Welcome back to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Pat from the Specialty Spirits Department. A few other people in the room with me today. Hey, I'm Chris. I do wine, drink some spirits, and cocktails. I'm Roger. I work in beer. So I grabbed some random new whiskeys on the shelves, and we're going to taste them today. That's it. Cool. That's the whole episode. Excellent. So I got a box full of whisky, and we're going to give our thoughts on them. We're going to start with bourbon. But the first one we're starting with is kind of different. It's a new product from Jim Beam. It's the Jim Beam Sunshine Blend Special Release Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky. It says right here on the side, it's made for your favorite bourbon cocktail. And then it says drink it any damn way you please. But I would think that they would- As long as it's in a cocktail, apparently. I would think they would, if this is supposed to be, and the top says mixing and sharing, that they would bump up the proof a little. 80 proof. I'm going to mix 80 proof spirits. I feel like they're going to- It's what plenty of people do. The kids these days, they don't like all that high alcohol. It is only 80 proof as Roger has lamented here. However, this is kind of interesting. So it's a blend of the traditional Jim Beam, and then their brown rice bourbon. It's half Jim Beam white label, half brown rice bourbon. Remember when they did those half-sized bottles of those experiments? Those were excellent. Those were really good. Yeah, those were really good. The brown rice was the best of them, in my opinion. People were, of course, snobs about them. They were like, I'll never forget that. Recommending those people would say, I'm not a big Jim Beam drinker. They would all stuck up about it. It's like, you drink Knob Creek or Basil Hayden or Baker's. That's crazy because the quality in those bottles was off the charts. I think this is pretty tasty. So their whole thing is like just straightforward, cocktailing whiskey. It's got a pretty robust body for 80 proof. I like this is shockingly rich and full for only an 80 proof whiskey. I agree. And the nose is nice, too. The nose has a lot of character. Yeah. And maybe it's just the power of subjection, but I think it does telegraph brightness, fruity, a little minerally, a little bit of that limestone kind of thing going on. A little vitamin. I'm guessing this is just coming in 750s then. To my knowledge, it's not here yet. This is a special sneak peek straight from the liquor buying office. What kind of do you know what kind of price point they want to put it at? I think it's under 20 bucks, I think. OK. So be great with ginger ale or ginger beer. It's true. Yeah, it would. Specifically, L8-1, if you're familiar with Ale 81. Ale 81. But in Kentucky, it's just pronounced L8-1. It's super high caffeine ginger ale that's like only sold in central Kentucky. Caffeinated ginger ale? But like three times the caffeine of regular sodas, ginger ale, like super caffeinated. Huh. Oh, it's so good. I'll bring you some sometime. Yeah, I've never had that. Man, you really are just this the Kentucky trail that you have. It's it really should be its own version of the Bourbon Trail that involves these gun store hams and the Brophy Trace. It's the rec steves of central Kentucky. Did I tell you about the that you can't get the gun store ham anymore? You did, yeah. You said they proudly refused to adhere to whatever government regulations, so they disabled it and were done. I'm going to write them a letter and see if they'll like, if I can buy one on the ham gray market. As long as it's not the gray ham market because that would be gross. Well, that was interesting. I like that. Sneak peek coming soon, I guess. That was the sample bottle dropped off for the buyers. We'll follow up with pricing when we have it. I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that was the surprise of the day already. Yeah. Is that good? What? When I saw the proof and I'm like, no, you sh** on it immediately. Just be honest. I did not expect it to have. I'm glad it wasn't washed out. It had a lot of character. All right, more new bourbon. Next up, we've got the new one from J. Reiger & Co. They're out of Kansas City. So for years, we've carried their Kansas City Whiskey, which is a blend of bourbons that actually has a little bit of sherry blended into it. Some older also sherry blended into it. This is a straight bourbon, a sweet mash straight bourbon. And it is 56% corn, 30% rye, a lot of rye, 14% malted barley. And this is brand new. And it is definitely the Roger Adamson Nice Price Guarantee. This baby's only $34.99. Nice. Just hit. 90 proof. Everything is, I believe, four to five and a half years old, something like that. Distilled, aged, bottled, all in Kansas City there. This is interesting. If I tasted this blind and didn't know what it was, there's things about it that make me remind me of like Canadian whiskey. There's a sweetness to it. There's like a delicate candied sweetness to it. There is almost like to me a little hint of banana candy to it. But the Gros Michel. Yes, obviously. I mean, all banana candy is muddled after the Gros Michel. Let's be real. There's a fruitiness there that reminds me of brandy. Definitely fruity and that high rye, there's