Hello and welcome to cooking issues this is Dave older host of cooking nation coming to you live from Rockefeller Center and newsstand studios joined as usual witness dasya the hammer Lopez How you doing stuff I'm good behind me. Which is unusual so I can't see what you are doing what kind of faces you're making makes me a little bit nervous. Should I be nervous? No. Got John also chillin behind me how you doing John doing great. Thanks. How's the great State of Connecticut treating you?

was good, but I'm back in back in New York now. Oh, thank you for Yeah,

we're not going to have time but I shouldn't ask you about your so John for a while. Before I go further into the amazing show. We have John for a while cooked for tennis superstar Joe KOVITCH or as I call him knocking Joe lukovitch. And interesting in the news, I kind of want to get your read but then you might not ever get the word firm again if I got your read so probably you don't want to talk about it. Am I right?

I don't know if I'll ever get to work for him again anyways, based on some of the things not with him personally. But with that family.

You let them on you lit them on fire. You let the child on fire. He doesn't know child but the family he stayed with his job. Did you like to travel on fire? Was it your fault? Was it your fault that the burger had the secret sauce on it instead of on the side that caused the meltdown that almost burnt the house down? Yes, John. If I've told you once I've told you a million times you got to pay it you got to get more front of the house and you pay attention to what sauces are ordered on the burger.

Not going to go through the Shake Shack you know order for 20 people and look through each individually wrapped burger to see what you know. Make sure there's the one that doesn't have the sauce on

it. Yeah, but the kid of the host is the one that has to be right. Yeah, I mean, you're you're correct in the real life. You're correct. Everyone's important. But in the business world it's that one kid that one trash can kid that's important. A naughty naughty your trash can kid not that you listen. Or people who are Have some decency in them somewhere I guess. In California we got Jackie molecules. How you doing in our California booth? I'm good. I'm very good. Oh, yeah. You sound like like, unusually. What has happened? Well,

I just sorry, I will see you back here. Um, I just got back from New York. Actually. I did. I did like a crazy 24 hour trip to New York to see my niece for her birthday. So

that's a nice travel fatigue. So when someone who lives in California gets back from New York, do they double down on the California like? Yeah.

No, I'm not. I'm still in New Yorker. Come on.

Sure. And we have Hassan more in the booth. Back again, we thought we're gonna have Joe back but his son, because Joe's Joe's didn't make it back yet. So how you doing? I'm good. Yeah, yes, I hear you're here. I hear you're excited for today's show. Hassan Are you an enjoyer of spirits and cocktails? Did you know that on today's program we have as our special guest. Actually, he was on the show once before, a probably a decade ago right after we started. Themed cocktail writer and the story and Dave Wondrich. Dave, how are you doing?

I'm doing good. How are you?

I'm alright. I'm alright. Yeah, I think last time we had you on the show was about 10 years ago. Yeah, it

was in another century. It seems like and yeah, you know, maybe overseas somewhere.

Did we just have you on because we wanted to? Or were you was it after one of your books like puncher, one of these things?

It was probably after one of these books. Because, you know, they come out of every once in a while, every 10 years

or so? Well, you got to keep writing books Otherwise, otherwise the world like forgets if you don't keep writing things. It's crazy.

Yeah, it's true. But on the other hand, if the world forgets is that the worst thing in the world?

As long as the world keeps paying you they can forget. Yeah, exactly. So royalties, the best of all scenarios is that everybody forgets but the money keeps coming.

Yeah. And then you can just go and you know, sit in a cafe somewhere with one of those little tiny dogs and you bury and, and drink pasties all morning. That's like

those 80s stars. And you're like, oh, they haven't done anything since the 80s. But then you look up their net worth and they're worth like a zillion dollars. Like that's the way

yeah, they're wearing very expensive T shirts. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, very good. Very good.

