Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. George Honauer was a scientist
Speaker 1: and an engineer, and maybe also a goldsmith. He was
Speaker 1: definitely a fraudulent alchemist in the service of Frederick, the
Speaker 1: first Duke of Wurtenburg, and when he couldn't fulfill the
Speaker 1: sensational promises he had made, he met his end. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Criminalia, where all that glitters is not gold. I'm
Speaker 1: Maria Tremarqui and I'm Holly Fry. George Honaur was born
Speaker 1: in fifteventy two, possibly in Ollamook in today's Chechia. This
Speaker 1: was when Maximilian the Second was Holy Roman Emperor and
Speaker 1: the European wars of the Reformation and the Counter Reformation
Speaker 1: were raging between Catholics and the growing religion of Protestantism.
Speaker 1: George was moren't just after the High Renaissance, which is
Speaker 1: considered the peak of the Renaissance period. The art world
Speaker 1: of the time was really dominated by three names that
Speaker 1: you are absolutely going to recognize, Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo
Speaker 1: da Vinci. The Last Supper existed as a painting in
Speaker 1: George's lifetime, as did the Mona Lisa. While George was alive,
Speaker 1: Hans Lipacy built the first telescope, and Galileo tried to
Speaker 1: explain to everyone such complex concepts as forced inertia and acceleration. Machiavelli, Montaigne,
Speaker 1: and Copernicus were all also contributing to the resurgence of
Speaker 1: arts and sciences. It was a time when Holy Roman emperors,
Speaker 1: including Maximilian the Second and Rudolpho, who both reigned during
Speaker 1: George's lifetime, supported and sponsored the practice of alchemy across Europe.
Speaker 1: So let's pull back for a bigger picture. The time
Speaker 1: period between fifteen hundred and seventeen hundred saw rapid population
Speaker 1: growth across Europe, and at the same time time there
Speaker 1: was also a rapidly growing demand for precious metals, in
Speaker 1: particular gold, gold, and silver that had been imported from
Speaker 1: what was then called the New World just were not
Speaker 1: enough to satisfy demand. And that's really no surprise. But
Speaker 1: there were two things that could be done. Mine it
Speaker 1: or make it. You can even look as far back
Speaker 1: as Marco Polo, whose expedition traveled through Asia along the
Speaker 1: Silk Road between twelve sev and twelve and the precious
Speaker 1: metals that he found even then were precious, and he
Speaker 1: noted from exploring Eastern and Southeastern Asia, including today's China, Japan,
Speaker 1: North Korea, South Korea, and Vietnam, that quote, the quantity
Speaker 1: of gold they have is endless, and everybody in Europe
Speaker 1: wanted a piece. About two hundred years later, Christopher Columbus,
Speaker 1: who was an Italian explorer and navigator, completed four voyages
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic Ocean. The first famously in Columbus's contract
Speaker 1: with the King and Queen of Spain, fernand the second
Speaker 1: and Isabella the First, stated that in return, he'd be
Speaker 1: granted a noble title and the governorship of any man's
Speaker 1: he should encounter, and he could keep ten percent of
Speaker 1: whatever riches he found. When he encountered the island that
Speaker 1: he called Espaniola, he first claimed it for the Spanish crown.
Speaker 1: The island of Espanola is now known, of course, as Hispaniola.
Speaker 1: It's made up of present day Haiti and the Dominican Republic,
Speaker 1: just so we're all on the same page. But Columbus
Speaker 1: then convinced himself it must be the biblical region of Over,
Speaker 1: famous for its wealth of gold, silver, sandal wood, pearls, ivory,
Speaker 1: and my personal favorite peacocks. It was a lush place
Speaker 1: and when Columbus determined there must be gold deposits on
Speaker 1: the island, Espaniola's population exploded, and that's because European settlers
Speaker 1: increased significantly. The indigenous popula lation was enslaved to search
Speaker 1: for gold. Native population numbers plummeted as they died from
Speaker 1: foreign diseases. Likely a lot of smallpox was spread around,
Speaker 1: and they were also just killed by settlers. Columbus explored
Speaker 1: a pretty large area of the Caribbean as well as
Speaker 1: part of the northern coast of South America. He looked
Speaker 1: for gold, silver, jewels, and spices, and at every island
Speaker 1: he arrived at, the first thing he inquired about was
Speaker 1: whether or not there was gold. If there was gold,
Speaker 1: he took it. He took every bit he could find.
