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CLASSIC: The Great London Beer Flood of 1814 · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow Ridiculous Historians, we return to you with this week's
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: classic episode. This is a parable cautionary tale for all
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: our fellow ridiculous historians who like to tipple a beer
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: every now and then. There is such thing as too much.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: There is, indeed on a personal level and at scale,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: which we really start to see in eighteen fourteen when
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: a poor neighborhood in London fell victim to a bizarre
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: and boozy disaster, dare we say, a calamity that actually
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: resulted in some fatalities. What the heck was this thing
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: that happened? And how did it involve way too much beer?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Right, let's roll it. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I guess we should begin today's episode by pointing out
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: that it is, not, to our knowledge, sponsored by Miller LT.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Although we had a lot of fun with those guys.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: You had the best tagline of all time. Still, I'm
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: really surprised they haven't like purchased this from you.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: You know, it was a gift. We're just very giving
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: people on this show.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: And that is the gift that keeps on giving in
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: social media form. And I don't know if they'll ever
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: give us any more ads again? But what was it again?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Then, Miller lt The beer is so good that you
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: can drink it with your mouth. Yeah, And I think
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: that we arrived at that on our earlier episode about
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: ritual alcohol edemas or aka.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: You're not gonna say it, are you? You're not going
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: to say it. I tried to make you say last time.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: That was a sore spot. But chugging is the word.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: But chugging today, we're talking about a different kind of chugging. Chugging,
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  Speaker 2: chugging it to the streets. Yes, yes, taking it to
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  Speaker 2: the streets. That's well put. I'm ben oh, I'm null.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: And we are, of course joined with our super producer
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram give it up for and fellow ridiculous historians.
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  Speaker 1: Our journey today takes us to the early eighteen hundreds
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  Speaker 1: in foggy Old London Town October, specifically when a bizarre
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  Speaker 1: sequence of events through the community of Saint Giles, London
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: into a state of pandemonium and terror. What happened and
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: how did this come to pass?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so let's set the scene. He already did. Foggy
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  Speaker 2: London Town eighteen fourteen. There's a brewery. Right, there's a
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  Speaker 2: brewery called the Horseshoe Brewery which was located in the
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: corner of Great Russell Street and Tottenham Court Roads. The
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Horseshoe Brewery was the building. It was like this historic
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: brewery and the mew And Company brewers, I guess it'd
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: taken it over or they were the ones occupying it
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: at this time, and they had. They were all about
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: being up to the latest technological brewing standards, which at
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  Speaker 2: the time were giant wooden vats secured with these iron
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  Speaker 2: rings like a giant barrel basically, right, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, these giant barrels girdled with heavy iron hoops, and
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  Speaker 1: this was sort of a fad or a trend for
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  Speaker 1: breweries at the time. The vats were meant to be
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: displayed to visitors, right, They were meant to be a
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  Speaker 1: show stopping spectacle and to impress potential customers. So there
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: was this kind of one upsmanship contest where in different
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: breweries would try to build progressively larger vats and barrels.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: And you just said how big these were. To put
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: it in another perspective, their three stores tall, and as
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: you said, they're built of wood with just some hoops
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  Speaker 1: around them, very heavy iron hoops for structural integrity.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and let's not forget the type of beer that
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: was being brewed here was something akin to a stout,
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: like a dark porter ale, which was very popular at
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  Speaker 2: the time, and this that would hold three thousand, five
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  Speaker 2: hundred barrels of this brown stuff.
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  Speaker 1: And everything is fine for years, yeah, for like four years.
