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The Great London Beer Flood of 1814 · Ridiculous History

• 0:23
  Speaker 1: You know, I guess we should begin today's episode by
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: pointing out that it is not, to our knowledge, sponsored
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: by Miller Lite. Although we had a lot of fun
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: with those guys. You had the best tagline of all times.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I'm really surprised they haven't like purchased this from you.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: You know, it was a gift. We're just very giving
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: people on this show, and that is the gift that
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: keeps on giving in social media form. And I don't
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: know if they'll ever give us any more ads again.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: But what was it again? Then? Uh, Miller Lite. The
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: beer is so good that you can drink it with
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: your mouth, and I think that we arrived at that
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: on our earlier episode about ritual alcohol enemas or ak A.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: You're not gonna say it. You're not gonna say it.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I tried to make you say last time. That was
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: a sore spot. But chugging is the word chugging. Today
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: we're talking about a different kind of chugging, chugging, chugging
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: it to the streets. Yes, yes, taking into the streets.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: That's well put. Uh, I'm ben oh, I'm null. And
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: we are of course joined with our super producer Casey
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Pegram give it up for and fellow ridiculous historians. Our
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: journey today takes us to the early eighteen hundreds in
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: foggy Old London Town October, specifically when a bizarre sequence
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: of events through the community of St Giles, London into
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: a state of pand ammonium and terror. What happened and
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: how did this come to pass? Okay, so let's set
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the scene. He already did. Foggy London Town eighteen fourteen. Uh,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: there's a brewery, right, There's a brewery called the Horseshoe
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Brewery which was located at the corner of Great Russell
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Street and Tottenham Court Roads. The Horseshoe Brewery was the building.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: It was like this historic brewery and the mu and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Company brewers I guess had taken it over or they
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: were the ones occupying it at this time, and they
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: had a They were all about being up to the
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: latest technological brewing standards, which at the time where giant
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: wooden vats secured with these iron rings like a giant
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: barrel basically right, yeah, yeah, these giant barrels girdled with
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: heavy iron hoops. And this was sort of a a
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: fad or a trend for breweries at the time, the
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: vats were meant to be displayed to visitors, right, They
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: were meant to be a show stopping spectacle and to
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: impress potential customers. So there was this kind of one
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: ups ship contest wherein different breweries would try to build
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: progressively larger vats and barrels. And you just said how
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: how big these were? To put it in another perspective,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: there three stories tall, and as you said, they're built
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of wood with just some hoops around them, very heavy
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: iron hoops for structural integrity. Yeah. And um, let's not
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: forget the type of beer that was being brewed. Here
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: was something akin to a stout, like a dark porter ale,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: which was very popular at the time. Um, and this
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: vat would hold three thousand, five hundred barrels of this
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: brown stuff. And everything is fine for years, for like
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: four years, everything is fine until it isn't. On October fourteen,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: in this area of St. Giles, which we should mention
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: as a poor area of London, several things are happening.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: There is a woman named and Seville who is mourning
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the tragic death of her two year old son, John,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: who had just died the day earlier. On October six,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: and she is mourning in her seller apartment. A lot
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: of people live in basements in this area. And then upstairs,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: on the first floor of this tenement on New Street,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: a lady named Mary Banfield is sitting down for tea
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: with her daughter Hannah, who is four. And then across
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: across the way or nearby, there is a fourteen year
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: old named Eleanor Cooper at the Tavistock Arms public House
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: who's scouring pots. Teenage barmaid. A teenage barmaid, yeah, her
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: scullery maid. At the very least. She is by this
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: outdoor water pump that's right next to a brick wall
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: that's about twenty five ft high. And the brewery that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: you mentioned a um that that you described for us
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: earlier is directly on the other side of that barrier.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: They're famous for this porter that you mentioned, and they
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: produced more than one hundred thousand barrels of this each year.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: It was big business. And around four thirty pm that day,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: a storehouse clerk named George Crick looks at one of
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: these huge wooden vats and he's looking at it from
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: above right, and as he's staring down, he notices something's off.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: One of those hoops, which weighs seven hundred pounds, has
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: slipped off a cask and the porter that storing is
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: ten months old. Crick has been with the company for
