WEBVTT - Reed C. Waddell and the Goldbrick Game 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:06.479 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of shondaland Audio in partnership 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:17.880 with iHeartRadio. The world wants to be deceived, so let 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:22.400 it be deceived. That quote is attributed to Petronius, first 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:25.760 century Roman author and satirist during the reign of Nero, 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.640 and at least for this season, he sure was right. 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:34.440 There are three things to know before we begin this episode. One, 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.479 a gold brick is a thing that looks valuable but 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:42.680 is in fact a fraudulent, worthless substitute. Two. Gold bricking 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.519 is a term that originates from confidence artists. When a 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.640 gold coating is applied to a brick of worthless metal, 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.120 usually lead, it may appear to be a gold bar 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:56.400 on the surface, but in reality it's something far less valuable. 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:01.400 And Three. American read See Bottle is credited with one 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.679 of the most celebrated cons among cons, the gold brick swindle, 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:08.319 and you can thank his work with that swindle for 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.160 the origin of the term gold bricker, which today is 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.600 frequently used to describe a person who maintains appearances but 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:20.280 is actually totally lazy or incompetent. Welcome to Criminalia, So 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.679 let's talk about gold. I'm Maria tram Marquis and I'm 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:28.240 Holly Fry. Reid Sea Waddle was born to Absalom and 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:32.120 Nancy Waddle in Springfield, Illinois, in eighteen sixty, give or 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:36.199 take a year. Absalom was a horse dealer and frequently 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.640 entered horses in races and shows around the region, and 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:43.479 when he died, a brief obituary in the Illinois State 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.880 Journal described him as quote an old and well known 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:52.520 citizen that sounds pretty benign, But his son was a 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.080 budding criminal, and by the time Reid was seven or 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:59.920 eight years old, newspapers had already started reporting on his conduct. 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:05.000 Relieved his misconduct from one report quote, he was known 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:08.360 in the neighborhood of Washington at eleven Streets East as 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:13.000 about the toughest foulmouthed boy in the section. The gamblers, 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:16.160 who all knew him did not care to talk to 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.240 a stranger about him. All the men here, who ever 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.360 used to follow the races in the time when the 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.920 elder Waddle was in business, unite in saying that he 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.400 was the meanest man they ever knew. In that line, 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:33.280 he had not the first redeeming manly quality. The boy, however, 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.800 had he dressed well and could on occasion go into 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:42.360 any society. But jump ahead a few years and newspaper 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:46.480 records report Read was indicted at age seventeen in connection 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:50.360 with a confidence game he ran in Carlinville, Illinois. What 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.240 that game is, though, we don't know, it's lost to history. 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.800 By eighteen eighty, when Waddle was twenty years old, the 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.679 Illinois State Register reported on another of his arrest, this 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.920 time on a gambling warrant out of Tolono, Illinois. Quoting 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:09.040 from the article, Waddle is notorious among police circles here, 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.640 and they will be glad to hear that he receives 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.680 the full penalty of the law at his trial in Tolono. 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.919 Waddle two is mentioned in the memoir of Illinois State 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:23.200 Journal history columnist John ey Vaughn, published years later in 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:27.560 September of nineteen twenty one. Quote Commercial Alley. The alley 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:29.680 behind the west side of the two hundred block of 0:03:29.760 --> 0:03:33.519 South sixth Street, Harvard public gaming houses and was a 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:39.240 hangout for confidence operators. Read Waddle, who became internationally notorious 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.880 as a gold brick man, had his training in this environment. 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:49.280 Waddle enjoyed cards and horses, but he didn't start his 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.440 criminal career as a con artist. He was kind of 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:56.240 a jack of all trades hustler, and his repertoire included 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.920 things like a rigged form of the dice game Bunco. 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.880 At that time, that was a really popular con, and 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.000 as any good confidence man, Waddle would have taken part 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:11.360 in Bunko. Sometime in the early eighteen eighties, Wattle moved 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.440 to New York City. He reported they began running scams 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.800 known as green goods scams, which were common cons in 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.640 nineteenth century America. These scams tricked people into paying for 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.960 worthless counterfeit currency and left them literally holding a bag 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.119 containing sawdust and a wad of fake currency on top. 