Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast

Once again, Pat was asked at the last minute to assemble a spirits podcast on a Friday afternoon. And once again, he assembled enough bottles for four podcast episodes. Last week, we covered wines that are new to stores but might have fallen through the cracks because of the sheer volume of product we receive. The spirits category is no different; we see thousands of new products every year from I...

Binny's has a lot of wine. A LOT. This year, we're on pace to add over 4,000 new wines.  That means you could come into Binny's every day for a year, buy a mixed case, and not taste the same wine twice. There's no way around it though, some of this stuff is going to fly under the radar. We can't talk about all of it, so this week Chris put together a tasting of 9 wines that are worth checking out....

Most of the time when a Binny's Handpicked Single Barrel comes in, it's gone within a few weeks.  Sometimes even quicker. The good news is the Whiskey Hotline picks hundreds of barrels every year, and because of there are a lot of hidden gems that get lost in the shuffle. Pat brought Joe, and a box of hidden Irish Whiskey, Bourbon, Rye, Armagnac, Rum and Scotch gems. The Binny's name goes on these...

TIYL. If you're stuck in a rut with your wine purchases, but are looking to get adventurous, this is the episode for you. Today we'll be tasting well-known wines or wines from well-known regions; if you like those wines, we can recommend something to elevate your wine game and move your palate into new and exciting things. If you like these wines try these wines: Foxglove Chardonnay 2018 Pieropan...

Usually, the beer styles near and dear to Roger's heart get no love. That's not the case this week, as we delve into Vienna Lagers. Over the last few years, several local breweries have added Vienna Lagers to their line-ups. There are also some craft stalwarts that you might not have even realized were Vienna Lagers. If you're a fan of Oktoberfest beers, and want them year-round, you'll love Vienn...

Mahalo! Here at Barrel to Bottle, we've been touting rum for years. This week, we're sitting down with Bob Gunter, President and CEO of Kolo'a Rum. Hawaii's remoteness presents challenges in sourcing equipment and ingredients. Environmental standards in Hawaii also mean using molasses for the rum is not a viable option. Drink along at home with the following rums: Koloa Kaua'i White Rum Koloa Kaua...

The Barrel to Bottle Crew has never shied away from spicy food, so it's kind of hard to believe it's taken us this long to do a hot sauce episode. Jenna recently attended a hot sauce festival, which Greg was prevented from going to by his significant other, and she brought back a slew of sauces, then added some of her own, along with one from producer Jim. The plan is simple: crack open a selectio...

Chances are, if you make a pop culture reference on Barrel to Bottle, Jim will laugh at it, off mic. Tapping into his vast knowledge of useless information, Jim has crafted seven fictional cocktails from TV (and one book). From small town Indiana to medium city Pennsylvania to a bar where everybody knows your name to the deepest reaches of space, these cocktails are definitely liquid and they won'...

Every day at Binny's, our inboxes are flooded with beverage alcohol news. This week, we're going to look at some of the latest word in wine in a new series we're calling Booze in the News. This week, we'll cover two newly created American Viticultural Areas, in Oregon and California. We'll also look into the state of Napa Valley as more and more family-owned wineries sell to large corporations. Fi...

It's that time again…time for the Barrel to Bottle crew and producer Jim to take a break from podcasting. Luckily, we've been compiling clips from episodes that ran too long, segments that felt out-of-place and montages galore! But these clips are no mere castoffs. They are artfully curated segments that let the Barrel to Bottle crew dig deeper, get more esoteric, or say "Smooj" way too many times...

Jack Summers is the founder of Jack From Brooklyn and Sorel Liqueur. He's the first African-American man, after prohibition, to be granted a license to produce liquor in America. People have been drinking hibiscus flower tea for centuries. He's the first to bottle Sorel, a hibsicus-based liqueur.  If you have a question for the Barrel to Bottle Crew, email us at  comments@binnys.com , or reach out...

Ruben Aceves is the global brand ambassador for Tequila Herradura. The family sold to Brown-Forman in 2007 but before that there were seven generations working at the hacienda. Tequila Herradura has the last remaining hacienda in the tequila industry. Ruben has been in the industry for several decades now, but where does he see it going? How does Herradura expand around the world? What will happen...

Jack's back! Binny's cigar buyer Jack Spethman makes his annual visit to the Barrel to Bottle studios to talk sticks with Pat and Roger. Roger wanted to focus on golf course cigars, even though he doesn't really golf. But it is warm out and that's when Roger smokes cigars (and pipes). Check out this guide to some great cigars for summer, along with new accessories and a pairing with Calumet Farms...

