You guys, I have been in meetings literally since 9.30 in the morning, and it's 3.30 now. That sucks. The only reason that I'm not screaming my head off is that Jeff went to Jimmy John's and brought me a sandwich. I was like, you're gonna need a sandwich. So, what are we doing here? I didn't even know there was a podcast recording today. What's going on? We're tasting handpicks. And we put Pat in charge, so f*** us, right? Who made this decision? So you're getting a baker's dozen of recent Binny's Handpicked Items of various spirit categories. Right on. There is no Roger or Chris today, so you get the insight of, you know, Greg and Jimmy John. The less educated half of the podcast. I wouldn't say that. You are listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Hopping up in your bead. Haven't done that in a while. Here we are. I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's Perfect Depot. Jim, also communications. Jenna, also communications. We need to come up with better job titles. No, s***. Pat from the Whiskey Hotline. And sometimes you're on communications. Yeah, sure. I tried ducking out of the weekly communications meeting a long time ago, and I think one of our co-workers continually expects me to be there every week. He still calls on you. He's pretty much succeeded in ducking out, I would say. That just means that he gets, right after every department meeting, he gets an email from Gabe saying, what is your Whiskey Hotline? I think he sends it during the meeting. During the meeting, yes. All right. So obviously we bring in lots of handpicked casks of lots of different things. He didn't say I'm Pat. All the time. I did say I'm Pat from the Whiskey Hotline. Well, then I said he's in the communications department also. That's right. I'm sorry. I pay less attention to you than I do Alicia. Big meeting guy here just tunes everybody out. Multi-tasking, got another meeting. You think I like being in there? It's warm. It's warm and it smells like farts. All right. Back to this. All right. Stay focused here. So yeah, we have lots of handpicked casks all the time. They're always coming in. We can't talk about every single one of them every week. So every few months here when you guys are like, holy we need a podcast, I just bring a dozen or so of them. We could do this episode every month probably. We probably could. We could do this. Yeah. Easily every month. How have we not crimped down on the number of casks you buy? We're due. It's been a couple of years. Kind of. I don't know. People are still buying them all. All right. Thank you people. You make it possible so that we can do dumb stuff like this. The Hotline Handpicked Roundup. Let's go. Let's go. All right. First two things we're going to try are Canadian whiskeys. Yes, Canadian whiskeys. I was just in Canada. Really? I'm going to be like Pat with Italy. He was in Toronto. Oh yeah, do the Toronto bit. I was in Toronto for three days. You know, I spent some time. He was in Chicago Junior. Yeah, Chicago Junior. What were you doing there? You know, just going. Collecting chips. Yeah, and eating. Yeah, eating in East Coast, Northeast North America tour. Sounds like a Great Lakes tour. It was kind of a Great Lakes tour. I ate a lot of regional pizza styles. They'll do that here. I know, but I got to try it in their original setting. Yeah. Back to this though. We've got two JP Wiser's signature series blends. These are blends that we did with the Hiram Walker Distillery's master blender, Dr. Don Livermore. Dr. Don wrote his doctoral dissertation on different oak sciences, on this one aspect of oak, essentially, and how you can evaluate how much a used oak cask has left to add to a whiskey without breaking the barrel apart and cutting open all the woodstaves. Sounds like the Bill Lumsden of Canada. Yeah, kind of. He did this through some kind of infrared technology. He proved the concept. It's yet to be commercially scaled up to where they can actually use it at their distillery, but this is a big brain guy. And he has, because it's Canada, and it's the largest distillery on the continent, the greatest level of different things to blend with than any other distillery. So Hiram Walker is the old Canadian Club distillery. It's right across the river from downtown Detroit. You can see it. It is a massive distillery. There are over a million and a half barrels of whisky aging there. And the thing with Canadian whisky, for most Canadian distilleries, they are fermented and distilled individually by grain. So there is a hundred percent corn whisky, a hundred percent wheat whisky, a hundred percent rye whisky, and a hundred percent barley whisky. By law? No. They are aged separately, and then they're only blended together at the end. And each one of those whiskeys then is in a million different types of cupridge, because they don't have to use new charred barrels. Some are in new charred barrels, a lot are in used bourbon barrels, some are in used Canadian barrels, some are in rum barrels, some are in wine barrels, some are in scotch barrels, whatever. So the amount of things you have to create a blend with is really massive. And if you, like when we were in their blending lab, there's hundreds and hundreds of different component whiskeys you can use. It's kind of intimidating. Huh. So the first one I passed around is a base of two older corn whiskeys, a 10 year old corn whisky and a 14 year old corn whisky that was finished in a space-side Scotch cask balanced by some 5 year old wheat whisky and 5 year old malted barley whisky. Oh god, I started writing down what you were saying and then you talked too fast. How are you keeping track of these things in your head? He's a savant. Okay. Oh yeah, you gotta, I'm the only one without a cup. Well we're doing this. I don't have one either. Who is the legendary Chicago Sports Broadcaster? Chet Coppock. I don't know. I have no idea. Cubs. Harry Carey. I was looking for Harry Carey. Thanks, I'm doing the Harry Carey style. Hey, hot dog! So I was also gonna ask you why you made two different blends, but I'm positive that the second one's gonna be a base of rye whiskey with a bunch of wheat. It's very spicy. The second one's very spicy. Not quite a different base though. So yeah, so this first one, very fruity, big, oily, round, even these are bottled at 43% alcohol, which is not crazy high, but they're really like rich and full. What's the proof? Seems reasonable. 