Christmas Present with Gregarious Grump and Hearth and Home Magnum Opus!

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Welcome to the Whiskey Chasers, where we talk about our passion for whiskey and its history, either amongst ourselves or while interviewing distilleries. Oh, while enjoying a glass. I'm Steve. I'm Nick, and I'm Chris. Please enjoy responsibly while enjoying this week's episode of The Whiskey Chasers.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

What are we drinking? This I'm trying to think. I was like, dude, have I ever had a cast strength cognac?

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Have I ever had so before we talk about what we're drinking? We are going on The Spirits of Christmas, right? So we talked about the whole crap. What's this? Bob but not Bob Marley. We talked about Bob Marley. Bob Bob Marley. It's not Bob Marley.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

It's Christmas Carol.

SPEAKER_04 0:50

It's Christmas Carol.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Marley? No, it was Marley. But it wasn't Bob. But it wasn't Bob. Marley's Marley Craight. Nope. Something Marley. No, wait. It was Ebonies or Scrooge and uh it was uh Marley, but Jacob. Jacob and Marley. Jacob Marley. There we go. Why is it so hard to think not Bob?

SPEAKER_04 1:11

So we do we going through these spirits, right? We we dealt with at this point we have Spirit Pass. Spirit passed, which is gin, right? So now we're on spirit present, which is cognac. This is spirit present. This and I gotta say, we we've been going back and forth on like, is this past? Is this present? How does this fit?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

We have been kind of it's like driving a stick shift, like a man, you gotta float that clutch along with a gas pedal. And are we doing which one are we doing? Is this all clutch or all gas?

SPEAKER_04 1:39

I think what we're struggling with is we're thinking that somehow bourbon fits in the spirit world, and it's it it's a baby.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

It's it's like when you talk about cognac and you talk about uh Scotch, Jin, you know, the old world spirits, bourbon is still a little baby.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

We we're an infinite, we we might be like a toddler, maybe at this point.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Yeah, cognac's been around for a hot minute, but but they're doing new things to it because cognac, like uh a a uh cast strength cognac, that is not something that has been done so a whole lot.

SPEAKER_04 2:13

You guys have tried this briefly. I got this in Texas from uh a whiskey event, so whiskey social event. I've tried this. We all have. This is a 10-year-old cast strength cognac barrel pick.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, 10-year-old cognac from cast strength.

SPEAKER_04 2:30

From this whiskey social event, this group pick it. Okay, this I hate. I don't like cognac, dude. I love cognac. I don't like cognac, or I don't like brandy, I should say.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

I like all the yaks. Armagnac, cognac.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

So the very first year that I went to this, I picked this. So I described this to Ryan because he tried it. We're walking out after a full five-hour event of trying as much bourbon and whiskey under the world and under the sun as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Hold on, hold on.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

So you walk out, and this is in Texas, so we're talking 10 o'clock at night. You walk in out and the doors are open, it's pitch black outside, and it is dimmer lit than this room. And you have to stand like well, it feels like six feet apart from this table that you're picking all these things from, right? They have so many bottles lined up. You get to pick whatever bottle you want. When you look at this dim lit, what do you see? Don't look at the what do you see? Just the bottle shape. I saw a bottle shape. Bottle shape. What do you see?

SPEAKER_03 3:27

I would say, I mean, it's a it's a it's a it's a whiskey, it's mostly like an American single mall bottle.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

You said that too. Okay, good. Uh I see the bottle and I think well, I thought this will be something interesting.

SPEAKER_04 3:38

I've never tried a pants situation over there.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah, he's he's already adjusting his seat of his pants.

SPEAKER_04 3:44

I got this, and we did not plan on bringing it back with us like it the same day or the same trip back, right? So he had to ship this to us. You had to ship it, you had to ship it with several other bottles to me. Shipped his drawers, and I got this. And I literally sent him a picture and said, Tim, why'd you send me the wrong bottle? And he goes, no, buddy, that's the one you picked. I said, No, it's not. This is cognac. Clearly, I would not pick cognac. Chris knows me. He's like, Why would you pick cognac? Clearly, I didn't excited. I'd not pick cognac, and he said, You surprised me too. You got that. That was you. So I picked it. You've also been drinking all day for five hours.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

And that does look that does change the like an American single model.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

It looks like a whiskey bottle. So I I thought I got a little bit more.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

It looks like one of those Virginia.

SPEAKER_04 4:30

But no, this is a 10-year-old uh unfiltered, uncut, cast strength cognac. Gregarious grump is the name. Which is a great name.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Just gonna, just a spoiler alert, it's awesome. I'm dude, I'm I'm loving this. I'm loving it. We'll get into it.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Have you tried it? Oh, yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

I I freaking I freaking love this.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

I freaking love it. I don't know that I've ever had cognac other than apparently I have in the past, but I can't. You've had it on the podcast. We've talked about it on the podcast. We've talked about it. I thought I thought we had it. We pulled a port the one time so we can try out the phone. I should have poured you some brandy of some things.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

No, we've had cognac finished.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

I'm such a I'm such a brandy guy.

SPEAKER_04 5:13

But the cognac finish that we've had was Canadian. I don't think we've had anybody.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Anybody listening? We're gonna have to do the whole like, well, it's a cognac, what's brandy? So all cognac is brandy. Yes, there's a type of brandy. Brandy is cognac. It's just like all that old stuff. So cognac is brandy that's made in the cognac area. Yeah. Uh and then you have Armagnac, same diff. Yeah. And then brandy. It's it's all the same stuff. Basically, what it is, if you're listening and you don't know, most people do, but if you're listening, you don't know, it's fortified wine. So what they're doing is they're taking wine that's made in these areas, and they're distilling that shit. Like, and what a cool idea, right? And for somebody who doesn't really drink a whole lot of wine, I do love my brandy. It is good stuff. But I mean, it is a spirit, it's foolproof. This one's more than foolproof, but it's wine, and you that's why you get the grape and you get the the stone fruit and you get all the different, you know, fig, and you you can get so many different types of different flavors, but it's it is a spirit. A lot of people think it's a it's uh they think it's like uh you know a uh liqueur or something. No, it is a full spirit, it's just distilled, it's distilled wine. They take wine and they distill that shit. They take something that's already alcoholic, they distill it. I love that idea. Like that is so cool to me. Something that's already finished, like a finished product, and they distill that shit. That's awesome to me. That's like twice-baked potatoes. Yes and yes. Okay, please.