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  Speaker 1: Everything is fine until it isn't. On October seventeenth, eighteen fourteen,
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  Speaker 1: in this area Saint Giles, which we should mention is
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  Speaker 1: a poor area of London, several things are happening. There
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  Speaker 1: is a woman named Anne Seville who is mourning the
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  Speaker 1: tragic death of her two year old son John, who
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  Speaker 1: had just died the day earlier, on October sixteenth, and
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  Speaker 1: she is mourning in her cellar apartment. A lot of
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  Speaker 1: people live in basements in this area. And then upstairs,
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  Speaker 1: on the first floor of this tenement on New Street,
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  Speaker 1: a lady named Mary Banfield is sitting down for tea
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  Speaker 1: with her daughter Hannah, who is four. And then across
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  Speaker 1: the way or nearby, there is a fourteen year old
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  Speaker 1: named Eleanor Cooper at the Tavistock Arms Public House who's scouring.
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  Speaker 2: Pots teenage barmaid.
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  Speaker 1: Teenage barmaid. Yeah, a scullery maid at the very least.
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  Speaker 1: She is by this outdoor water pump that's right next
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  Speaker 1: to a brick wall that's about twenty five feet high,
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  Speaker 1: and the brewery that you mentioned, NOL that you described
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  Speaker 1: for us earlier is directly on the other side of
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  Speaker 1: that barrier. They're famous for this porter that you mentioned,
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  Speaker 1: and they produced more than one hundred thousand barrels of
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  Speaker 1: this each year. It was big business. And around four
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  Speaker 1: thirty pm that day, a storehouse clerk named George Crick
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  Speaker 1: looks at one of these huge wooden vats and he's
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  Speaker 1: looking at it from above right, and as he's staring down,
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  Speaker 1: he notices something's off. One of those hoops, which weighs
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  Speaker 1: seven hundred pounds, has slipped off a cask. And the
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  Speaker 1: porter of that's storing is ten months old. Crick's been
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  Speaker 1: with the company for almost two decades and he knew
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  Speaker 1: that this kind of thing, this slippage of the hoop,
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  Speaker 1: could happen maybe once to three times a year, and
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  Speaker 1: he didn't think too much of it. He was just like,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes things happen, were.
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  Speaker 2: They not doing proper maintenance on this monstrosity.
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  Speaker 1: It's hard to say. Man, you know, they must have
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  Speaker 1: had to do some sort of regular maintenance just because
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  Speaker 1: it's wood.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, but I imagine that like safety and you know, health
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  Speaker 2: inspections wasn't really much of a thing back in these days.
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  Speaker 2: So that's probably like left their own devices a little bit.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, so that one who pops off, and you
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  Speaker 2: can imagine like what we're talking like maybe like eight
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  Speaker 2: of these hoops for the giant cask, right, Yeah, So
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  Speaker 2: that's significantly weakening it structurally, and then the other hoops
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  Speaker 2: start to kind of follow suit, or at least the
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  Speaker 2: I don't know, it starts to weaken the entire thing.
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  Speaker 2: It's like a domino effect on the rest. Right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that's a good way to put it. So George Creek
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  Speaker 2: goes ahead and fills up the vat all the way
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  Speaker 2: almost to the top, almost to the brim, I think
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  Speaker 2: four inches away from the top, and this's like more
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  Speaker 2: than twenty feet highway. He sees the thing pop off,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: and then he's just like, ask screw it, and still
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  Speaker 2: sees that it slipped.
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  Speaker 1: I say, at this point, it slipped, and he told
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  Speaker 1: his boss about it and his boss said that quote
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  Speaker 1: no harm whatever would inceed and.
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  Speaker 2: Sounds like a real villainous type. I know, I can't
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  Speaker 2: help a picture him as such.
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  Speaker 1: And he told Krick he was just like, George, you
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  Speaker 1: should write a letter to another guy who works at
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  Speaker 1: the brewery and they can fix it later, but we'll
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  Speaker 1: be fine for now. Don't worry about it. And then
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  Speaker 1: Craik sits down and he's filled up the vat he
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  Speaker 1: writes this letter, and it's about five point thirty when
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  Speaker 1: he finishes writing the letter, and then he hears a
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  Speaker 1: massive explosion.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a massive explosion that set forth all of
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  Speaker 2: those thousands of barrels of this. It was hot, actually,
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  Speaker 2: because it was mid ferm Ent right, just gushing, and
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  Speaker 2: it was so forceful that it actually took out a
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  Speaker 2: wall in the brewery that allowed it to continue to
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  Speaker 2: flood into the streets of that area describing earlier, and
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  Speaker 2: not to mention that as it went it took out
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  Speaker 2: the other casks that were around as well. It may
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  Speaker 2: have not held the same volume total, but added up
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  Speaker 2: together made for a whole nother problem.