some spice to it, but it's not crazy. I think it's shockingly tamed for 30% rye. I was just going to say that. When I was smelling it, I'm like, I'm not getting all of that rye in the nose. There is some dry spice on the finish, but it doesn't seem commensurate with the mash bill. 34.99, man. I am all day on this. I think the packaging is great. The liquid is really good. This is available at every Binny's. We actually have J. Reiger, co-founder. Ryan may be coming in at the end of September here to do a couple of seminars, I think one in Lincoln Park and one in Oakbrook. I think we're going to have them on the podcast. We had them on the podcast years ago, but we got a lot of new developments there to talk about. That's a good whiskey. A lot of complexity. Yeah. I feel like as more people get into bourbon, especially since a lot of them are old beer geeks, they want variations, they want things that taste different, and this does. I mean, it's not just like a run-of-the-mill bourbon. I'd call it on the drier end of the bourbon spectrum too. But also there's a sweetness and a spiciness. Yeah. I would call it fruity and spicy. Well, I feel like the palate is relatively dry, but I think fruit pops out. Yeah. But that's just me. Absolutely. For people that aren't quite ready to believe in rye, we'll get you a little taste of what you're missing out on. Yeah. Solid bargain. I'm still a bit befuddled why people are so into bourbon, but won't give more rye as a chance. Well, I'm going to force some on you later. Next up, here's a new one from Bardstown Bourbon Company. This is the latest in their Origin series. So the Origin series, I know they have all these different series and price points and collabs and stuff. Origin stuff is their own make, their own label. So not anything blended in. So forever, we had some of their young stuff blended with sourced older stuff that was kind of their core lineup. Now, we've arrived on their actual own stuff, distilled, matured, bottled everything on site. And this is the latest. This is a weeded bourbon. And listen to this mashbill. Fifty three percent corn, thirty nine percent wheat. That is the highest out there by a good chunk. And this is a six year old bourbon. It's interesting because you're holding the bottle away from me. And I was thinking, is that is that wheat? That is wheat on the back of the bottle. It's a cool bottle. It looks like a, I don't know, almost like a single malt or a Japanese single malt or something. It smells like a wheat whiskey. I'll tell you that. This is not here yet, but the other Bardstown Origins stuff is between 45 and $60. Oh, OK. I would expect it to be right in there. That's nice to see. Some of their stuff has been good, but it's been like crazy expensive. Yeah, some of their Discovery series that are all like $170. Good amount of oak on the nose. Yeah. I mean, it's mature bourbon, six-year bourbon. This is the sweet spot. Of note, their master distiller was the longtime master distiller in Maker's Mark, so he knows what he's doing. He knows the way around the wheat. Yeah. He knows the wheat from the chaff. What's the proof on this? 106. It's not that high. Just wasn't ready for it, I guess, after that sweet soft sunshine blend. Right. This definitely has some kick. There's some horsepower there. It's not hiding. Very full richness to the finish. Cut down. Any bourbon in that proof is going to have a fuller, richer finish and body to it. I've liked their stuff a lot. Last year, the Bottled & Bond Origin was one of my favorite things I had last year. I think this would be great with a big ice cube, just to very softly dilute it and chill it a little bit. I agree. I think this one could use a splash of water or some ice, but it's quite good. I think the nose shows a lot of stone fruit, and it smells like a weeded bourbon. I think it's good. There's a lot of alcohol. I'm going to put a little splash in, see what happens. Oh, man. As I so often find, I put a little drop of water in there, and the nose just explodes. Oh, yeah. Incredible. Wow. It smells great with water. That's something people need to be more willing to do with bourbon. So much of the culture around it now is like the proof and the hazmat and stuff like that. Which is bonkers that people are drinking cast-strength bourbon and not putting anything in it. Right. Just drinking neat. How's that esophagus feeling? It actually amplifies the body sometimes too. I mean, it sounds counterintuitive, but because you're evaporating off some of that higher tone alcohol, it's actually leaving more of the richer, fattier elements behind. I mean, think of, there's a lot of room to play with between a hazmat proof, you're looking at 140 and then 80. There is a world of difference in there. You can add some water, people. A few drops of water, come on, let's be real. I don't want it to taste diluted. Well, you're not tasting everything that's there. So much of what's there is chemically locked on to alcohol molecules that you're missing half of the bourbon, arguably. That's what I'm saying. I mean, this thing just blossomed with a little bit of water, it just opened wide up. It was a whiskey fest one year and this guy, there's always a huge line for the BTEC, you know, like the Buffalo Trey stuff. And he just threw back his stag and started, like I have