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.640 Actually not too dissimilar to the gold brick con. Really, basically, 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:37.640 the gold brick scam really simply put involved selling a 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:39.960 tangible good for more than it's worth to a person 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:42.640 unaware that the item has been switched to one of 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.599 lesser value, and Waddle's marks were usually people on the 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:50.760 street who just couldn't resist a good deal. We're going 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:53.280 to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors, 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.720 and when we're back we will talk about a man 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.440 named Robert Pinkerton who refused to give credit to Waddle 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.720 for the old brick game, and probably for good reason. 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.400 Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about how the gold 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.919 brick game works and how Waddle convinced his marks that 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:27.400 his gold was good. Waddle happened to be in the 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.039 gold business at a time when the United States was 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.520 reforming the US Mint, and that meant that there were 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.440 some changes happening with US currency. Here's what was going 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:43.080 on around eighteen sixty nine. The Mint Act of eighteen 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.479 thirty seven, which was enacted, of course, before both the 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.720 California Gold Rush and the American Civil War, was determined 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.720 by the federal government to be outdated. Four years later, 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.680 a revised act known as the Mint Act of eighteen 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.640 seventy three, or you'll also see it as the Act 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.880 of eighteen seventy three went into effect, and it was 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.400 a general revision of laws relating to the Mint. When 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.320 it came to gold, it allowed for anyone holding that 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.479 precious metal to continue to have their bullion made into 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:17.400 money if they desired, and the Act created a gold standard, 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.000 but it did not do the same for other precious metals. 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:25.720 When silver's market price fell in eighteen seventy six. For example, 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.520 those who brought silver bullion to the mint were turned away. 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:33.479 The mint, under the new laws, was no longer authorized 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.719 to coin it. While this kicked off some major political 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:41.239 controversy regarding the gold standard and the belief of free 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.440 coinage for silver, we won't get into that too deeply 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:47.919 because the important thing to know in waddle story is 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:52.000 that there was change regarding the United States and people 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:56.000 who lived there and their money and their medals. Confidence 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.360 artist involved in this game also often tried to best 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.719 each other with stories of how they encourage their targets 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.400 to believe that the tables were turned and that they 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.880 the mark, were actually swindling the sellers into selling something 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:13.880 for a price far below it's worth. Greed can get tricky, 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:20.800 can't it. The Gold Brick con had a few moving pieces. 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.400 It involved printing brochures to sparkle mark's interest in the 0:07:24.440 --> 0:07:28.760 sale of what confidence artists would call perfect counterfeit money. 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.240 This really wasn't the kind of con where you would 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.520 go up to a stranger on the street and say, buddy, 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.640 want to buy my gold, But it was the kind 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.160 of Cohn where you wanted to attract some attention to 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:42.760 your goods. Buy these bricks now at amazingly low prices. 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.080 Take them off my hands. You'll never get a better deal. 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:47.800 There would be a story too, as to why these 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.720 bricks were for sale and on sale, something legit, of course, 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.720 like someone selling bars that are unable to take on 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.840 a voyage for whatever reason that might have been. But 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:03.200 this scam all so involved non precious metal bars, usually lead, 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:08.000 sometimes brass. Wattle fashioned his lead bars into I'm going 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.000 to go air quoted gold, with layer upon layer of 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.840 gold plate coating applied to each bar. His fake gold 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.120 ingot always included small details that could make or break 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.240 the scam. He was known to apply stampings with the 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.080 markings of a bank or the United States government, for instance. 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.000 Assay offices are set up to essay precious metals, and 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.600 they're in place to help protect consumers from buying fake items. 