All right. So let's, let's get into this for those, like for the, again, couple of people who might not know, kind of where you're at. I was talking to my wife, actually. Last week, when I said you were coming on next week, and I was like, you know, like the cocktail historian they've wanted. She's like, well, let me there's, there's been others, right? I was like, Well, no, no, I was like, they're better. There are people that we look, there are people who are your contemporaries. They were interested kind of in specific ingredients like or recipes or last recipes, like Ted hay and all those other people. And, you know, there also were people who wrote in the 20s 30s 40s that included kind of back of the envelope histories of cocktails, but no one kind of took it seriously as an historical pursuit. With the exception of being interested in specific ingredients, right? Before you like that was it? Well, there

were there were a couple. There were a couple of people like William Grimes, who wrote a very nice scholarly history of the cocktail after that, that was later, then he quit and gave away all of his cocktail books. So wait, wait. closer to the mic.

The dealer. Okay. Yeah. So I thought his book

came out after no as well. It was one of my inspirations came out in the early 90s. And it was like, Whoa, this is really cool. Well, I was in grad school, I read the book like dutiful, academic, you know, if you're interested in something, read a book on it. 10. So I did tip of the hat to grant grants. Yeah, he was he was good. But But he, you know, he could have, he could have kept up with it. But he was too smart for that.

But then he then go to politics before he came back to do food. Yeah, he

did a bunch of stuff. And, you know, his, he's, he's an interesting person. I used to go and test restaurants with him when he was a food critic. And he's an interesting person to talk to. He has a PhD in komplet, specialising in Russian novels. So and these are Russian novel character. Hmm.

So what is it about the combination of liking to go to bars, like depressing Russian literature and kind of politics that kind of fits so well together?

Well, there's a strong thread of heavy drinking that goes through. I mean, just, you know, back of the envelope calculation,

yeah. Okay.

Politicians who? They mop up the sauce.

Yeah. All right. So also, I should call on your question, Should you have questions? If you're a Patreon listener? 2917410 1507, that's 91917410 1507. So a couple of things I promised we would talk about. One you are, you have a family compound is undisclosed location in Pennsylvania, it's a secure location. Yeah. But it's large enough that you can create kind of potato guns and test potato cannons, kind of more acceptable terminology for them. And you can launch them in such a way that you can shoot them farther than is reasonable and still have them take off and land on your property. And you can see the the failure,

we could we could get a good 400 yards range out of these things, if done just exactly right. And we've got a lake that we can shoot them into. So that's, that's kind of nice.

Now, I want you to describe for me the not so jet. Now, speaking of drinking, like I'm sure you're familiar with the Highland Games and the Caber toss and all kinds of strange feats of idiocy that people do in cultures that also have a lot of drinking, I want you to describe to me the sport of potato catching that you invented with one of your buddies at your family.

Yeah, this was, this was a number of years ago, when our kids who are now grown and out of college were small. And we had a fungie bat, you know, one of those big, wide plastic bats. And we were kind of new to the ways of the potato cannon and my friend Mike runs to the end of the field with a fungie bat and goes okay, pointed right at me. We've been drinking Geneva punch the first time I ever made that. I found a bottle of old Geneva in a liquor store upstate, which was it was gone from New York City at that point. And so I was really excited. And I drank maybe a little bit too much, and so did Mike. And so he goes, you know, alright, let's see if we could do this. And I shoot the potato out of the potato cannon. You know, you fill the back with hairspray, there's a chamber and you flick a little comb and lighter bang. And it goes boom and shoots the potato. And if you're standing there shooting the thing, it looks like it's moving fairly slowly. But Mike standing there with the bat, and whizzes right by him, I was shooting you know, a bit to the left of him. Or rather to the to his right, let's say cuz I really didn't want to hit him. And then second shot, it's even further to the to the right and then he goes, okay, okay, pointed right at me. Not a problem. So I pointed right at him. I shoot it. He goes Assa t as a bruise the size of a dinner plate on his upper chest. And this is one of my profoundest regrets as we weren't videotaping this, because that would have been an absolute winner on the late Bob Saget America's Funniest Home Videos. I mean, it was just so predictable and the per fraction of it was was it was just such a vignette

is so lucky no serious damage was done. Oh yeah, I

know if I'd hit him in the head, it would have been really bad. Well,

the thing about compressed gas is it like unless you do a lot of calculations it's really hard to kind of and also even if you do the calculations I think I told you once I made a chicken gun Yeah. Out of big chicken cannon

that is a big cam. Yes. Huge. And then a lot of gas for that

thing. Yeah, it was the bore was six inches. Yeah. Yeah. And I and heavy artillery. And then I built the, the gas container, I think out of eight or 10 inch, like pipe like and then like, you know, fully filled it with compressor. And I was like, Oh, this half inch thick. Polycarbonate is like, polycarbonate is not going to break. It's strong. So I got that as a target to shoot at. Yeah. And then you know, loaded the chicken and you don't need a salad with a potato because it's sealed.