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: almost two decades, and he knew that this kind of thing,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the slippage of the hoop could happen maybe once the
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: three times a year, and he didn't think too much
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of it. He was just like, sometimes things happen. Were
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: they not doing proper maintenance on this monstrosity. It's hard
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: to say, man, you know, they must have had to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: do some sort of regular maintenance just because it's would Yeah,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: but I imagine that like safety and you know, health
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: inspections wasn't really much of a thing back in these days,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: so that's probably like left their own devices a little bit.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so that one who pops off, and you
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: can imagine like what we're talking like maybe like eight
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: of these hoops for the giant cask, right, So that's
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: significantly weakening it structurally, and then um, the other hoops
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: start to kind of follow suit, or at least the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it starts to weaken the entire thing.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: It's like a domino effect on this right, Yeah, that's
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: a good way to put it. So George Creek goes
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: ahead and fills up the vat all the way almost
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: to the top, almost to the brim, I think four
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: inches away from the top, and this like more than
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: high way. He sees the thing pop off, and then
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: he's just like a screw it and still sees that
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: it's slipped. At this point, it slipped, and he told
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: his boss about it, and his boss said that quote
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: new home whatever would inceed and sounds like a real
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: villainous type. I can't help a picture him as such.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: And he told Craig. He was just like, George, you
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: should write a letter to another guy who works at
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the brewery and they can fix it later, but we'll
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: be fine for now. Don't worry about it. And then, uh,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Craig sits down and he he's filled up the vat.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: He writes this letter and it's it's about five thirty
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: when he finishes writing the letter, and then he hears
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: a massive explosion. Yeah, yeah, a massive explosion that set
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: forth all of those thousands of barrels of this. It
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: was hot actually, because it was mid ferment right, just gushing,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and it was so forceful that it actually took out
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: a wall in the brewery that allowed it to continue
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: to flood into the streets of that area where he's cribing.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: And not to mention that as it went it took
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: out the other casks that were around as well. They
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: may have not held the same volume total, but added
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: up together made for a whole another problem. Right exactly
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: so that large barrier we mentioned earlier, where the fourteen
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: year old Eleanor Cooper is working, that wall collapses, it
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: kills her instantly. The sheer force of this explosion sends
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: bricks flying through the air across Great Russell Street, and
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: a deluge of beer rushes through the neighborhood. And it's
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: sweeping away like this is an actual flood. It's sweeping
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: away everything in its path. Well, this is like three
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: d and twenty plus thousand gallons of beer. Yeah, and
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: that one, that first vat alone held the equivalent of
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: one million pints of beer. Jesus. And again, as as
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: we said just a moment ago, that wasn't the only
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: vat that went, and there was no drainage. We should
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: mention that on these city streets, there's not like a
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: sewage system have we talked about the great Stink of London, Ben,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I think we have. Remember how nasty that city was
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: pre sewage system. You know, it was just the streets
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: were literally caked in human excrement, and so this beer
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: is washing all that along with it. People are getting
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: swept up in the flood. Can you imagine the smell.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: It must have been disgusted. I mean, think about how
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: it smells like downtown Atlanta or somewhere like Little five Points,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: like after like a weekend. You know, it just smells
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: like pea and stale beer, or just outside of our
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: building building. It's true, this must have been that like
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: to the mph power, and it happens so quickly it's
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: difficult for us to fully articulate how quickly this occurs.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: People who live in the neighborhood are losing their minds.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: They're screaming zoie and what dot, and they're hopping up
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: on pieces of furniture. They're trying to save themselves from drowning,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: which was a real possibility because this flood was so
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: strong and so forceful that some of the houses that
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: were in disrepair crumbled themselves. So your house could fall
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: on you, all right, here's where it gets gross. Okay,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: it's already pretty gross at this point, but um, a
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: lot of the folks were trying to, you know, make
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: this see the silver lining in this situation. And you know,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: likely they were alcoholics because they were just like, hey,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: free beer. So they would get like whatever receptacle they