SPEAKER_04 6:35

So so we're dealing with twice-baked potatoes. How do you pick a pipe tobacco for this?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Well, okay, so this is a special cognac, and I'm I am picking a special tobacco. That this is a tobacco I have had, but it has been a long time. Okay. This is Hearth and Home, which is no more basically Hearth and Home? Hearth Home was Russ Olet from Pipes and Cigars, created this this brand, Hearth Home, which is still the brand's still a thing, but they utilized, they were basically sourcing from Sutliff and whatnot. So I now Sutliff's gone, they're done. I don't know what they're gonna do. I don't know, but the stuff that they were making, right now they're not making. So, but Hearth and Home, Russellette. If anybody knows in the pipe world, Russellette is like one of the master blenders. He's kind of like Booker No, you know what I mean? Like he's like one of the guys that you're like, oh, if if somebody knows how to blend a tobacco, it's Russellett. The dude knows what he's talking about. He's pieced together blends from old days that nobody knew how to do based on literally palette. The good dude knows what he's talking about. Anyway, he's made a lot of great blends. He has this brand, Hearth Home. He made a blend a while back called Magnum Opus. So it is his take on the best English ever. So Magnum Opus, if anybody knows what that means, it's like your triumph, right? You're this is my thing. The dude's made a lot of blends that people are like, this stuff is pretty spectacular. Like he's the Picasso of freaking pipe tobacco, right? So this is his Magnum Opus, okay? This is his English. For whatever reason, after a couple years of having this out Magnum Opus, he just changed the name to Magnum, poor move for whatever reason. Then they quit making it all together, poor move. Now they quit making hearth and home blends in general. So even just getting hearth and home is pretty impossible. Getting this blend in Magnum would be impossible. Getting this blend in Magnum Opus, like this one says, literally impossible. So we are gonna open up a tin that is no longer like it is no longer like this is like a dinosaur. We're gonna open this, and it's got age on it. This this has got like uh this was like 2016. This fits this age on it. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 8:48

I can't get this anymore once it's done. This is a one-off.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Uh, this bottle is a one-off. This tin is a one-off. We're gonna open it, we're gonna smoke the shit out of it.

SPEAKER_04 8:56

You know what? I feel like that fits the spirit of present. Exactly. We are all about we're living in the moment. We are living in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

I've been saving and saving and saving and saving this tent. It's been staring me in the eye, and I love the I love this artwork, it's very basic, but it's like very magnum open. Like, this is one of those things, like if you're an English smoker, and I've had this before, it's amazing. Uh, but this could be your blend, you know what I mean? And I love that. Like, and and it's quality made, like it's made with high-end materials. So I always thought that like this could be my blend. So if they quit making that stuff, so we're at we're at, you know, we're about to verge the path, the path not taken, right? You got two, two, two paths in a yellow wood. We're about to go the path not taken. And once I open this bad boy, this is the last one I have. This is and I haven't had it in a long time because I've been saving it. Today's the day. We're living in the present, we're living in the moment, we're gonna do it.

SPEAKER_04 9:48

Unlike Bob Marley, we're gonna live in the present. Jacob Marley.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Let's see if I can do this with my bare hands. No, I can't. Manhandle it. Come on, yeah. Normally, Steve gives it to me. Give it to me, Steve. That's right. I knew it. Oh man, it's tight, it's got some age on it.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Oh, yeah. You can't hear you can't hear it, but it is tight, dude.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, I had a hard time opening it.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Oh yeah. Oh, look at that, dude. Look at how too much dirt on there, yeah, or oxidation.

SPEAKER_04 10:16

So we we we've recently had a podcast out about talking about Thanksgiving and memories. And the idea that we may never get these bottles again, but that's fine. That's Christmas present. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what that's what we're talking about. Like, that is living in the moment.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

Not saving this for later.

SPEAKER_04 10:31

You never know, you just never know what tomorrow's gonna bring, right? Yeah, it's sorry. Is that paper black on purpose or is that white to be gonna be? Dude, I think it was white. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 10:41

And you see the there's white white specks are um what the heck? Do you know roughly how old this is?

SPEAKER_00 10:47

I I dude, I like I said, I quit they quit making the Magnum opus and just changed it to Magnum like 10 years ago. Like this has got some age on it. So this has got some age, yeah. This has got some age on it, and look how freaking dark it is. Yeah, that's super dark. And for a coin tin, this is pretty dry. So, I mean, that and you you heard it pop.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

So yeah, yeah, it's you know this has got some age on it. Oh, yeah, yeah. Let me let me fluff it. This stuff's gonna, this thing's gonna light up like a freaking uh like a fire extinguisher in here just in case.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

That smells, dude, that smells really good.

SPEAKER_03 11:23

So I couldn't find a whole lot on gregarious crap. I wanted to mainly just look up what cognac was and talk a little bit just about cognac. I ruined it, Steve. That's all right.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

You you you gave us the shortcuts? That smells amazing, dude. That smells like cologne you want to put on dude.

SPEAKER_04 11:37

This will go so well with that cognac.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, it's gonna be it. This is gonna be a this is gonna be a great pairing, and I'm gonna bust out Amirsham for this. I'm gonna do it. Look at you. I'm getting fancy with it.

SPEAKER_04 11:47

Well, I wondered how well you'd find the gregarious grump after seeing that it was a pick. I don't know who that I've never seen the company.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Uh so it is there, they they have their own small business, but uh if you do a Google search and go to Houston, Texas, like a Gregorious Grump's Spirits, which I think is what's on the back of that bottle, it's permanently closed.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

So it's gone.

SPEAKER_03 12:15

I believe this company is which wouldn't surprise me.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Yeah, I for something that we're trying as the present, you cannot get it. It's awful past, but but but but it's awful past. But we are living in the moment, so we're gonna we're gonna enjoy these things. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

But that's part of what the the the current is the present in the case. It's kind of the press taking not thinking about tomorrow. This is your only time to do it. YOLO. Yeah, yo, yo, YOLO.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

YOLO can yeah, I'm gonna have you hand that to Steve instead of throwing it. No, I didn't want to package it all the way up. Look at that reach. You reached you reached right around that uh microphone there.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

Six seven, six seven, like six, six, or seven. So uh funny thing, so Ryan and I had a conversation about brandy and cognac. And Chris, I'm sorry, I might have brought him to the dark side. So you have this theory that brandy and cognac are one and the same, made in different places, and brandy's more superior than cognac.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Okay, and I have an argument cognac's more superior than brandy. Well, the way you've talked about it has been the opposite. Well, brandy's just the thing. Cognac's a specialized version of that thing, right?

