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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe

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Speaker 1: mccourmakin today in the I guess this will be the

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Speaker 1: final installment of our totally unplanned run of food Stuffs

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Speaker 1: and drink Stuffs science podcasts. Yeah, we kind of had

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Speaker 1: a post New Year's run of foodie topics, think with

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Speaker 1: some exorcism there in the middle. What did you You

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Speaker 1: did green tea with Christian Yes, we did. There there's

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Speaker 1: a green tea and butter and butter and now we're

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Speaker 1: going to get into a little mixology and and and

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Speaker 1: we'll even come back to exorcism at one point, believe

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Speaker 1: it or not, No way, Yeah, yeah, it comes up.

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Speaker 1: It's important when you're talking about cocktails, you're inevitably going

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Speaker 1: to talk about exercist. Wait is that what they always

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Speaker 1: meant by holy water? Um? Well wait and initi'll see.

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Speaker 1: But one of the important things we want to get

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Speaker 1: out at the top of this episode is that, yes,

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Speaker 1: in this episode we are going to talk about mixology.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about the history and science and botany

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Speaker 1: of mixed drinks that involve various alcoholic substances. Right, But

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Speaker 1: we do want to make clear that we know we've

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Speaker 1: got some younger listeners out there, and so you shouldn't

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Speaker 1: take this podcast is an encouragement to go out and

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Speaker 1: try all the drinks we're gonna be talking about, right,

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Speaker 1: And we certainly have non drinkers out there as well. Uh,

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Speaker 1: don't worry. This is not going to be a scandalous, um,

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Speaker 1: out of control exploration of cocktails by any means. And

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Speaker 1: on a personal note, I want to add that my

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Speaker 1: wife and myself we are currently doing a dry January,

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Speaker 1: so we are only doing mock tails at the moment,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of ironic having just finished research on

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Speaker 1: this episode. Yeah, well you wanted to do it, I

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Speaker 1: think because you read a couple of books this month, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: two books in particular that I picked up over the holidays.

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Speaker 1: One is Amy Stewart's The Drunken Botanist The Plants that

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Speaker 1: Create the World's Great Drinks. And this is a really

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Speaker 1: wonderful book, very flippable, kind of the kind of book

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Speaker 1: you can bring to a bar or a nice dinner

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Speaker 1: and look up the things you're ordering. It takes a

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Speaker 1: a botanist approach to all of the ingredients, basically coming

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Speaker 1: down to the fact that just about anything, pretty much

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Speaker 1: anything in a drink except for maybe bacon. If you're

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Speaker 1: if you go that route, it's going to have some

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Speaker 1: sort of botanical origin. Where because things come from bacon

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Speaker 1: has a botanical origin. Well, in a sense, yes, if

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Speaker 1: you follow it that far enough, all of our drinks

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Speaker 1: really have a solar origin. Just true. True. You can

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Speaker 1: say that it's all a gift of the sun. I

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Speaker 1: really enjoyed the Sami Stewart book. I didn't have a

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Speaker 1: chance that you you lent it to me yesterday, and

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Speaker 1: I didn't have a chance to read the whole thing yet,

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Speaker 1: but I just flipped through it, and as you say,

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Speaker 1: it is very flippable. You can just drop to any

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Speaker 1: page and there's something interesting on it. It's sort of

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Speaker 1: a mix between the science book and a recipe book

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Speaker 1: and like that, uh, and the other book that you

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Speaker 1: lent me, which I got through some of, and I

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Speaker 1: really really enjoyed the writing style of the Second Guys.

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Speaker 1: This book by David wonder Ches. He says his name, yeah,

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Speaker 1: believe so imbibe. He has a couple of books out

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Speaker 1: related to extremes. One is entirely about punches, and this

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Speaker 1: one is really focused more in on on the cocktail

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Speaker 1: and it it has recipes in it as well, but

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Speaker 1: it is more about the history and culture, especially the origins,

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Speaker 1: the very American origins of the cocktail. And along those lines,

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Speaker 1: I believe you had a quote that you wanted to

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Speaker 1: read from David Wondrich's book, right, yeah. I think this

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Speaker 1: sets the tone fabulously for a lot of what we're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk about here, and just for discussion of basically

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Speaker 1: what a cocktail is, he writes, Anyone who has spent

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Speaker 1: any time pondering the origins of the cocktail, be it

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Speaker 1: for the months or years it takes to write a

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Speaker 1: book or seconds it takes to internalize a dry martini,

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Speaker 1: will agree that it's a quintessentially American control action. How

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Speaker 1: could it be anything but it's quick, direct, and vigorous.

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Speaker 1: It's flashy and a little bit vulgar. It induces an

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Speaker 1: unreflective overconfidence. It's democratic, forcing the finest liquors to rub

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Speaker 1: elbows with ingredients of far more humble stamp. It's profligate

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Speaker 1: with natural resources. Think of the electricity generated to make

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Speaker 1: ice that gets used for ten seconds and discarded in short,

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Speaker 1: it rocks. But the cocktail is American. It's American in

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Speaker 1: the same way as the hot dog, that is, the frankfurter,

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Speaker 1: the hamburger, the hamburger steak, and the ice cream cone

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Speaker 1: with its rolled good fret. As a nation, we have

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Speaker 1: a knack for taking underperforming elements of other people's cultures,

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Speaker 1: streamlining them, supercharging them, and then letting them rip from

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Speaker 1: nobody to superstar with a trail of sparks and a

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Speaker 1: hell of a noise along the way. That's how the

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Speaker 1: cocktail did it, anyway. So yeah, that's uh, that's from

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Speaker 1: page two o nine in his book. Uh, it's It's

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Speaker 1: full of just weird historical details, colorful characters, and more

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Speaker 1: than a few classic cocktail recipes. So we'll keep referring

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Speaker 1: back to it, but I highly recommend picking it up

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Speaker 1: if you're a cocktail fan or an American history fan.

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Speaker 1: It's a great rate. Yeah, you mentioned historical characters. One

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Speaker 1: of the great colorful characters in this book is in

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Speaker 1: the section I was reading. I think he's a central

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Speaker 1: figure in the book is Jerry Thomas, legendary bartender who

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Speaker 1: operated bars all over the place in San Francisco during

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Speaker 1: the gold rush boom and in New York. Who was

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Speaker 1: this crazy, flamboyant character, a man of what is it

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Speaker 1: called the sports sporting fraternity, yes, which I think generally

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Speaker 1: means no good lay abouts of the of the eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: and who loved to celebrate with these extravagant drinks that

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Speaker 1: he was very good at making. And he loved lavish clothes,

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Speaker 1: and he loved diamonds, and he loved big pieces of art.

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Speaker 1: And there's a great story where somebody interviews him for

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Speaker 1: a newspaper at some point and he's got a couple

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Speaker 1: of pet rats scampering along on his shoulders or something. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he seems to have had a wonderful sense of showmanship,

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Speaker 1: which is is ultimately such a huge part of of

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Speaker 1: cocktails and cocktail cultures. Like there's the there's that's the

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Speaker 1: pure mixology of what's going on, and then there's the

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Speaker 1: flash of creating something, creating an experience and selling it

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Speaker 1: to the customer and maybe making a few things up

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Speaker 1: if he flourishes up to to to grease the sale. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the mixed up cocktail, the product of any real endeavor

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Speaker 1: of mixology is an event. It's not just something to

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Speaker 1: be consumed. It's something to be admired in many cases,

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Speaker 1: to watch the bartender making for you. Uh, it's a

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Speaker 1: process and and it's kind of a process in the

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Speaker 1: same way that I don't know, going to like one

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Speaker 1: of those Teppanyaki steakhouses is right, Yeah, we're setting it

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Speaker 1: a sushi bar for instance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you get

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Speaker 1: to see the magic of the food come together. I

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Speaker 1: mean in a sense, it's like you know, like making

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Speaker 1: cocktails at your home or cooking at your home. There's

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Speaker 1: this there's this experience, this this process. You're following instructions,

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Speaker 1: maybe you're improvising a little bit, you're going through an

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Speaker 1: experience to get this thing. You're richer for the experience,

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Speaker 1: and that plays a part in your enjoyment of it. Well,

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Speaker 1: before we look at the science of some cocktails and

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Speaker 1: and the alcohols, and then maybe we should look a

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Speaker 1: little bit at the history of the cocktail. What's what's

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Speaker 1: the social relevance of this tradition of mixing different alcoholic

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Speaker 1: beverages together to produce a newer, better, higher emergent form. Well,

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Speaker 1: one of the core points that one which makes is

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Speaker 1: that the the origins of the cocktail and cocktail culture

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Speaker 1: are largely American. Now, certainly it's a culture that we

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Speaker 1: lost and we had to rediscover and reclaim the realm

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Speaker 1: of mixology from the tyranny of apple teen ease and

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Speaker 1: an unimaginable, unimaginable tryst with vodka. This is a thing

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Speaker 1: in in the book I noticed. I I didn't get

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Speaker 1: to the part where he explains this, but he makes

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Speaker 1: some snide comments about vodka. Well, I think his main deal,

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Speaker 1: wonder which is that, you know, he's very interesting in

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Speaker 1: the origins of cocktail culture, in this golden age of

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Speaker 1: cocktail culture, and vodka really didn't, you know, make it

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Speaker 1: splash until until after that point. Now that's not to

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Speaker 1: say there aren't some wonderful vodka cocktails out there, but

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Speaker 1: is we were discussing before the podcast, you said that

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Speaker 1: you personally feel vodka is a little bit workhorse, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's not. I mean, I don't know of any of

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Speaker 1: my favorite cocktails that have vodka in them. It just

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Speaker 1: seems like it's something that you mix with something vaguely

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Speaker 1: sugary and it makes a drink that has alcohol in it.

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Speaker 1: I mean maybe I don't know. You can see James

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Speaker 1: Bond ordering vodka martinis, but I just look at that

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Speaker 1: and be like, why not just get a real martini?

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Speaker 1: What's wrong with you? Um? Well, another thing that came

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Speaker 1: up when we were preparing for the episode, going along

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Speaker 1: with your your point about the food culture and a

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Speaker 1: bit the preparation culture and how that enriches the social

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Speaker 1: experience of enjoying the cocktail. I also personally feel experimenting

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Speaker 1: with with the mocktails this month as I am that

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Speaker 1: a concoction without alcohol in it can go down a

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Speaker 1: bit fast, you can be a little bit thirstier for it,

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Speaker 1: whereas my in my own experience, if it has a

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Speaker 1: strong spirit in there, it forces you to take smaller

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Speaker 1: drinks and it's sort of draws out the experience of

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Speaker 1: enjoying the beverage. Yeah, Like, the relaxation brought on by

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Speaker 1: a cocktail might not just be from the drug content

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Speaker 1: the alcohol content acting upon your brain, but it's also

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Speaker 1: from the process of drinking because you're you're forced to

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Speaker 1: slow down and relax and take your time for a moment. Yeah. Now,

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Speaker 1: cock culture is also something that some might argue that

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Speaker 1: the Japanese have elevated and perfected as they've done with

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Speaker 1: other Western properties, but but not all still. But it

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Speaker 1: was all still one of America's first true art forms,

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Speaker 1: at least culinarily speaking. Now. To be sure, the American

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Speaker 1: cocktail float followed closely on the heels of a tradition

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Speaker 1: of proper punches, which one which is quick to remind us.

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Speaker 1: So we're more comp lex back in the day. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can think of the punches being like the big

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Speaker 1: bowl of stuff that somebody's drinking at a Christmas party

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Speaker 1: in a Christmas carol, that that party that Scrooge won't

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Speaker 1: go to. They're having some punch punch. Sure, yeah, And

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just sprite and fruit juice and some booze

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Speaker 1: it was. It was more complex. I mean, the Wonder

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Speaker 1: wrote an entire book about it. Uh. He makes a

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Speaker 1: distinction between between today's punches and the greater punches he

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Speaker 1: calls them, calls him that were made quote long and strong.

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Speaker 1: And so this style of mixology rain from the sixteen

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Speaker 1: seventies to the eighteen fifties, and then Temperance and the

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Speaker 1: Temperance move movement in Europe put the brakes on punch

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Speaker 1: a bit, as did the busy approach to life in

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Speaker 1: the Americas. So instead of going through the whole rigmarole

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Speaker 1: of having this giant punch bowl with this this carefully

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Speaker 1: balanced concoction inside of it, punched by the glass became

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Speaker 1: a thing and this was sort of a precursor to

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Speaker 1: the cocktail. Yeah, that sort of makes sense. I mean,

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Speaker 1: punch punches for parties. As I was saying, it's there

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Speaker 1: to s of a lot of people in a limited

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Speaker 1: time frame. Yeah, why would you make make yourself a

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Speaker 1: punch after work? Yeah? Or you go into a bar

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Speaker 1: it's just you and maybe you're not you don't have

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Speaker 1: that much of a social situation going on. You want

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Speaker 1: to a glass of punch? Why not? Why can it

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Speaker 1: not be provided by the glass? After this, you have

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Speaker 1: what Wonderage calls the children of punch. So you have

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Speaker 1: collins Is, Daisies, Fizzies, sours, Cobblers, coolers, the swizzle, uh,

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Speaker 1: the egg drinks, the various egg drinks where you have

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Speaker 1: especially the white of the egg that's been frothed up.

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Speaker 1: And before the cocktail, you had Toddies, Slings, julips. So

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Speaker 1: even the just trying to figure out what a proper

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Speaker 1: cocktail is. That can be kind of hard to nail

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Speaker 1: it down. You'll find various historical tidbits and descriptions that

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Speaker 1: entail cocktail like concoctions. So, for instance, Dickensie and Londoners

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Speaker 1: the drink what we're known as pearls. This was hot

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Speaker 1: ale Hold on this pearl with a you, not an

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Speaker 1: oyster's not like an oyster pearl like p U r

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Speaker 1: l s. And this would have been hot ale, gin, sugar,

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Speaker 1: eggs and nutmeg. So very close. Samuel Peeps recorded the

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Speaker 1: drinking of a great many things, including pearls as well

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Speaker 1: as gin and vermouth, so as as one Bridge points out,

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Speaker 1: he was really close to having invented martinis. H Now,

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Speaker 1: I do remember in the Diaries of Samuel Peeps an

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Speaker 1: episode in which he drinks far too much alcohol and

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Speaker 1: has to run outside and urinate in an alley way somewhere,

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Speaker 1: But I don't remember what he's drinking in this episode.

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Speaker 1: I think it is beer, though okay, yeah I might.

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Speaker 1: I believe he was not opposed to just straight up

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Speaker 1: beer as well. I certainly think of beer as the

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Speaker 1: quintessential uh English drink. I should also point out there

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Speaker 1: are various stories about why we even call it a cocktail.