a feeling he probably like inhaled it a little bit, like it probably went down the wrong pipe. He was just hacking. Pretty cool one next, I grabbed one of our new handpicks of Still Austin bourbon. So this is barrel number 008, that ends in 2020 slash 008 slash one. This is about four years old, this is cast, almost cast rank, this is 116 proof. And I'll explain that as we go, because they, in my opinion, this is probably the best tasting bourbon coming out of Texas. There's a lot of distilleries in Texas now, and a lot of them are just over extracted and disgusting. Part of that is serious. Part of that, when you're in a desert like that, you get a huge angel's share, and you get this really extracted wood character. You get that in the mountains, and you get it in the desert, and it's hard to blend that out, because there's really nothing you can do about it. What was that brand from there that was the Brothers? Garrison Brothers. Yeah. I think we sell plenty of their stuff, but it's not for me. Their story was wild about how their first batch, they just. They had nothing left. Nothing. They opened the barrels in their dry barrels. Bone dry. I'm like, whoops. They hadn't aged it that long. It was just a year or two, but the climate just- Just refill them with water and then sell that. Suck it back out of the wood. So I'm curious to see what you guys think of this. We've got, I think, three of them came in recently and maybe a rye too. How long have they been around for? A bit. Let me hang on. I want to say 2014, they started. They've got a funny story. This father-son duo started it and the son is an economist. Then the father was like a retired marketing professional. He was inspired and like, I'll start a distillery in my retirement and the son was like, slow down. Why don't we do a couple of years of touring other distilleries and the son, the whole time thinking like this will get it out of his system and they won't actually do this. Then they finished it up and we're like, yeah, we could do this. So they started up eventually. They hired Nancy Fraley, who's a noted blender for hire. She does a lot of different projects for a lot of smaller craftier distilleries. She got a lot of training with classic brandy production. What she's brought here that I think really helps actually make this whiskey drinkable and delicious is that they water it down like you would with Cognac or Armagnac in France, where she calls it Elavage, I think, but you're slowly watering it down Interesting. It's kept it from like, you compare this to some of those other Texas ones that just tastes like you just got dragged through a lumber yard. I mean, that's a brilliant solution to their problem. Totally. Totally. That's really interesting. The word Elavage just means to age basically, the length of aging. Watering it back all along the way is a really interesting proposition. Yeah. So Nancy Fraley is their master blender, and this is the first project of all the different things she's involved in, where her name is actually attached to it. Because otherwise, she's just in the background. There's a lot going on here. This is a great release for this upcoming months. I feel like it has a very autumnal character. There's like fruit and slats of spice and... I agree. The spices resonate kind of as savory spices, but also some sweet brown spice and definitely fruity. Yeah. I get like a lot of all spice. The distillery broke ground in 2014, but they didn't begin distilling until 2017. It's the only thing about Austin that's still Austin. You're no longer weird, okay? Yeah. They got a whole new group of people to sell product to now. The whole world is moving to Austin. Everything they do is toasted and charred barrels. So toasted, charred number three. You're seeing that more and more with newer distilleries, kind of leaning into the toast. Interestingly, so they run on a big column still like they should, but it's from Forsythes in Scotland, which is essentially the Ven Dome of Scotland. You go to any distillery in Scotland, everything is Forsythes. And here, it tends to be Ven Dome out of Louisville. So that's kind of interesting. Why do you think they did that? I think it was what was available, you know. Ven Dome has a huge waiting list. Interesting. Yeah, so slow water reduction, they're calling it. I think that's what- They are calling it a lavage too. Somewhat brilliant. Yeah. Now you have to do that with brandies really. If you just add the water at the back end with brandy and you do it too fast, you get all this crazy flocculation called saponification. But it's not an issue with whiskey, but it can happen in whiskey, but it's a big thing with brandies. Nobody wants a supine brandy. Their Rick house is temperature controlled? No. They're crediting that with reducing the impact of the smoky phenolic character from the wood, and it helps the spirit break down more sugar, wood sugars. It definitely has that sweet oak character to it. Part of that is toasting too, for sure. It's very rich. Yeah. These are awesome and they should not be slept on. The first time we did a barrel with them, I think last year, it sold out in a week. This time around, we're like, okay, we should get a couple this time around. They're not cheap. They're $69.99. Not bad. We've got three bourbons and two rising