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Short Stuff: Lemonade · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Shorty. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Jerry. Let's get things started. Yeah, let's get it started.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: And here. Did you ever have eliminated stand growing up
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: at all? I believe I did, but it was kool aid? Actually,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: who am I kidding? It was flavoring to your cult leader.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I don't. I think I might have had one at
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: some point, but I, you know, very famously grew up
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: on a in the woods, on a street with like
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: six houses, So I don't. I can't imagine that it
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: would have been on my street because it would have
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: been completely pointless. So your trick or treating just sucked. Well,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: we had to go other places. Did you have to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: take a car to go other places? Yeah? Drive over
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to a friend's house who lived in a big neighborhood
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: that I was so jealous of. That's a good friend
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to have. I feel like we've had this conversation before.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Probably we've had every conversation before by now. Yes, but
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: this is not about Halloween. This is about the origins
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: of lemonade, and also of the lemon itself. Yeah, so
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I did not know this, Chuck. We have no idea
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: where the lemon came from none. We know that it
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: was a higher It's a hybrid of a sour orange
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and a citron um, so we know that it was
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: crafted by human hands, but we have no idea who
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: did this, where they did it, and exactly when they
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: did it, which I find fascinating. I liked lemons before,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: now I'm in love with them. Yeah, and I believe
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: didn't you talk about citrons in the Pompei episode. That's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: what you were getting there, right, right, But I didn't
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: realize that they were citron's right, you were like those
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: weird big lemons that don't have any juice and are
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: all rind. Yeah the size of your head. Yeah, that's
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: about right. But uh, you know, everyone knows you can't
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: get a lot of Jews from a citron. So what
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: you need if you wanted to make lemonade was a
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: real lemon. And apparently they have traced at least the
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: precursor to lemonade, uh to medieval Egypt, where they made
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: something called cosh Cob not cash Cab the Great TV
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Show or kush Kari the guy who handled the tart
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: bail out. Uh. Oh, that's rights kash Karai. Uh fermented
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: barley combined with mint, rude, black pepper, and citron leaf.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: And I could see you actually trying to make a
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: cocktail out of this in ancient cocktail. Yeah, I had
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to look up rue. It's like a very pretty meadow flower.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what it would taste like, but yeah,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: they had me at fermented barley. Really there's some Yeah,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: there's some extra vodka in there in your set. Like
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I love fermented anything. I love it, man, I'm crazy
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: about kombucha. I love pickles, all of anything. If you
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: ferment anything, I will eat it. Throw an old shoe
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: in a vad of vinegar, He'll eat it in a month.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: If if I go, I should say, when I eventually
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: go to Iceland, I will be trying that fermented shark
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: that's supposed to be like the nastiest thing in the world.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I will try it because I love fermented stuff. Yeah, no, thanks. Uh.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: There's another thing that came out of Um Egypt I
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: think as well, called Katarmazat, and it's lemonade. There's really
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: no other way to put it. And it was made
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: in at least the tenth century, so again medieval times
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: in Egypt. Um. It was either created or sold or
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: consumed or all three of those by the Jewish community
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: in Cairo. Um, and they just basically added sugar and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: lemon juice together to make katarmazat, which again is that's lemonade.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: And I think earlier than that, honey was probably what
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: people used. But you know, lemon's are so tart you
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: need some sugary agent to cut that and make it
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: drinkable for sure. But we so we know that, um,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: they made something from something like maybe citron or if
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: not lemon. The first reference to a lemon tree is
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: from the tenth century as well, in an Arabic book
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I'm Farming by a guy named Acustas al Roumi, and
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: he was the first to mention a lemon try. Ever,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: so we know that they were around by then. They
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: may have been around for a few hundred years by
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: then from what I saw, I think northern India, and
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: then it was in Italy by two d This is lemons,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: not lemonade. Yet. We haven't reached lemonade exactly yet. Yeah,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: so if you want to talk about what we think
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of modern lemonade, you need to go to seventeenth century Europe,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: where in Paris. In fact, they even have a day
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: supposedly August. August sixty. Uh, it made its debut, which
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: was a sparkling version of sparkling water, lemon juice and honey. Yeah. Man,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: have you ever added just sparkling water to lemonade? No?