Speaker 1: A Dominican priest, historian, and social reformer named Bartolome de
Speaker 1: las Casas spent many years among the indigenous peoples of
Speaker 1: South America and of the Caribbean people known to the
Speaker 1: Europeans as the Arawak, watching the tragedy of the indigenous
Speaker 1: populations unfold. As Europeans laid waste to pretty much everything
Speaker 1: they saw as they hunted for gold. He could only
Speaker 1: advise with one word, gree, and of course Spain did
Speaker 1: not have a monopoly on greed, although they probably would
Speaker 1: not have turned such a monopoly down. According to de
Speaker 1: las Casas quote, the cause why the Spanish have destroyed
Speaker 1: such an infinity of souls hath been onely that they
Speaker 1: have held it for their last scope and mark to
Speaker 1: get gold. We're going to take a break for a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. When we return, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: how cost saving transmutation could have been if it had worked.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Criminalia. Mining for gold was not going
Speaker 1: to be sustainable, but what about man made gold? No
Speaker 1: matter how the expeditions we mentioned before the break impacted
Speaker 1: the land and people native to those lands, Spain just
Speaker 1: kept going, never appeared to pass up the appeal of
Speaker 1: a golden city. Ferdinand and Isabella bankrolled an other explorer,
Speaker 1: and this time it was about fifty years before George's birth.
Speaker 1: The adventurer was a man named Francisco Pizarro, who, while
Speaker 1: sailing along the Pacific coast of Columbia, discovered communities with
Speaker 1: what appeared to be abundant amounts of gold and silver.
Speaker 1: Pizarro petitioned to become governor, putting himself in control of
Speaker 1: all those potential riches he'd found, and then set out
Speaker 1: to seek treasure in the Incan Empire, where it was
Speaker 1: rumored they used golden pots to hold their golden treasure.
Speaker 1: Those indigenous to the lands of the Incan Empire already
Speaker 1: knew what to do with their gold and medals there
Speaker 1: had been worked for at least three thousand years before
Speaker 1: Pizarro's arrival. There were small gold trinkets and personal adornments
Speaker 1: such as earrings, but over the centuries they began to
Speaker 1: turn gold and silver into works of art, such as
Speaker 1: miniature gardens made entirely of gold. Here, though, precious metals
Speaker 1: were restricted to nobility, but Zaro got around that. He
Speaker 1: and his men ambushed and captured the emperor Atahualpa. The
Speaker 1: Spaniards did execute him a few months later, an action
Speaker 1: that ultimately ended the Incan Empire. No matter where Europeans looked,
Speaker 1: mining for medals was not cheap or easy, and in
Speaker 1: many places there were a few dependencies that went along
Speaker 1: with the practice. One of those was the development of
Speaker 1: mining techniques. There were adequate ways of accomplishing what had
Speaker 1: worked previously, but people couldn't help but wonder if there
Speaker 1: were any better and faster ideas for extracting the ore
Speaker 1: and refining the metal, And the Europeans certainly thought there
Speaker 1: must be. Mining engineers in South Germany are credited with
Speaker 1: contributing European technologies to the America's, in particular, the use
Speaker 1: of a new mercury amalgamation method to extract refined silver
Speaker 1: from raw or The method significantly increased the volume of
Speaker 1: silver production from each mine, and that then that led
Speaker 1: to silver becoming a major player in the global economy.