SPEAKER_04 13:22

But the way that you talk about it, for you personally, brandy's better than cognac.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

You prefer brandy over I just say brandy because that's what it is. Like, like I'm not gonna say Highland, like I like Highland whiskey. I'm just gonna say I like scotch.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Right. So but so we had this conversation that I believe that cognac is a thousand times, if not a million times, better than brandy.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

In in the way that tequila is better than uh Brascow?

SPEAKER_04 13:45

In the in the same thing. No, in the sense that that white wine is better than red wine.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

So you're kind of you're you're conflating two different things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Is brandy. But white wine and brand and red wine are the same thing as like chicken and steak. They are technically both wine, they're both meat, right? But they're not different grapes.

SPEAKER_04 14:08

So that's cognac.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Would you agree with the chicken and the steak and the white wine and the red wine? I that's what I'm that's what you drink with it. Or we eat with it. No, cognac. I think mezcks brandy and tequila and brandy and cognac are the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

You can say cognac is better than most brandies. Because it's specialized, because it's a specialized, it's a special kind of brandy.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Now, Armagnac, I think, is just I've just never had a whole lot of Armagnac, so I can't say one way or the other. It's just brandy. Brandy's great. I love brandy. But uh, the best brandies I've had are cognacs, and it's the white wine and red wine. But dude, so can I guess brandy kid be made with white wine? It's one, right? But is cognac made with white and red? No, just white. Only white. White only.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

You're assuming oh, okay, okay. So here's the assumption.

SPEAKER_04 14:56

So this is why I'm assuming this. We had the uh Brenn 10, the French singamalt, that was made with made with champagne, uh champagne yeast and aged or finished in cognac barrels. That has a significantly uh different taste than any brandy I've ever had. Is it just because it's champagne yeast?

SPEAKER_00 15:19

But is it just because I will say this brandies do vary, but brandies are a lot more than like I would say there's more variation in brandies than there are bourbons.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

So why are brandies dark red and cognac's bright white?

SPEAKER_00 15:34

I don't know if you can say there always are. And also it changes with the barrel. They use different barrels, they're not, they're not, they're not well, they're not they don't have to put it in the same barrel every time. Like they use different barrels, they they finish in different ways, there's different ages. Like, I I don't know. I but is there cheap? This one has how many, how much age on it? 10. 10. And look how light it is, right? Light as shit. Now, but I've had cognacs that are dark.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

There are six six different cognac regions in cognac, France. Yeah, in cognac, France. So brandy is all over France. There are six regions in cognac, France that make brandies. Do they make it from wet red and white?

SPEAKER_00 16:15

They do. There you go. There you go. So suck on that. Yeah, that whole argument just went right down the crap. Now, now if you're gonna ask me, six different regions. I will say if you're gonna ask me, do I like brandy made with white wine or red wine? I don't know. No, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 16:31

I guess my question is which is superior, cognac or brandy?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Well, cognac's a specialized version of brandy, so I would always say cognac. That's like saying um, you know, whiskey or bourbon, really, because I mean American whiskey could, you know, might not have a lot of things. So are you comparing brandy to be? Well, okay, which one's better? Bourbon, like just on face value, bourbon or bottle and bond bourbon?

SPEAKER_04 16:53

Bottle and bond.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Because it's why specialized. You know you're getting certain things with cognac, you know you're getting a specialized version of the spirit. It's made in this area, which means it probably adheres to certain things and they have different things, and you know it's good because you've had things from that area before, right? It makes it more specialty. It's a subset of that thing. So a bottle and bond is a subset of that thing that's regulated. Probably gonna have a good product here. You know what I mean? So cognac, you know, is gonna be good because it's brandy that's specialized. Because there's a lot of brandy out there, some of it's probably shit.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

Also, two of those regions are champagne regions, also. So there's also two, there's which cognac champagne.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

If you make bubbly champagne, but if you make champagne outside of that area, it's got to be called sparkling wine. It can't be called champagne, same, same dish, same stuff.

SPEAKER_04 17:41

So, what would you say is more old world? Cognac or brandy? Well, because so as I understand it, brandy came about because of I have a feeling cognac brandy was originated in cognac areas, probably, right?

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Maybe I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

So in a way, not they perfected it. Cognac is all white wine.

SPEAKER_05 18:02

Damn it, still.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

The white wine used in making cognac is very dry, acidic, and thin. Yes. Thought to be basically undrinkable.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yes. So wait, you're saying that they don't use red wine for co for cognac?

SPEAKER_03 18:14

For there, yeah, the white wine must be made from these guys.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I realize you just 100% made Nick 100% right. I know, and I'm so sorry. You completely F me over, Steve. Excuse me. That changes everything. Can you not tell the flavor? No, wait.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

Can you not tell the flavor?

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Nick, you are right. If that is the case, then there is a superior brandy and it's white wine brandy. Yeah, it's made brandy made with white wine, which is cognac brandy. Now all of a sudden I realize yes, there is a superior version. It is cognac. I was wrong, and that is not cool. And and brandy made from red wine is inferior. Yes, yes, you are right. Which is funny because if I drink wine, I like red, not white.

SPEAKER_04 18:58

If you drink brandy, you prefer brandy. You don't prefer cognac. I love cognac. And but here's what I love. So we're talking about the the spirit of present. If you're in the moment, so before before we went to Liberty Pole, PA, all that fun jazz, I spent the night here. And I got here, and Chris goes, I I feel like a cognac. Okay, I feel like a brandy. And whatever we pulled down was straight brandy. It was dark. It was not cognac. I had a glass, maybe a half, and I was done. And Chris had three to my one and a half. Yeah, I do like brandy. But living in the moment, Chris, you prefer brandy. You prefer the sweeter. You don't prefer the drugs. I didn't do try and badby.

