Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio, called the largest art theft
Speaker 1: in the country's history by the Journal Canadian Art in
Speaker 1: The Skylight Caper, as it's been nicknamed, was a major
Speaker 1: news event in its own right, but it was just
Speaker 1: one of several major news stories to occur over the
Speaker 1: Labor Day weekend of seventy two in Montreal, Canada, and
Speaker 1: it got a little bit lost in the shuffle. On
Speaker 1: Friday that weekend, three men were refused entry to Montreal's
Speaker 1: Wagon Wheel a country in Western bar and in retaliation,
Speaker 1: set fire to a rear staircase. The blaze ultimately consumed
Speaker 1: the building and killed thirty seven people. The next day,
Speaker 1: Canada lost the opening game of the nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: Summit Series to the Soviet Union at the Montreal Forum,
Speaker 1: and hockey was all that the media and really almost
Speaker 1: everyone could talk about. The seventy two hockey series has
Speaker 1: since been called the greatest event in Canadian sports. By
Speaker 1: the time the Skylight Caper unfolded in the early morning
Speaker 1: hours on Monday, Canada was immersed in the games, and
Speaker 1: internationally attention was focused on the unfolding Munich Olympics hostage crisis,
Speaker 1: and what went down was an art heist that left
Speaker 1: dozens of paintings and objects missing and most still are today.
Speaker 1: Welcome to criminal lya, I'm Maria trum Marquis and I'm
Speaker 1: Holly Frying. One of the world's greatest unsolved art thefts,
Speaker 1: which included De la Croix, Rubens and Rembrandt, happened in Montreal, Quebec,
Speaker 1: Canada in ninety two. Seventeen paintings remain missing, and the
Speaker 1: cat burglars behind the incident have never been apprehended. This
Speaker 1: story outs a lot like a Hollywood script. Just after
Speaker 1: midnight on September four, under the cover of darkness, a
Speaker 1: man wearing climbing spurs, you know the kind that are
Speaker 1: used by telephone linemen, scaled one of the trees on
Speaker 1: the property between the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and
Speaker 1: the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul. Gaining access
Speaker 1: to the museum's roof, he lowered a construction cruise ladder
Speaker 1: to two men who were waiting below. The three men
Speaker 1: then entered the building through the one skylight that was
Speaker 1: under repair. Its alarm was deliberately disarmed for construction. They
Speaker 1: repelled through the skylight with fifty ft or fifteen meter
Speaker 1: fixed nylon ropes into the galleries of the museum's second floor.
Speaker 1: Katherine Scofield says Kim, contributor to the Association for Research
Speaker 1: into Crimes Against Art, said what we are all thinking quote,
Speaker 1: it was a very cinematic theft on the second floor
Speaker 1: of the museum that the thieves, donning ski masks, spent
Speaker 1: roughly thirty minutes or so gathering paintings and other objects
Speaker 1: before they encountered a security guard crossing paths with them
Speaker 1: either in or nearby the kitchen. The thieves were armed.
Speaker 1: At least one had a twelve gage shotgun and another
Speaker 1: may have had a revolver. One thief fired a warning
Speaker 1: shot from that shotgun into the ceiling, not really to
Speaker 1: cause harm, but as an indication of who was in
Speaker 1: charge here. The two other night guards on duty heard
Speaker 1: the gunfire, and though they responded, they were overwhelmed. Security
Speaker 1: staff were bound, gagged and locked in a lecture hall
Speaker 1: on the first floor. The guards later described to police
Speaker 1: that the thieves were two men with longish hair, wearing
Speaker 1: ski masks and armed with guns. One spoke French and
Speaker 1: another spoke English. They heard the voice of a third
Speaker 1: man who also spoke French, though they never saw him.
