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Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Gin · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff. You should know a production of I
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Brian, there's
0:15
Speaker 1: Jerry over there, and we are wasted wasted on excitement
0:21
Speaker 1: about talking about Gin. Wasted on excitement? Huh like that
0:27
Speaker 1: that's a great motto. Yeah, and not a not the
0:31
Speaker 1: worst band name, but not the best. It's not the
0:34
Speaker 1: best at all. Take an album title more like, oh, yeah,
0:37
Speaker 1: it's a good album title. Maybe it's um Jungle x
0:40
Speaker 1: Rays second album wasted on excitement? Yeah? Or Bathtub Gin
0:44
Speaker 1: wasted on excitement? Bathtub Jin's a fish song? Oh it is?
0:50
Speaker 1: It's funny. I was. I was walking into the neighborhood
0:53
Speaker 1: yesterday and I saw a a car that was clearly
0:57
Speaker 1: like the child home for for Thanksgiving. It was like
1:00
Speaker 1: this kind of beat up jeep from Florida, and it
1:04
Speaker 1: had a fish sticker and a grateful dead sticker and
1:06
Speaker 1: like one other thing college and this really nice thing.
1:09
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, man, I bet uh, I
1:12
Speaker 1: wonder how much weed is hidden in that thing's welcome
1:17
Speaker 1: home son? What's that smell? Um? Right? Oh? Were you
1:23
Speaker 1: being the Sun where we act play acting. No, it
1:26
Speaker 1: just it was that that Civiccas took went down the
1:29
Speaker 1: wrong wrong pipe and wrong pipe. Man, what is up
1:32
Speaker 1: with those faulty flaps? I don't know, man. Probably I
1:38
Speaker 1: love Gin and I love reading about it and researching it,
1:44
Speaker 1: and uh I might have a martini tonight as a result.
1:47
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any way you could not have
1:49
Speaker 1: a martini after reading about Gin for hours and hours
1:52
Speaker 1: and hours. Yeah, because Gin and Tonic season is over
1:54
Speaker 1: for me, sadly, and I'm into wine season. But wine
1:57
Speaker 1: season in martini season. There's some come more aidity there.
2:00
Speaker 1: Martini seasons year round, not for me. I mean, I
2:05
Speaker 1: don't drink that many martiniz it's a mood thing. Or
2:07
Speaker 1: if I'm with Hodgeman, we found them. Sure you can't
2:10
Speaker 1: not drink martinis when hodgments around? Yeah, of course, yeah,
2:14
Speaker 1: no comment, okay, but correct. So we're talking Gin because
2:21
Speaker 1: Gin is great and we love gin um and it
2:24
Speaker 1: turns out Jin's got a pretty pretty interesting history to
2:27
Speaker 1: it too. And we did an episode not too long
2:30
Speaker 1: ago on a short stuff actually on the difference between
2:35
Speaker 1: bourbon and whiskey. Right, has that been out yet? Even
2:38
Speaker 1: with the way our schedule works on any Wait, it's
2:40
Speaker 1: coming out tomorrow now about it? Yeah, yeah, tomorrow is
2:43
Speaker 1: in today, or tomorrow is in after this is released.
2:45
Speaker 1: Tomorrow is in the people who are listening to this
2:49
Speaker 1: the day it comes out tomorrow to them, the very
2:52
Speaker 1: select group of humans as far as the dimension of
2:54
Speaker 1: time goes, So um, tomorrow, everybody. You'll hear or stuff
3:00
Speaker 1: about the difference between whiskey and bourbon, and one of
3:02
Speaker 1: the things that really stands out is there are a
3:05
Speaker 1: lot of laws surrounding whiskey, especially in the United States.
3:09
Speaker 1: What makes whiskey whiskey, what you can call a specific
3:13
Speaker 1: kind of whiskey, what you can put on the label
3:15
Speaker 1: of some kinds of whiskey. Lots and lots of um
3:18
Speaker 1: laws exist. Don't forget that one. The spirit of America,
3:24
Speaker 1: the native spirit of America, That's what it was. But
3:29
Speaker 1: with gin, it's quite the opposite. Basically, as long as
3:31
Speaker 1: you have a neutral grain spirit that is distilled that
3:36
Speaker 1: I think eighty proof or higher, you can add whatever
3:42
Speaker 1: flavor you want to it, and that you can call
3:44
Speaker 1: it gin okay, which is not whatever you're if you
3:50
Speaker 1: buy that thing that I just described. Although it's technically
3:54
Speaker 1: legally gin, it's not really gin. A lot of people
3:58
Speaker 1: call it flavored vodkas. But gin, you there are specific
4:02
Speaker 1: steps you want to follow, their specific things you want
4:04
Speaker 1: to do, and more than anything, there's probably going to
4:07
Speaker 1: be a taste of juniper to it. Yeah, that is
4:11
Speaker 1: that used to be very much the case now, and
4:15
Speaker 1: we've talked a little bit about this on other episodes.
4:17
Speaker 1: Just uh Tangentially, I think is that there are many
4:21
Speaker 1: artisan gin makers now that are doing all kinds of
4:24
Speaker 1: crazy gen's and some many issuing the juniper altogether, that
4:30
Speaker 1: beautiful little evergreen shrub and those little cones that have
4:35
Speaker 1: that piny uh citrusy peppery taste that we love so much. Yeah,
4:42
Speaker 1: by the way, I should say, our our buddy Ben
4:44
Speaker 1: Harrison of the Greatest Generation and Friendly Fire, he I've
4:49
Speaker 1: seen this online elsewhere, but as far as he knows,
4:51
Speaker 1: he invented it a smoked gin and tonic where he
4:55
Speaker 1: gets a little uh like a chef's torch and smokes
5:00
Speaker 1: juniper berries and then throws the glass on top of
5:04
Speaker 1: it upside down and let's it just smoke up, and
5:08
Speaker 1: then turns it over and adds the ice and the
5:11
Speaker 1: and the rest of the mixings there. I would like
5:13
Speaker 1: to try that. I've had like smoked Manhattans and smoked
5:16
Speaker 1: whiskey drinks, would smoked kind and did they do the
5:19
Speaker 1: same thing, Yeah, same same process. But I've never ever
5:23
Speaker 1: heard of a smoked chin and tonic, So hats off
5:26
Speaker 1: to Ben if he did invent that. Yeah, it was good. Uh.
5:29
Speaker 1: And I also want to and I know shouted it
5:31
Speaker 1: up before, but I get this local tonic now, that's delicious.
5:36
Speaker 1: That is the real deal, you know, the Chinchona bark um.
5:40
Speaker 1: And it's very different than if you're used to traditional
5:44
Speaker 1: like schwepts tonic. Doesn't taste anything like that. It's you
5:49
Speaker 1: cut it with soda water and it's a very very
5:53
Speaker 1: lovely taste. Oh yeah, it's like good tonic waters, just
5:57
Speaker 1: amazingly good. Yeah. And that's you know, if you're talking
6:00
Speaker 1: about like fever tree will buzz market um, that is
6:04
Speaker 1: still a little more of a traditional tonic. This stuff
6:06
Speaker 1: is brown, uh and syrupy, and then you you you
6:10
Speaker 1: mix it with the soda and it's it becomes sort
6:13
Speaker 1: of a real version of that stuff. So it's probably
6:15
Speaker 1: very similar to stuff they're drinking in India in the
6:18
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, I think, so, so we'll go we'll get
6:21
Speaker 1: all we'll get to all that. Let's go back to gin,
6:24
Speaker 1: all right, So you start off if you want to
6:26
Speaker 1: make gin. And I have a gin making kit from
6:28
Speaker 1: last Christmas I still haven't used. And I'm this has
6:31
Speaker 1: inspired me to go home today and actually make my
6:33
Speaker 1: own gin and then pound it. I'll bring some in.