stock. Again, this is Bourbon Barrel 008. There's definitely plenty of vanilla in here, but there's also a little bit of that drying tannin that is the problem, that gets to be too much, but it's still there, but it's in a proper proportion. Toasted barrel is definitely going to bring more vanilla coconut to the party, but this isn't like overtly toasted like you see on some of those specifically toasted barrel, limited releases, things like that. I think the key to if you're going to be spending a little more money on bourbon, I like when this expresses in a unique way, or it doesn't just remind me of a very traditional bourbon. Right. What does this taste like? I mean, it has a fruit character to it that's not necessarily a very common bourbon characteristic that I would say you find in a lot of bourbons. But between the fruitiness and the spiciness and the plushness, it's a unique bottle. Yeah. Kick-ass whisky, and which I don't say about a lot of Texas whiskies. Brophy, clearly okay with messing with Texas. Yeah. Well, he's a Kentucky boy. Next, slightly more expensive whisky. It's dark as night. So we got some of the first sherry barrel casks from Angel's Envy. So classic Angel's Envy, known for being a port barrel finish. They have expanded their handpick program to now include some sherry casks. They have a very small amount of them, only a handful for the country. We are the only people in Illinois that got any. And we got three. Quite an interesting bottle. Yeah, so they have a new bottle design for handpicks specifically. You will see this even the regular bourbon is in this bottle now. They are actually, they are going through some packaging changes in Angel's Envy. And this is cask number CE055. Again, we have three of these in the store right now. I will bottle that 116 proof. I had them all open. I just grabbed one. I didn't think about, you know, I didn't taste them first or anything. It smells pretty awesome. I was going to say the nose is delightfully sherry. Yeah. We tend to go for the, you know, the big dumb obvious ones, but they are the most fun in my opinion. Like if you are going to do a barrel finished, like it should be driving the car, you know, just loads of that prune and plum and spiced fig and leather and tobacco. Wow. All of that. Yeah, there's a lot going on in these whiskeys. Yeah. Do they happen to say like what the style of sherry it is? Oloroso. Yeah. Because there's definitely some savory qualities here. It's not just all sweet. Agree. Like I was kind of, since they are so famous for their port finished, I was thinking like, yeah, like sweeter, fruitier, but this is like, you know, like you're saying leathery, nutty, like. Absolutely. Now, they are proud of these. These are currently on sale for $135. Well, it's pretty damn good. Yeah. This, I feel, too, will open up even more with some water. Just did it. Yeah. Brings out even more of that nutty, sherry, dark fruit. And again, even enhances the body on it, too. Just because all you're doing when you're, well, I mean, among many things that's happening when you're adding water is you're separating that chemical. So all these like fatty lipids and oils bond molecular to the alcohol molecules during distillation, and water breaks that chemical bond. So that's why you see it get a little like oily and cloudy. So once you break that chemical bond, the lightest thing in there is the alcohol. So then it can evaporate out and you leave behind everything else. So even though you're watering it down, again, it sounds counterintuitive. You're actually, in essence, making it thicker and fuller. Thank you, chemistry, for your weak molecular bonds. Hail science. I mean, there's a hint of like sea breeze, seaweed, umami. Interesting. There's a lot of stuff going on in this to me. It's really strikingly dark whiskey too. It is. The night was starless in Bible Black. Yeah, I'm intrigued by how complex and that it's not just... I pictured like this would be like PX-y and just raisinated. Just big and gloppy. Yeah, and it's not at all. It's not bad. Huh, very interesting. I'm glad they're doing this. So the only other time that they've done a Sherry Barrel release was very limited from their like seller collection or whatever they called it. It was a few hundred dollars and was one of those things where we were lucky to get even like three bottles of store. And then they re-released it in that little bookcase collection they did last fall. I don't know if you remember seeing those. And those were essentially held back half-sized bottles from those original releases. So that was done specifically for the collector market and they were priced for the collector market. They were 500 bucks or something. So it's nice having seen their... Because really they were the first ones at scale to focus on barrel finishing with American whiskeys. And I like seeing them flex their muscles with stuff like this. At, you know, with some level of availability and some level of affordability. $150 isn't just something that anybody's going to drop on a whiskey. But this is a special whiskey and it's worth sharing. Yeah, this to me is the future of bourbon or these finishes, you know, and that they're not just a foregone conclusion that it's going to be great. Like, they can, there's some pitfalls. So to your point, they