark as they get. And you can see it's not very dark. It's got such a cherry note on the nose. It's kind of crazy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's so much. There's so much cherry there. Yeah, it's crazy. So much cherry. Totally crazy. Yep. You can see there's there's maybe a slight hint of oxidation in the color, but that's not abnormal. In fact, this area is fake. This is not made in an oxidative style on purpose, at least not not the way I'm about to describe. It is aged in in large oak barrels, neutral oak, about twice the size of your standard barrique. So there's some some oxidative winemaking here, but this area is really famous for something called Vengeance or Yellow Wine, which is very similar to what you might think of as an unfortified sherry. And it gets really nutty. It develops the veil of floor over it. And there's a very, very famous and beautiful vineyard called Chateau Chalon, which makes the pinnacle expression of the style. If you've never tried it, it's totally amazing. I would highly recommend it, especially if you're a sherry drinker. And it is perfect with the local Comté Gruyere because they're both nutty and delicious. Anyway, this is like, to me, the kind of thing you might want on a picnic, you know. Definitely. It's got a nice dryness on the end, too. It's not, you know, sweet, really, by any means, but it's got that fruitiness. Yep, absolutely. The other popular grape varieties in this area that are red are something called Trousseau, which also doesn't have a ton of color. And in addition, there are Noir and Gris versions of it. Sometimes they're blended together. This is 100 percent pulsard. Pinot Noir also grows here. This is not that far from Burgundy. Anyway, how much was that one? So this one, we're we're creeping up a little bit again, normally $33.99. But through the end of June, it's on sale for $29.99. Nice. Not bad. Very nice. Yeah. Would you drink this at a picnic? I would. Yeah, that's definitely really refreshing. Other wines that people popularly chill down in the summer, Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley. Gamay, of course, lighter versions of Burgundy or Pinot Noir. I think sometimes people have this perception that if you have a more serious wine, it can't be refreshing. Yeah. It doesn't necessarily go hand in hand, but that's how I would describe this. Yeah. Absolutely not true. You notice that the tannin level is very low, acidity is relatively elevated, it's bright, it's friendly, it's easy to drink. I wonder how I like it. Takes a chill, right? Low talons, low tannin, more acid. Right. Yeah. Roger, you're not a huge red wine fan, especially ones that show a fair amount of tannin. Right. This is the kind of category that seems like you would gravitate toward these brighter chillable reds. Those are great. Thanks, Chris. Nice selection. Thanks. Thank you. What else we got, Jim? Finally, we got some canned stuff, the hot canned items of the summer that are more like seltzers and... The amorphous flavored hard beverage. Yes. So there's two canned cocktails, and then this is a hard juice. Hard juice. And I liked this one during our Canapalooza tasting. This is from The Nectar Company. It's got like a pretty crazy... I mean, it looks like, I would say mostly like passion fruit. There's three other flavors are passion fruit based. There's passion fruit orange, passion fruit lily, or passion fruit lily koi, which is just passion fruit passion fruit. Yes. And then there's passion fruit lychee, but lychee doesn't taste like anything. I think it does. You don't think that it tastes like anything? Interesting. Whoa, this smells awesome. Yeah, this is the passion fruit orange. You know that this is only missing one component. Yeah, exactly. Guava. Guava? Oh yeah. Oh, you're right. Duh. This is just po. Where's the G, man? I mean, you could probably just add your own. Yeah. Add your own G. B-Y-O-G. This is alcohol from canned sugar, and then it's got passion fruit, orange juice, and then just all your stuff. It's interesting because the aroma is really in your face, but the body is really light and refreshing. Yeah. I think when I smell it, it's going to be a little sweeter and maybe a little heavier on the bow, a little more syrupy, but it's not. Yeah. I mean, I think for our palates, it's probably a little jarring going from the wine to this. I'm perceiving it as probably sweeter than it is, but it's not overly sweet. No, that's what I'm saying. There's definitely sweetness here, but it's not like crazy. Well, passion fruit is great for that, because passion fruit is massively tart. Yeah, true. So then you get that orange juice in there to kind of slightly balance it out, because there's more sugar, probably, in orange juice. And then, yeah. This is good. Refreshing. Fun can art. The cherub. Yeah. Cherub. The angel. Next, is there jungle juice? No. Not a fan of that name? I don't know. Let's give it a shot. I'm open to it, but. I'm a little surprised that they would bother. I mean, in the college days, that was essentially the garbage pan, garbage can. Mix it up in a garbage can, right? This is like pineapple, but also passion fruit. So they're just leaning really heavy into the passion fruit, which I think, as Raj said, good idea because it packs a lot of flavor into that passion fruit. It's a delicious fruit, but it's a great substitute for citrus because it's so sharp. I think this is maybe we're going to say this is going to be the summer of passion fruit. Or just the summer of passion. I