WEBVTT - The Body-Snatching ‘Borough Gang’ of London 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:06.400 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:15.800 partnership with I Heart Radio. Welcome to the first episode 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.880 of a new season of Criminalia. This season, we're talking 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:22.840 about body snatchers and the bodies they snatched. Writer Ambrose 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:25.119 Bears may have somewhat the best in his work The 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.200 Devil's Dictionary when he wrote that a body snatcher is 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.760 quote one who supplies the young physicians with that which 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.800 the old physicians have supplied the undertaker. His sardonicquit aside, 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:41.120 Bears wasn't wrong. I'm Maria T. Marquis and I'm Holly 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.240 Fry and this season is going to be all about 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:46.879 the lives and fates of those who engaged in the 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:51.440 grizzly business of digging up fresh corpses from graveyards. And 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.319 this first episode of the season is about when and 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.840 why they sold those corpses to anatomists and medical schools 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:02.120 across London for dissection and research, and how this could 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.640 be a pretty lucrative business to be in. Of course, 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:08.760 just as in previous seasons, we are continuing to look 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.160 at what really went down and the context of it all, 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.920 and if maybe any of these historical activities might look 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:20.320 different through our modern perspective and spoiler alerts. Sometimes they do, 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:24.360 sometimes they don't. But to talk about this subject, we're 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:28.120 going to start outside of London and with Leonardo da Vinci. 0:01:28.160 --> 0:01:30.720 This may seem like a strange place to begin because 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:32.959 many of us think of da Vinci as the painter 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:35.720 of some very famous works of art, including the Mona 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:39.160 Lisa and The Last Supper. And yes he was that, 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:41.920 but he was more than a painter. He was also 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.880 an engineer, a scientist, a theorist, a sculptor, and an architect. 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.800 And he was also an anatomist who completed hundreds of 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:53.760 drawings and thousands of notes documenting his findings about how 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:58.160 the human body worked, and his work was groundbreaking. He 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:00.640 produced to the first accurate to pay action of the 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:04.480 human spine, and his notes document the earliest known description 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:08.000 of cirrhosis of the liver. He made structural and functional 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.919 discoveries about the human heart, and he was the first 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.600 anatomist known to correctly note the number and root structure 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.400 of human teeth. He did all of this with the 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:21.519 use of cadavers. In fact, in total, da Vinci dissected 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:25.720 more than thirty corpses. So where might one get more 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.240 than thirty corpses for study during the fifteenth century, might wonder? 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:34.400 Many were likely procured by body snatchers, and the first 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.400 recorded case of body snatching is attributed to four medical 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.600 students in Bologna, Italy in thirteen nineteen, so a bit 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.799 before Da Vinci's time. Then if we skip ahead of 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:49.600 fifteen thirty six, we find anatomist, physician and author of 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:54.120 one of the most influential books on human anatomy, Andreas Vesalius, 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:59.600 exhuming corpses from cemeteries around Paris to study human anatomy. Okay, 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.080 so that we have established that there has been this 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.960 tradition of digging up bodies for science in the Western world. 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.080 This episode finds us in the early eighteen hundreds, where 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.560 body snatchers, or resurrection men as they were known in 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.600 London at the time, were at the service of anyone 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.960 who needed a corpse and was willing to pay for it. 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:23.560 Resurrectionists worked in groups in secret in the middle of 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:28.200 the night, exhuming or resurrecting, as their name suggests, freshly 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:31.720 interred corpses from grave sites. As sinister as this sounds, 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:36.000 this was a business, and bodies were a commodity, and 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:39.160 this was a low overhead business to get into because 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.720 all you needed for body snatching were a few basic 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.640 things a shovel, a lantern, a large bag, and a 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.720 wheelbarrow for the hall. Knowing where the fresh graves were 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.600 wasn't hard. Either. You could stake out the local burial grounds, 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:57.480 or you could bribe the grave digger or someone in 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.840 a local hospital to get you inform should you needed. 