Wow, Roger is expressing how I feel. How many samples do we have? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Roger and Pat have both already yawned. Going to have a high energy. Hey, settle down. Join in. Of... Where do you taste these whiskeys? Okay. They're pretty exciting. I mean, look at all these bottles. There's got to be one good one. I see Signatory is still very information heavy, stylistically leaving a bit to be desired. Yep. Distilled on 23rd of June 2009. Matured in a bourbon barrel. Bottled on 8th of March 2023. Cast number 260514. Out turned 238 bottles. Natural color, cast strength, 60.1% alcohol by volume. This is a single grain Scotch whiskey from a North British distillery that has been aged 13 years in that bourbon barrel. Holy smokes. Did they include the gentleman's name who pulled the barrel down? The time chart of all the times they checked it in their notes. Hey, we should probably talk about what we're talking about, huh? Yeah. Wasn't that a cold opener? Yeah, I guess. Do we still do those? Oh yeah. Yeah. Almost. Almost all the time. So, Brof, I hope that the outcome of this podcast, as we were talking the other night, is to get people thinking about a whiskey besides bourbon. It's starting to get out of control. Well, that's why you have the one in front of you currently. I'm going to roughly go in order of intensity, I would say, with these whiskies. We'll obviously taste the heavily-peated ones last. But we're starting with a single-grain whisky. So a Scottish single-grain whisky. So this is North British, a single-grain Scotch whisky is essentially the filler in a blended Scotch whisky, like Dewar's or Johnnie Walker or J&B or something like that, famous Grouse. Normally, that means that they're, they still have to maintain the minimum ages of the rest of the blend. So like Johnnie Walker Black's 12 years, so the grain whisky is 12 years. But normally, grain whisky is put into a very many times used barrel. They might be using a fourth, fifth, or even sixth time through that barrel. The barrel is really contributing nothing to the flavor of the whisky. It's just there to hold it while it meets the minimum aging. Really talking it up? Yeah. Well, this is the exception. So every once in a while, they will first use bourbon cask, and then they go out onto the cask market. So this grain whisky is arguably one of the most flavorful grain whiskeys you can actually get. So grain whisky is distilled on a column still, unlike single malt, which is distilled twice on a pot still. So column still, that's how we make bourbon. This is made out of wheat. It's aged in a bourbon barrel. This is the weller of Scotland, I would say. This is delicious. So when you say wheat, is it exclusively wheat or what's the math? So it's wheat. It still has some malted barley in it. Legally, it has to have some malted barley in it. Okay. But it's mostly wheat. Now, it could be corn, too. That's what I was just going to ask. So I always think about, obviously, economics played part of the grain whisky game. Yes. So I suppose corn is not as ubiquitous over there. No, I mean, they grow a lot of cheap wheat in Europe. So a lot of these grain whiskies are wheat, usually. And sorghum. And sorghum, yes. So pretty classic bourbon barrel character here. You get tons of those American oak, you know, coconut, vanilla notes, that kind of stuff. It's nice. It's creamy on the palate. This is really a bourbon lover's Scotch whisky. I think it's really great, honestly. And I don't think it drinks quite at its full 120 proof, considering this is over 120.2, I think it is. You can tell this is high proof, but it doesn't taste 120, in my opinion. 60.1, you are correct. 60.1 Alk by Volumium. It smells pretty even handed. I think all it's lacking is some of the heft of a bourbon, but the flavor and the aroma, you could blind someone and they would think it's over proof, weeded bourbon. I think I would guess that. Yeah. Pretty fun whisky. This is awesome. And it's inexpensive. I think this is on the shelf for 70 bucks, maybe 80 bucks. I forgot. I have to recalibrate my what is expensive in this category. Hey, welcome back to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I am Pat from The Whiskey Hotline. I brought a lot of whiskey to taste today, as usual. I am Greg, do communications here at Binny's Beverage Depot. I'm Jenna, I do communications. Roger, beer and other miscellanea. Yeah, Roger buys the antiquated candies that we stock now at the front of the store. What are those? That is a nice surprise. Did you pick any up? I almost grabbed some for you. What are these candies? I'm not even that familiar with them. They're called reeds or something. I've seen them before. I've seen them. I don't know if I've ever had them, but I've seen them in like Cracker Barrel type of stores like that, like where they have vintage candies. Well, we're joining the ranks of places where you get throwback candies. Okay, so we already tasted the North British single-grain 13-year-old. I think it's actually kind of hot myself. It's dispirited. That's fine. You're right. It's broad and it's mellow and I can see how it would be like the flower in the cake that is the blended whisky. Yeah, totally. That's what it is, but it's a cool representation of the style. Every few years, we grab a cask of that. Interesting novelty, I guess. Yeah. What we are tasting today is our signatory vintage whisky company hand-picked single barrels have arrived. This is a 2023 hand-picks. 2023 signatory hand-picks, yes. We've got eight different casts we bought this year, a wide range of styles as usual. We try to find some distilleries you otherwise can't get in America. So that's always fun. So we're going to taste them in somewhat of a tasting order of intensity here. So I'm passing around the next one now. Roger, he's passing around the next one now. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm pulling a brofee. I'm doing a big-time brofee move right here. That's what happens with the old text messages. Very important businessman. He's collabs man, always collabing. Oh, I like this, Royal Brachla. Royal Brachla, that's right. Whiskey No. 2 here is a 14-year-old Royal Brachla. Royal Brachla is on the far kind of northwest side of Speyside. It's not very far from the coast actually. One of three distilleries to ever have a royal warrant, meaning they can use royal in their name. It's Royal Brachla, Royal Lachnagar, and then the other one was Glen Urie Royal, which has now been closed for quite a while. Who is the dandy prince that okayed it? I do not know who okayed it. It was a while ago. Why wouldn't they be able to otherwise? Because you can't just say something's royal without some inbred member of royalty telling you you can. Listen, I'm a free American. I don't know these details. These single malt distilleries present them with all this stuff. If they think yours is a good enough dram and it's to their liking, they might grant you this, this is our official. I'm trying to pull up the pricing on all these. Sounds like Paola to me. But our website just screwed the pooch here. Don't forget they quite literally lured over Scotland. Royal Bracka 14 year. This was another bourbon barrel, 56.6 percent. Only 226 bottles came out of this barrel. So if you are interested in some of these, you're going to have to act soon because these tend to sell out pretty fast. So Royal Bracka historically not been available in the States. It's owned by Dewars. They started importing it maybe, I don't know, eight years ago or something. As an OB? Yeah, as an OB. Then they've changed it up and rebranded it this year, taken the price way up, went to exclusively really heavily shared expressions and non-chill filtered at 46%. So it's actually pretty solid whiskey. You don't see a lot of bourbon barrel broccoli now for that reason. Since they did that shift 12 years ago or whenever. Okay. So their world warrant was first granted by King William IV, and then it was renewed by Queen Victoria in 1838. King William. I feel like that's one of the presidents where you're like, that guy was a president? Yeah. It is one of the older distilleries in Scotland. It's been around since 1812. So that is very old. That's pre-official taxation of whiskey old. Doesn't this go into some famous blend? Dewar's? Do you have this? I'm sure it's probably been in the show's blend at some point. I don't think we're out of salute now. This has a quality that I associate with Dewar's White Label. It's like a little hammy and a little pear skin and... Hammy? Just a little hammy, huh? I don't know how to describe it. It's pretty amazing. Like a mid-weight grain thing. It's fruity. It's approachable. It's like an ethereal, alive version of that. Yeah, maybe like fruit smoke is what you're thinking of. Fruit smoke, yeah. You know, unpeated whiskey, of course. I don't know. That's all I got to say about it, huh? Hammy? I don't know. I think this is tremendous. This is really good. What's the proof on this? 56.6% alcohol, so... I mean, it drinks pretty... 113.2%?... soft for something that high in ABV. This is rich and fruit forward without being sweet, which in a lot of those like Sherry Barrel things that people are obsessed with, I feel like you get these flavors, but then you also get sweetness that I don't want. It's like over the top. Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, it's pretty classic space-side scotch for that reason. That's really good. And that was like a 14 year? That's a 14 year, yes. How much is that bad boy? Hey, what's the price on this thing? Oh, I wasn't looking it up. As soon as I turned my phone on, I forgot why I had opened it. B-R-A-C-H-L-A? C-K-L-A. Oh. You're spelling it like Brock's Candies. I know, but that's so- Makers of orange slices and peppermints. 2008. Yes, 14 year old. If ever there is a time to use the barcode scam, it's now. $79.99. Whoa, no way. $80 bucks for a cast strength 14 year old whiskey. I don't believe it. Yeah, right there in black and white. Dude, that's got to be a perfect example of, because no one's heard of this distillery, you get that price point, right? Well, that's part of the reason we always look for cast at Signatory. So there are a lot of different brokers of barrels in Scotland now. There's a lot of different independent bottlers. We have a long established relationship with Signatory. They know what we like. They know what the kind of profiles we're looking for and the price ranges we like to stay in. And we get access to some really great stuff over there. And part of it is Signatory has been offering higher quality casks at a better price than a lot of people for a lot of years now. But it's a special place in our heart, as sprawling as our handpicked single barrel program is now. It all started with a single cask of Scotch in 1997. So we always kind of celebrate when we get good single casks of Scotch. Did you actually go this year? Yeah. Yeah. Jim, you should post the photos of these two besides just the links. Because I think that's always been sadly one of the biggest disadvantages of these whiskeys. Like the liquid inside the bottle is glorious, but they're so plain Jane. They're pretty nondescript packaging. Information heavy. They just bought a tremendous amount of that gold punch, rose gold foiled labels and they're going to use them. Well, they added feathers, which is an interesting touch. So at least you've got that. No, I had to ask to change the label up a few years ago. They still make