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:36.280 During successful essays, the assayer typically stamps a hallmark on 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:41.120 the item to certify its metallurgical content. Wattle included such 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:45.360 details and that lad Waddle's targets to falsely believe that 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:47.920 he was offering bricks that had been evaluated by the 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:53.720 federal government and just in case. Waddle also inserted a 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:57.920 plug of real gold into the fake bar. One spot 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:01.000 on the brick was planted with genuine gold that he 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.320 could easily remove an offer as a way for a 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.600 doubting mark to authenticate the bar, like scrape a little 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.600 piece off and go, oh, have this tested. Little did 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.680 the victim know. Waddle always set up an accomplice as 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.679 his assayer with all of the necessary accoutrement of the trade, 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:21.360 including scales, weights, and chemicals, so everything appeared to be 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:24.400 on the up and up. The pitch was also aimed 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.400 at gamblers, but they didn't need all the smoke and mirrors. 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:30.720 They were interested in the bricks because they wanted to 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.600 be using phony money or they wanted to use it 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:38.439 up to cover their previous losses. In that scenario, the gamblers, 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:40.880 just as other targets, never got the gold. But for 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.400 them it wasn't like they could turn to the police 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:47.360 for help. Some reports suggest that Waddle was able to 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:52.080 sell his gold bricks for thousands of dollars apiece, the 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:57.000 first for four thousand dollars. According to some reports, selling 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.840 gold plated lead bricks for prices ranging from five hundred 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.480 to seventy five hundred per bar, made Waddle more than 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.559 a quarter of a million dollars by the end of 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.240 the decade, and that is not adjusted for today's values. 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.320 Waddle ran his gold brick con for years, and no 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:19.280 one debates his success using that game. Some people say 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:23.640 that Waddle invented it, but others disagree with that. Robert 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.320 Pinkerton was the son of Alan Pinkerton, who was the 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.959 founder of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, and Robert was reluctant 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.880 to credit Waddle with its invention. In the May twenty eighth, 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.520 nineteen o one edition of the Los Angeles Herald, he 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:41.280 was quoted saying, and bear with me, it's a long quote, 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.480 so here we go. The gold brick business is an 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:49.520 American institution, but its earliest promoters were Spaniards and Italians. 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.520 About forty years ago, the game was played with gold 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:56.800 dust or gold filings. Among the pioneers were Emil Rodriguez 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:00.360 and Adolph Superbello. Their game was to find some man 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.200 who had a few thousand dollars and then tell him 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:05.600 about their having a bag full of gold filings or 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.560 gold dust which had been stolen. They must get rid 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:10.720 of the property and would be willing to sell it 0:11:10.800 --> 0:11:14.280 at a great sacrifice. After getting him interested, they would 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:16.880 take the intended victim to an essay office, which was 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:19.760 a bogus concern, and then they would receive the assurance 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.079 that the yellow metal was all that was claimed for it, 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:24.839 and the man who gave this information would usually make 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:28.360 the owner a liberal offer for his plunder. The bag, 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:31.920 securely sealed, was then sold to the victim, who received 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.360 strict instructions to say nothing about his purchase for a 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:37.880 little while until the loss of the gold was less 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.840 fresh in the minds of the people. In order to 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.680 be perfectly secure, some of the victims packed up and 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.800 went abroad, and only when they were ready to enjoy 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.960 their new wealth they discovered that the treasure bag contained 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.760 base metal and not gold. I arrested these men in 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:56.360 Cincinnati more than thirty five years ago, and they were 0:11:56.360 --> 0:12:00.480 tried in Chicago and convicted. So there's a long winded 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.559 way of saying that. Back in eighteen sixty six, Robert 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:07.280 Pinkerton apprehended two swindlers who gave the names of H. 