SPEAKER_03 19:42

He preferred it that night.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, okay. I need more brandy. I need to find out brandy or cognac. We need more. We need more sample.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

So here's here's what I love about your theory, Chris. About we have to do the spirits of Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Hennessy, the pro the pro brandy. Is that brandy? Is that not cognac?

SPEAKER_04 20:02

Hennessey is brandy. Hennessy is brandy. But here's what I also love.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

But I do like cognac.

SPEAKER_04 20:07

We talked about the Thanksgiving episode. The bottles have a memory, right? You have a specific if you don't have it out there right now, you've gone through several bottles of Armagnac. I have. Why? Because I like it. No, there's another reason. Someone was over and got this bottle and said this is what was kind of the family thing, or grandma drank it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was your dad.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:31

And I've I've never seen that bottle to save my life. Nobody, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Somehow you find it.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

I find it and I like it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:38

There we go. Maybe not just whiskey has that, maybe spirits have that outside of that is a brandy. That is not a cognac. I think sipping whiskey or sipping spirits have that tie. Yeah. So you live in the present to say this once the brandy's gone, it's gone. I have a bottle of brandy. This will date the club and us. I have a bottle of brandy that was maybe 2019, maybe 2020. Cooper and Kinks, Copper and Kinks. American brandy finished in peerless rye barrels. A limited release. Chris and I found the last two bottles ever to exist that we know of in the world, probably.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

We both bought them.

SPEAKER_04 21:20

Yeah, and before the the interview, I sent him a text saying, Hey, should we have should I bring this or have this? That was the original. Should we drink this the night before? And he said, I don't have that bottle anymore. How do you not have that bottle? I can't get that bottle. That bottle stays on the shelf. Like that's a bunch of special. Yeah. You live in the present. You live in the present. And I love that bottle. Yeah, that was a great bottle. But if we're talking about this idea of living in the present, feel like this fits. Cognac brandy fits with living in the present.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

It does because they can if anybody's wondering, a lot of people haven't dabbled into brandy. It's got some interesting connotations. There, there's there's Not many on the shelf, and and then there's more behind the counter, and then there's more you'll never see. But brandy goes from like pretty cheap to very expensive behind the counter to ungodly expensive, like if you could ever find it. It goes from like you can buy like a few bottles for like 40 bucks, and then you look behind the counter, you're like, that's a $700 bottle of brandy. And then you're like, okay, those are tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars. It it just gets insane. Insane. There's no, there's not a whole lot of middle road brandies out there. So a lot of people don't f with it. You know what I mean? So to your point, Nick, uh, and a good brandy is gonna be like uh expensive. Like you're not like a cheap brandy is just cheap brandy, but a good brandy is gonna be expensive, and it is one of those things that typically doesn't last. You open it up and drink it. Yeah, and to that point, do you know how much you paid for this?

SPEAKER_04 22:57

How much I paid, uh that's a tricky question because I bought a ticket for the event and then I got this. Well, and this was a one was this part of it? Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

So look when I looked online and found this bottle, just their regular version, not the not a kind of a sore pick or whatever else, it was 150. So I would guess that this would be 250, 300. Unlimited at that. Unlimited that so you know, 150 is kind of your now. I feel like thinking about it as a 10-year cast strength, that seems like a pretty reasonable price. I would have thought it would be more, to be honest. People have an issue. If you're paying that much money for a non-like you said, because it's brandy, I assumed it would be more because I like you said, brandy's either 10 bucks or 10,000.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Like there's not a lot between between, and for some reason, people think that it's not like a foolproof liquor. Yeah, I don't know. People think that it's a liqueur, and they're like, Why would I spend $250 on a bottle of you know, a liqueur?

SPEAKER_04 23:59

You know, I think it's because people don't they assume that you don't sip this.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

This is totally sip.

SPEAKER_04 24:07

This is uh this is a like one and done kind of nice.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

When you hear there's a there is some negativity around brandy, yeah. Yeah, because there's some cheap ass brandy out there, yeah. And it's been and it's been wrapped about things. Yeah, uh, and and people think it it's it's what's funny is people think of brandy as a low-class drink. It's actually a very high-class drink. It was originally very drinking and you smoke cigar. I mean, you smoke a $30 cigar and you drink a brandy, you know what I mean? Like that's a very good night. That's not a cheap night. I've had nights like that, and it's not a cheap night. Right, but instead you think about Hennessy or Urkingerk.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so you think about these low-end brandies, and you don't really think about the more expensive brands that are out there. What is it? Louis Louis Vuitton, not Lou Vuitton, Louis 14 or Louis 17, or yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

So Louis 17. So they deck out some of this shit too. Um, you get diamond encrusted or diamond bottles.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

That's what the Louis bottle is. That's diamond encrusted.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah, they have some that are like millions of dollars.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

Yeah, I I a friend of mine bartended a place that had it, and they had to weigh that when they when they served it.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

And the bottle itself, you can take to a jeweler.

SPEAKER_03 25:17

And that's the thing. They they like they watch those bottles pretty good because when that bottle was empty, it's exactly nobody was allowed to dump that one.

SPEAKER_04 25:25

So, what's fascinating to me is cognac, brandy, that whole sect, right? That it's one and the same, I would agree, but it there branches out to something different. But when you get into like high-end Armagnac, not even high-end, just Armagnac, brandy, and cognac. That that three sect, that was made for kings, right? Well, well, here when they drink that right away.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Let me let you in on a little insight to why I think brandy is so funny. This is the nerd side of me, okay? This is the only spirit that can do this, by the way. But you take a 42-year-old Scotch, whatever. Okay, cool. Wow, well, that's amazing. You made 42 years ago, you made that shit, right? What you can do with brandy, you cannot do with scotch. You can't do with any other spirit. Imagine taking wine that's 42 years old, and distilling it down, distilling it and then aging that shit for 42 years. They do that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 26:17

Is that 84 years at that point?

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Dude, they do that stuff. Imagine taking a wine that has age on it, and wine actually gets better in the bottle with age, a rare wine with age on it, and then distilling that and then aging it on top of it. They do that stuff. You can't find that with any other spirits. That is quite freaking historical thing in a bottle.