the old label that we used to use. They look like labels that go on sample bottles. Here's the information, the tech info you need to know. The problem, too, I think, is that so many people, if they're going to buy a really nice bottle of Scotch, they're thinking of it as a gift, and these are kind of, they all look the same, and people get confused. They think Signatory is a distillery. I've had a couple of customers way back in the day be like, oh, yeah, I've had a Signatory before. It was all right. They don't know, but I get it. But holy cow, that was such a good whiskey, a cast-strength thing, 14 years old for that price. For $80, it's pretty crazy. Even in the Scotch world, that's good. I know. Even in the Scotch world, it's a great price. You compare it to what people are paying for bourbon, especially barrel strength. Crazy. Whoa. So, it's pretty good, but here, I think, is kind of where we start getting into pretty intense Flavortown territory here. This next one I'm passing around is maybe one of my favorites of the whole bunch. This is an 11-year-old athrusk, spelled ock-roy-sk, pronounced a-thrusk. Gotta hand it to Gaelic. This is a really fantastic, this is, all it says is it's a first-use hogshead, so they don't know if it was bourbon or sherry staves that were used to create that hogshead. Hogshead is a slightly larger than a bourbon barrel. Barrel, it's the standard size in Scotland, and they make them by taking the heads off other barrels and just adding a few staves and making them a little fatter and then putting new heads back on them so they can make them out of old bourbon barrels, old sherry barrels, all kinds of stuff. Do they make them out of both? Yes, occasionally. There you go. The Frankenstein of Cooperage. Yeah. This is 59.2%. It's an 11-year-old of thrusk. You cannot get a thrusk whiskeys in the United States. There are occasionally OB bottles available at different Diageo-owned distillery visitor centers. We have a couple of thrusks floating around the chain. Potentially, in the last 10 or 15 years, there's been a limited release 25 and a limited release 20, I think. I'm talking that it was from 2011 and 2014 or something. If we have any left, we have a bottle in River Grove or something. You should have closed it out a while ago. Yeah, we should have closed it out a while ago. Bringing almost forgotten distillery to America. Yeah, and it's actually a big modern distillery. It's in the hardest bay side. It's owned by Diageo. It was opened in 1974. It's a modern malt whiskey factory. It's got a pretty big capacity compared to a lot of other ones. It was just brought online to provide a ton of malt for all these different blended Scotch brands. Johnny Walker's. Yeah, Johnny Walker Bells is a big one in Europe that Diageo owns. So it's actually kind of like the brand home of J&B Scotch. When you go there, you see a lot of like old J&B branding stuff hanging on the walls. That's interesting. Yeah, and it is a big component of the J&B blend. But it's also it's a huge warehousing facility for Diageo. They have a ton of warehouses on site. And it's also they have a very large barrel disgorgement facility that I got to see when we went there. We went there a few years ago, but they were actually dumping casts that were the beginnings of what was going to be a batch of Johnny Walker Black Label. Cool. So we were in this barrel disgorgement room that's like the size of a football field and just rows and rows of casts are lined up on these troughs on the floor and they're just dumping them and rolling them out and bringing more in and they're all getting filled into these big tanks outside that are then going to get sent down to Glasgow to be bottled. And nobody is smoking. Nobody was smoking. Isn't it some crazy number of single malts go into Johnny Water Black, like 40 or something? Something like that. What do you guys think of this? I think there might be a bit of Sherry Wood in here because it's got a bit of that kind of leathery, dark dried fruit character to it. I really like this one a lot. I think it's really robust and full bodied, chewy, a lot of really interesting layers to this one versus the first couple we've had. I agree. I really enjoy this. It's not as dry as the other ones. I could see where you're saying there's probably a little Sherry here. Also that Sherry-esque fruit. There's also a good amount of dessert spice. This kind of reminds me of speculus. What? Anyone? One of my favorite weird cookies. They're like a ginger, not quite as spicy as gingerbread, but more spices than just gingerbread. There's mason, unusually, and pepper. What is it called? Spekulus? Spekulus. They're like a Dutch cookie, and sometimes they're shaped like windmills. Is this a brand or is this a recipe? A type of cookie. A type of cookie shaped like a windmill. Man. I'm really surprised this hasn't come up before. Once again, Roger has never been off this content. Yes. That's the Wikipedia article. I don't know if that's the correct thing. Yes. Spekulus. Spekulus. They're quite delicious. They have a caramely nature to them, but they're spiced too, and I get all that in this. Well, there is a lot of sweet baking spice here, and there's some honey in there too. A lot of honey. The dusting of cocoa powder too. Raisins. Raisins and cocoa powder. This is really intense also. The intensity and compression of the fruit is dialed out. Really nice depth of flavor. Yes. It's a great whiskey. Is there any smoke in this at all? I don't really taste any smoke. No. Which sometimes when you get that much complexity, you expect a little teeny bit of a wisp of peat or something. But I think bourbon drinkers would love this. I agree. I think anybody who likes whiskey ought to love these. Yes. Well, any