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: But I drink those uh things that we used to
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: have here in the office that are so delicious surge. No,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the name. Jolt. It's the one where
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: you peel like the foiley paper off the top of
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: the can. First. Oh, Sam, pellegrina, Yeah, the pellegrino lemon.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I don't know, drink many of them because they're like
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: super sugary and stuff so good, but they're so delicious. Yeah,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: and like their blood orange, they're grapefruit. All of them
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: are so good. Yeah, you're right. They are pretty sugary though,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: and if you read the back of the can, you're like, whoa,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: it's like a coke. Yeah exactly. So that's you know,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I gotta avoid that stuff, but it's worth it though.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Once in a while, you got to treat yourself chuck. Yeah.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: So these vendors in Paris would sell the stuff from
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: tanks on their back and it was wildly successful across
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Europe because it is so refreshing, and apparently even in
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: sixteen seventy six it was so popular that the vendors
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: got together and formed a union, eliminate union called the
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Campagnie de lemonardils nice work. And then eventually it hit
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: a bigger craze because of a man named Joseph Priestley,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: probably related to Jason Priestley, I think clear. We've talked
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: about him in the nitrous oxide episode. Yeah, he invented
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the thing that made carbonated water. I guess was that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: before Mr Swept Yes, okay, no, maybe maybe contemporaneously. Yeah,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I think he was around the same time. He was
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: in the late eighteenth century, maybe mid eighteenth century. But yeah,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Schwebt came up with his thing in the seventeen eighties, right,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: So that made it even more popular with this fizzy version. Uh.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: And let's take a quick break and then we'll move
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: across the pond to America right after this. Alright, dude,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: so we've made it across to the United States, a journey.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: By the eighteenth century, um lemonades all over America, and
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: again people are adding like sparkling water or soda to lemonade,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: which I want to encourage it. It's so good, it's um.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: And by about the time of the the late nineteenth
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: century lemonade it was pretty popular. People liked it um
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: and the Temperance movement actually clamped onto it and said,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: this is a really good alternative to liquor. You want
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: some liquor, forget about it. Just drink some sparkling lemonade
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and you'll you'll be as trash as you want. Yeah,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: especially if you enjoy it in its best form, which
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: is to add liquor. All right. I think the Temperance
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: movement was like, don't do that. Yeah, it was. It
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: was apparently sun kissed even back then, which I didn't
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: know it was. Around back then they had a slogan
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: that said goodbye to liquor, his to lemonade. Yes, everyone went,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that's a lame substitute. They said, do we have to choose?
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: So there was actually a period in UM in the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century eighteen seventy seven to eighteen eighty one where
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: if you were invited to a white house dinner or
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: function or something you were not going to be served liquor,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: you would probably you probably get in big trouble because
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Rutherford B. Hayes, he was the one who um who
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: signed that um that executive order to apparently to curry
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: favor with the the Prohibition party. UM. But his wife
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: was very well known as a teetotaler. She was a
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: big time into temperance movement. His wife Lucy Lucy Hayes,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and she was dubbed lemonade Lucy because UM, people, I
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: guess wanted to to poke fun at her for her
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: beliefs and that wasn't a very good job. And she
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: sighed and said, well, I guess it's better than liquor, Lucy.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: They said, we hadn't thought about that. So I didn't
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: know that lemonade had a circus connection, did you. Nope,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I had no idea that this was a thing. But
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: apparently lemonade, and especially pink lemonade has a circus connection, uh,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: and that it came from the or at least in
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine from West Virginia's Wheeling Register newspaper told
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: a story about how the circus turned lemonade pink. And
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: there are a couple of different many different versions, but
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the two U two stories that stuck of how this happened.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: One is sounds like it could be delicious, and one
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: is really gross. Yeah. So one is found in a
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: nineteen twelve obituary in the New York Times for a
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: guy named Henry E. Allett. And this would have happened
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: years and years before because he ran away as a
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: boy to join the circus. And this, this story is
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: that he was um. He accidentally dropped some red colored
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: cinnamon candies into a out of lemonade and just said, well,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to throw this away, and he sold
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: it as pink lemonade and people loved it. I bet
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that's good. That's what I'm thinking, is that? And what
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: are the little cinnamon candies that we ate when we
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: were kids. Cinnamon candies? You remember their name? They were
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: like right next to the lemonheads. Yeah, oh um, I remember, yeah,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: red Hot. It's a good job. The other one I
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: remember is Alexander the Grape. The other I remember is
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Boston Baked Beans, Yeah, which are not actually beans, they're nuts.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: They're candy coated peanuts. Such a weird name. It is
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: like have you ever had Boston cottage cheese? It is
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: not that God, but this pink lemonade a bet with
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: a like a little hot cinnamon. I bet that's a
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: pretty delicious thing to drink. It could be sure like
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: today when you make pink lemonades usually like red food
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: coloring or something like that. But back in the day
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: after pink lemonade was created, Um, what's Dr Kellogg's name,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the guy from Battle Creek, Oh, I can't remember his
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: first name. Well, he um, he came up with a
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: recipe that uses like either grenadine or cranberry juice or
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: something like that to make it pink and just kind
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: of slightly alter the flavor. Right. The other origin story, though,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: that is gross that I mentioned was from fifty seven,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: and this is when a circus concession worker was in
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a big hurry to make a batchel of lemonade, grabbed
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the first water they could find, which apparently was a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: washtub full of pink water from a performer's dirty pink tights.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: And they used that and people enjoyed it. Well, I
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: don't think they knew what the source was of the
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: pink water. That's pretty gross, that is, but either way,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: so we're gonna go with the other one. The Henry E.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Allett went, Okay, yeah, the red hots agreed. Well that's
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: it for lemonade, right, Yeah, I got nothing else, unless actually,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: should we mention the make lemons out of lemonade origin?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, good call man. Yeah. Apparently this was a
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: borrowed phrase by Elbert Hubbard in nineteen fift for an
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: obituary for a humorous named Marshall Pickney Wilder. And Wilder
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: was three and a half feet tall, and he was
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: a world famous, kind of household name comedian, and at
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: one point he didn't want people to be stigmatized, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: he said something like Fate handed me a lemon, but
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I've made lemon ade of it, and that's the earliest
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: place that people can find that. Good for that guy.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. I got anhing else. It's a great origin story.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Well I don't either. If you want to get in
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: touch with me and Chuck, you can go to the
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com. It's got all of
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: our social media links there and you can send us
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: emale to Stuff podcast How Stuff Works dot com.