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Speaker 1: One story I ran across is that it had to

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Speaker 1: do it was a horse analogy. So, if you have

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Speaker 1: an old, older horror and you're gonna sell it off,

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Speaker 1: you want to make it appear young and spirited, so

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Speaker 1: you might give it something to perk it up, to

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Speaker 1: cock its tail. No, well, I mean I I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not up on the details of how

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Speaker 1: you would cock the tail. I'm not saying this is

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Speaker 1: something intrusive. Well, no, I I've heard stories of this. Well,

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Speaker 1: the idea stories are like rubbing ginger on its butt. Okay, stuff, Well,

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Speaker 1: I guess the idea here, then, is that the cocktail

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Speaker 1: would be the human equivalent of a little ginger on

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Speaker 1: the butt, you know, to to perk you up, to

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Speaker 1: live in your spirits and uh and make you a

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Speaker 1: little more presentable for a short period of time. Stuff

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Speaker 1: to blow your mind does not advocate putting ginger on

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Speaker 1: horses buds. No, not at all. So by the nineteenth

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Speaker 1: century standards, a true cocktail had specific ingredients spirits or wine,

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Speaker 1: and then you'd sweeten it with sugar diluted with water.

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Speaker 1: If you needed to and and it may be throwing

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Speaker 1: a dash of bitters bitters or of course a medicinal

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Speaker 1: infusion of bitter roots or spices, what have you. And

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Speaker 1: if you've ever tried to make a cocktail without bitters

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Speaker 1: and wondered what's missing, that's what's missing. Bitter as I

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Speaker 1: think are essential. Yeah, as you sort of triangulate the flavor, right,

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Speaker 1: because you gotta have your your bitter, you have your

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Speaker 1: sweet um. You want you want to be able to

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Speaker 1: to to define that balance. You don't want it to

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Speaker 1: be just this ultra swite or this ultra bitter concoction.

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Speaker 1: So you can get really high and mighty about the

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Speaker 1: definition of the cocktail. You can stick to the to

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Speaker 1: a narrow definition. But all you really need is the

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Speaker 1: mixture of an alcohol with some other ingredient, right, I

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Speaker 1: mean a jack and coke is a cocktail? Am I

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Speaker 1: being high and mighty here? I I promise I'm not

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Speaker 1: high and mighty? That just sounds like it, really, is it?

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Speaker 1: By the my modern deluded standards, I think you can say, yes,

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Speaker 1: it's on the cocktail menu. Um, but it's of course

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Speaker 1: far from a perfectly balanced Manhattan and old fashioned etcetera.

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Speaker 1: A punch wasn't a cocktail, but we can certainly go

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Speaker 1: back much further in time and find examples of its

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Speaker 1: basic principles. On that note, let's take a quick break,

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Speaker 1: and when we come back, we will look at some

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Speaker 1: in some cases very ancient concoctions that you can argue

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Speaker 1: where cocktails, though you might not want to try and

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Speaker 1: order them at your favorite restaurant this weekend. So looking

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Speaker 1: at the origins of cocktails, I want to throw out

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Speaker 1: an idea that I'm I don't know, I've been mulling over.

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Speaker 1: So I'm sort of sympathetic to the idea that cooking

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Speaker 1: has multiple anthropological functions. Of course, there's the basic biological

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Speaker 1: role of it in that it makes food safer to eat,

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Speaker 1: you know, killing food born in bacteria and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: And it makes food easier to digest. It's externalizing some

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Speaker 1: of the process of digestion. You can get more nutrition

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Speaker 1: out of the food. But it might also, I think,

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Speaker 1: kind of provide a psychological effect in that it sort

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Speaker 1: of d natures or provides psychological distancing effects, uh by

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Speaker 1: putting a veneer of artificiality and civilization over the brute

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Speaker 1: animal activity of gorging oneself on calories of plant matter

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Speaker 1: and animal flesh in order to stay alive. It's almost

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Speaker 1: like a way of putting death out of mind in

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Speaker 1: the process of eating. Okay, kind of like how we

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Speaker 1: we distance ourselves from the reality of especially meat products. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we like sometimes people are disturbed to see their meat

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Speaker 1: being cut off of an animal carcass instead of just

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Speaker 1: arriving in a wrapped container. Uh. Some people don't even

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Speaker 1: want to look at raw meat. They might buy pre

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Speaker 1: cooked meat or something like that. And I think that

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Speaker 1: there's some of this same anthropological desire for distancing from

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Speaker 1: our animal nature that that's operating here. And again this

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Speaker 1: is this is just my speculation. I'm not This is

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Speaker 1: not backed up by any hard science. Um, but I

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Speaker 1: wonder if some of the same thing could be going

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Speaker 1: on with the idea of mixing alcohols uh, cocktail culture,

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Speaker 1: or even going back to some of these things we're

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Speaker 1: about to talk about, you know, the origins of mixing

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Speaker 1: wine with various ingredients. It is tasty, I'll give it

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Speaker 1: that so, but also cooked food is tasty. I wonder

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Speaker 1: if there is also an element that's operating that is

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Speaker 1: putting a veneer of civilization and sophistication onto the act

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Speaker 1: of ingesting ethanol to dull your senses, right, or sort

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Speaker 1: of the to take a page from nature documentaries and

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Speaker 1: of course overdrawn at the memory bank, the idea of

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Speaker 1: a of a monkey eating a rotting, fermenting fruit and

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Speaker 1: then falling out of a tree. Yeah, exactly. We don't

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Speaker 1: want that experience, though, essentially, how is it that different, Right,

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Speaker 1: We've we've taken something that has been transformed by its

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Speaker 1: uh by its demise, we've we've we've eaten it, or

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Speaker 1: we've we've sipped of it, and then it's altered our

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Speaker 1: senses a bit. Yeah. So I'm certainly not saying that

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Speaker 1: the you know, the visual art and the the taste

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Speaker 1: and smell pleasure of a cocktail is not the primary

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Speaker 1: reason for it. But I wonder if it's fulfilling this

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Speaker 1: other role, to if it makes us feel just a

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Speaker 1: little more human and a little bit less like an

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Speaker 1: ape rolling around while we're getting in this state of

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Speaker 1: mind that you know, if if it goes wrong, could

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Speaker 1: lead to some actual rolling around. Well, suddenly, there's there's

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Speaker 1: no shortage of of culture attacked attached to cocktails, especially

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Speaker 1: when you get into the even the particulars of the

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Speaker 1: glasses and and what sort of glass is suitable for

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Speaker 1: this type of beverage, some of which is grounded in

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Speaker 1: the physics of the chemistry of the thing, but more

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Speaker 1: often than not, it's just pure cultural distinctions. This type

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Speaker 1: of glack coop glass or a nick and Nora is

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Speaker 1: more appropriate for this drink. Why just because it looks nice,

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Speaker 1: Because it is. Yeah, yeah, that's how it's always been done.

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Speaker 1: That's what your culture says. Yes, but anyway, let's go

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Speaker 1: back through that culture. Let us retreat into the clouds

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Speaker 1: of story and see if we can find the origins

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Speaker 1: of this process of mixing alcoholic beverages. Well, the true

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Speaker 1: origins are ultimately going to be lost to the midst

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Speaker 1: of history because essentially, what we're talking about, it's just

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Speaker 1: it's very basis combining wines or other alcoholic concoctions with

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Speaker 1: herbal ingredients or other ingredients that alters the finished beverage.

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Speaker 1: Because distilled liquor is not that old. So making wine

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Speaker 1: with some selection of specialized ingredients, well, these have been

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Speaker 1: with us for for ages. So you might choose to

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Speaker 1: call them magical potions, or you might call it a

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Speaker 1: medicinal elixir. But let's consider a few interesting examples. What

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Speaker 1: do they call it in Game of Thrones? Mold wine?

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Speaker 1: Mold wine? Yes, and if everybody drinks mold wine, and

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00:19:50,920 --> 00:19:53,320
Speaker 1: don't forget the milk of the poppy. Oh yeah, which

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Speaker 1: will we'll kind of come back to in a bit.

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Speaker 1: So these are a few examples. These are not necessarily

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Speaker 1: in order of historical um occurrence. But one of Emperor

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Speaker 1: Claudius's physicians, one Scribonius Largus uh, prescribed the following to

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Speaker 1: sue the stomach ache. Sweet wine combined with dissolved black

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Speaker 1: myrtle berries and pills made up of dates, still, saffron,

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Speaker 1: nigella seeds, hazel work, and juniper. Okay, so it sounds like, wait,

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Speaker 1: hold on, some wine. So like wine that is a

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Speaker 1: precursor of a vermouth product, and you're getting some juniper here,

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Speaker 1: so they're working on a martini. You could yeah, juniper

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Speaker 1: berries are are are the key ingredient gin. So you

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Speaker 1: could make an argument that, yeah, this is maybe a

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Speaker 1: precursor to a martini. Certainly, almost certainly would not have

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Speaker 1: tasted like a martini. Here's another one. According to Amy

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Speaker 1: Stewart's The Drunken Botanist, an eighteenth century concoction called for

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Speaker 1: boiling snails with milk, brandy figs, and spices to create

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Speaker 1: to treat consumption. Mm. Yeah, can you imagine you're you're

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Speaker 1: already dealing with consumption and then somebody who really cares

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Speaker 1: about you comes at you with a cup of this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what's in it? Well, you know, some brandy fig spices, milk, Oh,

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00:21:13,920 --> 00:21:17,520
Speaker 1: sounds good, and some boiled snails. That's that's how they

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00:21:17,520 --> 00:21:20,560
Speaker 1: get you the final ingredient. Now, if we go back

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Speaker 1: all the way to a thirty BC. Virgil the of course,

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Speaker 1: the poet who write notably guided Dante into the underworld

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Speaker 1: and the divine comedy. Uh he He wrote of of

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Speaker 1: citron is a remedy against poison. So citron being a

386
00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:42,080
Speaker 1: you know, citrus fruit, the peel was added to wine

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Speaker 1: as a vomit inducing remedy. So citron is one of

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Speaker 1: the earliest species of citrus. It's a parent of various

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Speaker 1: citrus species that we've we prize today and use in

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00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:56,000
Speaker 1: in concoctions, and you know, an all manner of recipes. Um.

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00:21:56,040 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 1: So it has a thick peel, it's a sour fruit.

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00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:03,040
Speaker 1: It is a quote dinosaur the citrus world. Uh kinda again,

393
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:05,399
Speaker 1: too many fruit fruits that we cherish in our cocktails,

394
00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:09,200
Speaker 1: and more closely related to the Buddhoo's hand citron. I

395
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Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever seen this. It's a really

396
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:15,480
Speaker 1: beautiful fruit that has this kind of don't think of

397
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:19,280
Speaker 1: a straight up hand, but think of a very Eastern

398
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Speaker 1: depiction of a curly fingered hand. And you have it. It

399
00:22:21,680 --> 00:22:24,200
Speaker 1: It looks very love crafty and I just looked it up.

400
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:27,560
Speaker 1: It does, it has, it has tentacles coming out of

401
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Speaker 1: its head. I have actually have a post about it

402
00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:31,520
Speaker 1: that I'll link to on the landing page for this

403
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Speaker 1: episode because it photographs beautifully just a beautiful, beautiful fruit.

404
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Speaker 1: Now I can't I can't recommend trying Virgil's recipe here,

405
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:43,440
Speaker 1: but it is worth the noting that in Barbados they

406
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 1: originally made citron water in the eighteenth century and may

407
00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:49,359
Speaker 1: have used it to flavor of vermouth, so there is

408
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:54,160
Speaker 1: some connection there too, more or less modern drink culture. Alright,

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Speaker 1: So a minute ago we mentioned the juniper berry is

410
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Speaker 1: one of the ingredients prescribed for this This hill combined

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Speaker 1: with sweet wine to soothe an upset stomach in ancient Rome.

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00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:09,080
Speaker 1: But uh so, juniper actually did does, as we say,

413
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Speaker 1: end up being the main ingredient in gin. Right. Yeah,

414
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Speaker 1: It's a medicinal use goes way back as well as

415
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:17,959
Speaker 1: used as early as twelve sixty six by Belgian theologian

416
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Speaker 1: Thomas van Contemporary, and he recommended boiling juniper berries in

417
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 1: rainwater or wine to treat stomach paint paint. Now, this,

418
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:29,200
Speaker 1: it's important to note, would not have tasted like gin,

419
00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:32,399
Speaker 1: no matter what you're what a you know, bottom shelf

420
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:35,160
Speaker 1: variety of gin you might be thinking of. I'm sure

421
00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 1: that tasted better than a rainwater juniper concoction. Bad gin

422
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 1: is a bad idea, Yes, as I would. I would

423
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:45,199
Speaker 1: advise anyone who has turned off of gin to, you know,

424
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:48,640
Speaker 1: explore there's some there's some great gin's out there, uh

425
00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:52,119
Speaker 1: that that aren't that don't taste of rainwater. Now, in

426
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:56,880
Speaker 1: the second sist century, Greek physician Galen recommended juniper berries

427
00:23:57,080 --> 00:24:00,679
Speaker 1: to quote, cleans the liver and kidneys and uh and

428
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:04,159
Speaker 1: they evidently thin any thick and viscous juices, and for

429
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: this reason they are mixed in health medicines unquote. So

430
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:12,120
Speaker 1: Stewart in her book writes that this suggests a mixture

431
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:16,200
Speaker 1: with alcohol, which again kind of sounds like Jen probably

432
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:19,719
Speaker 1: would not have tasted anything like Jim. Alright, moving on

433
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:24,119
Speaker 1: from proto gen uh, here's an eighteen fifties recipe for

434
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:27,800
Speaker 1: a concoction to treat it was, which was some sort

435
00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:32,160
Speaker 1: of bacterial infection that afflicted the skin and the joints.

436
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 1: So Kentucky farmer John B. Clark listed the recipe as follows.

437
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: This was listed in the Drunken Botanists as well. You

438
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:41,920
Speaker 1: would need to combine one pint of hog lard, one

439
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:46,080
Speaker 1: handful I think you said lard. Yes, lard, yes, hog lard, yes,

440
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: straight up hog lard in the drink. Yes. Again, not

441
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:53,280
Speaker 1: that different from the bacon related drinks that would briefly

442
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:58,720
Speaker 1: become the fad. So okay, you get your pine ahog lard,

443
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:02,120
Speaker 1: You got your handful of earthworms. That's what you're gonna

444
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: You're gonna need that handful of tobacco, four pods of

445
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:11,159
Speaker 1: red pepper, a spoonful of black pepper, a race of ginger,

446
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: and you stew this together and mix with brandy. Well,

447
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:19,360
Speaker 1: that sounds dangerous on one hand, because if you're using tobacco,

448
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 1: and that sounds like you could easily accidentally extract too

449
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:26,879
Speaker 1: much nicotine and poison yourself. Right, Well, this is a

450
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:29,040
Speaker 1: good good point as well, and this this will come

451
00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 1: up again as we discuss uh, the weird connection between

452
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: alcohol and tobacco there and tobacco and fused alcohols. You

453
00:25:36,560 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: can actually buy one today, but yeah, that would have

454
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: been a potential threat here. Or maybe that's how it works.