of these, yeah. I finished mine a while ago when Pat was still talking and I can still taste it. Yeah, this goes on. Yeah. It's really great. $79.99. Eleven-year-old, cast-strength, a thrusk. That's $79.99? Yeah. These are really stellar. Have any of these broke $100 yet? No, but like historically or? No, like price-wise. No, but the next one is $400. Yeah, check out this fancy bottle. If you think these are affordable, don't worry. There's some really nerdy ones coming. You know what, it's Binny's 75th year this year, so we did want to get like one kind of really cool whiskey to celebrate with. So going around next speaks to a lot of the things, the values I've been kind of talking about with our Single Barrel program, offering value, offering something you otherwise can't find. And this is a 29-year-old bourbon hogshead of Glen Keith. Why can't all of the labels look like this one? Yeah, because that one's only for that bottle type. So this is where I'll be. So it's in the big like decanter perfume bottle type thing in a metal tin. Glen Keith, pretty big, space-side distillery. Another one that opened somewhat recently for Scotch in 1957. It's owned by Pernod Ricard, so Chivas. And it's always been an important component in the various Chivas blends. Oh. Now we got some smoke. There it is. All right. This better blow me away. How much did you say it was? This is $3.99. A little more than the $10 a year I'd like to keep things to, but still a really great whiskey and a value considering it's a collector piece. You can't get Glen Keith. Yeah. So it's a lot of fun for that reason. Pretty intense on the nose and pretty complex on the nose. Smoke, grain, caramel. It's a lot of the stuff I'm looking for in very mature Scotch whiskey. It's got that kind of like furniture polish leathery kind of character to it. Firm oakiness, but still a lot of fruit, a lot of sweet spices, tobacco. There's a lot going on in this whiskey. Flavors that speak to a more mature whiskey. Antique store, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. Old man sitting in an old leather chair. Leather chairs. Yeah. I'm not a fan myself. You make this sound super sexy. This little meaty with the smoke for you or something? It is meaty. Sorry to say hammy again, but it's the smoked ham in a bottle. I don't think it's smoky at all. What? Yeah. I'm fairly certain that there's no peated malt in there. Well, man, it's smoky though. It's smoky. It's a wisp, but it's in there. Yeah. How'd they get that smoke in there? Maybe it's a little jarring of a transition from the previous ones because the first couple were pretty delicate. Then we ramped up with Kroisk, but this is- A thrusk. Or a thrusk, sorry, yeah. A Kroisk. I mean, that's how it's spelled. I'm so used to saying it like that years ago that, like you said, when there isn't one that you're selling that off and you forget. I can't, I can't not call my wife's car. Let's go pay. This is so dark. What do you, it's like a, it's like Jägermeister, what is this, right? We have a lot of stores now, so a bourbon barrel size of whiskey doesn't get to every store. And we like to find whiskies now that we can sell at every store. And Sherry Butts to the rescue. So we have two whiskies this year that are First Phil Oloroso Sherry Butts. So 500-liter Oloroso Sherry casks. Somebody's going to make it. Jenna, go ahead. Can I laugh at butt? Yes. You could even say we like big butts. I was going to say speak American. How many gallons is that? So both of these, like this is a 10-year-old Edredauer, First Phil Oloroso Sherry Butt. We got almost 600 bottles out of this thing. It's 59.1% alcohol. 600 bottles. Dude, this is bonkers how dark this is. Why is it so dark? That's a natural color. That's a first-use Sherry Butt. That's the kind of color it contributes to whiskey and ginger. What kind of Sherry? Sherry's not even meant dark. Oloroso. Oh. It must have been a little bit leftover. Yeah. In the... It kind of... And that's a natural color. That's amazing. I don't know how to describe it to folks listening at home. It's somewhere lighter than Jägermeister and darker than Coke. No, it looks like Dr. Pepper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it does. Wow. It's more opaque than Dr. Pepper. I don't know. I mean, when you know it's... It has this beautiful ruby when the light shines through it. When you know it's natural, it is beauteous, but you almost think, oh, this has to be like caramel coloring. It looks like a dark rum. It's crazy, right? It looks like a dark rum. Yes. I was going to say it looked like rum earlier, that I thought it was rum, and then it's whiskey. Whiskey episode. I'm sure I've mentioned this on previous episodes, but Edredauer, the distiller is actually owned by Signatory Vintage Whiskey Company. So the guy who started it, Andrew Symington, bought Edredauer in 2002. I think he actually bought it from Chivas. It had been not producing a whole lot of whiskey. It's a very small distiller anyway, very small squat stills, unpeated whiskey, but very traditional process. They have a cast iron mash ton, and it's condensed on a worm tub instead of a modern condenser. All that means really at the end of the day, it makes a pretty robust, flavorful spirit. It's one of my favorite whiskeys. When you go to the distiller itself, all of the signatory casks are aging there as well. So they have these warehouses that run up the side of this hill along a creek, and they're all full of all these different casks from all over, plus everything Edredauer is making. It's pretty cool. It is hot, spicy. Spicy? 