were, this was their thing from the get go. So they continue to do an excellent job with it. Huh, very interesting. All right, moving on to some rye. Here is Beyoncé's new whiskey. Are you a queen bee or is she? She stole it from me, actually. So Beyoncé has a whiskey now because that's the world we live and work in, apparently. But the good news is it's really awesome. Dare I say annoyingly good. Quite the bottle. It looks like a giant perfume bottle. Yeah. Well, she is in the fragrance business too. So this is Sir Davis. It is named after her, I think, great-great-grandfather, Davis Hoag, who was a farmer and moonshiner down in Texas because every farmer was also a moonshiner back then. This was developed with Dr. Bill Lumsden from Moet Hennessey, who's the master blender for Artbeg, Glenmore & Gee, things like that. So no shock that it is barrel finished. So it's a rye whiskey that is finished in PX Sherry casks. But it's not just any rye, this is Jiboy's favorite MGP rye mash, Bill. So you may recall that is 51 percent rye, 49 percent malted barley. A very non-traditional rye. And this is 88 proof, 44 percent alcohol. Wow. This is really different. And it's got a horse on it. So if Blanz has taught us anything, it's that this will be highly allocated and collectible. That is different. It's sweet up front. It finishes with herbal rye. Yeah. Very aromatic. I mean, the grain is there. I mean, it's very grain forward. Yeah. I'm curious how many people are, this is not going to be like something that many people have tasted. It's definitely different. I mean, it's nutty and floral at the same time. They kind of took some inspiration from Japanese whiskey, supposedly. It's another one where it's not cheap. The suggested retail price is 89.99. Of course, at times, we will be running it lower. It has a very like savory, leathery, earthy, I mean, saddlebags. Sticking with the horse theme. Yeah. Not at all what I was going to guess. I get a lot of flowers and fruit in the nose though. Yeah. I agree. I agree with the fruit at least. It's got, I mean, it's more than just the expected raisin. Yeah. It's floral for sure. There's dark fruit. Do you know what the yeast they're using? Are they using something that would be used in a Japanese whiskey maybe? I doubt it because they're just buying whatever MGP's making. Oh, that's right. I forgot about that aspect of it. There is like, there's a bit of that mintiness from rye but not a ton. But that kind of mixed with that kind of dark bramble fruit. Yeah. I mean, I assume all that fruitiness is coming from the barley. I would think so. The nose is tremendous. I love the nose. The nose has got this big florality. I mean, it's very perfumed. Yeah. Agreed. I mean, you said perfume bottle when I was already thinking this is so floral. I just I'm just surprised by how like dry and earthy and savory it is. It's very interesting. I dig it. A lot of people are looking for it so far. Should put some water in that. Holy cow. That is transformative. Really? Brings out more rye with water. Had you read anything about why she went with a rye instead of like a bourbon or? You can't trust anything they say about this stuff. As far as I'm concerned. It's pretty interesting. It's definitely unconventional. Yeah. She's kind of known for being a big Japanese whiskey fan. So this whole thing was kind of confusing. It's interesting. It's a very different, very distinctive. Yeah. I enjoy it though. Fun whiskey. Okay, very different take on rye whiskey here. This is an interesting looking bottle. Oh, this is, it comes in this big metal tube, too, that I, of course, threw away. So next up, we're going to try a whiskey called Rye Law. For the record, I think it's a dumb name, from the Inch Dairne distillery out of Fife, Scotland. Fife is just north of Edinburgh, kind of the breadbasket of Scotland, grow a lot of barley in the region, and rye is grown as a cover crop in the winter. So they're making some use of it now. And there's a few distilleries in Scotland that are starting to make rye. Inch Dairne started by an ex-diageo, I want to say exact, this guy Ian Palmer. It's a very cool distillery. We toured it, not this year, but the last year, I think, when we were over there. Very state-of-the-art and modern. It's got a lot of energy capture initiatives and stuff like that going on. They are making traditional double pot distilled single malt, but they do not want to sell any of it for at least 12 years. This is a thing in the meantime. It is made on what's called a Lomond still. There are only a few of those left in Scotland. They came out of some Seagram's experimentations back in the 60s and 70s, and Seagram's had them in a few plants. They operated in Scotland, and it's essentially a pot still with a column still for a neck. So picture the big pot, and then a straight sided neck to it, that usually has like four or five rectifying plates in it. Brookladdy's Botanist Gin is made on a Lomond still, that's at the Brookladdy Distillery. Kind of interesting, they are one of two distilleries that I know of in Scotland. I'm pretty, I'm positive these are the only two, that utilize a hammer mill instead of a roller mill. So normally with malted barley, you need a roller mill because you're just cracking the kernels. And if you use a hammer mill like we do in bourbon, it