86, 43% alcohol. And then the second one, we toned down a bit of those, we used the same two corn whiskies as the base, but we added in rye. So there's some rye that was aged in a re-charred barrel, an eight year old rye, and then only a smaller bit still of the five year old wheat and the five year old barley. It really shows the rye though. Yeah, it's herbal and it's got that leaner grassy character, but it's still a broad whisky, but it definitely has a lot of spice on that second one. And we really want to do something that was, you know, that's kind of what you expect with Canadian whisky is some bit of rye. So we did want to do one that was more traditionally Canadian. So would this first one be outside of some, you know, bullsh** regulations? Mostly corn. I mean, it'd be analogous to bourbon. Analogous. Yeah, exactly. There's used barrels. Some of the corn in there was likely distilled to a higher proof than what would have been allowed with bourbon. Canadian whisky is usually pretty decently aged. They were the first country in the world to require a minimum age for whisky, which is three years old, which then Scotland and Ireland adopted as well. I have literally no idea what to guess these cost. If they were bourbon, they would cost 50 or 60 dollars. But they're not. So what do they cost? The regular price is $39.99. Right now, they're on sale for $34.99. Get out of here. I was going to say, these are great. They taste, they're delicious, but my favorite part is the price. Yeah, $34.99. We did two different ones last year. We did a wheat-heavy one and a rye-heavy one last year. There's still some of those sitting around at your local Binny's. When you're doing a blended batch like this, you do have to commit to a lot of cases. Then this is this year, so it's pretty cool. We're trying to get Dr. Don in later in the fall to do some in-person events in the suburbs or city, just to taste these out and stuff. Awesome. I don't have that confirmed yet though, but we're hoping for that to happen. Listen up nerds, this is a sleeper. This is a unsung gem. Total sleeper, right? Right here. Next up, we have an Irish Single Malt that was finished in a Premier Crew Bordeaux cask. All right. What? Premier? Oh, it just says a Premier Crew Bordeaux cask. Yeah, they were NDA'd on this. It's a nine-year-old Single Malt that was finished for 22 months in a Premier Crew Bordeaux cask, and it's a cast-strength Irish, which is pretty rare. It is 59% alcohol, but you never really see Irish whiskeys that high. It doesn't look that dark in the bottle. I would expect it to be redder. That's an exceptional amount of time in a wine barrel. Yeah. Presumably a red wine barrel. Yeah, presumably. And Irish whisky tends to be softer and elegant, and it seems like this would take a pounding, so this is going to be wacky probably. Check it out. Handpicked. Before I try it, is this like a handpicked version of something that they make all the time? So, this is from a brand called The Whistler. Whistler is made at the Bowon Distillery. We do carry some core Whistler products on the shelf. There's single malts. Single malt finished in like an Imperial Stout cask. There was a sherry one for a while. I'm not sure what's still around. It is a brand we carry, but they don't have a core, like nine-year single malt, for example. Aged in a Bordeaux cask. Yeah. So a lot of the expected kind of red fruit character popping off. Where most Irish whiskey is going to be, it's going to have that subtle, that gentle orchard fruit, a lot of apple and pear and honey, and just very soft and easy. This has a little more tannic grip to it. A lot of red fruit, red berry, some French oak spires. The pear and the pear skin is still there too. Oh, yeah. Like a stony quality. Red fruit like cherry? Yeah, like cherry, bramble berry ish, that type of thing. I don't think that it drinks particularly to its proof, considering this is 120 proof. I don't think it tastes that way at all. Oh, not at all. I quite like this. It's like a light little fresh guy. Or 118 proof. Oh my, who's counting? This is delicate and fresh and alive. I really enjoy the fruitiness. But it's got a lot of finish to it, which a lot of Irish whiskey is short and to the point, at least, you know, blended stuff. And some of the big market single malts. This keeps going. I've been done with this for a while and I'm still tasting it. A lifting finish, like a citric. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. OK, can I guess this one at $90? I think it is $90. F*** you, I got it right. Pretty good price for, again, a nine-year-old single malt. It's what it should be. Yeah, that's great. All right, pretty cool. Good pick, Pat. Moving along. Oh, it's one of those American whiskeys with a very bland name. Yes, this is Copper and Cask, limited edition release. That could be confused with so many other places. I know. The only one worse is Barrel. Barrel perfect. I was just going to say at least it's not un-Googleable. Nobody makes fun of Barrel more than Greg. So Copper and Cask is a, they're essentially just an independent bottler. They're getting stuff, all kinds of different stuff from all kinds of different people, blending it, finishing it, bottling it, etc. We had a couple single barrel bourbons just come in from them, three to be exact. There's two six years and an eight year. But the cool thing is one of the six years and one of the eight years was actually aged in Florida. And this is all MGP juice from southern Indiana. MGP juice aged in Florida. And bottled at Cast Drink. Weird. Yeah. So humidity, so hopefully. Hot. Hot. Yeah. So it's getting a little more extracted. Not a lot of cold there. So there's not a lot of back and forth. The cool thing about these, these are really favorably priced. The eight year old is on the shelf for $60. And these six year old ones are 50 bucks. And this is the Florida six year old? This is a Florida aged six year old. It is the 21% Rye mash bill from MGP. It is 123.4 proof and it's only 50 bucks. Smells like strawberry banana yogurt. It kind of does, right? Yeah. It's got a bit of a tropical character to it. Yeah. I have strawberry banana Danimals in my fridge right now. Danimals, that's the kind. The kind without any real fruit chunks. It's so like oily and thick. Yeah. Got such a heavy like vanilla cookie thing going on. Oh, graham cracker. Yeah. Nilla wafer. Nilla wafer. I was gonna say Nilla wafers, yeah. But the finish is all like that herbal cardamomy like rye spice. Yeah. Absolutely. And orange peel, the cardamom. Yeah. Yep. Pretty wild, huh? Yes. And it's really awesome, man. It's only 50 bucks. And it's 61.7%. Yeah. Oh, I might need this for old fashions. This with the maple syrup that I have, the maple syrup old fashion. Oh. Yeah, that's a that's a Greg Basement sleep. Oh, my. Oh, my. OK. Pretty fun, huh? Yes. So these are available at your local Binny's, but because they're single cast-strength barrels with some age on them, you know, there's not a ton around. When I looked