Speaker 1: Police never recovered the shotgun or revolver that were said
Speaker 1: to have been at the scene. The thieves had planned
Speaker 1: to exit the museum through the same skylight that they
Speaker 1: had entered, and they had actually mcgivered quite an elaborate
Speaker 1: pulley system to hoist the artworks up to the roofs
Speaker 1: so that they could then take them away, but they
Speaker 1: ultimately gave up on this pulley plan, instead collecting the
Speaker 1: artworks and other items at the museum's loading dock to
Speaker 1: escape in the museum's small cargo van, But when one
Speaker 1: of the men triggered the alarm while exiting the side
Speaker 1: entrance of the museum, the trio just decided to leave
Speaker 1: with whatever they could carry. They fled on foot with
Speaker 1: eighteen paintings and thirty nine smaller pieces, mainly jewelry, down
Speaker 1: Sherbrooke Street. Among the paintings were works by Caro Corbet
Speaker 1: de Lacroix, Broigel, the Elder Rubens, and a Rembrandt that
Speaker 1: was then valued at one million dollars. Among the objects
Speaker 1: were to seventeenth century Spanish pendants, and an eighteenth century
Speaker 1: gold watch that had once been owned by Montreal's first mayor,
Speaker 1: Jacques via It's reported it took the museum guards about
Speaker 1: an hour to free themselves after the thieves left, at
Speaker 1: which point they contacted Well. No, they did not contact
Speaker 1: the police. They contacted the highest ranking available member of
Speaker 1: the museum's staff that they could think of, the then curator,
Speaker 1: Ruth Jackson, who then instructed them to contact the police.
Speaker 1: Jackson was among the first museum staff at the scene
Speaker 1: of the crime, and reports she found the gallery rants
Speaker 1: act shattered display cases, torn backing, and many hundred year
Speaker 1: old frames cracked to pieces. There was a stack of
Speaker 1: about twenty paintings left behind, which contained a Picasso and
Speaker 1: al Greco, two goyas, a Renoir, and another Rembrandt. We
Speaker 1: talk a lot about the masters and their works, but
Speaker 1: museum officials noted that thieves did also select works from
Speaker 1: lesser known artists and works from more obscure collections. Those
Speaker 1: paintings had value that would be considered more academic or
Speaker 1: historic in nature rather than obvious. Jackson later told the
Speaker 1: Montreal Gazette quote with what they'd proposed to remove. It
Speaker 1: was just like they meant a general clear out of
Speaker 1: the museum. News of the robbery and the names of
Speaker 1: the stolen works were printed in newspapers across North America
Speaker 1: and eventually around the world. Museum spokesperson at the time,
Speaker 1: Bill Banti told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or CBC quote,
Speaker 1: they were discriminating thieves and had a fairly good idea
Speaker 1: of what they were looking for. The thieves got away
Speaker 1: with these eighteen paintings. Number one Landscape with Vehicles and Cattle.
Speaker 1: This painting, which was subsequently recovered during ransom negotiations, had
Speaker 1: been attributed to Jan Breigel the Elder, but was later
Speaker 1: determined to have been the work of his students. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit more about this one in
Speaker 1: a minute. To Landscape with buildings and Wagon by Joan
Speaker 1: Broigel the Elder. Three Laavosa la Fontaine or the Dreamer
Speaker 1: at the Fountain by Jean Baptiste Camille Corot for Jean
Speaker 1: fame Ach or young girl leaning on her left arm
Speaker 1: by Jean Baptiste Camillo Caro. Five Landscape with Rocks and
Speaker 1: stream by Gustave Courbet. Six Head by honore A Daumier seven,
Speaker 1: Lioness and Lion in a Cave by Eugene Delacroix. Eight,
Speaker 1: The Sorceress by Narcis Virgilio Diaz de la Pa nine.
Speaker 1: Portrait of Brigadier General Sir Thomas Fletcher by Thomas Gainsborough.
Speaker 1: Ten Vanitas, still Life with books, a globe, a skull
Speaker 1: of violin and a fan by Jon David zund Him eleven,
Speaker 1: still Life with a fish by Jon David zund Him twelve.