Speaker 1: The technique became the go to practice in the mid
Speaker 1: sixteenth century and beyond. But if you could make precious metals,
Speaker 1: you could cut out all of this hassle. The first
Speaker 1: lab scientists were alchemists, and for many their primary goal
Speaker 1: was to convert and you'll hear us call that transmutation
Speaker 1: base metals like iron or lead into precious metals like
Speaker 1: gold and silver. And this was not a new idea.
Speaker 1: Ancient Egyptians, long before George's lifetime, were adept at doubling
Speaker 1: or even tripling the quantity of the metals they produced,
Speaker 1: but it was kind of a fake. They knew, for instance,
Speaker 1: that by adding arsenic to copper, you could produce a
Speaker 1: whitish copper that could be passed off as silver. Add
Speaker 1: a small amount of gold dust to something like copper,
Speaker 1: and you'll create a metal that appears to be gold.
Speaker 1: In fact, we have a recipe dating back to the
Speaker 1: year three hundred. We quote one powder's up gold and
Speaker 1: lead into a powder as finest flower two parts of
Speaker 1: lead for one of gold, and having mixed them, works
Speaker 1: them up with gum. One covers a copper ring with
Speaker 1: the mixture, then heats. One repeats several times until the
Speaker 1: object has taken the color. It is difficult to detect
Speaker 1: the fraud, since the touchstone gives the mark of true gold.
Speaker 1: The heat consumes the lead, but not the gold. We
Speaker 1: just talked about alchemy in ancient Egypt during the Hellenistic period.
Speaker 1: It was not a European idea, and in fact it
Speaker 1: was practiced by many people for many years before Europeans
Speaker 1: even knew anything about it. Following Ancient Egypt, the focus
Speaker 1: on alchemy shifted as Islam expanded, and it wasn't until
Speaker 1: the twelfth century, when Islamic power began to decline, that
Speaker 1: Arabic manuscripts were translated into Latin, and that's when alchemy
Speaker 1: arrived in Europe, where it was practiced for roughly in
Speaker 1: the next five years. The ideas of alchemy and alchemists
Speaker 1: permeated literature across the centuries, where alchemists are often referred
Speaker 1: to as fraudulent or as Charlatan's go way back to
Speaker 1: the Cannon's Yeoman's Tail, which is one of the Canterbury
Speaker 1: Tales written by Jeffrey Chaucer in the late fourteenth century.
Speaker 1: It tells the tale of a cannon. Just so we're clear,
Speaker 1: a cannon is a church official who is a practicing,
Speaker 1: albeit fraudulent alchemist. The tail also discloses a recipe, and
Speaker 1: we're going to read that one as well. The cannon
Speaker 1: surreptitiously inserts an ounce of silver into a hollow piece
Speaker 1: of coal, closes the hole with wax, and puts it
Speaker 1: in the furnace. The mercury, which was to have been transmuted, vaporizes,
Speaker 1: while the wax melts and the silver runs out. The
Speaker 1: practice of fraudulent alchemists and their sham trans mutations continued
Speaker 1: until the eighteenth century, when chemists were able to demonstrate
Speaker 1: how and why these practices were bogus. We're going to
Speaker 1: take a break for a word from our sponsor, and
Speaker 1: when we return we will finally talk about what all
Speaker 1: this meant for George hone Our, who was executed when
Speaker 1: it turned out he could not make gold. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Criminalia. You thought we were going to talk about
Speaker 1: an alchemist named George hone Our, and you're right, so
Speaker 1: let's do it. You're probably wondering by now, how does
Speaker 1: gold mining on Hispaniola have anything to do with the
Speaker 1: alchemy that George hone Our practiced. And it's really just
Speaker 1: to point out that gold was on everybody's must have lists.