SPEAKER_04 26:38

But that also is again living in the present. Yeah, that is a moment of.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

It's still meant to be used and drank and shared. Actually, by the time that bottle hits like that barrel hits the bottle, it's ready to drink. Yeah, because it's not gonna age anymore than that, and it might have a whole lot of time aged, but it's ready to be used.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

I feel like wine and brandy is good for the present, like that, because we talked about whiskey being a good memory capsule and like bringing it back and trying and think thinking back on the past, on these different things, whatever it may be. But with wine or or and probably with brandy as well, it is more of a this is the only one. Like when this case is gone, it's gone, it's gone, it's gone. And and you're gonna take a whole bottle. Like, you're not gonna hold you, can't hold on to it for a few a few weeks. Like this this bottle isn't meant to be drinking today. Wine is meant to be drank that moment.

SPEAKER_04 27:34

Bob and rosemary used to take us up to Michigan Christmas Eve. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we'd always have a meal, yeah. Yeah, uh at um at uh Friends, uh family friends, and we would have wine.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

That was one of the only huge meal and and and just family front. It was the most fun ever.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

That was the one of the only times I remember outside of maybe Thanksgiving that I remember Bob getting wine for that. Yeah, and I remember everyone. Yes, and he would it was for that moment. He was impressed.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Everybody got excited. You know, for me, that was uh the the first and only time uh I ever experienced anything like that. Because I didn't grow I didn't grow up with family like that. Like we didn't have cousins and grandparents and stuff. So actually, that is kind of a bittersweet memory for me because we don't go there anymore. But for me, that was like the only taste of like a family get together I ever had. Do you remember the blueberry one? We did that every day. Oh, yeah, yeah. We did it every year and I finished we would get we would get um hammered.

SPEAKER_04 28:34

Chris and I finished at least a bottle, maybe a bottle and a half of blueberry wine, dessert wine by ourselves. And it would that that goes down very quickly, very easily. And I'm not a wine drinker, but there are ideas. Yeah, we're talking like Italian family, so like wine is their thing, but like you don't leave the house without the wine bottles being finished. You don't cork it and go home.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

No, no, no. That is to drink and finish. You run out, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:57

You talk about brandy cognac being wine, distilled wine in that culture. It's of the present. We finish it, we don't cork it, we share it. This is it the bottle's not the memory, the bottle's not the moment, the time spent around the bottle.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

That it goes back to my thing. It's a catalyst.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

Yeah, my uh my in-laws, we will get together for on Thanksgiving, and we always uh they they get some French wine for Thanksgiving, and it's uh it's a uh bouger, is the what the what's called. That's a fancy wine. It's a very fancy bougie. It's a very bougie boujole. Bouger. My sister-in-law is a pretty big wine drinker, and she will go around to wineries and stuff and do the snob. She sniffs the hell out of that. Yeah, yeah. She's got the one nostril in. And so, um, but yeah, her so so uh they we get together for Thanksgiving and we always have that. I grew up with homemade wine of grandma's what the like like crushed with their own feet, yeah. Like that is hardcore. My grandma made wine, and I'm the only one in the family that ever continued to make wine. You still make wine on occasion. Do you step step on it? No, no, no. So I I don't make grape wine. Oh, you mean counter wine? I I make counter wine, yeah. Is that like prison wine? It's it's kind of it's a step up. So here's the thing. So He didn't say no. When grandma made wine, there are only three ingredients sugar, fruit, and water. And it's in a gallon of what it becomes yeast and it just added or anything. It's just it's usually strawberry. That was a popular one. But it's like take an apple cider and just let it sit. Yeah, exactly. You're that's and that's all it is, which means there's no control. That takes a lot of checking, checking in checking on it. There's no control. So there is no like it's it's she would she never knew what the presentation is. I don't know what the ABV was too. It could be like 170. She never she never had a thing to check it. But sugar and water will eventually just eventually with a little bit of sugar, yeah. Fruit you need the fruit to make it, and then the fruit has natural yeast inside of it, so it just makes it like I had to use some yeast. No, that the fruit's natural, like like like apple cider.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, that's how meat starts. Yeah, but that's sitting for a hot minute.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

It's it was about a month. Uh really? That's it.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

That's it. On the counter.

SPEAKER_04 31:21

On the counter.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

We're always like, oh, how'd these people figure out alcohol? They just drank some bad shit. You they literally found out alcohol by drinking some bad fruit juice. Yeah, it's they're like, oh, it's fucking us up. Yeah, like so.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

No, it's it's in a gallon glass pickle jar. They weren't scientists with a with a with a coffee filter wrapped on top of it to keep the bugs out. Okay, and that's it. Hey, how about we make our own? Oh, but for sure. Let's do it. Here's the here's the thing with it, though. Like it, like I said, here's the thing. We should try it. There's no way to control the drink it. So she would just try it every day. And if it tasted right, then you put it in the fridge.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

Did you get halfway down? Well, just a little bit. Yeah. Do that.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

If it's not alcohol, it's gonna make her live longer, probably. It's probably still healthy. So she takes it until it's ready, whenever that's and then you put it in the fridge.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

Because if you put it in the fridge, it stops. It stops. So you had to keep it in the fridge after that. So I did that. I eventually was like, I think I might add just a little bit of modern science to this and like get a thing to at least see what the ABV is. Maybe add some yeast, try to like make real wine.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

So you could really leave out some like grape juice. Yeah, that's all it is in in like prison, and like that would eventually become sure.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

In prison, but in the kitchen, wherever you want to know.

SPEAKER_04 32:41

But it makes you sick though, if like no, good because it breaks down, it eats itself to break down to make you think that it would, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

That's just the the fruit is rotting, which is making me so God made alcohol.

SPEAKER_03 32:54

Sure, Chris, you ate blue cheese.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Didn't he? No, but think about it. Yeah, but think about it. But like he literally made this stuff to like become this stuff.

SPEAKER_04 33:03

How are you just thinking about it? And he knew we were gonna drink this stuff. You eat blue cheese, right? I love blue cheese. Blue cheese is molded cheese.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

I love all the bad cheeses.

SPEAKER_04 33:13

Right, yeah. So think about alcohol. All the curdled fruit is just alcohol.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

You think when you think alcohol, you think man perverted something that maybe God molded. God actually made it that way to like become that.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

Yeast is just mold. That's amazing. And so it's just then the sugar eats the yeast, poops out alcohol. That's how it works.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

I love it. Defecated. Yeah, that's great. They definitely defecate nature defecates alcohol. I'm gonna make a shirt. That's cognac. Yeah, cognac is just defecated nature.

