Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the
Speaker 1: third season of Criminalia. This season, we're exploring the lives
Speaker 1: and motivations of some of the most notorious impostors throughout history.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria tram Marquis and I'm Holly Fry. And the
Speaker 1: impostor that we're going to get to know in this
Speaker 1: episode is a man with a fabulous name, man Waldo
Speaker 1: Demara Jr. He preferred to be known as Fred, and
Speaker 1: we want to make a note about his last name.
Speaker 1: We have looked at various pronunciations for it. Some people
Speaker 1: say it Demera, some people say it Demara. We're going
Speaker 1: with Demara, so just know that that's that's where we're
Speaker 1: defaulting too. But you might hear it a different way
Speaker 1: if you go looking for information on him. Fred, as
Speaker 1: again he liked to be called, was born on December
Speaker 1: one in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and his family were largely theater owners.
Speaker 1: Fred's uncle, Napoleon Demarro Senior, another great name in the family,
Speaker 1: owned several theaters across Lawrence, and Fred's father, ferdman Waldo
Speaker 1: Demarro Senior, worked in the Old Theater District as a
Speaker 1: motion picture operator. They were active union members and the
Speaker 1: families were pretty well off. His fairly also was fairly devout,
Speaker 1: and Fred maintained a strong interest and belief in Christianity
Speaker 1: throughout his life. Mostly mostly we say, because we're actually
Speaker 1: right now, I'm going to talk about his first con.
Speaker 1: His first con was tiny. We quote Maria Konokova, who
Speaker 1: was the author of a book called The Confidence Game.
Speaker 1: She also went on to say, why and how do
Speaker 1: we so easily fall for scams? And Fred's scam he conned,
Speaker 1: This isn't when he was in high school, he conned
Speaker 1: a chocolate shop in his hometown into giving chocolates to
Speaker 1: his entire class when he had no money or intention
Speaker 1: to pay for them. She went on quote, that's no
Speaker 1: big deal. But after that there was no turning back.
Speaker 1: He was on his way to becoming the great impostor. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So in terms of Christianity, not so much with all
Speaker 1: the commandments, just that felt right, pick and choose selective commandment.
Speaker 1: So when the early part of the Great Depression began,
Speaker 1: it hit his family. Fred's father went bankrupt and the
Speaker 1: family was forced to relocate and it was then, when
Speaker 1: Fred was just sixteen years old, that he ran away
Speaker 1: from home with the intentions of becoming a monk. He
Speaker 1: joined a monastery in Rhode Island, and his parents were told,
Speaker 1: now don't worry by a father demeris of the Trappist Monks.
Speaker 1: He has joined the most demanding religious order in the world,
Speaker 1: and he will be home in several weeks. I always
Speaker 1: that to be He's not going to be able to
Speaker 1: handle this, and you'll frame him in about a month.
Speaker 1: He can't hack it. We will take care of him.
Speaker 1: He'll learn his lesson and go home, and he'll be
Speaker 1: home soon. Um. In fact, Fred did join the monastery
Speaker 1: as what was known as a novice. The monks required
Speaker 1: novices to live as residents for five or six years
Speaker 1: before taking their vows, but after four years Fred laughed.
Speaker 1: He later was quoted saying that it was because of
Speaker 1: the abbot of the monastery. The abbot, for those who
Speaker 1: don't know, is the male head of an abbey of monks,
Speaker 1: so he's the lead dude, and the abbot felt that
Speaker 1: Fred would be better suited for teaching out in the
Speaker 1: world rather than living in contemplation. Four years is a
Speaker 1: long time though I got to give him some credit. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is a long time. So Fred left the monastery
Speaker 1: in and of course World War two was on the horizon,
Speaker 1: so he listed in the U. S. Army. However, Fred
Speaker 1: did not really like being in the army, certainly at
Speaker 1: is not compared to what his time in the monastery
Speaker 1: had been like, and after just a year he deserted.