Speaker 1: So much effort had gone into acquiring as much gold
Speaker 1: as possible by so many powerful people, and while not
Speaker 1: seemed to be a concern to most Europeans, so many
Speaker 1: cultures have been plundered and destroyed in this quest. An
Speaker 1: easier way to amass precious metals would have been welcomed
Speaker 1: by pretty much everybody, and George promised he could make
Speaker 1: gold with just a tincture and without an expedition to
Speaker 1: any European colony. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it. Sure,
Speaker 1: George introduced himself to Frederick, the first Duke of Wurteinberg,
Speaker 1: first in writing, then in person as Lord Brunhoff and
Speaker 1: grub Shots in Moravia, and he claimed to be an alchemist. Intrigued,
Speaker 1: the Duke called for George to show him an example
Speaker 1: of his work. George presented one small piece of gold
Speaker 1: and one of silver, and when the Duke's assayers were
Speaker 1: asked if Georgia's transmutations were in fact real, cross your
Speaker 1: fingers past the test. So at least he did well
Speaker 1: enough to move on to the side get round. So
Speaker 1: here George seemed like he was maybe legit. However, Frederick
Speaker 1: wasn't about to back a man who couldn't produce more
Speaker 1: than a penny sized piece of gold. He needed way
Speaker 1: more than that. Next, he asked George to produce two
Speaker 1: thousand duckets worth of gold from the base metal iron.
Speaker 1: There was a bit of haggling. George claimed he only
Speaker 1: had enough of the necessary tincture involved in the process
Speaker 1: to produce thirty thousand duckets worth of gold, but to
Speaker 1: eventually agreed on a production schedule and things moved ahead.
Speaker 1: It took some pretty considerable effort to bring the iron
Speaker 1: from the Duke's armory, which was in muffle guard to
Speaker 1: stood guard for transportation, but it did make the trip,
Speaker 1: and that's when things got pretty real for George. The
Speaker 1: iron arrived, he panicked, and so he did the natural thing.
Speaker 1: He ran away and rest bonds. The Duke had portraits
Speaker 1: of George painted like today's wanted posters, except painted by
Speaker 1: a portrait artist named jonathan's Ouder. Soon lots of people
Speaker 1: were on the lookout for George, armed with the knowledge
Speaker 1: of exactly what he looked like. And these fabulous artistic
Speaker 1: wanted posters worked, and once he was captured and returned,
Speaker 1: they try it again. But George could only change iron
Speaker 1: into well, nothing more than the iron that it began.
Speaker 1: As the Duke was unimpressed and displeased, George was put
Speaker 1: on trial and was convicted on the charge of two
Speaker 1: counts of fraud. Why two counts, so there's no surprise
Speaker 1: on this first one. The court considered George's claims as
Speaker 1: an alchemist to be phony, and frankly, I believe we
Speaker 1: all think that. But in addition to that, the court
Speaker 1: also considered his claims of nobility to be counterfeit as well.
Speaker 1: He was to be executed by hanging, and Frederick the
Speaker 1: First gave the Charlatan a really unusual execution, and it
Speaker 1: was unusual because the Duke planned every single piece of it,
Speaker 1: down to the tiniest detail. When your alchemist is unable
Speaker 1: to fulfill his promise of creating as much as two
Speaker 1: tons of gold for you, you walk away from that
Speaker 1: feeling a little vengeful. The gallows were erected on a
Speaker 1: stone foundation made from no not gold, but rather the
Speaker 1: two tons of iron George had promised to convert into gold.