this morning, there was like 16 or 18 cases of each of these kind of spread around the 45 stores. So I know I was at the Geneva store yesterday, and they were down to only a bottle or two of the eight-year-old, but they had some of the six-year-old, because, of course, people are just going for the old stuff first. Of course. MGP fans need to get on this one. And what is the one that was not aged in Florida? Is that like more standard? It's really good. It's a notable extraction. No, I mean, they're both. We picked the three best barrels and two happened to have been aged in Florida. You just ASMR that cork out of that bottle and then put it back in again. Oh, this is the one with the death on the cover. The Jenna Special. Jenna, do you have this one? It's a Women of Binny's Handpicked with the palest figure they could find on the front label. Jenna asked to dye it black and they said no. Is that the seventh seal? Is that what that is? This is the number four. This is one I have at home. Oh, it's a lady. But the labels I bought, I bought the ones that match my tattoos. That's the boss in the first act of Diablo IV. It's a giant lady with a rock and there's a boat full of dudes crashing on the rocks. Witchy. Is it supposed to be Cersei? The witch? Yeah, I think they're all literary themed, if I remember correctly. Is this the Odyssey? Well, that is too small of a boat to be the Odyssey. It's some kind of multi-seat canoe. That could be going to a landing party. That's something like Shakespeare. Listen to Greg. Greg played the Age of Empires in high school, and now he's just an expert on naval warfare of the ancient Greeks. Absolutely not. Is it The Tempest? Yeah, yes, it is. That was actually what I was going to say. I'm pretty sure it is. There were three barrels and each one was a six pack, and then in each six pack, there are six different artist renditioned labels. Oh, like 18 different labels? No, no, there's six labels altogether. Like each barrel pick had the same six labels. This was very confusing a few weeks ago when I had to take the bottle shots and Jenna was explaining it to me and my brain started leaking out of my head. You need like a grid to make sure you have the right bottle. Yeah, I just go to our social media. I posted them there and kind of explained it a couple of weeks ago. Okay. Is it any good though? So we should say this is a Women of Binny's Pick from Rabbit Hole. Yes, it is four years, seven months, 109.7 proof. Rabbit Hole uses malted grains in their mashbill like other people aren't like some malted wheat I think, Jenna, was that it? Yeah. Yeah. I have to go grab my notes to remember more but. It's very smooth. It's soft. It's really peachy. It's like honey peach. You tend to get that out of malt I think. When you go with a malt heavy bourbon, you get some stone fruit character that sliced peach nectarine type of thing. I think this is outstanding. I think it's priced a little high but these are, that's just what Rabbit Hole single barrels cost. These are our first single barrel picks from Rabbit Hole. Women of Binny's did them. It's pretty cool. Frontline price, these were like 130 bucks or something but we're selling them for 100. I think it's high for bourbon that age. It is a really high quality bourbon. If I didn't tell you the price and you just tasted it, you'd say yes, that's very good bourbon. I think it gets older than it is. I agree with that too. It has the like roasty darker spice quality. You guys both said smooth and easy but it's like this like deep brooding dark thing with this burnt orange peel smoke. Not smoke literally but like burnt orange peel quality on the finish. Yeah. And neat. Yeah pretty good right? We tasted through quite a handful of barrels and then chose our top three. Yeah how many would we have like eight or ten women on that trip or something? Yeah, yeah. Yeah something like that. Women at Binny's very cool. I was there just to sign off on the purchase order so I did not. And to drive us around. Yeah pretty much. You didn't just over explain things how you usually do? Listen man. Brett did a little bit of that. Brett did yeah I had Pantani there for that. It's a desirable quality when you're on a podcast. Okay, so there are two going around that look the same but are not, so pay attention to your labels there. Penelope. So we like Penelope. We've done a few handpicks from them already. They have all sold very well. The founders have come in and done some seminars at some of our stores with classrooms. So if you're keen on stuff like that, you should always be checking out binnys.com/events. See what's going on at your local Binny's. Penelope is a four grain bourbon. It is not a distilled four grain bourbon, though it was blended. So it's MGP juice. They're taking a high rye bourbon and a weeded bourbon and blending them together. These are both one. One is five years. One is six years. So the first one I passed around is a five year bourbon that is one hundred and eleven proof. And so this is the four grain finished in a toasted barrel that was charred to a number one char. Okay. The second one is a six year old that was finished in a toasted barrel. It's a hundred and eighteen proof. It was a six year old finished in a toasted barrel that was charred to a level five char. All right. Yeah. So these were actually picked internally. Every week I host a staff training for spirit specialists around the Binny's Beverage Depot chain that we refer to as the Whiskey Hotline Study Group. Whiskey Hotline Study Group. And I do this every Tuesday afternoon for a select group of of staff and kind of rotate around. And sometimes when we have people in town to do other things, they'll have they'll present to this group too, which is what Penelope did this day. So we actually did these barrel picks with the study group class that week. So there was actually like 18 Binny's employees all tasted through these samples blind. And that's how we picked these three different single batches here. Did they know when they signed up that they would have that kind of weight and responsibility? I sprung it on them when they showed up. Just this week we had, I was teaching Virmuth and everyone showed up. I was like, surprise, the founder of Mezcal Vago is here for the first 45 minutes. And so we just had like a deep dive of Mezcal for us. This is why you want to work at Binny's, this kind of educational opportunity. So back to these though. So a char one and a char five. Now, wait a minute, more questions. Char one and a char five, but it's a blend of two different whiskeys. So they were bourbons from NGP that got put in their first barrel and then vatted and then put in the different charred barrels? Yes, and then finished