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  Speaker 1: Right exactly, So that large barrier we mentioned earlier where
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  Speaker 1: the fourteen year old Eleanor Cooper is working. That wall collapses.
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  Speaker 1: It kills her instantly. The sheer force of this explosion
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  Speaker 1: sends bricks flying through the air across Great Russell Street,
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  Speaker 1: and a deluge of beer rushes through the neighborhood. And
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  Speaker 1: it's sweeping away like this an actual flood. It's sweeping
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  Speaker 1: away everything in its past.
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  Speaker 2: Well, this is like three hundred and twenty plus thousand
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  Speaker 2: gallons of beer.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, in one that first vat alone held the equivalent
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  Speaker 1: of one million pints of beer.
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  Speaker 2: Jesus.
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  Speaker 1: And again, as as we said just a moment ago,
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  Speaker 1: that wasn't the only vat that went, and there was
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  Speaker 1: no drainage. We should mention that on these city streets
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  Speaker 1: there's not like a sewage system.
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  Speaker 2: Have we talked about the Great Stink of London, Ben,
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  Speaker 2: I think we have. Remember how nasty that city was
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  Speaker 2: pre sewage system? Yeah, you know, it was just the
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  Speaker 2: streets were literally really caked and human excrement. And so
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  Speaker 2: this beer is washing all that along with it. People
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  Speaker 2: are getting swept up in the flood. Can you imagine
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  Speaker 2: the smell?
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  Speaker 1: It must have been disgusting.
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  Speaker 2: I mean to think about how it smells like downtown
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  Speaker 2: Atlanta or somewhere like little five Points, like after like
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  Speaker 2: a weekend, you know it, it smells like pe and stale beer.
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  Speaker 1: Or just outside of our buildings, just outside of our building.
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  Speaker 2: It's true. This must have been that like to the
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  Speaker 2: mp power, and.
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  Speaker 1: It happens so quickly it's difficult for us to fully
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  Speaker 1: articulate how quickly this occurs. People who live in the
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  Speaker 1: neighborhood are losing their minds. They're screaming zois and whatnot,
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  Speaker 1: and they're hopping up on pieces of furniture. They're trying
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  Speaker 1: to save themselves from drowning, which was a real possibility
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  Speaker 1: because this flood was so strong and so forceful that
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  Speaker 1: some of the houses that were in disrepair crumbled themselves,
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  Speaker 1: so your house could fall on you.
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  Speaker 2: All right, here's where it gets gross. Okay, it's already
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  Speaker 2: pretty gross at this point, but a lot of the
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  Speaker 2: folks were trying to, you know, make this see the
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  Speaker 2: silver lining in this situation. And you know, likely they
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  Speaker 2: were alcoholics because they were just like, hey, free beer.
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  Speaker 2: So they would get like whatever receptacle they'd get their
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  Speaker 2: hands on, a bucket or whatever, and start scooping this
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  Speaker 2: stuff up and drinking it, and some people just lapped
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  Speaker 2: it up off the street. And again, lots of poop
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  Speaker 2: mixed in with this beer at this price.
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  Speaker 1: Lots of poop, detritus, road dirt, roadkill.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And let's also not forget that this beer was mid fermentation, so.
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't even done.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was even like beer beer. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So where are we at fatality wise at this point, Ben,
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  Speaker 2: as this deluge makes its way through Saint Giles Rookery,
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  Speaker 2: another area where I believe some of the city's poorest
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  Speaker 2: were living. And this is another very sad detail here, Ben.