118.2. It smells like sherry. Raj? Oh yeah, big time. Big time. The taste of it too, which is nice. And so many people might not even realize it, but a lot of the really popular, well-known, it's like second hand to someone like Brof, but all these really popular single malts that you see are for the most part aged in sherry barrels. That's something that a lot of people dig, that the sweetness, the fruitiness, it's easy to enjoy. But they're not aged in oloroso sherry butts, they're aged in sherry seasoned casks. First fill oloroso sherry. Sadly, no one drinks enough sherry as we've gone over in our, there's a shameless plug for a previous episode, all you Manzanilla maniacs, you need to go check that out. There's not enough sherry wood for people, the scotch industry to use, so they're buying sherry. They're buying sherry to season their wood. Yes, exactly, and then turning the sherry into sherry vinegar. Into vinegar. Yeah, most sherry made is turned into vinegar. That stinks. Sherry's so good. I know, it's underrated. Everyone who drank it is dead. It's true, I love sherry and I never buy it though, so I'm going to talk. Yes, it's really hard to find Sherry Butts for whiskeys, especially First Phil Oloroso Sherry Butts. And our next one is a 10-year-old Mortlock that was aged in a First Phil Oloroso Sherry Butt. And this one yielded almost 700 bottles. Whoa. Yeah. And it is another one, it's also 118.2 proof. It is also natural color and ludicrously dark. This, I will say, might be my favorite of the whole bunch. So Mortlok, we've talked before, we've bought a lot of Mortlok casts over the years because you used to not be able to get in America. They do sell it now. We have a 12 and a 16 year old at some stores, although the 16 year old has been out of stock at our distributor for months now. We've loved the Mortlok 12 year old, for example. I was just going to say, yeah, we've definitely talked about these in the past and what a great value there. Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, I forgot to mention both the Edredower and this are are $119.99, so still very reasonably priced at $120. And this Mortlok is classic Mortlok. So Mortlok, big squat fat stills known for really having that meatiness to the spirit itself. Big, oily, meaty spirit. That spirit can actually hold up to a Sherry butt like this. Like if we tried to put the Royal Broccoli into this Sherry butt, it would totally overwhelm the Broccola, right? And this spirit has the structure and the mouthfeel, the oiliness to go toe to toe with that Sherry barrel. Okay, hear me out. Trying these two next to each other. The Edredauer is like you have a handful of candy, four raisinettes to every Red Hot. Like it's Red Hots and Raisinettes, chocolate covered raisins. And this one, you take out the Red Hots and you put in honey. And it's like chocolate covered raisins with honey. Yeah, it's so good. It's so good. So good. These are both very good. Yeah. This Moorlach, though, I think it's just unbelievable. Both 10 years old. It's grace. It's complexity. It's all hedonism. It's all hedonistic notes. People that love Macallan but wish they would bottle stuff at Hire Proof need to check this Moorlach out. You love Glendronic and how heavily Sherry that stuff is, but it's gotten hard to find and expensive. Check out this Moorlach. This is 10 years old? 10 years, cast strength. If they made a 10 year cast strength Moorlach OB, it would be like $400. Probably. There was a non-age stated Moorlach OB that was part of the Diageo Limited Releases last year or the year before that was like $400. Have you thought about raising the prices? These are both great. I think this is like the level up from the last one, like the Evolved Pokemon. I mean, it's a different being. It's more refined. It's the Raichu to Eddard Dower's Pikachu. Yes. Same but different, same but elevated. In the Obscured Dessert category, this is very much Old English Fruitcake. I have Golden Sutanas and Dates, Raisin, Fig. I mean, it's the whole Cornucopia of dried fruit. The whole spectrum of dried fruit. I don't know where Chris is right now, but wherever he is, he just felt shivers all over his entire body. Yes, Chris also a big fan of the, you left out the great nickname of Mortlock. It's the Beast of Dufton. The Beast of Dufton, yes. It's distilled 2.81 times because a small fraction of the distillate sees a third distillation in a very tiny still called the Wee Witchy. True story. I can't decide which one of the to make the, wasn't that your nickname in college? Okay, to double down on Roger Excitement and Giddiness, my next one here is an 11-year-old Caol Ila. Caol Ila. Caol Ila, one of the nine distilleries on Islay. 11 years old, 60.5% alcohol, so 121 proof. This was age in a second Phil Madeira Hogshead. Nice. I was just about to say that the last one definitely, and besides just Sherry, know it's very much reminded me of Madeira. Well, wait until you taste this one. But does it have that Caol Ila, Iodiney? No. I would not describe Caol Ila as having an Iodiney thing. Caol Ila has a very clean, meaty peat smoke like beachside barbecue kind of smoke. The smoke is very much tamed by- Beachside barbecue? Yes. Beachside barbecue. The Brophy 60s beachside barbecue film of the Single Maltz. You ladies here for the mollusks? What is a beachside barbecue? I don't know, like it's a barbecue. What is he talking about? I have no idea. No, I'm talking like I'm picturing him on a beach with a bottle of scotch and a sack of mollusks. Like a bonfire on the beach and you got a spit of roast meat over a bonfire on a beachside. You know, a little bit of saltiness in the air, just a clean, meaty smoke. So Caol Ila is a pretty big distillery. It's the, I believe the largest on Ila. And it's the workhorse for peated whiskeys for Diageo. So all like the smoke in your Johnny Walkers and stuff. That's all coming out of Caol Ila. This smells like when