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:10.600 Welton and Richard Bishop, trying to run the gold brick 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.760 game on banks and brokers in Ohio. His point Waddle 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.600 ran green goods scams and gold brick swindles, but he 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:21.680 did not do it. First, we are going to take 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.000 a quick break for a word from our sponsors, and 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.160 when we're back we will talk about forres, the world's 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:30.560 second oldest profession and an argument that led to the 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:48.760 death of a con artist. Welcome back to Criminalia. Before 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.480 the break, we were talking about a man who insisted 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.559 Read Waddle could not have invented the gold brick swindle. 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.120 So now let's talk about a guy who disagrees with him. 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:02.479 A man named Herbert Asbury disagrees with Robert Pinkerton's assessment 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.680 that Waddle couldn't be the origin of the gold brick swindle. 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:08.880 In his research and study of the New York City 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.200 Underworld while writing the nineteen twenty eight book Gangs of 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:15.319 New York and Informal History of the New York Underworld, 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:20.240 Asbury gives Waddle credit for inventing the scam. But he's 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:24.439 kind of the only one though. See Waddle became famous 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.400 because of this con game, and it's highly likely that 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.600 he really popularized it. Perhaps he was the first to 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.960 bring the game to New York. Perhaps he was great 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.200 at this swindle so great it was hard for any 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.120 of his contemporaries to remember anyone else ever doing it. 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.199 When it comes to its origin, though, there are reports 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.440 of the first known use of the term gold brick 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.040 in a fraudulent way dating back to eighteen sixty five, 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:55.080 and in eighteen sixty five, Waddle was still just a 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:59.800 kid growing up in Illinois. While he may have been 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.240 in the first generation of confidence artists to employ the 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.679 gold brick game, Waddle worked on and off with four 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.760 other older and more experienced men who all worked the 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.640 same scam. They were William Emory Train who went by Bill, 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.080 John Leary, who went by Red van Buren, Triplet, and 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:24.640 Tom O'Brien. The first known published mention of the swindle 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.960 dates to a newspaper clipping from eighteen seventy nine where 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:32.080 the Khan was conducted in Chicago and possibly Kansas City 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:35.800 by two men calling themselves Walker and Thomas A. Lewis, 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:38.680 and it is highly likely that these were aliases of 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.760 one or two of the men Waddle worked with who 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.960 we just mentioned previously. So, whether you believe Pinkerton or 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:50.240 you believe Asbury, we know this one thing from history. 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:53.800 It's assumed that gold and silver coinage was invented around 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:57.520 six to fifty BC, and pretty much ever since it 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:01.000 appeared it has been tampered with and fake, and as 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.160 far as we could tell, it was probably the very 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.160 next day that counterfeit coins were passed on the streets. 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.480 Real gold bars and coins are made from pouring molten 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:15.360 gold into molds. Ancient counterfeiters, just like today's, would use 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.480 a base metal core such as lead, and then cover 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:21.240 it with a thin layer of precious metal such as gold. 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.720 This all sounds very familiar so far, and then they 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:29.440 would strike it between engraved dyes. A counterfeitter who could 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.880 produce works with seamless coding and who used dyes of 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.480 good quality could produce lookalike fakes that felt real in 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.520 terms of their size and their weight. These types of 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.160 fake coins, which could often pass as genuine, are known 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.800 as ferrets, which comes from a French word meaning stuffed. 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:52.120 The idiom, world's second oldest profession, is often used in 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:56.120 reference to counterfeiting, and it indeed has been going on 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:01.040 for a very long time. Historians have founded base metal 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.400 bars made to imitate gold ingots that were used as 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:09.840 currency before the introduction of coins, counterfeit precious metals were 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:15.600 hardly new to nineteenth century America. They were an international problem. Wattle, 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.800 of course, did not invent any of this, although he 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.040 may have told a good story or two that he did. 