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.720 A skilled gang of body snatchers needed less than thirty 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:07.600 minutes to exhume a body, and those who are really 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:09.840 good at what they did could score a dozen or 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.640 more bodies in one night. You also, of course, had 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.640 to be strong, because this work included not just a 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.280 lot of digging, but also hauling a corpse or sometimes 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.680 even a coffin, and it surely was better if you 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.200 had a strong stomach as well. We're going to take 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.120 a break for a word from our sponsor, and when 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.640 we're back, we're going to talk about the increasing demand 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:47.839 for cadavers and why supply couldn't meet that demand. Welcome 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:52.039 back to Criminalia. Before we get into who supplied bodies 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:55.239 to whom, let's talk about what happened to the body 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:59.400 snatching business between the Murder Act of seventy one and 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.800 the end that of the Act of eighteen thirty two. 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:06.880 The demand for bodies in eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:10.800 was created by anatomy professors, surgeons and medical students for 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:14.479 both dissection and for use in anatomy classes at medical schools. 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:18.599 In the seventeen forties, the way London teaching hospitals and 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.960 private anatomy schools taught medical students changed. Instead of would 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.560 have been commonplace a single cadaver displayed and dissected by 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:30.480 an instructor in anatomy lectures, a new way of instruction, 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.000 known as the Paris method of dissection became the popular practice. 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.920 This new method was much more hands on, as each 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.960 student was given parts of the cadaver to study. That 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.920 meant every dissection at every school now needed not just 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.880 one corpse to work on per class, but potentially dozens. 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.960 Add that up across Britain and the numbers grow quickly. 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.200 All parts of the corps were dissected and used for 0:05:55.279 --> 0:06:00.000 teaching and anything unusual such as a tumor, congenital abnormality 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.120 or a surprising cause of death was preserved in alcohol 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:08.400 in a glass jar. When Parliament passed the Murder Act 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.360 of seventeen fifty one, it legalized the medical dissection of 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:17.440 convicted killers as a kind of posthumous execution. But because 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.120 the only bodies legally available for medical dissection were the 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:27.239 remains of executed criminals, demand pretty quickly outpaced supply. Body 0:06:27.279 --> 0:06:30.880 snatching in London peaked between eighteen hundred and eighteen thirty two, 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:34.080 and medical schools often paid a hefty price for the 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:38.080 product that the body snatchers provided. Up until the enactment 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.400 of the Anatomy Act of two in Britain, which we'll 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.240 talk about in just a minute, stealing a corpsmate grave 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.320 was not itself illegal, as the Corps had no legal 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.279 standing and was not considered to be owned by anyone. 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:55.440 The punishment if a resurrectionist was caught was relatively minor, 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.160 and that was for a couple of reasons. One evidence, 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.400 in these cases it was hard to collect those bodies 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:05.080 had been dissected, and without a body there really wasn't 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:09.240 a crime. There was a fresh but empty grave. But 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:13.040 because corps has disappeared fast, usually the same night they 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.160 were interred, all that could be prosecuted in court was 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.960 the desecration of a grave. Authorities were known to make 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.000 arrests if something other than a body was stolen. For instance, 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:26.760 a body snatcher could be punished for the theft of 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.040 the burial clothing of the corpse, but not the theft 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:34.119 of the corpse itself. Most often, though, authorities just turned 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.880 a blind eye to the whole business, and most often 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.040 because they were bribed either by the buyer or the seller, 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:44.920 or by both. Unlike the police, though families did care. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.800 The Anatomy Act of two was enacted by Parliament in 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.840 direct response to public outrage at the theft and sale 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.240 of corpses, and it also addressed the legality of dissecting 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.320 a corpse. It was designed to stop the body snatchers 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:03.120 by basically legislating a new and legal and free source 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.600 of corpses. It regulated the supply of cadavers for medical 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:11.640 research and anatomy teaching. Under this new act, anatomists were 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:16.000 given access to what we're called unclaimed bodies. Those were 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.840 people who had died without anyone to claim them for burial. 