in the toasted and charred barrels. So they were vatted and then? Blended, they made the four-grain blend and then put that... And then put them in the charred barrels. And are they the same blend? They are not the same blend. Oh, there's too many variables, man. Yeah, because keep in mind, our char one guy is a six-year blend and our char five guy is a five-year blend. Okay, so they're even different ages. Yeah. Okay, way too much to comprehend. So on the front label, there's a gold ribbon that says batch number selected by Binny's Beverage Depot and then it says char number, whatever, heavy toast. So they're both a heavy toast, but the difference there is the char. So in theory, you're going to get more of the toast character from the lower char because you're spending all this time creating those lactones by toasting American oak and then you just burn them all away when you char. Right, but also in theory, but Brett's theory, with the heavier char, you've got more filtration so it could give you a... So you're still getting a lot of softness too and you're still gonna, you're letting whiskey through into the inner layers of the oak, but how much of the toast is left versus what is innately in the oak left. The first time we did this, we did a char 3, a char 4 and a char 5, and I liked the char 3 best. And now this time around we did two char 5s and a char 1. So I'm curious to see what you guys like best. I like the first one, and then I tried the second one, and I liked that one better. I mean they both have like a butterscotch and clove. Yeah. I mean the second one just tastes like there's literally nutmeg in it, like fat, fat rails. I think the first one has a lot of the classic calling cards of Toasted American Oak. I mentioned Lactone earlier, that's that toasted coconut and really soft and dessert like vanilla character. And that's there in spades in the first one. And the first one is actually the lower proof, too. That's 111 versus 118. It's very lively. Yeah. That's really good. Yeah, really good. Right. It's just so good. OK. These are wonderful. And we and we the first ones we did of these came in in December. And it was our first stuff from Penelope as handpicked. So like it flew off the shelves immediately. We couldn't even talk about it. You know, if we sent a marketing email talking about it, we were just pissed a bunch of people off because it was already out of stock. Literal nutmeg in the second one, but something else, too. Another kind of baking spice that I can't put my finger on and clove clove. Yeah, clove and and like cherry orange. Yeah. Yeah, there's like a cocktail cherry thing going on. Yeah. Like the maraschino. Yeah. Like real dark cherry. Oh, that's really good. Aren't these awesome? That's very good. Binny's, Binny's app holders. What are we? I because I think these are on sale right now and I don't want to. It comes in an Eagle Rare bottle. So that's nice. Cool. I just love to see the new Clarke and Sheffield redesign. Really? Yeah. Awesome. I like the flower on the bottle. It's fine. Yeah. Penelope is named for one of the founders. The first daughters. To turn this into a booze in the news segment. Booze in the news. These guys recently sold their business to MGP. Holy cow. It's only $70. Oh, wow. Not bad. They sold what to MGP? They sold Penelope sold outright sold to MGP. Oh. And then the two guys who started are still in charge and they're still the one of them still doing the blending and stuff. It's great because they were buying all the liquid from MGP anyway. So if anything, they're getting access to more. There's a Penelope toasted barrel rye coming out. Imminently, I think it's either in already or by the time this airs, it might be in. Yum. I want that. Yeah. And it's their first rye product. They've only done bourbons before. They had a very small limited release, a product called Rio maybe a month or so ago. I think I brought it in here so you guys taste it. It was a bourbon that was finished in both honey barrels and Amburana barrels. Oh my God. It's like the Mad Libs from Whiskey. It was crazy limited. We barely got any. However, they have offered to do a custom batch just for Binny's Beverage Depot on that. So obviously, I took them up on that. Looking forward to that maybe in another eight months or so. What was the beer collaboration where we let people on social media pick the hops? Oh, yorgummy. yorgummy? Let's do the yorgummy of Binny's Handpicked blends. Amburana, bro. I like the name Penelope Burbin. It sounds like a fake name that a girl would give at a bar. Yeah, you're right. Like she's like looking, my name is Penelope Burbin. Yeah, it's a James Bond villainous. Okay, so speaking of Amburana, here's our latest NULU Amburana. Now, this time around, last time we did it, it was a single barrel Amburana finish. It sold out in like hours. Of NULU? Yeah, from NULU. And so Chase at NULU offered to put together a small batch for us, so multiple barrels and shit in an Amburana for us. In an Amburana. In multiple Amburanas. Where's he getting all this Amburana? He's got a direct line to the Cuprage in Brazil. Amburana, bro. Yeah. The same Cuprage that Starlight's getting theirs from. One year ago, I didn't know that this was a thing. I know. And now I just kind of sigh and roll my eyes, but then I taste it and it's amazing every time. And it's a cheat code. It's a bourbon cheat code, really. So the Starlight Amburanas, I tend to get a ton of the cinnamon and some vanilla. With this one, this is pure carrot cake. This is like, if the Portillo's Chocolate Cake Shake, instead, we took that concept and we just threw a chocolate cake in the still, a carrot cake in the still while distilling bourbon. That's what you get here. I would not have been able to name that, but now that you say it, that's it. It is just carrot cake. It smells like frosting. It smells like the frosting on carrot cake. Yeah, somehow this bourbon smells like cream cheese frosting. When I smelled it, you were saying cinnamon, right? As I was smelling it, and I was like, yeah, cinnamon and then, but it's not quite, yeah, exactly. There's more than just cinnamon. No, but carrot cake nails it. You're doing Amburana disservice when you're like, yeah, it's just cinnamon and vanilla, because there's so much more complexity to it than that. This whiskey is so awesome. It's 100 bucks. We're running on sale right now for 95. Because we did a whole batch, we got plenty. Every Binny's has some of this. Bourbon nerds, you'd be crazy not to pick this up while it's here. This is wacky. It's so much fun. It kind of tastes like carrot cake too a little bit. It's 116.6 proof. It's a good drinkable proof. Without being a throat ripper, it's awesome. It's