Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here as well, and it's
Speaker 1: the Three Green Fairies coming to bring you madness and delirium. Possibly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: on Stuff you Should Know. I wish I wish Jerry
Speaker 1: would put like some sort of twinkle effect in there
Speaker 1: after I say stuff you should Know too, just a
Speaker 1: nod to the fairy thing. Yeah, yeah, well you know
Speaker 1: she's listening. She is, and she's furiously scribbling notes in
Speaker 1: my imagination, yes, only in your imagination. That's right. She's
Speaker 1: really stirring me. So yeah, that's right. Man, smells nice.
Speaker 1: Um So, Chuck, I mentioned Green Fairies because that is
Speaker 1: a nickname for what we're talking about today, which is
Speaker 1: absentthe we've gathered here today to talk about this thing
Speaker 1: called absent dearly beloved, that's right. Uh, that's right. And
Speaker 1: this was my pick in Olivia. I think this is
Speaker 1: Olivia right, helped us that with this. I believe this
Speaker 1: was a grabster pick, which Chuck, I'm glad you said that,
Speaker 1: because this makes this week a grabster tri fedka is
Speaker 1: it the grabster because it seems like one. I was
Speaker 1: just talking recently on the show about how it's certain
Speaker 1: topics fit certain writers, and this certainly fits Grabster. Not
Speaker 1: that he's a big absent head, but oh, if he's anything,
Speaker 1: he's a huge absence. But it just feels like an
Speaker 1: ed thing. But for some reason, it was spaced like
Speaker 1: Olivia spaces things. I'm almost positive that it was absent.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm pretty sure that it was. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was the Grabster. No, I'm sorry, so it was Olivia.
Speaker 1: You're right. Wow, he comes off like a grabst article,
Speaker 1: for sure. It does. At any rate. This idea came
Speaker 1: to me not too long ago, because I don't I
Speaker 1: didn't definitely didn't see the movie again. But I saw
Speaker 1: that scene from the Johnny Depp Jack the Ripper movie
Speaker 1: that I can't remember the name of from Hell from Hell,
Speaker 1: where Johnny Depp is in the bathtub and he is
Speaker 1: uh may be because of that trial is going on
Speaker 1: or something I don't know, um, and he does his
Speaker 1: absinthe ritual, which includes uh, supersizing his the effects by
Speaker 1: do you remember what he does? Uh? I've not seen
Speaker 1: that one. Okay, it's okay, you know, it's fine. I
Speaker 1: remember hearing that it was just fine. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: good enough. But he does the and we'll talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the sort of ritual of how you
Speaker 1: prepare absinthe. But one such ritual is to light sugar
Speaker 1: on fire and let it drip through a slotted spoon
Speaker 1: into the absinthe, which is not recommended for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons obviously, uh not the which is alcohol and
Speaker 1: fire mixing. Um. But what he does is he drops
Speaker 1: uh laudan in. Is that what it is? I think?
Speaker 1: So alcohol and opium mix together. Yeah, some sort of
Speaker 1: opium from a dripper bottle, dropper bottle, and he drops
Speaker 1: it on the sugar then lights that on fire. So oh,
Speaker 1: that's a pretty hardcore. I guess that's the way they
Speaker 1: did it back then. The other big movie moment that
Speaker 1: I know of is in that bos Lerman uh Mulan
Speaker 1: rouge where you and McGregor and John Leguizama and some
Speaker 1: other pals all are all drinking absent and they see
Speaker 1: the green ferry. Kylie Minogue, I forgot about that. Have
Speaker 1: you seen the trailer for his Elvis movie coming out? No? Oh,
Speaker 1: it looks so good. I can't wait. What a great
Speaker 1: combination they all. I think the only one who could
Speaker 1: do maybe a better Elvis bio pick is maybe David
Speaker 1: Lynch and bos Lerman might have him, might have him
Speaker 1: beaten fun It looks awesome, man and the guy they
Speaker 1: got to do it just snails the body movements and
Speaker 1: like all the way up to the Vegas Elvis just
Speaker 1: stone cold? Was it? Peter stars Guard? Is that you
Speaker 1: think should play him? No? Okay, no, he's on my
Speaker 1: mind because I I, um, we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: Wormwood in a second, and I was like, man, wasn't
Speaker 1: that like a series on on Netflix? And sure enough
Speaker 1: it was with directed by Errol Morris. Oh I remember that?
Speaker 1: Was it called Wormwood? Yeah? It was about the MK
Speaker 1: Ultra program that. Yeah, it was really good. But uh yeah,
Speaker 1: So anyway, um, okay, I think we've covered everything movie
Speaker 1: wise right well so far. Okay. So the reason that
Speaker 1: I brought up Wormwood is because it is this main
Speaker 1: ingredient and absence. If you make absence, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: if if you're not if you don't know what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, absent is a type of liquor or liqueur.
Speaker 1: I guess it's a it's usually made from a neutral
Speaker 1: grain spirit. If you really want to get kind of authentic,
Speaker 1: you would make it from grapes um, distilled grapes um,
Speaker 1: and then you you kind of process it like you
Speaker 1: would if you were making gin. You take some botanicals,
Speaker 1: distill it together, and then the resulting stuff that cools
Speaker 1: down after after you evaporated is absentthe and to make
Speaker 1: absinthe you have to have three main ingredients distilled with
Speaker 1: the liquor um, fennel, annis and then wormwood. And wormwood
Speaker 1: is the big tricky key to the whole thing that
Speaker 1: has caused a lot of problems and misconceptions over the years.
Speaker 1: That's right, a lot of myths there. Absinthe is obviously
Speaker 1: known for its very bright green color before you have
Speaker 1: gone through your ritual, because it kind of changes the
Speaker 1: color a little bit, but that comes from reinfusing after
Speaker 1: it's distilled, reinfusing it with more of those ingredients. You
Speaker 1: don't have to do that. There is such thing as
Speaker 1: clear or white absinthe. But you know, if you really
Speaker 1: want to have the absent experience, it's got to be green. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why isn't this absinthe green? Take it away? Gar song? Right,
Speaker 1: that's right. Nice ref um. That was very postmodern of you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so um that that that essential ingredient. Wormwood
Speaker 1: has been known to humanity for thousands and thousands of years. Um.
