Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
Speaker 1: with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: It's not an uncommon fantasy you find out you have
Speaker 2: a distant relative who has died and left you an
Speaker 2: unexpected inheritance. It's also not uncommon for a con artist
Speaker 2: to exploit that fantasy, contacting you about a huge fortune
Speaker 2: because well, it could be yours. Spoiler alert on that one,
Speaker 2: though it's not yours. In this episode, we're talking about
Speaker 2: what are known as inheritance cons and we have a
Speaker 2: two for one special Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarky.
Speaker 1: And I'm a Holly Fry. A little background first, According
Speaker 1: to the Federal Trade Commission, often these kinds of scams
Speaker 1: begin when you receive a letter from an estate locator, banker, lawyer,
Speaker 1: or tax agent claiming you may be eligible for a
Speaker 1: considerable inheritance. Today. This might also come in the form
Speaker 1: of an email or a social media message. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: con artist will tell you are legally entitled to claim
Speaker 1: the inheritance. Other times they might tell you an unrelated
Speaker 1: wealthy person has died without an heir and that you
Speaker 1: could inherit the fortune through some legal chicanery because you
Speaker 1: happen to share the same last name. However, it's sold
Speaker 1: your inheritance. The letter will likely claim is difficult to
Speaker 1: access due to some legitimate sounding reasons like government regulations
Speaker 1: or taxes or bank restrictions, and with that being the case,
Speaker 1: you'll be asked to pay some money and provide personal
Speaker 1: details to make your claim and help facilitate the legal
Speaker 1: and financial aspects of the transaction. And that is where
Speaker 1: the con artist fleeces you out of your money. When
Speaker 1: we're talking about a real inheritance, legitimate law for or
Speaker 1: executors of will don't require you to pay a fee
Speaker 1: to find out about your share of an estate. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about how inheritance cons played out when it came
Speaker 1: to swindling the Baker and Drake families, two big names
Speaker 1: in this scam's history.
Speaker 2: Imagine how the Bakers of the world felt when a
Speaker 2: Colonel Jacob Baker died, leaving Inn, a state that included
Speaker 2: most of the land that the city of Philadelphia is
Speaker 2: built on. It was worth billions numbers not adjusted for
Speaker 2: today's dollars. There was no known rightful heir, and the
Speaker 2: estate remained unprobated. If you're waiting for the gotcha moment
Speaker 2: here it is. There was a problem with the Baker estate,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't the lack of an heir. The problem
Speaker 2: was the story was a total fabrication. Colonel Jacob Baker
Speaker 2: was a fictional character. There was no estate, no inheritance,
Speaker 2: and a man named William Cameron morro Smith and his
Speaker 2: associates collected millions of dollars from home hopeful heirs before
Speaker 2: the so called Baker Airs swindle was shut down in
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 1: Cameron Smith began his baker Air swindle by publishing ads
Speaker 1: in newspapers announcing the death of a wealthy colonel with
Speaker 1: Jacob Baker from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and he gave his character
Speaker 1: quite a life story. In his life, Smith stated Baker
Speaker 1: had been a German born surveyor who settled in Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: in seventeen sixty five. He had volunteered and served as
Speaker 1: a surgeon in the Continental Army during the American Revolution,
Speaker 1: and as a reward for his service, he was given
Speaker 1: some pretty extensive, expansive and expensive land grants, much containing
Speaker 1: valuable coal, lead, and zinc deposits. The worth of this
Speaker 1: estate over the years had grown upwards of three billion dollars,
Speaker 1: according to Smith's ads, and equaled nearly the entire city
Speaker 1: of Philadelphia in size inc ll It did significant city properties.
Speaker 1: We're talking about Independence Hall, Franklin Square, and the US Mint.
Speaker 1: But the ad stated Baker had no air. Smith marketed
Speaker 1: himself as the guy who could happily help you claim
Speaker 1: your right to that Baker fortune for a fee. Of course.
Speaker 1: That fee seems to have been somewhere between a dollar
Speaker 1: and twenty dollars, and occasionally higher. It seemed to many
Speaker 1: like a reasonable price to pay to help get that
Speaker 1: huge inheritance, and just like that, Smith's con was up
Speaker 1: and running.