Speaker 1: It said this special treatment cost the Duke around three
Speaker 1: thousand Dutch guilders, and I imagine though, that he did
Speaker 1: not care. No vengeance has no price. George hon Nour
Speaker 1: was executed by order of Duke Frederick the First on
Speaker 1: April second. On the day of his execution, George, who
Speaker 1: was only twenty five, was walked dressed in a golden
Speaker 1: garment covered entirely with gold tinsel to the scaffold. Again,
Speaker 1: all of these strange details were carried out according to
Speaker 1: the very exacting specifications of Frederick, who was still very
Speaker 1: angry about the whole thing. The specially built iron gallows
Speaker 1: remained standing after the execution as a deterrent to others,
Speaker 1: an advertisement of sorts as to what would happen to
Speaker 1: you if you were a so called gold maker and
Speaker 1: a swindler. It actually wouldn't be until the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: that the possibility of man made gold was conclusively disproved
Speaker 1: by scientific evidence, But in the meantime, Frederick kept his
Speaker 1: fingers crossed. His iron gallows went on to be used,
Speaker 1: actually several more times, and it was often also for
Speaker 1: the execution of other unsuccessful gold makers. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to those gold makers, we aren't sure if they
Speaker 1: also were forced to wear the goal. So I hear
Speaker 1: that we have a very lovely drink for George's story.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, the cauldron is brewing, and something very fascinating
Speaker 1: is happening. It's a little predictable, but not I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be completely predictable. This drink is called the
Speaker 1: sham transmutation. It is so delicious. Uh was so convincing
Speaker 1: that I'm like, oh, and I don't mean that facetiously.
Speaker 1: I mean that was the holly voice of convincing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these these maybe things that you're like, do they go together? Oh,
Speaker 1: they do. You're gonna start with an ounce and a
Speaker 1: half of vodka, three ounces of ginger beer, three ounces
Speaker 1: of pineapple juice, and you're gonna pour that into like
Speaker 1: a rock's glass and stir it up, and then you're
Speaker 1: gonna float an ounce of gold schlager on the top.
Speaker 1: I knew it was going to hack have golden there somewhere.
Speaker 1: It had to, but I was trying to do something
Speaker 1: interesting with it. So obviously gold schlager has gold flake
Speaker 1: in it. You want to give it a really good
Speaker 1: shake before you pour out your ounce to use, because
Speaker 1: otherwise the gold flake sits on the bottom and you
Speaker 1: won't get any. And you do ideally want at least
Speaker 1: a few flecks of gold floating on top of this,
Speaker 1: so you can be like, look, it's made of gold,
Speaker 1: but it's not. Sorry, I'm laughing because you said something
Speaker 1: along the mines of like, then it looks like gold,
Speaker 1: it flits to the bottom and it's not. And all
Speaker 1: I could think of was and so said Frederick the
Speaker 1: first and right, I mean that's exactly the inspiration here,
Speaker 1: is thinking about like those recipes where they're like, no,
Speaker 1: you can just kind of pack it on the outside
Speaker 1: and then melt it together and it'll it will take
Speaker 1: in the color. You can just wrap it in wax.
Speaker 1: It'll be fine. Now, this recipe also is a little
Speaker 1: bit of a two fur because there's a bonus version
Speaker 1: of it if you want to kick it up and
Speaker 1: get a little fancier. But as you know, you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where I don't like to
Speaker 1: invoke or use things that are too difficult to find
Speaker 1: or too expensive. And I have used chartreuse in the past,
Speaker 1: but there is also yellow chartreuse um, which I added
Speaker 1: like a half to three quarters of an ounce of
Speaker 1: yellow chartreuse before I floated the gold slugger on the
Speaker 1: second version of this, and that just adds like a
Speaker 1: whole different bouquet of things to the whole mix in it.
Speaker 1: It kind of makes it a little bit like the
Speaker 1: ginger beer and pineapple and the chartreuse together all become
Speaker 1: something different. And then what's really nice is that when
Speaker 1: you're sipping, if you floated your slog on the top,
Speaker 1: you get that cinnamon kick when you sip, and then
Speaker 1: there's this weird bouquet that emerges behind it. I just
Speaker 1: I'm in love with this drink. I will say, though,
Speaker 1: something weird happens when you're drinking it, because it's alchemy
Speaker 1: sort of. But I don't know that people will like
Speaker 1: this alchemy. Have you ever been in that situation where
Speaker 1: you have a cocktail and you take the first drink
Speaker 1: and you go, wow, that tastes strong, But two or
Speaker 1: three SIPs in you're like, no, not really. You kind
Speaker 1: of get accustomed to it. I had the strange experience
Speaker 1: that this went the other way. I have never had
Speaker 1: this experience before in my life. Heaven only knows. It
Speaker 1: could be unique to me and like something else that
Speaker 1: was going on. But like I had the first several
Speaker 1: SIPs and I was like, this is amazing. I truly
Speaker 1: truly do love it. And then like I had, you know,
Speaker 1: I put it down and worked. I was typing and
Speaker 1: I did some sentences and I took a couple more
Speaker 1: SIPs and I was like, this tastes stronger than it did.