notably more spirited than say that Irish that was the same. Yeah. But I like this. This is really good. Wow. How does it get that frosting flavor? I don't know. I mean, yeah, there's no other way to describe it. It's all the finish, too. Because the other Amburana, what's the Irish? We had a Teeling in Amburana. Yeah, the Teeling. And Jeff still has it in his office. Now, that was in Amburana, though, for like four and a half years. Yeah. But it's so different. It's so different. I know it's different depending on how long you have it in there. Amburana completely takes over very quickly immediately. But if you leave it in, it gives the whiskey a chance to fight back. So that Teeling one, the cool thing about Amburana is, you don't see a lot of Amburana casks at a lot of other retailers. And just at Binny's in the past two, three years, we've seen almost the entire array of what Amburana can do. Between that 15-year single malt that was in, Irish single malt that was in Amburana for four and a half years, we've got the three different Starlight batches that were in Amburana for six weeks, nine weeks, 12 weeks, whatever it was. Yeah. We've got some NULU single bare Amburanas, small batch Amburanas. Do you still have some in your cup? Sip it as I say these words and you'll get a mental image. Bed Bath and Body Works Vanilla Candle, you blew it out and it smells like you blew it out. I don't think that sounds appetizing. Smell it again. I'm enjoying this whiskey. You're trying to blue moon hot dog water this whiskey. Yeah, no. That's a good smell though. Yeah, I mean. It's the last wisp of the can. Caught it on my pants. It's fine. Pat, do you get that though? Yes. The kind of sulfur, I guess, extinguished candle. Not kind of smoke, but it's a heavily flavored smoke. Yeah. It's a very woody spice. It's hard to describe Amburana outside that specific stuff. We talked about Amburana on the podcast extensively. I feel like we haven't. I don't know. It's a Brazilian hardwood. I think it might be in the teak family. Traditionally, it's used to age Cachaca. It is an endangered species. However, that's because of poor forestry management. It's a manageable forestry product in that you can plant it and grow it and harvest it. Naturally, it's just- It's sustainable. Yes. Typical to other Brazilian stuff like bad actors get involved and just like take what they want and don't care for the land type of thing. I thought it was a kind of oak. It's a different species. Yeah, it's not an oak. Not an oak. Let me look it up. No, that's fine. That's that's all we need. Not oak. Jen is going to get pulled over on the way home and the officer is going to be like, maybe if you share some of that carrot cake, I can forget about this. Oh, man, it's so good. That is so good. What the hell? It's crazy. It's like a liqueur. It's so flavorful. Yeah, it's nuts, right? It's really great. I think these are a lot of fun. All right, we're taking a break to the tropics here. We're not doing whiskey now? No. We not had enough whiskey, Greg? I've got more whiskey. All right, sweet. I'll put up with this one Barbadian rum then. Yes. So Greg spoiled it. It is a Bajan Barbadian rum. This is a plantation single barrel pick. This is 2011 Barbados distillate rum that aged for four years in bourbon casks on Barbados, and then aged for six years in Cognac casks in France. And then it was finished in a Mori cask for nine months. That's a French dessert wine? That is a French dessert wine that is, Jenna, correct me if I'm wrong, adjacent to Sauternes, but from the other side of the river, I think. But so also a semi on base white dessert wine from Bordeaux, but not a Sauternes. Time out. You're thinking of a Barsak? Oh, I'm thinking Barsak. So what is Mori? Mori is an Appalachian within Roussillon, the Roussillon region. So Southern France, right? Yes. Okay. Almost all wines are red, made from 75% Grenache. Okay. Really, literally everything I just said was the opposite. And it was nine months in that. And that's it. And it was made at the West Indies Rum Distillery, which is one of the three distilleries on Barbados, Mount Gaye Four Square, WIRD. WIRD is owned by Plantation now. This was a blend of pot and column distillate. So you got a little heaviness from the pot still, a little light fruitiness from the column. It was a molasses fermentation that was three to four days. It is 130 esters, which would actually put it on the lower end for Jamaican rum, which is kind of cool. And it has a very, very, very slight sugar addition of four grams per liter. It's so dark in the bottle. Yeah. I mean, it's dark in the cups, too, but in the bottle, it looks like a liqueur, like a coffee liqueur or something. So we did three plantation rums, this Barbados in the Mari cask, a Jamaican in a VDN cask, the orange wine from Spain. Of course. And then a Trinidad rum that was, I forget what kind of cask that was in, sorry. But they're all on the shelf for between 60 and 80 bucks. They're awesome. And this was my favorite, so that's why I brought this one. All right. Tell me why I like this one. It kind of smells like spray paint to me. It kind of, maybe the color is messing with my brain, but I feel like it has coffee notes on the finish. Maybe a little bit. I like that it's got a very like rich molasses forward profile, like it's very much Barbados rum. And I like that it's got that kind of like citrusy oil character, like orange oil. It's got some honey. It's got some bright fruit. I think there's a lot going on in this thing. It does smell like spray paint. But I think it tastes amazing. It smells like spray paint. But wow, yeah, it's deep and rich. And then it's still like lively and tropical as well as... I haven't smelled spray paint in a long time. I don't know. What are you doing with your weekends? Yeah. Not huffing apparently. Yeah, join the club. Come on. I mean, it doesn't taste like a rum even. I don't know. It just doesn't. It's great. I like it a lot. What's the strength here? It has some. I mean, it's like in a dark molasses flavor. 