455
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:47,960
Speaker 1: Maybe you're you're isolating the the true power of this folklorimity. Yeah,

456
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:49,919
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess when you think about it, the

457
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: whole nature of of drinking ethanol based drinks is you're

458
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: kind of slightly poisoning yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And as we

459
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: get into the some of the so called nefarious spirits

460
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 1: that have been used in cocktails over time, it's worth

461
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 1: stressing that alcohol is kind of the nefarious spirit. Very

462
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: few of the substances that get mixed in with it

463
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 1: are as potentially dangerous as the thing itself. Finally, I

464
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:17,280
Speaker 1: want to mention this is a little, a little far

465
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 1: less of a cocktail, but certainly a mixture of spirits. Uh.

466
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: If you look back at the Homer's Odyssey, you find

467
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 1: a mixture that is referred to as kai kion, and

468
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: this would have been a mixture of beer, wine and

469
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 1: meat that was given by Circe to um to Odyssey's

470
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: his crew in the Odyssey. So a mixture of spirits

471
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:42,280
Speaker 1: and maybe a little magic in there as well. That

472
00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,879
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like a good combination, right, Yeah, I mean

473
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:48,640
Speaker 1: it either it doled them out enough that she could

474
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 1: turn them into pigs, or it had some role in

475
00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: turning them into pigs. Either way, not something you want

476
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,359
Speaker 1: out of your your your beverage. Bottom line, Don't accept

477
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: drinks from a witch, right, Yeah, never accept to drink

478
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 1: from a witch. I think we should all we should

479
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 1: all know that by that point, been fooled too many times.

480
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: All right, So let's get into these nefarious spirits. Touching uh,

481
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:12,400
Speaker 1: touching down once again on tobacco. So tobacco liqueur. What's

482
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:15,399
Speaker 1: the history here? Well, we don't know for certain on this,

483
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 1: but Amy Stewart points out that people that the people

484
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: of Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil had a long standing practice

485
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,440
Speaker 1: of soaking tobacco leaves and honey. And since honey can

486
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 1: of course be fermented into mead and such drinks, such

487
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: mead type drinks were known in South America. It's possible

488
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:37,320
Speaker 1: but unproven, that some manner of nicotine mead may have emerged.

489
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,879
Speaker 1: So nicomede nicomede, I guess yeah, so it would have

490
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:45,080
Speaker 1: u your your alcohol and nicotine buzz combined into a

491
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 1: single experience. No need to drink and smoke, you just

492
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:51,879
Speaker 1: have one concoction, that is. Yeah. But let's leave the

493
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: ambiguous world of conjecture and consider actual, verified, and perfectly

494
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:01,359
Speaker 1: legal tobacco liqueurs. The best one of these is periq

495
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: Liqueur de tobacco. So this is a French tobacco liqueur

496
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,200
Speaker 1: and pretty much the tobacco liqueur. I gotta say, I'm

497
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: surprised to I would not have expected anybody was actually

498
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 1: making tobacco booze, yeah, or that it was like a

499
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: refined thing and not some sort of weird, gimmicky somebody's

500
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: dangerous backyard concoctions. Right. The distillers here at the Combert facility,

501
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:26,960
Speaker 1: they claim that it has no nicotine in it, though,

502
00:28:27,520 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 1: and this is apparently quite likely, since the high boiling

503
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 1: point of nicotine is like four seventy five degrees fahrenheit,

504
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: meaning that it probably doesn't rise through the still during

505
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 1: the distillation process. That's interesting. So that makes it seem like,

506
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 1: given that fact, it's actually safer to have a tobacco

507
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: based liquor or liqueur than it would be to do

508
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 1: what we were talking about earlier, and like soaked tobacco

509
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: leaves in a wine that you're drinking or something where

510
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: the essence could come out into the liquid, whereas in

511
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: a still you're saying it would not have evaporate correctly, right,

512
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:03,719
Speaker 1: And that's something she points out there, is that, especially

513
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: in this age of mixed mixological enthusiasm and often home

514
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: bitter making projects, that some some might make a cigar

515
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 1: bitters for instance, at their house, but if you don't

516
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: know what you're doing, uh, you might accidentally create this

517
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: supercharged nicotine concoction and you could create a cocktail with

518
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:30,120
Speaker 1: an inappropriate dose of nicotine in it that sounds like

519
00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 1: a very bad night. Now. Now some of you are

520
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: probably wondering, well, what is that actual tobacco liqueur taste like? Well,

521
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: Stewart describes it as quote sweet, aromatic and decidedly different,

522
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: and that it quote tastes the way sweet damp pipe

523
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: tobacco smells. So I know that smell, but I can't

524
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: imagine that taste. Yeah, so that's why. If anyone out

525
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: there has any experience with this one and has a

526
00:29:56,280 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 1: more detailed explanation or additional thoughts on its a particular bouquet,

527
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: then let us know. Okay, so that's nicotine, But how

528
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:11,480
Speaker 1: about how about cocaine? How about coca wines and tonics?

529
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 1: Moving up the ladder of stimulants? Yeah, this so, so

530
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 1: this is another hold on? When do we get to

531
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: four loco then four local? What is in four local?

532
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with this one. Oh, I just made

533
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: a four loco joke, and I don't really know. I

534
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 1: believe it is a or at least was a combined

535
00:30:27,880 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: alcoholic beverage and energy drink wrap. Yes, I think it

536
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:34,600
Speaker 1: might not be anymore something. I don't know. I've never

537
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: had a four loco. I'm not advocating it, Okay, well,

538
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: I mean to. Of course, there are other drinks out

539
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 1: there that combine alcohol and coffee, so or the much

540
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,640
Speaker 1: dreaded UH vodka and Red Bull, which David Wondridge does

541
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 1: not cover in his book. But really, it didn't make

542
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: it into didn't make it in. Yeah, it's not refined enough.

543
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 1: Go figure. But but as far as the history of

544
00:30:56,680 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 1: coca leaves, the prime ingredient in cocaine and alcohol. Uh,

545
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 1: this this gets really interesting. So Peruvians made use of

546
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 1: the coca plant leaves as early as three thousand BC.

547
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: So they would choose the leaves for energy. It provided

548
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: mild stimulus and it would also help against altitude sickness.

549
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 1: It could be brut and tease as well. Now, did

550
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: we mention the the idea that this was employed by

551
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 1: the the runners in the Kingdom of the Incan's, the

552
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 1: runners who would uh carry the not messages across the

553
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:34,120
Speaker 1: high altitude I believe we did. Yeah, Yeah, that would

554
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: have been an example of usage there where you just

555
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: needed a little more boost or a little a little

556
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:42,920
Speaker 1: better ability to uh, to really go at it in

557
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: the uh, in the higher altitudes, they would have turned

558
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,320
Speaker 1: to the coca leaf. Now, when the Europeans came in,

559
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:52,640
Speaker 1: they figured out how to extract the cocaine alkaloid and

560
00:31:52,720 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 1: it was used as a pain reliever and antiseptic, digestive

561
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: and various other medical uses. In fact, in the US

562
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 1: it remains a schedule to narcotic. That means it has

563
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 1: quote currently accepted medical use and treatment in the United

564
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: States or currently accepted medical use with severe restrictions. What

565
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: what what use is cocaine today in the medical community.

566
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 1: Uh well, I mean basically it comes down to some

567
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: of the properties was originally used for, um, you know,

568
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: such as, you know, alleviating pain. If anyone's ever seen

569
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 1: the Wonderful Believe a Cinemax show the Nick, they do

570
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 1: a wonderful job of exploring the use of cocaine medically

571
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,400
Speaker 1: at the time. Uh pre anesthesia. You know, you could

572
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 1: you could inject cocaine and uh and and get the

573
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 1: desired result for surgery. Yeah. Wow. But it is an

574
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: interesting reality to to remind oneself that while marijuana is

575
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: a Schedule one narcotic, uh, cocaine is a schedule too.

576
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: Of course, today cocaine continues to power around with alcohol

577
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: and illicit recreational usages. But it also made its way

578
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 1: into coca leaf wines and tonics. So there was a

579
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: French vin Mariani. This was a tonic and it was

580
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 1: patent in patented in eighteen sixty three by French chemist

581
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:16,320
Speaker 1: Angelo Mariani, and he also offered a coca wine called

582
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: then tonique Marianni, which was a combo of Bordeaux wine

583
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,959
Speaker 1: and coca leaves. Now none of that goes on, at

584
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 1: least legally today, but coca flavoring is still used. And

585
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: you can order yourself some D coconut cocaine eysed cocoa

586
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: tea right off of Amazon, and it's actually pretty good.

587
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: It's it's you've had I've had it. Yeah, yeah, they've

588
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: they've They've leached all the cocaine out of it. So

589
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: it's perfectly, perfectly legal, perfectly reasonable thing to have. I

590
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: don't know if you should have it before a drug

591
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: test for unemployment or anything, but it's certainly interesting. Well,

592
00:33:50,120 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: one thing that occurs to me is if coca cola

593
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: originally was flavored with coca, wasn't it some kind of

594
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 1: coca product. I believe it's not anymore. Right, Well, they

595
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:03,479
Speaker 1: have the whole secret recipe thing, right, and and certainly

596
00:34:03,520 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: coca can be D cocaine eyst so, so it could

597
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: be D cocaine and so so. But you could think,

598
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 1: just flavor wise, perhaps if you're mixing coca cola with

599
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: some kind of alcoholic beverage, you may be to some

600
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: very tamed extent simulating this kind of mixture, right, And

601
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 1: there's apparently a liqueur called Agua sold in the US

602
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:27,720
Speaker 1: and European markets, and it's marketed as quote a premium

603
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 1: herbal liqueur made from Bolivian coca leaves and an infusion

604
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:33,839
Speaker 1: of thirty six herbs and botanicals. So in this case

605
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: we would be talking, uh, you know, the cocaine has

606
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:38,959
Speaker 1: been removed from it as well, and you're just getting

607
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:41,800
Speaker 1: the flavor profile with the leaf. And of course this

608
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: the the the excitement of oh it's it's it's a

609
00:34:45,440 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 1: cocaine liqueur. Well yeah, there you go. I mean, as

610
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:50,880
Speaker 1: we talked about, it's not just the taste, there's an

611
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:55,759
Speaker 1: event going on, right, it's the showmanship. Now from there,

612
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 1: let's move on to another schedule to narcotic with a

613
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 1: similar time line of traditional use, medicinal use, refinement, and

614
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:08,760
Speaker 1: then outright abuse. We're talking of course about opium. Oh okay,

615
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:12,840
Speaker 1: so opium cocktails. Huh yeah, well you know this is

616
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 1: this is something I didn't realize. I guess I knew this,

617
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: but I never really put one and two together. But

618
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:22,359
Speaker 1: the seeds of the opium plant, poppy seeds, they're sold

619
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 1: legally since they're used in baked goods. Right. I remember

620
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 1: the old Seinfeld bit about Elaine having poppy seed muffins

621
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 1: and then flunking a drug test. But I somehow didn't

622
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: put put together that it was actually the same plant.

623
00:35:36,239 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: I kind of, without thinking about it, assume that it

624
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: was just you know, something that's closely related to it

625
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:43,880
Speaker 1: and it would trigger you know, a false positive. Now,

626
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: I imagine this does not mean that we have to

627
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:48,840
Speaker 1: worry about eating poppy seed muffins because they're gonna have

628
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 1: opioid effects on us. No, yeah, not at all. Continue

629
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: to eat your, your, your, your poppy seed muffins. Now.

630
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 1: Stewart points out that the earliest possible description of an

631
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:04,319
Speaker 1: opium confused cocktail of sorts is again Homer's Odyssey, Uh

632
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 1: the elixir Nehinthy that Helen of Troy drank to alleviate

633
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:12,400
Speaker 1: her sorrows. It was mixed quote with an herb that

634
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 1: banishes all care, sorrow and ill humor. And this of

635
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:18,640
Speaker 1: course may have referred to opium. Or if you're a

636
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 1: fan of Game of Thrones and I think this might

637
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:24,320
Speaker 1: be yeah, there you go. Now that of course, the

638
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 1: more direct comparison there would be if we go to

639
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 1: Victorian times laudanum tonic, which was opium steeped in alcohol.

640
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 1: The alkaloids and opium are for more soluble in alcohol

641
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 1: rather than in water. There is so. I just recently

642
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 1: read the novel True Grit. Oh, yeah, Charles portis uh,

643
00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 1: and there is so. I've seen the movie before, but

644
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 1: especially in the novel, there is a scene in which

645
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: the main character, who is a girl who is very

646
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:56,399
Speaker 1: level headed and very all business like. She she sort

647
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 1: of messes things up in a scene because she has

648
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: been even laudanum to treat a cold. It was it

649
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 1: was one of these things that was used to treat

650
00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: just about everything. And that's the thing about opium is

651
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 1: that whatever ails you, at least in the short term,

652
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:14,439
Speaker 1: a little bit of opium will probably make it better.

653
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:17,720
Speaker 1: It's the it's more the long term, not the problem.

654
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:20,440
Speaker 1: Not make it better, but make you not care. Right

655
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:26,000
Speaker 1: as far as actual cocktails go, this is kind of interesting. Uh.

656
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:28,320
Speaker 1: King George the Fifth like to consume a mixture of

657
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: brandy and laud him to alleviate his gout. So there

658
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: you go. Not alleviate his gout, would alleviate his mind. Yes,

659
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 1: alleviate his his experience of the gout or his relationship

660
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 1: to his experience of the count um and Uh. And

661
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:47,320
Speaker 1: of course Bear the drug company sold and opium syrup

662
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 1: in under the name Heroin, which was you know, of

663
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:54,959
Speaker 1: course often it was often marketed at kids four kids

664
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:57,239
Speaker 1: to help with your your cough or whatever ails you.

665
00:37:57,360 --> 00:37:59,920
Speaker 1: I've seen those ads. Yeah, y'all out there, you should

666
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: look up these ads. Yeah, they they had the old

667
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 1: printed ads for it. It's it's phenomenal. And again, if

668
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 1: you're a fan of of all this, you want you

669
00:38:08,760 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 1: want sort of a fictional treatment of it. Uh. Steven

670
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 1: Soderbird's The Nick also explores uh, the early days of

671
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:19,480
Speaker 1: heroin rather nicely. All right, well, what else do we

672
00:38:19,600 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: do we have here on the drink menu if you will? Well,

673
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about as long as we're going

674
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:30,240
Speaker 1: into strange and perhaps the illicit ingredients maybe less illicit

675
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 1: than opium and cocaine. Uh. But do you remember the

676
00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: bacon craze of the late two thousand's, early two thousand tens. Oh, yes,

677
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 1: how could I not? And of course coming out of

678
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 1: that craze there were lots of bacon cocktails. Of course,

679
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: you know, and not to say that that was the

680
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:51,320
Speaker 1: first time there was ever such a thing as like

681
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 1: bacon infused alcohol, but it became very popular then, and

682
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: during this time it was it was like when everybody

683
00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 1: thought it was hilarious to have an I Heart Bacon

684
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: bumper sticker or T shirt and have bacon parties, and

685
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 1: to have bacon on all your food, to make like

686
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:11,279
Speaker 1: bacon utensils, to eat your food with h Not to

687
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 1: disparage bacon itself, but I do think it's funny how

688
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: all of us at the time, for some reason, didn't

689
00:39:18,200 --> 00:39:22,800
Speaker 1: seem to realize that this was not just a spontaneous

690
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 1: outpouring of ironic Internet love, but to some extent a

691
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: result of market forces in the meat markets and a

692
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: manipulation of public opinion by the pork industry. I was

693
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: reading an article about that not too long ago, Like,

694
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:39,320
Speaker 1: was it really just a coincidence that you knew a

695
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:43,239
Speaker 1: guy in college who started a hilarious bacon based garments

696
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,800
Speaker 1: blog right around the same time that Wendy's introduced the

697
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:50,919
Speaker 1: bacon eight or uh that that's perfect and it again

698
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:55,360
Speaker 1: it it fits perfectly in the culture of cocktails because

699
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:57,840
Speaker 1: of that that marketing angle, and that's often a hidden

700
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 1: marketing angle. Like it reminds me of the origins of

701
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,480
Speaker 1: the Moscow Mule, which of course is a It's a

702
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:07,600
Speaker 1: nice beverage. It has vodka, ginger beer, what some lime.