6:37
Speaker 1: We can all take a sip, just a sip. But
6:42
Speaker 1: you start with that base spirit um ethyl alcohol. That's
6:47
Speaker 1: a BV that you can power a car on. And
6:51
Speaker 1: then you read distill gin and that is one of
6:53
Speaker 1: the keys here, a real real gin. You redistill that
6:58
Speaker 1: spirit with whatever, but handicles you end up choosing, right.
7:02
Speaker 1: But typically the main botanical that's used in the main
7:05
Speaker 1: flavor profile of gin, aside from alcohol you can power
7:09
Speaker 1: your car on is that juniper berry. That's that kind
7:14
Speaker 1: of piny evergreeny um. Some people call it like drinking
7:18
Speaker 1: a Christmas tree. What makes gin gin? Once you've had
7:23
Speaker 1: a sup of gin, you will never mistake for anything
7:26
Speaker 1: else for the rest of your life. That's right. And
7:28
Speaker 1: that bass spirit can be um also, And you should
7:32
Speaker 1: also wait until you're twenty one to have that of course. Uh.
7:35
Speaker 1: That base spirit can be wheat, it can be rye,
7:38
Speaker 1: can be corn, it can be barley, but it can
7:41
Speaker 1: be really anything. There you can make potato gin or
7:45
Speaker 1: apple gin. I saw this company in Ireland. There was
7:48
Speaker 1: an article on Vice by Elizabeth Rusche Um Ireland's best
7:53
Speaker 1: gin is made out of milk. Yeah, that Bertha's gin.
7:57
Speaker 1: They make it. Uh, And this is produced full in Ireland,
8:00
Speaker 1: which is a great thing because it's a byproduct of
8:02
Speaker 1: cheesemaking that way um sweet way. They they they use
8:09
Speaker 1: that to make gin. It's crazy. Yeah, They ferment the
8:13
Speaker 1: way and then use that they distill that fermented beer basically,
8:18
Speaker 1: and then you distill that further in the process of
8:21
Speaker 1: or the presence of botanicals, and then you have gin.
8:24
Speaker 1: It's just this multi step process. But because you're step
8:27
Speaker 1: you're starting out with such a ridiculously high proof um
8:31
Speaker 1: alcohol like neutral alcohol. You can use basically an old
8:36
Speaker 1: shoe to make that that neutral grain spirit. It's gonna
8:39
Speaker 1: taste virtually the same as neutral grain spirit made from
8:43
Speaker 1: a neutral spirit made from barley or from way, or
8:47
Speaker 1: from potatoes or grapes. It just is the the alcoholic
8:51
Speaker 1: essence of those things. Yeah, and apparently that fermented way
8:55
Speaker 1: is what makes Bailey's as well, which I didn't know
8:59
Speaker 1: bay Lilie's Irish whiskey. I did not know that either.
9:04
Speaker 1: And this I gotta try this stuff though it's called
9:06
Speaker 1: Birth is Revenge or Bailey's Irish Cream. I'm sorry. Yeah,
9:10
Speaker 1: would you say Irish whiskey? Yeah, no, No, it's the
9:12
Speaker 1: it's the coffee additive. That's that Connor McGregor stuff for
9:15
Speaker 1: grandma Um. Birth is revengel. It looks delicious and it
9:18
Speaker 1: is uh fully made in Ireland. And Bertha apparently it
9:23
Speaker 1: is a cow. Yeah. She she died at like age
9:28
Speaker 1: forty nine after giving birth to thirty something calves over
9:31
Speaker 1: her life. Yeah, she was a very prolific milk cow
9:36
Speaker 1: in many ways. Yeah, but they they're not the only
9:39
Speaker 1: game in town making way based chin. There are others
9:42
Speaker 1: as well, but supposedly again it's it's they say that
9:46
Speaker 1: there's something in the way that even once it's distilled
9:49
Speaker 1: into its spirit, um, there's some there's some mouth feel
9:53
Speaker 1: to it or some flavored profile. But a lot of
9:56
Speaker 1: people argue that that's just not the case. That no
9:58
Speaker 1: matter what you make it from You're going to arrive
10:00
Speaker 1: at basically the same base neutral spirit. Okay, Okay, we'll
10:06
Speaker 1: find out. I'll just let me have something. I'll try
10:09
Speaker 1: Bombay sapphire, which will learn later on. Um, perhaps kick
10:13
Speaker 1: started the resurgence of gin. Yeah. Did you know that
10:16
Speaker 1: in the United States? No, but it makes it a
10:18
Speaker 1: little bit of sense now that I see the dates
10:21
Speaker 1: in the timelines when it came over. But uh, they
10:24
Speaker 1: very proudly display their ten different botanicals on the bottle licorice,
10:29
Speaker 1: juniper of course, uh, kubab berries, angelica, root almonds, coriander, cassia,
10:36
Speaker 1: bark iris, root lemon, peel, and grains of paradise. Very nice.
10:41
Speaker 1: And I like a Bombay sapphire martini. That's a that's
10:44
Speaker 1: a good fallback for me, although I'm a plymouth man
10:46
Speaker 1: through and through when it comes to martiniz and I
10:49
Speaker 1: like generally I like the Hendrix uh. And I like Tankaray,
10:54
Speaker 1: good old fashioned Tankaray for the tonics. I'll get a
10:56
Speaker 1: Hendricks martini when I'm out and about, But if if
11:00
Speaker 1: I'm like making it myself, I used to like the
11:02
Speaker 1: more boring, straightforward London dry Jin's right. This is the
11:06
Speaker 1: traditional ones for the martini. And then I realized, like, no, man,
11:10
Speaker 1: you want to go the exact opposite of that. You
11:11
Speaker 1: want like the most botanical gin you can find for
11:15
Speaker 1: a jin martini because I mean it's basically gin with
11:19
Speaker 1: a little bit of vermouth, right, So you want to
11:22
Speaker 1: taste your gin. So I've kind of gravitated towards stuff
11:26
Speaker 1: like um the botanist Um or St. George's botaniv Oore.
11:31
Speaker 1: Those are two really really like I guess botanicals. The
11:36
Speaker 1: best way to put it. Gin's that are out there
11:38
Speaker 1: that are really really tasty is that George that tastes
11:41
Speaker 1: like feet. So no, that is their aged like Ray
11:46
Speaker 1: Posado gin that I didn't love that where they made
11:50
Speaker 1: it like it was like kind of a mescal or
11:53
Speaker 1: or aged tequila style gin where it was gin, but
11:57
Speaker 1: it had like some quality of like really like long
12:01
Speaker 1: aged tequila. I think you weren't prepared for it. I
12:05
Speaker 1: wonder if you'd like it now knowing like what it
12:07
Speaker 1: was going into it. Maybe. I mean, I'm always hip
12:10
Speaker 1: to try something, but I'd love a good high quality
12:13
Speaker 1: London Druy gin. That's my jam. Sure, I mean, I'm
12:16
Speaker 1: with you. I just like the more botanical ones these
12:18
Speaker 1: days than I used to the Britannical, the puritanical ones,
12:23
Speaker 1: the ones that don't have any alcohol at all. So
12:26
Speaker 1: I think we should quickly talk about before we take
12:28
Speaker 1: our first break, about just how you distill it, because
12:30
Speaker 1: there's a couple of ways, um, and then we'll take
12:34
Speaker 1: our break. But the first way is steeping, and that
12:37
Speaker 1: is you know, you steep tea, and it's the same thing. Basically,
12:40
Speaker 1: you have your base spirit heating up and it simmers,
12:44
Speaker 1: and then you have those botanicals right in there and
12:47
Speaker 1: the oils are releasing and it's just infusing through the
12:50
Speaker 1: whole thing the other way. And you know, Emily has
12:53
Speaker 1: a still. Now, I would love to maybe get in
12:54
Speaker 1: there and try some of this for real. I did
12:57
Speaker 1: not know that. Does she like carry a Tommy gun round?