48.2%. And it has none of the funk that turns me off. Right. Also, I didn't bring the Jamaican rum because you would have just been like, you know, it smelled like a fart in spray paint. Baby diapers. That's me. Yeah, baby diapers. Someone's spray painted a baby diaper. Pat's tagging the side of a convenience store and he's like, shh, this smells awesome, shh. Spray paint does smell good. It smells good. It's got a nice smell. I think it's got like a Madeira-ish quality to it where it's like an oily nuttiness that mixed with that like dark burnt citrus. Now that you said Madeira, yes, you are correct. Yeah. That's what I kind of was drawn to. Like Marcona almonds underneath the oranges. Yeah. That's why I think it doesn't taste like rum. I get a lot of that same character out of Madeira, like that burnt citrus and nuttiness. Yeah. And that's just like. There's like something that reminds me of vermouth or fortified wines. There's some kind of. Also. I don't know what that is. We're describing oxidization and spices. Yeah. It's probably oxidization. Because the sherry or the sherry, the finish reminds me of sherry, which same principle. Yeah. Same idea. Yeah. It's a really fun rum and it doesn't taste like any other rum on the shelf, that's for sure. What was the cask again? Mori. Mori. Okay. I mean. I don't know. I haven't seen one. Yeah. Interesting. Pretty cool. All right. That was your tropical break. Back to whiskey. Thank you. I want to do an episode where we make cocktail recipes and then alter them, but the joke is I just make everything into a Manhattan. Guess what? It's a Manhattan. Like, oh yeah. This Irish coffee would be a lot better if the coffee was whiskey and if the Irish cream liqueur was vermouth and the ice cubes. Didn't we do an episode where we tasted a bunch of Manhattans? Yes, we did. We just made a bunch of Manhattans. Made a bunch of Manhattans. You know what? I've been working through some of the long, long leftovers of the ones that I thought were the grossest, like molasses and Angostura chocolate. What I found is that I probably put too much in tiny Manhattans, but if you use a little, it brings an interesting quality. I can make a Manhattan with that molasses and it tastes like it has rum in it and it tastes like it's an old-fashioned with sugar additives because it's dark richness of the nose that it brings to it. Interesting. All right, now we got three single malt scotch casks to taste. So normally our scotch comes in in the fall, because we pick it in May, but these were three casks from Duncan Taylor, where we didn't pick it at their warehouse, they had sent samples over last winter. They just came in recently. Okay, let me tell you why I love you guys. Everything on this bottle, it looks like the most confusing New York City parking sign you've ever seen. Yeah. It's very complicated. You need a decoder ring to figure it out. The Duncan Taylor logo is up top. It's kind of faint and there's this humongous sticker, metallic, Binny's sticker. Hand selected by Binny's, Beverage Depot, and it is the biggest thing on this bottle. Second only to the bottle itself. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. They put all the stuff into this new, refined, cleaner, modern bottle design. They were just like, boop, bang. Because we always ask, well yeah, it's just as they hand select by Binny's on the summer. We'd of course prefer that you use the logo, but if you can't use the logo, we understand. We always kind of like, whenever we can guilt people into using the logo, you end up with these giant stickers. This tastes like applesauce. Oh yeah, we have whisky. Okay, this is a lot of fun. Now there's a couple really cool- Smells like ham. There's a couple, well I mean, that's a whisky hotline positive. So there's a couple of real cool things going on here. So these are our first casks from Duncan Taylor in like seven years. Kind of cool. Is that because they were so expensive? They were expensive, the right stuff wasn't available, it just wasn't the right time. These are all cask strength. I'm tasting them out first on a seven year Dalmunach, which is 54.6% alcohol. This is notable in that this is the first Dalmunach to be available in the United States. What? Yes. How did we not put that on the front of our website? Because I'm only like 99% sure. Oh, there's possibly rogue Dalmunach out there? There could be a rogue Dalmunach out there somewhere. You said the word Dalmunach and I'm like, what is he talking about? So Dalmunach is a newer malt distillery opened by Chivas Brothers, Pernod Ricard on the site of the former distillery that was called the Imperial Distillery. And we've done some casts of Imperial probably like 12 years ago or something that were very old, handpicked stuff. So this is a totally modern state of the art distillery. It looks like a spaceship land in the middle of the Scottish field. That's just like next to a couple of farmhouses. It's pretty wild looking and it's pretty cool. So this is, I don't know what their end goal with distillery character is. Casks got out and we thought this was cool and it would be a cool thing to have the first one in the area for sure. That's amazing. I'm glad you bought it. It's delicious. Why would they leak their initial casks? I don't know that they leaked it. It's a big distillery. So, you know, certainly some stock is being traded for blending. It's got to be part of Chivas and it's got to be part of other blends. But yeah, it's probably part of other, you know, it's probably something D'Aggio is using too, for all we know. How old is it? Seven years old. OK, so it is incredibly lightly colored. Yeah, very lightly colored. It just says aged in oak cask, probably a refill cask, if I had to guess. It's I like that, though, because we're tasting more of the distillate, right? If this was a first fill cask, it's just going to taste like a bourbon barrel. So this is kind of what the distillate is tasting like right now. It's a lot of dried orchard fruits and a little bit of that kind of floral honey character, but I like it a lot. I think it's showing great promise. By no means is this an immature whiskey. It's drinking great now, but I'm really curious to see what this whiskey tastes at like 15 years old. Jim said applesauce. Not only is it like light and fresh like that with a little bit of like cinnamon applesauce, but rarely do I just want to go to blossoms. This is like orange and pear blossom, like orchard blossom. It's so dope. It's a lot of fun, but it's like it's still full bodied, but it's just so fresh and lively. I really like this whisky. I think it's really cool and for the people out there that like to have a bottle of each distillery around with single malt, it's like here's your chance at a Dalmunach early. You got to get a Dalmunach. Yeah. Why would they call it that? Because they're from Germany. It's Gaelic, man. Who knows? All right. Opposite end of the spectrum here on cast number two from Duncan Taylor. This is a 14 year old GlenAllachie. GlenAllachie. GlenAllachie is awesome. We've done many GlenAllachies before. And this is a Sherry cask. So this has got to be a bruiser. Yeah. It's 54.9% alcohol and Sherry aged. It's a wildly different color. Pretty awesome. So GlenAllachie now is owned by a gentleman named Billy Walker. Yeah, Billy Walker. He sold GlenDronic and Benriac to Brown and GlenGlassaw to Brown Foreman