Speaker 1: While Fred may have run some basic scams here and
Speaker 1: there in his early years, this is when Fred took
Speaker 1: on his first false identity. Wanting out of the U. S. Army,
Speaker 1: Fred decided to take himself to the U. S. Navy,
Speaker 1: but this time he was using a fraudulent name, Anthony
Speaker 1: in Olia, who was a real person actually and one
Speaker 1: of his army buddies. So it's a little bit early,
Speaker 1: but we're going to take a break here for a
Speaker 1: word from sponsor, so we can then kind of group
Speaker 1: talking about Fred's first real impersonation altogether. Welcome back to Criminalia.
Speaker 1: We're right where Fred pulls off his first and perhaps
Speaker 1: his biggest con So initially in the U. S. Navy,
Speaker 1: Fred going by the name Anthony and Nulia trained as
Speaker 1: a Corman, which is the equivalent today of like an
Speaker 1: e m T year of Physicians Assistant. It's a paramedical position.
Speaker 1: As he soon realized though, this job actually meant that
Speaker 1: he was going to be serving on the front lines,
Speaker 1: and he immediately tried to get out of it. He
Speaker 1: forged credentials that would allow him to enroll in officer
Speaker 1: training instead, but unfortunately for him, his forgery was discovered
Speaker 1: and for Fred that of course meant once again deserting
Speaker 1: and going back on the run. This time in his life,
Speaker 1: his resume as an impostor was becoming actually quite lengthy
Speaker 1: and quite varied. After leaving the Navy, Fred, who did
Speaker 1: not have any real credentials for well anything, really went
Speaker 1: on to teach psychology on college in Pennsylvania. He then
Speaker 1: posed as a professor of psychology at a school in
Speaker 1: Washington State. And it's hard to believe, but in fact,
Speaker 1: while he was in Washington, Fred was so popular in
Speaker 1: his town he was asked to stay on as sheriff.
Speaker 1: Fred Allway was on the prowl, saw a new opportunity
Speaker 1: and a new life to vanish into Laminais College in Alfred, Maine,
Speaker 1: was founded in nineteen fifty one by the brothers of
Speaker 1: Christian instruction and joining the Brothers as Brother John Payne
Speaker 1: was a pretty easy way for Fred to take on
Speaker 1: a new identity. But he walked away from all of
Speaker 1: this in nineteen sixty. But this time it wasn't because
Speaker 1: you know, the time was approaching for him to take
Speaker 1: holy orders and he wanted to duck out instead. He
Speaker 1: left when the Brothers decided that they were going to
Speaker 1: rename the school to Walsh College instead of naming it
Speaker 1: after him. Now, whether he did or he didn't, Fred
Speaker 1: believed it was his idea to start the school, and
Speaker 1: he was angry that he wasn't recognized for it. They
Speaker 1: didn't even name him as rector or chancellor of the
Speaker 1: new college. So he left again. And Fred next took
Speaker 1: to the and this is a surprise, the Royal Canadian Navy.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a sailor, he wasn't a Canadian citizen. But
Speaker 1: one of his most impressive impersonations was when he joined
Speaker 1: the RCN in March nineteen sixty one. What makes this
Speaker 1: even more impressive is that he did so as a surgeon.
Speaker 1: Fred didn't actually have any of the degrees that he flaunted,
Speaker 1: or any education or training in any of the careers
Speaker 1: he tried, but he was intelligent and the people he
Speaker 1: knew said he had a remarkable memory. So Fred, using
Speaker 1: the name Dr Joseph Sear, visited the recruiting office in
Speaker 1: St John, New Brunswick and offered his professional services as
Speaker 1: a doctor, and he was commissioned as a surgeon lieutenant.