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  Speaker 2: This happened during the day, so the men would have
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: been away at work, so the folks that were at
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  Speaker 2: home that would have experienced the brunt of this beer
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  Speaker 2: nami would have been children and women.
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  Speaker 1: Right exactly. Let's explore some of the fatalities. So we
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  Speaker 1: mentioned the unfortunate end of fourteen year old bar maid
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  Speaker 1: Eleanor Cooper. She died pretty quickly, near instantly as far
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: as we can tell. But let's also revisit some of
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  Speaker 1: the characters we introduced earlier in the story. And Seville,
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  Speaker 1: who was mourning again the death of her two year
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  Speaker 1: old son John, was holding a wake in their basement apartment.
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  Speaker 1: When the beer flood hit, they had no time or
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: no way to get out. So Seville, along with the
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  Speaker 1: other three mourners, were all killed by this beer. And
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  Speaker 1: then the couple that we had mentioned, the mom and
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: daughter having tea on the first floor of their tenement,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Mary Benfield and her four year old daughter, Hannah, they
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  Speaker 1: both passed away. So this, this gets us up to
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: let's see eleanor the four mourners, Mary and Hannah. This
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  Speaker 1: gets us up to seven fatalities in a matter of minutes.
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  Speaker 1: But that's not all. There was one more fatality, right.
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  Speaker 2: Noal, Yeah, this is probably as a direct result of
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: these booze scoopers that were talking about earlier that were
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  Speaker 2: just you know, chugging the stuff from the streets, hence
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: my opening phrase, chugging it to the streets. And apparently
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: this last death was alcohol poisoning. Not to make light,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: but you know, it's sort of like you did it
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  Speaker 2: to yourself, buddy, You escape the actual delus that all
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: of these innocens you know, were subjected to, and then
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: you went, you went and drank yourself to death like
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: a jerk, because isn't like half fermented booze. Dangerous, isn't
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: it like ethanol really strong or something like? Oh? I
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: thought so, I know, like moonshine, if you drink it
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: before it's finished or something like that, it can be
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: really really dangerous. But I don't know if that applies.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: I'm just spit on here.
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  Speaker 1: But do we know whether or not that was intentional
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: alcohol poisoning? You know what I mean?
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Where they just trying not to drown and they managed
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: to not drown. Interesting but they unclear but unclear unclear.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I just want to just not that
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: they need me to defend them, but possibly, I though
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I don't want to sound too cynical about it, I'm
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: tempted to think it's the first idea you proposed, and
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that they just drank themselves to death. There could have
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: been more deaths, more fatalities. It's pretty astonishing in fact,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: that so few people died as a result of this
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: flood this uh which say earlier beer nami, Like, yeah,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the worst damage does occur there on New Street, And
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: now this neighborhood is soaked in beer. Everything stinks, people
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: are covered in hot malt liquor. Three brewery employees almost died,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: but they were luckily pulled from this temporary raging river
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and people rescuers arrived on the scene, and they were
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: trying with their bare hands to go through the rubble
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: and find anyone who was trapped inside, and they had to.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: They were in a really weird situation because people are
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: losing their minds, wailing and screaming, and they're like, you
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: have to be quiet because we're trying to hear people
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: in the rubble.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's a real scene, Ben, And surprise, surprise,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: this story doesn't have a happy ending on multiple levels.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: On the corporate level, right on the corporate greed and
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: corruption level, there's some real palm greasing going on here
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: and some shady backroom deals that caused the responsible parties
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: being the brewers, to kind of get a scott free.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: And remember Ben, you mentioned houses were lost, foundations were wrecked,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: homes were crumbled because of this. This was that much beer.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Can you believe it? It blows my mind that it
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: would have kept that momentum going long enough to actually
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: damage people's properties. I can't even picture the sheer volume
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: of stinking, brown hot booze.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: And yeah, this does have a maybe Sobering is not
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the right word for this episode, but it's funny. There
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: is a sobering aspect to this story, which is that
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: this community was largely composed of Irish immigrants and newspapers,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: and the establishment at the time very much looked down
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: on immigrants from Ireland, and the company that owned the
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: brewery eventually did just find because you would think they