and bought himself GlenAllachie. He's really known for a lot of crazy cask finishing, like really heavy Sherry portcass, that type of stuff. Of course, this this was Duncan Taylor, not him. But GlenAllachie as a style really works in big Sherry stuff. Like the distillery stuff right now is these mid teens GlenAllachies are really heavily Sherried. And they're also pretty expensive. Like they're pushing $200 or something. And this is on the shelf for like $100. And this is 14 years at $100? I believe so. Double check. It says Sherry cask. We assume that that's Oloroso. Yeah, 99% of the time that's going to be Oloroso in Scotland. Oh, it's so awesome. It's got like a milk chocolate thing going on that you don't often see in a lot of scotch. $99.99. Yeah, $100 for a 14-year cask strength single mold. And that Dalmunach, we didn't even mention that Dalmunach. That Dalmunach is $50. Whoa. Yeah. I liked that better, to be honest. This is very good. I liked our previous hosts better. A lot of typical Sherry character, nuttiness. There's a lot of dark dried fruits, fig, raisin, plum, all that stuff. There's a milk chocolate thing in the finish that I don't normally pick up with heavily Sherry stuff. I get it. Like you got a kind of chocolatey character in a lot of bourbons. I think that's kind of interesting here. It's nutty. It's got that oiled leather note. The first thing I thought was Tootsie Rolls. Yeah. Yeah. But there's also like a petrol quality across the top. Yeah. Yeah. That's Sherry all the way. Sherry. Tons of Sherry. That's what it is. That's the definition of it. Yeah. 54.9 percent. Again, a good drinking proof, but not a crazy proof. This is a lovely whiskey. And anybody who's again at a hundred bucks, people who are chasing down single cask Sherry's from the that the distilleries release in that are two hundred, two hundred fifty dollars in the same price like you ought to grab one of these. And because it's a Sherry cask, it was a big cask. So we've got this pretty much widely available right now. I was going to say, isn't it? I thought a cask was a smaller thing, but a butt was a bigger thing. Yeah. But this was a butt because there was like 90 cases or something. Well, why does it say cask instead of butt? Because their designer apparently likes making things easy. Because a butt is a cask. I guess you're right. Yes. Yes. I get 20 rods to the hog's head. That's the way I like it. All right. Well, this one's a little more expensive. I think that's probably good for us. It's only 11 years old. I can't see anything else on that. We're an 11-year-old, 54.1 percent Laphroaig single barrel. Oh, hey, this is going to ruin your palate. If you want to go back and try anything else, now is the time. We got one more thing. Oh, what? Hold on. Oh, I see what it is. What could possibly go after a Laphroaig? Yeah. Oh, my. In retrospect, it seems obvious. Yeah. Oh, whoa. Yeah. So we love Laphroaig. This cask, although expensive, it's like I want to say 160 or 170. Someone double check for me. OK. Give me. We just did an eight year old PX cask bottled by Laphroaig that was $250. $169.99. So for this 11 year cask strength single barrel for 170 bucks, pretty banging deal. OK. So Jenna, Jim and Greg are all reacting the same way. Dude, you guys all just made them a lork face. Somebody in human history was like, oh, that's delicious. Bottle it up. That was the way. Classic, classic Laphroaig, like tons of like high tone lemon over that earthy, stinky peat, little bit of medicinal iodine character to it, but not a ton, not particularly briny, just so earthy with that like high tone citrus over it. It's this is classic Laphroaig. I think it's one of the most interesting flavors in the world. Yeah. It's like my brain is like, this is well made. I can tell it's well crafted, but my taste buds are like, please never again. Oh yeah. So the iodine is less, but on the palate, the smoke explodes. Explodes. This is a smoky boy. Oh man. Yeah. Wow. And it's like sophisticated smoke. Yeah. It's really good. But I'm going to taste that tomorrow morning. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean. It's very obviously well made. It's well crafted. But whew. When it hits the sides of your palate right here. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Ah, it grips. It holds on. One hundred seventy bucks for this guy. Yep. You you saw him this? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a Laphroaig single barrel. This is like this is a steel. We don't have to try to sell this. Like Laphroaig fans are going to find it. Oh, man. Dude, it's like bitter. And it's even like blue cheese at the back end. So what could possibly go after Laphroaig? You know, it's gonna be kind of gross. We have a custom batch of Mezcal. Okay, can I complain about the Binny's label on these? All of them were put on crooked. When I took a photo of this for social media last week. It's Mezcal, it's done by hand. Settle down. That's a sign of authenticity. But it's got like a cool, I mean, it's the same material as their label, which is like... That material is actually agave fibers from the fermentation. Oh, nice. I do like the gold on black. Just the whole style of the bottle is very nice. It's tough, right? I would buy this label as a limited 7-inch. Yeah, it looks like a shirt you'd buy from Three Floyds. The same thing. We just said the same thing. I'm afraid to try it. It's... Oh, man. It's an elegant mezcal. It's not overly smokey mezcal at all. It smells really nice. What we are tasting here is Mezcal Vago Ensemble. It's a special Binny's batch. This was made by Joel Barriga. This is one of their four mezcaleros they work with. An ensamble means that they are blending different agaves together. Some mezcaleros blend them post fermentation or distillation. These were all co-fermented, co-distilled all together. This is 40% Tepestate, 40% Mexicano and 20% Espidine. Most mezcal you got is Espidine. Very reliable from an agronomical yield point of view. Very easy to work with. It matures relatively quickly for agave, for farmed agave. It's Blanca. Is it rested? No. This is mezcal. The nose is like... It is 51.2% alcohol. That's where it's coming off the stillette. The nose is like tequila agave sweetness. Tropical bubblegum rubber. It smells like the key lime bars that my grandma makes. Your grandma makes lime bars? Key lime bars. And you haven't brought them in. Interesting. No, I have not. Well, she hasn't made them recently. Well, tell her to get off her ass and make some damn lime bars. So the tepestate agave is kind of the jewel of this here. Tepestate is an agave that matures famously slowly. Most of it is harvested wild. Most of that wild harvested tepestate is somewhere