Speaker 2: Smith told those who paid into his scam that their fee,
Speaker 2: paid up front, of course, would be pooled and used
Speaker 2: to find the legal and rightful heir or heirs to
Speaker 2: the Baker fortune. There would be lawyers to pay, there
Speaker 2: would be genealogists to pay. Anyone with the surname Baker,
Speaker 2: living domestically or abroad was welcome to make a claim.
Speaker 2: Just make that checkout to the firm of William Cameron
Speaker 2: Morrow Smith. The the first group of potential Baker airs,
Speaker 2: once legally organized with Smith's help became known as the
Speaker 2: Baker Airs Association, and though the original group began in Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: local associations quickly popped up around the country as well
Speaker 2: as across Canada. These established groups would typically collect dues
Speaker 2: from members and also organize events to attract new do
Speaker 2: paying members. Press coverage of the Airs Association meetings paint
Speaker 2: a picture of how members and attendance were united in
Speaker 2: a quote sense of outrage at being denied their birthright,
Speaker 2: a shared resentment that transcended class and gender.
Speaker 1: Just as those associations were literally all over the map,
Speaker 1: they were also all over the place when it came
Speaker 1: to their rules. Some required proof of lineage to the
Speaker 1: Baker family, others allowed anyone, meaning non Bakers to buy
Speaker 1: in regardless of ancestry. Hundreds of people with and without
Speaker 1: the life lass named Baker paid to be part of
Speaker 1: this scam, hoping to be the colonel's heir, and the
Speaker 1: con even went beyond North America. Families in England and
Speaker 1: in other European countries were filing claims with Baker Associations
Speaker 1: in the United States and Canada. Because Jacob Baker wasn't
Speaker 1: real all the fee payments and dues sent across the
Speaker 1: Atlantic went to lining the pockets of Smith and his accomplices.
Speaker 2: Though Smith had published ads and newspapers to garner attention
Speaker 2: to his inheritance scam, he and his accomplices used the
Speaker 2: Postal Service to solicit money through the mail. So we're
Speaker 2: talking about those fees people paid to join the club
Speaker 2: because anyone who thought they might be a Baker descendant
Speaker 2: paid an enrollment fee and then monthly dues. Inheritance scams
Speaker 2: like this one can also be a type of advanced
Speaker 2: fee scam, give me money before I give you nothing
Speaker 2: in return. The reality is but as we say to see,
Speaker 2: with Smith and his use of the Postal Service to
Speaker 2: collect fees, his scam could also be considered mail fraud.
Speaker 2: Mail fraud can include a few types of schemes, including
Speaker 2: things like financial fraud, scams to get you to pay
Speaker 2: for free services, or sweepstakes fraud. It also includes cons
Speaker 2: like phony inheritance scams, and that's because they often come
Speaker 2: with this caveat you need to first send a payment
Speaker 2: before any money can be released to you. The United
Speaker 2: States Postal Service has a law enforcement arm called the
Speaker 2: United States Postal Inspection Service or the postal inspectors. Using
Speaker 2: the postal service in part of any scheme to try
Speaker 2: to procure funds through dishonest means is a federal offense.
Speaker 2: So whether Smith's con had been successful or not, just
Speaker 2: making that mail fraud gesture was an offense. And the
Speaker 2: reason we bring all this up is it was a
Speaker 2: team of postal inspectors who brought down the Baker Airs swindle.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a break for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsors, and when we're back, we'll talk about how
Speaker 1: postal inspectors were the key to ruining William Cameron Morrow Smith's.
Speaker 2: Common Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's meet Postmaster Inspector Alfred T.
Speaker 2: Hawksworth and how he and his team took on fraud.
Speaker 1: In nineteen oh two, postal inspectors started investigating inheritance schemes,
Speaker 1: but for many years they had little success in stopping them.
Speaker 1: Of the Baker Air swindle investigation Postmaster Inspector Alfred T.