Speaker 1: Laboratus or young Woman churning by Jean Francois Millay thirteen,
Speaker 1: Portrait of Madame Milais by Jean Francois Mela fourteen. Portrait
Speaker 1: of a Man, possibly a self portrait by Giovanni Battista Piazetta. Fifteen,
Speaker 1: Landscape with cottages by Rembrandt von Riene sixteen, Head of
Speaker 1: a young Man by Peter Paul Rubens seventeen, Portrait of
Speaker 1: a Lady by Francois le Vensson. Eighteen Portrait of a
Speaker 1: Man by francoisanble Vinson. Police later concluded that the works
Speaker 1: on this list were all small enough to be easily
Speaker 1: stacked together for a quick getaway, and the same could
Speaker 1: not be said for the pile of art that had
Speaker 1: been left behind. This all made sense knowing that the
Speaker 1: thieves fled on foot and fast Montreal investigators contacted Interpol
Speaker 1: as well as the Art Dealers Association and the International
Speaker 1: Art Registry to help in the investigation and art recovery process.
Speaker 1: Customs officials at border checkpoints were also alerted to be
Speaker 1: on the watch for the stolen works. Investigators initially stated
Speaker 1: they were looking for at least suspect a man between
Speaker 1: the age of thirty five and forty. There really wasn't
Speaker 1: a lot of information to work with, but they did
Speaker 1: broaden their search details to include three men, two of
Speaker 1: whom were approximately five ft six and had long hair,
Speaker 1: and two of whom spoke French while the third spoke English.
Speaker 1: And that was it. Those were the details. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a break for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 1: and when we're back we'll answer the question, just how
Speaker 1: did those thieves know which skylight to enter? Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Criminalia. Let's talk about what happened when the alleged
Speaker 1: thieves tried to collect ransom. The two art heist wasn't
Speaker 1: actually the first time thieves targeted the Montreal Museum of
Speaker 1: Fine Arts. In nine teen thirty three, a man removed
Speaker 1: a dozen paintings from the gallery space through an open
Speaker 1: bathroom window, eventually holding the works for ransom. We've seen
Speaker 1: that bathroom window business before. You know, there are clear patterns.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty, thieves were foiled while trying to rob
Speaker 1: a Vincent van Gogh exhibit. More recently, in eleven, two
Speaker 1: artifacts were stolen from the museum's permanent collection in broad daylight.
Speaker 1: In fact, it happened during visiting hours on the anniversary
Speaker 1: of the nineteen seventy two crime. One of those two pieces,
Speaker 1: a fragment of a Persian bab relief dating from the
Speaker 1: fifth century b c E, was recovered by the Surate
Speaker 1: di Quebec in Edmonton three years later. The second piece,
Speaker 1: a Roman marble statuette dating from the first century CE,
Speaker 1: has never been recovered. As their investigation began, authorities were
Speaker 1: suspicious how that thieves knew there was one skylight with
Speaker 1: a deactivated alarm, and investigators considered the possibility the theft
Speaker 1: was actually an inside job. However, after interviewing museum staff,
Speaker 1: they determined this to be inconclusive. Plus, would someone from
Speaker 1: the inside have tripped an alarm, they wondered. Many museum
Speaker 1: employees reported they'd seen in the weeks preceding the theft,
Speaker 1: men sitting unfolding chairs on the rooftop of an adjacent building,
Speaker 1: smoking cigarettes, and apparently watching the museum's renovations very closely.
Speaker 1: What followed the heist was a series of seemingly arbitrary
Speaker 1: yet related events. Not long after the theft, someone claiming
Speaker 1: responsibility for it directed museum officials to go to a
Speaker 1: pay phone outside McGill University's rotic gates, where they could
Speaker 1: expect to find a discarded cigarette package on the ground.