Potatoes. We use limes, actually. Because they're much more ballistic. And you're a cocktail man. Yeah. And also we can get them in Brooklyn for cheap. So

by the way, for those of you that don't live in the New York area, some areas of the country limes are expensive. And in New York if you're paying more than 25 cents for a line, it's like what?

Yeah, yeah, especially in Brooklyn. You can get sometimes when they're in season you can get 10 for $1 which is amazing.

Yeah, up in monocle land where John's from in Connecticut lives are like $1 apiece.

Yeah, I would it's still worth it. Yeah.

Except for that time of year when they when their heart is rocks and have no juice. Well, they fly out of potato gun really? Well. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I guess they don't need to be good but didn't do you have to sabot them or you just make sure they stick real close. You just gauge

gauge them to the barrel and you know, I might do a little work with a peeler if they're too big. smart smart. We have a rifle barrel we've got one on a carriage with a rifle barrel.

I fold the barrel. No, I

bought it. Actually. I wish I had done it myself because I would have done a better job and you hit your buddy with a knife. Oh, no, that was really well, that was the smoothbore muzzle loader.

Anyway. Chickens are not as conformable or as you know, easy to mess with his life. So I sabotaged it with styrofoam and it does when something that big is flying away from you. It looks like it's going slow.

Yeah. Yeah, it's not.

Anyway, yeah, it completely shattered the

well the amount of maths there. I mean, that's a heavy projectile.

Oh my god. Oh my god for those who saw like mine also though compressed air makes I think a different kind of noise. I've never fired one of the hairspray ones, but it's got to make like a popper like, yeah, it

makes a good good nice sized bang. Yeah, the

compressed air ones just make this kind of like frightening bush. You know what I mean? Like on a fun though. Yeah. You should do you should do. But I don't do compressed air stuff anymore. Just because the Stasi and I were supposed to do a video of remember this stuff. Yeah. And we didn't do it because I told you there was a small but nonzero chance that the aged PVC pipe could shatter. And that that would almost certainly kill me if that happened. And you were like, this is some bullcrap Dave and I'm like, Well, I didn't have the money to build it out of ABS. Something that shatters in a less violent way than PVC.

You know, you just wrapped the whole thing in duct tape. That's what we do.

I mean, that's the thing. I think that like once you get up to the like, large bores. Yeah, like each individual piece of plastic that will tell you the story about how I was doing a demonstration on liquid nitrogen safety on what not to do. And I put liquid nitrogen into a two liter bottle and sealed it. And then okay, so cocktail people, you know, I'm talking about the 23 litre Cambro for those of you that don't do the Home Depot bucket to do your big batch stuff, but 23 liter square camera was a standard 23 Quart square camera was a standard thing. So I was like, Oh, I'll stick this thin two liter soda bottle inside of the camera, and it's not going to break the Canberra loudest thing. I'll bet second or third loudest thing I've ever done. It completely obliterated the Canberra and sent charged you know, again, lucky that I can. I was wearing glasses, thankfully, thankfully. Yeah.

Because no liquid nitrogen is a beast.

I do love it, though.

I love to do your greatest proponent that I know it is.

Well. The thing about liquid nitrogen is that it's just one of those things. It's mesmerizing. Like, like as a material. Fire. Yeah, like, well, we could talk fight. Well, we'll we'll talk fire, because you are also a big proponent of fire. Like fire. Yeah, like fire. But none of this is why you're here today. You are here today. Because after many, many years of work, you've just recently come out with the Oxford Companion to spirits and cocktails, along with your co editor Noah Rothbaum. And how many years was this and to make you want to talk a little bit about this project?