Speaker 1: Hawksworth of Philadelphia stated quote. For about seventy years, rumors
Speaker 1: have been repeated about a mythical Jacob Baker estate in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: which for various reasons, has been unprobated. Numerous heirs. Associations
Speaker 1: have been formed with the idea of forcing distribution of
Speaker 1: this non existent estate. The promoters in the three associations
Speaker 1: indicted today claimed it to be worth anywhere from one
Speaker 1: point eight billion to three billion dollars. It is the
Speaker 1: biggest mail fraud case I believe the Department has ever encountered,
Speaker 1: involving both in of persons and money. The sheer number
Speaker 1: of people involved in this scam was more than the
Speaker 1: Postal Inspectors had ever seen in this sort of case,
Speaker 1: and after spending more than eighteen months on the investigation
Speaker 1: with a great deal of travel around the country following Leeds,
Speaker 1: Hawksworth was the first person who named William Cameron Morrow
Speaker 1: Smith as the head of the racket.
Speaker 2: Smith and his associates had forged a few important documents
Speaker 2: for their swindle, probably in case any one of the
Speaker 2: Bakers asked for coro reading documentation, and that included creating
Speaker 2: an alleged will of Jacob Baker as well as a
Speaker 2: few other estate related letters. Things really started moving against
Speaker 2: Smith when Postal Inspectors were able to get their hands
Speaker 2: on that alleged will and with it soon discovered well.
Speaker 2: They discovered some interesting things through forensic analysis which did
Speaker 2: exist at the time but wasn't nearly as helpful as
Speaker 2: it can be today. They concluded that the paper the
Speaker 2: will was written on was manufactured in eighteen ninety. Jacob Baker, however,
Speaker 2: Smith had claimed, had died in eighteen thirty nine, so
Speaker 2: the paper, they concluded, had been artificially aged. Then there
Speaker 2: were the signatures of the witnesses to the will, which
Speaker 2: through handwriting analysis, inspectors also concluded had been forged.
Speaker 1: With a now questionable will in hand. Inspectors then searched
Speaker 1: the land's title records of every county in Pennsylvania looking
Speaker 1: for the colonel's estate. They reviewed roughly seventy five years
Speaker 1: worth of information, According to Postal Inspector Hawksworth, His department
Speaker 1: investigated the estates of more than two hundred deceased Jacob
Speaker 1: Bakers in Pennsylvania and found them all closed and legally so.
Speaker 1: They concluded no such a state belonging to a Jacob
Speaker 1: Baker ever existed in the state. And then they proved
Speaker 1: something huge. There was no one named Jacob Baker from
Speaker 1: the state of Pennsylvania who had served as a commissioned
Speaker 1: officer in the Continental Army or Navy during the American
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War. And on top of that, even if there
Speaker 1: had been a Colonel Jacob Baker, which there had not been,
Speaker 1: there was also no record of the United States Government
Speaker 1: or Continental Congress giving any land grants regarding wartime service
Speaker 1: to anyone with the surname Baker who resided in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Nothing matched up.
Speaker 2: Directly to Hawksworth's investigation. The decades long Colonel Baker's estate
Speaker 2: con topple. On December fifteenth, nineteen thirty six, and this
Speaker 2: is many years after Smith had taken out his initial
Speaker 2: newspaper advertisement, a federal grand jury returned three blanket indictments
Speaker 2: accusing twenty eight persons in three cities of promoting a
Speaker 2: male fraud scheme, a scheme in which, according to Thomas W. Lanagan,
Speaker 2: who was the special assistant US Attorney, more than three
Speaker 2: million dollars had been collected through fraudulent means from more
Speaker 2: than three thousand people. That's roughly sixty five million dollars
Speaker 2: in today's money. The Baker Airs swindle had grown large
Speaker 2: over the years, and there were numerous regional associations in
Speaker 2: addition to outposts set up by Smith's scronies in numerous states.
Speaker 2: The indictments focused on three specific associations headquartered in the
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania cities of Johnstown, Altoona, and Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: Smith was residing at the Posh Powaton Hotel in Washington,
Speaker 1: D C. When he was named by authorities as the
Speaker 1: leader of the first group of Baker swindlers to be indicted.