you go inside of the restaurant area of a Cracker Barrel. Inside the restaurant? Oh, because it's smoky. What, the smoking section? The smoky and the meatiness. And like, that's what it smells like to me. I think this whiskey is charming. It's really, really fantastic on the palate. It gets all that Madeira character comes out. It's nutty and it's oily in texture. And it's got a little bit of that burnt citrus peel type of thing to it. I was gonna say a citrus brightness. Yeah, and it's- And it makes it like the citrus and the smoke, like the smoke plays coy with the citrus and it peaks out from under it. Yeah, it's not that over-the-top smoky at all, even though Coley itself is a very smoky whiskey. Now I want biscuits and gravy. Yes, that's exactly what I was smelling in my brain when I smelled that. I get what you're saying. This is very good, but it's just still too smoky for me. Well, you're not gonna like the next one. I figured. I will say that the smoke is more, again, of like a fruit smoke, so like a cherry wood, kind of like a bacon-y, as opposed to some of the really smoky Ila whiskies people struggle with because they evoke like ashtray, cigar, campfire. Yeah. This is lighter and fruitier, probably because of the Madeira too. It's not as tarry of a smoke as Ardbeg or LaFrog. It doesn't have the iodine character of a LaFrog. It's a clean smoke. It's not like the next one we try has a peatiness to it that's very earthy and dirty in character. I don't think Caol Ila Peat has that. It's more Brophy's beachside spit-roasted ham as opposed to sailors burning old ropes next to the sea. It's a cherry wood bonfire on the beachside with a ham on a spit, and then they garnished it with a little slice of lemon. You know, I was painting a beautiful scene, you f***s. I could give you to start a candle company. It was cute for you to share your dream with us. Yeah, someday that is Brophy's heaven. Last one of the signatory lineup for the year is an eight-year-old Stoisha, which is the heavily-peated distillate coming out of Boonehaven, Boonehaven, also an Islay Distillery. Of the nine distillers in Islay, it's one of the two known for not peeding their whiskeys. However, in the early 90s, they started producing some peated outrun just for blending stock every year. This is heavily-peated, eight years old. It is in a de-char, re-char hogshead, so they shave the char layer off and re-toast and char it. What's the first word you said? Stoisha? Stoisha. Stoisha. That's what they call the heavily-peated distillate. It sounds like a Soviet radio station. Yeah. Hello, Radio Europe. This is Rock and Roll Pirate Radio. Radio Stoisha. Stoisha. Coming at you. We've been bottling Stoisha since they were actually only four years old. They drink remarkably well young. One of the things we always, always, always look for when we're in Scotland is a single-digit age-stated heavily-peated whiskey because we love them, and they always sell out. That's always the first thing to sell out. Okay. I actually think this is less smoking than the last one. Really? I mean, they like measure it in parts per million. I just like, going back to Pat saying, I wouldn't like this because of the last one. I think it's peatier in flavor than the last one. You think the brightness to it is from that it's the youth, like more of the whiskeys coming through? Yeah, I think so. It's heavily-peated, but it's not Ardbeg or LaFroyg level. It just seems so much brighter than everything we've been drinking, and I'm thinking that has to be maybe that the grain character is coming through more, less of the wood or? I mean, the last three things you had were all in fortified wine casks. I think the Stoisha is, no, I think the Caol Ila is a brighter or more citric. Yeah, the Caol Ila has got that citrus character to it where this one really doesn't. I was going to make a joke about how Scottish people, what crazy spelling they would have for Stoisha, but they spelled it Stoisha. S-T-A-O-I-S-H-A? Yeah. I mean, I might put a Y in there somewhere, but yeah, they pretty much got it right. So I mentioned Bunahaven normally unpeated. So if you go to your local Binny's and you look at the Bunahaven 12 on the shelf, that's 60 bucks or whatever it is, that's an unpeated whiskey. So of your nine distilleries on the island, Bunahaven and Brook Laddie are unpeated. They both make peated stock, but they call it something else. So Bunahaven, the peated stuff is Stoisha, Brook Laddie, the peated stuff is Port Charlotte. Quick trivia question, how many letters are in Bunahaven? B-U-N-N-A-H-B-H-A-I-N. A-I-N? Yeah. So how many was that? That's literally what Roger asked you. You spelled it. You didn't answer his question. He ran out of fingers. Yeah. Definitely ran out of fingers. Another great single malt distillery name. Bunahaven? Bunahaven. When you read it, it's been mispronounced, understandably mispronounced. A-H-U-N-A-P-U. Bunahaven. I really like this. Really? I do. You like it? This is the first peated whiskey I think I've ever given you that you like. Yes, that is correct. Well, so it really dials up the bourbon-like graininess and the robust baking spice. So maybe you like that richness? It is smokier than the previous one, but the smoke here, like you said, it's not necessarily a burning moldy rope, but it's thuggish and heavy, and it's balanced out by the really broad caramely body of this thing. Yeah. It's got a little pop of vanilla and toffee in there too. I think a lot of that's coming from the reconditioned cask. I was just going to say, you think some of that's like, when it says it's reconditioned, is it more akin to a new oak barrel? Kind of. Yeah. I mean, they're scraping off the char layer and some of the toast layer that old whiskey is seeped