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.560 Before this legislature, as we said, just a moment ago, 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:26.240 only the bodies of executed criminals could legally be used 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.600 for dissection under the Murder Act of seventeen fifty one, 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.280 so this move was really quite a big change. The 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.760 Anatomy Act also allowed for personal donations of a body 0:08:36.800 --> 0:08:40.520 by the individual or the next of kin to medical science, 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.800 and regarding the dissection itself, the Act required doctors and 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:49.880 anatomy teachers to obtain licenses to legally dissect donated corpses. 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.800 The Act did do what it intended. It increased the 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.200 number of bodies supplied to London medical schools from an 0:08:57.320 --> 0:09:00.320 estimated three hundred per year to six hundred per year, 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.880 and those were all legally sourced cadavers. So it's a 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:06.880 little bit early, but we're going to take a break 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.920 for word from our sponsor. When we're back, we'll introduce 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.520 you to the infamous Borrow Gang and talk about their 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:28.000 influence on the corpse supply chain. Welcome back to Criminalia. 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:34.559 Let's meet Ben Crouch and the Borrow Gang in eighteen tens, 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.600 so roughly twenty years before the Anatomy Act was in place. 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:41.920 The Borrow Gang or the Borough Boys as you'll sometimes 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.160 see them referred to, with London's most notorious group of 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:49.320 body snatchers. The district of central London known as Southard 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:52.800 had been known as the Borough since the sixteenth century, 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.760 and it's there where the gang ran their business and 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.959 stole many bodies from graves. Benjamin Crouch led the group 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.800 during its first years in practice, and during his time 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.839 as a resurrectionist, he became known by the evocative sobriquet 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:12.280 of the Corpse King. Ben's background didn't exactly telegraph that 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:14.720 he'd turned to a career of digging up bodies for 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.840 quick cash. He was the son of a carpenter and 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.560 was a well known prize fighter in his day. He's 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.880 described as a tall, flamboyantly dressed man with a pox 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:27.560 marked face, who loved to wear gold jewelry, especially gold rings. 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:30.600 He could be violent and intimidating, especially if he'd been 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:35.239 at the pub. Members of the Corpse King's gang included 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:40.560 Bill Harnett, Jack Harnett, Joseph Naples, Daniel Butler, and a 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:44.559 man referred to as Hollis. This is perhaps Bill Hollis, 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:48.480 but that particular detail is a little bit fuzzy. Over 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.440 more than a decade, members of this group came and went, 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:55.319 and a man named Patrick Murphy eventually succeeded Ben as 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.120 the Borough Gangs leader. But we're going to focus on 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.040 the group's beginning. When Ben Crow, which was involved in 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:05.720 heading up the operation, anatomist sir asked they Cooper, it said, 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.760 may have introduced Ben Crouch to body snatching at the 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.439 time when Cooper had been appointed Professor of Comparative Anatomy 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:15.800 at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, position where 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.360 he would have needed a steady supply of cadavers from Cooper. 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.520 Ben learned that it could be quite a lucrative business, 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:26.480 and Cooper, It's thought, kept Crauch busy and probably intervened 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:30.560 on his behalf if anyone came around asking questions. There's was. 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:35.280 It appears to be a symbiotic relationship. The Borrow Gang 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.320 identified their targets, often through connections that gave them information, 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.640 but also just by loitering around graveyards and funerals because 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.600 there were always corpses that were about to be buried. 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.840 They would wait until the cover of night to dig 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:53.320 up the grave, break into the coffin, and refilled the 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.600 site with dirt to conceal their theft. Ben had formerly 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.480 worked as a porter at Guy's Hospital and other and 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.120 certainly still had connections on the inside who could share 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.640 when and where to find the freshest corpses, both in 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.960 the hospital burial site and beyond its yards. Bun Ill 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.439 Burial Ground also known as Bunner or Bunner Fields, has 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.640 been a burial ground in cemetery going back for centuries 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:22.960 before our resurrectionists. That name actually comes from bone Hill 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.719 and the grounds were a prime target for London's resurrectionists 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.840 due to the proximity to St Bart's Hospital in the 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:34.360 Smithfield area of