Speaker 1: The earliest reference written reference to it comes from the
Speaker 1: Ebbers Papyrus, which um dates back to Oh I would
Speaker 1: say something like about thirty five hundred years ago something
Speaker 1: like that. It's possibly earlier than that. And that was
Speaker 1: just the first written reference. So we already knew we
Speaker 1: being humans, knew about wormwood long before that, and up
Speaker 1: until the mid nineteenth century it was all is treated
Speaker 1: as like basically a medicinal plant. That's right, Um, there
Speaker 1: were you know, this is sort of one of the
Speaker 1: heydays of medicinal plant use. And you know, all kinds
Speaker 1: of supposed cures ills being cured, uh, including but not
Speaker 1: limited to, if you have stomach pains, if you want
Speaker 1: to get your mensies going h Uh. They say it
Speaker 1: could be hypnotic. They say it could give you a
Speaker 1: pick me up if you were tired. Um, what else? Uh,
Speaker 1: if it's an if it wasn't something you didn't want
Speaker 1: to drink before then, Knowing that wormwood was used as
Speaker 1: an insect repellent and an antiseptic for cleaning up a
Speaker 1: bacteria ridden mouth might do the trick right. And also
Speaker 1: one of the long standing um uses for it has
Speaker 1: been as an antihelmetic, which means that it's a d
Speaker 1: wormer And apparently when you ingest wormwood, it actually stuns
Speaker 1: the worms that are attached to your gut lining enough
Speaker 1: that they let go and you poop them out the
Speaker 1: other end um, and it really does work. The modern
Speaker 1: modern investigations of wormwood have verified it is an effective
Speaker 1: d werm er um, and it also is an appetite
Speaker 1: stimulant too, So um as we'll see, it became an
Speaker 1: appartif which you drink before you eat, and that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense, the little wormwood in it. But
Speaker 1: in German there's a little there's a little tiny facts
Speaker 1: here there in this episode. It's one of those which
Speaker 1: I love. But in German wormwood is called the ver moot,
Speaker 1: and that might sound familiar. Vermouth is a fortified wine
Speaker 1: that contains wormwood, among other things. Did you know that?
Speaker 1: I did know that? Because I love vermouth, I do too,
Speaker 1: I still didn't know what I also know that it's
Speaker 1: Modern studies even show that it can aid digestion, which
Speaker 1: gives credence to the old saying absinthe makes the farts
Speaker 1: grow stronger. My goodness. So, first of all, I know
Speaker 1: that that wasn't off the cuff. It's just not possible.
Speaker 1: You want to hear something terrible, I've been I made
Speaker 1: up that joke in my head years ago. Did you really?
Speaker 1: And I've never had the opportunity to drop it. You're
Speaker 1: you're in a chicken processing plant thinking that, and you're like,
Speaker 1: I need to get a job where I'm really public
Speaker 1: facing so I can share this one. Well, it's a
Speaker 1: punch line. It's not a joke. I thought of that
Speaker 1: punch line, and I've I've long tried to create a
Speaker 1: joke that would just take hold and spread around the world. Uh,
Speaker 1: but I just made a fun one. You just did
Speaker 1: that just spread around the world like this boslerman Elvis
Speaker 1: Biopick is about to let me ask you something though,
Speaker 1: Have you ever had malart? Yes, which is it's just
Speaker 1: such hipster ridiculousness, But yes I have, so, my lord,
Speaker 1: for those of you listening, Uh, that pretty good descriptor.
Speaker 1: I guess it's a liquor or a liqueur made from wormwood.
Speaker 1: It is very popular, almost exclusively in Chicago. Uh and
Speaker 1: Jepson's malard and it's you know, it is a kind
Speaker 1: of a hipster thing, like you get a PBR's All
Speaker 1: Boy and with the malard back at any hipster bar.
Speaker 1: But that was something that uh at max Fun Con,
Speaker 1: which is the podcast network Maximum Fun has this summer
Speaker 1: retreat they do every year where John Hodgeman and I
Speaker 1: do are pub tribute thing which is now ended. But uh,
Speaker 1: traditionally John would do the benediction, pass around bottles of
Speaker 1: malort and everyone would drink it. And that, my friend,
Speaker 1: is a taste that will stay with you for hours. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: because wormwood is a really really bitter tasting something. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's actually so. Wormwood has a compound in it
Speaker 1: called absinthe in, and absinthe itself is a Greek word
Speaker 1: that means undrinkable. That's how it bitter it is. The
Speaker 1: Polish apparently have a saying called bitter as wormwood, right,
Speaker 1: and um, this stuff absentthe that gives wormwood it's bitter
Speaker 1: taste is so bitter. Chuck that one ounce of absinthein,
Speaker 1: if you could extract it from the wormwood and you
Speaker 1: came up with just one ounce of it, if you
Speaker 1: poured it into five hundred and twenty four gallons of water,
Speaker 1: mixed it up, and then offered someone a cup of
Speaker 1: that water, they would be able to detect the bitterness. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe that wormwood oil. Um, well, we might as
Speaker 1: well go ahead and get into this a little bit. Um.
Speaker 1: Wormwood oil has a substance in it about of which
Speaker 1: this is a substance called food jone. And since time
Speaker 1: and memoriam, when people had absinthe, they used to talk
Speaker 1: about the fact that you would have hallution, uh, hallucinations
Speaker 1: and seizures. So this is one of the big myths
Speaker 1: that we're gonna bust is that's really not true. Uh,
Speaker 1: that food jone can cause seizures. And we know why.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a gabba inhibitor, and it's going to
Speaker 1: block the receptors that lead to these convulsions. But there's
Speaker 1: and and they've even done tests of of pre nineteen
Speaker 1: tin absence recipes and found it's about the same amount
Speaker 1: as today. And I saw one article that said it's
Speaker 1: basically about enough food jone that you would find from
Speaker 1: sage in a box of stove top stuffing, which has
Speaker 1: long been known to give you hallucinations and convulsions in
Speaker 1: addition to being very delicious. Yeah, so there's just not
Speaker 1: enough in there, like it does food jone does come
Speaker 1: from wwood oil, and it does cause seizures. But there's
Speaker 1: just apparently trace amounts and it's even restricted by law
Speaker 1: how much you can have in it, right, right, And
Speaker 1: it's the same thing is like, um, if you ate
Speaker 1: a kilogram of salt, it would affect you physiologically in
Speaker 1: some terrible ways, like you would just have to drink
Speaker 1: so much of it. Um. And then also because worm
Speaker 1: was so bitter that even like the staunchest wax bearded
Speaker 1: hipster in the country could probably not drink enough wormwood
Speaker 1: to uh to bring on a convulsion or hallucinations. Now,
Speaker 1: so that's just a big myth. The fact that, I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll get into the history of it, which is pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: But you know, it was all basically because people were
Speaker 1: getting blasted on alcohol, right, so the but but like
Speaker 1: you said, since time immemorial people have said, like this
Speaker 1: wormwood stuff, it'll make you trip. That was enough to
Speaker 1: attract some um artists, bohemians, writers poets um around the
Speaker 1: turn of the last century, particularly in Paris, to the
Speaker 1: idea of absinthe. We're not quite there yet, but once
Speaker 1: we get there, bear in mind all of this is
Speaker 1: wrong and made up, and it makes all it makes
Speaker 1: an entire basically the Impressionist art movement really cringe e
Speaker 1: that they were all just self deluded in thinking that
Speaker 1: this this stuff was like causing them to hallucinate and
Speaker 1: maybe get a little mad, and all this stuff it was.