Speaker 1: This sounds shocking, but you know, processing a recruit normally
Speaker 1: would have taken about three months, but because there were
Speaker 1: so few medical officers, authorities were very lax on this
Speaker 1: screening and luckily for Fred, that included background checks as well,
Speaker 1: and so in no time at all. Dr Sear, who
Speaker 1: was really Fred, was assigned to the Naval Hospital in
Speaker 1: Halifax and subsequently to h MCS Cayuga. He joined the
Speaker 1: ship in Esquimalt. This is the ship's second tour of
Speaker 1: duty in Korean waters. As a fake surgeon in the
Speaker 1: Royal Canadian Navy, Fred actually did perform real surgeries, believe
Speaker 1: it or not. His first was dental work on the
Speaker 1: infected tooth of Cayuga, commandered Captain James Plumber. Fred's secret
Speaker 1: to success as a fraudulent medical practitioner was threefold. One
Speaker 1: read a few textbooks to rely on the help of
Speaker 1: the sick birth attendant, and three dispensed a generous amount
Speaker 1: of anesthetic and antibiotics. I can believe that last one,
Speaker 1: uh Sear, also tended to seriously wounded men and performed
Speaker 1: surgeries that involved complicated procedures like extracting a bullet during
Speaker 1: chest surgery, or even amputating a foot. But Fred, as
Speaker 1: Doctor Syr, was not a doctor, and thankfully none of
Speaker 1: his patients died. That to me is the one mercy
Speaker 1: of all this, right, OK, somebody with no real training
Speaker 1: going in and digging bullets out of people, amputating a foot.
Speaker 1: My goof Peter Godwin Chance, who sailed with the fictitious
Speaker 1: Doctor Syr, had once been treated by him for an
Speaker 1: infected toe, and Peter remembered him, as we quote, an
Speaker 1: affable man who was always the life of the party,
Speaker 1: though he neither drank alcohol nor smoked cigarettes. According to
Speaker 1: Dr John Jay Zane, who was Fred's personal physician, Fred
Speaker 1: was considered to be quote a lifesaver by many members
Speaker 1: of the crew of the Cayuga, and of course that
Speaker 1: would have been under his false identity of doctor Sear.
Speaker 1: The Canadian Navy discovered who doctor Sear really was, and
Speaker 1: that was Fred. When the real doctor Sears mother saw
Speaker 1: a news article about a man named Dr Joseph Seer
Speaker 1: on the Cayuga, and that story was fake. There was
Speaker 1: an actual doctor Joseph Seer whose medical records Fred had stolen.
Speaker 1: The fake doctor Sear's name made it all the way
Speaker 1: back to the real doctor Seer, who was practicing medicine
Speaker 1: in Grand Falls, New Brunswick. We've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: like when somebody is just using your name doing stuff's
Speaker 1: gonna come back. But here's where it gets to me
Speaker 1: really mind boggling. Even after Fred was found out, the
Speaker 1: Canadian Navy didn't press charges. How is that possible? Because
Speaker 1: they were embarrassed by what happened, so the authorities in
Speaker 1: the matter declined to take any action, presumably hoping to
Speaker 1: just kind of keep the whole thing as quiet as possible.
Speaker 1: Fred was actually honorably discharged, which is also mind boggling.
Speaker 1: He was released from service and he was shoot back
Speaker 1: pay plus active service credits in the amount of just
Speaker 1: under a thousand dollars. He was then driven to the
Speaker 1: border and turned over to the United States Immigration Office,
Speaker 1: and there weren't any outstanding warrants for him in the
Speaker 1: United States, so he was just free to go with
Speaker 1: his honorable discharge and his back pay having put how
Speaker 1: many people at physical risk through shenanigans um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: So after his discharge from the Canadian Navy, Fred of
Speaker 1: course again reinvented himself, and this time he decided to
Speaker 1: return to monastic life in Louisville, Kentucky, pretending to be
Speaker 1: a monk, something that Fred returned to on and off
Speaker 1: through his life. UM he used the name Robert Linton French.