SPEAKER_03 33:40

But so like that's the wine I grew up with, which is incredibly sweet.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

I want to try that fruit-based wine, not not foot stomped, not foot stomped, very meticulously watched every day by Steve and then put in the fridge with loving care when it was ready to go in there.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

I want to try that one. I will share some bad news with you on this method. You had a bad oh, ants. Ants. So, because this it's it's sugar water on a counter. Of course, ants are gonna want it. So I I came home one day and I turned on the lights, or before I turn on the lights, I looked and was like, things are wrong, things are moving. Something's not right, I don't get it, and I turn on the lights, and it is like caked with ants. Like ants that's an infestation, all like a true infestation going through this. So I got some tarot, which is the best thing to get rid of ants, but not tarot is the best. So I thought, and I put a little drop down or whatever, and they came and like it was gone, like they drank it all up. So, like this group. So I thought this is kind of fun, and I wrote my name in cursive in tarot, and I got a picture of my name written in ants, which is kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

You never become more sadistic than when you because you're like, eat it and go back to your family and kill everybody. Yeah, you become like a literal terrible person when you're when you really think about insects. You're like, I want you to not die, I want you to kill the whole family and infect everybody. I want you all to suffer so horribly, you never enter my house again. You become the worst person ever when it comes to insects.

SPEAKER_03 35:14

I I learned after that to put it in a cookie tray full of water because that way the that way they can't get to it, and then they then they went away. So that that solved that problem. Uh, even though I had a coffee filter with a rubber band around it, that was not enough to keep the ants out. I love how sophisticated that is. That literally sounds like prison wine.

SPEAKER_04 35:34

Short of sitting in the toilet, we were good. I made spaghetti today with my ramen.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

I made an old pickle jar instead of a toilet. That's the only thing. So that's the prison wine nonsense that I had as a child.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

I'll try it because it's not foot stomp, bacteria, ant infested.

SPEAKER_03 35:52

Yeah, that was uh that was my 16th birthday present from my grandma, was learning how to make wine, going to grandma's house for the weekend and learning how to do it. It was a great, it was a great birthday present. But yeah, so that was the cheap nonsense wine I had growing up. And now that I'm older, I'm like, oh, wine's gross. Well, wine is kind of gross.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Plus you're a teleport or I mean you could have other things, and it gives me a headache.

SPEAKER_03 36:15

It really gives me a headache. Yeah, I had a wine moment where I I tried to like wine and tried to go through different ones, and and I do like there are like I can get by on it. People that are really big into wine not a male their own farts.

SPEAKER_04 36:29

They do, they're like, oh, that's really easily farted.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

I'm getting awful close to enlightenment. Yeah, that's uh when you're really into wine, you're really into your own flatulence. Like really pretend like you've gone beyond pretentious and you're in a whole new realm of I don't know what is that because you like your sulfates? But if you just it's something, it's something.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

If you keep that if you distill it though, yeah, but you distill it now. You're you're doing something cool. Now you're doing something cool.

SPEAKER_04 36:58

Now we're in the present, we're cool. So the idea of the present, right? So the wine, yeah, it's it's living in the moment.

SPEAKER_03 37:05

It is, yes, it really is because once it's gone, it's gone. There is no like when we we were when we talk about these bottles, we're we're talking about the memories created in the past or memories thought of with the wine. It the the wine is the memory, like that's planning for the future, yeah, knowing that this is gonna be gone in the present.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

Yeah, wine is the only spirit, maybe cognac and brandy, that anyone can say, I can fit a whole bottle in a Yeti container and drink it all day long. And no one goes, Oh, you alcoholic. Oh, that's normal. Yeah, I I drink a whole bottle, it's fine. There's one glasses that are the size of a bottle. Like, what?

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Yeah, well, I the alcohol content is different. Yeah, to be to be fair, the volume of if you were to drink a whole bottle of a whole bottle of wine, there are a few different things. Scientific scientifically, there's two different things. For me, for me, uh brandy is an amplified wine. So, like, really, like you have sirloin steak, which is not bad by any means, but an aged filet, medium rare, Oscar style, you bet your sweet ta. Some little bit of lobster, yeah. Yeah, that's well, lobster, yeah. Oscar style is a little bit of crab, a little bit of crab, bernice sauce. You bet you're sweet, yeah. You bet your Billy Club there. I mean, that's uh that's a good, that's a but they're both meat. They're both meat, but the one is just sirloin. I mean, come on. So, I mean, uh uh a brandy is really wine elevated. I mean, and wine has its place. I just anymore, it doesn't have a place in my home, you know what I mean. I I could I could drink wine with this meal, or or right, I could drink an actual spirit, you know, like like why would why wouldn't I like candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. I mean, that is just a fact.

SPEAKER_04 38:58

So, how does this fit in with the Christmas carol, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Uh Christmas, so the present was Jacob Marley and it was basically like this is your life now, this is how you're effing it up. Yeah, uh, this is how you could potentially improve it, knowing what you know that's actually going on currently. The future is like you're already done fucked up.

SPEAKER_03 39:20

Yeah, like it's done and over with. Christmas present was going to uh to to Crankit's house.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Yeah, uh Crockett, not Davy, not Critch, not Davy, Critchit, Cricket, Cratchit, Cratchet, Cratchit, Cratchit or Cratchit, not Crockett, not Davy, not the Alamo.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Yeah, going to Cratchit's house, seeing little Timmy, seeing how thankful they were with how little they had.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Future is specifically if you continue on the path you are now, this is what it's gonna be. The present was an opportunity to see what he is seeing, what he's not seeing, and you know, these are the things you could change, but future was very much if you don't change if you don't change, like if nothing happens and you just keep going on, this is what's gonna happen. So, present was really the most opportunity to open his eyes.