703
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 1: It's pretty in that copper cup. Yeah, that copper cup.

704
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 1: It looks beautiful. And where did it come from? That's

705
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 1: the thing you might think, Oh, well, this it's it's

706
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 1: called a Moscow mule. Must have been this must have

707
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 1: been like a work working man's drink in Moscow, invented

708
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: by the great bartender Ivan Mulevich. No, you you might

709
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 1: think it might be something cool like that, but as

710
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: it turns out, it just goes back to a vodka

711
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:35,440
Speaker 1: distributor who knew somebody. I think it was a girlfriend

712
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,400
Speaker 1: who had all these copper mugs that that she needed

713
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: to sell. So just put one and two together and

714
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: the Moscow Mule was born. It was delicious, but the

715
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 1: whole story, the fictional creation story behind it, just had

716
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:53,440
Speaker 1: no basis. In fact, that is incredibly deflating. Well, you know,

717
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 1: you drink half of one and then you feel better

718
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: about it. Well, anyway, you definitely remember though, how the

719
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 1: did happen or it was around two thousand ten. I

720
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:05,320
Speaker 1: think that this was really peaking, that there was, you know,

721
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: a little bit after the years after that were suddenly

722
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 1: these recipes for bacon infused bourbon and stuff like that.

723
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:16,279
Speaker 1: We're just taking over the menus everywhere, and everybody thought

724
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:20,439
Speaker 1: it was great to give somebody bacon old fashioned sor

725
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:22,800
Speaker 1: or something like that for Christmas. And I think I

726
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 1: still see drinks of this nature on the menu every

727
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: now and then. Sometimes it's like a bacon like the

728
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: the Glasses Room, not in salt, but some sort of

729
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:34,319
Speaker 1: like bacon based not not straight up bacon bits, it's

730
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: the fancier version of bacon bits. I think the barbecue

731
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 1: place here in town, Fox Brothers Barbecue in Atlanta, they

732
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 1: have a Bloody Mary that's got a bunch of bacon.

733
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 1: And as of Bloody Mary's were not already pretty salty. Um,

734
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,800
Speaker 1: I I can't. I can't match anything that is quite

735
00:41:54,920 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: as neat centric as a bacon cocktail. But carnivorous ats

736
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:02,840
Speaker 1: have occasionally made their way into cocktails. So you have

737
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:06,879
Speaker 1: a plant by the name of an we call sun Do. Yeah,

738
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:08,960
Speaker 1: we talked about the sun Do in our episode on

739
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 1: her Neiverous plants. Yeah, so you might remember it. It

740
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:14,239
Speaker 1: catches insects with the sticky nectar and digest them with

741
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:17,800
Speaker 1: his enzymes. And it was once popular in a cordial

742
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:23,280
Speaker 1: known as rosalio, and uh today rosalio entails of various

743
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:26,800
Speaker 1: liqueurs made from fruits and spices steeped in alcohol. But

744
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 1: sun do was once a prime ingredient, and you were

745
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:32,760
Speaker 1: advised to pick the dead insects out of the fruit first.

746
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 1: No way, yeah, no way, you're knocking that out. No,

747
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 1: I'm not making it out the dead insects in your drink. No, no,

748
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: you would take it out before you made the drink. Oh,

749
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 1: I see, so you'd strain it and then make your cocktail. Right. Yeah.

750
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: That being said, I don't know that it that it

751
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:48,520
Speaker 1: would be that bad if they were bugs in the drink.

752
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 1: Speaking of dead things in your drink and meaty flesh

753
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 1: in your drink, I'm gonna converge these two, uh, these

754
00:42:56,400 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 1: two lines of inquiry into a single cocktail, which is

755
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:03,320
Speaker 1: you may have heard about this, you may not have.

756
00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:07,240
Speaker 1: But in the town of Dawson City, in the boreal

757
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 1: yonder of the Yukon Territory, way up there, there is

758
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 1: a hotel bar with an infamous local tradition of bibulation

759
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:19,720
Speaker 1: known as the sour toe cocktail. Have you heard of this, Robert?

760
00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:23,720
Speaker 1: I don't think I had, And you know, I'm already

761
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 1: I'm at this point. I'm already a little bit afraid

762
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: because I'm I'm picturing Yukon territory. I'm picturing very rugged

763
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 1: individuals here. Uh huh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. There's a

764
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:37,800
Speaker 1: lot of miners, hunters, barge operators, stuff like that. So

765
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:41,959
Speaker 1: you're probably wondering, sour toe cocktail? Okay, does it really

766
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: contain a toe? And the answer is yes, what there's

767
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:49,320
Speaker 1: a real toe in it, a human toe. For it

768
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 1: is a dark, shriveled, mummified piece of toe jerky and

769
00:43:54,520 --> 00:43:58,000
Speaker 1: it goes in your drink for five dollars. Actually, that's

770
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 1: that was the price in time. I read a newspaper

771
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,439
Speaker 1: article about it, so the price may have been hiked

772
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 1: up since then, who knows what? Wait, was this an

773
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:08,200
Speaker 1: old thing? It is the current thing? Does the current

774
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,359
Speaker 1: you can do this now? Oh? Okay, So I thought

775
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: this was like an old uh you know, frontier beverage,

776
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 1: and I was willing to give them a little more license.

777
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 1: Desperate times, uh, wilderness madness setting in. Maybe you would

778
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:24,920
Speaker 1: throw a toe into a beverage for whatever reason. No,

779
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: this is less like the Frontier wine with a pound

780
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:32,359
Speaker 1: of pork lard and more like the ironic chipster bacon cocktail. Now,

781
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: because this started in the nineteen seventies, so you have

782
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,400
Speaker 1: to pay a five dollar toe tax to have this

783
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 1: toe added to whatever alcohol you want, presumably whether it's

784
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:45,240
Speaker 1: four fingers of Yukon jack whiskey or a cranberry apple

785
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:47,959
Speaker 1: teeny or a glass of champagne as you will see.

786
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 1: And the toe goes in your glass of booze, and

787
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:55,800
Speaker 1: you drink the booze, and then the toe lives on. Uh. So,

788
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:58,719
Speaker 1: of course I was wondering where did this toe come from? Well,

789
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: Atlas Obscura has excellent, very short, little history of the

790
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: sour toe that you can look up. But basic story

791
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: goes like this. In nineteen seventy three, a river barge

792
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: pilot named Captain Dick Stevenson, he's cleaning out a cabin

793
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: when he came across an amputated human toe in a

794
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:19,839
Speaker 1: jar of alcohol. Suppose is an appropriate place to keep

795
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 1: it to preserve it? I guess right. So Supposedly the

796
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:26,280
Speaker 1: toe had belonged to a minor named Louis Lichn, whose

797
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 1: toe became frost bitten sometime in the nineteen twenties up

798
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 1: in the Yukon and he had to get it amputated

799
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 1: and decided to preserve it in this jar of alcohol.

800
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: So after Stevenson found the toe in the jar in

801
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, he got this amazing idea to head

802
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:45,759
Speaker 1: down to the local saloon and start dropping it into

803
00:45:45,800 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: people's drinks, and those who could bear to drink the

804
00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: booze with the toe knocking around in the glass became

805
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 1: the original members of the Sour Toe Cocktail Club, which

806
00:45:57,440 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 1: now more than forty years later, has more than five

807
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 1: d thousand members. So if you go up to the

808
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:05,200
Speaker 1: Yukon Territory and you go to this bar and you

809
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: order the toe, you get a drink, pay the toe tax,

810
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: and get the toe in your drink and you drink it,

811
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:13,680
Speaker 1: they will give you a certificate of membership that you

812
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,360
Speaker 1: are now in the Sour Toe Club. That's sort of

813
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:19,480
Speaker 1: local attraction. If you happen to end up in Dawson City,

814
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 1: there you go. But I know what you're thinking, has

815
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:29,439
Speaker 1: anyone ever swallowed the toe several times more than once.

816
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 1: So the first time was supposedly in July nineteen eighty,

817
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 1: when a miner named Gary Younger had been working on

818
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: his glass of quote sour Toe champagne. According to the

819
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 1: Sour Toe Cocktail Club account, this guy's chair tipped over

820
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:52,840
Speaker 1: backwards and he accidentally swallowed the toe. Now I'm not

821
00:46:52,960 --> 00:46:54,840
Speaker 1: sure if I buy this story, because how do you

822
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 1: accidentally swallow something as big as a toe from a

823
00:46:59,080 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 1: champagne glass? Us, I don't know. But because he's presumably

824
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 1: drinking it out of the traditional champagne flute, right, so

825
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:07,719
Speaker 1: or I don't know. Maybe in the Yukon you get

826
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 1: your champagne and a tin cup. I don't know, of course,

827
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:15,680
Speaker 1: thirteen glasses in who knows what was going on? Probably yeah,

828
00:47:15,760 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 1: probably not in total command of his faculties. So uh,

829
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:22,320
Speaker 1: this wasn't the only time somebody swallowed the toe. Toes

830
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:25,360
Speaker 1: keep disappearing, so new ones have to be supplied, and

831
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: uh it's over the years years a few more toes

832
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,759
Speaker 1: were donated by people who had to have amputations due

833
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:35,439
Speaker 1: to frost bite, diabetes, and a so called quote inoperable

834
00:47:35,560 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 1: corn stream. He keeps getting less and less appetizing um

835
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:44,360
Speaker 1: and one donation was apparently an anonymous donation that was

836
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 1: later stolen from the bar. And and probably the most

837
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:50,800
Speaker 1: famous toe origin story, one arrived at the bar in

838
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,320
Speaker 1: a jar of alcohol with a note that said, quote,

839
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:59,919
Speaker 1: don't wear open toe sandals while mowing the lawn. Well,

840
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:01,919
Speaker 1: it's one way to live, for your toe to live

841
00:48:02,000 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 1: on right after it's it's left your body. Yeah, but

842
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 1: so More recently, the Toronto Star reports that a man

843
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 1: known only as quote Josh from New Orleans paid the

844
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 1: toe tax to have the toe deposited in his glass

845
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 1: of whiskey. And at the time there was a five

846
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 1: hundred dollar fee for accidentally swallowing the toe, and Josh

847
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:26,919
Speaker 1: from New Orleans just popped the toe in his mouth

848
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:30,520
Speaker 1: and down it went, and he immediately paid the five

849
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:33,000
Speaker 1: hund dollar fee in cash and walked out of the bar.

850
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:38,839
Speaker 1: And last last tidbit about this, apparently, when you order

851
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:42,800
Speaker 1: the toe, the bartender recites a magical incantation to steal

852
00:48:42,880 --> 00:48:46,680
Speaker 1: you for your journey of death and alcohol, and it goes.

853
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 1: You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow,

854
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 1: but your lips must touch the toe. I can see

855
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 1: this is really goodding to you, Robert, do you have

856
00:48:57,120 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 1: a mummified toe thing? I don't know. It just seems

857
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:05,440
Speaker 1: it well, I mean, it seems rather unnecessary, but it's

858
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:08,799
Speaker 1: just not particularly apetizing. I guess. I don't know. I'm

859
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: just imagining this shriveled mummified toe just knocking against your

860
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:15,000
Speaker 1: lips as you're trying to down it, kind of like

861
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 1: a like a like a like just any kind of

862
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 1: a garnish and a drink that you're not ready to consume,

863
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:23,239
Speaker 1: except it's the It's the worst possible Maraschino cherry. I

864
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:25,560
Speaker 1: have no evidence that they actually did this, but my

865
00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: idea is they should use it in place of an

866
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:30,840
Speaker 1: ice cube, so they should freeze it so it's always cold,

867
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:33,360
Speaker 1: and then when it gets plopped into your God, I

868
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:35,919
Speaker 1: just assumed it was frozen. I would I would hope

869
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 1: it would be frozen. I don't know. I've seen pictures

870
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 1: of it, and it looks like it's room temperature, but

871
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:43,880
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell. It's it's like stored in salt.

872
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:45,879
Speaker 1: I think I've seen pictures of it in a jar

873
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: of salt. I guess to keep it desiccated and mummified. Huh.

874
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: I would love to to see or hear anyone describe

875
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:56,400
Speaker 1: how it affects the flavor profile. If it does it all,

876
00:49:56,440 --> 00:49:59,879
Speaker 1: it could just be pure psychology of the thing, which

877
00:49:59,880 --> 00:50:02,000
Speaker 1: is kind of right, because ultimately, like which is worse

878
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:06,760
Speaker 1: for your body, swallowing one dead human toe or drinking

879
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 1: thirteen glasses of champagne in a row, I would argue

880
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:13,360
Speaker 1: that the champagne is actually worse for you. Probably probably so,

881
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it depends on what's in the toe.

882
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:18,440
Speaker 1: All right, we have just I certainly cannot top that

883
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,280
Speaker 1: at all. We have just a few more nefarious spirits

884
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: to mention. One comes from uh cubab from Piper cubeba,

885
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 1: a member of the pepper family. It produces a fruit

886
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: that wind dried resembles black pepper as a pungent, biting

887
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:38,840
Speaker 1: flavor that comes from high levels of lemoning, which is

888
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:41,600
Speaker 1: a flavor foundain citrus and herbs, and you'll find it

889
00:50:41,640 --> 00:50:43,839
Speaker 1: as an ingredient in various gems these days as well.