Speaker 1: So Robert Linton French was, like Dr Sear, a real
Speaker 1: person and a real doctor. And through what we would
Speaker 1: now call social engineering, Fred was able to get copies
Speaker 1: of French's credentials include being his birth certificate, all just
Speaker 1: by mail. As Dr French. Fred traveled to Chicago, where
Speaker 1: he studied philosophy and ethics at DePaul University. He was,
Speaker 1: it was rumored, a natural in the field. But remember
Speaker 1: Robert wasn't really a student at DePaul. He was supposed
Speaker 1: to be living a monastic life in Kentucky and it
Speaker 1: was getting close to the time when he would take
Speaker 1: his holy orders. But before that happened, Fred vanished. A
Speaker 1: few years later, he graduated from Mulnoma School of the
Speaker 1: Bible in Portland, Oregon, where his first ministerial assignment was
Speaker 1: as pastor of the Cherry Grove Baptist Church in Gaston, Oregon,
Speaker 1: and he was well liked in the community, but things
Speaker 1: were starting to catch up. He couldn't quite escape the
Speaker 1: rumors of his previous life of fraud, and some members
Speaker 1: of the church actually enjoyed his presence, but other members
Speaker 1: were kind of worried that they were part of a
Speaker 1: big con That's an understandable concern. Absolute Fred resigned from
Speaker 1: that position, also not a surprise. We're going to take
Speaker 1: a break for a word from our sponsor, and when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to talk about the time
Speaker 1: when Fred went on trial. This is going to include
Speaker 1: some sensitive information and we will announce a warning beforehand.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Criminalia, all right, let's get into the
Speaker 1: story of Fred and the school he opened and his
Speaker 1: eventual trial. After his life in Oregon, Fred went on
Speaker 1: to pose as an educator with special skills and counseling
Speaker 1: troubled youth, and he convinced a group of investors to
Speaker 1: purchase a Lutheran campsite in the Madera, California area. It
Speaker 1: was there he built the Calvary Ranch School for Boys
Speaker 1: in ninete it opened its doors today. This this kind
Speaker 1: of school would be known more as a therapeutic or
Speaker 1: behavioral boarding school. It's this school that landed Fred in
Speaker 1: court in Madera County in May sixty four. Now we're
Speaker 1: going to pause here for a moment because this is important.
Speaker 1: For the next two minutes and a few extra seconds,
Speaker 1: we timed it, this conversation and discussion of Fred's life
Speaker 1: is going to include the issue of child sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: which we understand might be very triggering or upsetting for
Speaker 1: some listeners. So stay safe, mute us for a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes if you want, and then meet us back here.
Speaker 1: It was Monday, May fourth, sixty four when Fred's fake
Speaker 1: life really began to unravel. Authorities removed students from his school,
Speaker 1: and although Fred seemed puzzled by the event, he did
Speaker 1: immediately drive to Los Angeles to find his friend and
Speaker 1: famous lawyer, Melvin Belly. Now, Fred and Melvin had a
Speaker 1: longstanding relationship, and Fred had called upon Melvine's legal counsel
Speaker 1: more than once. Fred was at this point, saying child
Speaker 1: molestation accusations and auto theft charges. That theft charge got
Speaker 1: added when Fred drove what was the school's car to
Speaker 1: Los Angeles to meet Melbourne. Fred turned himself into the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles authorities and he was back in Madeira County
Speaker 1: the next day. Melvine was an interesting lawyer. He was
Speaker 1: known as the King of Torts, which very basically meant
Speaker 1: that he was very good at getting his clients out
Speaker 1: of things such as assault, battery, or intentional infliction of
Speaker 1: emotional distress. Fred spent a week in the Madera County
Speaker 1: jail without saying a word, and he didn't have to.
Speaker 1: Melvin said everything for him. On the day of Fred's trial,
Speaker 1: the crowd in Judge Alec Brown's courtroom was overflowing. Melvin
Speaker 1: argued the charges were fabricated and without proper evidence, showing
Speaker 1: otherwise that his client Fred should be set free. The
Speaker 1: jury was made up of seven women and five men,
Speaker 1: and it took them fewer than thirty minutes to decide
Speaker 1: on a not guilty verdict. Fred, though, was not free.