13:00
Speaker 1: And where flooral link for coat? Now she's got a
13:02
Speaker 1: copper still. She's uh. She goes to Athens, Georgia once
13:05
Speaker 1: a week to harvest herbs and then distills herbs for
13:11
Speaker 1: I did know that. Yeah, it's very cool. That is
13:13
Speaker 1: super cool. It's a lot of fun to see her
13:14
Speaker 1: out there doing that stuff. Yeah, that's neat. Uh. And
13:17
Speaker 1: then the other way is vapor infusion, and that is
13:20
Speaker 1: what Bombay sapphire does, and that is when you have
13:22
Speaker 1: the botanicals in a basket hanging above the boiling spirit
13:27
Speaker 1: and that that vapor rises and it does it more
13:30
Speaker 1: through like that steam. I guess right. So, or you
13:34
Speaker 1: can combine the two, which is what another kind of
13:36
Speaker 1: Saint George Gin Tara wir Um does where they use
13:41
Speaker 1: the steeping method for most of the botanicals and then
13:44
Speaker 1: they use the vapor method for I think like Douglas
13:47
Speaker 1: fur and bay Laurel leaves. So it's it's got like
13:51
Speaker 1: kind of the tea of botanicals brewing and then's just
13:54
Speaker 1: vaporizing through those other those last two. It is pretty
13:58
Speaker 1: cool actually, all right now we'll take a break and
14:02
Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk a little bit about the
14:04
Speaker 1: types of gin, which also entails some history right after this. Okay,
14:32
Speaker 1: we've taken our break, we had our little half sandwiches.
14:36
Speaker 1: We're ready to talk about. So I can't believe you
14:38
Speaker 1: still cut the crust off. It's very interesting for a car. Well,
14:40
Speaker 1: I just think it's a little I always has like
14:42
Speaker 1: as that crusty taste to it. Then I'm not fine.
14:46
Speaker 1: They've always maintained if they didn't call it crust, kids
14:48
Speaker 1: might eat it. Do you think. Yeah, I think if
14:51
Speaker 1: you said, you know, the do you want the magic
14:54
Speaker 1: ring left on your bread? I think kids would probably
14:57
Speaker 1: have a whole different view. But if you say, do
14:59
Speaker 1: you want the crust? I disagree. I think that magic
15:03
Speaker 1: ring would be a gross term. Now look at that
15:07
Speaker 1: magic ringy, old guy, he keeps staring at us. We'll
15:11
Speaker 1: just insert Josh Clark's magic word of choice magic ringy. Yeah,
15:17
Speaker 1: I mean it doesn't even have to use the word magic.
15:19
Speaker 1: But what would you call krusts? That sounds better to
15:21
Speaker 1: a kid. I'm saying, no, matter what you called it,
15:24
Speaker 1: I think it would become synonymous with something gross. I know,
15:28
Speaker 1: but I'm asking you to yes. And fine, let's see
15:31
Speaker 1: yes and is not my strong suit. I failed out
15:33
Speaker 1: of improv yours is more. No but a right, no,
15:38
Speaker 1: there's no butt it's no. Uh. The rainbow ring? Okay, great,
15:45
Speaker 1: the rainbow circle love. I don't like it. I'll go
15:48
Speaker 1: back and edit this part out. All right, So let's
15:51
Speaker 1: talk about gen um. We already talked about the fact
15:54
Speaker 1: that it has to be if you ask me, really
15:57
Speaker 1: distilled with these botanicals to real gin, otherwise flavored vodka.
16:03
Speaker 1: That name as can come up and that's a dirty word, yes,
16:07
Speaker 1: But distilled London dry gin. Uh. Some of the big
16:11
Speaker 1: big cats beef Eater and Gordon's and tank a Ray
16:16
Speaker 1: are some of those those big daddy London drys. Like
16:18
Speaker 1: I said, I'm a Plymouth guy. I like Plymouth too,
16:22
Speaker 1: But these are not sweet. That's why they're called dry gin's. Right.
16:27
Speaker 1: Sweet gin's are um have a long history and they
16:30
Speaker 1: actually predate gin for for by many many years. But
16:35
Speaker 1: the London dry gin is what most people think of
16:38
Speaker 1: when they when they think of gin, and a London
16:41
Speaker 1: dry gin is actually a subcategory of a larger category,
16:45
Speaker 1: which is distilled gin. You got gin, which is basically
16:47
Speaker 1: flavored vodkas which you could literally put any flavor into
16:51
Speaker 1: this neutral spirit and call it gin. Distill gin means
16:55
Speaker 1: it went through that process like we described before the break,
16:58
Speaker 1: and London dry as one of the us. That's right, right,
17:02
Speaker 1: is that basically what you just said. I mean, I
17:05
Speaker 1: was listening and following it, but it just seemed off interesting. Well,
17:08
Speaker 1: I'm glad you cleared that up. I'm sorry, that's all right,
17:11
Speaker 1: then we get to Old Tom Jin and this has
17:14
Speaker 1: an interesting history of his etymology. Um and I got
17:17
Speaker 1: this from Mark vir Thaller at Tales of the Cocktail
17:21
Speaker 1: dot com. Apparently the name Old Tom comes from uh
17:25
Speaker 1: these plaques that hung outside of pubs that looked like
17:31
Speaker 1: they're there. It was like the shape of an old
17:33
Speaker 1: Tom cat's head. And get this, and this is amazing.
17:38
Speaker 1: Apparently in London, if you had this sign hanging up
17:42
Speaker 1: in the window, underneath the cat's paw was a slot
17:45
Speaker 1: and a lead pipe and a touched to a funnel,
17:49
Speaker 1: and you could go down the street in England and
17:51
Speaker 1: drop a coin in the slot and get a shot
17:54
Speaker 1: of gin in your mouth. Yeah, from under the cat's paw. Amazing.
17:57
Speaker 1: I saw that too. I saw that it originated Chuck
18:00
Speaker 1: with this guy named Captain Dudley brad Street. And the
18:03
Speaker 1: whole reason he started doing this was because there was
18:06
Speaker 1: a law that said that the informant had to know
18:10
Speaker 1: the name of the person who was selling the illegal
18:13
Speaker 1: gin for the cops to have probable cause to raid
18:16
Speaker 1: a place. So he hold himself up in this house
18:20
Speaker 1: on this one alley, Blue Anchor Alley and started selling
18:24
Speaker 1: gin that way anonymously, and because no one knew who
18:27
Speaker 1: was selling it, the cops could never raid the place.
18:30
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was under the paw of old like
18:34
Speaker 1: a like a statue or sign or something of an
18:36
Speaker 1: old paw urn Old Tom cat Old Tom went away.