London, conveniently for us. One of the 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.840 gang's members, Joseph Naples, kept account of the gang's business 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:42.360 a kind of diary slash ledger of their work in 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:48.120 eighteen eleven and eighteen twelve. Joseph, unlike Ben, was considered civil, 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:52.160 with respectful manners and a pleasant way about him. Let's 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:55.960 take a look at his records. Adult bodies were referred 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:00.520 to as largest and children were smalls. Fetis and bodies 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.800 with any kind of abnormality both fetched high prices, as 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:06.680 did teeth, which were sold to dentists to be used 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.560 to make dentures for the living. Hair, too, could be 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.320 sold to wigmakers for a tidy sum. A sample entry 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.679 from November eighteen eleven. Talies up one night's work like 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:21.720 this Wednesday fourth at night, went out and got ten whole. 0:13:21.800 --> 0:13:25.360 Went to Green and got four Black crib one Butnerfield's five. 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.160 On another night in eighteen twelve, Joseph recorded that the 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.720 gang stole a total of thirteen adult corpses and two children. 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.960 Writing quote December two, eighteen twelve, met at Vicker's Pub, 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.160 rectified our last account. The party sent out Me and 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.680 Ben to St. Thomas's crib, got one adult. Bill and 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:46.400 Jack went to Guy's crib, got two adults, but one 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:50.480 of them opened, took them to St. Thomas's, came home. 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.480 Met at St. Thomas's. Me and Jack went to Tottenham, 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.560 got four adults. Ben and Bill went to St. Pancras, 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:00.319 got six adults, one small and one fetus. Took the 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.360 Tottenham mott to Wilson, the St. Pancras lot to Bart's. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.400 It was Ben who handled the gang's negotiations and transactions 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:12.160 with the surgeons and anatomists. By most accounts, the gang 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.400 charged two or three guineas for an adult corpse, which 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.720 was considered to be a body measuring taller than three feet. 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:21.920 They collected up to one guinea for an infant or 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.720 a child. Some accounts report that Ben was smart and 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.360 a pretty ruthless businessman who secured upfront fees of up 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.000 to fifty guineas for a corpse to be delivered at 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.160 a later time. A guinea for any of us who 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.920 aren't sure, is no longer legal tender, but one guinea 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:41.960 is roughly equivalent to one pound and five pence in 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:45.800 modern currency. You could make good money in the body 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:49.920 snatching business, but the business was rough. Rival gangs would 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.240 rat on each other, hoping the others would be jailed. 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.720 Gangs were also rough with their clients. In one reported 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.920 incident in eighteen sixteen, the Borough Gang overwhelmed surgeons and 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.920 anatomists at St Thomas's Hospital, intimidating them, or, as the 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.000 gang saw it, reminding them that they were the only 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.160 gang the hospital was allowed to work with when it 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:12.280 came to supplying fresh corpses. It wasn't the only visit 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:14.960 of that nature they made around the city. Then claimed 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.920 to have secured monopoly of corpse delivery to at least 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:21.480 half the teaching hospitals in London, including his former employer 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.240 Guy's hospital. I mean, who are we kidding? He probably did. 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.680 Sometime in or around eighteen seventeen, Ben got out of 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:33.320 the resurrection business, although not really all the way. Out 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:36.360 of the business of bodies and giving body parts to 0:15:36.440 --> 0:15:40.480 people for money, Ben and a fellow resurrectionist named Jack 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.920 Harnett got into the business of teeth. Teeth they considered 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.600 were just as profitable as whole corpses, if not more so, 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.800 and the pair collected jaws from corpses. Many records suggest 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:56.040 they traveled with the British Army and scavenged teeth from 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:59.880 the bodies of dead soldiers. These records also suggests that 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.200 the men's stole and sold things like buttons and epaulets 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:08.280 from uniforms for pretty good money. Ben, having saved enough money, 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:12.440 bought himself or possibly built or possibly invested in this 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:16.000 is a bit fuzzy, a small seaside hotel in Market. 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.280 But word of his former unpopular occupation as a resurrection 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:23.080 man got out, and it didn't take long before his 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:27.920 empty hotel failed broke. Ben fell back into the tooth trade, 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.480 but things did not go as well this time around. 