Speaker 1: It's really just kind of uncomfortable to look back on now,
Speaker 1: it really is. So Chuck, let's say we'd take a
Speaker 1: break and then we'll come back and really kind of
Speaker 1: dig into the history a little more. Let's get our
Speaker 1: shovels out and get ready. Stuff you should know, lash
Speaker 1: sh stuffy should know. Okay, Chuck. So I mentioned earlier that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, wormwood was long considered a medicinal plant. And
Speaker 1: there's a story that goes that a doctor named Pierre
Speaker 1: Ordinaire who was hiding out from the French Revolution just
Speaker 1: across the border in Switzerland, uh in a town called Kuvey, Switzerland,
Speaker 1: in particular, um that Dr Ordinaire was um looking for
Speaker 1: a way to make worm would palatable to create a
Speaker 1: medicinal lick, sir, and that that is how he ended
Speaker 1: up coming up with absente. That's right, that's how the
Speaker 1: story goes. Like you said earlier, if you want the
Speaker 1: real authentic kind, use grape spirits, because distilled grapes is
Speaker 1: how it started. Now it's just sort of you know,
Speaker 1: a base um like a you know, any sort of uh,
Speaker 1: distilled vodka type bass like white lightning. Why am I
Speaker 1: tripping over all that? I don't know. It's almost like
Speaker 1: I didn't want to say it or something. I know,
Speaker 1: you really don't like that white lightning, do you know?
Speaker 1: But back in the day it was distilled grape spirit
Speaker 1: and it did have the worm would because that's what
Speaker 1: he was trying to make palatable, and he did. It
Speaker 1: appears at a bunch of botanicals to make it taste better.
Speaker 1: You know that star and niece was probably in it.
Speaker 1: Liquorice I see. Olivia also mentioned the finnel and the
Speaker 1: hyssop and parsley, coriander, kim a meal and spinach, which
Speaker 1: is quite a mixture. M hmm. When you take a
Speaker 1: little sip of absinthe and your friend would be like
Speaker 1: you've got a little spinach in your teeth. That is
Speaker 1: a really strange sounding mixture. Especially parsley would throw the
Speaker 1: whole thing off. You've ever had like a Green's drink,
Speaker 1: like fresh juice, the moment they put parsley in, it
Speaker 1: turns immediately south. It's horrible. It's horrific. Plea, leave parsley
Speaker 1: out of everything drinkable. Okay, yeah, never. We we go
Speaker 1: through periods where we're gonna we juice alli at at
Speaker 1: the house, but I know we've never added parsley because
Speaker 1: you're sensible salary. It's like, okay, you're getting a little
Speaker 1: close to messing this up. But then once you had
Speaker 1: the parsley is awful. It's it's punishment from that point on.
Speaker 1: So you want to leave the parsley out whether you're
Speaker 1: making juice or absinthe Um, and you said one thing, Melissa, Um,
Speaker 1: that's actually lemon ball. I saw as well, What did
Speaker 1: I say, Melissa? That's another term for lemon ball. And
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, like, it's not like you were incorrect
Speaker 1: in saying Melissa did say Melissa? I thought you said
Speaker 1: Melissa in there as well. Sorry it comes up later then, Okay,
Speaker 1: he said, did I say, Melissa, am I driving you mad?
Speaker 1: Like the green ferry? About one of one of us
Speaker 1: is on absinthe right now. So, um, that whole story
Speaker 1: about Dr Ordinair coming up with this chuck is um
Speaker 1: possibly wrong because at the end of the story, Dr
Speaker 1: Ordinair turns out to be this kind, benevolent man who
Speaker 1: leaves his recipe for absinthe um to the Henryoade's sisters
Speaker 1: who were his housekeepers, and they go on and start
Speaker 1: making this stuff um and sell it to a guy
Speaker 1: named Major Enri Danielle do bed Do bid um and
Speaker 1: probably make a tidy sum from that. But some historians
Speaker 1: have said no, actually, it looks like other people might
Speaker 1: have been making this stuff before him, including the henryode sisters,
Speaker 1: so it's possible that Dr Ordinair actually stole this from them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it was also a time where there was you know,
Speaker 1: this was the golden age of medicinal elixirs, so who knows,
Speaker 1: like everyone was experimenting with different recipes for stuff. And
Speaker 1: I definitely think we can't say for sure that it
Speaker 1: was Dr Pierre Ordinaire, but it is a great name. Um.
Speaker 1: But at some somehow Dr major Dubia did come into
Speaker 1: this recipe and started making absinthe, and he had a
Speaker 1: daughter named Emily spelled like your wife's name. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: Emily married another man, Henri Louis Peria Nude and Peria
Speaker 1: Nude Para Nude. Sorry I was adding an extra syllable
Speaker 1: in the Para nude. Um was the son of another
Speaker 1: family that had been making absinthe, And so the Dubids
Speaker 1: and the Para Nudes got together and became basically like
Speaker 1: an absentthe making dying is the along the Swiss French border.
Speaker 1: That's right. And what was the last name in that
Speaker 1: other family, Well, Para Nude finally changed their name to
Speaker 1: Pernode p r an o D, which is a very
Speaker 1: famous brand of liquorice flavored liqueur that was once absinthe
Speaker 1: that had the wormwood removed and became that's right, and
Speaker 1: they're now a I believe there was a merger in
Speaker 1: the mid seventies with another beverage brand and now they're
Speaker 1: a huge sort of liquor company that owns I think
Speaker 1: they owned Sea Grims, They own a couple of other vodkas.
Speaker 1: They owned lots of stuff and you can see that
Speaker 1: green pernol on any liquor store shelf, and you've probably
Speaker 1: if you're not an aficionado, you've probably always wondered, is
Speaker 1: that absinthe? Or what the heck is up with that
Speaker 1: bright green stuff. Well, as we'll see, it was a
Speaker 1: stand in for absinthe, which had become kind of popular
Speaker 1: taste wise. Um, after it got banging. That's right, since absence, man,
Speaker 1: you're full of it today, you're just full of like it,
Speaker 1: he splits in vinegar. I've never heard that term. I
Speaker 1: just made it up. Okay, So, uh, we're still not
Speaker 1: at this point where absinthe has become an actual popular
Speaker 1: drink really honestly. So Dubi Ed was like, I want
Speaker 1: to buy this, but I think you're wasting it selling
Speaker 1: it as a medicinal. I think people would actually like
Speaker 1: to drink this, And he was right. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: until it was used extensively as a medicinal with the
Speaker 1: French army who were sent off to North Africa by
Speaker 1: Napoleon in the eighteen forties, I believe, and we're given
Speaker 1: absinthe during their stay to fight off malaria. Um. The
Speaker 1: absence became popular because those French soldiers came back and said, hey,
Speaker 1: have you guys tried the absence stuff? Like they gave
Speaker 1: it to his medicine. But we loved drinking it regardless,
Speaker 1: And the French Army was popular enough of the time
Speaker 1: that whatever was fashionable with them became fashionable with the
Speaker 1: rest of France as well. That's right, So they bring
Speaker 1: the taste of absinthe back. At first, it is expensive,
Speaker 1: and it is you know, basically people with money, sort
Speaker 1: of the higher class that are drinking absinthe. And then
Speaker 1: even early on, because of its reputation as a hallucinogen,
Speaker 1: artists were into it, trying to get inspiration for their
Speaker 1: poems and paintings and things like that. And things change though,
Speaker 1: starting in about the eighteen seventies when there was a insect,
Speaker 1: the Philo Rexerra, the rexa mhm by Losera. There we're
Speaker 1: adding letters all over the place today. Uh so it's
Speaker 1: the insect five loserra. It really in you know, France,
Speaker 1: as everyone knows, is most famous for its wine growing,
Speaker 1: and this devastated grapes in France and that was a
Speaker 1: bad thing for the wine industry because that just meant obviously,
Speaker 1: when something like that happens, wine is going to be
Speaker 1: more expensive, and so absinthe came along and said, hey,
Speaker 1: we can make this with anything. We don't need grapes,
Speaker 1: we can make it with cheaper stuff, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, absinthe is cheaper, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: that people drinking absinthe became just sort of the working
Speaker 1: class because wine was so expensive. All of a sudden, yeah,
Speaker 1: because the French said, we got to drink something. So
Speaker 1: they replaced their wine, which is now ridiculously expensive, which
Speaker 1: with much, much, much cheaper absinthe. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: Chuck is absinthe is a spirit. Wine is not a spirit.
Speaker 1: So you know, wine definitely contains alcohol, and you can
Speaker 1: make wine with more or less you know, alcoholic content.
Speaker 1: But one of the things about absinthe is it's one
Speaker 1: of the highest proof liquors on the market. I didn't
Speaker 1: know it's. It frequently hits sixty to seventy up to
Speaker 1: eight alcohol. So if you get a really um high
Speaker 1: a b V or high proof absinthe and you are
Speaker 1: yourself a glass of it, that is not alcohol. The
Speaker 1: other is pure alcohol. So that's a really big switch.
Speaker 1: That's a huge switch over from wine, drinking a couple
Speaker 1: of glasses of wine and dinner, and drinking a couple
Speaker 1: of glasses of absinthe at dinner. It's a big difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I should have asked, have you ever had absinthe,
Speaker 1: like just real deal, straight up at some drink or
Speaker 1: not in cocktail, but it's absinthe? Yes, yeah, you mean,
Speaker 1: got me a little bottle of St. George absinthe. I
Speaker 1: think they're out of San Francisco. Um yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: make really good gin too, um uh and a little spoon,
Speaker 1: a little slotted spoons. So I made this absinthe here
Speaker 1: there a couple of times. It's fine, okay, home about Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, I've never had it. I meant to get
Speaker 1: some and try this. I'm gonna try it after now
Speaker 1: that I know the whole deal and how to do it.
Speaker 1: But I can already tell that it's not going to
Speaker 1: be like something I'm gonna drink a lot of. No.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's tasty, you definitely want, and diluted with
Speaker 1: water and sugar water in particular as we'll see. Um
Speaker 1: and but it's neat that there's like a ritual to it.
Speaker 1: It's fun to like kind of learn the ritual, make
Speaker 1: the drink like that, you know, following these this kind
Speaker 1: of ritualized, and then never do it again. Sure, and
Speaker 1: then yeah, the problem is when you want like a
Speaker 1: second one or something like that, it's like, oh, I
Speaker 1: gotta go through this whole rigamarole again, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's one of those things, you know. Uh, then you
Speaker 1: just crack a beer when it is less beer. Yet
Speaker 1: you don't drink beer anymore, do you? Oh? Yeah, sometimes,
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I mean once in ace in a while.
Speaker 1: It's not frequent or anything, but um uh last beer
Speaker 1: I had it was probably a few months ago. But
Speaker 1: they I don't drink it much anymore. I miss it.
Speaker 1: If you want a beer and you have a beer,
Speaker 1: it can be really satisfying under the right conditions, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think what I do with beer now is uh,
Speaker 1: it used to just be beer, beer, beer, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're younger or when I was younger. But now
Speaker 1: I treat beer as like a treat that I have
Speaker 1: every once in a while and I'll have one, maybe two,
Speaker 1: and that's it. And that kind of think back, like, man,
Speaker 1: how did I used to drink like a lot of this?
Speaker 1: That's just a lot of liquid, yeah, a lot of bourbon, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of like your pants falling down, I mean,
Speaker 1: like a lot of weird stuff happens when you drink,
Speaker 1: and a lot of beer. Yeah. So anyway back to
Speaker 1: absinthe um, where are we? Okay, it is now the
Speaker 1: working classes drinking it, they're loving it. And advertising what
Speaker 1: we know is like modern advertising is just starting to
Speaker 1: be a thing. And in France they went a few
Speaker 1: different directions, kind of like with I mean, look at
Speaker 1: any beer now and you can kind of say the
Speaker 1: same thing. Some of it was patriotic, like they would
Speaker 1: adorn it in the French the colors of the French flag, um.
Speaker 1: Some of them were even called things like patriot uh.
Speaker 1: And then they had the sexy ads with you know,
Speaker 1: sexy ladies drinking absinthe uh. And so that's like any
Speaker 1: you know, that could be a Budweiser poster. But the
Speaker 1: thing that they don't do on a Budweiser poster is
Speaker 1: they also advertise it as a hygiene product. Right because again,
Speaker 1: remember this whole thing started off as a medicinal liquor
Speaker 1: medicinal lick, sir, So they could still kind of lean
Speaker 1: on that because it was close enough in the recent
Speaker 1: past that people recognized it as such. You know, got
Speaker 1: worms drink absinthe or got bad breaths drink absin imagine
Speaker 1: switching it around in your mouths. Yeah, it's probably like
Speaker 1: a mouthwatch, I guess a little bit. It's like um,
Speaker 1: you know that old timey liquorice flavored toothpaste. I imagine
Speaker 1: to be like that. Yeah. Probably. So we should also
Speaker 1: point out this is mainly in Europe. It never really
Speaker 1: took off in the United States around this time, except
Speaker 1: and of course French inspired New Orleans. It was pretty
Speaker 1: popular there. Yeah, But like you said, in Europe it
Speaker 1: was very popular, especially among artists, in particular Bohemian artists.
Speaker 1: And there was a real transition going on in the
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century early twenty, very very early twentieth century
Speaker 1: um the aughts, as you call them, UM, where art
Speaker 1: was getting a little more rebellious, a little less stuffy um.
Speaker 1: And the old guard did not really like this very much.
Speaker 1: But the new Guards said they cared not um, and
Speaker 1: one of the one of the things that they were
Speaker 1: interested in was changing altering their perceptions. So they used opium.
Speaker 1: They drank lots of booze. But there was this idea
Speaker 1: that um, in particular absenthe could change your perceptions of
Speaker 1: the world and life and yourself in ways that nothing
Speaker 1: else could. Again because of this super hallucinatory wormwood, that
Speaker 1: if you drank too much, it might drive you mad.
Speaker 1: And so they adopted absence to kind of fuel this
Speaker 1: transition to a much more rebellious um like type of
Speaker 1: art or movement of art. Yeah, and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't quite get with you Mentalier about looking back
Speaker 1: on it, it is kind of gross and embarrassing because
Speaker 1: they were just getting plowed on liquor, is what was happening.
Speaker 1: And you know, they were writing poems about it, and
Speaker 1: they were painting paintings, you know about absinthe. Then you know,
Speaker 1: Manet had one called the Absinthe Drinker, and it was
Speaker 1: a man. It was a portrait of a man named
Speaker 1: Colordette who was just sort of a street drunk who
Speaker 1: was dressed up a little fancy. And that was a
Speaker 1: big scandal because you weren't supposed to paint portraits of
Speaker 1: people like that. And van Go drank a lot of
Speaker 1: abs And then Picasso had a sculpture called the Glass
Speaker 1: of absinthe, and there were poems written about it in stories,
Speaker 1: and it was just it was all it was all
Speaker 1: fake when you look back, it was nothing but getting
Speaker 1: plowed on liquor. Yes, exactly right. And um to give
Speaker 1: an example of how it's just kind of uncomfortable, it
Speaker 1: can make you. Bode laire um who I always think
Speaker 1: of with um, what was that bomb vivant that John
Speaker 1: Lovitts played on SNL kind of a dandy, the one
Speaker 1: I'm an actor. Maybe I just remember him invoking bodel Oh, Bodelaire,
Speaker 1: And this is who he was talking about was Charles Baudelaire,
Speaker 1: who was a very influential poet of this time who
Speaker 1: really liked getting wasted, and he in particular thought that
Speaker 1: getting wasted on absinthe was amazing because quote, neither wine
Speaker 1: nor opium equals the poison welling up in your eyes.
Speaker 1: That show me my poor soul, reversed my dreams, thronged
Speaker 1: drink at those green distorting pools absinthe, when really it
Speaker 1: was just high proof licker. That was it. Everybody that
Speaker 1: was it? Yeah, he could have been said, I've been
Speaker 1: about hunch punch exactly. You know, like college Freshman wrote
Speaker 1: similar poems inspired by Jim Morrison and hunch Punch. Oh yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: Hunch Punch really does get on top of you pretty
Speaker 1: quick too. That never had that stuff. If it's well made,
Speaker 1: you don't even taste the incredible amount of high high hy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy. You're like, how is this being hidden? But
Speaker 1: it does, I guess because it's a neutral spirit. But
Speaker 1: it's um wow, And for some reason it's all there's
Speaker 1: always like an entire garbage can full of it. It's
Speaker 1: never like a small amount. Nobody ever makes like a
Speaker 1: nice cocktail of hunch punch. Here and there there's a
Speaker 1: garbage can. It's a very dangerous thing to do. Actually,
Speaker 1: in retrospect, I have a theory about absence, and I
Speaker 1: haven't really seen anything about this, but I think the
Speaker 1: mere fact that it was this bright, bright green just
Speaker 1: I think if it would have been a clear or
Speaker 1: brown liquor, it wouldn't have taken hold like it did.
Speaker 1: I think there was something about that color that just
Speaker 1: sort of entranced people. I think you're totally right, and
Speaker 1: the point that shouldn't be mistaken is that in some way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, absent, even if it was a mythological
Speaker 1: concept when you really get right down to it did
Speaker 1: fuel some really creative art at that time. I mean
Speaker 1: we're talking about man A Dega van go All. These
Speaker 1: guys were like fueled by absinthe. Like it really did
Speaker 1: have a huge impression on the art world, even if
Speaker 1: they were kind of self deluded. Yeah. The Oscar Wild quote,
Speaker 1: of course, you know every Oscar Wild quote is pretty great.
Speaker 1: But he liked the stuff, and he said, after the
Speaker 1: first class of absinthe, you see things as you wish
Speaker 1: they are, wish they were. After the second you see
Speaker 1: them as they are not. Finally, you see things as
Speaker 1: they really are, and that that is the most horrible
Speaker 1: thing in the world, which just means you're plastered. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Another one that we could not just not shout out
Speaker 1: though was pretty much the the head cheese as far
Speaker 1: as getting super plowed on absinthe goes, which is to
Speaker 1: loose la trek, Henrida, to loose la trek. He loved
Speaker 1: the stuff, very famous with pastel portraits, very famous. Um,
Speaker 1: just kind of hard living, hard drinking French dude from
Speaker 1: the era um. And he apparently loved absence so much
Speaker 1: that he had a walking cane that he carried a
Speaker 1: little like a couple of shots of absente poured into
Speaker 1: hollowed out walking cane with him everywhere he went. That's
Speaker 1: a nice party trick. So it was, Um, it was
Speaker 1: really something like everybody was really getting plowed on absence.
Speaker 1: Remember a lot of working class French people replaced their
Speaker 1: morning afternoon and evening glasses of wine with morning afternoon
Speaker 1: and evening glasses of liquor absinthe instead, and this was
Speaker 1: starting to like make a lot of people worried. Um,
Speaker 1: there was a temperance movement in eighteen seventy two, beginning
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy two in France, and it was not
Speaker 1: gaining traction, and then absinthe really started to come along
Speaker 1: and a target began to emerge. And Chuck, I say
Speaker 1: that we take a uh break and then come back
Speaker 1: and talk about how the ban on absinthe began. Let's
Speaker 1: do it. Stuff you should know, lawsham shure stuff you
Speaker 1: should know, all right, So you teased that. Uh, the
Speaker 1: temperance movement in France didn't take at first because simmas France,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the French should love to drink lots of
Speaker 1: wine and other things. God God bless him, but absinthe
Speaker 1: is started to grow in popularity, and they rode in
Speaker 1: and said, all right, here's our chance. This stuff is
Speaker 1: is the devil's juice, and we can really have a
Speaker 1: way in here if we target absent as a thing.
Speaker 1: And then wine makers, which is sort of weird, got
Speaker 1: involved in the temperance movement in a way when they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: absentthe is terrible and it's not like cognac, which is
Speaker 1: you know, it was just really sort of high falutin
Speaker 1: alcohol made from uh, distilled grapes. Um. But this stuff
Speaker 1: is really bad stuff. It's cheap and it's it's it's petty,
Speaker 1: and it's for the lower class. So we're going to
Speaker 1: join up in the temperance movement ourselves to help get
Speaker 1: rid of it. Yeah, and it worked really really well.
Speaker 1: I mean they had a common enemy, absence. And then
Speaker 1: what was really kind of helped alonger helped the entire
Speaker 1: thing along. We're a couple of things. One was a
Speaker 1: psychiatrist named Valentine Magnart Magna in Magna And sorry, I
Speaker 1: printed this undraft setting so I can't see very well. Um,
Speaker 1: but even and we'll come back to magna and slash
Speaker 1: magnart in a second. Um. But what what really kind
Speaker 1: of shocked the nation's and in fact the world's conscience
Speaker 1: about just letting absinthe flow freely was um jehan le
Speaker 1: phrase murder of his entire family Um while he was
Speaker 1: about as drunk as a human being can be, right,
Speaker 1: but not so much on absinthe, which is the irony here.
Speaker 1: This was in nineteen o five, and as the story
Speaker 1: goes in court, they say he drank five liters of wine,
Speaker 1: six classes of cognac to crim demense, just you know,
Speaker 1: because a coffee with brandy, I guess to sober up,
Speaker 1: and then but two ounces of absinthe, gets in a
Speaker 1: fight with his wife, his pregnant wife murders her with
Speaker 1: a gun and his two and three year old daughters
Speaker 1: amazingly horrible domestic comicide case. Then tried to kill himself,
Speaker 1: survived it and was basically spared the death penalty. But
Speaker 1: because they said he was in the throes of absinthe
Speaker 1: madness and it worked. Yeah, there was a psyche, a
Speaker 1: different psychologist from Switzerland named Albert Albert Albert Mayhem, and
Speaker 1: uh he said no, this man was was in the
Speaker 1: grips of this absinthe madness, even though he just had
Speaker 1: two ounces of absent throughout the whole day. But the
Speaker 1: fact that he had had absinthe and absinthe had this reputation,
Speaker 1: he was able to seize on it. And so that
Speaker 1: that really caught the attention of everybody that if you
Speaker 1: drank absinthe it could drive you to murder your own family.
Speaker 1: That really made a lot of people reconsider it. And
Speaker 1: then either um, like before this, well full thirty years
Speaker 1: before this, there was a um a psychiatrists in France
Speaker 1: named Magnan Valentine Magnan and he I guess was part
Speaker 1: of the temperance movement as well. Um and he had
Speaker 1: conducted some studies where he got his hands on wormwood
Speaker 1: and just basically kept giving wormwood or two dogs until
Speaker 1: they'd finally start having convulsions and seizures. And then he
Speaker 1: published a study saying wormwood I will give you convulsions
Speaker 1: and seizures. Doesn't really matter how much wormwood oil you drink.
Speaker 1: Just the fact that wormwood oil was in absinthe made
Speaker 1: it questionable, made it dangerous. And so these two things
Speaker 1: Magnan's pretty much made up study and Jean Le phrase
Speaker 1: horrific crime came together to give that strange bedfellow um
Speaker 1: joint movement between the temperance people and the wine industry
Speaker 1: a huge target on the back of absinthe. And they
Speaker 1: went after absinthe full bore. And it did not take
Speaker 1: very long after Jean Le phrase crime for absence to
Speaker 1: start to get banned around the world. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that had they made up a name for it, even
Speaker 1: it's called absinthe is um instead of alcoholism. And I
Speaker 1: think the murder was in He, by the way, appears
Speaker 1: died by suicide just a few days after he was
Speaker 1: put in jail. Just to put a button on that,
Speaker 1: but that was in nineteen oh five. Switzerland bandit in
Speaker 1: nineteen o eight. Uh, the US bandit in nineteen twelve.
Speaker 1: France finally gave in in nineteen fifteen, and then that
Speaker 1: is when in nineteen twenty we mentioned that Pernou started
Speaker 1: making pernol a nie which is now just known as
Speaker 1: perno as that substitute for absent in nineteen twenty. Right,
Speaker 1: So there's a band and a lot of different countries,
Speaker 1: not all countries. Apparently the UK never banned it, but
Speaker 1: I read that it was partially because they were just
Speaker 1: ignoring things that have to do with French tastes for real. Um.
Speaker 1: The UH the checks never never banned it. So you
Speaker 1: could go to Prague, which was also a center of
Speaker 1: like artsy intellectual um Bohemian vibes. In fact, I think
Speaker 1: Bohemia actually is in that area. UM, so they would
Speaker 1: definitely have an original claim to that UM. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, if you wanted to get absinthe, it
Speaker 1: was very, very difficult, and because it could drive you mad,
Speaker 1: it can make you kill your family. And you mentioned
Speaker 1: it a second ago. Absinthe is um this UH syndrome,
Speaker 1: which was the collection of maladies everything from m hallucination, sleeplessness, tremors, convulsions,
Speaker 1: madness from drinking absinthe. And in retrospect historians say this
Speaker 1: didn't exist. Like what this person was describing was excessive
Speaker 1: alcohol use, like all this stuff you can get from
Speaker 1: drinking way too much high proof alcohol, which is what
Speaker 1: they were doing. So in addition to like just this
Speaker 1: kind of moral panic about it making you kill your family,
Speaker 1: there was an accompanying made up syndrome to to give
Speaker 1: like a veneer of science to the moral panic as well,
Speaker 1: and it was so effective Chuck that absinthe was banned
Speaker 1: for over a hundred years in places. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it took the liquor industry and distilleries basically beating the
Speaker 1: drum saying, you know, we want to make absent, we
Speaker 1: want to make this probably highly marketable. Super hopped up
Speaker 1: liquor again and they said all right. The EU started
Speaker 1: lifting the band in the in the late eighties and
Speaker 1: eight Uh. France, it was sort of in a gray
Speaker 1: area basically, but they finally removed the law against it
Speaker 1: in I believe the US was two thousand seven when
Speaker 1: the a T the Alcohol, Tobacco, Tax and Trade Bureau
Speaker 1: said all right, well, here's what you can do. You
Speaker 1: can distill this liquor. You can call it absinthe, but
Speaker 1: it can't it's gotta be through jone free. It's got
Speaker 1: to have less than ten parts per million. And uh,
Speaker 1: if it's coming across the border, if you're importing it,
Speaker 1: you can't import something labeled absinthe or any bottle that
Speaker 1: you know, shows like people tripping or any kind of
Speaker 1: hallucinogenic effects on the bottle, right, which just underscores the
Speaker 1: government's preoccupation with control link citizens perception of reality really
Speaker 1: strange if you step back and think about it. You know, so, Um,
Speaker 1: you can get absinthe here today. In Switzerland they have
Speaker 1: one of those. Man, I can't remember what it's called,
Speaker 1: but where you know, in Champagne there's rules about what
Speaker 1: qualifies a champagne and anything that don't follow those h
Speaker 1: something about appellation I can't remember, but um, Switzerland has
Speaker 1: something like that. And Couvey is kind of I saw
Speaker 1: it described as the spiritual home of absinthe. UM, so
Speaker 1: you can get it. Uh. It's widely available today and
Speaker 1: there's some really good craft distillers making absinthe all around
Speaker 1: the world. And if you do get your hands on
Speaker 1: it and you do say like I want to try this,
Speaker 1: there is a pretty interesting ritual involved. Um and absinthe
Speaker 1: is typically drunk, at least with water and sugar, and
Speaker 1: the way that you combine those two things with absinthe
Speaker 1: is kind of where the rituals start to kick in.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. And firstly, you should look for abs
Speaker 1: sinth that is not made green with some artificial coloring.
Speaker 1: You don't want that. You want something that's like genuinely
Speaker 1: colored from the post distillation process of infusion. So once
Speaker 1: you've got your hands on some good absinthe, uh, there's
Speaker 1: different ways you can do it. There are cool little
Speaker 1: things that look good on your bar. I've seen some.
Speaker 1: They look sort of like these clear vases with a
Speaker 1: a little spout on one side. But you don't even
Speaker 1: need all that stuff. Really, you just all you really
Speaker 1: have to do is poor and you don't even need sugar.
Speaker 1: I think sugar helps the taste. But if you want
Speaker 1: to uh, what is it pronounced the luch, that's what
Speaker 1: I think, l o U c h E. If you
Speaker 1: want to create the luch, which is this sort of
Speaker 1: cloudy effect in your absinthe, all you really have to
Speaker 1: do is dribble ice cold water in your absinthe. So
Speaker 1: you know, you pour just a little bit. You don't
Speaker 1: need much, like an ounce, maybe two ounces if you're
Speaker 1: really going for it, and then you want to mix
Speaker 1: about four parts ice cold water, just dribble it in
Speaker 1: the little flat spoon on top. If you want to
Speaker 1: get into the ritual, it can be a little fancier,
Speaker 1: but I saw people online that literally just sort of
Speaker 1: held a glass of ice cold water high above their
Speaker 1: absent glass and just sort of dribble the water in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those drippers that are really cool. They look like a
Speaker 1: virus almost like three or four legged virus that sits
Speaker 1: atop your glass, and then there's a tray beneath it
Speaker 1: that you put the sugar cuban and then you just
Speaker 1: pour the four or five ounces of cold water into
Speaker 1: the reservoir above the tray over the glass, and it
Speaker 1: drips it onto the sugar at a steady rate, which
Speaker 1: drips the sugar water into the glass of absinthe below. Um.
Speaker 1: And they're very, very pretty for the most part, like
Speaker 1: that bellop hoc Perry look um, and it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really cool. It's like I could see how people get
Speaker 1: into this kind of thing too. But that loose chuck.
Speaker 1: There's a really cool legend about it. So the luci
Speaker 1: is created when the water dissolve some parts of the
Speaker 1: alcohol but not some of the oil based plant stuff,
Speaker 1: and rather than just separating like oil and water, it
Speaker 1: separates out enough to just kind of create this vapor cloud.
Speaker 1: And there's a legend, I don't know if it's true
Speaker 1: or not that at the Pernode Distillery Um there was
Speaker 1: a lightning strike that threatened to blow up. I guess
Speaker 1: created a fire that threatened to blow blow up thousands
Speaker 1: of barrels of absinthe, So the workers were dumping it
Speaker 1: out as fast as they could into the nearby river,
Speaker 1: the Dubes River, and um, there was a local theory
Speaker 1: that the Dubes River fed another river through an underground channel,
Speaker 1: and when the other river showed a lush a couple
Speaker 1: of days later, that confirmed that theory, which is pretty
Speaker 1: neat although not necessarily a fully documented story. It's a
Speaker 1: good story though. Yeah, and the lucio is cool looking,
Speaker 1: like admittedly it's you know what you start out if
Speaker 1: you've never seen it, what you start out with with
Speaker 1: absinthe is uh, sort of a see through green, very
Speaker 1: bright green thing. And the lush, once it gets cloudy,
Speaker 1: it ends up looking kind of almost like, uh, lime juice,
Speaker 1: sort of a cloudy lime juicy look. And again it's
Speaker 1: it's mostly water. Uh. And you know there is that
Speaker 1: fire method where you light the sugar cuban fire uh
Speaker 1: and then extinguish it with cold water after it drips
Speaker 1: down and melts into the thing. But I saw that
Speaker 1: a this was not a good idea for a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons because the danger of fire. If you're in
Speaker 1: a bright room, you might not see that light blue
Speaker 1: flame and go to drink something that's still on fire. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that it's really uh it's usually or historically was
Speaker 1: a way to disguise like really bad absent. Then if
Speaker 1: you have good absinthe then it's not something you need
Speaker 1: to do at all. The best thing, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: that you can do with your absence is use it
Speaker 1: to rinse a glass that you're about to make a
Speaker 1: sazarek in. Yeah, I've heard of that. Oh man, it's good.
Speaker 1: A good sazarek is, Oh my gosh, I like a sazarek.
Speaker 1: I'd never I don't think I saw. I've seen one
Speaker 1: being made at like a bar. It has come to
Speaker 1: me at the table. So I don't know if they've
Speaker 1: done that or not. They most definitely have if they
Speaker 1: if they're making anything approaching an accurate sas reck, I
Speaker 1: guarantee they have for sure. Like you just put just
Speaker 1: a little bit in, like a quarter ounce or less
Speaker 1: of absence and then you turn the glass kind of
Speaker 1: on its side and twisted around in a circle on
Speaker 1: its axis. Yeah, I guess with yaw control. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, and um, now your your glass is ready
Speaker 1: to have the sas rec poured in. Or if you
Speaker 1: really want to get fancy, they sell little atomizers like
Speaker 1: those perfume atomizers that you can put absinthe in and
Speaker 1: just spray it on the inside of your glass and
Speaker 1: it should stick to the sides. Yeah, that's when I
Speaker 1: get a You know, I love my martinis, but I
Speaker 1: like a martini with a little vermouth in there. Not much.
Speaker 1: I like them dry, but I do like a little
Speaker 1: actual vermouth in there. And uh, it annoys me when
Speaker 1: asked for a dry martini when they just put their
Speaker 1: vermouth in, swish it around, then dump it out. I'm
Speaker 1: always like, come on, just just a little bit, put
Speaker 1: it like a bone dry martini, or or they don't
Speaker 1: even like the thought of vermouth isn't even an option.
Speaker 1: It's just straight up gin. I'm like, Martini, it's supposed
Speaker 1: to have a little vermouth in there. Yeah, you might
Speaker 1: as well say, can I have three ounces of gin? Please?
Speaker 1: Yea cold gin. That's basically what I have with a
Speaker 1: little brine. Yeah, So you got anything else about absinthe?
Speaker 1: Nothing else? There are plenty of cocktails out there that
Speaker 1: have a little absent in there if you're into that.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna give it a try. I'm gonna see
Speaker 1: what it's all about. Some have a lot of them.
Speaker 1: I saw the Necromancer. It's equal parts um, absinthe, lilas blanc,
Speaker 1: Saint Germain and lemon juice with a dash of gin.
Speaker 1: Saint Germaine is green, right, No, it's a kind of
Speaker 1: a goldish color. It's elder flower liqueur. Okay, it's not cream.
Speaker 1: You're thinking of art truce. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of,
Speaker 1: which is another difficult thing to find recipes for. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got some of that stuff on my bar now
Speaker 1: and it remains largely touched into digging. I think that's
Speaker 1: another one that sorted out as a botanical medicinal remedy too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's it for botanical medicinal remedies. Everybody, in particular absinthe.
Speaker 1: And if you want to know more about absent, then
Speaker 1: just check it out. See what you think you should
Speaker 1: be over twenty one though, you know, just c o A.
Speaker 1: And since I said just c o A, it's time
Speaker 1: for listener mail. Yeah, and don't do the fire method.
Speaker 1: Just don't do it, agreed, No need. All right, this
Speaker 1: is a Simpsons reference that we missed. I always love these,
Speaker 1: and this is from Lauren, Andrew and Homer. Believe it
Speaker 1: or not, Hey, guys, just listen to the wonderful episode
Speaker 1: on postmodernism. So forgive me. This has already been pointed
Speaker 1: out to you, but I couldn't believe that no one,
Speaker 1: especially Josh, made any reference to the classic Simpsons episode
Speaker 1: Homer the Mo in which Moe transforms the tavern into
Speaker 1: a swanky club called m Right. Do you remember that one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a great scene where Homer and the other longtime
Speaker 1: patrons are questioning Mo about some eyeball art on the wall,
Speaker 1: and after some attempt to get the guys to understand
Speaker 1: it is poem, he finally describes it as being we
Speaker 1: had for the sake of weird and they all get it. Uh.
Speaker 1: This definition has been what I think of when I
Speaker 1: think of postmodern art for my entire adult life. So
Speaker 1: I thought i'd share again from Lauren, Andrew and Homer.
Speaker 1: Prince's actual name pretty great. Thank you for that. Thank
Speaker 1: you for waking us over the coals from missing that one.
Speaker 1: But is pretty obvious and we should have thought about it,
Speaker 1: I didn't kind of king. Yeah, I guess so still
Speaker 1: hurts so bad. But if you want to make us
Speaker 1: hurt so bad, you can get in touch with us
Speaker 1: like Lauren Homer and uh and Andrew and if you
Speaker 1: want to make it hurt so good to get in
Speaker 1: touch with John Mellencamp. It's my last joke that wasn't
Speaker 1: a joke. You can send us an email to stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at i heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know is a production of I heart Radio. For more
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