18:42
Speaker 1: It was very much sweeter. That was when they were
18:43
Speaker 1: using sugar and a lot of botanicals, because the bass
18:47
Speaker 1: spirit wasn't that great taste wise, so they loaded it
18:50
Speaker 1: up with sugar and this other stuff, and prohibition basically
18:55
Speaker 1: killed Old Tom jin for a long time. By the
18:58
Speaker 1: time people's started, you know, prohibition was over, they didn't
19:02
Speaker 1: really have a taste for it anymore. And it is
19:04
Speaker 1: it is made a come back in recent years, though,
19:06
Speaker 1: a bit of a comeback. You if you are interested
19:09
Speaker 1: in trying, and you should start with ransoms Old Tom gin. Ye,
19:13
Speaker 1: it's just beautiful. What about navy strength gin? I love
19:18
Speaker 1: that stuff. Have you ever had that? I don't know
19:21
Speaker 1: if I have or not. Actually, it will make you blind,
19:24
Speaker 1: Like your hangover is noticeably worse the next day for
19:29
Speaker 1: the same amount of booze. It's just stronger stuff. I
19:34
Speaker 1: think anchor. I believe anchor makes a navy's strength. Gin
19:38
Speaker 1: That make sense. Um, I'm almost positive that's who's I've had.
19:42
Speaker 1: But it's it's just like this higher proof. I think,
19:45
Speaker 1: like gin can be as low as like thirty seven
19:48
Speaker 1: and a half percent, and navy's strength is at least
19:52
Speaker 1: fifty and there's just a noticeable difference in it, and
19:57
Speaker 1: the taste is it's you know, it's not tear doably
20:00
Speaker 1: much different. It's just the potency of it. But it's
20:03
Speaker 1: it got its name from a pretty great little legend
20:05
Speaker 1: from what I understand. Yeah, that's um in the Navy.
20:09
Speaker 1: They loved them some gin in the Navy, and they
20:11
Speaker 1: actually got gin rations and so sailors would test it
20:14
Speaker 1: out to see if it was you know, up to
20:18
Speaker 1: snuff or if it was watered down, and they would
20:20
Speaker 1: drizzle it over a little pinch of gunpowder and then
20:23
Speaker 1: light it, and if it lit, then it was navy strength. Yeah.
20:27
Speaker 1: I love it. And it's not like a legal classification
20:30
Speaker 1: or anything, is it. It's just kind of like a
20:32
Speaker 1: well it says it says navy strength gin is at
20:35
Speaker 1: least fifty seven point one per cent, So at least
20:38
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's a law in the EU
20:40
Speaker 1: or if that's just a sort of a standard. But
20:43
Speaker 1: that's that's where the name came from at least. Yeah, yeah,
20:46
Speaker 1: and it's potent stuff. What about Geneva? Uh so that
20:52
Speaker 1: is basically like the predecessor of Gin, right, I mean
20:54
Speaker 1: that this Dutch drink that was first drunk too for
20:57
Speaker 1: people to get drunk off of. Yeah, that's aid more
21:00
Speaker 1: out of a malt wine. I think fifteen to malt wine. Um,
21:05
Speaker 1: and so it you know, it can kind of it's
21:07
Speaker 1: sort of like the maltiness of a whiskey, but the
21:09
Speaker 1: botanicals of a gin. I think I've always heard that
21:13
Speaker 1: Old Tom and Geneva are a lot alike. Yeah, they
21:16
Speaker 1: bear a resemblance. Interesting, but um so, Geneva is like
21:21
Speaker 1: a pretty good place to start as far as this
21:23
Speaker 1: history of Jin goes, because it was, like I was saying,
21:27
Speaker 1: like a a proto Gin, like one of the first
21:30
Speaker 1: I guess, the direct predecessor of gin as we understand
21:33
Speaker 1: it today. But even further back than that, that essential
21:37
Speaker 1: component of Jin, the juniper berry, has been used at
21:42
Speaker 1: least since the seventies and now the nineteen seventies, I
21:46
Speaker 1: mean just the straight up seventies. There's a recipe from
21:49
Speaker 1: Pliny the Elder from seventies six or seventies seven CE
21:54
Speaker 1: um that used juniper berries and you just were supposed
21:58
Speaker 1: to boil some white wine with junipers and then drink
22:00
Speaker 1: it and it was a curative um and probably got
22:03
Speaker 1: you pretty drunk. And then I thought about this. This
22:06
Speaker 1: was like two years before he died, and at um
22:10
Speaker 1: the eruption of Vesuvius interesting that weird kind of chilling. Well,
22:13
Speaker 1: we see had a nice couple of years there at
22:15
Speaker 1: the end. He definitely did. The word Geneva g e
22:19
Speaker 1: n E d r is actually Dutch for juniper uh,
22:22
Speaker 1: and it is it does come hail from Holland. Uh.
22:26
Speaker 1: And apparently in the thirteenth and fourteen centuries these and
22:29
Speaker 1: this was when people were using herbs as medicine. Uh.
22:33
Speaker 1: They you know, obviously still do that today. That's what
22:35
Speaker 1: Emily is doing. But um apothecaries there were experimenting with
22:39
Speaker 1: all kinds of curative herbs and medical tonics and stuff
22:43
Speaker 1: like that, and juniper was definitely in that category. But
22:46
Speaker 1: where Geneva took a right turn was they said, wow,
22:51
Speaker 1: let's just get drunk and like it's not so much
22:54
Speaker 1: a cure all. But I mean, maybe maybe it cures
22:58
Speaker 1: some things, but it was a It was a drink
23:01
Speaker 1: that you drank to get drunk. It was like, yeah,
23:03
Speaker 1: the first spirit out of I believe, out of Europe
23:06
Speaker 1: for that people drank. I mean they have beer and
23:08
Speaker 1: wine and everything before, but Geneva was like this. That
23:11
Speaker 1: like the first hard blicker. I think that people really drank.
23:15
Speaker 1: And like you said, it was a malted wine, right, yeah,
23:18
Speaker 1: that's the base, which sounds like something you buy in
23:20
Speaker 1: a convenience store, drink out a paper bag, like malted wine.
23:24
Speaker 1: But um, they would add like sugar to it. And
23:27
Speaker 1: it had juniper, which is why a lot of people
23:30
Speaker 1: say this is the direct predecessor Gin. And it was
23:33
Speaker 1: how the UK was introduced to Um Gin was Geneva
23:38
Speaker 1: because I think in the um fifteenth century maybe something
23:43
Speaker 1: like that. The sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth the First sent
23:47
Speaker 1: some of her royal soldiers to the Netherlands to fight
23:50
Speaker 1: alongside the Dutch when they were fighting for independence, and um,
23:54
Speaker 1: the Dutch said, hey, man, take a couple of shots
23:57
Speaker 1: of this Geneva and you'll you'll fight anybody, you won't
23:59
Speaker 1: be scared of all. And um the English like that
24:02
Speaker 1: a lot, and so they brought Geneva back with them
24:05
Speaker 1: or it tastes for it at least, and Geneva eventually
24:08
Speaker 1: UM got shortened to Gin. That's where we got the
24:11
Speaker 1: word gin from. That's right. And about close to a
24:14
Speaker 1: hundred years later, UM, the end of the Anglo Dutch
24:17
Speaker 1: warrimant you could actually import it legally by the barrel
24:21
Speaker 1: and uh they were called strong water shops was what
24:24
Speaker 1: the early liquor stores in London were called. I love that.