Speaker 1: He was listed with the association out of Johnstown, and
Speaker 1: emeryle Liken Biddy, age sixty eight, of Altoona was listed
Speaker 1: as the leader of the second association, and two women,
Speaker 1: a Missus Margaret Lighthill and A Bertha Ross Dodson, both
Speaker 1: homemakers living in Pittsburgh, were listed as the leaders of
Speaker 1: the third association. Other defendants named included mister and Missus
Speaker 1: William S. Miller of Indiana, Pennsylvania. David J. Anderson, Fred F. Sprangle, W. H. C. Sprangle,
Speaker 1: fred Dore Henry Wolford, all of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. N. H.
Speaker 1: Blow of Davidsville, Pennsylvania, George Felix Kinkel, Mister and Missus
Speaker 1: Milton E. Best and Lewis C. Walkinshaw all of Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: Roy L. Biddle of Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, John A. Biddle and
Speaker 1: Woren H. Biddle of Altoona, Pennsylvania, Jacob Latshaw of Loisburg, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: And A. C. A. McCallum of Mendon, Missouri. Unlike all
Speaker 1: of the others, McCallum was actually named in two of
Speaker 1: the indictments.
Speaker 2: More than five hundred people agreed to testify in front
Speaker 2: of a federal grand jury against Smith, the Baker Airs Association,
Speaker 2: and its defendants. According to court records, some of the
Speaker 2: purported heirs had paid fees totaling as much as nine
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. One man had mortgaged his home to contribute
Speaker 2: seventeen hundred dollars. Another hopeful heir had sent in six
Speaker 2: thousand dollars to Smith. As we mentioned, depending on the
Speaker 2: association you were with, fees varied, and apparently by a lot.
Speaker 1: Many convictions were handed out. In nineteen thirty six. Smith
Speaker 1: was charged with conspiring to take possession of an estate
Speaker 1: on December twenty second, nineteen thirty three, January twenty fifth, nine,
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty four, April sixth, nineteen thirty four. The list
Speaker 1: of dates is extensive, and we won't bore you with
Speaker 1: all of them. But the thing to note here was
Speaker 1: Smith was not convicted, not at that time, but that
Speaker 1: didn't mean that the case against him was completely dropped.
Speaker 1: In the next move against him, any and all documents
Speaker 1: relating to the Baker estate remaining in the hands of
Speaker 1: any of the defendants were impounded by the court. That
Speaker 1: was followed by court order for all files and papers
Speaker 1: deposited by Smith at the Fidelity Philadelphia Trust Company to
Speaker 1: be turned over to postal inspectors. Also by court order.
Speaker 1: All evidence related to the case was then sent to
Speaker 1: a man we mentioned earlier, Thomas W. Lanagan, special assistant
Speaker 1: US Attorney, who was located in Washington, d C. In
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven, in the case of the United States
Speaker 1: versus William Cameron Morrow Smith, Smith was convicted of defrauding
Speaker 1: at various places on humorous dates. Authorities noted that any
Speaker 1: officials or leaders of any other Baker associations in other
Speaker 1: parts of the country might be indicted later as well,
Speaker 1: and they were across all of North America. That list
Speaker 1: includes a man named W. H. Baker. We finally found
Speaker 1: one who supplied the long con with a fake Baker
Speaker 1: family genealogy. The fakest family tree you ever did see.
Speaker 2: We're going to take a break for a word from
Speaker 2: our sponsor, and when we're back, we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about another inheritance scam, one based on a real and
Speaker 2: famous person rather than a fictional one.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Criminalium. As we said at the top
Speaker 1: of the show, this is a two for one inheritance
Speaker 1: scam bonanza. Cameron's Smith was not the only swindler running
Speaker 1: a long con inheritance scam in the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about a man named Oscar Hartzel and how
Speaker 1: he defrauded hopeful heirs to a three hundred plus year
Speaker 1: old famous and this time real fortune.
Speaker 2: Around the same time as William Cameron Morrow Smith's KHN
Speaker 2: the early nineteen hundreds, a scam was pulled on persons
Speaker 2: with the last name Drake, heirs of the Elizabethan explorer,
Speaker 2: Sir Francis Drake. Drake. If you weren't familiar with him,
Speaker 2: really had a big life. Will hit a few highlights.