Yeah, this was I signed the contract for it in 2012. So though it came out last November, that's how long it was in the making. And it was one of those projects that I was skeptical about, but I got talked into it. And it turned out to be just exactly as hairy as I thought it was going to be. And I mean, it's a it's basically an encyclopedia of spirits and cocktails. 860 pages long 11 150 entries, 150 contributors plus, and it covers as much stuff as we could possibly jam in there up to

2000 for roughly

take individual entries for people who, whose careers took off after 2004. Because if we, if we did that, we'd have finished the book and infinity book, because so many people took off in the cocktail, you know, revolution, we talked about them in the book, you know, it's not like we don't like, it's not like we're saying they don't exist. It's just we can't write individual entries on them. And those things are there. They're usually pretty Google also. Yeah.

So for those of you that are looking at it, and like why my favorite people, people, people back, why is it not there, like just read, it's always a good idea to read the introduction of a book beforehand to get the tenor of the book. The other interesting thing about the thing is one you say, listen, we're actually going to try to do spirits of the world, and not just spirits from the coasts of veteran drunk on the coasts of the United States. It's not just what you can get in duty free. Right, right. Right. That's literally the quote out of the introduction. And the other thing you say, kind of right off the bat, is that it's not a social was the word it was the exact wording you use. It's not that you realize that spirits can be problematic, in many ways, in their production and in their consumption and in their trade. But that's not what this book is about.

No, I mean, if you want to read about that, there's a great book. I don't always agree with it. But that just came out by one of our contributors, Mark shred called breaking the liquor machine, about global temperance movements. And it's fascinating. But we don't really cover that.

It's a good book. Yeah,

it's interesting. I don't agree with some of his premises but he's got a lot of evidence and he's a good argue we're and someday I'll sit down with him and hash it out.

My favorite book on the temperance movement in the United States is the furnace book from my two. Yeah, it's a great book.

Yeah. JC furnace. Beautiful writer. I mean, just beautifully makes

you want to read it. Yeah, I own his other book, but haven't read it. I forget what it's called.

Yeah, I haven't read it. Either. That that that his book was called, like prohibition or something like or demon demon demon ROM. Yeah. Demon rum came out in the early 60s. Great. But I'm happy to meet another fan. You know, because that's a book that more people should know. That's the best book written on American prohibition.

Right. And I think maybe he was one of the early people. So like, you know, the older you get, the more you see how history is warped by the no fans, by the people who write it. Yeah. You know what it means? Yeah. And so I think he was one of the early people to tie the success of the Temperance temperance movement, who is well known, but back to Graham. So Graham was kind of a semester Graham was kind of a fringe figure prior to his kind of rehabilitation is the wrong word because no one thinks he's not a lunatic, but he's got to report so long as Yeah, right. Right. But he's really important says as a important figure in American culture, like furnace and a couple other people it from the 60s to the 80s. I think no one was talking about Graham in the in the 40s. And 30.

No, not so much. You know, he was he was his time had come and gone. Yeah, moved on to other things, but

he was dyspeptic and a bad writer, among other things. I mean, not a very compelling character.

No, and yet, he had enough charisma to like found all kinds of stuff. Yeah,

yeah. Man, Grandma, it's the worst. Look, if someone doesn't like liquor, fine. You don't like liquor and you don't like sex? I mean, well, or exertion or physical exercise. We choose one of these things to hate.

You're not going to really. Life is going to be hard for you.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not it's not okay. So back to the book. Yeah. Another interesting thing before we, how did you get an interesting choice Marcus Samuelsson chef to write the foreword, what was the impetus behind that?

No, and I know and admire Marcus and we wanted to we wanted to chef because we wanted people to realize that this is part of like the culinary world, you know, it's not just for bartender So this book is, I mean, we've got like blurbs also on the back by all a pretty diverse group of people, including Lars from from Metallica and, and Dan Ackroyd and you know, as people we, we've we've met over the years, and it's really just want to show that you know, this is like a huge part of, of our lived experience in the world impinges on this in some way.

I have never had Dan Ackroyd aids, vodka vodka that is filtered through Herkimer diamonds, which PS is quartz from Utica. Yeah. But like,

oh, it's actually it's pretty good. And what I do know, and I have our life behind bars podcast, and we had him on and we spent a lot of time talking about technical stuff. He was like, really into it. He was weirdly into into the the technical side of distilling. And I thought that was cool. Actually, I appreciated that.