still think it's the summer of peach. Wow. Again, the aroma. Crazy. Yeah. I perceive this is sweeter and it's very candy like hard candy like Jolly Rancher. Yeah. It's like if you had the watermelon Jolly Rancher, the apple Jolly Rancher together. I wonder if it's from the pineapple. Yeah, I can see that. It's more perfumed in the mouth too. It's like. So what's in this? I mean, there's got to be various juices. Purified water, alcohol from cane sugar, passion fruit juice, concentrate, pineapple juice concentrate, natural flavors. The natural flavors. We'll get you every time. Citric acid, sodium citrate. I think they went heavy on the natural flavors for this one. I think you could get away with this one. Something I like to do is make a cocktail and then serve cocktail, kind of break the cocktail down into smaller pieces and serve it as shots. Yes. I think this would be something that would be really delicious to add to that, where you make some huge cocktails. So funny you said that because I was like, it kind of reminds me of jello shots. Yeah. Oh yeah. It is very jello-y. You're right. It reminds me of lime jello in particular, but there's no lime in it, I guess. The nectar is $19.99 for a 12-pack. About on par with all the other salt drinks there. Nice. All right, next up, Dillon. Dillon. Dillon. This is Dillon's Small Batch Distillers. They have a variety pack of different gin based cocktails. It says they're from Chicago. It's just imported by Dillon's of Chicago. So I'm not sure if that means the gin comes from somewhere else, and then they mix it here. Wasn't really clear on their website, but. Roger, you hate it. Oh, boy, that's kind of a lot. Does it have you tangled up in blue? I mean, really, what's to blame is my proclivities for fine hair care products. It's like an herbal essences vibe. Clarol herbal essences. It reminded me a bit too much of shampoo that I've used over the years. There's a strong almondy note. Yeah. That's why I liked it, was that the cherry almond. It's an amaretto. Well, this is. Jim's big amaretto. I love amaretto. Black cherry and a touch of cranberry. Yeah. But I did get that almondy. Oh, yeah. It's big. It's clear. If you like a vodka cranberry, you probably will like this. If you like cherry, the black cherry, white claw, and a vodka cranberry, you're probably gonna love this. The old K. Potter. The, you know. For all you Seabreeze fans. And there's a, right? I think there's definitely, I also get some like Jolly Rancher candy on this one too. Yeah, cherry Jolly Ranchers for sure. Cherry or even like a little bit of watermelon. If you mix the watermelon and the green apple, Jolly Rancher together. It's explosively flavorful. Yeah. But I don't think none of these, it doesn't seem too cloying. No. Right? It's just like kind of. It's sweet. There's sweetness up front, but it cleans up pretty nice. Yeah. Probably due to that cranberry element. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we've got the tangerine lemon also from Dillon's. It is very Jolly Rancher-esque though. What's kind of interesting about these is that if gin is not your thing, don't be afraid of these. Like the gin identity is not there in a huge way. Completely agree with that. As hoped, this one is finally I'm smelling the gin. Yeah. What flavor is this again? Tangerine lemon and a hint of mint. This is awesome. Definitely mint. This is my jam. Yeah. This is really enjoyable. If you like a Hendrix and soda. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The gin is present in the nose for sure. But there's a lot of that earthy, not so much the mint, like the minty gum kind of thing, but the earthiness of mint. Yeah, the vegetal quality of fresh mint. That almost brings to mind more of the like cucumber-y, watermelon rind. Yeah. I agree. This is weird to say about a product like this, but the aromas and flavors are very clearly delineated. You can pick out gin, you can pick out mint. You mean they're Dillon? Dillon. Oh, good point. Dillon. Delineated. That's awesome. Anyway, yeah, everything that's in there is clear. There's coming a variety pack. The Minty Lift on the finish. Yeah. I would say if you're a Mojito fan or, yeah. It's good. It's pretty good. That with a bunch of crushed ice. Oh, yeah. From Sonic. Yeah, so we got the variety pack is $15.99 for eight cans and. What's the EBV on these? Five, five percent. That I would call a real pleasant surprise. Yeah. All right. The final one we got is On the Rocks. Our friends at On the Rocks have a canned cocktail. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is a Sparkling Lime Margarita. Do you have to say lime if it's margarita? It's a good question. On the Rocks. Well, then maybe they make like, you know, variants like a strawberry margarita. Love on the Rocks. Ain't no big surprise. I do think you can actually taste the agave characteristic a little bit. Yes, there's triple sec in here, too. So, this is tequila based? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because that is a bizarre trend that we see a lot, are these margarita-inspired drinks. Yeah. It's Tres Generaciones. Yes. Generaciones. Generaciones. This is good. And a house-made triple sec. Yeah. It does smell like tequila. Well, we're not drinking it over ice. Like, this would be much better over ice. Like, so you got to step back from your bartending roots. And this is for people that don't bartend. Well, yeah. I mean, if you're comparing to this to an actually homemade margarita or a margarita bar, that the tequila aroma is definitely there. But I mean, it's very, very soft. We've tried so many of these over the years and they can be disastrous. Yeah. No, it tastes okay. And I think I'm just missing the tequila kick here. Yeah. Yeah. It's not bad. If you're looking for a margarita on the go situation, you need something real quick, something a little bit more portable. This is a great choice. And that's going to be $9.99 right now on sale. For a four pack? My theory doesn't work for that. Carry some ice around. Yeah, right. Carry some ice around. Put some ice in your pocket. Make sure you have one pocket full of ice and one pocket full of salt. Cool. Yeah. So that's a little taste of our Canapalooza lineup. Honorable mentions that I think we might see, soju punch. Keep seeing a lot of those online. Lots of different recipes being shared. Are they being made with the fruity, the already flavored soju? Yeah, that makes sense. I wasn't going to go get all the ingredients, but I can't stop seeing Aperol Spritzes still. Hugo Spritz, say Germaine Prosecco Soda, a great alternative. The old bartender's ketchup. I think we're seeing a lot of olives and Aperol Spritz in fashion. So there's these viral beaded bags and they're beaded with olives or they're beaded with Aperol Spritz. So I think that those are going to be around, but who knows? There'll be more, I'm sure. The Aperol Spritz is a great drink. Yeah. I love it. Aperitivo time. Come on, let's get on. I think it has that potential of being contrarian, because there's so many things that are super sweet right now, that are trending and popular, that if that's not your thing, it's got to aggravate people, especially young people who are constantly marketed to like, oh, this is what you people like, because every young person likes the same thing. I sure didn't. It's also one of those things that like a martini, just martini in general, where you just customize it the way that you want it. I know some people, which again, not the right way, but some people are adding orange juice to sweeten it up. I think that's insane. To the Aperol spritz. Just a little bit. Oh, they went to the martini. Yeah, so did I. No, no, no, no, no. I was like, that is insane, but okay. Similar in the ways that you can customize it. So I know that there's those little probiotic sodas, there's an orange flavor, those are really good if you swap that. Orange crush? No, the orange slice probiotic drink in your Aperol Spritz. There you go. I just put emergency in it. Yeah. I thought you meant a martini as well. I'm like, are Harvey Walbanger going to be what comes back next? No, I know a bar. It's a funny word. It's a funny name, so it could work. I know a bar that's got it on the happy hour menu. Galliano's pretty interesting. It is, indeed. I'm declaring this the summer of lemon chalice spritz because I was in Italy and I drank a lot of those. Wait, you went to Italy? I don't know if you guys went to Italy. Did you run into your former colleague there? No, I did not. But you ate more pizza than I did. What was the pizza count? Fifteen days. You said it was more than one a day. No, I don't think it was more than one a day. That's what you said, though. Did I? I mean, pizza should be like a vitamin. Probably. Maybe I was there. We were there for 14 days. I probably had 12 different pizzas, I think. Nice job. I think there might have been a day or two that I skipped pizzas. Did you see the French fries pizzas on any of them? Yeah, worst. They're everywhere. French fries pizza? They were called Americanos sometimes or worst. No, they weren't. We're not even doing that here. It was hot dogs. It was hot dogs and French fries. That's why it's called Americanos. Pizza? Yeah, hot dogs and French fries on pizza. Yeah, it's a thing in Italy. We might eat that crap, but we don't put it on pizza. We're pizza purists in this country. What are you doing? Yeah, only pineapple and Canadian bacon for us. Speaking of jalapenos, another weird trend is jalapenos in your Chardonnay. I'm kind of intrigued by this. So is it like fresh slices or? I can see that. Like rings or? I thought we addressed this like two years ago. Yeah, this does sound familiar. It's not like a new thing necessarily. I just like in the last, whenever this podcast was mentioned, I've been trying to keep notes of what's happening. You think people are like putting in like nacho ones? That's not what I was going for. And a martini, that nice... Yeah, that briny. The brininess. I mean, I don't mind getting pickled on Chardonnay, but that's ridiculous. Folks! Jalapeno Chardonnay. Yeah. Have it with your Hawaiian pizza. As for fresh, not nacho slices. And rim your glass with nacho cheese. But nacho slices and a Bloody Mary, that would be delicious. Yeah, for sure. I've done that. Or a Bloody Maria. Yeah. There we go. Nice little tomato juices. So, that's what we think is going to be hot, maybe. We reserve the right to change our opinions in September when we realized we were totally wrong, and I don't know, something crazy was really hot. Rieslings. Right. The summer of Climato. Yeah, the summer of Climato. The summer of the Caesar. Declaring it right now. The Canadian Caesar. Yeah. What are we? Alcoholstrodomises? We'll keep you guys updated on social. If you enjoyed the podcast, tell your friends. Leave us a review on podcasts. podcasts.com? No, just podcasts, like the podcast app. So we'll be back in your feed next week with another episode about who knows what. Until then, I'm Jim. I'm Roger. I'm Lexi. I'm Chris. Keep tasting.