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: would take an enormous financial hit right from losing literally
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: all of their inventory, killing eight people, and destroying a neighborhood.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: But they initially thought they were going to be in
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: tough times because they had already paid the excise taxes
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: on the booze. But somehow they got Parliament to give
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: them a pass and they got their money back.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Not only that, they got Parliament or whatever governing
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: body was overseeing this thing to rule the disaster. The
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: collapse of this cask as an act of God, an
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: unavoidable act of God, meaning no mortal entity could be
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: held responsible and meaning no mortal got a dime, right,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: And this was only two days after the flood. Jury
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: convened to investigate the accident, they visited the side of
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: the tragedy. They viewed the corpses of the victims. They
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: heard testimony from Crick we mentioned earlier, and as you said, Noel,
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: they said this had been an act of God, and
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: that the victims had met their death casually, accidentally, and
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: by fortune. I would agree with the last part. I
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: was definitely a serious case of misfortune.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And there was a lot of speculation about the court
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: being corrupt or bribed, but there was never an official
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: statement made, and the brewery soldiered on for a long time,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: for more than a century. It wasn't until nineteen twenty
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: two that it was demolished and they built something called
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the Dominion Theater on part of the site. In twenty twelve,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: there was a pub in the area, the Hole Born Whippet,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: that began marking the Great Beer Flood of eighteen fourteen
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: with a vat of porter brewed especially for the day,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: which to me feels like it's in poor taste. I'm
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: just gonna go on the record and say.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: That I would agree with you on the record.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: So another strange aspect of this story is that this
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: is this is not the only strange beverage flood. I
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: think do we ever mention the Great Molasses Flood.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know if we've done a full episode on it,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: but this is definitely a parallel. It's like the American equivalent,
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: yeah of this, because I don't know there's ever been
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: another booze flood kind of like this. Because they switched
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: after this. This did bring about some change in the
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: brewing process. They changed it to concrete casks as opposed
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: to these shoddy, you know, rickety wooden cast But what's
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: the Great Molasses floods? It great as well. We were
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: talking off air about how it's funny when we have
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: a date and then the great a thing, implying there
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: may have been lesser versions of that.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: The mediocre beer flood. Yeah. So the Great Molasses Flood,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster, occurred in January
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: of nineteen nineteen, when a huge storage tank of molasses burst,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: causing molasses to rush through the streets at like thirty
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: five miles an hour. One hundred and fifty people were injured,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: twenty one people died. And then there was the Honolu
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: molasses spill, which happened in twenty thirteen. So this stuff
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: isn't just ancient history. Luckily, no humans as far as
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: we know passed away in that molasses spill, but it
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: did tremendous damage to the maritime environment. And then there's
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: one other one. I just like the name. I don't
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: know if you've heard this name. No, I want to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: see what you think about it. The Pepsi Fruit Juice Flood.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: That sounds like a drink. That sounds like a really
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: cool band. Hey, you guys going to see the Pepsi
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Fruit Juice Flood A Red Rocks. I caught him in Bonnaroo.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: You know. I just I love their live work, so
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: they've taken a different direction on their new album.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: The Pepsi Fruit Juice Flood, which I feel like they
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: might put out as a beverage. One day was a
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: flood of twenty eight million liters of fruit and vegetable
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: juice into the streets of a town in Russia called Lebdian,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: and it was caused by a collapse of a pepsiico warehouse.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: No deaths resulted from the spill, but there were two
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: injuries and the streets were a wash with pineapple, apricot, tangerine, grape, mango, pomegranate, apple, cherry, orange, grapefruit,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and tomato.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Juice.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: So if you're going to make a commemorative drink for that,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: those would be the ingredients. And I think that would
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: taste pretty nasty.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Right, it does seem so that doesn't seem like a
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: very good combination of flavors. It's like, I did you
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: ever drink V eight? I like vat splash, but no,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: I did not like tomato juice. If that's what you're
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: asking me, what ms I drink clamato next?