24:27
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are places in America where they have
24:30
Speaker 1: gang to that title. Oh yeah, and they also wear
24:33
Speaker 1: armed guards probably, so I'm so glad you taught me
24:36
Speaker 1: that word because I've always just called it, you know,
24:38
Speaker 1: those like tiny arm bands and never had quite the
24:41
Speaker 1: punch arm guards. UM. The first gin distillery in Britain
24:49
Speaker 1: UM in Plymouth, right, Okay, I'm I had a lot
24:54
Speaker 1: of trouble figuring this one out. I saw that in
24:57
Speaker 1: eighteen forty Booths was the really gin distiller, okay, but
25:03
Speaker 1: and that the Plymouth one was Oh wait, maybe that
25:07
Speaker 1: was like the seventeen hundreds. I'm not sure. There there
25:10
Speaker 1: was a big rush to um to establishing gin distilleries
25:15
Speaker 1: in this period that we're talking about. All right, well
25:18
Speaker 1: I don't I don't have a date for the Plymouth one. Actually,
25:20
Speaker 1: let me look it up while you're talking. All right, well,
25:22
Speaker 1: let's flash forward then to the gin craze, because jin,
25:26
Speaker 1: depending on who you're asking, was the crack of the
25:31
Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds in England. Um William of Orange, Protestant King
25:35
Speaker 1: of the Netherlands uh went to assume the throne and
25:39
Speaker 1: of Great Britain during the Glorious Revolution, and they were
25:43
Speaker 1: drinking that geneva uh, and they loved it as his royalty.
25:47
Speaker 1: But the working class could not afford this stuff, so
25:51
Speaker 1: they started making their own rot gut like bathtub gin.
25:55
Speaker 1: And apparently bathtub gin is uh. It is not brewed
25:59
Speaker 1: or not brewed. It's not distilled in a bathtub. It
26:01
Speaker 1: can be mixed with botanicals in a bathtub. But from
26:05
Speaker 1: what I saw, the main reason it's called bathtub gin
26:07
Speaker 1: is because to water it down and top it off
26:09
Speaker 1: with water, you couldn't fit it in these bottles in
26:12
Speaker 1: a sink, so you had to do that in a bathtub. Okay,
26:15
Speaker 1: but I think they were mixing up botanicals and stuff too.
26:18
Speaker 1: But Um, at any rate, this rot gut gin in
26:21
Speaker 1: seventeen in the early seventeen hundreds, and by the mid
26:25
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds that was a full on gin problem in
26:29
Speaker 1: the UK. Yeah, it was called the gin craze. And
26:34
Speaker 1: like especially if you read like kind of the the
26:37
Speaker 1: tracks railing against the time and newspaper editorials and and
26:41
Speaker 1: stories about just the depravity that was going on because
26:44
Speaker 1: of gin, Like the whole country was just totally off
26:48
Speaker 1: its rocker on gin, and not even like good gin
26:51
Speaker 1: or even Geneva. This this bathtub rock cut stuff that
26:55
Speaker 1: you were talking about, where they would add things like
26:58
Speaker 1: turpentine to um give it a piny flavor because they
27:02
Speaker 1: didn't have juniper berries. They would add sulfuric acid to
27:05
Speaker 1: give it a hot after taste, like it was supposed
27:08
Speaker 1: to have just really really bad stuff and it was
27:11
Speaker 1: making people crazy. And there were there were stories about
27:14
Speaker 1: mothers who there's a woman named um Judith Defour who
27:19
Speaker 1: killed her own daughter so that she could sell her
27:21
Speaker 1: clothes to buy more gin, or parents like selling their
27:24
Speaker 1: kids into slavery to buy more gin. Um. You know,
27:28
Speaker 1: people turning into sex workers just to get gin money. Um.
27:32
Speaker 1: And just supposedly it was like you said, it was
27:34
Speaker 1: just like like the crack epidemic and the same kind
27:37
Speaker 1: of response to it as well here in the United States.
27:40
Speaker 1: But this is gin back in the early eighteenth century. Yeah,
27:44
Speaker 1: and and for sure there was a gin problem. Um.
27:47
Speaker 1: Now historians look back a little bit and they're like,
27:50
Speaker 1: you know what, these articles were written, and these uh
27:53
Speaker 1: op eds were written by the upper class in Britain
27:56
Speaker 1: and they had basically an obsession with the the English
28:00
Speaker 1: character being degraded and dragged through the mud by these
28:04
Speaker 1: gin drunks. Um, So take it with a grain of salt.
28:07
Speaker 1: There for sure was a gin problem. But they're basically like,
28:10
Speaker 1: was is a chicken or an egg thing going on?
28:13
Speaker 1: Because they're like, urbanization is going rampant in London at
28:17
Speaker 1: the time, and was the gin craze a product of
28:20
Speaker 1: this poverty or the cause of it? And by all
28:24
Speaker 1: accounts these days it looks like it was sort of
28:25
Speaker 1: a product of it. I saw that there were at
28:28
Speaker 1: least two documented cases of spontaneous human combustion from drinking
28:34
Speaker 1: this gin. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it's a hardcore chin geez.
28:40
Speaker 1: There were eight different gin x from Parliament over about
28:45
Speaker 1: a twenty two year period. Basically, I mean they said
28:50
Speaker 1: different things, but one of the big ones was, hey,
28:53
Speaker 1: you can't put these You can't put sulfuric acid in
28:56
Speaker 1: this stuff and sell it anymore. Right, And little by little,
28:59
Speaker 1: these incremental laws over these eight acts, like made it
29:02
Speaker 1: really expensive to have a license to selgon, really expensive
29:06
Speaker 1: to import neutral spirits um, and just basically made it
29:10
Speaker 1: so that unless you owned a large distillery and an
29:14
Speaker 1: established like tavern, you could not legally um engage in
29:19
Speaker 1: in selling or producing gen Yeah. I think that's what
29:24
Speaker 1: it said in the act. In a genery, yes that'll shout,
29:28
Speaker 1: not partake in genery of any kind, right, Okay, So
29:32
Speaker 1: especially if your name is Mike Cocaine, you finally did it?
29:38
Speaker 1: Did I do it? If I did, it was accidental,
29:41
Speaker 1: didn't Okay? So um. But over the course of these
29:43
Speaker 1: acts that left just like these handful of huge distilleries
29:47
Speaker 1: like Booths Plymouth. Plymouth, by the way, was the first,
29:49
Speaker 1: that was in the late eighteenth century, um uh, and
29:55
Speaker 1: a couple others. I think Bootles might have been around
29:57
Speaker 1: by then, but um all the small distiller the reason
30:00
Speaker 1: went away just by law. And so when this artisanal
30:03
Speaker 1: revolution that we're currently going in. That's going on now
30:08
Speaker 1: swept over to England. Um this this company called sip
30:12
Speaker 1: Smith's when to go start their own and they found
30:15
Speaker 1: out that they couldn't buy law that was two hundred
30:17
Speaker 1: years old, so they had to lobby and they were
30:19
Speaker 1: the first company in two hundred years to get a
30:22
Speaker 1: license to bruce or distill small batch gin in England.
30:27
Speaker 1: Amazing because of those gen acts. That's pretty great, I
30:31
Speaker 1: think so too. All right, well let's take another little
30:33
Speaker 1: break here and uh, we'll talk more about gin right
30:37
Speaker 1: after this. All right, so jen is going strong in
31:06
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds, so I might say it's a problem.
31:10
Speaker 1: Flash forward to the eighteen hundreds eighteen thirty and the
31:14
Speaker 1: invention of the continuous still came about. That's pretty big.