890
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 1: But it has a medicinal and even magical history. The

891
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 1: Victorians had cubeb cigarettes that were supposed to help you

892
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:56,719
Speaker 1: with your asthma. Yeah, and most exciting of all, seventeenth

893
00:50:56,760 --> 00:51:02,319
Speaker 1: century Italian priest and exorcist Luke to Vico Maria Sinistari

894
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 1: employed a brandy tonic flavored with cubeb cardaman, nutmeg, birthwartz, aloe,

895
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:12,640
Speaker 1: and various other roots and spices. So if you're looking

896
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: to banish demons with your cocktail, take note. All right,

897
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 1: Another interesting concoction comes from and this is another example

898
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 1: from the drunken botanist, is uh uh Damiana, which is

899
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 1: from the plant turned era diffusea. So this is a

900
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:32,759
Speaker 1: Mexican shrub produces yellow flowers and small fruits, and it's

901
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:37,880
Speaker 1: long been reputed to have afro dzac properties. So nineteenth

902
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:41,520
Speaker 1: century physicians prescribed it to female patients to promote orgasm,

903
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:44,240
Speaker 1: and a two thousand nine studies saw that it quotes

904
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:47,800
Speaker 1: sexually exhausted male rats. What does that mean? They just

905
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:51,880
Speaker 1: they just kept it made of them so eager to

906
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:57,920
Speaker 1: perform that it exhausted them. That's intense. So it seemed

907
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:02,640
Speaker 1: to have afro dazak effects on the road. In nineteen

908
00:52:02,680 --> 00:52:05,720
Speaker 1: o eight, the FEDS confiscated a shipment of so called

909
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:10,759
Speaker 1: Damiana gin and found that it contains stryct nine. Oh no, yeah, so,

910
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 1: and this seems to be more a matter of like

911
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 1: just illicit, just a poorly made and poisonous substance that

912
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:20,759
Speaker 1: was that someone was trying to sell. But there have

913
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: been no human studies that that I'm aware of or

914
00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:27,399
Speaker 1: the steward was aware of regarding it's it's human use.

915
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:30,839
Speaker 1: But it's a legal food additive. You can even find

916
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:35,759
Speaker 1: a Mexican herbal decour called Damiana and it's sold in

917
00:52:35,880 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 1: like a fertility goddess kind of bottle. So if anyone

918
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:41,719
Speaker 1: out there has tried that one, we would love to

919
00:52:41,760 --> 00:52:45,440
Speaker 1: hear from you as well. Now, finally, before we take

920
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:48,480
Speaker 1: a break, I want to mention real quick cannabis cocktails

921
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: to move back to this schedule one narcotic. Well, of

922
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: course somebody has made that, but but is there like,

923
00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 1: is there a I don't know what you'd call it,

924
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:04,400
Speaker 1: a legitimately reduced version somewhere out there. Well, unsurprisingly, there

925
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 1: are a few cannabis liqueurs on the market, but the

926
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:09,239
Speaker 1: major example of these tend to be seemed to be

927
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 1: flavor only, so they've captured the flavor profile of the cannabis,

928
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 1: but but none of the actual th HC. Part of

929
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:20,240
Speaker 1: this probably is that in terms of making a THHC

930
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:24,520
Speaker 1: laden cocktail, it's super easy tip to do. Uh. So

931
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:26,520
Speaker 1: all you have to do is make a simple syrup

932
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:30,879
Speaker 1: from cannabis. Cannabis simple syrup heat activates the th HC

933
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:33,200
Speaker 1: kind of in the same way that people use th

934
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: HC butter to make brownies. Really, this is the kind

935
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:39,920
Speaker 1: of thing you can find recipes for wherever you find

936
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:43,759
Speaker 1: your marijuana related recipes. Uh. In the syrup enables you

937
00:53:43,800 --> 00:53:46,320
Speaker 1: to create a whole host of of drinks. For instance,

938
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:49,680
Speaker 1: I found a recipe for a Malibu Malibu mule, which

939
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:52,920
Speaker 1: is I think essentially you know, a Moscow mule, except

940
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:57,360
Speaker 1: using the syrup. Annual and also specialty shops, especially in

941
00:53:57,560 --> 00:54:02,440
Speaker 1: California and Colorado, uh, they often sell th HC lemonades

942
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:04,920
Speaker 1: or juices. So there you go. If you if you

943
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:08,759
Speaker 1: desire that, and it's a legally permitted avenue for you,

944
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:12,480
Speaker 1: then the means are out there. I wonder what it's

945
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 1: like to work at one of the companies that produces

946
00:54:14,719 --> 00:54:18,080
Speaker 1: these products. I don't know, you mean, just like th

947
00:54:18,280 --> 00:54:21,319
Speaker 1: HC latent products or just I don't know. I wonder

948
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 1: if you reach a point where you feel like you've

949
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 1: you've you've reached peak creativity for for marijuana based food products. Like,

950
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:32,480
Speaker 1: at what point do you realize, Oh, I just I

951
00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:35,839
Speaker 1: just created a recipe for th HC lasagna and now

952
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:38,080
Speaker 1: I feel a little hollow inside. Well, I mean, I

953
00:54:38,160 --> 00:54:42,920
Speaker 1: wonder so if at some point, uh, cannabis becomes widely

954
00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:46,920
Speaker 1: legal or just regulated in the same way that tobacco

955
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:50,440
Speaker 1: products are now or something like that, and eventually does

956
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:54,320
Speaker 1: the appeal of this kind of stuff go away? Is

957
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 1: this basically all just like novelty celebration and yeah, where

958
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 1: this is recently lead realized and that you wouldn't have

959
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 1: maybe much more in the realm of cannabis inspired drinks,

960
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:08,400
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred years down the road than you

961
00:55:08,520 --> 00:55:12,160
Speaker 1: have now this one tobacco liqueur made by what was

962
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:15,439
Speaker 1: it some company in France. Yeah, Well it comes down

963
00:55:15,480 --> 00:55:18,160
Speaker 1: to the fact, right that, uh, if something is illegal,

964
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 1: if it's prohibited, that just makes it all the more alluring.

965
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:28,200
Speaker 1: And sometimes you find yourself craving a particular substance purely

966
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:31,759
Speaker 1: because it is forbidden, like it just enhances its mythology. Well,

967
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:35,600
Speaker 1: speaking of the forbidden, I thought that we could not

968
00:55:35,840 --> 00:55:41,400
Speaker 1: do an episode about these strange scientific avenues in drink making, mixology,

969
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:45,040
Speaker 1: cocktails and liquor without taking a look at the Green ferry.

970
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:47,640
Speaker 1: So we should take a break and when we come

971
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 1: back we will talk about absinthe. So absently you've had,

972
00:55:56,560 --> 00:56:00,440
Speaker 1: you've had absence before, Yeah, yeah, I recently had the

973
00:56:00,600 --> 00:56:04,320
Speaker 1: absinthe service at a local restaurant here in town in Atlanta,

974
00:56:04,480 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 1: the kimble House Restaurant. It is absolutely wonderful if you're

975
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:12,680
Speaker 1: if you're around Atlanta, especially in the Decatur area, kimble

976
00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:15,439
Speaker 1: House is amazing. But they have a sort of old

977
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:18,600
Speaker 1: timey bar that celebrates the traditions where they will do

978
00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:21,640
Speaker 1: an absence service where they will serve it up in

979
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:23,759
Speaker 1: the traditional way, which we can describe in a minute,

980
00:56:23,800 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 1: I guess, but I would say maybe more than any

981
00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:30,840
Speaker 1: other liquor, absinthe is a drink that is totally surrounded

982
00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:34,279
Speaker 1: in myth. I remember when I was in college, I

983
00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 1: was once at a party where some guys were talking

984
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:38,600
Speaker 1: about a time a friend of theirs who had been

985
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:41,359
Speaker 1: in the military, had brought a bottle of absinthe back

986
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:43,760
Speaker 1: from overseas, And this was at a time when absinthe

987
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 1: was still banned in the United States, and they claimed

988
00:56:48,200 --> 00:56:51,919
Speaker 1: that when they drank this, this green liquor, they entered

989
00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:55,160
Speaker 1: a state of green hallucinations. I remember one of them

990
00:56:55,360 --> 00:57:01,000
Speaker 1: mentioning swimming through green tunnels, and I was like, I

991
00:57:01,080 --> 00:57:03,799
Speaker 1: don't know if I believe that. But in the widespread

992
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: version of this story that you just substitute a person

993
00:57:07,280 --> 00:57:09,000
Speaker 1: for a place, and you can read about this everywhere.

994
00:57:09,040 --> 00:57:12,760
Speaker 1: Absinthe allows one to visit her majesty the green ferry.

995
00:57:14,400 --> 00:57:17,280
Speaker 1: So is there anything to this, to this idea that

996
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:21,440
Speaker 1: absinthe is more than just another alcoholic beverage, that it

997
00:57:21,520 --> 00:57:26,680
Speaker 1: has these advanced drug like properties causing hallucinations or or

998
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:32,160
Speaker 1: these also very common negative reported qualities like uh, causing

999
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:37,919
Speaker 1: seizures or convulsions or all this other stuff. Yeah, it really,

1000
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:40,240
Speaker 1: it really had that reputation for the longest until it

1001
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:44,160
Speaker 1: was it was finally legalized again in the US. Yeah.

1002
00:57:44,240 --> 00:57:48,120
Speaker 1: And so this, uh, this mythology is very much a

1003
00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:53,320
Speaker 1: part of what absence profile and character is. But we

1004
00:57:53,320 --> 00:57:55,480
Speaker 1: should take a look at the science behind it. So,

1005
00:57:55,640 --> 00:57:59,360
Speaker 1: so what is absinthe. Well, absinthe is a distilltiquer, usually

1006
00:57:59,400 --> 00:58:04,560
Speaker 1: a very strong one, made by combining alcohol with wormwood,

1007
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:08,920
Speaker 1: and that's a type of plant green Annis finnel like

1008
00:58:09,080 --> 00:58:12,680
Speaker 1: Florence finnel, and other herbs and flowers like hiss up

1009
00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:16,640
Speaker 1: and lemon balm. And the exact origins of absinthe as

1010
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:19,960
Speaker 1: we know it now are unclear by most accounts. It

1011
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:23,480
Speaker 1: was invented sometime in the late seventeen Dreds probably seventeen nineties,

1012
00:58:23,800 --> 00:58:28,160
Speaker 1: and the distiller per Node produced its first commercial absinthe

1013
00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:30,080
Speaker 1: in eighteen o five, which is when I think we

1014
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:34,320
Speaker 1: should consider the birth of the absinthe era. But let's

1015
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 1: take a look at those ingredients. So wormwood, that is

1016
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:40,840
Speaker 1: an interesting name. Yes, it brings to mind the Book

1017
00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:43,840
Speaker 1: of Revelation. Right, it makes me think, doesn't C. S.

1018
00:58:43,920 --> 00:58:47,520
Speaker 1: Lewis have a novel has a wormwood character, and in

1019
00:58:47,640 --> 00:58:54,400
Speaker 1: the Screwtape letterswood a lower subordinate demon and advising him

1020
00:58:54,520 --> 00:58:57,240
Speaker 1: on corrupting of a mortal soul. Right, So wormwood's a

1021
00:58:57,280 --> 00:58:59,360
Speaker 1: good name for a for a demon. I would say

1022
00:58:59,640 --> 00:59:04,240
Speaker 1: it all I already implies some sort of illicit magical quality.

1023
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:08,480
Speaker 1: But wormwood is just a plant. It's the the Artemisia absinthium,

1024
00:59:08,880 --> 00:59:12,960
Speaker 1: and it's the famed central ingredient in absinthe. And the

1025
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:16,760
Speaker 1: one that would be later singled out in the supposed

1026
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:20,560
Speaker 1: case against absinthe as more poison or more drug than

1027
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:24,800
Speaker 1: than liquor. Now, it's worth noting that vermouth is derived

1028
00:59:24,880 --> 00:59:28,959
Speaker 1: The word vermouth is revived from vermut, the German word

1029
00:59:29,040 --> 00:59:34,000
Speaker 1: for wormwood, and the original Vermouth's would have contained this

1030
00:59:34,280 --> 00:59:37,400
Speaker 1: in some quantity. And going back to the ingredients that

1031
00:59:37,480 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, the taste of absinthe has far more

1032
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:44,080
Speaker 1: to do with the annis in it as opposed to

1033
00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 1: the wormwood itself. Yeah, I've heard that wormwood itself has

1034
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:51,840
Speaker 1: a more mental like taste and scent. Yeah. Yeah, And

1035
00:59:51,960 --> 00:59:54,720
Speaker 1: so it's basically covered up for the most part by this,

1036
00:59:55,480 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 1: this liquorice taste. Now, the ancient Egyptians used wormwood wines

1037
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:07,160
Speaker 1: and spirits. The the Evers Papyrus from around fifteen hundred

1038
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:09,000
Speaker 1: b C. And this might have been a copy of

1039
01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:12,840
Speaker 1: an earlier work recommends wormwood spirits to treat round worm

1040
01:00:12,920 --> 01:00:17,240
Speaker 1: infections and digestive problems. Chinese medicinal wines of the same

1041
01:00:17,320 --> 01:00:20,680
Speaker 1: era also featured wormwood, and we know this from the

1042
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:25,280
Speaker 1: chemical analysis of drinking vessels that archaeologists have uncovered. And

1043
01:00:25,320 --> 01:00:27,520
Speaker 1: it's also worth pointing out, you're talking about the timeline

1044
01:00:27,560 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 1: of absinthe in the golden age of absinthe. Uh one.

1045
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:33,360
Speaker 1: Bridge points out that absence was sold in New Orleans

1046
01:00:33,480 --> 01:00:36,600
Speaker 1: by eighteen thirty seven, in New York by eighteen forty three,

1047
01:00:36,960 --> 01:00:38,600
Speaker 1: but it took a while to make its way into

1048
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:41,800
Speaker 1: a true cocktail. It was something you merely dashed in

1049
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:44,400
Speaker 1: a cocktail, kind of like how if anyone's had a

1050
01:00:44,840 --> 01:00:49,880
Speaker 1: proper Sazarak Chris Fame New Orleans drink, there's a there's

1051
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:53,280
Speaker 1: an absentth wash of the glass before the drink is poured,

1052
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:56,320
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's it was like a bitter You

1053
01:00:56,360 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 1: wouldn't you wouldn't just fill up a cocktail glass with it.

1054
01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 1: You would just have a hash of it for flavoring.

1055
01:01:02,960 --> 01:01:05,720
Speaker 1: Right now, while it wasn't the central ingredient, and a

1056
01:01:05,760 --> 01:01:08,160
Speaker 1: lot of cocktails, there was of course a ton of

1057
01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:12,360
Speaker 1: just straight drinking of absinthe right rex with water and

1058
01:01:12,440 --> 01:01:16,200
Speaker 1: sugar in the traditional preparation. Yeah, now, wond which he

1059
01:01:16,280 --> 01:01:18,640
Speaker 1: says that by eight seventy though, that's when you saw

1060
01:01:18,720 --> 01:01:23,440
Speaker 1: absent cocktails as a thing. So the absent frope, which

1061
01:01:23,560 --> 01:01:25,920
Speaker 1: was absent shaken with a lot of ice and then

1062
01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:28,840
Speaker 1: strained into a glass. Now Wonderge points out that according

1063
01:01:28,880 --> 01:01:31,960
Speaker 1: to a writer by the name of Clarence Louis Cullen,

1064
01:01:32,280 --> 01:01:35,360
Speaker 1: another member of the Sporting Fraternity, he thought that that

1065
01:01:35,480 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: the the absent Frope was just the right drink to

1066
01:01:38,520 --> 01:01:41,080
Speaker 1: have a first thing in the morning when you've got quote,

1067
01:01:41,440 --> 01:01:43,200
Speaker 1: a head the size of a bird cage and a

1068
01:01:43,280 --> 01:01:46,760
Speaker 1: mouth that smelled like a motorman's glove. So it would

1069
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:50,439
Speaker 1: have been the perfect hangover cure. I guess, uh, yeah,

1070
01:01:51,040 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 1: that I don't know the idea. I mean, all of

1071
01:01:56,440 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: moralization on what people should and shouldn't drink aside, I

1072
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:02,400
Speaker 1: think the idea of curing a hangover with more alcohol

1073
01:02:02,560 --> 01:02:06,400
Speaker 1: is just disgusting. I would agree that it tends to

1074
01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:09,680
Speaker 1: be my read on the situation as well, that the

1075
01:02:09,760 --> 01:02:12,360
Speaker 1: hair of the dog and all that. But but hey,

1076
01:02:12,680 --> 01:02:15,880
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, people consume them. The absent Frope was popular.