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Like? What what's the difference between vight splash and V eight?
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: VA splash has like fruit juices in it. It has
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: just a little bit. It hides the carrot juice in
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: the tomato juice. It's veiled. Kids like to drink it.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: It's a tasty juice beverage. Well, you know what, maybe
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I'll give it a shot. No, I have never tried
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: V eight nor V eight splash. Have I experience in
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: a life unlived?
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: No?
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Man, it takes you know, you've got your path, you
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: got your story. You know doesn't have to include V eight.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Thanks man, And I really drink?
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Do you drink other beverages that you know that I don't.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: I don't drink like uh milk, I don't drink milk.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: You don't drink milk, no nut milk. I feel like
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: milk is an ingredient.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: We actually we had this conversation before with one of
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: our coworkers, a great guy, Paul Decktt, who also has
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the nickname Mission Control, and he is definitely a fan
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: of drinking milk. Wouldn't you say so? Casey? Absolutely, have
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: you guys had that conversation about milk as an ingredient
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: versus a beverage.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, I consume it as a beverage too, so
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I'm right there with him. I like chocolate milk.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, same, same I used to Did you guys ever
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: hear the story? This has nothing to do with the
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: great beer flood of eighteen fourteen, but did you guys
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: ever hear this story of I guess the old urban
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: legend that chocolate milk was originally created to hide blood
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: clots and impurities.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Delicious way to hide it?
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, Casey on the case and this ends tail
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: for today. Thank you so much for tuning in ridiculous historians.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Thank you, super producer, Casey pegrum Noel my friend as always,
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: thank you for exploring this strange, disturbing tale.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot going on here. It's sort of
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: a tale of wealth and poverty and you know, the
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: rich running roughshod over the poor. We sort of didn't
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: really see that aspect of it until the end, but
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: it's definitely there. And it's gross. It's gross philosophically and
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: also physically gross because it's hot beer rushing through the
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: poop laden streets of London town right washing away children
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: having tea parties.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I know, no one got in trouble, no one went
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: to jail. It's a shame, but at least it did
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: lead to better safety standards.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: That's true. We speaking of things leading to things. This
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: is the part of the show where we lead to
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: the end of the show.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Nice segue, nod, My segue.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Game is on fire.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: It's great.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I'm really working on I've been saving that one.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: You've been putting in the work.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Thanks Ben.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram, you us on Facebook,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: you can find us on Twitter, but more importantly, you
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: can find us and your fellow Ridiculous historians on our
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Facebook community page, Ridiculous Historians.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. There's some good conversation there,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: some good memory, some good history, weirdness, good conversation. I
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: already said that all of those things you can find
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: it right there, go to ridiculous historians. All you have
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: to do is like name one of our names or something.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And even if you just like make up something clever,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: we'll let you in. If it's funny, we'll let you
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: in totally. We'd like to thank our research associate Gabe,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: who helped us out with this one. We'd also like
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: to thank our buddy Alex Williams, who composed this theme.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Do you think he even knows that we include a
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: thank you to him in every episode?
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: I told him, Oh, you told him? Yeah, he nodded.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: He's a very demure kind of dude.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, what's our comic book recommendation?
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Comic book recommendation for today? This one might be a
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: little on the nose, but I had a friend tell
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: me how I got the movie version of Watchmen all
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: wrong and how I need to go back and watch
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: it again. I have not done that yet, but I
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: really felt like it kind of missed the mark of
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: what that comic was all about. So I really recommend
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: going back and revisiting not the movie Watchmen, but the
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: incredible seminal graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Watchmen I also, oddly enough, have an Alan Moore recommendation
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that I was thinking about cool Providence. Providence is the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: is the story of a writer who explores the world
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: of HP Lovecraft. It's a guy who kind of who
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: wants to meet HP Lovecraft and has all these weird
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: experiences that if you like HP Lovecraft, you like Alan Moore,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: You're gonna love this. That's all I can say.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.