31:18
Speaker 1: If you come over to my house, you see Emily
31:20
Speaker 1: down there. She doesn't have it. She has a traditional
31:23
Speaker 1: copper pot still, which means that you you can do
31:26
Speaker 1: one thing at a time. Basically, you boil your mash
31:30
Speaker 1: uh and the alcohol boil that off. You collect that
31:34
Speaker 1: distilled spirit in the end, but then you gotta start
31:37
Speaker 1: all over again. The continuous still was a very and
31:40
Speaker 1: the other bad part about that is is your a
31:42
Speaker 1: b V is going to be pretty low. If you're
31:45
Speaker 1: doing the single pot, that's your alcohol BI volume. That's right,
31:49
Speaker 1: because the longer it was a distilled, the pure and
31:53
Speaker 1: more alcoholic, the ultimate spirit you captured would be right.
31:57
Speaker 1: That's right. Okay, So if you have a continuous still,
31:59
Speaker 1: which was was invented in eighteen thirty, that means you
32:03
Speaker 1: can just keep going, man, You just keep throwing that
32:05
Speaker 1: mash in there, and you keep that process going, and
32:08
Speaker 1: you get more and more pure as you go, and
32:11
Speaker 1: you're gonna get that beautiful clear grain alcohol around in
32:15
Speaker 1: the end. And that really really changed the game. Yeah,
32:18
Speaker 1: because so like these continuous skills or coffee stills after
32:22
Speaker 1: the man who invented them, it's like the spirit rises
32:26
Speaker 1: through increasingly higher up stages and it's reheated and heated
32:32
Speaker 1: and heated, and so it becomes pure and pure the
32:35
Speaker 1: higher up it goes. And then eventually it gets tapped
32:37
Speaker 1: off and then you have that high test alcohol. And
32:40
Speaker 1: and because you could get pure alcohol um to use
32:45
Speaker 1: as the base spirit for gin, you had less of
32:48
Speaker 1: a funky, foul, nasty taste that you needed to cover
32:51
Speaker 1: up with stuff like um. Botanicals or sugar or turpentine um,
32:57
Speaker 1: which meant that you could produce chin with a much
33:01
Speaker 1: purer gin. That eventually evolved into London dry gin. Yeah,
33:05
Speaker 1: and London dry gin. Again with the dry that means
33:08
Speaker 1: it's not a sugary. Apparently, Victorians, uh in the upper
33:12
Speaker 1: class at one point decided to um basically lower their
33:17
Speaker 1: sugar intake. I don't know if that was just a
33:20
Speaker 1: major health kick going on. It sounds like John Harvey
33:23
Speaker 1: Kellogg's work here. Oh maybe so. But that's when they
33:26
Speaker 1: started getting rid of the sugar and that's why you
33:28
Speaker 1: get this dryer version which became the London dry gin.
33:32
Speaker 1: And um, the rest is history. Uh, they started producing
33:37
Speaker 1: some really high quality gens in England at the time. Yeah,
33:41
Speaker 1: they did. I think that's when the like Booths and
33:44
Speaker 1: Bootles and all those guys started fe be feater um.
33:47
Speaker 1: And that was great. That was fine for the while,
33:50
Speaker 1: Like like you said, the the Navy was getting their
33:53
Speaker 1: rations and then going out to see with their gin
33:55
Speaker 1: and testing it on gunpowder and all of that. But
33:58
Speaker 1: one of the things that you'll you'll look at it,
34:00
Speaker 1: especially with the London dry gin, is while there's no sugar.
34:04
Speaker 1: There's like a really interesting combination of those botanicals and
34:07
Speaker 1: a botanical we didn't really say, but I think it's
34:10
Speaker 1: kind of self evident. It's any kind of like root, plant, seed, leaf, stem, bark,
34:18
Speaker 1: whatever um that's used to add a particular flavor profile
34:23
Speaker 1: to gin. Typically juniper is like the chief botanical in
34:27
Speaker 1: a gin. But if you look at like these lists
34:29
Speaker 1: of botanicals that are frequently used in London dry gin,
34:33
Speaker 1: they come from all over the world. And it's no
34:35
Speaker 1: coincidence that England was at the height of its imperial
34:39
Speaker 1: colonial power um at a time when London dry gin developed,
34:44
Speaker 1: because it was in a position to bring all these
34:46
Speaker 1: ingredients from all over the world to the distilleries that
34:49
Speaker 1: had set up shop in London. Yeah. I mean, I
34:51
Speaker 1: think even the Bombay Sapphire has each country listed behind
34:55
Speaker 1: the botanical and it's that you know, they're all from
34:58
Speaker 1: ten different places or or eleven different places. Yeah, pretty cool.
35:01
Speaker 1: It is pretty cool. So, uh, the seafaring of the
35:05
Speaker 1: Brits British Sea Power. Have you ever heard of that band? Yeah,
35:08
Speaker 1: they're good. I used to love those guys. They were
35:11
Speaker 1: like early two thousand's right, Yeah, that was a big
35:14
Speaker 1: l A band for me. Okay, I didn't know where
35:16
Speaker 1: they're from, No, no, no no, that when I lived in
35:18
Speaker 1: l a. Oh. I see they're British. I always think
35:21
Speaker 1: so they were from like the era of like of
35:23
Speaker 1: Montreal and Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsen and all
35:27
Speaker 1: those kind of indie bands at the same time. Right, yeah, yeah,
35:30
Speaker 1: I think so. I love those guys. British Sea Power,
35:33
Speaker 1: But the that had a lot to do with Gin
35:35
Speaker 1: because the Brits in their navy were very strong and
35:38
Speaker 1: they sailed a lot and traveled all over the world
35:41
Speaker 1: obviously because they had certain interests like conquering your country
35:44
Speaker 1: and making it their own and getting their hands on
35:47
Speaker 1: your botanicals, that's right, and also um getting there until
35:51
Speaker 1: like let's say the tropics and saying like, wow, I've
35:55
Speaker 1: never been here before. What what are these things that
35:57
Speaker 1: we can eat and drink? And what is this disease? Malaria?
36:02
Speaker 1: I don't want to get that. And so they looked
36:04
Speaker 1: at the you know, the people from there obviously to
36:07
Speaker 1: get their clue on like they're fine, how can we
36:10
Speaker 1: be like them? And the natives of South America chewed
36:14
Speaker 1: on that chinchona tree, and that bark to combat malaria,
36:19
Speaker 1: and chinchona is pretty wondrous. That bark has a natural
36:22
Speaker 1: chemical and that is the quinine that you hear. You know,
36:25
Speaker 1: if you look at a tonic bottle, it's contains quinine
36:29
Speaker 1: and it calms your you know, it makes you feel
36:31
Speaker 1: better if you have malaria. But it also disrupts the
36:34
Speaker 1: metabolism of the parasite and kills it. So it's a
36:38
Speaker 1: medicament as well as a help you feel better type thing.
36:42
Speaker 1: O allah, what medicament? I'm in a predicament because my
36:48
Speaker 1: heart's all the flood. Something just happened to me. But
36:54
Speaker 1: these doctors were like, hey, yeah, you British soldier, you
36:57
Speaker 1: should uh. They started prescribing this stuff, this cinchona park
37:01
Speaker 1: h and colonists in India and South America, and they
37:04
Speaker 1: were eating a ton of it, seven hundred tons actually
37:08
Speaker 1: in the forties, seven hundred tons of cinchona bark a year.