Speaker 2: He was an English admiral in Queen Elizabeth's Royal Navy
Speaker 2: and was knighted in fifteen eighty one. He was the
Speaker 2: first Englishman to circumnavigate the Globe and considered an English
Speaker 2: hero for defeating the Spanish Armada. He was also reviled
Speaker 2: as a pirate or technically privateer, as he got paid
Speaker 2: for his piracy by the Queen. He died in fifteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Six, so fast forward a few centuries to the nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: when his estate unexpectedly came back to life, kind of.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifteen, an Iowan named Oscar Merril Hartzell was
Speaker 1: conned out of six thousand dollars with the promise of
Speaker 1: a peace of the unclaimed six million dollar fortune of
Speaker 1: Sir Francis Drake. After realizing that he had been ripped off, Hartzell,
Speaker 1: a former deputy sheriff, decided, if you can't beat him,
Speaker 1: join them, So in nineteen nineteen he launched his own
Speaker 1: confidence scam, and he didn't really stray from the one
Speaker 1: he'd previously fallen victim to. It was an inheritance con
Speaker 1: in which he claimed the estate of Sir Francis Drake
Speaker 1: had not been rightfully distributed. He began contacting people with
Speaker 1: the surname Drake across North America out of the blue,
Speaker 1: explaining that they could be an heir to a large fortune.
Speaker 1: Though Drake had died centuries earlier. His estate, Hertzel explained,
Speaker 1: had never been closed. With the interest that it gained
Speaker 1: over the last three hundred years. It was now estimated,
Speaker 1: he said, to be worth one hundred billion dollars, and
Speaker 1: all you had to do to get a share of
Speaker 1: those billions was to join him in a lawsuit against
Speaker 1: the British government. And to do so you just needed
Speaker 1: to send him money, and hopeful Drake Ears did just that.
Speaker 2: Hertzel's Drake estate swindle was nothing new, nor was he
Speaker 2: the best at it. Promoters of a Drake estate scam
Speaker 2: began appearing in the American Midwest around nineteen hundred. In
Speaker 2: early versions of the scam, con artists primarily swindled just
Speaker 2: people with the surname Drake. In later years, scammers widened
Speaker 2: their audience to basically anyone willing to pay to get in.
Speaker 2: The most successful Drake estate scammer unaffiliated with Hartzell, was
Speaker 2: a woman named Sue D. Whittaker, a raven haired widow
Speaker 2: in her mid thirties. She ran her version of the
Speaker 2: con like this. The rightful heir to the Drake fortune
Speaker 2: had immigrated to America during the eighteenth century. The line
Speaker 2: of descent she claimed could be traced to a man
Speaker 2: named George Drake of Roachport, Missouri, who, as chance would
Speaker 2: have it, was a cousin of hers. So what luck,
Speaker 2: as you can imagine.
Speaker 1: As there was no actual inheritance from the Drake estate,
Speaker 1: there was no lawsuit to file or fund, and Hartzel
Speaker 1: took the money that potential and hopeful heirs had sent
Speaker 1: and relocated himself to London, where he used the fees
Speaker 1: paid by his marks to live luxuriously in the city.
Speaker 1: He explained to hopeful Drake airs that his relocation from
Speaker 1: Iowa to Britain was going to help his negotiations with
Speaker 1: the British government. He also told them that he needed
Speaker 1: them to send a little more money to help cover
Speaker 1: his expenses.