Speaker 1: Officials did as this tip told them, and inside that
Speaker 1: package they found appendant, which was one of the stolen items. Then,
Speaker 1: in late October of nineteen two, museum officials received a
Speaker 1: brown envelope labeled Ports of Montreal. The contents were photos
Speaker 1: of the missing paintings with a requested ransom of five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for both paintings and objects. In correspondence with
Speaker 1: the alleged thieves, which happened through phone calls and mail,
Speaker 1: the director of the museum suggested returning one of the
Speaker 1: taken paintings as a sign of good faith, a painting
Speaker 1: was selected, landscape with vehicles and cattle, which was at
Speaker 1: the time attributed to young Broygal the Elder. It was
Speaker 1: returned by those who had taken it, left in a
Speaker 1: locker at Central Station unharmed as part of the act
Speaker 1: of good faith during negotiations. When inspected upon its recovery,
Speaker 1: though experts found well, they uncovered a few problems. The
Speaker 1: painting and the signat sure were inconsistent with Brogel, the
Speaker 1: artist the piece had been attributed to since it was
Speaker 1: painted in the mid sixteen hundreds. The work was determined
Speaker 1: to be misattributed, and that means it was determined unlikely
Speaker 1: by museum experts to have been painted by this great master.
Speaker 1: It was instead concluded to be a copy of the
Speaker 1: original painted by students in Brogel's workshop. Did the thieves
Speaker 1: know that the painting they returned in a show of
Speaker 1: good faith was actually a fake? That we will never know.
Speaker 1: The museum did not pay the ransom, and the thieves
Speaker 1: continued to bargain. They dropped their price, though, from half
Speaker 1: a million to two hundred fifty thousand dollars. Instead, the
Speaker 1: museum requested another show of good faith they wanted another painting.
Speaker 1: Using an undercover officer, police carried on and attempted to
Speaker 1: exchange cash for another of the missing paintings, but an
Speaker 1: unexpected and unrelated appearance of a squad car near the
Speaker 1: scene where they were supposed to make this exchange put
Speaker 1: a stop to the handoff. In that moment, that show
Speaker 1: of good faith fell apart, and the alleged thieves called
Speaker 1: museum officials the next morning, claiming that the whole thing
Speaker 1: had been a trap and a police set up. There
Speaker 1: were alleged plans for a secret meeting between museum officials
Speaker 1: and the thieves, but in the end, whether that meeting
Speaker 1: happened or not, because after all, it was a secret,
Speaker 1: nothing more was recovered from this heist, and no one
Speaker 1: was arrested for the matter. Communications ceased shortly after the
Speaker 1: Broigel debacle. A last apparent effort to exchange artwork for
Speaker 1: cash came in the summer of nine three, when an
Speaker 1: anonymous caller contacted the museum offering information that could lead
Speaker 1: to the missing paintings in exchange for ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So they followed this lead an insurance a jester contracted
Speaker 1: on behalf of the museum when on what became really
Speaker 1: a fourteen hour wild goose chase across the city, they
Speaker 1: followed tips from pay phone to pay phone before finally
Speaker 1: being instructed to drop the payout under a sign in
Speaker 1: a vacant law in Laval, a suburb of Montreal. But
Speaker 1: the whole thing was bullshit actually, and the paintings were
Speaker 1: never recovered, and this seems to have been really the
Speaker 1: final recovery effort, or at least the final one that
Speaker 1: gained any news coverage. Within days of the heist, the
Speaker 1: Montreal Gazette reported that there was in fact actually a
Speaker 1: second art heist that had taken place that same week,
Speaker 1: as fifty thou dollars worth of paintings were stolen from
Speaker 1: the summer home of Agnes Meldrum, who ran a successful
Speaker 1: trucking and storage business in the city. Authorities tried to
Speaker 1: link that event to the same thieves. Both were said
Speaker 1: to have involved three armed men, to who spoke French
Speaker 1: and a third who spoke English. At the Meldrum crime scene.
Speaker 1: Ropes were also used here to scale a six foot
Speaker 1: cliff from a waiting motor boat on the Lake of
Speaker 1: Two Mountains in order to gain access to the home. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: though police noted similarities between the crimes, they considered these
Speaker 1: circumstances to be coincidental. We are now going to take
Speaker 1: a break for a word from our sponsor, and when
Speaker 1: we're back we will talk about one theory that art
Speaker 1: students may have been involved in the heist. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Criminalia. Let's meet the Columbo of the art world,
Speaker 1: a man named Alain la Courtier, who may have gotten
Speaker 1: the closest to solving this cold case. Advice for thieves
Speaker 1: that we've seen again and again this season is lalo
Speaker 1: for a few years. If you've nicked some high profile work,
Speaker 1: they need to cool off before they're transported or they're sold.