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: get their hands on, a bucket or whatever and start
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: scooping this stuff up and drinking it. And some people
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: just lapped it up off the street. And again, lots
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: of poop mixed in with this beer at this lots
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: of lots of poop to try this road dirt road kill. Yeah,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: and let's also not forget that this beer was mid fermentation,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: so it wasn't even done. Yeah, it was even like
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: beer beer. So where are we fatality wise at this point? Ben,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: As this deluge makes us way through St. Giles Rookery,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: another area where I believe some of the city's poorest
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: we're living. Um, and this is another very sad detail here, Ben.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: This happened during the day, so the men would have
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: been away at work. So the folks that were at
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: home that would have experience the brunt of this beer
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: nami would have been children and women right exactly. Let's
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: explore some of the fatalities. So we mentioned the unfortunate
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: end of fourteen year old barmaid Eleanor Cooper. She died
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: pretty quickly, near instantly as far as we can tell.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: But let's also revisit some of the characters we introduced
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: earlier in the story. And Seville, who was mourning again
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: the death of her two year old son John, was
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: holding a wake in their basement apartment when the beer
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: flood hit. They had no time or no way to
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: get out, so Seville, along with the other three mourners
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: were all killed by by this beer. And then the
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: couple that we had mentioned, the mom and daughter having
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: tea on the first floor of their tenement, Mary Benfield
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and her four year old daughter Hannah, they both passed away.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So this this gets us up to let's see Eleanor,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the four mourners, Mary and Hannah. This gets us up
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to seven fatalities in a matter of minutes. But that's
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: not all. There was one more fatality right now. Yeah,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: and this is probably a direct result of these booze
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: scoopers that were talking about earlier that were just you know,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: chugging the stuff from the streets, hence my opening phrase
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: chugging into the streets. And apparently this last death was
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: alcohol poisoning, and not not to make light, but you know,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like you did it to yourself, buddy,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you escaped the act will del use that all of
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: these innocence you know, we're subjected to, and then you went,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: You went and drank yourself to death like a jerk.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Because isn't like half fermented booze dangerous. Isn't it like
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: ethanol really strong or something like? Oh, I don't know,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I thought so, I know, like moonshine, if you drink
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: it before it's finished or something like that, it can
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: be really really dangerous. But I don't know if that applies.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I'm just spit on here. But do we know know
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: whether or not that was intentional alcohol poisoning? You know
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Were they just trying not to drown
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: and they managed to not drown? Interesting? But they unclear?
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: But uncle, I don't know. I just want to just
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: not that they need me to defend them, but possibly,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: I though I don't want to sound too cynical about it,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I'm tempted to think it's the first idea you proposed,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: and that they just drink themselves to death. There could
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: have been more deaths, more fatalities. It's pretty astonishing in fact,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: that so few people died as a result of this
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: flood this which is say earlier beer nami, like the
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: worst damage does occur there on New Street, and now
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: this neighborhood is soaked in beer. Everything stinks. People are
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: covered in hot malt liquor. Three brewery employees almost died,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: but they were luckily pulled from this temporary raging river
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: and people rescuers arrived on the scene and they were
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: trying with their bare hands to go through the rubble
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and find anyone who is trapped inside, and they had to.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: They were in a really weird situation because people are
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: losing their minds, wailing and screaming, and they're like, you
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: have to be quiet because we're trying to hear people
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: in the rubble. Yeah, it's a real scene, ben Um,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: And surprise, surprise, this story doesn't have a happy ending
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: on on multiple levels, on the corporate level, right on
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the corporate greed and corrupt and level, there's some real
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: palm grease and going on here, and some shady backroom
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: deals that caused, uh, the responsible parties being the brewers,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: to kind of get away scott free. And remember Ben,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: you mentioned houses were lost, foundations were wrecked, homes were
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: crumbled because of this. This was that much beer. Can
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: you believe it? It blows my mind that it would
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: have kept that momentum going long enough to actually damage
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: people's properties. I can't even picture the sheer volume of stinking,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: brown hot booze. And yeah, this does have a maybe