Speaker 2: Once in London. It didn't really take very long for
Speaker 2: Hertzel's con to be discovered. By August of nineteen twenty two,
Speaker 2: the British Home Office, alerted to Hartzell and suspicious of
Speaker 2: his activities, informed the American embassy that there was no
Speaker 2: unclaimed Sir Francis Drake estate, yet there was an American
Speaker 2: man claiming otherwise. In response, the United States Federal Bureau
Speaker 2: of Investigation opened an inquiry, and they concluded that Drake's
Speaker 2: wife had in fact duly inherited his estate in fifteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven. There was nothing to see here. This was
Speaker 2: a long closed deal, but that information didn't stop people
Speaker 2: from donating to Hartzell. In total, he swindled at least
Speaker 2: two million dollars, which is not adjusted for today's money,
Speaker 2: from about eighty thousand people and possibly as many as
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: The con finally came to an end, just as it
Speaker 1: did with the Baker Airs swindle, when the United States
Speaker 1: Postal Services Postal Inspectors got the case for mail fraud. Hartzell,
Speaker 1: like Smith, had collected fees sent through the United States
Speaker 1: Postal Service. Postal Service inspector John Sparks, together with detectives
Speaker 1: at Scotland Yard, arrested some of Hartzell's associates on both
Speaker 1: sides of the pond. Some of them cracked under questioning.
Speaker 1: Scotland Yard, too, had been keeping a file on Hartzell
Speaker 1: containing detective reports, witness statements, newspaper clippings, and a chronology
Speaker 1: of Hartzell's life while he lived in England.
Speaker 2: As a result of those years, of investigation, Hartzell was
Speaker 2: extradited from England to the United States on January ninth,
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three. He was arrested upon his arrival on
Speaker 2: a French ocean liner in New York City and held
Speaker 2: on ten thousand dollars bond. His Drake followers, ever loyal
Speaker 2: to the possibility of fortune, began to hound their local
Speaker 2: senators and congressmen, who called them drakers, to set him free. Instead,
Speaker 2: Hartzell was put on trial in Sioux City, Iowa. In
Speaker 2: anticipation for and throughout his trial, his drakers sent him
Speaker 2: roughly seventy thousand dollars for his defense, which is a
Speaker 2: little bit more than a million and a half in
Speaker 2: today's money.
Speaker 1: On November fifteenth that year, Hartzell was found guilty on
Speaker 1: twelve federal charges of quote, using the mails to defraud,
Speaker 1: and collection of funds for his enterprise. In federal court.
Speaker 1: George C. Scott, judge of the United States District Court
Speaker 1: for the Northern District of Iowa, sentenced him to ten
Speaker 1: years in a federal penitentiary and fined him with two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Yes, in case you are a history buff
Speaker 1: and you're wondering This is the same George C. Scott,
Speaker 1: who had also served in the United States Congress from
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve to nineteen fifteen and again from nineteen seventeen
Speaker 1: to nineteen nineteen, and of course not at all to
Speaker 1: be confused with George C. Scott, the actor who was
Speaker 1: not born until nineteen twenty seven. Hertzell was in prison
Speaker 1: at Levenworth Penitentiary, at least initially. During his incarceration, he
Speaker 1: was determined by prison doctors to be, as was written
Speaker 1: in his file, mentally unfit, and he was transferred to
Speaker 1: the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, and
Speaker 1: that was his home when he died in nineteen forty three.
Speaker 2: What can we take away from this scam? Junk mail
Speaker 2: has been around for a long time, apparently, is what
Speaker 2: I take away from it. But Quiff's aside, the tricks
Speaker 2: confidence artists use help them exploit some common negative human characteristics,
Speaker 2: such as greed, vanity, opportunism, desperation, and often just naivete.
Speaker 2: There is no profile of an inheritance scam victim or
Speaker 2: simply a confidence trick victim other than just being human.
Speaker 2: But while you're busy being human, it doesn't hurt to
Speaker 2: ask a lot of questions if something sounds too good
Speaker 2: to be true, because it almost always is. Except for
Speaker 2: this drink that Holly has for maybe yes, we'll see
Speaker 2: no pressure.
Speaker 1: I'm calling this one association dues. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: come up with something that is super duper delicious and yummy,
Speaker 1: but then also starts to taste a little different as
Speaker 1: you go. We haven't done like a flavor release ice
Speaker 1: cube in a minute, we haven't. And this one's very simple.