37:13
Speaker 1: We're being eaten by British soldiers and settlers. And so
37:17
Speaker 1: they figured out how to I guess distill quinine um
37:20
Speaker 1: probably using a coffee still, and started putting it into tonic,
37:25
Speaker 1: like making this tonic water. But basically, I'm sure what
37:28
Speaker 1: what you're buying is just distilled quinine from the cinchona bark. Um,
37:34
Speaker 1: it's got to be right. I mean, that's I'm going
37:36
Speaker 1: to look at the other stuff in there and uh,
37:38
Speaker 1: maybe I'll follow up with some ingredients. Okay, dude, and
37:40
Speaker 1: bring me something to please. Okay. Um, But so with quinine,
37:44
Speaker 1: like you were, you were basically taking a dose of
37:46
Speaker 1: quinine in a shot of tonic water. And so, because
37:50
Speaker 1: everybody was sailing around the world on British ships with
37:54
Speaker 1: gin in one hand and tonic water in the other hand,
37:58
Speaker 1: they eventually put the two together and came up with
37:59
Speaker 1: the gin and tonic. Throw a lemon or a lime
38:02
Speaker 1: slice in there to combat scurvy, and you have a
38:05
Speaker 1: complete drink. That's amazing. And apparently a lot of these
38:10
Speaker 1: gin cocktails were born out of the nasty taste of
38:14
Speaker 1: the original alcohol. So they you know, we were talking
38:18
Speaker 1: about that rotgut gin. What do you do. You're gonna
38:21
Speaker 1: mix it with a lot of stuff to try and
38:22
Speaker 1: make it more drinkable. Um, that is not the martini. However,
38:26
Speaker 1: this is a pretty neat story. In the eighteen seventies
38:29
Speaker 1: and eighties is when Martinis were born. And this is
38:33
Speaker 1: from a gentleman named Richard Barnett. And this makes so
38:36
Speaker 1: much sense. It's very cool, he said to Martini. Is
38:39
Speaker 1: an embodiment of American history at its most diverse. Dutch
38:43
Speaker 1: in English gin mixed with French vermouth, served with Mediterranean olives,
38:48
Speaker 1: German Jewish pickled onions, or Caribbean lemons. And that glass, which,
38:54
Speaker 1: by the way, one of my more annoyances in life,
38:58
Speaker 1: biggest annoyances is when you get a mark any these
39:00
Speaker 1: days it's a weird glass. Yeah, just get a Martini glass.
39:05
Speaker 1: But do you like the big honkin nineties Karen from
39:08
Speaker 1: Will and Grace style Martini glasses, or like the classic
39:12
Speaker 1: sixties you know Madman Martini glass? Well, okay, more compact version.
39:17
Speaker 1: I like them both. I'll take a I'll take either one,
39:20
Speaker 1: but just give me that conical glass. Don't give me
39:24
Speaker 1: like a tulip glass. I've not seen a Martini in
39:28
Speaker 1: a tulip class. I have there are places around town
39:30
Speaker 1: that serve him in these little tulip classes. And just
39:34
Speaker 1: do it right. Yeah, do it right. I mean it's
39:36
Speaker 1: a it's literally called the Martini glass. It's the glass
39:40
Speaker 1: meant for it. Yeah, that's just like serving a margarita
39:42
Speaker 1: in a well. You can serve a margarite and a
39:44
Speaker 1: lot of different things. I guess sure. You can just
39:47
Speaker 1: cut your hands and drink a margarite out of there,
39:49
Speaker 1: and people have, including me, that's true. Um, you can.
39:54
Speaker 1: You can get the margarita ingredients poured down your throat.
39:57
Speaker 1: You don't even need to use your hands it see
40:00
Speaker 1: your frogs um. The nineteen twenties, uh, is when the
40:04
Speaker 1: jin craze kind of was re kick started again because
40:08
Speaker 1: of prohibition, and they even went back to putting like
40:12
Speaker 1: disgusting ingredients in there. Yeah, I mean, like not the
40:15
Speaker 1: gin craze, Like, oh, everybody likes jin, like the gin craze,
40:18
Speaker 1: Like everybody's going bonkers because of the terrible gin they're
40:21
Speaker 1: drinking right, well, and everyone's drinking gin because it was
40:26
Speaker 1: it wasn't just straight up ethel alcohol from a moonshine
40:29
Speaker 1: or like, hey, at least let's though some um quote
40:33
Speaker 1: unquote ingredients in here. Oh yeah, turpentine again. Yeah, they
40:37
Speaker 1: used the same stuff that they used in the original
40:39
Speaker 1: gin craze, sulfuric acid in turpentine. Gross, it's a classic recipe. Yeah, gross, dude,
40:48
Speaker 1: what else was made? The Manhattan, the gin Fizz, the gimlet. Yea,
40:51
Speaker 1: these are all born out of that sort of nineteen
40:55
Speaker 1: thirties post prohibition cocktail movement. Yeah, we talked a lot
40:59
Speaker 1: about the origin of some of those drinks in that
41:01
Speaker 1: How Bars Work Live episode of arm correctly, But it's
41:06
Speaker 1: funny to think, like some of our favorite cocktails were
41:09
Speaker 1: built to combat the tastes of nasty gin, which is
41:15
Speaker 1: why people are like, oh, yeah, I don't don't use
41:16
Speaker 1: the good stuff to mix, Like the whole reason for
41:19
Speaker 1: mixing is to cover up the nasty stuff. Yeah, just
41:23
Speaker 1: drink the good stuff straight, although I cannot imagine just
41:26
Speaker 1: drinking like like a neat room temperature gin. That does
41:30
Speaker 1: not sound good to me. Well, let me tell you
41:31
Speaker 1: the story of my first gin experience. Uh in Athens
41:36
Speaker 1: in college um and and Dave Rus put this article
41:40
Speaker 1: together for us, and he very astutely points out that
41:42
Speaker 1: if you're a child of the seventies and eighties, he
41:44
Speaker 1: probably didn't drink like a gin and tonic early on,
41:47
Speaker 1: Like this is something you may have picked up on later.
41:50
Speaker 1: And that was the case for me. It was late College,
41:52
Speaker 1: and there was a fellow waiter at Mexicali Grill that
41:55
Speaker 1: was there for just a brief period named Don. I
41:57
Speaker 1: can't remember the guy's last name, it doesn't matter. And
42:00
Speaker 1: Don and I ended up out on the river late
42:04
Speaker 1: night at Oconey Springs Park with a half gallon of
42:08
Speaker 1: Seagram's Gin. Just took it too far and we're drinking
42:13
Speaker 1: it right out of the bottle and wading out into
42:16
Speaker 1: the river and not being very safe quite frankly. But
42:20
Speaker 1: I'll always remember Don for that. He introduced me to gin,
42:23
Speaker 1: and he introduced me unsuccessfully to the Dave Matthews band.
42:29
Speaker 1: I don't know why those always stick out to me,
42:31
Speaker 1: but Don was the first guy. He's like, man, this
42:32
Speaker 1: band was playing across the street, and like it's crazy.