SPEAKER_04 40:11

Thank you. Okay, so I've got a question for you guys. We're we're living in the present, right? Spirit of present. We're living in the moment. Power to ask, this tobacco and this glass. I think it's great. This is something that you have never opened, you've held on for a while. We're living in it, you guys are living in the present in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

I mean, I I will speak first because I have not been smoking many Englishes lately. So for me, I think I maybe appreciate it even more than most people that are that are pipe smokers because I have taken a bit of a hiatus from English. And this is one of the English blends that you you know would be lucky to have, you know. It's not it's not behaving in my pipe super well, but for all that, the flavor is quite extraordinary. It's it's pretty it's pretty matured, full flavored without being overpowering. It's not harsh, it's not harsh, it's it's um I just think it pairs well. But I think English tobacco and cigars pair very well with a brandy or a cognac. And I I've tried brandy and cognac with like a burly tobacco or an aromatic tobacco, and it is just not it is too easy, guys. It is not good. With a brandy, you really need some body, you need to be voluptuous, you need to be the girl from uh who framed Roger Rabbit, like all them curves, that's what you need. You need you need that, you know what I mean? So you really need a full-bodied Maduro cigar, even a Connecticut doesn't do most of the time. Like a good Maduro cigar, which is a dark leaf uh cigar, or a strong English or matured English. This is a matured English.

SPEAKER_03 41:55

I was gonna say, um, like you, I don't think it's behaving super well in my pipe. It's it's it's definitely not saying lit uh the way some other ones do. But flavor-wise, you're right, it's very full-bodied. And I don't know much about cognac and stuff, but based on just uh what I the little bit of just having this one, I can see why like a burly or something wouldn't work because you want something to build on, you want something bigger. Uh and in English, it's good for that. Um one downside that, and this is so I'm not very good at living in the present, I'm very bad at being present. I am always looking to the future and thinking about the future or thinking about the past, but I'm very bad at sitting in the present. So, because of that, my immediate thought is I would like to have more of this in the future, and I think about that, and then I'm a little bit like ah, that's too bad. Like, this is disappointing more, yeah. And so, which is a little bit disappointing. That FOMO a little bit kicks up, a little bit, yeah, a little bit of that. So I with the with the cognac, I'm like, okay, I can't have this again, but I can have some kind of interesting cognac. I can maybe look for other other ones or whatever else with the Magnum opus. This is kind of the end the end, like this guy isn't around anymore, or is he around anymore?

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Yeah, even if you could find something, it would just say Magnum. Yeah, and you can't even find that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:27

Yeah, that fits with the con it fits very well with the bottle. It does. So their stories go hand in hand very well because of that. But because I'm not very good at living in the present, I get a little bit upset about it.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

And what's funny is I to speak to that, what you just said almost proves the point. Because that is exactly what Nick and I that's why Nick and I cannot open up a bottle that is so good and not finish it. Because we almost we want to get every drop out of it. And by the time we're done with it, usually it's like closing the it's Closing the book. You know, uh, if you're a big reader, you know what I'm talking about. Either whether whether it's one book or it's a series of books, but when you get to the end of a very the conclusion of a very large story, Harry Potter for some people, uh, Chronicles and Arnia, for me, it's it's any big series. When I get to the end, and I'm like, there is no more, there's no more. I'm about to read the last few words. It's very like sad, and it's very, there's all these, there's a lot of different feelings. And you can get to that where you're like, I want more, but usually by the end of that, you're kind of resigned. It's kind of like a person that that actually lives to the ripe old age of 80 or 90 or whatever it is, you know, and and they're finally ready and they close their eyes and to go on. They had enough. That is why me and Nick will sit in in a bottle until it's gone. And and I can't, oh, this is one of those bottles that I couldn't drink some and put it away. You need to get enough out of it that when you dump it in the trash, when you you know turn it over, you know, the you kill the bottle, you're happy because you actually indulged in that bottle. You you took it for all it was worth. There is no more, the ride is over, get off. You know, you passed go, you actually did collect $200, all of it. It's done, it's over with. Sometimes a good finale is better than no finale at all, right? And I think that that's what we that's living in the present. So, speaking to what you're saying, Steve, you can look at it from either side. And I think when you're on the one side, you can look at it one way, but when you're on the other side, you look at it a different way. It's just like when you take a ride, it's always longer to get there than it is to get back. You ever notice that? I mean, that's what it is, it depends on your perspective. That's why we love killing a bottle together. It's so, it's so such a cathartic thing.

SPEAKER_04 45:47

I also think that's why gin fits the past. You never want to finish a bottle of gin.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

It always leaves you wanting more. Yeah, but I've never been satisfied. But you never finish a whole bottle and be like, oh, we have to sit down and find out. I've never been like, I'm done, like I'm going to bed.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

You know what I mean? I this fits most whiskies. I think that's why we think whiskey for the present, but this fits that idea of it satiates. And it satiates, but it's also that idea of like it tells a story. I don't know anyone that wants to put a book down halfway through and go, cannot wait to go back.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

It's like skipping ahead to the end.

SPEAKER_04 46:21

They just never put it down, right? They they always want to keep reading, keep reading, keep reading because they're in the moment, they're in the present. They they want to finish, right? Those that put it down are like, I can come back to that. When? When you have a moment, when you have time to do that.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

Is it really in the present? Like, are you really into it right now? A lot of times you put something down thinking in the future, in the future, in the future, right? But in the moment, I can't stop. Yep, I cannot stop.

SPEAKER_04 46:47

And I think that was the whole idea behind the spirit of Christmas present was like, what are you missing out of? What is in your now? Right now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

What could you do right now that would change the future?

SPEAKER_04 46:57

Right. Like you're spacing on this, you're you're not looking at this, you're not paying attention to this, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Because that's that's what he sees. He sees Tiny Tim right in his current state, and then like, and then he sees later, well, if you you did nothing, he he dies. That's him. So really it's like in the moment, what could you do now that may might prevent that or change that outcome? That's what the whole I mean, and that's the thing when you read that story, though the the ghost of present, which is funny because that's not really a ghost at all. That's just what's happening right now. Oh, how does it become a ghost? That's the most important thing because sure, the past gives you perspective, the future gives you insight, but the present gives you the ability and the option and the and and the chance to change things. Present's where the power is, and nobody ever thinks about that. It's always down the road, down the road, or thinking back, thinking back. But the present, we don't live our lives, we don't make those changes, we don't actually take it by the balls. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04 47:53

Do you think that's why Brandy and Cognac is like the the king's drink, the power of the present?