Speaker 1: You might actually even like it better as the ice
Speaker 1: cream health. But to start, you're going to combine half
Speaker 1: a cup of lemon juice and in this case, if
Speaker 1: you want to do fresh squeezed, great, but if you
Speaker 1: want to just do the squeezy one, that's also fine.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to judge. Because you're taking that and
Speaker 1: combining it with half a cup of water, and you
Speaker 1: want to mix it well together, put it into your
Speaker 1: ice trays and freeze it so those are getting ready.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, once you have ice, you're ready to
Speaker 1: make a cocktail. And for this you're going to pre
Speaker 1: chill your classes and while you're doing that, into your
Speaker 1: shaker will go half an ounce of lemon juice, half
Speaker 1: an ounce of Marisquino liqueur, and an ounce and a
Speaker 1: half of gin. And then you're also gonna throw in
Speaker 1: a splash of crumb to violet oh, just like a
Speaker 1: little a bar spooner less to taste, and then about
Speaker 1: three quarters of an ounce of low sugar apple juice,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna shake it. So if you go just
Speaker 1: to the crumb to violette, you've made a classic drink
Speaker 1: called an aviation congratulations. But we want it to be
Speaker 1: a little sweeter. That's a very It's a drinker's drink,
Speaker 1: is what I would say. Right. There's high alcohol content
Speaker 1: to it, and it tastes like a drink, so we
Speaker 1: want to add a little bit of apple juice to
Speaker 1: make it like a sweeter, slightly different thing. And then
Speaker 1: you're gonna shake that altogether. You're gonna strain it into
Speaker 1: your pre chilled glass. Normally a drink like this you
Speaker 1: might not add ice, but in this case, we're gonna
Speaker 1: add one to two of those lemon ice cubes, depending
Speaker 1: on the size of your ice. If you have those
Speaker 1: bigger square cocktail ice cube trays like you might use
Speaker 1: for an old fashioned just the woman, obviously, but if
Speaker 1: your ice trays are making smaller ice, you can just
Speaker 1: use a couple. And so as you drink this delightful
Speaker 1: cocktail starts to become more and more tart and make
Speaker 1: you pucker a little more because the ice starts melting
Speaker 1: and it gets more and more citrusy, and that citrus
Speaker 1: is not sweet, and you may suspect that you have
Speaker 1: been duped, which I imagine is what it's like to think
Speaker 1: that you're gonna inherit a ton of money and be
Speaker 1: all hopeful and then be like, this doesn't feel as
Speaker 1: good anymore.
Speaker 2: This is the drink. That is how the baker's felt
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 1: That is correct. That is correct. To make the mocktail,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy. You're gonna do that same half ounce
Speaker 1: of lemon juice. You will use a half ounce of
Speaker 1: like cherry juice. You can use the stuff from your
Speaker 1: marachino cherries if you want, but if if you do,
Speaker 1: I suggest adding something like bitters if you are willing
Speaker 1: to include those. They do have, as we always say,
Speaker 1: a tiny bit of alcohol to them, but it's so small.
Speaker 1: You're doing drops at that point, so it's minuscule. If
Speaker 1: you don't want to do that. You could do something else,
Speaker 1: like add a little bit of pepper to it. I
Speaker 1: love doing that to things, to make them a little different.
Speaker 1: In lieu of gin, I suggest an ounce and a
Speaker 1: half of lavender tea.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this is developing a good mocktail.
Speaker 1: I know, right, this mocktail is pretty good. And then
Speaker 1: obviously just a violet syrup instead of crumb to violette.
Speaker 1: The rest stays the same, very yummy. If you want listen,
Speaker 1: just leave out that ice cube and have a delicious drink.
Speaker 1: That's fine, live in your hope. But if you want
Speaker 1: the true Baker experience, go ahead and let it race
Speaker 1: against time as you drink to see if you can
Speaker 1: handle it. But that is the association duce. Well, longer
Speaker 1: you pay them, the less delightful it feels. That's fine.
Speaker 2: I'm dead, I'm broke, Maria.
Speaker 1: Thank you for spending this time with us. We hope
Speaker 1: you don't feel duped and that you had a good time.
Speaker 1: We will be right back here again next week with
Speaker 1: another story of scams and another drink to enjoy. We
Speaker 1: hope we will see you right back here then. Criminalia
Speaker 1: is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.