into and stuff, and they're re-toasting deeper into the wood. So they're bringing out fresh character. Do they char it again? Yeah. So de-char, re-char. De-char, re-char, yeah. With another toast round too. Well, it gets toasted while it gets charred, yeah. I mean, I'm definitely getting one of your favorite words, lactones. Oh, yeah. Big time. Yeah. And there's that vanilla. So again, the bourbon fans, although they're usually a lot of times scared of scotch because of the smoke, but this is a delicious smoke. So again, if you like bourbon and barbecue, boom. Yeah, done. I'm trying to think of the name of the singer of the band. Bourbon and barbecue? No, like Tommy James and the lactones. Loretta Lynn and the lactones. Here you go. Got your alliteration down. That's a really interesting whiskey. How much does that cost? I don't know. Do your homework. God. Working on it. Where's the UPC? I got it. It's this one, right? $69.99. Holy cow. Seriously? What? That's actually phenomenal. That's phenomenal. I was not expecting that. Well, if I've learned something here today, it's that I like to drink cheaper. What was our Caol Ila price? I should have checked that too. What ratio? $119.99. So the Ederdauer Mortlach and Caol Ila, all $120 and that Bunahaven $70. Nice. I really like the Caol Ila. I really like the Mortlach. I'm going to go back and try this Glen Keith one more time. Yeah. Well, now you've thrashed your tongue with some pitted stuff. Yeah, which means all the grace is going to pop right out at the top of this. Yeah, that's true. What was the first one? The very first one we tried was the North British. That was my favorite. Yeah. It was the sweetest one. The Scottish Weller. Yeah. Well, that checks out. It was, I just liked the fruitier character. Sweet, creamy, tons of coconut and vanilla. Just crowd pleaser, for sure. What's the, yeah, Bill, what's that? Bro, you think I would show up without bonus bottles? Come on. No, you want to do a bonus episode where we try something else? I mean, I only have this one thing, but it's a peach brandy barrel aged bourbon. I do want to try that. Shut the f*** up, you fun sponge. It tastes like peach ring candies. You're supposed to, I brought this just because I knew Roger would like it. I like real peaches, not peach ring candies. Can't you like both? I like peach ring candies until I realized that they were made out of pig knuckle. Holy cow. I mean, that only makes them better. That's how you get that meaty texture. You ever have the peachy penguins? Those are always a mind cramp. What are those? They are shaped like adorable little penguins, black and white penguins. You can bite the head off them. But yet they taste like peaches. Really? Makes no sense. Did they make your teeth black? All right. Peach Brandy finished. What? This is a Nulu Bourbon Handpicked Single Barrel finished in Peach Brandy Barrel. This is a handpick? Yep. You guys, 58% alcohol. You were selling this short. This is more a canned peaches, not a peaturing can. Okay. Listen, I got the can and the peach. We just had a couple extra letters in my D. This is the peachiest peach. It's so awesome. It's so peachy. Yeah. How did they get all that peach in there? It's a flavor blasted bourbon. It is. We have a few new single barrels from them. I wrote them up in the Whiskey Hotline email a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. You could still find them out of Binny's near you. I think they're 100 bucks. This one might be 80 bucks. So they're a little expensive, but in the grand scheme of bourbon, they're the same price as every other bourbon. This is amazingly layered single malt with just volumes of complexity, barrel strength, or you get this peachy penguin juice. It's up to you. Whatever floats your boat. I didn't intend for this to be part of the Scotch episode. It was just a fun treat to pull out of the box. What a weird one. What a weird one though, right? What do the other ones taste like? Did you get one that's the cherry? I like cherry balls. We got an Apple Brandy and what they call a maple brulee barrel. What? It's a maple brulee. It's maple syrup. Maple and they lit it on fire. But it's like legit syrup. Sometimes you get a maple syrup barrel and you're like, oh, there's a hint of maple there. This one tastes like they poured maple syrup into the bourbon. I want that. I want that one. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, and there was another one too. I forget what it was. There was Peach Maple. There was an Apple Brandy. Oh, there was a Vanilla Cognac Barrel. Yeah, the vanilla one. It was in a vanilla-flavored Cognac Barrel. Vanilla-flavored Cognac? In a barrel. In a barrel. And then the bourbon was in it. Yeah. So is Nulu an acronym or? Nulu is a neighborhood. It's between downtown and Butchertown. It's just a super hip neighborhood in Louisville. It's where our Royals Chicken is that we always go to and Garage Bar. I think Greg's been to Garage Bar. Garage Bar is sick. I love that place. Yeah. That's it. That neighborhood is Nulu. N-U-L-U. Is that where we drank and got a bunch of food when we were there last year? Yeah. We got a bunch of pizzas and a flight of ham. Yes. Yeah. We got a flight of country ham. They got rid of the oysters, but they kept the flights of ham. Yeah. They know they're on it. That's where I bought my cat t-shirt. They had that fest going on. Yeah. There was that big street festival going on. You bought the cat. You and Stephanie Kain had bought cat t-shirts. I think what's cool, and you've been saying this for years, about single malt is that we could sit down and try this many different bourbons, and there's so much congruence of flavor. There's gonna be nuance depending on maybe age or slight variables between