would turn to just pulverized. Yeah, it turns it into flour, just straight powder. And that gets real gummed up when you're using barley. So to make whiskeys with malted barley, because in Scotland, every whisky still has to have some malted barley in it, because they can't add enzyme to their whiskeys. They could only use naturally occurring enzyme. So every whisky has some level of malted barley in it. When you're using a hammer mill, you then have to use a piece of equipment called a mash filter. That's like, it's essentially this big, it looks like a plate and frame filter that you would see in a brewery, but it squeezes in, it's got this pneumatic press in it that squeezes everything out of this mash. The only other distillery that has a setup like that is Teenanick, which still is a Diageo distillery that just gets used for making malt for various Diageo blends and is more of just a workhorse distillery. This is labeled as single malt? It's labeled as single grain Scotch whiskey. To be labeled a single malt Scotch, it has to be 100 percent malted barley from a single distillery distilled at least twice on a pot still. To be a single grain whiskey is a whiskey from a single distillery. Because again, single and Scotch always means distillery, and grain would be something other than 100 percent malted barley. You could make a single grain whiskey on a pot still, but it's not very efficient. Again, you can't add exogenous enzyme. You can only use endogenous enzyme. Grain whiskies are normally the filler in the blended Scotch. They're all made with usually around 15 to 30 percent malted barley because you have to. That's interesting. I get a lot of pear skin in the nose of this. Yeah, it's really fruity. Yeah. This is the thing that I was going to say. This almost, I mean, it's Scottish. It smells almost like a Highland Scotch. It's fruity. Yeah, it's got that dried fruit complexity to it. But obviously, predominantly rye. Yeah, it's like all about pear, apple. Yeah, huge pear. It's like pear candy. It's really good. And it's not at all like we have rye here. Like it doesn't have that dill or that mint. It's got a bit of savory herb to it, but it's its own thing. So I've got it currently in the single malt aisle, not with the rye whiskies or anything. It's just with lowland, other lowland Scotches. You know what this kind of reminds me of is that Singani stuff. It's like crazy fruity and floral. Yeah. All right. This is, I mean, you have really brought some distinctive whiskies to that. Yeah. Isn't this cool? There's nothing else like this on the shelf. I'm not going to try to fool myself into thinking this is going to be some kind of wild sales success. But for those who are curious about whisky, you owe it to yourself to try this at some point. Yeah. It's wild. I've never had anything like this. It's 120 bucks. I've got it on sale right now for 110 bucks. Not a cheap blind date, but it's a really fun whisky. Just can't get over the pear. It's just huge, huge pear. 53 percent malted rye, 47 percent malted barley. Okay. That's pretty high barley. Yeah. That's certainly adding to that fruity complexity for sure. It's like a pear, but also some peach, and that reminds me of some Irish whiskeys. They tend to have that. Yeah. Malting rye is, when I've had malted ryes here in America, I'm looking at a new riff bottle right now, they have a malted rye, among others. Like all the stuff from the old anchor distillery, Hodling now is all malted rye. That tends to get this dark, fudgy chocolate and with dark berries character, which I wouldn't say this has. This is a brighter, riper fruit. Yeah. Super different. I mean, that's very interesting. 46.3% alcohol, non-chill filtered. I think we're just jumping from surprise to surprise here. I have not been able to predict the character of any of these accurately beforehand. Yeah, a lot of fun. All right, next up, several American single malts to try next. The first ones we're going to try are our first two handpicks of Yellowstone Single Malt. So Yellowstone Bourbon has been quite popular, partly thanks to the TV show for sure. They've expanded that line up a couple of times. They have a rum cask finish, they have a toasted barrel, and they've added an American Single Malt to it as well. I like American Single Malt as a category. I want to see it grow. There's a lot of bad American Single Malt out there. Single Malt should not be distilled on the grain in a column still in my opinion, and that's how a lot of it's made. But that's also what makes it American. I also believe firmly that new wood absolutely kills malt. Well, these look appropriately pale. Yeah, and they are new wood, so I think they've done a nice job with these. So we wouldn't have put the Binny's name on it if we didn't think otherwise. So these are two single barrels, SM056 and SM090, and you will find them on the shelf at Binny's near you. And they're both, well no, 56 is 110 proof, 90 is 116 proof. They have a big vanilla and coconut character, but there's a barley richness behind it. That always kind of throws me for a loop because when you get that much vanilla and coconut, I'm so in my brain that's so connected to oily, fatty, sweet corn. It's weird when it isn't. Yeah, there's a lot more wood than I was expecting just by looking at the color. It's an