But like, what's the purpose of the courts just the thing is just filtering they

they've been doing, you know, courts, filtering, goes, goes back and it's a part of Soviet vodka technology. The Soviets spent so much time studying vodka. It's shouldn't come as a surprise. It doesn't but they but they did. And they learned things like precious metals filtering, Platinum works, silver works gold doesn't. Quartz works, you know, some things do and, and it's basically a matter of ionization of the of the, of the alcohol molecules, because there's really not much else in there. And it somehow you get different ions I've tasted against each other at a distillery in Kyrgyzstan, which was the former Soviet distillery for Central Asia. I've tasted silver filtered charcoal filtered and quartz, filtered vodkas, and they all taste different.

What was that? grapey stuff that you got back from there, though? Yeah,

that was that was that was there? Some have gone? Yeah, yeah. But they're there. Vodka was the real treasure at that place. Their vodka was exquisite.

I mean, it sounds a little bit like what the Stasi and I used to do it the French culinary were like, I don't know, pour it through this. You will happen. Yeah, exactly.

But but then they got like, you know, people with PhDs in chemistry to walk the cat back and see like, why it happened. And so that they could do it again.

I mean, we used to start remember, remember when we used to filter we used to buy the cheapest worst vodka for distillation. And then we would like we would just keep filtering it till it didn't taste like poison anymore. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you know, vodka is pitiless. Anything you'll taste and anything that's in there, you'll taste

we, we, the school wouldn't give us the money to buy filters, real filters. So we went across the street to the Duane Reade he shirts at Oh, no, what we bought just have refills for Brittas Oh, there you go. And then melted quart containers and smashed the filters. held them there for hours like idiots. Whoa, okay, for the T shirts. It worked worked really well. I mean, it removed all the character, which is fine, because we were going to read it still in any way. We're adding our own character to complete neutral vodkas. Or do you like vodkas with character?

I like them with a little bit of character actually. Yeah. And you know, I mean, if I'm mixing drinks, I really don't care. I mean, any vodkas is practically practically any vodka is fine. But I like I like a drunk Russian style when you pull it out of the freezer. And, you know, it's the wine of the North.

Yeah, I mean, the freezer, tamps down on some of that kind of hospital knows I don't like a hospital nosy vodka, one that smells like, like I'm about to be disinfected. Yeah, you'll

get some of the that certainly in the Eastern European ones. But you know, they're not completely neutral. They're not sweet. I mean, they don't have that sweet sweet corn nose.

Do you? Like when they jacket with glycerin? Yes, you do the the hand wiping

test? I try not to because I don't care that much. Yeah, it's just you know, it's fun.

It's a smart thing. The smart thing is to not care that much, except for how it tastes. And I mean, if I'm

judging it for spirits competition, then I care very much. And I try to like come up with a fair evaluation. And then, you know, I kind of look on that a little askance. But I mean, Stolichnaya was always my benchmark back in the day, and that was lightly sweetened, and might have had a little glycerin in it, but it was certainly lightly sweetened. And, you know, and that's, that goes back to the origins of storage. Nya in the late 40s. Mid 40s.

By the way, in the book, there's a picture of an old Smirnoff bottle, and it says it's in your collection, and it says, pre pre revolutionary, and I was like, I was like, Oh, wait, we're not the only country with a revolution. Jamie. He reads the Russian Revolution. Yeah, I was like, Yeah, I

mean, the Russian Revolution. Hey,

Anastasia. Is anyone in are referred to us as lightly sweetened. No. Okay, now, question something's was interesting in the book it how many different contributors a zillion 350 150. So some of the contributors write in kind of more of a classic encyclopedia style, and some right, giving kind of more color commentary and opinion. And it's interesting how they mix, like, was that a choice to not impose encyclopedic style on everyone's contributions, or I didn't

want to impose it too heavily. You know, if, if the person was a lively writer, as long as the information was there, I made sure to keep some of that. Some people needed to be reined in some other people, you know, needed to be a little less encyclopedias. But, but in general, it was, you know, it's not an anthology of writing, it's everything has to kind of pull together. So I spent a lot of time harmonizing entries and making sure that they didn't really contradict each other, fundamentally, because that the problem if you're writing a reference book is like, Where does this book stand on this? But I left? I left some of people's little jokes and things in there.