distilleries, but- Barrel treatment, grain, matchbill, and these- You line up this many different single malts, and they're so varied. Well, because all the bourbon producers are using the same kind of barrel. And they char it a bunch, or they char it a little? Yeah. And they're using the same. I mean, these guys are all using the same barley, but they're using all kinds of different barrels in different warehouses, in different locations. The stills are all different. That contributes a huge factor to the flavor of the whiskey. So- And then these are taken out of those original distilleries and then treated additionally in a different warehouse somewhere else. Yeah. And you get something that's like, really, there's no qualitative angle on the word unique. Each one has its own unique trajectory, its own unique provenance, of course. It's very unique. Very unique drives me nuts. I do think too that it's always been a Binny's priority to bring people really good value in addition to exceptional quality. With these bottles, we joke around that they're pretty plain Jane, and to the point, they have improved over the years. There's some nice glow to them now. It is a reaffirmation of that what's inside the bottle matters more than the packaging. Yes. I mean, it's a classic, don't judge a book by its cover. Then with single malts, there's some pretension with some of the packaging. They spend a lot of money to make it look fabulous. I'm like, oh, because it's so much of it's tied into gifting and everything else. Absolutely true. The colors, the boxes that they come in, the weird artist collaborations and photographer collaborations, and designer clothing collaborations. Disgusting. Yeah. Yeah. Here you've got amazing whiskey at a fraction of the price. I will say I was at a dinner, a Scotch supplier dinner earlier this week, where we tasted a 42-year-old Scotch with a $9,000 retail price. I do not think it was as good as this Glen Keith that's $400. So you're paying for packaging and prestige and name with so much in the ultra-age Scotch market. Whereas when you get something like this Glen Keith, that's properly mature Scotch, still at a relatively accessible price point. After the bruisers from later in the tasting going back to Glen Keith, it tastes like pear-drop candies. I got to revisit it now too. With white pepper. That's really good. There's something new every single time I taste it. Yeah. It's that kind of whisky. Those are the ones that always impressed me most when I pour them, when I sample them, I'm sitting at a desk retrying things, sample it. I just nose it and I was like, oh, okay, and I just put it down and I go back to it an hour later and it's totally changed and I just go to it throughout the day and you get something different every time. I was really impressed with all these. I was really excited to, when you mentioned you were going to do this, I was, please make sure that I'm here because I always like Signatory. They do offer such good things and then you guys obviously pick excellent offerings from them. My favorite of the bunches is probably the Othrusk and the Mortlock. Obviously, the Glen Keith is great. They're all great. The Caol Ila and Madeira was really good too. I don't know. It's tough because I can't buy all eight of these. I got to like pick and choose one or two. So we'll see. We'll see what I end up going home with. But these are going to sell out fast. I mean, a lot of these are Bourbon barrels or Bourbon hogsheads or just a regular or a different kind of hogshead. But you're only talking a couple hundred bottles across 45 stores. 45 stores, 220 bottles is not. And a lot of customers. These do sell out every year. So if you're interested, get them while you can. If you want any more information about stuff like this, just email spirits of binnys.com and one of us will get back to you. Totally. Yep. All right. Dig it. People need to try if they're hesitant with single malts. This beast of Dufton, they need to give this a try. Yeah, this more this more locks crazy. You're going to be able to get this more lock. Six hundred eighty two bottle outturn. It's in stock, I think, at pretty much every location. That I really think is the star of the show this year. And it's an easy winner of a scotch for anybody who's somebody is a scotch fan and you know, you struggle to get them a gift or something. This is obviously something they haven't tried. It's a single barrel offering. It's cast drank. It's check in all the boxes for for whiskey nerds and scotch lovers. These are these are easy things that tell a story. And and and they're really just singular experiences and whiskey instead of just another offshoot from a brand they're familiar with and are going to go back to many times over. Yeah. I mean, how often there's so many beautiful single malts out there and so few people know enough of the houses, it's like, oh, you like single malt, what kind? McCallum. It's like, are you trying anything else? Bellvini. Like, I mean. Yeah. Well, people people people pick a lane and stay in it. And, you know, there's a lot more out there than just the grocery store brands. You should pick the signatory lane. Yeah. You are going to have more variety, at least and better value. Yeah. Hey, if you enjoy single malt scotches, you enjoy listening to us blather on about it on a podcast, do us a favor, leave us a review on the podcast platform of your choice. Until then, we'll be back in your feed with something else next week. Maybe wine. Maybe it will be boring. We'll have to see. Barley wine, the best of wines. Oh, yeah, we do. We do have our our 44th iteration of a barley wine podcast coming soon. We'll talk to you next week. Until then, I'm Pat. I'm Greg. I'm Roger. I'm Jenna. Keep tasting.