1077
01:02:16,160 --> 01:02:18,640
Speaker 1: There were even songs about it. Yeah. I actually had

1078
01:02:18,720 --> 01:02:21,240
Speaker 1: to look up the the absinthe Frappe, a song that

1079
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:24,280
Speaker 1: was referenced in wond Rich's book, and I found the

1080
01:02:24,360 --> 01:02:28,080
Speaker 1: lyrics lyrics by Glenn McDonough. I think this was from

1081
01:02:28,120 --> 01:02:30,200
Speaker 1: a Broadway play, and so the song is about the

1082
01:02:30,240 --> 01:02:34,520
Speaker 1: absinthe Frappe, and the lyrics go, it will free you

1083
01:02:34,720 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 1: first from the burning thirst that is born of a

1084
01:02:37,520 --> 01:02:42,240
Speaker 1: night of the bowl, like a sun twel rise through

1085
01:02:42,280 --> 01:02:45,480
Speaker 1: the inky skies that so heavily hang over your soul.

1086
01:02:46,160 --> 01:02:48,800
Speaker 1: At the first cool sip on your fevored lip, you

1087
01:02:48,960 --> 01:02:53,120
Speaker 1: determine to live through the day. Life's again worthwhile, as

1088
01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:59,400
Speaker 1: with a dawning smile, you imbibe your absinthe frappe. I

1089
01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:02,120
Speaker 1: think that's a little too much credit to the to

1090
01:03:02,280 --> 01:03:04,360
Speaker 1: the drink. I think so that feels a little bit,

1091
01:03:04,560 --> 01:03:08,400
Speaker 1: a little bit like marketing. Yeah, but anyway, so yeah,

1092
01:03:08,480 --> 01:03:11,760
Speaker 1: so you said absence was being adopted in the United States.

1093
01:03:11,800 --> 01:03:16,320
Speaker 1: Absence drinking was very popular, especially in France. In the

1094
01:03:16,440 --> 01:03:19,880
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, it became very fashionable in Europe, especially France

1095
01:03:19,920 --> 01:03:25,440
Speaker 1: and Switzerland. Famous artists and intellectuals were notorious absence drinkers,

1096
01:03:25,480 --> 01:03:29,920
Speaker 1: for example of French poets like Baudelaire and rambeau Verlaine.

1097
01:03:30,200 --> 01:03:35,040
Speaker 1: In an eighteen sixty pamphlet by Henri Ballesta called Absinthe

1098
01:03:35,120 --> 01:03:39,320
Speaker 1: at Absinthe Tours, he calls these types of people quote

1099
01:03:39,400 --> 01:03:42,120
Speaker 1: the brilliant young men on the boulevard who were the

1100
01:03:42,200 --> 01:03:44,680
Speaker 1: absinthe drinkers. You know, these were the people who were

1101
01:03:44,760 --> 01:03:48,920
Speaker 1: out there making absinthe cool. And it was also reportedly

1102
01:03:49,000 --> 01:03:52,720
Speaker 1: popular with Oscar Wilde and continental artists like Van Gogh.

1103
01:03:53,720 --> 01:03:56,280
Speaker 1: Did I say I've always my whole life, said Van Gogh,

1104
01:03:56,400 --> 01:03:59,360
Speaker 1: And now I'm retraining to say van Gogh always that

1105
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:02,120
Speaker 1: the preferred pronunciation is. I thought I thought I heard

1106
01:04:02,200 --> 01:04:04,360
Speaker 1: you say it that way one time. No, maybe I

1107
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:05,960
Speaker 1: coughed a little bit. I thought it was van Go.

1108
01:04:06,640 --> 01:04:09,680
Speaker 1: I've been saying van I I grew up saying van go.

1109
01:04:11,440 --> 01:04:13,000
Speaker 1: We have to let you know. We just looked it

1110
01:04:13,120 --> 01:04:15,640
Speaker 1: up and it's and it's. The Internet says it's Vincent

1111
01:04:15,760 --> 01:04:19,360
Speaker 1: van Hall. Okay, Well, I think I might just stick

1112
01:04:19,440 --> 01:04:22,760
Speaker 1: to van Go for simplicity. Set okay well, According to

1113
01:04:23,120 --> 01:04:27,000
Speaker 1: Amy Stewart in The Drunken Botanist, well, I thought this

1114
01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:30,520
Speaker 1: was really interesting. One explanation for the explosion of popularity

1115
01:04:30,560 --> 01:04:34,080
Speaker 1: of absinthe in Europe in the nineteenth century can actually

1116
01:04:34,160 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 1: be traced to a plant parasite. Anytime there's a good

1117
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:40,160
Speaker 1: parasite story, we gotta do it on step out of

1118
01:04:40,160 --> 01:04:44,400
Speaker 1: your mind. So it is the Philoxera pest or dak

1119
01:04:44,480 --> 01:04:50,000
Speaker 1: Tulos fira vitifolia, and so none other than Thomas Jefferson,

1120
01:04:51,160 --> 01:04:54,439
Speaker 1: that Thomas Jefferson, not some other Thomas Jefferson had tried

1121
01:04:54,520 --> 01:04:59,520
Speaker 1: to cultivate both native American and imported European grape varieties

1122
01:04:59,600 --> 01:05:03,160
Speaker 1: for make wine within the United States, and neither of

1123
01:05:03,240 --> 01:05:07,440
Speaker 1: them worked. The vineyards were just no good. And the

1124
01:05:07,760 --> 01:05:10,440
Speaker 1: reason for this, Stewart says, is that the American varieties

1125
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:13,960
Speaker 1: failed because they just don't make good wine, and the

1126
01:05:14,040 --> 01:05:19,360
Speaker 1: European varieties failed because, unlike the sturdy, resistant American grape vines,

1127
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:23,680
Speaker 1: the delicate European grape vines were susceptible to attacks from

1128
01:05:23,720 --> 01:05:27,000
Speaker 1: a tiny insect much like the apid that was only

1129
01:05:27,080 --> 01:05:31,720
Speaker 1: found in the Americas, and this is philox Era. And unfortunately,

1130
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:35,160
Speaker 1: before anybody knew about this, the Americans had made gifts

1131
01:05:35,320 --> 01:05:38,400
Speaker 1: of native American grape vines and sent them to France,

1132
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 1: and much like a deadly spider hiding in a bag

1133
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:45,760
Speaker 1: of bananas, the Philoxera past was thus lee imported to Europe,

1134
01:05:46,000 --> 01:05:48,760
Speaker 1: and they laid waste to a vast new landscape of

1135
01:05:48,880 --> 01:05:52,280
Speaker 1: maladapted grapes and as a result, the French wine making

1136
01:05:52,360 --> 01:05:56,640
Speaker 1: industry was severely damaged and and production was limited throughout

1137
01:05:56,640 --> 01:06:00,800
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. Well, so Frenchmen were deprived of their

1138
01:06:00,840 --> 01:06:03,880
Speaker 1: wine right. And this this mattered because wine was seen

1139
01:06:03,960 --> 01:06:06,280
Speaker 1: by them as as like a you know, a drink

1140
01:06:06,360 --> 01:06:09,800
Speaker 1: of rectitude. It's a family drink, it's a moral drink,

1141
01:06:09,880 --> 01:06:14,240
Speaker 1: it's an upstanding and civilized drink. These other drinks like absinthe,

1142
01:06:15,040 --> 01:06:17,840
Speaker 1: maybe not so much. But anyway, Stuart claims that it's

1143
01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:21,000
Speaker 1: because of this severe shortage of wine due to the

1144
01:06:21,080 --> 01:06:24,760
Speaker 1: parasite infestation that absinthe became the drink of choice in

1145
01:06:25,000 --> 01:06:28,960
Speaker 1: cafes in France in the nineteenth century, feeding this surge

1146
01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:32,800
Speaker 1: in absence consumption that culminated in the late eighteen hundreds

1147
01:06:32,840 --> 01:06:35,920
Speaker 1: in early nineteen hundreds. So the idea here's this kind

1148
01:06:35,960 --> 01:06:40,160
Speaker 1: of forced the birth of absent culture because people had

1149
01:06:40,240 --> 01:06:42,800
Speaker 1: to embrace it to a certain degree and then kind

1150
01:06:42,840 --> 01:06:46,439
Speaker 1: of stuck with it. Right, But absinthe, like I said,

1151
01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:50,520
Speaker 1: was not viewed as this you know, family values kind

1152
01:06:50,520 --> 01:06:54,040
Speaker 1: of drink like wine was. And so there were plenty

1153
01:06:54,080 --> 01:06:57,160
Speaker 1: of people spreading a message of fear and suspicion about

1154
01:06:57,320 --> 01:07:00,400
Speaker 1: the green Titania, and I want to read one because

1155
01:07:00,400 --> 01:07:02,920
Speaker 1: I think it's amazing. From a New York Times article

1156
01:07:03,320 --> 01:07:06,600
Speaker 1: about absentthe They had an absent scare piece running in

1157
01:07:06,720 --> 01:07:11,720
Speaker 1: December eighteen eighty New York Times. Yeah, so here it goes. Quote.

1158
01:07:13,120 --> 01:07:15,920
Speaker 1: A French physician of eminence has recently declared that it

1159
01:07:16,080 --> 01:07:21,480
Speaker 1: is ten times more pernicious than ordinary intemperance, meaning ordinary alcohol,

1160
01:07:22,080 --> 01:07:25,440
Speaker 1: and that it very seldom happens that the habit, once fixed,

1161
01:07:25,560 --> 01:07:29,360
Speaker 1: can be unloosed. The same authority says that the increase

1162
01:07:29,480 --> 01:07:32,960
Speaker 1: of insanity is largely due to Absinthe I didn't even

1163
01:07:33,000 --> 01:07:36,000
Speaker 1: know there was an increase in insanity around eighteen eighty,

1164
01:07:36,800 --> 01:07:41,080
Speaker 1: but continuing it exercises a deadly fascination, the source of

1165
01:07:41,120 --> 01:07:44,640
Speaker 1: which scientists have vainly tried to discover, although they have

1166
01:07:44,760 --> 01:07:48,760
Speaker 1: no trouble ascertaining it's terrible effects. It's a moderate use

1167
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:52,040
Speaker 1: speedily acts on the entire nervous system in general and

1168
01:07:52,160 --> 01:07:56,040
Speaker 1: the brain in particular, in which it induces organic changes

1169
01:07:56,120 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: with accompanying derangement of all the mental powers. The chual

1170
01:08:00,360 --> 01:08:05,520
Speaker 1: drinker becomes at first dull, languid, is soon completely brutalized,

1171
01:08:05,640 --> 01:08:08,840
Speaker 1: and then goes raving mad, he has at last holy

1172
01:08:09,040 --> 01:08:13,440
Speaker 1: or partially paralyzed, unless, as often happens, disordered liver and

1173
01:08:13,560 --> 01:08:20,080
Speaker 1: stomach brings a quicker end. Was this your experience at Kimbahouse? No, though,

1174
01:08:20,160 --> 01:08:22,640
Speaker 1: I though, to be fair, I am not a frequenter

1175
01:08:22,720 --> 01:08:25,040
Speaker 1: of absinthe cafes, and I guess this is referring to

1176
01:08:25,120 --> 01:08:28,280
Speaker 1: chronic use. These would be the absente themes which I

1177
01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:31,400
Speaker 1: would admit. Chronic use of absinthe. You know, drinking a

1178
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:34,840
Speaker 1: lot of absinthe regularly probably does produce some very bad

1179
01:08:34,880 --> 01:08:38,960
Speaker 1: effects in people. But maybe it's not the absinthe. Uh,

1180
01:08:39,560 --> 01:08:43,160
Speaker 1: maybe it's not the absinthe in particular. We can look

1181
01:08:43,160 --> 01:08:45,919
Speaker 1: at the details of this. So fear of this condition

1182
01:08:46,040 --> 01:08:50,200
Speaker 1: called quote absinthe is um believed to be separate from

1183
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:54,400
Speaker 1: and worse than regular alcoholism, spread throughout these temperance minded

1184
01:08:54,439 --> 01:08:57,519
Speaker 1: circles in Europe, and at the time there also seemed

1185
01:08:57,560 --> 01:09:00,240
Speaker 1: to be scientific evidence backing this up, for example, the

1186
01:09:00,320 --> 01:09:04,599
Speaker 1: work of the French physician Valentine Magnon. According to one

1187
01:09:04,720 --> 01:09:08,120
Speaker 1: two th nine review of Magnon's work, he found that

1188
01:09:08,400 --> 01:09:13,599
Speaker 1: this alcohol soluble component that existed in wormwood did cause

1189
01:09:13,640 --> 01:09:18,240
Speaker 1: a lot of bad things, including lapses of consciousness, myoclonic jerks,

1190
01:09:18,360 --> 01:09:23,320
Speaker 1: and tonic clonic convulsions in animals. So what was that component?

1191
01:09:23,760 --> 01:09:26,680
Speaker 1: While it was the natural plant essence found in wormwood

1192
01:09:26,800 --> 01:09:29,720
Speaker 1: known as thusion. More on that compound in a bit.

1193
01:09:31,160 --> 01:09:36,240
Speaker 1: But in addition looking at what caused this anti absinthe attitude,

1194
01:09:36,640 --> 01:09:40,120
Speaker 1: there were the so called absinthe murders. Now there are

1195
01:09:40,280 --> 01:09:43,600
Speaker 1: multiple versions of this story reporting slightly different details, and

1196
01:09:43,680 --> 01:09:46,080
Speaker 1: the one I'm gonna I'm gonna use comes from an

1197
01:09:46,160 --> 01:09:49,120
Speaker 1: article in Distillations Magazine, which is published by the Chemical

1198
01:09:49,200 --> 01:09:53,200
Speaker 1: Heritage Foundation. But according to this version, in August nineteen

1199
01:09:53,240 --> 01:09:57,280
Speaker 1: o five, in the village of Communi, Switzerland, a French

1200
01:09:57,360 --> 01:10:00,800
Speaker 1: born laborer named Jean Lamfrey was getting ready for a

1201
01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:03,439
Speaker 1: day of hard work at a local vineyard and around

1202
01:10:03,520 --> 01:10:06,400
Speaker 1: daybreak he had a couple of shots of absence before

1203
01:10:06,479 --> 01:10:10,720
Speaker 1: heading off to work. But Launfrey wasn't done. He was

1204
01:10:10,840 --> 01:10:14,040
Speaker 1: just getting started. At lunch, he had six classes of wine,

1205
01:10:14,560 --> 01:10:16,840
Speaker 1: then he had another glass of wine before heading home.