interesting sensation because it's so grain forward and then so barrel forward. I feel like both are cranked up to a lot. I think barrel 90 is significantly more wood forward than 56, but maybe that's just the proof talking. Going to add a little water to each. These are not Roger's cup of tea. I've always struggled to enjoy these, the American Single Maltz. They're different though. I can see why people are drawn to them. They're very different. Man, they're grain forward though. I like them a lot. They're fun and interesting. They're not terribly expensive. They're 60 bucks. I think we've got them on sale right now too. So what kind of barrels are they putting them into? New Char-Doke. What kind of Char-Lo? Probably three. Most are three or four. But four would be... Not a lot of distilleries, I think, do four. Most do three. So Yellowstone's down in Danville, Kentucky. And they're part of Luxco now, which is part of MGP now. Oh yeah, that's right. All right, this is my first time trying this next one, but this is a new offering from Few. So our buddies in Evanston, this is Chicago Smokeworks Cherrywood Smoked Malt Whiskey. Oh, boy. See how this goes? Right up Roger's alley. Yeah. You thought you loved Yellowstone. Cool label. Let's get this steampunk thing going on. It's only 40 bucks. Wow, that seems low for Few. All their stuff's 40 or 45 bucks. Very reasonable pricing. And they are, let's not forget, owned by Heaven Hill now. Oh, yes. I forgot about that. I toured the new Heaven Hill Springs Distillery, which is this giant distillery they are building in Bardstown. So it's the first time, because their original distillery in Bardstown burned down, and I want to say 96. They've been distilling out of the Bernheim plant in Louisville pretty much since then. They've maxed that thing out to capacity. This distillery they're building in Bardstown is just ridiculously massive. We went through and it was still under construction, but they opened it up for industry tours. They're in there with PPE and a hard hat and stuff. Did they give you a ham? They did not give me any ham. So instant lower grade on the tour. But they're essentially master distiller there is this woman Sydney, who was Sydney Jones, who was the previous distiller at FU. When they were bought by Heaven Hill, she moved over to the Heaven Hill side of things. I mean, there's plenty of smoke in the nose, but I don't think it's overdone. No, it definitely is like more of a barbeque-y kind of. It's got a, yeah. Oh, the smoke is way that it it seems subtle on the nose, but it is it is large and in charge. I have not put it in my mouth yet. It's smoky. Yeah, you're not kidding. That is a meaty smoke, too. I can see it making some interesting cocktails. You know, there's such a craze for smoked old fashions these days. This would make a great one. It is very barbecue even on the palate. Yeah. And then it's it has like a it's kind of phenolic kind of finish in a way that reminds me of like scotch. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's weird. It's interesting. It does have those those peaty phenols on them. Yeah, it's very I did not expect that at all. I feel like I kind of surprise after another. I kind of liked it at the beginning. Those I'm struggling a little bit with those. I've always said that people should drink whiskey with food, that people tend to only think that, you know, it's like an after dinner, before dinner type thing. This could be really interesting with food. Maybe like tame that barbeque-ness down a little bit. I mean, make it make an old-fashioned. I smoked a Port-et-Buddle over the weekend, so. Yeah, Port-et-Buddle. There you go. Exactly. Yeah, that's definitely different. All right, not for you guys. More for me, especially for 40 bucks. Yeah, I salute the price point. Roger's going to love this one. Spoiler alert, he's had it already. Next up is a new independent Scotch bottler on the shelves at a Binny's near you. This company is called Gordon Daniels, and they are finishing everything in PX Sherry and Champagne Cast, their whole lineup. So we've got four different offerings from them right now. We've got an eight-year-old Aberfeldy, a Glenn Grant that I want to say is 10 years old, this 15-year-old Linkwood that I'm passing around, and a Ben Reick that I think is also around 10 years old. But the Linkwood is really impressive. I've been pouring these in single-mall Scotch staff training classes all month, and they've been showing really well, and everyone's loving this Linkwood. It's a really interesting whiskey. The Sherry is right there at the forefront. Really interesting mix of fruit characteristics. Yeah, very fruity in the nose, but I also get mixed in with the fruit, not Werther's, but classic butterscotch candy. Yeah. That yellow stuff. For sure. This is right in the wheelhouse price-wise. For years, I've been saying, if you're getting about 10 bucks per year of age for a single-mall Scotch, you're doing pretty well for yourself. This is a 15-year Linkwood for $139.99. Yeah. Once you get above 12 years, single-mall kind of goes bonkers. Again, I get a lot of pear skin on the palate. You nailed it with the butterscotch. Yeah. Linkwood criminally underrated distillery, another one of those bigger malt factories for Diageo blends that we don't see an official Linkwood