Speaker 1: Two items, one of two stolen burgles and dependant were
Speaker 1: returned to the museum during the initial ransom and negotiations,
Speaker 1: all within weeks of the crime. But fifty years later,
Speaker 1: nothing else has resurfaced. Nothing has been inadvertently brought to auction,
Speaker 1: nothing has been intercepted or discovered during police raid at
Speaker 1: the home of some criminal kingpin. There are still no leads,
Speaker 1: and still no one has been implicated in the theft.
Speaker 1: Evidence little there ever was was reportedly improperly stored and
Speaker 1: has degraded over time as well, and the museum's insurers
Speaker 1: settled the claim, which means the paintings aren't museum property anymore. Technically,
Speaker 1: if they were to be returned, they would belong to Lloyd's.
Speaker 1: But not everyone has given up on this case. Allain
Speaker 1: le Courtier is today an art praiser, but is a
Speaker 1: former art investigator from Montreal and Quebec police forces. He's
Speaker 1: known as the Columbo of art for his successful efforts
Speaker 1: in investigating other cold case art thefts in Quebec, and
Speaker 1: he took on the Skylight caper as something of a
Speaker 1: pet project during the nineteen nineties. Every solid lead or
Speaker 1: theory that authorities had in the nineteen seventies fell apart,
Speaker 1: and Allen has gone on record with his frustrations over
Speaker 1: the sloppy way with which the investigation was initially handled.
Speaker 1: Early in the investigation, police put some of their focus
Speaker 1: on the possibility that the theft was committed by art students,
Speaker 1: and they surveiled five students for just shy of two
Speaker 1: weeks before they gave up on the lead. Elaine, decades later,
Speaker 1: picked up that lead and began looking into students who
Speaker 1: were at the Cold Bozao in the nineteen seventies, and
Speaker 1: I apologize for what I just did to the name
Speaker 1: of that school, the Fine Arts Institute in Montreal, LA
Speaker 1: And ultimately, like those before him, could not crack this case,
Speaker 1: but he did develop some interesting theories about what may
Speaker 1: have happened. About thirty years after the theft, Elane struck
Speaker 1: up a conversation with a man he would come to
Speaker 1: nickname Smith, a man who was an art student in
Speaker 1: Montreal at the time of the heist. Smith was not
Speaker 1: one of the five suspects initially surveilled by police, though
Speaker 1: he liked to hint he may have been one of them.
Speaker 1: Smith was interesting because he knew details of the crime
Speaker 1: that had never been made public. Smith also seemed to
Speaker 1: have come into a considerable amount of money shortly after
Speaker 1: graduating from school and had become an art collector. Elan
Speaker 1: always maintained that in his gut he knows Smith had
Speaker 1: to have been involved somehow, but Smith, though he may
Speaker 1: have teased otherwise, always denied any involvement. And now we'll
Speaker 1: never know because Smith passed away in or The museum,
Speaker 1: as we mentioned earlier, settled with insurers, and with part
Speaker 1: of the payout in nineteen seventy five, purchased Reubens The
Speaker 1: Leopards in a show of extraordinary bad luck, though and
Speaker 1: adding insult to injury, A conservationist who examined the painting
Speaker 1: after its purchase determined that it, like that Breugel's landscape
Speaker 1: with vehicles and cattle before, it was not what it
Speaker 1: seemed to be. Leo Rossandler, the museum's deputy director in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, is quoted as saying fake is a
Speaker 1: harsh word. But the painting is not by the person
Speaker 1: who was said to have painted it, but probably by
Speaker 1: his studio. The work was not by Reubens but by
Speaker 1: his apprentices, and it has not been exhibited since. A
Speaker 1: subsequent review of the museum's files on the stolen paintings,
Speaker 1: as reported in the Journal of Art Crime in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: revealed that there had been doubts about the authenticity or
Speaker 1: the attribution of seven paintings in the museum's possession, and
Speaker 1: it couldn't be blamed on the heist or sleight of
Speaker 1: hand knockoffs returned in so called good faith by thieves.