Speaker 1: Your husband's like I didn't do it. He's like standing
Speaker 1: back there with the bottle of PA. No he was not,
Speaker 1: he was not even in the room at the time.
Speaker 1: It was a very strange experience. But I loved it,
Speaker 1: just the same for the mock tail. On this one,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy. You won't we won't involve that char
Speaker 1: true step because it's really hard to replicate your truth.
Speaker 1: But this is also a very delicious libation on its own,
Speaker 1: which is obviously you're going to leave out the vodkas.
Speaker 1: So if you just do your three ounces of ginger beer,
Speaker 1: you're three ounces of pineapple juice, and then in lieu
Speaker 1: of the gold Schlager to get that cinnamon taste, you're
Speaker 1: gonna use cinnamon syrup instead. Yeah, here's the thing with
Speaker 1: both of these, it's gonna actually be hard to get
Speaker 1: a good float on it because you're gold Schlagger as
Speaker 1: a liquor is heavier than most of the other things.
Speaker 1: It's a little more buoyant in the gold slagger version
Speaker 1: than the cinnamon syrup version because it's not quite as
Speaker 1: as thick and the gold flakes will still stay on top.
Speaker 1: But when you do the cinnamon syrup version, you're just
Speaker 1: gonna have to mix it in. It's not gonna float
Speaker 1: very well. The other thing is, if anybody is like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go shop for cinnamon syrup, you can,
Speaker 1: But if it's hard to find. It's easy to make.
Speaker 1: You can like boil four or five sticks of cinnamon
Speaker 1: with two cups of water on your stove, pull out
Speaker 1: the cinnamon sticks, and then add a cup and a
Speaker 1: half to two cups of sugar. You get great cinnamon syrup.
Speaker 1: It's fabulous. All of these syrups are always so so
Speaker 1: easy to make, and I never think about it, but
Speaker 1: it's always so difficult for me to find even some
Speaker 1: of the alcohols that have really taken to just making
Speaker 1: the syrups. They're so fast. And also that's a handy
Speaker 1: thing to be able to make and have on hand
Speaker 1: because you can add it to you like you can
Speaker 1: use that in lieu of maple syrup on breakfast things.
Speaker 1: You can add it to other drinks. I like a
Speaker 1: little bit added to just a regular diet coke once
Speaker 1: in a while, all kinds of yummyness. Highly recommend making
Speaker 1: your own syrup, and I hope that you enjoy the
Speaker 1: sham transmutation if you try it. It's a fun one.
Speaker 1: It combines things that like they go together perfectly fine.
Speaker 1: But I don't often think like I want to put
Speaker 1: cinnamon in my pineapple, but it works perfectly right, when
Speaker 1: you start out and you've got vodka, ginger beer, pineapple,
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, I see where this is going. And
Speaker 1: then it doesn't go there, totally different places because because
Speaker 1: it transmutation. Yeah, yes, totally got it. So yummy. We
Speaker 1: hope you try it, and if you do, we hope
Speaker 1: you love it. And we just want to say thanks
Speaker 1: for hanging out with us again today and every time
Speaker 1: you have, and we will meet you right back here,
Speaker 1: both with the story and with something from the Cauldron
Speaker 1: next week. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Shonda land Audio, please visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.