Speaker 1: The prosecution produced three additional witnesses who accused Fred of
Speaker 1: contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and that meant
Speaker 1: that another trial was happening. Yes, So Fred's second trial
Speaker 1: began just about a month later on June at the
Speaker 1: Madera County Superior Court. The jury consisted this time of
Speaker 1: nine women and three men. Melvin called character witnesses to
Speaker 1: the stand, who testified that Fred had done nothing inappropriate.
Speaker 1: This was a case where his client was being harassed
Speaker 1: by several boys at the school because Fred had punished them.
Speaker 1: While it could be argued their charges were truthful, it
Speaker 1: also couldn't be proven that they weren't. So at the
Speaker 1: end of the day on June four, after an hour
Speaker 1: of deliberation, the jury found Fred not guilty on all charges.
Speaker 1: Those who knew Fred noted that he became pretty despondent
Speaker 1: at this point. Quote the strings all ran out on him.
Speaker 1: According to Melvin, quote, there was no way to channel
Speaker 1: or exploit his tremendous talents. But I never heard him
Speaker 1: say he had any regrets about anything. Unlike other con
Speaker 1: artists and imposters and just sort of a lot of
Speaker 1: people that we talked about on this show. Fred he
Speaker 1: didn't steal, and he didn't defraud for money. His his
Speaker 1: main goal was to gain notoriety. He wanted to be special.
Speaker 1: He became so well known. He was highlighted in Time
Speaker 1: magazine and Life Magazine and in a variety of other publications.
Speaker 1: In seven, Time Magazine called him, and we quote, audacious,
Speaker 1: unschooled but amazingly intelligent pretender who always wanted to be
Speaker 1: a somebody but succeeded in being a whole raft of
Speaker 1: somebody else's. Fred got what he wanted and it was
Speaker 1: a thrill. There were even rumors at one point that
Speaker 1: he was Frank Sinatra's bodyguard, which I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: must have given him a huge dopamine hit. Right, I'm
Speaker 1: very important now. When the Bangor Daily News interviewed St.
Speaker 1: George School's teacher Dana Smith, who had been principal at
Speaker 1: North Haven High School during Fred's brief tenure there, Dana's
Speaker 1: memories were as follows, and we're quoting. You could paint
Speaker 1: him any color you wanted. You could paint him as
Speaker 1: a scoundrel, a rogue, a good friend, because he was
Speaker 1: a little bit of all. Most of all, he was unusual,
Speaker 1: but he has a good memory, and that is what
Speaker 1: life consists of. Very confident, very personable, Dana continued that
Speaker 1: he was the kind of guy who was quote always
Speaker 1: looking for the shortcut. He wanted to be someone something.
Speaker 1: He loved titles, but he didn't want to put in
Speaker 1: the time in the work. I guess he was too impatient.
Speaker 1: It's like she knows him best of all. Who would
Speaker 1: think that the principle that you had at your high
Speaker 1: school would be the one who would know you so.
Speaker 1: In addition in two Things Like Life magazine and Time Magazine,
Speaker 1: author Robert Creighton immortalized him in his debut novel called
Speaker 1: The Great Impostor. The book was a hit and was
Speaker 1: developed into a movie in one and it starred Tony
Speaker 1: Curtis as Fred, which had did be pretty cool for Fred.
Speaker 1: Creton also wrote The Rascal and the Road, which was
Speaker 1: his memoir about his experiences with Fred. Fred's celebrity reputation
Speaker 1: is what got him the one acting role that he
Speaker 1: ever had, at least a legal acting role that everybody
Speaker 1: knew was acting. He played the character of a hospital
Speaker 1: doctor in the movie The Hypnotic Eye. It was reported
Speaker 1: in the press that while Fred was a convincing actor
Speaker 1: in real life, it did not translate to film. He
Speaker 1: was a man with his face on the cover of magazines,
Speaker 1: and he was in a movie, and he still got
Speaker 1: away with all of his schemes. I kind of love
Speaker 1: that he was cast as a character of a hospital
Speaker 1: doctor before right exactly, I can extract that bullet for him. Um.