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.280 Some of the records that came up in research suggests 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:38.400 that Ben, in a pretty desperate situation, embezzled money from 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.760 Jack Harnett and was imprisoned for a year as punishment. 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.400 Ben did not die in jail, nor was he executed 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.280 for any crime, but he did die in poverty and 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.560 his body was found in the tap room of a 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.520 pub near Tower Hill in London, and according to his legend, 0:16:54.920 --> 0:17:02.720 he was still sitting upright on his stool. So, Holly, 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.520 this is our first season. In our first season, cocktail, 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.280 what do you have for us? So I think this 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:11.959 time around we're going to just call our cocktail segment 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:16.679 embalming Fluid. It's pretty obvious and on the nose, but 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:18.760 you know what, I like it, so we're doing it. 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:25.040 It's better than mine. It was just tapped out. This 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:27.560 one to start off with comes with a little bit 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.840 of cocktail history because I felt like it would be 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.320 a little remiss if we didn't kick this whole thing 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:37.520 off with a commonly known cocktail, but our variation on it, 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:42.479 and that's the Corpse reviveror. Hey, so you have almost 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.000 certainly if you have gone out for drinks, ever seen 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.159 a cocktail called the Corpse Revivor on a bar or 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:52.000 a restaurant menu. It is not actually just one drink. 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.000 It's an entire category of drinks. The idea of a 0:17:56.000 --> 0:18:00.800 corpse reviveror cocktail, which is like initially air of the Dog, 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:04.240 hangover cure, like you feel like a corpse in the morning, 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.399 Drink this and you will come back to life, dates 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.200 back to the mid eighteen hundreds, so a little after 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.000 these guys were working, but still historical and interesting. We 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.920 don't know how many different versions of it there may 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.359 have been. Initially, like I said, it is a category, 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.439 so it may have been everybody had their own version. 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.560 But the first one that we absolutely do know of 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:28.760 in terms of what it contained, comes from the Gentleman's 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.200 Table Guide, which was written in eighteen seventy one that 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:37.119 called for Brandy Maraschino Liqueur and Boker's Bidders. That's not 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.080 the more famous version because those and really if you 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:42.960 were to go into a bar today and see one 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:45.440 on a menu, it's probably based on one of these 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.040 two were about to talk about, and they come from 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:51.160 the Savoy Cocktail Book, which was written by Henry Cradock 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.280 in nineteen thirty and cratic was the bartender at the 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.160 Savoy hotel. He was also a bit of a wit, 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:59.520 which is part of why I think his his version 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:03.119 has called on Cradic included two different Corps Survivors in 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.640 his book. They are known as number one and number two. 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.520 Number one is a pretty simple drink. It's kognak, apple 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:13.119 brandy and sweet vermouth. But number two is more of 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.840 a jin sour recipe, and that's the one that really 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.760 has become popular and probably is the one that you're 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.080 getting if you order something in a bar that's just 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.960 called a corpse revivor. So the recipe for Corpse Revivor 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.359 number two includes the note that one will wake you 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.240 back up after a night of drinking, and quote four 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.480 of these taken in swift succession will un revived the 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:38.600 corpse again. So if you drink too many, you're gonna 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.639 sack out. So we're going to make a variation on 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:44.560 Corpse Revivor number two today, and the main change that 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.080 we're making to the recipe here is that we are 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.560 subbing out. What is called for in the recipe is 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.800 lillip blanc. That's a liqueur that was originally made using 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:56.840 white Bordoux wine with orange peel liquor and quinine liquor, 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:59.520 and we're going to add a component that you may 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:01.720 alread you have on hand if you have followed along 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.119 with our cocktails before, because I have used it in 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:10.760 several So this is one ounce of gin, one ounce 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:15.200 of lemon juice, one ounce of Quantroux or other orange liqueur. 