Speaker 1: In some cases, the records dated back to at least
Speaker 1: six years before these thefts even took place. It's reported
Speaker 1: that the estimated value of most of the missing pieces
Speaker 1: has dramatically increased since nineteen seventy two, in particular the Rembrandt,
Speaker 1: which some art experts and dealers believe could be worth
Speaker 1: as much as twenty times more than it was when
Speaker 1: it went missing. Today, though there is limited interest among
Speaker 1: a limited group to continue this investigation, the theft is,
Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, a cold case. On the
Speaker 1: fiftieth anniversary of the heist in two, spokesperson a Unique
Speaker 1: de Repentinee of the Montreal Police Department, when asked for
Speaker 1: comment about the unsolved theft, stated that the case is
Speaker 1: still considered open, but offered no further comment. Stated Maud
Speaker 1: belan media relations officer for the museum, quote, any ore
Speaker 1: it works. Theft is a tragedy as it deprives society
Speaker 1: of the benefits of art and knowledge. Of course, we
Speaker 1: would love to have them back. Unfortunately we do not
Speaker 1: have any new information. This one makes me sad because
Speaker 1: it was just early enough in history that there were
Speaker 1: not a lot of great photographs of these paintings. So
Speaker 1: for some of them, it's what did that look like?
Speaker 1: Their descriptions so they're black and whites. Let me draw
Speaker 1: you a quick little piece that you can compare it to.
Speaker 1: I know, like we did a show earlier in the
Speaker 1: season where I believe it was considered the first art
Speaker 1: theft and it was Pirates, which makes sense. But it's
Speaker 1: not like you're alarming. Anything like that. Doesn't really happen
Speaker 1: until centuries later, and then sometimes not at all. Tip
Speaker 1: up a little heist hoods to guys who seem to
Speaker 1: have gotten away. I'm ready for heist hooch, but you
Speaker 1: have to make a deal with me where you won't
Speaker 1: be pedantic about the time of day this heist took place.
Speaker 1: We know, we know, I love my Dayton High. This
Speaker 1: one will have daytime lighting, not night time. You know
Speaker 1: it came up on our last episode. But this one
Speaker 1: is so intense, the whole skylight maneuver, and so I
Speaker 1: wanted to make a drink inspired by a skylight entry.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. I can't wait to see what this is.
Speaker 1: And this one is called Skylight and you'll see that
Speaker 1: it references the sky. It's a pretty easy drink to
Speaker 1: put together. There is a little trick in execution, but
Speaker 1: I will give you my trick on how to do it.
Speaker 1: And I am not particularly graceful in this regard. So
Speaker 1: if I can do it, I think probably most people
Speaker 1: can as well. This starts with a very simple bass
Speaker 1: to the drink. It is three quarters of an ounce
Speaker 1: of lemon cello, and then you're going to pour that
Speaker 1: over ice into like a rocks class and then top
Speaker 1: it with ginger rerail. You pour in that ginger real second,
Speaker 1: you kind of get them to mix on their own.
Speaker 1: You don't have to do a whole lot of work.