1206
01:10:17,600 --> 01:10:20,320
Speaker 1: On the way home, he snagged a black coffee with brandy.

1207
01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:23,360
Speaker 1: Then when he got home he had another leader of wine.

1208
01:10:24,200 --> 01:10:26,840
Speaker 1: Then Launfrey got into an argument with his what with

1209
01:10:27,000 --> 01:10:30,040
Speaker 1: his wife, and tragically he became enraged and he shot

1210
01:10:30,120 --> 01:10:32,840
Speaker 1: her with a rifle, and then he shot his two daughters. Now,

1211
01:10:33,040 --> 01:10:36,920
Speaker 1: it's a horrible crime, gets significantly less funny there right

1212
01:10:36,920 --> 01:10:39,400
Speaker 1: there at the end, right, But the lesson a lot

1213
01:10:39,479 --> 01:10:42,880
Speaker 1: of people apparently took away from it was that absence

1214
01:10:43,680 --> 01:10:47,000
Speaker 1: that must have messed him up. Obviously, if you're like me,

1215
01:10:47,200 --> 01:10:50,080
Speaker 1: you'll you'll regard this as a kind of absurd conclusion,

1216
01:10:50,200 --> 01:10:52,400
Speaker 1: Like it seems like there is at least one other

1217
01:10:52,600 --> 01:10:57,720
Speaker 1: major factor at play, maybe alcohol, um. But so these

1218
01:10:57,800 --> 01:11:01,120
Speaker 1: forces combined, like the research on the effects of absinthe

1219
01:11:01,240 --> 01:11:06,000
Speaker 1: done by people like Magnon and these stories of these crimes.

1220
01:11:06,040 --> 01:11:08,040
Speaker 1: There were some other crimes I think that were attributed

1221
01:11:08,080 --> 01:11:10,160
Speaker 1: to absinthe. There was some kind of axe or hatchet

1222
01:11:10,320 --> 01:11:13,040
Speaker 1: murderer I think that was referred to as an absinthe murder.

1223
01:11:13,560 --> 01:11:17,519
Speaker 1: And they combined into this whirlwind of anti absinthe public

1224
01:11:17,600 --> 01:11:21,080
Speaker 1: sentiment that eventually led to the banning of absinthe in

1225
01:11:21,160 --> 01:11:24,240
Speaker 1: the United States and much of Europe starting around nineteen fifteen,

1226
01:11:24,479 --> 01:11:29,840
Speaker 1: and that lasted for nearly a century. So what is

1227
01:11:29,960 --> 01:11:32,240
Speaker 1: all the fuss about, Like, what what's actually going on

1228
01:11:32,439 --> 01:11:36,640
Speaker 1: in absinthe and in the wormwood plant, and wasn't justifying

1229
01:11:36,840 --> 01:11:40,200
Speaker 1: all of this backlash, So we mentioned though jone the

1230
01:11:40,280 --> 01:11:44,240
Speaker 1: compound though jone is an organic compound found in wormwood

1231
01:11:44,360 --> 01:11:47,720
Speaker 1: but also found in herbs like sage, So if you

1232
01:11:47,840 --> 01:11:50,880
Speaker 1: ever made sage stuffing there, you might be getting some

1233
01:11:51,000 --> 01:11:54,839
Speaker 1: though Jane there. Uh. And the modern scientific consensus affirms

1234
01:11:54,920 --> 01:11:58,080
Speaker 1: that it can be toxic at large doses, primarily acting

1235
01:11:58,120 --> 01:12:01,679
Speaker 1: as a convulsant and also being a associated with kidney failure,

1236
01:12:01,760 --> 01:12:04,720
Speaker 1: so it can cause convulsions. Uh. And this might be

1237
01:12:04,840 --> 01:12:07,479
Speaker 1: related to the fact that it was, you know, accused

1238
01:12:07,520 --> 01:12:11,640
Speaker 1: of being a cause of epilepsy. At great enough concentrations,

1239
01:12:12,040 --> 01:12:16,200
Speaker 1: it could also lead to death. There are a couple isomers.

1240
01:12:16,280 --> 01:12:19,200
Speaker 1: There's alpha though Jane and beta though Jane without the

1241
01:12:19,240 --> 01:12:22,080
Speaker 1: alpha isomer being the more toxic of the two. And

1242
01:12:22,200 --> 01:12:24,280
Speaker 1: the primary method of action in the body is that

1243
01:12:24,320 --> 01:12:28,360
Speaker 1: attacks the nervous system by inhibiting the activation of GABBA receptors.

1244
01:12:29,320 --> 01:12:32,680
Speaker 1: But is through jone really to blame for the so

1245
01:12:32,880 --> 01:12:35,559
Speaker 1: called effects of absinthe is um and all of these

1246
01:12:35,680 --> 01:12:41,479
Speaker 1: mythological accusations that absence could cause hallucinations and other stuff

1247
01:12:41,520 --> 01:12:44,240
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, I think the mythology of it is

1248
01:12:44,360 --> 01:12:46,320
Speaker 1: worth keeping in mind at all times. Kind of getting

1249
01:12:46,320 --> 01:12:48,840
Speaker 1: back to the whole marketing of the cocktail. To what

1250
01:12:48,960 --> 01:12:51,800
Speaker 1: extent does I mean you're already drinking, But then if

1251
01:12:51,840 --> 01:12:55,200
Speaker 1: there's this mystical quality involved, does it give you license

1252
01:12:55,760 --> 01:13:00,640
Speaker 1: to engage, you know, maybe a little more um inappropriate

1253
01:13:00,720 --> 01:13:03,439
Speaker 1: behavior than normal. Right. There's a there's a quote that

1254
01:13:03,760 --> 01:13:05,800
Speaker 1: I run across before that I always got to kick

1255
01:13:05,840 --> 01:13:09,439
Speaker 1: out of from Ernest Hemingway. He said, got tight last

1256
01:13:09,520 --> 01:13:12,839
Speaker 1: night on absent and did knife tricks, great success, shooting

1257
01:13:12,840 --> 01:13:16,120
Speaker 1: the knife into the piano. The woodworms are so bad

1258
01:13:16,200 --> 01:13:18,439
Speaker 1: and eat hell out of all furniture. And you can

1259
01:13:18,560 --> 01:13:21,840
Speaker 1: always claim the woodworms did it. There you go. You

1260
01:13:21,880 --> 01:13:25,920
Speaker 1: can always claim the woodworms did it. You can always say, hey,

1261
01:13:26,000 --> 01:13:29,080
Speaker 1: it's the wormwood, it's the it's the absent that's responsible.

1262
01:13:29,320 --> 01:13:31,920
Speaker 1: I think tight is a euphemism that we should bring

1263
01:13:32,040 --> 01:13:35,640
Speaker 1: back for for drunkenness. Yeah, I think so too. I

1264
01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:39,720
Speaker 1: can I can just easily imagine that the violent tightness

1265
01:13:40,000 --> 01:13:43,479
Speaker 1: of the the absent drinkers psyche. I remember tight also

1266
01:13:43,560 --> 01:13:48,519
Speaker 1: being the drunkenness euphemism used in some classic memo or

1267
01:13:48,600 --> 01:13:52,960
Speaker 1: remember reading about Winston Churchhill or his his generals in

1268
01:13:53,000 --> 01:13:55,879
Speaker 1: World War two or something. We're talking about how Winston

1269
01:13:56,040 --> 01:13:58,360
Speaker 1: was quite tight last night when he was giving us

1270
01:13:58,400 --> 01:14:03,560
Speaker 1: our strategy. So myths a side. Modern research shows that wormwood,

1271
01:14:03,760 --> 01:14:05,640
Speaker 1: you know, isn't really quite that bad. So yes, thero

1272
01:14:05,800 --> 01:14:08,840
Speaker 1: jone can be dangerous compound at high levels. It can

1273
01:14:08,880 --> 01:14:12,320
Speaker 1: got seizure and death at high doses, but there's actually

1274
01:14:12,520 --> 01:14:16,240
Speaker 1: very little of it in absinthe and other liqueurs. Most

1275
01:14:16,280 --> 01:14:19,960
Speaker 1: of the tales of absinthe fuel madness probably come from

1276
01:14:20,000 --> 01:14:23,120
Speaker 1: the fact there's just a high alcohol content in absence

1277
01:14:23,200 --> 01:14:26,519
Speaker 1: is compared to other, um, other other alcohols out there.

1278
01:14:26,520 --> 01:14:30,160
Speaker 1: It was traditionally bottled A A B V, so that's

1279
01:14:30,280 --> 01:14:33,720
Speaker 1: twice as alcoholic as your common gen So you the

1280
01:14:34,000 --> 01:14:36,000
Speaker 1: scare piece of New York Times, I think it said

1281
01:14:36,040 --> 01:14:40,000
Speaker 1: that it was ten times as dangerous as normal alcohol.

1282
01:14:40,800 --> 01:14:44,479
Speaker 1: Now you can without quibbling on how you you factor

1283
01:14:44,600 --> 01:14:46,519
Speaker 1: the numbers here, I think you could say it's at

1284
01:14:46,600 --> 01:14:49,800
Speaker 1: least twice as dangerous as normal alcohol, because it's twice

1285
01:14:49,840 --> 01:14:52,680
Speaker 1: as strong as most alcohols that would have been up

1286
01:14:52,720 --> 01:14:55,120
Speaker 1: there on the bar for your perusal. But then again,

1287
01:14:55,479 --> 01:14:59,040
Speaker 1: the traditional preparation about of absinthe as served in the

1288
01:14:59,120 --> 01:15:02,559
Speaker 1: French cafe was to dilute it, right, And so if

1289
01:15:02,600 --> 01:15:05,280
Speaker 1: you're diluting it, I wouldn't even say it goes. It

1290
01:15:05,400 --> 01:15:08,360
Speaker 1: goes as far as the alcohol concentration, and it would

1291
01:15:08,760 --> 01:15:11,479
Speaker 1: would lead you to believe. Because so the traditional uh

1292
01:15:11,840 --> 01:15:15,559
Speaker 1: production is you get this glass, it's got specially shaped

1293
01:15:15,600 --> 01:15:18,160
Speaker 1: glass back to these special glasses and making an event

1294
01:15:18,240 --> 01:15:19,720
Speaker 1: out of it. It's got this kind of bulge in

1295
01:15:19,760 --> 01:15:22,479
Speaker 1: the bottom, and your absence goes down in the bulge

1296
01:15:22,520 --> 01:15:25,599
Speaker 1: at the bottom, and then you put a slotted spoon

1297
01:15:25,800 --> 01:15:27,719
Speaker 1: on the top of the glass with a sugar cube

1298
01:15:27,760 --> 01:15:31,240
Speaker 1: on it, and then they would dribble cold ice cold

1299
01:15:31,280 --> 01:15:35,200
Speaker 1: water over the sugar cube and the spoon into the drink,

1300
01:15:35,560 --> 01:15:37,360
Speaker 1: and when the water hit the drink, it would do

1301
01:15:37,400 --> 01:15:41,000
Speaker 1: this very interesting thing where the clear green absence would

1302
01:15:41,040 --> 01:15:45,559
Speaker 1: suddenly froth up and become this uh. It's often described

1303
01:15:45,600 --> 01:15:49,760
Speaker 1: as a pale green, milky type appearance. And I've seen

1304
01:15:49,840 --> 01:15:52,479
Speaker 1: you do that. It does quite look like that, like

1305
01:15:52,600 --> 01:15:55,840
Speaker 1: a cloud emerging in the depths of a crystal ball. Yeah,

1306
01:15:55,880 --> 01:15:58,599
Speaker 1: it's referred to as the luch and it's very interesting

1307
01:15:58,720 --> 01:16:01,439
Speaker 1: because because you're like, wow, what's going on there chemically,

1308
01:16:01,520 --> 01:16:05,479
Speaker 1: what's going on is that the the water is is

1309
01:16:05,720 --> 01:16:09,439
Speaker 1: breaking up this the way that the oils from the

1310
01:16:09,520 --> 01:16:13,080
Speaker 1: plants are held in suspension in the liquor, and when

1311
01:16:13,120 --> 01:16:16,160
Speaker 1: the water enters it, it creates this emulsion essentially, like

1312
01:16:16,320 --> 01:16:18,240
Speaker 1: you know, you'd create an emulsion if you're making a

1313
01:16:18,360 --> 01:16:20,920
Speaker 1: vinaigrette and the salad dressing or something like that. The

1314
01:16:21,040 --> 01:16:24,160
Speaker 1: oils and the water get emulsified and so it clouds

1315
01:16:24,280 --> 01:16:27,840
Speaker 1: up and becomes rather beautiful. It's kind of nice it's

1316
01:16:27,920 --> 01:16:30,400
Speaker 1: this production, but it also does lead to the fact

1317
01:16:30,479 --> 01:16:33,160
Speaker 1: that you're deluding the drink with water, bringing it down

1318
01:16:33,720 --> 01:16:36,800
Speaker 1: probably closer to or even lower than the level of

1319
01:16:36,960 --> 01:16:39,200
Speaker 1: if you were dreating drinking a straight liquor of some

1320
01:16:39,320 --> 01:16:42,400
Speaker 1: other kind. And I believe in this space it's been

1321
01:16:42,400 --> 01:16:46,040
Speaker 1: a years since I had straight up absentthe in this scenario,

1322
01:16:46,520 --> 01:16:49,120
Speaker 1: I was at a place in New Orleans called Pravda.

1323
01:16:49,280 --> 01:16:50,600
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's still around, but it was

1324
01:16:50,640 --> 01:16:53,439
Speaker 1: a like a Soviet theme, like the word for truth, yeah,

1325
01:16:53,600 --> 01:16:58,400
Speaker 1: like that, and also like the Soviet publication, and they

1326
01:16:58,439 --> 01:17:00,559
Speaker 1: did the whole ceremony is I re Hall. They also

1327
01:17:00,600 --> 01:17:03,880
Speaker 1: had a version that involved fire like a small amount

1328
01:17:03,880 --> 01:17:07,640
Speaker 1: of fire. Nothing flashy, no blue blazers here, but of

1329
01:17:07,800 --> 01:17:10,280
Speaker 1: course fire is involved. We have potential to burn off

1330
01:17:10,320 --> 01:17:12,720
Speaker 1: some of the alcohol as well, which would thus uh

1331
01:17:13,200 --> 01:17:17,360
Speaker 1: make its alcoholic punch a little less. Yeah. But anyway,

1332
01:17:17,479 --> 01:17:21,120
Speaker 1: so you've had absence in in this case, I've had absence.