Welcome to part two of Old Ales and Barleywines. In part one, we covered old ales, this week, we're exploring the American side of these styles. Barleywine used to be huge among craft beer nerds, it was the hot beer style and was often viewed as a thank you from breweries to their hardcore fans. Drink along at home or start your own vertical with the following beers: Anchor Old Foghorn Barleywine...

Pat considers himself an adventurous guy. Drinking a bunch of old ale and barleywine when it's 100º is not his idea of adventurous though. Luckily the studio is cold, and the fan is on so he should be quite comfortable drinking all these heavy, high alcohol beers. Roger has been planning this episode for a very long time. He has verticals, he has barrel-aged variants. He even has a beer that he ha...

Canned cocktails are all the rage right now, but Dogfish Head has been perfecting their own recipes for the last twenty years. In part 2 of our interview with Sam Calagione we're sampling through some of their vodka-based cocktails. When we first started tasting cocktails at Barrel to Bottle, we asked the question "if you were served this at a bar, would you order another one?" But now that the ca...

Roger has been working on getting Sam Calagione for an in-person podcast basically since the last time he was on, several years ago. We made the most of this in-person opportunity and ended up with a two-part podcast. In part one, the Barrel to Bottle crew samples through some of Dogfish Head's most well-known beers, and discusses innovation in craft beer.  Drink along at home with the following b...

Summer is the time for white wines, rosés and Beaujolais. That's right, you don't need to drink Beaujolais in late November because they're also great summer wines that you can drink chilled on a hot day. Beaujolais is technically part of Burgundy, and it's made up of three categories. Today we're focusing on the 2020 vintage.    Drink along at home with the following wines:  Georges Duboeuf Beauj...

Lexie Phillips, assistant distiller at Jack Daniel's, stops by the Lincoln Park tasting room to sample a line-up of the famous Tennessee Whiskey with the Barrel to Bottle Crew. There's a lot of innovation coming out of Lynchburg these days, but there's still the classic Old No. 7 Drink along at home with the following: Gentleman Jack Jack Daniel's Old No. 7 Jack Daniel's Single Barrel Select Jack...

Rosés are popular, in fact they're one of our most popular items. They're often gone before you know it. Some people drink Rosés year-round, while some prefer to drink them when they weather gets warmer. Lincoln Park wine manager Gabe is back with four bottles of Rosé and a box. Drink along at home with the following Rosés Quadrum Rosé 2021 Cuvelier los Andes Rosé of Malbec 2021 Guigal Cotes du Rh...

Cue the Meatballs theme song…are you ready for the summer? It's a Roger episode, specifically summer beers. And while it's still spring, we record this episode when it's swelteringly hot. Seasonality means almost nothing in beer now, which means we have summer beers already (and we'll have Oktoberfest beers in July). Summer beers should be-as a guest once said- "CRUSHABLE". That means they're very...

Joining us all the way from Down Under are Stu and Cam, co-founders of Australian gin distillery Four Pillars. After working in the Australian wine industry for about twenty years they decided that they could make a bigger impact in spirits. They landed on gin because they were drinking a lot of gin. Drink along at home with the following gins: Four Pillars Rare Dry Gin Four Pillars Olive Leaf Gin...

Jason Lede (LAY-DEE) grew up around wine. Living in Canada, his father Cliff was a Bordeaux collector. Eventually Cliff's collecting turned into opening a winery in Napa. Soon Jason was visiting the winery during summer breaks, then he was taking semesters off school to work the harvest. At that point, he was fully in on working in wine and that led him around the world before settling back at Led...

The last time Binny's wine consultant Emily visited the Barrel to Bottle studios, she brought snacks. Her pitch for that episode was pairing wine with junk food, which eventually spun off into a second episode with classier wine pairings and popular Asian takeout foods. Today's episode pitch from Emily is pairing wine and music. It might seem like it's too abstract to make any sense, but the more...

Chris Cottrell is the partner/consigliere at Bedrock Wine Company, where they're dedicated seeking out and preserving vineyards all over California. He met future owner/winemaker Morgan Twain-Peterson while working at a wine shop in New York.   Morgan eventually opened Bedrock in a converted chicken coop in California. Chris joined Morgan in 2012 officially, after being an unofficial advisor for h...