Speaker 1: Then into a shaker, you're gonna combine a half ounce
Speaker 1: of blue curos ow three quarters of an ounce of vodka,
Speaker 1: and you're going to give that a dry shake, meaning
Speaker 1: it doesn't have ice in it. You just want to
Speaker 1: combine those two things so that you thin out the
Speaker 1: blue curos ow a little bit. Because we're going to
Speaker 1: do a floater. I feel we have not done this
Speaker 1: in a while. We haven't. And the thing is right,
Speaker 1: we talked about it many moons ago. But if you're
Speaker 1: going to try to float any liquid on top of
Speaker 1: another liquid, the one on top has to be a
Speaker 1: lower density, or it will just fall to the bottom
Speaker 1: and blue curos ow because it is so surrupy and
Speaker 1: it has that sugar content is heavy. That's why we're
Speaker 1: mixing it with vodka to thin it out and make
Speaker 1: it a little bit like lighter in its volume. So
Speaker 1: then you're gonna take here's the trick. You need a
Speaker 1: bar spoon with one of those flat bottoms at the end,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Some of them have the
Speaker 1: tear drops and some of them have just like literally
Speaker 1: it sits on a little disk, and those are your friends,
Speaker 1: because that disc will allow you to pour your mixture
Speaker 1: of blue Curius sound vodka down the spirally shape of
Speaker 1: the spoon and onto that little disk, and then it
Speaker 1: floats out over the top of the rest of the
Speaker 1: drink and it doesn't drop to the bottom, and you
Speaker 1: get a really beautiful blue stripe across the top of
Speaker 1: your beverage. And it looks very pretty and it makes
Speaker 1: you think of the sky. Now, I will say, to
Speaker 1: drink it. This is a presentation thing. You probably want
Speaker 1: to mix it for because all your spirits sitting on
Speaker 1: top right, but it looks pretty right up until the
Speaker 1: moment that you do. Yes, I have definitely been with
Speaker 1: people who don't realize that sometimes you gotta mix in
Speaker 1: a floater like on Classic Matie. Sometimes they'll have that
Speaker 1: dark rum floated on top, and if you just sip that,
Speaker 1: you're in trouble. I don't like to mix them together.
Speaker 1: I do and I will, but I'm like the presentation.
Speaker 1: The visual is nice. The visual is nice. I will
Speaker 1: say with this one. The nice thing is when you
Speaker 1: mix them together, it's still quite a pretty color. Good.
Speaker 1: So that's the skylight. The good thing about the skylight
Speaker 1: is that it's really easy to do a non alcoholic
Speaker 1: version here. Also, I should mention when you do your
Speaker 1: ginger ale for this one. You know how I always go, oh,
Speaker 1: I like a low sugar ginger ale, Not for this.
Speaker 1: You want the ginger ale to have that sugar and density,
Speaker 1: so it makes it easier to float something on top
Speaker 1: of There's no way, who are you? It's like all
Speaker 1: I've been possessed, right, been possessed by sugar a ginger ale.
Speaker 1: Because there is enough sugar in that ginger ale and
Speaker 1: you're using two liqueurs. I don't feel like you need
Speaker 1: to add any sweetener to this, and there's plenty of citrus,
Speaker 1: so you don't need a citrus thing. It's pretty easy
Speaker 1: to do this, this simple thing. So for the non
Speaker 1: alcoholic version, I would just toss a little bit of
Speaker 1: lemon juice into your ginger ale and then we've mentioned
Speaker 1: it on the show before, you can get a non
Speaker 1: alcoholic blue Curas house syrup. I can get it in
Speaker 1: my grocery store, and I live in a place where
Speaker 1: you can't have hard liquor in the grocery store, so
Speaker 1: I feel like if our store has it, almost anyone
Speaker 1: could get it pretty easily. I do not have easy
Speaker 1: access to most foods in most grocery shoes are much
Speaker 1: more rural than you are. But I guarantee you it
Speaker 1: would only take me two to three days to get
Speaker 1: that online. And at that point you can just thin
Speaker 1: that out with a little bit of water if you want,
Speaker 1: or you can do a little bit of lemon juice
Speaker 1: with it if you want. You just want to thin
Speaker 1: it out so that it, like I said, is a
Speaker 1: lower density than that ginger ale base, and then you're
Speaker 1: you're all set. It's a very refreshing sip in either
Speaker 1: version because it is so citrusy and bright and like
Speaker 1: citrus plus ginger ale is just always going to be
Speaker 1: kind of a yummy, easy breezy combo delicious, and we're
Speaker 1: calling that the Skylight. Please do not drink it and
Speaker 1: then repel fifty ft into the gallagh. Just don't repel
Speaker 1: fifty feet into a gallery. I think we hope that
Speaker 1: you have enjoyed us not getting into trouble at all today,
Speaker 1: and that you maybe enjoy these little SIPs if you
Speaker 1: give them a try, and that you will come back
Speaker 1: and hang out with us again next week where we
Speaker 1: will have more fun Criminalia and more Bevrage time for you.
Speaker 1: Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio,
Speaker 1: please visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows,