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SYSK Selects: How Wine Fraud Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Happy Saturday everyone. This is Chuck from Stuff you Should Know,
0:04
Speaker 1: and welcome to my select pick for the week. This
0:06
Speaker 1: is from October fift two thousand fifteen, and it's called
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Speaker 1: How Wine Fraud Works. And I selected this because spend
0:13
Speaker 1: a minute since I've listened to it, and I love wine,
0:16
Speaker 1: as you know, and I hate wine fraud as you
0:18
Speaker 1: probably know as well. So let's learn about it together.
0:22
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of my
0:25
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:34
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Child's of w Chuck Bryant and
0:37
Speaker 1: no little bit even this Stuff you Should Know. Man,
0:41
Speaker 1: that coffee smells good? You want something? Have a sip? No,
0:44
Speaker 1: I'm fine, but just I just love that smells so nice,
0:48
Speaker 1: even though I don't drink much coffee. Oh yeah, I'm
0:50
Speaker 1: with you. You know, it's just a delicious smell. Sometimes
0:53
Speaker 1: I'll go to a department store and just walk through
0:55
Speaker 1: the fragrance s aisle and just smell the coffee samples.
0:59
Speaker 1: Today open. Well, I thought you were gonna say you
1:01
Speaker 1: go through the lingerie and just brushed up against things
1:05
Speaker 1: after the coffee, So after the coffee, sniffing is done
1:08
Speaker 1: and I can't smell anything anymore. How are you? Thanks
1:14
Speaker 1: for outing me? Man, that's creepy. Yeah, I'm sure there's
1:19
Speaker 1: weirdos out there who do that. Are you kidding me?
1:21
Speaker 1: There's probably websites dedicated to it. Yeah, I'm fine. Good. Good?
1:29
Speaker 1: Do you like wine? I love wine? How do you know,
1:32
Speaker 1: Chuck that the wine you're drinking it's actually the wine
1:34
Speaker 1: you're thinking it because nobody bothers to fraudulently rip off
1:42
Speaker 1: bottle of one. Not true. Yeah, there's a famous issue
1:47
Speaker 1: in the world of wine fraud watch people. Okay, um
1:53
Speaker 1: from Tesco, which is I think it's just a straight
1:55
Speaker 1: up like supermarket kim In Britain, I saw that. Actually, yeah,
1:58
Speaker 1: you're right. And there was a Louisia dough which normally
2:01
Speaker 1: goes for about fifteen pounds. It was selling on sale
2:04
Speaker 1: for five pounds, but one of the guys who purchased
2:08
Speaker 1: it contacted some people who are into wine and said,
2:10
Speaker 1: I think this is phony because the label looks like
2:14
Speaker 1: it's a photo copy. So somebody was doing knock off
2:18
Speaker 1: Luisia dough which normally goes for not that much, and
2:21
Speaker 1: sold it to Tesco, who was in turn selling it.
2:24
Speaker 1: And this is a huge thing, and there's a big,
2:26
Speaker 1: big debate even still and just how widespread wine fraud is.
2:32
Speaker 1: And it's really difficult to get to the bottom of
2:34
Speaker 1: because there's so many people who have their fingers in
2:38
Speaker 1: this fraudulent pot, whether wittingly or unwittingly, in either way,
2:43
Speaker 1: are unwilling to admit that it's as extensive as it is,
2:47
Speaker 1: or the people who are burned are making a bigger
2:50
Speaker 1: deal out of it than they are than it really is,
2:52
Speaker 1: because they have the money in the context to get
2:55
Speaker 1: CBS to do a story on how they got burned
2:58
Speaker 1: by buying some fake wine. So it's not entirely clear
3:01
Speaker 1: how widespread it is. But there have been some really great,
3:07
Speaker 1: very famous, almost proven stories of outright wine fraud. But
3:14
Speaker 1: it's a pretty new phenomenon. Uh well, if you think
3:18
Speaker 1: ancient Rome is pretty new, let's hear it man. Well
3:21
Speaker 1: that's I mean there ever, since there was wine, people
3:23
Speaker 1: were making fake wine or trumping it up as something
3:27
Speaker 1: other than it was. So the newer practice, like you
3:31
Speaker 1: can divide it into two things. There was an ancient
3:34
Speaker 1: room they were doing stuff like this and adding like
3:36
Speaker 1: lead to wine. To sweeten it while they were killing people. Uh.
3:41
Speaker 1: But then there's the new practice of like, hey, this
3:44
Speaker 1: is a Thomas Jefferson bottle of wine and you can
3:47
Speaker 1: bide it to Christie's auction for a hundred thousand dollars
3:49
Speaker 1: and it's really not that at all. Do you remember
3:52
Speaker 1: back in the eighties, Um, I think Reo Needy was
3:56
Speaker 1: adding like when you wipe her fluid or something. Yeah,
4:00
Speaker 1: it was at the at least an urban legend. More recently,
4:02
Speaker 1: there was something added to wine to make it sweeter
4:05
Speaker 1: that was really bad for you. But I don't know,
4:07
Speaker 1: I can't confirm if it was that case or No,
4:09
Speaker 1: this was specifically re Needy in the eighties. And it again,
4:12
Speaker 1: it could have just been an urban legend because it's
4:14
Speaker 1: at the same time that there were spiders eggs in
4:16
Speaker 1: bubble yum. You know. Yeah, there was a lot of
4:19
Speaker 1: like a consumer uh panic. I think. Yeah, it was
4:24
Speaker 1: a golden age for urban legends. Yeah, agreed. Uh. And
4:27
Speaker 1: you know what we need to do one on wine period? Yes,
4:31
Speaker 1: this is so us. Yeah, we'll do episodes on everything
4:34
Speaker 1: but the actual thing, and then we'll finally get to
4:37
Speaker 1: the thing. And we could also probably do a completely
4:40
Speaker 1: separate podcast on wine tasting, because man, that's a really
4:47
Speaker 1: bitter pill. Because there are some people who say there
4:51
Speaker 1: really is no difference in these wines, and there have
4:55
Speaker 1: been numerous occasions over the years where jerks have set
4:58
Speaker 1: up wine tasters to fail by just switching out wines
5:04
Speaker 1: and saying, this is a really nice bottle. What's really
5:06
Speaker 1: crappy and they say, whoa, this is lovely. The tannins
5:09
Speaker 1: are really coming in. It's jammie and full, and they're like,
5:11
Speaker 1: you're drinking too buck chuck. Um. People love that stuff
5:15
Speaker 1: that it's a big bone of contention with wine drinkers
5:18
Speaker 1: and also people who like to poop poo that right
5:21
Speaker 1: and say it's all subjective and you're all just snooty
5:23
Speaker 1: and either really is no difference, but there really is
5:25
Speaker 1: a difference. Well, okay, so there is a like you say,
5:29
Speaker 1: there's there's a big debate over that, right, um, But
5:33
Speaker 1: if you if you dive into the world of high
5:37
Speaker 1: end vintage wine collecting, it is very um it's like
5:42
Speaker 1: an aura borus, right, that snake that eats its own
5:45
Speaker 1: tail in that the people who are in charge of
5:50
Speaker 1: judging whether something's real or not are basing that on
5:55
Speaker 1: their previous experiences, which may or may not have been
6:00
Speaker 1: in experience with the fraudulent wine. So even if you
6:03
Speaker 1: can tell the difference, if you've only been exposed to, say,
6:07
Speaker 1: fraudulent eight century wine, then when you are asked to
6:12
Speaker 1: judge a bottle of eighteenth century wine, you're gonna compare
6:16
Speaker 1: it to that, and if it's ultimately coming from the
6:18
Speaker 1: same counterfeitter, you will be like, yes, this is the
6:21
Speaker 1: real thing, because I've had that before and it tastes
6:24
Speaker 1: like that. Well, yeah, And here's the other thing. Is
6:27
Speaker 1: there there is vintage, uh, appropriately aged wine that is
6:34
Speaker 1: tastes great because it has aged in such a way,
6:37
Speaker 1: and then there are these super old bottles that apparently
6:41
Speaker 1: tastes like canned asparagus. Is the note that it brings out,
6:46
Speaker 1: And these don't even taste that good. It's just the
6:50
Speaker 1: fact that you can own it and show people you
6:52
Speaker 1: don't even drink it. In most cases, you don't drink it.
6:55
Speaker 1: Jefferson Wine, you have it in your collection, so you say,
6:59
Speaker 1: look at Michael Alec exactly. That's the whole point A
7:02
Speaker 1: lot of people are For a lot of people, that's
7:03
Speaker 1: the whole point it's just own this bottle. It's like
7:06
Speaker 1: owning a piece of Thomas Jefferson. You get to show
7:08
Speaker 1: off and and tell people how great you are, right exactly. So, Um,
7:13
Speaker 1: that's how a lot of wine counterfeiting has gotten away
7:16
Speaker 1: with because the people are never going to open the wine,
7:19
Speaker 1: So whatever tampering you did with the seal is never
7:23
Speaker 1: going to be discovered. Um, they're never gonna taste the
7:26
Speaker 1: wine inside, so it could be two buck chalk or
7:29
Speaker 1: whatever we see the cork. Yeah, Um, and they're just
7:32
Speaker 1: they're just happy to have this thing and their status
7:35
Speaker 1: to be elevated to the point where they don't really
7:38
Speaker 1: want to know if it's a counterfeit so long as
7:41
Speaker 1: they can walk around and tell people this is Thomas Jefferson. Right, Well,
7:46
Speaker 1: we should go ahead and start talking about Bill Coke.
7:49
Speaker 1: He is uh, one of the other brothers. He is
7:52
Speaker 1: not Charles or David Coke of the famous uh Republican
7:57
Speaker 1: Coke brother fame. Yeah, billionaire supporters of the Republican Party. Yeah. Yeah,
8:06
Speaker 1: she's saying that's like the nicest way to describe them. Yeah,
8:10
Speaker 1: it is. Uh. He is the brother, one of the
8:12
Speaker 1: brothers who got out along with another brother. Um, not
8:16
Speaker 1: another brother from another mother. No, they're all the same mother,
8:19
Speaker 1: right right, Okay, Yeah, he got out of the family
8:22
Speaker 1: business and said, you know what, I'm a billionaire. I'm
8:25
Speaker 1: gonna what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start collecting
8:27
Speaker 1: really rare and expensive things. Um. One thing he has
8:31
Speaker 1: as a gun collection. He owns Custer's rifle, Billy the
8:35
Speaker 1: Kid's pistol. Does he yea, he owns the gun that
8:39
Speaker 1: killed Jesse James. Oh, I'm sorry, is Jesse James pistol?
8:42
Speaker 1: And that gun and that what was his name, Robert Ford? Yeah?
8:47
Speaker 1: And that boy was it really good? Beautifully shot as
8:53
Speaker 1: well WIDEPS rifle dot Holiday's rifle. He has a lot
8:56
Speaker 1: of vintage guns. He has a lot of very famous
8:58
Speaker 1: works of art, like original Picassos and Monaise. As far
9:03
Speaker 1: as he exactly, he sounds like a big sucker to me.
9:07
Speaker 1: And he also owns, uh as this article says, several
9:11
Speaker 1: hundred bottles of what he calls moose piss. Yeah, that's
9:15
Speaker 1: what he calls it. He's he well, he's saying that
9:18
Speaker 1: for all he knows. That's what's inside. He got duped
9:21
Speaker 1: very famously, many many times. Yeah, and he has had
9:25
Speaker 1: many many lawsuits over the years that have come out.
9:27
Speaker 1: Guy loves suing people. He does what he calls dropping
9:31
Speaker 1: subpoena is on people. Yeah, he sees people almost recreationally
9:36
Speaker 1: he drops a subpoena on their head. Yeah, what a guy.
9:39
Speaker 1: So he um. He bill Coke again very famously. He's
9:45
Speaker 1: probably the most famous victim of wine fraud because he
9:49
Speaker 1: sues everybody he possibly can who may or may not
9:53
Speaker 1: have sold them a fake. Really takes it personally, and
9:56
Speaker 1: he really goes after people. Um. And he did a
9:59
Speaker 1: lot of media about this too, so he's very famous
10:02
Speaker 1: for this. UM. And he brought in some wine experts
10:05
Speaker 1: and said, here are thirty thousand, forty thousand bottles of
10:09
Speaker 1: wine that I have in my cellers. How many are fake?
10:13
Speaker 1: And they just took a random sample of three bottles
10:16
Speaker 1: kidding me, no, they said exactly. They're like, we'll bill
10:21
Speaker 1: you for this. Um. They took a random sample of
10:24
Speaker 1: three thousand bottles and it yielded a hundred and thirty fakes.
10:28
Speaker 1: So I mean he has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
10:32
Speaker 1: by by extension, of fake bottles of wine in his cellar.
10:38
Speaker 1: And that was actually that's about on par with what
10:42
Speaker 1: the average not necessarily uninitiated or uneducated wine buyer, but
10:50
Speaker 1: fervent vintage wine buyer would have that about four million
10:55
Speaker 1: dollars seller, about a million of it will be on fakes.
10:59
Speaker 1: And he supposed at he spent close to five million
11:01
Speaker 1: dollars on fake wine over the past quarter century, um,
11:06
Speaker 1: including some of those Jefferson's that we'll talk about. Uh.
11:10
Speaker 1: And a lot of this wine came from a man
11:13
Speaker 1: named Rudy Uh Croniawe Oh, that's good stuff. Yeah, it's
11:18
Speaker 1: even better than I had in my head. Would you have?
11:23
Speaker 1: I like that? I think? And this guy was one
11:26
Speaker 1: of the most famous um really alongside another guy that
11:29
Speaker 1: we'll talk about, one of the most famous wine fraud discs, fraudster, fraudster, counterfeitters,
11:37
Speaker 1: counterfeiters of all time. Um. And he was sentenced to
11:39
Speaker 1: ten years in prison and supposedly was to pay close
11:42
Speaker 1: to fifty million dollars in damages, which is easily what
11:46
Speaker 1: he made by selling fake wine. In two sales in
11:52
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, he made thirty six million dollars
11:57
Speaker 1: selling fake wine. What a jerk. And it's easy to
12:00
Speaker 1: sit back and the defense team even used this in
12:03
Speaker 1: court to say, these are rich guys, like, no harm,
12:08
Speaker 1: no foul, who cares very if you're ripping off the rich.
12:12
Speaker 1: And I even found myself kind of thinking that. But
12:14
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, who it's wrong. It's wrong.
12:17
Speaker 1: It's wrong. Sure, I mean like I wouldn't do it.
12:19
Speaker 1: I wouldn't sell a counterfeit bottle of wine. Yeah, it's wrong,
12:22
Speaker 1: it's illegal, and it's it's gross. And just because you're
12:26
Speaker 1: ripping off the rich, it's not like he's Robin Hood
12:29
Speaker 1: and giving that then to the poor. You know, he
12:32
Speaker 1: was him. I didn't have the idea that he was
12:34
Speaker 1: doing that. Plus Um, Dave Rouse, who wrote this, made
12:38
Speaker 1: this point, but I take issue with it that ultimately
12:43
Speaker 1: vintage counterfeit wine fraud affects all wine drinkers because that
12:48
Speaker 1: stuff trickles down. I don't think that's true. Because from
12:52
Speaker 1: reading this UM, there are two really great long form
12:55
Speaker 1: articles that this article was partially based on when was
12:58
Speaker 1: in The New Yorker, and one was on Vanity Fair,
13:02
Speaker 1: and both of them were totally worth reading. Um. But
13:06
Speaker 1: just from reading those you get the impression that those
13:08
Speaker 1: are two very different worlds, that the world of like
13:12
Speaker 1: just regular wine appreciation and vintage wine collection form of
13:19
Speaker 1: Venn diagram that just barely overlaps, and that one really
13:24
Speaker 1: does not affect the economy the economics of the other.
13:27
Speaker 1: So if there's a bunch of counterfeit stuff going on
13:31
Speaker 1: in the vintage wine world, it probably wouldn't drive up
13:35
Speaker 1: prices for the wine that you're buying that's, you know,
13:38
Speaker 1: ten years old tops. So I don't think that that's
13:41
Speaker 1: necessarily true his point that we all shoulder the burden
13:45
Speaker 1: that counterfeiters do because these two worlds are so divorced.
13:48
Speaker 1: But even still, like if you were a people are
13:51
Speaker 1: losing money and reputations are being built up and lost.
13:55
Speaker 1: You know, I get that. All right, Well, let's take
13:57
Speaker 1: a little break and we'll come back and uh, we'll
13:59
Speaker 1: talk about the two ways that you can generally go
14:02
Speaker 1: about trying to fake a wine. All right, we're back.
14:26
Speaker 1: We're drunk on wine. It's so drunk. I wish what's
14:30
Speaker 1: your favorite wine? Uh? My favorite wines are big bodied
14:37
Speaker 1: California cabernets generally, like not a specific like wine maker.
14:42
Speaker 1: If that's what you're asking, I'm not gonna like, Yeah,
14:45
Speaker 1: there was no wrong answer. Yeah, No, Well what was
14:47
Speaker 1: that funny? Because it made me think of fat bottom girls,
14:50
Speaker 1: that Queen song. Big bodied California. Yeah, it just potts
14:56
Speaker 1: in my head and I laughed like a goon. Yeah,
14:58
Speaker 1: I like really full bodied wines, zim Fidel's and Cabernets. Yeah,
15:03
Speaker 1: I think California is just they're doing it right. You know.
15:06
Speaker 1: They say Pa titzeras the Rodney danger field in the
15:08
Speaker 1: wine world. I've heard that. So if you're gonna go
15:11
Speaker 1: about faking a wine, um you uh, there are two
15:16
Speaker 1: things you can do. You can either fake the wine
15:18
Speaker 1: inside a real bottle or you can fake the bottle
15:21
Speaker 1: with real wine. Yeah, and it's all real wine, you know,
15:25
Speaker 1: different vintage maybe yeah, but like it could be like
15:28
Speaker 1: a really nice nineteen seven wine that you say it's
15:33
Speaker 1: actually from nineteen fourteen or even one. I mean like
15:37
Speaker 1: it could be within a couple of years. It ends
15:40
Speaker 1: on whether it was a good year, good point or
15:43
Speaker 1: if the if there's a scarcity of it, that kind
15:45
Speaker 1: of stuff. And actually Bill Cooke makes a pretty good point.
15:48
Speaker 1: His whole thing is he wants to have I think
15:50
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty years of Lafitte or some some
15:54
Speaker 1: house like every single vintage that they released of every
16:00
Speaker 1: single variety over the course of a hundred and fifty years,
16:03
Speaker 1: which is extremely ambitious. And he said, it's easy to
16:06
Speaker 1: get the really prized ones because those are the ones
16:09
Speaker 1: that like people saved and all that. He said, it's
16:12
Speaker 1: the mediocre years that are old that nobody bothered to
16:15
Speaker 1: say this, drank and throw away the bottle or or
16:18
Speaker 1: just didn't keep it. Those are the ones that he
16:20
Speaker 1: has the most trouble finding. Or they did skeet shooting.
16:23
Speaker 1: They just had the servants stowed up in the air
16:25
Speaker 1: and then shot him with shotguns. That's what they do.
16:28
Speaker 1: Richie Riches. Uh, well, you make a good point too,
16:30
Speaker 1: because Colnie Allen, although he dealt in the super high echelon,
16:34
Speaker 1: he would also take a two bottle of wine and
16:37
Speaker 1: fake it to be like a thousand dollar bottle. Yeah,
16:40
Speaker 1: he did it both ways. He would he would take
16:42
Speaker 1: out he would take an old bottle, legitimate real bottle,
16:45
Speaker 1: put in his own mix of wine and cork it
16:48
Speaker 1: again and make it look like it had never been open.
16:52
Speaker 1: Or like you said, he would take just say a
16:55
Speaker 1: forty seven Lafitte and mess with the label to make
16:58
Speaker 1: it look like a forty one Lafitte, which would be
17:00
Speaker 1: worth ten times that what the forty seven Lafitte would
17:03
Speaker 1: be worth. Right, and clearly, I also want to point
17:05
Speaker 1: out Lafitte is obviously the only fancy wine that I'm
17:10
Speaker 1: familiar with, because that's my go too. So if you
17:14
Speaker 1: guys are out there and you're getting the impression that
17:16
Speaker 1: I know what I'm talking about as far as wine goes,
17:18
Speaker 1: you have been duped. Well, you're not a big wine guy.
17:21
Speaker 1: You're on record as such. I like wine. I'm I'm
17:24
Speaker 1: definitely not a wine guy exactly. Yeah. Uh, And I'm
17:28
Speaker 1: not wine guy either. I'm I'm at the very i'm
17:31
Speaker 1: wine guy in the their sense of the word. I
17:35
Speaker 1: like really good wines. I like going to wineries, but
17:39
Speaker 1: I'm certainly no like. I'm not saying I have some
17:42
Speaker 1: amazing palette. I can't pick out vanilla notes and things
17:45
Speaker 1: like that. I'm just like, man, this tastes really good
17:48
Speaker 1: for up the bottle of it. And I tend to
17:50
Speaker 1: fall into that camp where I'm certain that there are
17:53
Speaker 1: people out there, literal tastemakers who can tell the difference
17:58
Speaker 1: between wine and I've had had wine that I didn't
18:00
Speaker 1: like before, I've had wine that I do like. Um,
18:04
Speaker 1: but I fall into the camp where I'm ultimately like
18:06
Speaker 1: it's it's whatever you appreciate. It's no hierarchy. There doesn't
18:10
Speaker 1: need to be. Um, you know, a two thousand dollar
18:14
Speaker 1: bottle is not necessarily going to taste as good as
18:17
Speaker 1: a twenty dollar bottle. That that you The whole thing
18:21
Speaker 1: is just about individual enjoyment and a kind of snobbery
18:24
Speaker 1: associated with it to me just misses the point. Yeah,
18:27
Speaker 1: here's my deal is. I can really tell the difference
18:30
Speaker 1: between what I would consider a cheap wine and like
18:33
Speaker 1: a decent bottle or a good bottle. But that's where
18:37
Speaker 1: my taste level max is out. I can't tell the
18:40
Speaker 1: difference between a two bottle and at bottle. But if
18:46
Speaker 1: you gave me like a six dollar bottle, you can.
18:48
Speaker 1: You can taste the difference it's between that and like
18:50
Speaker 1: a twenty bottle. Yeah, but even then, if that's what
18:53
Speaker 1: you like, that's what you like. I'm not. It's just
18:55
Speaker 1: not what I want, right, you know. Man, a lot
18:59
Speaker 1: of caveats there. So Um. We were talking about Rudy kay, yeah,
19:05
Speaker 1: and how to how to he faked wines and he
19:08
Speaker 1: he got real bottles correct in general, and made his
19:12
Speaker 1: own wine concoctions. Here's what this dude did right to
19:16
Speaker 1: get to the point where he could even counterfeit. Yes,
19:18
Speaker 1: he got his hands on real stuff, and he ran
19:21
Speaker 1: up some serious, serious bar tabs while he was doing it.
19:26
Speaker 1: There's a very um legendary story of him hooking up
19:30
Speaker 1: with this guy who was the head of wine sales
19:35
Speaker 1: at a UM, a an auction house called Acker Meryll.
19:43
Speaker 1: They factor in big time into this guy's ascent and
19:45
Speaker 1: Rudy Kay's counterfeit ascent, not weddingly necessarily, but they they
19:51
Speaker 1: let him used their reputation to build his own. But
19:56
Speaker 1: he did it by duping them by throwing like these
19:59
Speaker 1: crazy parties at like uhum at um restaurants and having
20:03
Speaker 1: like two fifty thou dollar tabs, picking up the tab himself.
20:07
Speaker 1: But then after everybody left, going to the staff at
20:10
Speaker 1: the restaurant being like, mail me every single one of
20:12
Speaker 1: those bottles, and they go, well, okay, it's your wine,
20:16
Speaker 1: but that's weird, not enough to make mention of it,
20:19
Speaker 1: but it was odd to them. His big thing was
20:22
Speaker 1: that he did it at the same place over and
20:24
Speaker 1: over again, so they did start to notice. But while
20:27
Speaker 1: he was doing this, he was also collecting wine to
20:30
Speaker 1: really expensive vintage wine, and there was already a market
20:34
Speaker 1: for it, but it didn't look anything like the market
20:37
Speaker 1: that he built almost himself. He drove the value of
20:41
Speaker 1: vintage wine up, almost singlehandedly by buying up as many
20:45
Speaker 1: bottles of old stuff as he could. Um. And while
20:49
Speaker 1: he was doing that, he was building his reputation. He
20:51
Speaker 1: was making connections, and he was getting his hands on
20:54
Speaker 1: legitimate wine that he could use to resell now that
20:57
Speaker 1: the market was up at a higher price, after he
21:01
Speaker 1: had already consumed it. It say like a party. Yeah.
21:04
Speaker 1: And one thing he was doing that tipped off some
21:06
Speaker 1: people early on was um like you were saying. He
21:09
Speaker 1: was buying off years of good vintages, great vintages, to
21:14
Speaker 1: where there was one guy who thinks Jeffrey Troy was
21:17
Speaker 1: his name. He was a wine merchant, and he said
21:19
Speaker 1: he was buying these good bottles for French Burgundy, but
21:23
Speaker 1: they weren't great, they were off years, and it was
21:25
Speaker 1: just if he was a collector, it was just weird
21:28
Speaker 1: to buy these, uh, and to be adamant about buying
21:31
Speaker 1: these because he could get him for cheaper and fake
21:33
Speaker 1: them easier exactly, like he could just kind of smudge
21:35
Speaker 1: the year and all of a sudden it's a much
21:38
Speaker 1: more expensive vintage. UM. So he's he's driving the market up.
21:43
Speaker 1: He's buying legitimate wine. Apparently he's taking out loans that
21:46
Speaker 1: he defaulted on to to build this reputation is um
21:51
Speaker 1: and so when the market hits he starts counterfeiting. And
21:55
Speaker 1: there was one story that actually was pretty prominent in
21:59
Speaker 1: the Vanity Fair article where he was apparently confused. He thought,
22:04
Speaker 1: and there's no way that any of us would have
22:07
Speaker 1: ever thought this, but he thought that a Ponceau close
22:12
Speaker 1: Saint Denis was the same thing as the Christine ponce
22:16
Speaker 1: So close St. Denis. Right, he was way off. So
22:20
Speaker 1: it turns out that um, he figured that ponce Uh
22:26
Speaker 1: made this wine in Burgundy in the forties, because Christine
22:29
Speaker 1: ponce So close Aint Denis made this wine in the fourties.
22:33
Speaker 1: Turns out that the regular Ponceo, the very famous Ponceau family,
22:38
Speaker 1: made their close End Denis starting in the eighties. So
22:42
Speaker 1: he actually got found out because of this one mistake.
22:45
Speaker 1: This led to his unraveling, and he was going to
22:47
Speaker 1: auction or sell about like nine bottles of this stuff
22:51
Speaker 1: that was overtly counterfeit. It had never existed, which also
22:56
Speaker 1: said a lot about the collectors at the time too,
22:59
Speaker 1: because they were coming and paying for wine that they
23:01
Speaker 1: never even heard of. It didn't exist strictly because these
23:05
Speaker 1: these people were attached to it. Yeah, it's pretty amazing,
23:08
Speaker 1: it really is. And that's how he was able to
23:10
Speaker 1: get away with it for so long because that dinner,
23:12
Speaker 1: the guy Ponceau himself, um, the guy who was the
23:16
Speaker 1: proprietor of the vineyard, showed up at that dinner, flew
23:19
Speaker 1: from Paris to I think New York to be at
23:21
Speaker 1: the dinner to make sure that they didn't auction off
23:24
Speaker 1: those things because he knew they were counterfeit. And Rudy
23:27
Speaker 1: Kay still was left to just keep going for years
23:31
Speaker 1: after that because because of reputations. Well, and like you said,
23:35
Speaker 1: he had built up this reputation, which is a big
23:37
Speaker 1: part of it. Um, you have to be a true
23:40
Speaker 1: con artist. You can't just go in there, uh and say,
23:43
Speaker 1: I've got all these Jefferson wines. I'm chuck. You know,
23:47
Speaker 1: you have to be known in the community, and it
23:49
Speaker 1: takes a long time, and they have to think of
23:51
Speaker 1: that right, Yeah, I have to think you have money,
23:53
Speaker 1: real money, which he did. No, he borrowed it all. Well,
23:57
Speaker 1: I thought he came for money a ruse. Well, he
24:01
Speaker 1: had money at one point he borrowed on now, but
24:04
Speaker 1: then he made a lot, right, So think about this.
24:07
Speaker 1: I think he defaulted on a three or four million
24:09
Speaker 1: dollar loan, and then another one or two million dollar loan,
24:12
Speaker 1: and then he also borrowed privately from other like wine
24:15
Speaker 1: collectors that he knew. But even still, let's say he
24:18
Speaker 1: borrowed ten million dollars that he defaulted, he made tens
24:23
Speaker 1: in tens and tens more millions, thirty four million dollars
24:27
Speaker 1: in one year just from two sales. Yeah, and he
24:30
Speaker 1: currently is appealing his conviction um on the grounds that,
24:35
Speaker 1: uh that when when he was arrested, he was arrested
24:38
Speaker 1: on his front porch. Then they searched his house and
24:40
Speaker 1: they said you can't do that. That they got the
24:43
Speaker 1: the search warrant afterward, and he said, well you can't
24:46
Speaker 1: do that. There should I should have never been searched.
24:48
Speaker 1: And it's looking like they're saying, now you know what
24:51
Speaker 1: they had reasonable uh doubt? Uh yeah, exactly. So I
24:57
Speaker 1: don't think the appeal is going to go anywhere, but
24:59
Speaker 1: this is recently, it's like this year, I think he's
25:01
Speaker 1: still appealing. Yeah, but he got ten years right, ten
25:06
Speaker 1: years man UM, So he got caught and he got
25:11
Speaker 1: caught red hand, red handed. It sounds like UM and
25:14
Speaker 1: the people who were attached to him that helped build
25:17
Speaker 1: up this market definitely suffered uh some dings to their reputation,
25:23
Speaker 1: but are saying like, we had no idea, we trusted
25:26
Speaker 1: this guy. We were duped too, and UM to their
25:29
Speaker 1: to their merit acker meryll Um offered like, uh money
25:34
Speaker 1: back guarantees on anything that was considered found to be
25:38
Speaker 1: fake and and paid up on it after one auction. Well,
25:41
Speaker 1: one of the guys Cocu is suing is uh, I
25:44
Speaker 1: can't remember his name, but he supposed supposedly he's like,
25:47
Speaker 1: I didn't know I was selling you fake wine, like
25:50
Speaker 1: I got duped, and he's saying, no, you knew. So
25:53
Speaker 1: they were trying to prove whether or not this guy
25:55
Speaker 1: actually knew. And so that's that's another part of that
25:58
Speaker 1: debate where how widespread is is who knows what UM
26:02
Speaker 1: and who's like how far do you go back before
26:04
Speaker 1: you find the person who did it right. So we'll
26:06
Speaker 1: talk about one other person who allegedly did it right
26:09
Speaker 1: after this break. So, Chuck, there's another man, very famous
26:32
Speaker 1: man in the wine world. His name is Hardy Hardy
26:35
Speaker 1: roden Stock, but I don't believe that's his real name.
26:39
Speaker 1: His real name is what mine heart gooka. That's right,
26:46
Speaker 1: what a name. That's his given name. But he goes
26:50
Speaker 1: by Hardy roden Stock and has since the seventies. And
26:53
Speaker 1: he to be a truly great wine counterfeitter, not only
26:59
Speaker 1: do you have to build up a reputation as rich
27:03
Speaker 1: and um willing to crack bottles of ridiculously expensive, um
27:11
Speaker 1: historically valuable wine at parties where there's wine critics and
27:17
Speaker 1: auctioneers and wine experts, um. But you also have to
27:22
Speaker 1: have a certain love for wine. I think Rudy Kay
27:25
Speaker 1: definitely loved wine. Yes, so they but they all have.
27:28
Speaker 1: But yeah, and Hardy Rodenbach definitely does too. And apparently
27:32
Speaker 1: there's there's a big question about whether he is one
27:35
Speaker 1: of the better wine mixers on the planet. Yeah, because
27:40
Speaker 1: that's that's a real job, where like like someone will
27:43
Speaker 1: work at a winery and they'll take a little bit
27:45
Speaker 1: of this and a little bit of that and then
27:46
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you've got there. Yeah, they're they're
27:49
Speaker 1: they're blend. Some blends are better than others. Apparently roden
27:52
Speaker 1: Stock is a master blender. If he is in fact
27:55
Speaker 1: a counterfeiter, this article on how stuff works make it
27:58
Speaker 1: makes it sound like built coax hired, FBI gun closed
28:02
Speaker 1: the book and like it's done. But it's never been
28:05
Speaker 1: proven in a court of law that roden Stock actually,
28:09
Speaker 1: um was this counterfeiter and he still denies the allegations. Oh,
28:13
Speaker 1: the circumstantial evidence is pretty pretty substantial. Yeah, I mean,
28:17
Speaker 1: I think the only reason is because he refuses to
28:20
Speaker 1: come to America to go to court. Yeah, you know,
28:23
Speaker 1: but there's no criminal prosecution. It's all civil as far
28:26
Speaker 1: as I understand. Yeah, I think that's the case. So
28:29
Speaker 1: he was a former music manager and um he I
28:33
Speaker 1: think they're making him. There's a book called The Billionaires
28:36
Speaker 1: Vinegar about this about the Jefferson Wines. Interesting that they're
28:41
Speaker 1: making into a movie with McConaughey. Of course. Oh yeah.
28:44
Speaker 1: Does he play Bill Coke or Hardy roden Stock. I
28:47
Speaker 1: don't know who he's playing, or does he just kind
28:49
Speaker 1: of like wander around days in the background, he's the
28:52
Speaker 1: winemaker man. Uh yeah, I'm not sure who he's playing actually,
28:57
Speaker 1: but it was a big book and it was about
29:00
Speaker 1: the famous Jefferson wines. And basically the deal is Thomas Jefferson,
29:05
Speaker 1: as we all know, was way into wine, way into France. UM,
29:10
Speaker 1: a big Francophile, and he had either bottles in his
29:14
Speaker 1: collection or he had his own vintage as well. Um,
29:17
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson wines, and very famously Hardenstock was rooted out allegedly.
29:23
Speaker 1: I guess do we have to say that as faking
29:26
Speaker 1: these Jefferson bottles. Um, he would force you know, you're
29:31
Speaker 1: supposed to spit out when you're drinking wine tasting he
29:34
Speaker 1: would he would I don't know about force, but highly
29:36
Speaker 1: encourage his guests to swallow so they would be drunker
29:40
Speaker 1: by the time he got to the real good stuff
29:42
Speaker 1: at the end, which is and again, so it's unusual
29:45
Speaker 1: to force your guests to drink rather than spit out
29:48
Speaker 1: the wine at a tasting party. And then it's also
29:51
Speaker 1: unusual to bring out your best stuff at the end
29:53
Speaker 1: because everybody knows your palette is saturated and you can't
29:57
Speaker 1: really tell the difference anyway. Well, if you've ever been
29:59
Speaker 1: on a wine tour and go to like several wineries,
30:02
Speaker 1: you definitely at the last winery, you're like, give me
30:05
Speaker 1: a case. Right, is great? Yeah, So when he's throwing
30:08
Speaker 1: these parties in these tastings, again he's invited and very
30:13
Speaker 1: smart to invite wine experts, wine critics, wine journalists. It's
30:18
Speaker 1: an event. It is an event. And again, all these
30:20
Speaker 1: people think that this dude is just this eccentric, extraordinarily
30:24
Speaker 1: rich dude who is literally opening to drink and share
30:28
Speaker 1: with them. He's wonderful. These these people who are peons
30:33
Speaker 1: compared to this man. He's such a great man because
30:35
Speaker 1: he's opened a seventeen eighties seven bottle of Thomas Jefferson's
30:39
Speaker 1: wine and he's given me a glass. I've got to
30:41
Speaker 1: go right about it. I got to talk about how
30:43
Speaker 1: great Hardy roden Stock is. So it's very smart to
30:45
Speaker 1: have surrounded himself with the people he did. Yeah. So
30:48
Speaker 1: his story was that he said, um, he claimed that
30:51
Speaker 1: he found a batch of Jefferson bottles behind a brick
30:55
Speaker 1: wall in a Paris Parisian basement that he still hasn't
30:59
Speaker 1: revealed where this is a little suspicious. Uh. And then
31:03
Speaker 1: so if you already got all the wine out of there, Yeah, exactly. Uh.
31:07
Speaker 1: And then he and uh he went and sold a
31:08
Speaker 1: lot of these two people like Coke and Christopher Forbes
31:11
Speaker 1: and other billionaires for um, hundreds of thousands of dollars
31:16
Speaker 1: per bottle. And I think they were like about a
31:18
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty bottle. Yeah, it's a ton of money.
31:22
Speaker 1: And um, they were fakes and it was all. It
31:26
Speaker 1: all came down to a little matter of punctuation, which
31:29
Speaker 1: is hysterical to me that Thomas Jefferson bottles. Um. Well,
31:34
Speaker 1: first of all, he kept really meticulous records because he
31:36
Speaker 1: was so into wine. J did. Yeah, so on the
31:40
Speaker 1: bottles chuck it said, and it was engrave t H period,
31:46
Speaker 1: capital J period. Right, Supposedly Jefferson when he wrote his initials,
31:52
Speaker 1: it would be T colon capital J period. So that
31:57
Speaker 1: fatal flaw of the matter of punctuation is what gave
32:00
Speaker 1: him away. Basically. Yeah, well there's a larger question too.
32:04
Speaker 1: So the idea that Thomas Jefferson would have his bottles
32:07
Speaker 1: engraved was based on a letter, a verified letter. Um.
32:12
Speaker 1: It was an order that Jefferson placed for French wine
32:15
Speaker 1: on behalf of himself. And George Washington, which makes these
32:18
Speaker 1: bottles even more amazingly awesome because they think, well, these
32:22
Speaker 1: came from an order that Jefferson placed, that we're also
32:26
Speaker 1: in George Washington's shipment as well, and that they they
32:31
Speaker 1: they needed to be separated out by initials. But if
32:34
Speaker 1: you step back and you think they wouldn't go in
32:37
Speaker 1: and grave all the bottles, they just marked the crates
32:39
Speaker 1: that the bottles came in. This crate goes to George.
32:42
Speaker 1: This crate goes to Jefferson because he was ordering it
32:45
Speaker 1: by the case, not by the bottle. So the idea
32:48
Speaker 1: that the bottles would be engraved is also dubious in
32:51
Speaker 1: and of itself. But Monicello historians are like, number one,
32:55
Speaker 1: he this is wrong. The way that this is engraved,
32:58
Speaker 1: That's not how he would have done it. And secondly,
33:01
Speaker 1: there's no records in all of we have the records
33:05
Speaker 1: for this era, and there's nothing in there about these
33:08
Speaker 1: vintages being in Monicello or being ordered by Jefferson. And
33:13
Speaker 1: then also um, once Bill Coke put his FBI dude
33:16
Speaker 1: on the on the case, it turns out that it's
33:19
Speaker 1: likely that this this engraving was done by modern instruments. Yeah,
33:22
Speaker 1: he hired a guy named an ex fed named Jim
33:25
Speaker 1: McElroy or I'm sorry, Jim Elroy. And you know I
33:29
Speaker 1: kept on say macail roy too, I guess because of
33:31
Speaker 1: the maclroy brothers. So he hired this guy, paid him
33:34
Speaker 1: a lot of money, I imagine, to try and do
33:36
Speaker 1: some digging on this. And one of their first lines
33:39
Speaker 1: of defense was there's something called uh cessium dash one
33:45
Speaker 1: thirty seven, and that is UH a radioactive isotope that
33:49
Speaker 1: exists because it's a product of nuclear fission of uranium.
33:54
Speaker 1: So it didn't exist until we started doing that, before
33:57
Speaker 1: we started launching nuclear bomb explosion tests. Yeah, exactly. Uh,
34:02
Speaker 1: now it exists, and you can actually test for this stuff,
34:05
Speaker 1: so if you find you know, it basically can date
34:09
Speaker 1: something back to night. However, in the case of harden Stock,
34:14
Speaker 1: he was smart enough at least to use wine older
34:16
Speaker 1: than n so that didn't really help him much. Yeah,
34:19
Speaker 1: and I wonder if he just surely he just lucked out.
34:22
Speaker 1: I don't know, because I wonder if that Caeson test
34:25
Speaker 1: was around when he did this, because this he supposedly
34:27
Speaker 1: found him in eighty five and started selling him immediately. Yeah,
34:31
Speaker 1: who knows. Maybe he got lucky, or maybe he just
34:33
Speaker 1: was like, I need to use some really old, nice wine, yeah,
34:36
Speaker 1: to at least try and get away with it. So
34:37
Speaker 1: again there's like and then there. One other part of
34:40
Speaker 1: the case against him was that he had a tenant
34:44
Speaker 1: once at his family's house who had an apartment near
34:48
Speaker 1: his in the house and in the basement, the tenant
34:51
Speaker 1: said that he saw like basically tons of empty bottles
34:55
Speaker 1: and um stacks of labels and all this stuff, which,
34:59
Speaker 1: to the it meant, well, this guy's forging wine. Right,
35:04
Speaker 1: that's a little more. That's probably what I would think.
35:06
Speaker 1: I hope you doesn't go by my recycling every Wednesday
35:10
Speaker 1: here a wine counterfeitter, it could be. Uh. So there
35:14
Speaker 1: are a lot of there's nothing you can do about
35:17
Speaker 1: these these old um I mean, you can have people
35:20
Speaker 1: inspect them and try and verify them, but there's really
35:24
Speaker 1: nothing you can do as a like a full proof method.
35:28
Speaker 1: But really nice wineries now are doing. There are a
35:30
Speaker 1: lot of methods you can do now for future generations
35:33
Speaker 1: of wine fraud. Yeah, for the vintage stuff you're s
35:36
Speaker 1: o l basically, yes, you just have to really trust
35:39
Speaker 1: where it's coming from. Probably hire an expert, and um,
35:43
Speaker 1: maybe stay away from rodent stock if you're Bill Coke, right,
35:46
Speaker 1: that's right. But there Yeah, like you said, the modern
35:49
Speaker 1: guys are using things like um R f I D tags,
35:53
Speaker 1: um QR codes that you scan and it takes you
35:56
Speaker 1: to a website or something. Microchips like you have in
35:59
Speaker 1: your doll Yeah, so you can track the actual bottle.
36:02
Speaker 1: There's also like tamper proof um capsules, the that the
36:07
Speaker 1: wine is encased in the bottle's neck that when that's open,
36:12
Speaker 1: it changes color if it's ever been opened, and some
36:16
Speaker 1: actually alert the Internet or I guess back home at
36:21
Speaker 1: headquarters the Internet once it's been open. And there's another
36:25
Speaker 1: one that's pretty cool. There's this company that inserts a
36:30
Speaker 1: specific DNA marker into like the ink on the label
36:35
Speaker 1: that can't be counterfeit and that they can go back
36:37
Speaker 1: and later and be like, no, this is real. At
36:39
Speaker 1: the very least, we know the labels real. And Rudy
36:42
Speaker 1: case case, he had a bunch of credit card charges
36:45
Speaker 1: for glue and labels and ink and he and he
36:49
Speaker 1: had a pretty nice trail of evidence behind him. Yeah,
36:52
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's not very smart with it. Well, I mean,
36:53
Speaker 1: if his apartment was just a counterfeiting factor, and then
36:57
Speaker 1: lastly checked the one of the pieces of evidence that
37:01
Speaker 1: a lot of people point to when they say that
37:02
Speaker 1: UM wine fraud is a big deal. UM is eBay. Yeah.
37:09
Speaker 1: You can go on eBay and spend a hundred bucks
37:11
Speaker 1: on a empty bottle that, if it weren't empty, would
37:16
Speaker 1: go for a thousand or ten thousand or whatever. And
37:18
Speaker 1: the idea behind it, of course, is that somebody's filling
37:22
Speaker 1: it up and putting it back on the market as
37:24
Speaker 1: a counterfeit. Why would someone sell that that reason to
37:30
Speaker 1: make a hundred bucks on a ten tho dollar bottle
37:32
Speaker 1: of wine? Some people love money, I don't know. It
37:37
Speaker 1: just seems like a lot of just people who buy
37:39
Speaker 1: that kind of wine. I don't picture them going on
37:42
Speaker 1: eBay and running auctions over it. Makes you wonder also
37:45
Speaker 1: if like those are people who they're like, they're just
37:47
Speaker 1: working at a restaurant, and well, that's what it sounds
37:50
Speaker 1: like to me. You can take that home and put
37:52
Speaker 1: it on anybay. The servant throws the uh, you know,
37:55
Speaker 1: cleans up after the dinner party. Yeah, that's what I figure.
37:57
Speaker 1: What's going on? And apparently a lot of restaurants now
38:00
Speaker 1: because of guys like Rudy Kay and uh Hardy Rhodes.
38:04
Speaker 1: Rodent Stock now um smash vintage bottles once the wine
38:08
Speaker 1: has been ordered and drunk with. Well with the shotgun
38:11
Speaker 1: in the skeet shooting, I got one last thing. Supposedly
38:17
Speaker 1: there were only five magnums of ninety seven Fleur produced
38:23
Speaker 1: uh between two thousand and five and two thousand seven,
38:26
Speaker 1: eighteen magnums of ninety seven La Fleur were sold at auction.
38:32
Speaker 1: That's so easy to like, how can that happen? That's
38:36
Speaker 1: so easy to check when there's only five of something.
38:39
Speaker 1: The argument is that either the guy who works at
38:42
Speaker 1: La Fleur and did in ninety seven and says no,
38:46
Speaker 1: there was only five magnums doesn't remember because the record
38:49
Speaker 1: keeping in like Burgundy is terrible back in the day um,
38:54
Speaker 1: or that the there's just no will. There's so much
38:57
Speaker 1: of a market for counterfeit wine and there's not enough
39:00
Speaker 1: pressure being put on the people who are actually selling
39:03
Speaker 1: it are allowing it to happen, that it's just whatever.
39:06
Speaker 1: And supposedly, now that America has gotten more and more savvy,
39:09
Speaker 1: this counterfeit market is moving over to China. So where
39:13
Speaker 1: there's like a lot of wealth coming up and not
39:15
Speaker 1: a lot of wine education and people are just getting
39:19
Speaker 1: taken for rides. Man good stuff. Yeah, this is a
39:23
Speaker 1: good one man, good pick. If you want to know
39:25
Speaker 1: more about wine fraud, you can type those words in
39:27
Speaker 1: the search bar house to works dot com and I
39:29
Speaker 1: said search bar should chuck. What is it time for Facebook? Question?
39:38
Speaker 1: All right? Sometimes we pool questions from Facebook to answer them.
39:44
Speaker 1: So what we're doing now? This is from Diane Martin,
39:48
Speaker 1: Diane F. Martin. UH Center podcasts are essentially what would
39:52
Speaker 1: be called literature reviews and research lingo. How do you
39:55
Speaker 1: decide which references to include an exclude, use any kind
39:58
Speaker 1: of quality indicators to this side what you will and
40:00
Speaker 1: will include, especially when they're deeply debated. There's a good question. Um,
40:06
Speaker 1: we've talked about our research process. I think we tried
40:09
Speaker 1: to use peer reviewed journals and what I mean, if
40:12
Speaker 1: we find something on the internet, we try and double
40:15
Speaker 1: and triple check that information. I know, a big giveaway
40:19
Speaker 1: you always talk about as if it's the same exact
40:21
Speaker 1: thing printed a bunch, that's usually a sign that it
40:23
Speaker 1: could be bogus, like riding a danger field, being in
40:26
Speaker 1: the scale and the movie The Scout. Uh, but it
40:30
Speaker 1: still bears mentioning. Sure, you just have to mention it
40:32
Speaker 1: with the caveat. We don't find it credible, but it's
40:35
Speaker 1: out there because it doesn't. It exists in some form
40:38
Speaker 1: of fashion. Uh, scientific journals, medical journals, I mean peer reviewed.
40:44
Speaker 1: It's just a great way to go if you can
40:46
Speaker 1: get your hands on it. I remember this great article
40:49
Speaker 1: called like why is science behind a paywall? About the
40:52
Speaker 1: basically the cart the science publishing cartel. But if you
40:56
Speaker 1: can get your hands on pure reviewed stuff, that's the
40:59
Speaker 1: best stuff to work with. Agreed, go ahead. Another question, Yeah,
41:07
Speaker 1: Chuck for me? This from Shane Elliott. I knew I
41:12
Speaker 1: think he meant no because question will find a special
41:15
Speaker 1: place in Chuck's heart. What are your favorite types and
41:18
Speaker 1: kinds of beers? And why do you brew your own beer?
41:21
Speaker 1: And somebody else said recently on Twitter that you said
41:23
Speaker 1: in the beer episode that you were going to get
41:25
Speaker 1: into homebrewing. Did you ever? So that's a two part
41:28
Speaker 1: question for you, Chuck from Twitter and Facebook. Well you're
41:31
Speaker 1: a beer guy too, I like, I do not brew
41:35
Speaker 1: my beer, but on the record, is really liking I
41:38
Speaker 1: P A S and o. There's a backlash going on
41:40
Speaker 1: now why because there's so many of them, and people
41:43
Speaker 1: are like, there's other kinds of beers in the world.
41:45
Speaker 1: I pas tastes like soap. I love. I love anything
41:49
Speaker 1: that's super hoppy. Yeah, I do. I just that's what
41:51
Speaker 1: I like. Our friend Dave dropped by from Sweetwater Sweetwater
41:55
Speaker 1: and brought us some hot hash. I haven't tried it yet,
41:58
Speaker 1: have you know? But his all that stuff is good.
42:02
Speaker 1: Sweetwater does a great job. And we've always both kind
42:05
Speaker 1: of agreed that uh uh Sierra Nevada Palele is one
42:08
Speaker 1: of the great all time great, but there's so many
42:11
Speaker 1: great ones. Bells too hearted. I love man, that might
42:14
Speaker 1: be the best ever. Yeah, and that plenty of the
42:17
Speaker 1: elder we got sent some of that that was delicious.
42:19
Speaker 1: Um Oh here in Athens, Georgia. Creature Comforts tropically have
42:24
Speaker 1: not had that one delicious um Orphee is Brewing is
42:28
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, and they make a sour that I
42:31
Speaker 1: tried that was really really good. I'm not into the sours.
42:35
Speaker 1: Have you tried it sours? Yeah? Yeah, I don't like it.
42:39
Speaker 1: I love it now. I don't give it so weird
42:42
Speaker 1: that I was like this is kind of good. Yeah,
42:44
Speaker 1: it was weird in a good way, because sometimes weird
42:46
Speaker 1: can just be novel and you're like, okay, I tried that,
42:48
Speaker 1: it's done. This is I mean, I like it. Yeah,
42:51
Speaker 1: I don't like wheat beers. Um Belgium whites not a fan.
42:59
Speaker 1: All right, there's your it's her fish bowl. Now I'm thirsty,
43:02
Speaker 1: Jackson Blig. Other than Atlanta, what are your top five
43:05
Speaker 1: favorite cities each? Geez, New York, San Francisco, Seattle. Do
43:16
Speaker 1: they have to be American cities? Yeah? Uh in that case,
43:21
Speaker 1: then I'll throw in Paris and uh London. Look at me? Well,
43:26
Speaker 1: fancy things, I know. Uh, let's see. I love Hiroshima,
43:33
Speaker 1: Japan is a really neat city. So is Kyoto. I'm
43:36
Speaker 1: gonna make those tied for one though. Of course New York. Um,
43:41
Speaker 1: let's see you are? I like DC a lot too. Yeah,
43:44
Speaker 1: that's a great time. Um Rome, Italy is surprisingly neat. Surprisingly,
43:50
Speaker 1: what are you getting? I mean it's a major cities, yeah,
43:53
Speaker 1: and it's packed with people, so you would think like, hey,
43:56
Speaker 1: it's a city, sure, but it also has I mean,
43:59
Speaker 1: like you just walking along the street and all of
44:01
Speaker 1: a sudden you're walking next to like a three thousand
44:05
Speaker 1: year old wall that's not even part of a museum.
44:08
Speaker 1: He just built up around it. Yeah. Did there'd be
44:10
Speaker 1: like a fountain on a corner, like somebody's peeing in
44:14
Speaker 1: that's a thousand years old. It's it's a very neat
44:17
Speaker 1: city in that regard. Um, I like, uh where else? Um,
44:27
Speaker 1: that's all I can come up with right now. Oh
44:29
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't have to go off fancy
44:30
Speaker 1: pants like Charleston, South Carolina one of my favorite it's
44:33
Speaker 1: a great place for food. Savannah. Yeah, I like Charleston.
44:38
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, they're similar to me. Yeah, Charleston is a
44:42
Speaker 1: little more refined, but also a little more modern. Yeah yeah, yeah,
44:48
Speaker 1: I don't. It's not fancy pants to like cities overseas, no,
44:52
Speaker 1: I know. But when once his Paris, you're like, yeah,
44:55
Speaker 1: but Paris is awesome. It is. It's a great time
44:57
Speaker 1: in London. When's the last time you're in London, like
45:00
Speaker 1: twenty years ago? Okay, you should go back because London
45:04
Speaker 1: is like a brand new city. There's something to do
45:07
Speaker 1: at all times. Now. They have cabs, which was apparently
45:10
Speaker 1: like the big thing that changed there. Um, And it's
45:14
Speaker 1: just an awesome, little town beautiful. Well maybe we can
45:17
Speaker 1: go there on a tour. Yes, let's uh, well, that's
45:21
Speaker 1: your turn for the question. Uh. This is from Gus M. Parker.
45:25
Speaker 1: Why did Josh grow his hair? Gus, there's a simple
45:28
Speaker 1: answer that that's a good question because I can't because
45:31
Speaker 1: I realized that I have hair, and I'm going to
45:35
Speaker 1: live it up while I got it. I'm gonna go
45:38
Speaker 1: with Gary Rickleman. What is the best flavor of pop tart? Hint,
45:43
Speaker 1: there was only one correct answer. That's not true, Gary.
45:47
Speaker 1: I think what the answer you're looking for is brown
45:50
Speaker 1: sugar and cinnamon. It's a good one. There's nothing wrong
45:53
Speaker 1: with blueberry or strawberry. Strawberry is really good as frosted
45:57
Speaker 1: straws as long as it's frosted. That's the key. Like
46:00
Speaker 1: there's another key. And here's a tip for you that
46:02
Speaker 1: don't mind clogging your arteries. Pop it out of the toaster.
46:05
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to get a stick of
46:07
Speaker 1: butter and rub it on the back of the dry
46:10
Speaker 1: side and then around the edges of the other side
46:13
Speaker 1: and just thank me later. I have not tried that,
46:16
Speaker 1: and I actually heard that before from Jessica Simpson when
46:19
Speaker 1: she was pregnant. Oh really, apparently just went berserk on
46:23
Speaker 1: the buttered pop tarts. Never heard of that. You got
46:26
Speaker 1: time for one more? Yeah, we got time for a
46:28
Speaker 1: couple of morning This an unusual one from Michael Snively
46:32
Speaker 1: or Snoopiley, one of the two, probably Snively. If the
46:35
Speaker 1: Bryant and Clark were units of measure, what would they measure? Oh? Man,
46:41
Speaker 1: mine would probably oh I know what mine would be
46:43
Speaker 1: as some uh sweat level, like units of sweat per
46:48
Speaker 1: square inch or something that's a good one. Mine would
46:52
Speaker 1: measure the distance between any one place and awesome. Oh wow,
47:00
Speaker 1: whoa how is that? That's good? Thank you? All right?
47:03
Speaker 1: I got one more. Chelsea Hamilton's what's the most rewarding thing?
47:05
Speaker 1: That stuff you should know has brought to you or
47:07
Speaker 1: allowed you to do. We've done a lot of really
47:09
Speaker 1: neat things that were very thankful for. But I'm gonna
47:12
Speaker 1: just say the live shows because they're so much fun.
47:15
Speaker 1: There are a lot of fun and it's fun to
47:17
Speaker 1: go to cities I've never been to, and it's fun
47:18
Speaker 1: to meet people and get out of this little room. Uh,
47:21
Speaker 1: this is very rewarding and very fun. I'm going with
47:24
Speaker 1: Chuck s answer at right. Uh well, thanks to everybody
47:27
Speaker 1: for those Facebook questions. UM. If you ever want to
47:31
Speaker 1: get in touch with us on Facebook, you can go
47:32
Speaker 1: to Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You
47:35
Speaker 1: can also tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
47:39
Speaker 1: That's our handle. You can send us a good old
47:41
Speaker 1: fastioned email to stuff podcast the House, Stuff Works dot
47:44
Speaker 1: com and as always, joined us at our home on
47:46
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47:53
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47:55
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48:00
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