Yeah. Well, I mean, because that's kind of the way you write. So I was wondering whether it was more difficult to, to kind of deal with writers who wrote in a style that was completely foreign to you, as opposed to someone who was like, allow themselves a little bit of leeway, internationally way in terms of facts. I don't mean Yeah, but

just to make it a little more conversational. Right, right. I couldn't make it to conversational. So some people, I definitely had to, had to pull back a little bit into or into the orbit. But you know, there's a spectrum. It's a big book, and it contains a lot of different people's voices, sometimes muted, but they're still there,

right? Because when you write normally, I mean, your voice is kind of always there. That's one I think the hallmarks of your writing is that you like there to be a voice. It's kind of make sense for someone who's doing a bar history, because bars are all about talking to people, at least, has been my,

my, I guess my, my style guide is always right, like you're talking to an intelligent friend, preferably sitting at a bar. Yeah. But you know, it's like you can, I came out of academia, where that was anathema. You know, and some of the writing was so bad, and so unreadable, and I kind of went the other direction, maybe a little too far. But that's always been how I've done it. So people people seem to, to enjoy the work. So that's one of the reasons they got me for the book. So it was part of my mandate was to make it readable.

So a couple other questions that I want to know. So you had the font, you farmed out, find some way to put it, but you gave you found people who were experts in particular things and so at a number of them, right, so when someone writes something on something that you don't know a lot about you like, you have to give me some of that to taste or you have to get me like, like some of these different spirits or like most of the

spirits I've tasted, however, I did have to, I had to write the one of the articles on West Africa, and on palm spirits there. And I finally broke down and talk to my friend, Colin Appiah, who's Ghanian and he got some, some equity che from his, from his uncle in Ghana, and which is this beautiful poem spirit, or can be beautiful. And I still have a little bit of that I just got this got me this tiny little bottle of it, which was amazing of him. So what it tastes like, it's it tastes like palm wine, you know, it's got a it's a little bit lactic, a little bit acidic. clean and fresh. And really, really quite nice. Not so heavily flavored. It's POM spirits can be fairly neutral, which is interesting, kind of like grape spirits.

Yeah, I guess a They run the gamut depends on how they're Yeah. Another thing I noticed that some of the things I thought would be in here aren't necessarily and like, for instance, I was not able, I searched through it to find a reference on dive bars or that style of thing that that category of different categories of bars isn't necessarily

it's not Yeah, because it's it's spirits and cocktails. It's not a bar is not the Oxford Companion to bars. Now, that would be a book. I would want to be the dive bar editor on that one.

Well, I mean, I know that you're a huge proponent of dive bars as I was like, hoping to find And, you know, kind of your history of the dive bar in there. It

just it wasn't in my, my brief as the as the people at Oxford would say, I mean,

you I always assume that you would prefer to be at a dive bar than a not at a dive bar.

I'd like dive bars quite a bit. Yeah.

Now, you know, I

like a nice cocktail bar too. But I really liked dive bars. Yeah,

I like a dive bar.

I like that. You know, I like a comfortable dive bar. It doesn't I like a dive bars in the afternoon, when it's quiet, and it's you and the bartender. I always think of I was in DC once and I walked. I was doing a bar crawl for Esquire. And I thought I'd start at the Raven in up and kind of, kind of north of downtown. And I had to walk a mile in the snow to get there. And I go in and there's only one person sitting at the bar. It's the middle of the afternoon. And within 10 minutes me the bartender and this one person. We're discussing, like how people raise kids like crap these days. What the Japanese aims were in the Central Pacific during World War Two. What kind of tires worked best in snow, and about 20 Other things, and we were just having the greatest time. No, you know,

I love an old I love an old diaper. I wouldn't stop and I went to my old dive bar and we had an okay time right as

we went before the Billy Joel concert, was the bar fight that broke out while we were there. That's true. Which bar was this?

Holland? Oh, yeah. And then we went to before we've gone to like, to the Stasi is old dive bar and someone there tried to order me? What the hell did that

was the Jack Daniels, honey. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That sounds so good. Terrific product. Yeah.