42:35
Speaker 1: It's kind of jazzy and they're multiracial, and it's like
42:38
Speaker 1: you never heard anything like it. And that was Dave
42:40
Speaker 1: Matthews band. Yeah, he was right about that. He was
42:44
Speaker 1: factually correct about two things. It's jazzy and multi racial. Man,
42:49
Speaker 1: Seagram's right out of the handle. Boy, it was bad,
42:52
Speaker 1: But I remember very distinctly like tasting that piney gin
42:57
Speaker 1: and thinking like, oh, this isn't a good thing to
42:59
Speaker 1: drink like this. No, it took me many years to
43:02
Speaker 1: finally come around to gin and be like, okay, I
43:05
Speaker 1: liked vodka martinis for that was one of my first
43:08
Speaker 1: drinks ever was vodka martiniz And um, yeah, pretty much
43:13
Speaker 1: in my treehouse was smoking cigarettes and drinking vodka martini
43:18
Speaker 1: the summer before ninth grade. But um, like I so
43:22
Speaker 1: I would drink vodka Martins. It wasn't like I just
43:24
Speaker 1: couldn't take the taste of like straight up alcohol. But
43:27
Speaker 1: for some reason I did not like gin. And then
43:29
Speaker 1: I finally gave it a chance. I was like, actually,
43:31
Speaker 1: this is way better than vodka. I never been a
43:34
Speaker 1: vodka guy, unless you're talking about that delightful birthday cake
43:37
Speaker 1: flavored vodka. Is that a thing? Yeah, yeah, Hey, we
43:43
Speaker 1: don't judge, man, if that's what you know. Of course,
43:47
Speaker 1: um Jen is making a big comeback now though, like
43:49
Speaker 1: we said, uh, it may have started in the late
43:52
Speaker 1: nineties when Bombay Sapphire first came to the US. Apparently
43:56
Speaker 1: it was a pretty big hit. Then Hendrix came along
43:58
Speaker 1: in the US in two thousand three. Yeah, I love
44:01
Speaker 1: that Hendrix. We're saying, as many brands as possible, So
44:04
Speaker 1: in the hopes that they'll send us pretty stuff. We
44:07
Speaker 1: get a lot of whiskey. We never get gin Yeah. No, no,
44:10
Speaker 1: every once in a while we've gotten gim but um
44:13
Speaker 1: not ever. No, not really. But the genossence is on
44:16
Speaker 1: still nice. Did you just coin that I did? That
44:20
Speaker 1: was really good, JENNI genossence and medicant, medicament even better.
44:26
Speaker 1: That's a real word, though. I didn't make that up,
44:29
Speaker 1: I know, but you just pull it out of ether.
44:33
Speaker 1: It's great, fantastic. No, I thought you were still going
44:39
Speaker 1: and I had interrupted you, and you're gonna pick up again.
44:42
Speaker 1: Do you think after like twelve years of doing this
44:44
Speaker 1: we would have had that figured out by now. Oh,
44:46
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. I don't have anything else either,
44:49
Speaker 1: except that gin is great. It is great stuff. If
44:53
Speaker 1: you're of legal age, drink responsibly. Ye. Don't drive, certainly, No.
45:00
Speaker 1: Make it really easy on you to not drive these days. Yeah, man,
45:03
Speaker 1: advantage of it, ride hailing apps, you have zero excuse
45:06
Speaker 1: these tried. Well. If you want to know more about
45:10
Speaker 1: gin um, well again, I guess if you're twenty one,
45:14
Speaker 1: give it a try, see what happens. But like Chuck said,
45:16
Speaker 1: drink responsibly. If you're not twenty one, you gonna have
45:18
Speaker 1: to wait. Sorry. And since I said you're gonna have
45:21
Speaker 1: to wait, sorry, it's time for listener mail. All rights
45:26
Speaker 1: a listener mail. This one is uh, let me see here.
45:29
Speaker 1: Oh this is a hand type letter. Look at this thing. Nice,
45:33
Speaker 1: not an email. It's a printed email. It's also not
45:37
Speaker 1: written in the cutout magazine letters either. So uh, this
45:42
Speaker 1: is from Westwood Sutherland and he's a guy who sent
45:47
Speaker 1: us that beef turkey. Oh yeah, thanks west Hey, guys,
45:50
Speaker 1: my name is Westwood Sutherland, currently a college sophomore and
45:53
Speaker 1: environmental engineering at University of Colorado, Boulder, sco buffs. He says, sure.
46:00
Speaker 1: I'd like to say I'm your biggest fan, but I
46:01
Speaker 1: can't compete with my dad, who introduced me to your podcast.
46:04
Speaker 1: He's been listening for years and even acts on some
46:07
Speaker 1: of your information. After hearing your podcast about bees, the
46:12
Speaker 1: first one not not the beekeeping, he became a beekeeper.
46:17
Speaker 1: Has reaped the rewards for years now in increased production
46:21
Speaker 1: from our fruit trees, as well as getting some honey
46:24
Speaker 1: that he has to deal with the bear. Uh, he's
46:27
Speaker 1: sent in that picture of the bear that the that's
46:29
Speaker 1: the local cop that hassles him all the time. Now
46:31
Speaker 1: it's a bear go after his honey. And he named
46:33
Speaker 1: the bear Jerry. How great is that he also invested
46:39
Speaker 1: money into a stock I'm sorry, into any stock that
46:42
Speaker 1: worked with Crisper. Oh, smart guy and after hearing your
46:47
Speaker 1: gene editing podcast, and he is very happy with the results.
46:50
Speaker 1: Wak wak. I didn't I should have. Yeah, we didn't
46:54
Speaker 1: even take her own advice. What's my problem? Anyway? The
46:57
Speaker 1: reason I got into your podcast has started a beef
46:59
Speaker 1: jerky company when I was fourteen. I love that stuff
47:02
Speaker 1: and I was selling enough that I spent lots of
47:04
Speaker 1: hours cutting, marinating, laying meat, and bagging jerky. During those
47:08
Speaker 1: long hours, my dad would help, I mean, listen to
47:10
Speaker 1: stuff you should know, one after the other and made
47:12
Speaker 1: time go by very quickly. I just want to say
47:14
Speaker 1: thank you for your wisdom, comedy, insight and making my
47:18
Speaker 1: days of jerky production a bit easier. I've included some
47:20
Speaker 1: samples of my jerky as a thank you, and that
47:24
Speaker 1: is Westwood Sutherland and you can find his beef jerkey
47:27
Speaker 1: at west side jerky dot com. I believe Westwood comes
47:32
Speaker 1: from a pretty amazing family and you know what, let
47:35
Speaker 1: me correct that too. He does coming from an amazing family.
47:37
Speaker 1: It is West's side as in Westwood so W E
47:42
Speaker 1: S T S S I D E Jerky dot com.
47:47
Speaker 1: The extra S stands for super small batch, flank steak, beef, jerkey,
47:52
Speaker 1: gluten free and a not vegan. That's what he says
47:57
Speaker 1: on his card. Thanks Westward, that was pretty cool and
48:00
Speaker 1: hats off to your dad too for being so cool
48:02
Speaker 1: as well. We need to do administrative details soon because
48:05
Speaker 1: I came across the list. We've got stuff that was
48:08
Speaker 1: given to us a year ago at like shows in October. Yeah,
48:13
Speaker 1: so we need to do it soon. Okay, okay, Well,
48:16
Speaker 1: if you want to get in touch of this, like
48:17
Speaker 1: Westwood did, you can go onto our social links start
48:20
Speaker 1: at stuff you should Know dot com and you can
48:22
Speaker 1: also send us an email where you can send us
48:25
Speaker 1: a typewritten letter, but try an email too. You can
48:27
Speaker 1: send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
48:33
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios.
48:35
Speaker 1: How stuff works for more podcasts for my heart Radio
48:38
Speaker 1: because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or where
48:40
Speaker 1: ever you listen to your favorite shows,