1333
01:17:21,320 --> 01:17:24,600
Speaker 1: It seems to be clear that modern absinthe is, you know,

1334
01:17:24,800 --> 01:17:27,680
Speaker 1: not any more dangerous than any other alcoholic drink, with

1335
01:17:27,840 --> 01:17:30,000
Speaker 1: all of the things that we should understand about the

1336
01:17:30,080 --> 01:17:34,320
Speaker 1: dangerous regular alcoholic drinks. Um. But there there, it doesn't

1337
01:17:34,640 --> 01:17:38,920
Speaker 1: carry this special drug like or poison like property. So

1338
01:17:39,200 --> 01:17:41,360
Speaker 1: what was going on with all those experiments in the

1339
01:17:41,439 --> 01:17:45,439
Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds showing absence to be a poisonous horror. Well,

1340
01:17:45,600 --> 01:17:48,600
Speaker 1: recently people have gone back and reviewed this research, and

1341
01:17:48,680 --> 01:17:51,200
Speaker 1: generally the problem appears to be that they were testing

1342
01:17:51,280 --> 01:17:55,840
Speaker 1: the effects of not absentthe itself, but of ridiculously high

1343
01:17:55,960 --> 01:18:00,599
Speaker 1: concentrations of fusion in the form of extract and pure

1344
01:18:00,760 --> 01:18:05,400
Speaker 1: wormwood essence oil essential oils. Uh. And so the thing

1345
01:18:05,520 --> 01:18:08,360
Speaker 1: we know about doses is the dose makes the poison.

1346
01:18:09,000 --> 01:18:11,280
Speaker 1: Pretty much all of the food and drink we consume

1347
01:18:11,360 --> 01:18:14,839
Speaker 1: on a regular basis contains compounds that can be toxic

1348
01:18:14,920 --> 01:18:17,760
Speaker 1: and extremely large doses. So the question is, if you

1349
01:18:17,880 --> 01:18:20,080
Speaker 1: go out and get a bottle of absinthe, does it

1350
01:18:20,160 --> 01:18:23,680
Speaker 1: actually contain enough throusione to hurt you? Well, if you're

1351
01:18:23,680 --> 01:18:26,240
Speaker 1: getting it from a reputable distiller, the answer is no.

1352
01:18:28,040 --> 01:18:31,519
Speaker 1: So modern absence really doesn't have enough through jone uh

1353
01:18:31,600 --> 01:18:34,720
Speaker 1: to cause any of the effects in absence drinkers concentrations

1354
01:18:34,760 --> 01:18:37,680
Speaker 1: are small enough, the alcohol content is high enough that

1355
01:18:37,840 --> 01:18:41,320
Speaker 1: you would encounter toxicity due to alcohol way before you

1356
01:18:41,320 --> 01:18:44,960
Speaker 1: would ingest enough throusione to hurt you. But there's another question,

1357
01:18:45,720 --> 01:18:48,519
Speaker 1: what about the pre band absinthe, because maybe what's going

1358
01:18:48,600 --> 01:18:51,920
Speaker 1: on is that absinthe is safer now and safety standards

1359
01:18:51,960 --> 01:18:55,360
Speaker 1: were much lower back then. Well, there's actually been research

1360
01:18:55,479 --> 01:18:58,280
Speaker 1: on this as well. So in two thousand and eight

1361
01:18:58,640 --> 01:19:02,479
Speaker 1: there was a paper published by Dirk Lachenmeyer and at

1362
01:19:02,520 --> 01:19:07,040
Speaker 1: All called a chemical Composition of vintage preban absinthe with

1363
01:19:07,160 --> 01:19:11,759
Speaker 1: special reference to through Joan Finn Shone, Pinot, camphone, menthol

1364
01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:15,799
Speaker 1: copper and antimony concentration. So this is looking at old,

1365
01:19:15,840 --> 01:19:19,639
Speaker 1: old bottles of absinthe from before the absinthe ban to say, okay,

1366
01:19:19,720 --> 01:19:22,320
Speaker 1: did they have something really poisonous going on in them.

1367
01:19:22,360 --> 01:19:26,920
Speaker 1: It looked at thirteen samples of vintage absinthe bottles dating

1368
01:19:27,000 --> 01:19:31,160
Speaker 1: back to before nineteen fifteen, and they were analyzed for

1369
01:19:31,400 --> 01:19:36,760
Speaker 1: toxicity including naturally occurring herbal lessences like through joan all

1370
01:19:36,800 --> 01:19:41,120
Speaker 1: the ones I mentioned before, and then mental higher alcohols, copper,

1371
01:19:41,200 --> 01:19:45,639
Speaker 1: and antimony. And then they used gas chromatography and mass

1372
01:19:45,680 --> 01:19:50,080
Speaker 1: spectrometry analysis to reveal that quote, the total through jane

1373
01:19:50,160 --> 01:19:53,519
Speaker 1: content of Preban absinthe was found to range between about

1374
01:19:53,720 --> 01:19:57,760
Speaker 1: zero point five and about forty eight point three milligrams

1375
01:19:57,840 --> 01:20:02,879
Speaker 1: per leader of absinthe, with an average concentration of about

1376
01:20:03,600 --> 01:20:08,680
Speaker 1: twenty five milligrams per leader and a median concentration of

1377
01:20:08,880 --> 01:20:12,200
Speaker 1: thirty three milligrams per leader. How much is that? Turns

1378
01:20:12,240 --> 01:20:15,479
Speaker 1: out not that much. This shows that vintage absinthe from

1379
01:20:15,520 --> 01:20:18,479
Speaker 1: the pre Ban era is pretty much comparable to post

1380
01:20:18,560 --> 01:20:22,920
Speaker 1: ban and modern commercial absinthe in terms of toxic content. Uh.

1381
01:20:23,000 --> 01:20:27,280
Speaker 1: And they concluded, quote, all things considered, nothing besides ethanol

1382
01:20:27,560 --> 01:20:29,920
Speaker 1: was found in the absence that was able to explain

1383
01:20:30,040 --> 01:20:32,920
Speaker 1: the syndrome absinthe is um And I think that's a

1384
01:20:33,160 --> 01:20:35,519
Speaker 1: that's a good note to end on the absinthe discussion

1385
01:20:35,560 --> 01:20:38,640
Speaker 1: with because from my perspective, I think the reasonable conclusion

1386
01:20:38,760 --> 01:20:42,920
Speaker 1: is that absinthe is um was in fact alcoholism by

1387
01:20:43,000 --> 01:20:47,840
Speaker 1: another name, rebranded alcoholism, if you will, and that this

1388
01:20:48,000 --> 01:20:49,880
Speaker 1: is a good reminder, I guess not to end on

1389
01:20:49,960 --> 01:20:52,720
Speaker 1: a down note, but but that we should always be

1390
01:20:52,840 --> 01:20:56,559
Speaker 1: careful when we're thinking about about alcoholic drinks, because, as

1391
01:20:56,600 --> 01:20:59,240
Speaker 1: we pointed out, I mean, ethanol is in some sense

1392
01:20:59,320 --> 01:21:03,080
Speaker 1: a poison. It is in some sense a thing that

1393
01:21:03,280 --> 01:21:07,439
Speaker 1: is impairing our bodies. Now, generally, responsible adults can learn

1394
01:21:07,479 --> 01:21:09,960
Speaker 1: to manage their ingestion of ethanol in a way that's

1395
01:21:10,000 --> 01:21:13,200
Speaker 1: not too harmful in the long term to themselves or others.

1396
01:21:13,720 --> 01:21:15,880
Speaker 1: But it's it's something we have to be careful with.

1397
01:21:16,000 --> 01:21:18,760
Speaker 1: It's a it's a dragon in a cage. Yeah, I mean,

1398
01:21:18,880 --> 01:21:21,160
Speaker 1: if you if you really tease it apart. What is

1399
01:21:21,200 --> 01:21:27,360
Speaker 1: any cocktail but a balance of poisons that you then drink. Uh.

1400
01:21:27,560 --> 01:21:31,120
Speaker 1: And Yeah, there's there's there's there's certainly a danger in

1401
01:21:31,280 --> 01:21:34,040
Speaker 1: consuming too much. And there's you know, and certain people

1402
01:21:34,040 --> 01:21:36,840
Speaker 1: are going to be more susceptible to problems than others,

1403
01:21:36,920 --> 01:21:42,599
Speaker 1: so certainly use use caution. Uh. Employer, better judgment when

1404
01:21:43,320 --> 01:21:46,280
Speaker 1: choosing which cocktails and how many to consume or if

1405
01:21:46,320 --> 01:21:48,920
Speaker 1: to consume at all. And again to come back to mocktails,

1406
01:21:48,960 --> 01:21:52,559
Speaker 1: I will say there are some fabulous mocktail recipes out there.

1407
01:21:52,720 --> 01:21:55,479
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. So for our listeners who are underage or

1408
01:21:55,520 --> 01:21:58,519
Speaker 1: who are teetotalers, Robert, what what's a great mocktail for

1409
01:21:58,840 --> 01:22:00,960
Speaker 1: that you would recommend? Okay, there is a recent New

1410
01:22:01,040 --> 01:22:03,720
Speaker 1: York Times article that came out because when they're not

1411
01:22:04,760 --> 01:22:09,080
Speaker 1: when they're not shaming absence in previous times, they're putting

1412
01:22:09,080 --> 01:22:12,519
Speaker 1: out mocktail articles in our modern times. But there's a

1413
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:14,600
Speaker 1: mocktail article that came out recently, and they included a

1414
01:22:14,640 --> 01:22:17,960
Speaker 1: recipe for something called a mom Bai mule, which you

1415
01:22:18,120 --> 01:22:21,920
Speaker 1: can serve in the copper UH containers if you like.

1416
01:22:22,040 --> 01:22:25,439
Speaker 1: But it's a wonderful concoction that has UH I believe

1417
01:22:25,479 --> 01:22:29,479
Speaker 1: it was a coconut cream or coconut milk, a few

1418
01:22:29,520 --> 01:22:34,600
Speaker 1: different spices, some citrus, and it has all the complexities

1419
01:22:34,600 --> 01:22:36,960
Speaker 1: because I guess one of the things that you instantly think,

1420
01:22:36,960 --> 01:22:39,880
Speaker 1: all right, well, if you take the liquor and the

1421
01:22:40,040 --> 01:22:41,920
Speaker 1: liqueurs out of a cocktail, what are you left with

1422
01:22:42,040 --> 01:22:45,280
Speaker 1: but some juices? Well, this drink. Uh, I think is

1423
01:22:45,320 --> 01:22:47,800
Speaker 1: a nice answer to that, because you get this this

1424
01:22:48,040 --> 01:22:53,559
Speaker 1: balance of different flavor notes uh in the ingredients without

1425
01:22:53,640 --> 01:22:58,120
Speaker 1: actually having to engage alcohol. So look around. You know

1426
01:22:58,200 --> 01:23:01,000
Speaker 1: there's some definitely some lesser mocked ales out there, but

1427
01:23:01,600 --> 01:23:05,439
Speaker 1: but there are some very finely crafted concoctions. They don't

1428
01:23:05,479 --> 01:23:08,960
Speaker 1: involve alcohol, but do give you this appreciation for the

1429
01:23:09,040 --> 01:23:12,479
Speaker 1: process and and and also in appreciation for just the

1430
01:23:12,760 --> 01:23:16,400
Speaker 1: rich flavor profile. Though my one criticism is that they too,

1431
01:23:16,640 --> 01:23:19,040
Speaker 1: they do tend to go down a bit fast without

1432
01:23:19,080 --> 01:23:22,040
Speaker 1: the alcohol in them. Yeah. I don't know if I

1433
01:23:22,080 --> 01:23:23,519
Speaker 1: told you this. When I was a kid, I was

1434
01:23:23,560 --> 01:23:26,600
Speaker 1: a big fan of virgin bloody Mary's. Oh yeah, a

1435
01:23:26,640 --> 01:23:29,439
Speaker 1: bloody Mary with no alcohol in it. Uh. Though it

1436
01:23:29,600 --> 01:23:32,800
Speaker 1: wasn't even I wasn't even preparing what would be recognized

1437
01:23:32,880 --> 01:23:35,120
Speaker 1: by a bartender as a proper bloody Mary mix. What

1438
01:23:35,200 --> 01:23:38,000
Speaker 1: I was drinking was like a can of V eight

1439
01:23:38,240 --> 01:23:42,360
Speaker 1: with a lot of tabasco sauce and celery salt in it. Well,

1440
01:23:42,360 --> 01:23:44,799
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the rob Roys and the Shirley Temples.

1441
01:23:45,080 --> 01:23:48,120
Speaker 1: Like I remember going out to dinner and and my

1442
01:23:48,240 --> 01:23:50,640
Speaker 1: dad got a cocktail and I got to get a

1443
01:23:50,720 --> 01:23:53,880
Speaker 1: rob Roy and you know that's just what it's. It's

1444
01:23:54,000 --> 01:23:56,560
Speaker 1: it's not the most finely balanced of a of a

1445
01:23:56,640 --> 01:23:59,800
Speaker 1: mock tail. It's just like bligend Rail and uh Jenn

1446
01:24:00,160 --> 01:24:02,560
Speaker 1: And in my experience, like the bad Marachino cherry is

1447
01:24:02,600 --> 01:24:06,559
Speaker 1: not the real Marachino cherry. Um Maraschino cherry is, by

1448
01:24:06,560 --> 01:24:09,800
Speaker 1: the way, a fabulous story just about those and I

1449
01:24:09,880 --> 01:24:12,320
Speaker 1: believe that shows up in The Drunken Botanists. So another

1450
01:24:12,360 --> 01:24:14,519
Speaker 1: reason to pick up that book. Well, if we ever

1451
01:24:14,600 --> 01:24:16,920
Speaker 1: come back to doing more episodes on food and drink,

1452
01:24:16,960 --> 01:24:20,040
Speaker 1: maybe we should explore cherry science. Oh yeah, there's so much.

1453
01:24:20,040 --> 01:24:21,720
Speaker 1: I mean, we've touched on cherry science a little bit

1454
01:24:21,760 --> 01:24:24,800
Speaker 1: on our our most recent Dangerous Foods episode. Yeah, don't

1455
01:24:24,800 --> 01:24:27,880
Speaker 1: grind up those pits, yeah, because that would be that

1456
01:24:27,920 --> 01:24:32,400
Speaker 1: would make for pretty nefarious cocktail right there. Okay, so hey,

1457
01:24:32,439 --> 01:24:34,240
Speaker 1: if you want to explore some of the links we

1458
01:24:34,280 --> 01:24:36,479
Speaker 1: talked about here, check out the landing page for this

1459
01:24:36,560 --> 01:24:38,920
Speaker 1: episode is Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's

1460
01:24:38,920 --> 01:24:42,240
Speaker 1: where we'll find podcast videos, blog post links out to

1461
01:24:42,280 --> 01:24:45,680
Speaker 1: our various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram.

1462
01:24:46,080 --> 01:24:47,880
Speaker 1: Who knows what they'll be in the future will probably

1463
01:24:47,880 --> 01:24:50,600
Speaker 1: be on those two. We will probably have to and

1464
01:24:50,680 --> 01:24:52,519
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch with us, as always,

1465
01:24:52,600 --> 01:24:54,640
Speaker 1: you can email us and blow the mind at how

1466
01:24:54,760 --> 01:25:07,280
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com for more on this and thousands

1467
01:25:07,320 --> 01:25:09,679
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is that how stuff Works dot com.

1468
01:25:14,920 --> 01:25:24,800
Speaker 1: Every they they believe the Big Fi