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.479 I actually used Grand Martinier, which is a little bit 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.280 bitier and that was quite nice, and one ounce of 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:22.639 Saint Germain. And that's the thing that we're subbing in 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.760 for the lillip blong. And then, as with the original recipe, 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.320 you're going to add this is a little bit of 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:32.359 a choose your own adventure. A dash of absinthe is 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.480 what's called for in the first one, and that makes 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:40.360 it this interesting, very bity, citrusy drink with this like 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:46.520 liquorice finish. But it is definitely a drink that um, 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:48.320 that is a drink for drinkers, do you know what 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:50.720 I mean? Like people that enjoy the taste of alcohol 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.359 and like taking a sip and discerning what's in it. 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:55.520 That's for them. And you'll just put those all in 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:57.360 a shaker, shake it with ice, and then you pour 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.280 it into a chilled glass. However, I was like, I know, 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.120 not everyone is a drinker, and even people that like 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:07.200 the taste of alcohol sometimes want something that doesn't taste 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:11.040 that sharp. So I made a second version in which 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:14.160 I got rid of the dash of absinthe and instead, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.439 because we already have all those beautiful citrus flavors, I 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:24.000 subbed out a dash of hybiscus syrup that I see. 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:25.399 I think I would like a one with absence, but 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.680 I guarantee, Ma Maria, I have to try this one. 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:33.639 It's so anything. I'm like, I gotta try it, like 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.600 it's so yummy, and it changes the profile so drastically, 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:41.240 even though you're only including literally like a fraction of 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:43.840 a fraction of an ounce, but it completely shifts the 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:47.640 entire thing and makes it feel very tropical and yummy. 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:51.399 So if you are into sweeter drinks, go crazy. You 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:54.720 could literally put in almost any syrup that you like, 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:59.440 or a liqueur that goes with those orange and lemon flavors, 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:01.440 and same thing, shake it in the shaker with ice 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:08.359 board into a chilled glass. Holy Moses, delicious, just delicious, delicious. 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:10.800 Plus I choose your an inventure drink, which are always 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.080 my favorites that you do yes. Now, this one was 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:15.879 a little bit tricky to think about how to do 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:20.000 a mock tail around it because it's literally three different 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:23.480 kinds of alcohol plus lemon juice and possibly a dash 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.960 of another alcohol. But here is what I came up with, 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:30.080 and it's quite good and it does have similar it's 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.840 a little different, but it's still pretty similar in profile. 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:36.040 So first you're gonna try to replicate a little bit 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:38.600 that says your main flavor, which has notes of like 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.480 peach and hair and a little bit of honeysuckle in it. 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:44.960 So what we're gonna do to try to get a 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:48.000 little bit of that flavor is you're going to brew 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:52.840 a cup of peach tea. If you want to be fancy, 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:55.560 I would do a little peach tea. And if you 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:58.159 can get your hands on a pear tea or a 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:02.159 honeysuckle tea, combine those and brew one cup together and 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:04.480 you'll get a really nice thing. And then you want 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.320 it cold, so let it soak in the fridge with 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:09.960 some orange zest graded into it, because that's going to 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.600 pick up what the quantrou would add to this drink. 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:16.480 So once that's chilled, then it's like super easy. You 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:20.200 just do two ounces of your prepared tea, two ounces 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:23.119 of a tart lemonade you don't want it very sweet 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:26.800 at all, and then splash in the syrup of your choice. 0:23:26.840 --> 0:23:28.800 So you can do a liquorice syrup if you want 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:31.800 that absently flavor, or you can do a hibiscus syrup 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:35.280 like I did with the magical variation. Because any syrup 0:23:35.400 --> 0:23:38.360 that you love testamount that is going to go with 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:42.080 a citrus and a fruit flavor like that, you can 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.320 try anything. I actually thought it might be fun with 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:47.600 a Habba neuro syrup, but I haven't tried it, so 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:50.360 I can't. I can't back that up with experience, but 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:53.600 it could be fun. It could also be fun in 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:56.119 the alcoholic version if you want to get a little 0:23:57.480 --> 0:23:59.520 if you want to really feel not the bite of 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:04.280 absent bite. And that's another one we've talked many times 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:07.280 about how to make like a flavored variation of simple syrup, 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:10.200 but literally just like one part sugar, one part water, 0:24:10.400 --> 0:24:13.560