It's more horrifying that that that this guy at the bar, thought that a that Anastasia couldn't order for me. Yeah, that's the first thing I was like, Excuse me. She knows much more about liquor than you do. Yeah. And then that he thought looked at me. I was like stuff. Yeah. And that's what I was gonna want. Yeah, that guy. Yeah. And then we went to a third dive bar. Which bar was that? I got to know, the gaff. Okay, and then we went to a third bar and got taken for tourists and got the tourist rate at the dive bar. And that pissed me off. Ah, that was that. So

you were a tourist at that dive bar.

I was although I used to live there. I lived around the corner from it for five years. I didn't go to it because I went to the Holland. Yeah, I

mean, well see you you weren't you weren't one of the that dive bars at the

bartender looked at us. Right, John? She just Yeah, and just freaking freaking.

It was like $47 for three drinks.

That dive bar drinks. Hello,

excuse me? Like, yeah, you should have showed your face in there a few times.

I haven't lived in that neighborhood in like 18 years. So you're a tourist. But you know, Laurie side is tourist in Midtown. You know what I mean? No, no.

That's funny. God. Oh, ouch. Yeah.

Alright, so some more umbrage while we're at on bridge. Yeah, not this. I like that you you generously. So at the book launch, Dave generously signed all of the books that people stole? I think I didn't.

Yeah, there were there. Were there for the taking. Yeah, I do stole yours. I did

steal. Before anyone said anyone could take any. I was like, I went up to the person publishing people are so funny because they're at the table. And the person that they put in charge at a table usually has no power. So it's mean slash fun to make them a little bit nervous. Like, I'm gonna steal this kind of steal this. She's like, Ah, I'm like, I'm gonna steal this right now. I'm stealing this, okay. And she's like, Ah, you don't I mean, that's me. Well,

I'm Italian. I would go there. And like, you know, talk them out of

it. But you're like this weird Northern Italian who also knows how to speak German. Right?

I don't know how to speak German. No, no, I mean, I can read it a little bit. Yeah. German was my weakness and doing this book.

Alright, let me let me see Where's where's your where's your table of weights and measures which smart is near the beginning of the book, which

it's after the

after the tackle outline I mentioned. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, a bar spoon my friend. four milliliters, according to my account, not five milliliters.

It depends on the bar spoon, doesn't it? I measured

him. I mean, all right. We're gonna have a bar spoon fight. For the for the

purposes of this book. It's five mils.

Okay, although I do appreciate you using the cocktail ounce at 30 mils, which is something that I believe anyone who thinks about an A bar ounce being 28 point whatever, it's just wrong.

It's how are you going to measure that? You know, that's the thing is Like I tried to we use like 30 mil we tried to make it. Everything is metric in here, but we tried to make it as easily convertible to ounces as possible.

Yeah, the cocktail ounces 30 milliliters that allows us to not look like tiny children to our international patriots. So I do appreciate that. And then also, John, I don't know if you know this. I am a I'm in the molecular mixology. You know how horrible molecular as a term is,

I it's completely meaningless. And I'd say 10 bucks, ology is molecular but exactly. But on the other hand, that's what people call it. And that's what we needed to title the entry. Well, you know, because people have to be able to find it.

You know, one of the interesting things way back in the day, people tried to oppose, they make a kind of a diametric opposition between people who enjoyed learning about old techniques and who were more interested in new techniques. And so, not just in, in, in cocktails, but also in in food. I'm thinking John Mariani, who's, you know, horrible at that. I mean, like, he might have been good at other things, but horrible about that. And also very rude if he wanted to be rude person, he could certainly be a rude person. Yeah. Well, rude and like, I'm rude. But I hopefully not mean and rude to people that I don't know. I owe love only mean to people that I know. Well.

The distinction? Well, I mean, he was mean to his friends, but he was nice to everybody else.

I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't know. Like, I think it takes a different kind of jerk to be rude to a stranger.

Oh, I think so to actually, I try not to do that. Yeah,

cuz you don't know who this stranger is? Or why would you be rude to a stranger? It'd be rude to

a stranger. What have they done to you? Exactly. I just that that just doesn't compute to me.

And so like, before we get into another another interesting thing you have at the at the near the end, is you try as many people have to categorize the world of spirits. How much of a pain in the behind was that?