bottling in the States. So exactly the type of stuff I'm always looking for from Independence. It has like a marmalade character without the bitterness. Really good. Yeah. 46% alcohol, which also means it's non-show filtered. So you get a little richer character. Yeah. I mean, I just put a little water and I can see the oils. This again, I feel like is a great for the seasons changing. This would be a total like fall, winter time whiskey. Yeah. A splash of water really opens the nose here again, even more pear and orchard fruit. The blender for this brand is a gentleman named Gordon Wright, who was the master blender at Springbank for many years. Gordon Wright can't be wrong. This would be great with apple desserts. Strudel pie, baked apples. It's so good. That's pretty good. Somebody in the wine business is the one who started this. So that's part of the reason everything they have right now is finished in a combination of PX Sherry and Champagne Cast. I don't know what kind of character you really got on the Champagne Cast. The bottle is a bold move. The bottle is a bold move. So the whole lineup is in different wine bottles, and they are crystal clear and just with pretty plain black labels with gold leathering. But you put it in the Scotch Isle compared to every other Scotch, it really does stand out in the Scotch Isle. Yeah. Yeah. I think they're going to detract from, I feel like unless you're a wine, like maybe this appeals to some wine drinkers, but probably not to whiskey people, the design. I don't know if the design does it justice or how great the liquid is. That's always the concern. If the packaging seems overblown, it can undersell the quality of the liquid inside, which in my opinion is something we've seen from, my beloved Highland Park in recent years. Yeah. I mean, this is a serious whiskey and the bottle just looks kind of silly. I mean, it looks like a champagne bottle. Yeah. And the label even is styled like a champagne label. Well, it's PX and Champagne Cast, right? Yep. So maybe they're just telegraphing. Yeah, I guess that's, I get that element, but again, but I think the liquid inside is worthy for sure. This is pretty good. It's a nice whiskey to end on. How long is champagne aged and cast for? Some of it isn't, right? Very few champagne houses use wood anymore, but when they do, it's just generally for the initial aging period before. The long aging that champagne undergoes is in bottle. Yeah. It's really about the initial fermentation and then initial aging period of the wine itself, the base wine. There are only a handful of producers who really lean into that anymore. Krug, Bollinger, places like that and some... I bet those casts aren't cheap. They're French oak and they're for... They're large French oak casks from luxury brands. They're going to be expensive. Yeah. I mean, they're mostly doing it for the oxidative qualities of barrel aging rather than to impart a lot of barrel character or anything of those neutral barrels. Yeah. I just meant like for the whiskey producer, those barrels, buying those barrels from Casa Fortune because they probably use them for a long time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Hey, part with some of your champagne barrels. All right. So that's a... I don't know, what was that, a dozen or so, maybe 11 or something? And like 10 of them were big surprises. Yeah. So some new stuff that's either coming soon or just hit. That was one of the most varied and interesting lineups of whiskey. Like it was all over the place. It was really interesting. Yeah. I mean, literally, just looking at the bottles or hearing the matchmills, everything was a shock. Roger already always gives me sh** for not planning my podcasts meticulously and stuff. I literally, I've been overwhelmed and stressed out and stuff lately, and I just ran to Lincoln Park this morning and just threw a bunch of stuff in a box and then came up here. Well, it really shows. You're just that good. Well, I'm glad you guys enjoyed it. There's always something new in a whisky aisle at Binny's and not just the Bourbon Isle. Bourbon's obviously a huge focal point right now, but there's always new and interesting stuff coming in with Scotch and Rye and other things too, or sometimes Scottish Rye. Yeah. Sometimes the new is just the same old, same old in a different package, but this is all some pretty unique stuff. I'm looking forward to seeing this Jim Beam Sunshine Blend on the shelf, honestly. That really surprised me because I picked it up out of Jeff's office 10 minutes before we started. I was like, come on, man, what is this? He's like, oh no, it's coming. I agree. It looked a little bit laughable at first, but it's pretty good. Pretty serious bourbon for- Had a lot more going on. I figured it was like, oh, we need something that's lighter and easier to drink than Jim Beam and that's not- It is. It's richer. I'm glad to see the return of that brown rice bourbon because that was a hidden gem when it was around. It was for sure. All right guys, thanks for joining me on this taste adventure. Listeners, thanks for tuning in. If you like the show, please do us a favor, leave a review and tell your friends and family about it. We'll see you back next week with something different. We'll see. Until then, I'm Pat. I'm Roger. I'm Chris. Keep tasting.