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Because they're in the moment, yeah. They might they might not be king tomorrow. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:03

Do you think that's why? I mean, think about all the other spirits.

SPEAKER_00 48:06

We don't have the spirit that and it's so valuable, and they're doing it in the moment. Yeah, that's the case. I mean, smoke all your pinzants.

SPEAKER_04 48:13

So uh we smoke them if you got them. We haven't talked about this, Chris. So cognac being the superior white grape brandy, he's just rubbing it in at this point.

SPEAKER_00 48:21

That's we both messed up.

SPEAKER_04 48:23

Yeah, what do you what do you think about this guy?

SPEAKER_00 48:26

You know, I do like cognac, but I will say I we so what Nick is referring to, we've had plenty of conversations where I've said, you know, uh, this brandy's great or that brandy's great. I think brandy in general is great, you know. I so I think Nick has always been like, Well, do you really like cognac or is it just brandy? You know, yeah, and I will say that I do tend to drink darker brandies.

SPEAKER_04 48:51

That's right, it's fair.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

I wonder if you might be onto something. So what do you think? I'm not even aware of myself that maybe I do like non-white wine brandies, which would be non-cognac, which is like the complete brandies. Which is uh I I here's the thing typically cognacs are fancier, brandies are not, typically.

SPEAKER_04 49:14

But that's all it takes to admit about yourself. Red wine is normally fancier, yeah. White wine is not, it is, yeah. It's the opposite of wine.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Well, white wine can be fancy. I there's there's a few there's few times where you drink white wine, uh fish, chicken. Uh white wine's a little too fancy for me. I I I think red wine is the is the man is the is the working man's drink. If you're eating spaghetti, which is some cheap ass shit, I mean, you're drinking bread wine. You know what I mean? Uh it's a guy, shrimp scampion. Yeah, the shrimp scampion itself is a cheap, it's a poor man's uh hell, a pool boy sandwich would be good with a with a you wouldn't drink white wine with a pole boy, you know what I mean? But I I do think that white wine is more of a fancy, fluted glass type of a deal. That's why. Have you ever seen a champagne red colored? No, it's always white. I've never seen a dark colored champagne. What the hell is with that? Uh that champagne grapes are.

SPEAKER_03 50:12

You can add bubbles to dark wine, you could totally add bubbles to dark wine. There is sparkling grape juice, so that's does have theirs, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

Yeah, I grew up on that, but yeah, I don't know. I I you might be honest, something I'm not gonna commit, but could I try it? Can I be a cheap brandy drinker? Maybe. God, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's cheap people say, I do like Hennessy. Hennessy gets a bad rap, but the Hennessy I like is high-end, it's not cheap. There is some good Hennessy out there when you think henney, you're like, there is some cheap henny, but I mean that's no different than taking shots at J-Mo. I mean, J Mow can be good on its own as well. But I mean, a not a lot of people sip J-Mo, you know what I mean? Hennessy, same thing. There is some high-end Hennessy out there. Hell, there's some Hennessy that is expensive, it's good stuff. You don't it does have a bit of a like cheap connotation, doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be, but uh it's like anything else, there's cheap versions of everything. But you're right that I mean that is it's dark brandy, and I do like it. I do like dark brandy. I mean, you're not wrong.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

So, what do you think about this? But I love this.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

This is great. Uh, this is very, very good. I mean, being a brandy drinker, I would like to have this all the time. I can't get it. Uh, but um, but I mean that's but is it just this, or is it the fact that hey, this is age, sure. But how many cash strength brandies are out there? Not many. I guarantee if you Google it, there's not gonna be a whole lot that shows up. And brandies are typically not high proof. I mean, that's that's nuts. I mean, because think about it, to get a wine that high proof and everything else, and then you know, retain the flavor, yeah, and age it that long, you know, and everything else. I yeah, I don't know. That's a whole there's a whole nother science level to this that we haven't even talked about. That uh we kind of understand distilling. Distilling wine, what the hell is that? I mean, uh, you're taking a finished product and starting over, that's a whole nother thing.

SPEAKER_03 52:09

That's a whole nother the the regionality of cognac and then a brandy on top of that, the regionality of the different grapes makes it so that brandy is definitely something that I think you could like be a brandy person and pick around the different types and have a region that you really like, like scotch or whatever else there, there where it's more regional. Um, I think that matters more than whether it's a cognac or a brandy. I think it more matters what the region is. Where the wine came from and where that wine come from.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

I think that matters more than anything else. One of my hare-brained crazy experimental ideas. I've taught I've told you this, Nick, and I don't know how it would work if it's even possible. But we've talked about, you know, there's been scotches finished in brandy and whatever else. But what if we had some sort of brandy that was Scotch-esque? That's not been that's not been that's not been really done, though. Like a like a very smoky brandy, like a very smoky, like I don't know how you'd even do that. But I don't know where you get the some sort of peted, some sort of peated brandy.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

Well, you couldn't do because it's it's grapes. Yeah, so you're not drying a grain.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

No, it would have to be a finish of some kind. Okay, so I don't know how you do it. You take a very peated scotch, you put it in a barrel, then you take brandy and you put it in that barrel. That's the only way I could think of to do it. It'd be a basically a it would be a scotch finish brandy. That's not been done. That might be disgusting, that might be barf. I don't know, but it could, it's interesting. It's not something I've had. I've never had a smoky brandy. That's what I'm getting at. I want a smoky peaty brandy. I have one a lot of smoky fruit, but I've had a smoky scotch that was brandy finished and loved it. Yeah, so what's what's yeah, that makes my brain go, what's the opposite of this? Or what's the inverse of this? I want to try it, it might be terrible. I don't know. There's things that are I guess what I'm saying is there's things that are still not been done. Just when you think it's all been done, it hasn't been done. But that is a problem for the future.

SPEAKER_03 54:16

Yes, that's a future problem. In the moment, it's this, but for right now, this is very good. And during the Christmas season, spend some time to think about the present. I'm bad at that, and it's something I need to worry about. It is a gift, it is a gift. So, yeah, gentlemen, I want to tell you about the next week, but that's in the future. That's in the future. I can't predict that. So enjoy tonight, and hopefully you're still running for next week. Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you want more great content and other perks, be sure to support the show by clicking the link in the show notes. We can be reached on our website, whiskey tastersplum.com, with any ideas for the show. Thanks again.