Oh, it was interesting. I was actually kind of fun, but it was also really hard. Right? Because

like vodka. So for those of you who would you read about the only Stoker's I didn't even see that. Oh, it's just someone named bialys. Yeah, and that's the thing. Yeah, I come from the Lower East Side is where I live. That's that's Biale Stoker Plaza. That's where and where the bialys were from in the in New York. You can't really get a good Biale anymore.

No, I haven't seen one in a while. And they're really the last one I had was extremely boring. And not very good.

Yeah. costars, which is like on the block where I live back before they got sold back when they when they used to close down for the Sabbath, like all of the businesses did in that neighborhood. They made a good Bialy, you know, a little bit dry a little bit of onion stuff. You had to eat it the day, you know,

I mean, they really don't care. Not even good in the evening. No, you want to have to be practically fresh out of the oven. Yeah. Which, you know, and then they're moist and delicious.

Yeah. But nowadays, I have not had a I've had like these big rallies that like I think people want them to last and they shouldn't.

Yeah. It's like this idea of shelf stable. Nothing should be shelf stable. Unless it's and

again, like and I hate to poopoo this the other things like costars used to have a decent bagel, I thought, like back in the day.

I haven't. It's not it's not in my circuit. You know, I'm in Brooklyn. Yeah.

So you have your own decent bagels, but they went from being kind of a normal bagel. So if you're going to think about bagels on the 1980s spectrum of H and H two, so that that kind of right. They went from being kind of the denser small not union bagel size, but you know, reasonable sized bagel chewy and dense. I got one last time. Literally, I thought it was a football. It was like no, no, no. Yeah, it's not good. No hole. But like, you know, not even as chewy as ESA style but just like a football like, like, ready football. And I was like, What?

What? It's the end of the bagel as we know it.

I mean, I don't even think it's called costars bialys anymore. I think it's just called costars now. Yeah, because nobody knows what a Biale because no one knows what a Biale is. Well, Cassie, something else? Not related to cocktails. Anyone who's listening if you're going to open a bagel store store, right or a store or a store with a stick? Yeah, please, please. separate lines for the people like me who just want to come in and buy bagels separate line from the people who want you to manipulate their bagel. I don't know why anyone would want a bagel shop to manipul later bagel for them, but fine, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like you're manipulated my bagel. Exactly. I mean, like, I got to stand behind someone's like, what kind of cream cheese do you want on your big? I don't care. I'm just buying a dozen bagels and getting the hell out of here. Make separate lines. What do you think about this?

I would love to see that because I just want the bagel. I just want the bagel. I toasted at home. I want to toast

also New York Times Do we have a new yorkers? Take note when you come to it or non New Yorkers when you come to New York and order a bagel? Because we hate being ripped off? They're going to put too much cream cheese on your bagel. If you have had the bagel shop do it like a crazy amount of cream cheese. Do you hate the fact that they put so much cream cheese on bagels here?

I don't hate it.

It's so much so messy. I

don't know. I like I like butter on my bagels these days. You know that's that's me.

Anastasia. What are you think about butter on a bagel? No, no, not really. No. What about toasting? Where are we on toasting? Bagel side? Only? Of course. I mean,

I like it toasted. Toasted bagel butters. I know that's in every way. But it's still what I like, Wait, Jack, would you say

toasted bagel with butter is my answer as well.

This is why you moved to Los Angeles.

Yeah, I think I spent a year in Los Angeles. And that probably corrupted me.

I think like, if you've if you've been relegated to like, you know, eating lenders, then shirt split and toast that sucker and put butter on it. You know what's actually good? I going against myself here. A buttered Salt, salt bagel?

Oh, that would be good. Yes, I wouldn't. Yeah, I would eat that right now. All right.

Speaking of the eating right now, you've just poured us before we go further in depth into these things. He wants to describe what

I brought a little bit of rum that my friend Alexander from plantation rum sent me this is made in one of the two operating three chamber stills in the world. That's a type of steal that nobody really, that had fallen out of the distilling industry is consciousness used in America from the beginning of the 19th century, up until World War Two. And it's it's sort of a if potstill the kind of you know, bootleggers still we think of, if that's a muzzle loading gun, and the column still like they make vodka on is a machine gun. You know, you just feed this stuff in and it comes out the other end. This is sort of like a bolt action rifle. It's like, you got to load each each charge, but it's got a bunch of them stacked up to be distilled inside the inside this still is