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: sobering it's not the right word for this episode, but
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it's funny. There is a sobering aspect to this story,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: which is that this community was largely composed of Irish
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: immigrants and newspapers in the establishment at the time very
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: much looked down on immigrants from Ireland, and the company
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: that own the brewery eventually did just fine. Because you
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: would think they would take an enormous financial hit right
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: from losing literally all of their inventory, killing eight people,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and destroying a neighborhood. But they initially thought they were
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: going to be in tough times because they had already
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: paid the excise taxes on the booze. But somehow they
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: got Parliament to give them a pass and they got
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: their money back. Yeah. Not only that they got um
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Parliament or whatever governing body was overseeing this thing, UH
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to rule the disaster. The collapse of this cask as
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: an act of God, an unavoidable act of God, meaning
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: no mortal entity could be held responsible, and meaning no
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: mortal UH got a dime. Right, And this was only
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: two days after the flood. Jury convened to investigate the accident.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: They visited the side of the tragedy, They viewed the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: corpses of the victims. They heard testimony from Crick we
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, and as you said, no, they said this
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: had been an act of God and that the victims
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: had met their death casually, accidentally, and by misfortune. I
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: would agree with the last part. I would. It was
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: definitely a serious case of misfortune. And there was a
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: lot of speculation about the court being corrupt or bribed,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: but there was never an official statement made, and the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: brewery soldiered on for a long time, for more than
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: a century. It wasn't until that it was demolished and
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: they built something called the Dominion Theater on part of
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: the site. In two thousand and twelve, there was a
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: pub in the area. The whole born whippet that's began
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: marking the Great Beer Flood of eighteen fourteen with a
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: vat of porter brewed especially for the day, which to
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: me feels like it's impoor taste. I'm just gonna go
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: on the record and say that I would agree with
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: you on the record. So another strange aspect of this
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: story is that this is not the only strange beverage flood.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I think do we ever mention the Great Molasses Flood.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we've done a full episode on it,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: but there's definitely a parallel. It's like the American equivalent, yeah,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: of this, because I don't know there's ever been another
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: booze flood kind of like this because they switched after this,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: This did bring about some change in the brewing process
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: where they changed it to concrete casks as opposed to
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: these shoddy, you know, rickety wooden cast But what's the
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: Great Molasses Flood? Because it's great as well. We were
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: talking off air about how it's funny when we have
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: a date and then the Great a thing, implying there
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: may have been lesser versions of that, the mediocre beer flood. Yeah,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: so the Great Molasses Flood also known as the Boston
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Molasses Disaster, occurred in January of nineteen nine teen, when
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: a huge storage tank of molasses burst, causing molasses to
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: rush through the streets at like thirty five miles an hour.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Fifty people were injured, twenty one people died. And then
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: there was the Honolulu Molasses spill, which happened in two
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: thousand thirteen. So this stuff isn't just ancient history. Luckily,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: no humans as far as we know, passed away in
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: that molasses spill, but it did tremendous damage to the
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: maritime environment. And then there's one other one. I just
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: like the name. I don't know if you've heard this name.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: No one want to see what you think about it.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: The Pepsi fruit Juice Flood. That sounds like a drink,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: that sounds like a really cool band. He he has
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: going to see the Pepsi fruit juice Flood. Red Rocks.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I caught him in Bonnaroo. You know, I just I
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: love their live work. They've taken a different direction on
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the new album. Yeah, the Pepsi Fruit Juice Flood, which
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like they might put out his a beverage.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: One day was a flood of twenty eight million liters
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of fruit and vegetable juice into the streets of a
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: town in Russia called Lebedian, and it was caused by
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the collapse of PepsiCo warehouse. UH No deaths resulted from
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the spill, but there were two injuries and the streets
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: were awash with pineapple, apricot, tangerine, grape, mango, pomegranate, apple, cherry, orange, grapefruit,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and tomato juice. So if you're going to make a
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: commemorative drink for that, those would be the ingredients. And
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I think that would taste pretty nasty, right, it does
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: seem so that doesn't seem like a very good combination
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: of flavors. It's like, I did you ever drink V eight?