Speaker 1: Closer to the end of his fraudulent career, though, Fred
Speaker 1: became the warden of a prison in Huntsville, Texas. Yes,
Speaker 1: really he was the warden, and he was going under
Speaker 1: the name of Ben W. Jones, his own he was
Speaker 1: got him in this instance. He was caught after showing
Speaker 1: a prisoner a magazine story about himself. He just couldn't
Speaker 1: resist trying to get a little clout. Like a lot
Speaker 1: of people who pretend to be someone else, Fred often,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about here, stole the identities of living people. However,
Speaker 1: as we've said, for Fred, his main goal was not money.
Speaker 1: He just wanted the status and the fame and just
Speaker 1: one more cheat. He just loved it. Whenever he was
Speaker 1: asked to describe his motives, he replied, rascality, pure rascality.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Fred. So we mentioned earlier that he got
Speaker 1: away with things, but it's true that he never faced
Speaker 1: legal penalties. Let's say that, um, it's not true to
Speaker 1: say that had never gotten hot water. His capers led
Speaker 1: to charges against him for several things, including fraud, forgery, theft, embezzlement,
Speaker 1: resisting arrest, vagrancy, and public drunkenness. But Melvin always took
Speaker 1: care of everything. It's good to have a really good
Speaker 1: friend who's a lawyer. Fred's later years were far less
Speaker 1: glamorous than his earlier life had been. For eight years,
Speaker 1: Fred lived in semi obscurity in Orange County, California, and
Speaker 1: there he worked first as a Baptist minister and then
Speaker 1: as a visiting counselor at Good Samaritan Hospital in Anaheim,
Speaker 1: doing so until health conditions forced him to stop. When
Speaker 1: Fred's passed exploits were discovered in the late nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: the hospital could have dismissed him, but right in line
Speaker 1: with the rest of his life, they didn't. Fred had
Speaker 1: worked as a visiting chaplain and had developed a really
Speaker 1: close friendship with the chief of stats, so when he
Speaker 1: personally vouched for Fred, Fred was allowed to remain as chaplain.
Speaker 1: He just squeaked out at every problem, in addition to
Speaker 1: allowing him to stay on because Fred had limited finances,
Speaker 1: and because of his friendship with one of the major
Speaker 1: owners of the hospital, he actually continued to work and
Speaker 1: live in the hospital until his death, which came just
Speaker 1: two years later. He eventually developed complications from conditions such
Speaker 1: as type two diabetes and heart disease, and he died
Speaker 1: of heart failure at age sixty on June seven in
Speaker 1: West Anaheim, California. Okay, so there's actually one more story
Speaker 1: that's pretty far fetched and totally not verified, but it
Speaker 1: seems like the kind of thing that Fred would want
Speaker 1: us to read about him. So we do know that
Speaker 1: Fred had friendships for the variety of notable people during
Speaker 1: his life, including an alleged close relationship with the actor
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen. Already I've cocked an eyebrow on this one,
Speaker 1: but as the story goes, it was Fred who gave
Speaker 1: McQueen his last rites, so regardless of whether or not
Speaker 1: the two may or may not have been friends as
Speaker 1: far as we can tell. When McQueen died in New
Speaker 1: Mexico in nineteen eighty, Fred was already seriously ill himself
Speaker 1: in California, and it's really likely at that time that
Speaker 1: those paths never met. I guarantee you. Fred started this
Speaker 1: rumor right absolutely, Like he's he's just hanging around, He's
Speaker 1: like friends with everybody. How about Steve Queen? Do I
Speaker 1: ever tell you that I gave Steve McQueen's last right
Speaker 1: That was me? That was me? Yeah, I was like
Speaker 1: two years before I died. It was me. So I
Speaker 1: actually don't think that Fred would enjoy a mocktail. But Holly,
Speaker 1: what do you have for us? Um? Yeah, since he
Speaker 1: was not apparently a drinker, except he'd been arrested for
Speaker 1: public drunkenness at some point in life, it wasn't a drinker.