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.040 Of course, at the end of the day, it's really 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.720 not about who invented this type of counterfeiting and when, 0:16:27.960 --> 0:16:30.800 but rather how much money you could get from a 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:35.520 mark who was willing to hand it over. So in 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:39.240 March of eighteen ninety five, Waddle was working with one 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.440 of his New York mentors, a Nanuel recognized from earlier 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:46.680 in the episode, Tom O'Brien. Tom had made an estimated 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:50.000 half million dollars over a five month period using the 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:54.040 gold brick game at the Colombian Exposition. The Exposition was 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.040 a world's fair held in Chicago in eighteen ninety three 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.440 to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher with US's 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:04.200 arrival in the New World. The fair ended in tragedy 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.720 when a cold storage structure dubbed the Greatest refrigerator on 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.320 Earth went up in flames and claimed sixteen lives. But 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:14.280 for the con artists who had descended upon the crowds 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:18.119 of the expo before the accident, it was an opportunity 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:23.439 to make a whole lot of money. Anyway, back to 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.160 reading Tom. Two years later in France, the men were 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.920 running cons in Paris when they had a falling out. 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.480 There are three versions of this story, so it may 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:37.480 have been jealousy over a love interest but probably not. 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.680 Or it may have been over a loan or loan 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:47.080 repayment for reported ten thousand dollars that sounds plausible, or, 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.000 and this is the most popular telling, it was most 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:55.399 likely overshares of a bunko swindle. Heated words were exchanged, 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.359 things got physical, and while the men fought in the cafe, 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.240 American Waddled hit O'Brien over the head with a bottle 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:07.560 and fled. The next day, March twenty seventh, O'Brien encountered 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:12.920 Waddle at the Gausdun train station and shot him several times, 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:17.280 including twice in the back and chest. Waddle died of 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.119 his wounds. O'Brien was arrested by French authorities, but his 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:25.159 trial was temporarily postponed when the United States Department of 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:29.359 State requested that he be extradited to the US. During 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.800 his subsequent trial, which was held in France. O'Brien testified 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:36.199 that he'd killed Waddle, yes, but that it was in 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:43.320 self defense. O'Brien's attorney, identified as French jurist Metre Edgar Damanes, argued, 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.000 according to The New York Times quote that there had 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.280 been an exchange of shots, which was an ordinary way 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:53.679 of settling quarrels in America. Famous former New York police 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:57.320 detective Thomas F. Burns had referred to O'Brien as quote 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.680 king of the Bunkomen in his book Professional Criminals of America, 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.800 published in eighteen eighty six, nine years before the argument 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.800 that ended with Waddle dead and O'Brien in prison. Burns 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.760 claimed that O'Brien had been apprehended in almost every city 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:16.440 across the United States, and he had spent at least 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:22.000 twenty years on and off in prison during his criminal career. Also, 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.800 according to Burns, O'Brien was perhaps most infamous as a 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.840 bunco steerer, not as a gold brick swindler. So a 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.880 bunco steerer is someone who entices a mark into the swimmle. 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:38.400 O'Brien could not, no matter how good his acting, smooth, 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:41.119 talk himself out of his sentence, though he died in 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:44.600 prison in France. By the time he was gunned down 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.240 in Paris, Waddle had become one of the best known 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.520 confidence artists of the late nineteenth century. Nancy Waddle had 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.199 her son's body returned to Illinois, where he is today 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.680 buried next to his parents in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.359 Like a little scam sauce, so we can raise a 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:08.560 glass to read, I suppose scammer extraordinaire. If we want 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:13.080 to toast to him. His demise was terrible, let's toast 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:21.320 to him. I went with a very obvious name. But 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:23.560 I'm just calling this one the gold brick. But there's 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:27.919 a trick to it. It may not be what it 0:20:28.040 --> 0:20:32.240 initially appears. And this kind of becomes also a combination 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.920 of a few drink ideas. It shares DNA with various ones. 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:40.000 But the bass drink I wanted to reference the French 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.399 finish of his life. And the bass drink is similar to, 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:46.000 but not exactly the same as, a drink called a 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.119 monkey gland, which was invented in France in nineteen twenty. 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.000 Why do I feel like we've had a conversation about 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:58.800 the monkey gland before? Maybe not on the show. Mine 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:00.720 is a little different, but that was the drink I 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:03.040 started thinking about as a base, and then I went 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:07.359 from there. This involves several steps, none of them are hard, 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:09.280 but just be ready. There are a few different things 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:13.879 going on here. The main drink itself is an ounce 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.359 and a half of orange juice, an ounce and a 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.000 half of gin, a splash of simple syrup to taste 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.119 a little to like half an ounce. You don't need 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:24.159 a ton. It depends on the acidity of your orange 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:26.760 juice and what you like. That is going to get 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:31.399 shaken with ice so it's nice and cold. Then you 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.480 are going to take a quarter of an ounce I 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:38.240 would say, of absinthe and another quarter of an ounce 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:40.600 of simple syrup, and you're just going to combine those 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:43.840 and then pour them into your pre chilled glass and 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.919 glaze the glass with it. So that also is you 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.439 know how sassare has often made, so you're similar to that, 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:53.560 but you just want to get that flavor shift that 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:55.919 happens from the absinthe. Then you'll put your ice in 0:21:56.080 --> 0:22:00.119 strain that drink over it. The third step though, and 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.720 also I will tell you at the end, I recommend 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.040 if you really want to buy into the storyline of 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.919 it not using a glass but using some vessel that 0:22:11.080 --> 0:22:14.680 is not clear, like a mug or a like a 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.439 carved cocktail glass or something. Because your third thing that 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:21.399 you're gonna do is take about two ounces of heavy 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:26.480 cream and I don't know, like a half teaspoon of turmeric, 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:29.760 and you're gonna blend those together. Like if you have 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.520 a blendy thing, great, you could throw in turmeric until 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:38.880 you get it nice and spoon that on top so 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:44.840 it looks like a golden yummy delicious, like perhaps creamy drink. 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:49.320 But under it is this like whamity lamb in an absence. 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:55.359 Here's the thing though, So I was a little worried. 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:56.920 I was like, always this gonna work. Is this I'm 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:00.560 gonna play nice together? And you can also, depending on 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:04.959 your flavor desires, add a little bit of simple syrup 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.440 to that heavy cream and turmeric mixture if you want 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:10.760 it to really be whip creamy. But if you then 0:23:10.840 --> 0:23:13.520 just stir it all together in the glass after your 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:19.040 moment of presentation, what no one can tell is the 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:24.960 look on her face. Delicious. It becomes like, I don't know, 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:30.879 like a creamsicle has a baby with the absinthe Green Fairy. 0:23:30.960 --> 0:23:37.520 It's just delicious. It's so delicious, it is unconscionably delicious. 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:41.240 I don't even know that maybe my favorite drink description 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:47.080 of ever. I loved this drink. It's oh man, now 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:49.400 I'm like. My brain immediately was like, we should start 0:23:49.400 --> 0:23:53.280 working on absentthe milk. I had never really thought about 0:23:53.320 --> 0:23:56.760 combining absinthe and a cream in quite that way. There 0:23:56.800 --> 0:24:00.760 are some absinthe and milk drinks, but like that heavy cream, 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:02.560 I didn't know if the cream was going to play 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:05.520 nice with the acidity of the orange juice and gin, 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:08.720 which sometimes they can bite each other. Dairy doesn't always 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:11.800 love all these things. But oh mamma, yeah no, I'm 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:16.639 coming over for the absence milk chair. Holy Moses. Yes, 0:24:17.720 --> 0:24:19.720 I'll space it out so it's not too absence in 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:22.560 a row. But to make the mocktail, this is super easy. 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:27.359 You're gonna use an Anna set syrup in lieu of absinthe. 0:24:28.040 --> 0:24:30.159 If you do that, you don't really have to combine 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:32.720 it with simple syrup. You can just use the syrup 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:36.240 itself and put glass to make the glaze, and then 0:24:36.480 --> 0:24:39.040 you're gonna skip the gin and you can sub that 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:42.240 out with any of the things we've talked about using 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:45.760 for gin, like a camomile tea there with some pepper 0:24:45.800 --> 0:24:50.359 in it, or you could do another juice. I actually 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:53.359 think it would change the flavor profile so much, but 0:24:53.400 --> 0:24:57.520 it would also be delicious. If you did pineapple juice 0:24:57.520 --> 0:25:02.440 and an orange juice with that subtle and a set 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:06.720 flavor of the glaze and then the termuric cream on top, 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:11.200 that would be like making a tropical like lookout people, 0:25:11.840 --> 0:25:14.400 this will replace it. Yeah, And that's how I would 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:17.159 do the mocktail on this. And that is called the 0:25:17.200 --> 0:25:20.000 gold brick because it's not quite what you think it's 0:25:20.000 --> 0:25:23.080