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: I like the it splash, but no, not like tomato juice.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: If that's what you're asking me, what I'm drink clamato next? Like,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: what's the difference between V eight splash and V A.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: V A splash has like fruit juices in it. It
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: has just a little bit. It hides the carrot juice
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: in the tomato juice. It's veiled. Kids like to drink it.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: It's a tasty juice beverage well, you know what, maybe
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I'll give it a shot. Well, I have never tried
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: V eight nor V eight splash have I experience in
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: all life unlived? No, but it takes. I mean, you
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: know you you're You've got your path, I got your story.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: You know doesn't have to include V eight. Thanks man.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: You drink other beverages that you know that I don't.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: I don't drink like, uh, milk, I don't drink milk.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: You don't drink milk, no nut milk. I feel like
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: milk is an ingredient. We actually we had this conversation
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: before with one of our coworkers, a great guy, Paul Deckant,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: who also has the nickname Mission Control, and he is
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: definitely a fan of drinking milk. Wouldn't you say so? Caseys,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Have you guys had that conversation about milk as an
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: ingredient versus a beverage? I mean I consume it as
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: a beverage too, So I'm right there with him. I
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: like chocolate milk. Yeah, same same, I used to Did
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you guys ever hear the story? This has nothing to
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: do with a great beer flood of eighteen fourteen, But
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: did you guys ever hear this story of I guess
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the old urban legend that chocolate milk was originally created
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: to hide blood clots and impurities. Delicious way to hide it. Okay, well,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Casey on the case, and this ends our tail for today.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for tuning in ridiculous historians. Thank
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: you super producer, Casey pegram No my friend as always,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you for exploring this strange, disturbing tale. Yeah, there's
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: a lot going on here. It's sort of a tale
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: of wealth and poverty and uh, you know, the rich
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: running rough shod over the poor. We sort of didn't
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: only see that aspect of it until the end, but um,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: it's definitely there. And it's gross. It's gross u philosophically
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: and also physically gross because it's hot beer rushing through
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the poop laden streets of London town right washing away
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: children having tea parties, I know. And no one got
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: in trouble. No one went to jail. It's a shame,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: but at least it did lead to better or safety standards.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: That's true. Speaking of things leading to things, this is
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the part of the show where we lead to the
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: end of the show. Nice see my seg game is
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: on fire. It's I'm really working on I've been saving
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: that one. You've been putting in the work. You can
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: find us on Instagram, you can find us on Facebook,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you can find us on Twitter, but more importantly, you
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: can find us and your fellow Ridiculous Historians on our
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Facebook community page, Ridiculous Historians. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: There's some good conversation there, some good memory, some good history, weirdness,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: good conversation. Already said that all of those things. You
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: can find it right there, go to Ridiculous Historians. All
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: you have to do is like name one of our
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: names or something. And even if you just like make
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: up something clever, we'll we'll let you in. If it's funny,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: we'll let you in totally. We'd like to thank our
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: research associate Gabe, who helped us out with this one. Um.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: We'd also like to thank our buddy Alex Williams, who
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: composed this theme. Do you think he even knows that
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: we include a thank you to him in every episode?
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Him to him? He had nodded. He's a very demure
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: kind of dude. Yeah, oh what our comic book recommendation.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Comic book recommendation for today, This one might be a
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: little on the nose. UM. But I had a friend
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: tell me how I got the movie version of Watchman
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: all wrong, how I need to go back and watch
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: it again. UM. I have not done that yet, but
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I really felt like it kind of missed the mark
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of what that comic was all about. UM, So I
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: really recommend going back and revisiting not the movie Watchman,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: but the incredible seminal graphic novel Watchman by Alan Moore. UM. Watchman.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I also, oddly enough, have an Alan Moore recommendation that
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about Providence. Providence is the is this
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: story of a writer who explores the world of HP Lovecraft,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: this guy who kind of who wants to mean HP Lovecraft.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: It has all these weird experiences that if you like
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: HP Lovecraft, you like Alan Moore, you're gonna love this.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: That's all I can say. See you next time, folks,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: The Sexton Time