Speaker 1: At some points he was reformed perhaps maybe maybe well
Speaker 1: this one you can drink it in the reformed version
Speaker 1: or not. Um. And it's a super simple mocktail that
Speaker 1: I'm calling pure rascality. I'm glad to use that word
Speaker 1: because it's so perfect for him. It's an one of
Speaker 1: the easiest ones I've ever done. But I kind of
Speaker 1: threw it together like as my early test, thinking what
Speaker 1: am I going to add to this? And I liked
Speaker 1: it so much in its basic form that every time
Speaker 1: I tried to add something, I was like, nope, nope, nope,
Speaker 1: this takes away from what we achieved initially. It is
Speaker 1: literally just four ounces of pink lemonade and four ounces
Speaker 1: of ginger beer. And the reason I love this is
Speaker 1: because if you are one of those people that likes
Speaker 1: the sensation of drinking a cocktail, you know that that
Speaker 1: inherent little bit of like bite or sting that you
Speaker 1: get from alcohol content or whatever, but you're not You're
Speaker 1: not drinking for whatever reason. The ginger beer kind of
Speaker 1: gives you the illusion of drinking an alcoholic drink when
Speaker 1: you're not getting it totally totally. And it's also just like,
Speaker 1: for some reason, the pink lemonade and the ginger beer
Speaker 1: have this great relationship where they just acts in each
Speaker 1: other really nicely. It was a lovely accident to do
Speaker 1: an alcoholic version. I added, this will shock you. Uh
Speaker 1: did you add vodka? No? I added bourbon, what like
Speaker 1: my Holly added bourbon right um, which is also uh well.
Speaker 1: And my thinking was that for the people like me
Speaker 1: that you know, bourbon doesn't always sit well on my palette,
Speaker 1: that mocktail version has so much character of its own
Speaker 1: that like the parts of bourbon that I don't really like,
Speaker 1: I cannot taste right. So you get that sort of
Speaker 1: interesting like smell of bourbon. You know there's bourbon in
Speaker 1: it because it's unmis takable um. But the ginger beer,
Speaker 1: it takes the edge off of the flavor to it,
Speaker 1: and it gives it its own edge, because ginger beer is,
Speaker 1: of course, can be very bity depending on on what
Speaker 1: brand you buy. Different brands have different levels of like
Speaker 1: tartness or or that unique ginger bite. But I would
Speaker 1: drink it in mocktail version all day, every day if
Speaker 1: I could. It's so yummy. Actually can't recall the last
Speaker 1: time that I had pink lemonade. I know, I am,
Speaker 1: you know, because we do these I look at the
Speaker 1: grocery store aisles differently than ever before. And I have
Speaker 1: only recently, you know, started actually going back to the
Speaker 1: grocery store myself instead of doing delivery and stuff since
Speaker 1: I have been vaccinated. So I had this marvelous I mean,
Speaker 1: it felt luxurious, like just walking into the grocery store
Speaker 1: and just standing and looking at you know, produce like
Speaker 1: and it just jumped out of me and I kind
Speaker 1: of had the same thing. I haven't had pink lemonade
Speaker 1: and a time like lemonade all the time but it's bad.
Speaker 1: I could mix that with a variety of interesting things,
Speaker 1: and so I grabbed some and it's great with ginger beer.
Speaker 1: It turns out, uh yeah. And I also just love
Speaker 1: ginger beer because it mixes so well with so many
Speaker 1: things and does interesting things to so many things. It's
Speaker 1: like you feel like a magical chemist. But at the
Speaker 1: end of you're refreshed. This thing is like a really
Speaker 1: good warm weather summertime is coming. Drink for sure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, with pink lemonade, ginger beer, a little bit
Speaker 1: of bourbon, maybe a little bit in shore, although it
Speaker 1: would go great with vodka. That's like the easiest combo
Speaker 1: in the world. Right, But if you would like to
Speaker 1: hang out with us again, we'll be back here next
Speaker 1: week with another mock tail that you can also turn
Speaker 1: into a cocktail and another story of adventure and imposturism.
Speaker 1: So we hope we see you back here. Things Criminalia
Speaker 1: is a production of Shonda and Audio in partnership with
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