between 17 and 22 years old. They are farming tepestate now. It's coming along. It does mature a little sooner than wild tepestate, but that's kind of cool. Yeah. So this is an awesome mezcal. Just awesome mezcal. This is a hundred bucks. I think it's on sale right now for 90 bucks or something. It's everything I'm looking for in a mezcal personally. I really like that. That's awesome. On the palate, it starts with a bowl full of tropical fruits and then it just like smoky tire hard left turn screeches into asphalt. A bit, but then the fruit comes back and then there's an overripe estuary fruit thing in the finish. And then it kind of turns like toward like a nutty spice. It's a roller coaster for sure and there's some really cool stuff going on in here. I tend to stay away from mezcal because I know they're not all smoky, but most of the ones I've tried are and I just am too lazy to do research. But this is really good. I really like this. But it is smoky. It is smoky, yeah. There are people out there, there's plenty of people out there who would say a smoky mezcal is a bad or a poorly made mezcal. The reason they're smoky, so the agaves are roasted in pits in the ground. So you dig a pit in the ground, you light a wooden fire down there. Once the coals are there and hot, you actually cover that fire with rocks and the whole thing is you're letting the rocks get hot and do the cooking. Then you're putting quartered, like cut up agave on it. Then you're covering that with like wet fiber and then dirt and burying it. Then it cooks for multiple days like in this pit in the ground. So if you don't do the best job that you can with the rocks and with some wet fiber, even then on top of the rocks before you get to the agave, you're not controlling the smoke as much. So it's a stylistic choice that a Mezcalero makes. I mean, Scotland does the same thing in their malting. Yeah. They think it's fine. Yeah. Some like it smokier than others. So I'm not going to tell a guy who makes Mezcal what it should taste like. Good call. This is a good one. It's a strange spirit for the layman. But it feels like a gateway Mezcal. Yeah. It's an approachable Mezcal for sure. I mean, listen, we sell everything for everyone at our stores, beverage alcohol wise, but cheap Mezcals, someone's not being taken care of in that transaction. Yeah. Whether it's the agave farmer or the distiller, Mezcal is very expensive to make. You're talking about plants that take 12 plus years to come to maturity. You get three liters of Mezcal from one agave plant. Okay. I'm sorry, that shouldn't cost $29.99. Yeah. Yeah. Something can be said from Vago, they've always taken care of these families. These families that produce for them, this has been a transformative thing for them. When they first started working with these families, they didn't have running water. They didn't have a toilet in their house. Like they didn't have, some didn't have electricity. And now the whole village around them has grown up to, has modern amenities and healthcare and stuff. Like there's something to be said for a Mezcal brand that takes care of the people who are creating it. And it tastes really good. And it's really good. Really good. It's an easy one to get behind. Yeah, totally. And I think some of the smokiness might be from leftover from the Laphroaig. Yeah, I agree. There's smokiness in the Mezcal for sure, but it's, but it's, yeah. Let me try this bourbon. Hey Pat, sometimes I say, we have cool jobs. Yep, yeah we do. I would say that you brought all 13 of these because you picked them and bought them, and you did a pretty good job, guys. Cause I picked one. Oh, oh yeah, that's right, that's true, that's true. And damn, man. All pretty broadly available on the shelves that have been used near you right now. Amazing. Yeah. And there's more to come. Give us a sneak preview. Well, on Monday, I'm flying to Detroit, and then Tuesday, driving across the border to Windsor to do more Canadian whiskey blending. We were just in Tennessee this previous week doing some really awesome barrel strength Jack Daniel's picks of both Tennessee whiskey and rye. Those are amazing. And Jim knows it. Yep. We also picked several barrels from Uncle Nearest, which I think will be the first Uncle Nearest barrels around. Are we allowed to say that? TBD. But there may be one in like Washington, DC or something. I'm not sure. It's essentially who gets bottled first at this point. So yeah, we've done a lot of cool stuff and there's more coming. Awesome. You know, awesome. Trying to keep track of it all. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Really good though. We'll do this again in eight weeks or so. This has been a lot of fun guys. I hope you enjoyed these. We did. You know, if you didn't like the Women of Binny's one, it's Jenna's fault. Yeah, you can email me at... Listeners, check these out, your local Binny's. And talk to the staff of your local Binny's. New Binny's handpicked stuff is coming in constantly. And we try to do a good job of getting our own tasty notes on those as soon as they hit the stores. So that's a big thing Joe Maloney does every time one of these things comes in, gets the custom Binny's tasty note on it. Cheat code, if it says corn pudding in the tasty note, we really love it. If it says dangerously drinkable, that means I picked it. That means it's one of Joe's favorites, that's for sure. There's something for everybody here, no matter what category you're drinking. And I would like to reinforce the fact that one of these picks is Women of Binny's and one of these picks was the Whiskey Hotline Study Group. It's not just you three. Two of them were the study group. Yeah, so. Take that, Women of Binny's. Well, there were what? Three more. They did three of those. Three, they didn't bring them. But like so much of this is just the excitement of the staff carrying this program, too. And we couldn't do it if they didn't love it and didn't sell it. So, I mean, what an amazing thing. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. Cool. Thank you, Pat, for bringing all these whiskies. And thank you for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast, back in your feed next week with something Roger. With some malt forward beer that Roger is pushing. He doesn't, we really have him in a hole, in a corner, because he doesn't, if he brings old man beer, we make fun of him for it. But if he brings the new hotness, we make fun of him for pandering. He didn't really, no win for that guy. No win for poor Roger. All right. Well, we'll do, all right, we'll be back in your feed next week with some kind of f***ed up seltzers or something. Until then, I'm Greg. I'm Jim. I'm Jenna. And I'm Pat. Keep tasting.