Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

and I'm your co host, Darren bresnitz. Part of why we started the show was to offer an unofficial mentorship for anyone who's interested in learning about all aspects of food and video, whether that's TV, social media online, or just something you want to do for fun.

Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

It's something that has driven us professionally and personally, for so many years. What excites me the most about this show is that we're going to sit down with some of the industry leaders to hear how they made it and what drew them into this industry.

With 20 years in the culinary production game ourselves. We're hoping we can give through these conversations an insider's view into personal stories from the field, as well as an in depth behind the scenes look into some of the most popular food programming. In today's evolving culinary media landscape.

We'll be covering everything from how to style your food, to how to license IP, to developing your own ideas, and some tips from the masters of how to host your own show.

Yeah, it's a little bit of conversation, how to and how do you do the things that you do in color media, which I'm so excited about? I love so many of the guests that are coming on this season. We have talent from Food Network from Vice media eater refinery 29,

we've met some of the best people in the world both in front of and behind the camera. And we're bringing them all together to share their stories, their delicious adventure and their unique journey into this crazy world.

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Hello, and welcome to cooking your host of cooking your shoes coming to you on the heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from whenever to whenever I'm doing from the Lower East Side here in Manhattan, as is our special guests who I'll introduce in a minute. We have as usual Anastasia the hammer Lopez calling in from Stamford, Connecticut on the sound How you doing stuff.

Good.

We got Matt in the booth. What's going on?

Oh, one was for you, SAS.

Well, we'll get to that in a minute. How you doing that?

I'm doing great.

We got John from Murray Murray. Murray Hill Hill Hill. How you doing? Doing? Well. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. And by the way that that intro was done years ago. Now this is that is not the style of music that Anastasia grooves on true or false?

I hate that music. I think it's not cool.

Okay. It's not cool. Okay. That was by longtime listener, friend of the show. And so when I know in the real life, Joel Gargano, who has an amazing restaurant called grano arso in Chester, Connecticut. They are I don't know if they're open yet for any inside business, but they are. They have an outdoor business and a takeaway business. And if you like food that tastes good, I suggest going to his restaurant when you are in Chester. And in fact, we don't have it queued up but there is a cooking issues related jingle about it. Yes, sir. The food is cool. The food is cool. Yes. And I think they John you independently verify this. You've been to his restaurant. Yeah,

he makes some of my favorite pasta out there. His food is really delicious. I

really really love it. Yeah. Now I have I have a another friend of mine who is our special guest for today, who is also on a zoom call, but I can almost throw a rock and hit him if I could throw a rock that high because he lives in the same sort of Coopera units. They in fact, the buildings he used to live in, he lives in used to be the exact same Co Op as as the one I'm in, there was a major fight like 15 years ago. Well, John Newbery friend of the show friend in the real life, John Newbery, how're you doing John?

Pretty good. I could talk about the the balkanization of the East River housing, do it for an entire show, but I don't know if that's necessarily give

me that. Okay. So it's a classic New York scenario. What they did was, is there was a bunch of what they considered undesirable, tenement style housing in the Lower East Side between the water, which is the East River here, and Essex Street, that they just annihilated, they just freaking, like, this is what they used to do. And probably what they still do is like, hey, there's a problem with this area. Why don't we kick everybody out and annihilate it? So they did that, and then build up a series of co op buildings, which at the time were their Co Op, so you own them, but they're they were intended, they were paid for with government money. So they were intended for kind of, you know, they weren't fancy, called Mitchell Lama houses. And they extended from like Essex street to the water, which is like, what a 15 minute walk on total. So it's big. Yeah, it's extensive. And they were all the same kind of owned by the same kind of co op group. And then there was a fight, you want to discuss the fight, or you just want to like you want to leave it?

Well, I actually don't know a ton about about the fight. But basically, it was started by the steel Amalgamated Bank. It's the same group of people. It's basically like Jewish factory workers in the 50s got together and created like a co op. place to live. And there's like, the women's

garment workers union, right? Yeah.

And then there's like, there's, like amalgamated is named one of the sub units. And there's Hillman and helminth, the guy who started amalgamated. And then there's Seward Park, and then we're at East River. And then Seward Park broke off. And I have to say they, they're a little bit nicer. So I think they probably got the better end of that deal. Well, actually, I think you're a lot of board drum.

Your landscaping is nicer. And you have a whole leg of the better views.

You have all that like playground. We have like nothing. I mean, it's nice, but it's not. It's not Seward

Park the original fight was because it used to be that houses here cost coops apartments cost almost nothing literally like 20 grand. And but you couldn't just sell your co op to somebody else that would like go back into the coop. So the people who were on the board used to do all this incredibly shady dealing where they would like deal to themselves and their family. And they would build up these mega apartments where they would like they would like almost like gerbils like Buster or hamsters bust their way through apartments and like up and down and get all the plump stuff. So there was a lot of unrest, shall we say? And then there was like dealing about who was going to run the power. So they broke, they broke apart anyway. So John and I are not in the same apartments, but they're kind of the same apartments. We've like we was brothers, you know? Yeah,

I can see your builder thing from my window. Yeah, I can't. So you're on the other side.

I'm waiting. Yeah. Hey, listen, for those of you I can keep tabs on you. Right, right. Well, she's smart. For those of you who are crazy enough during the COVID, to want to move into New York City, let me give you this piece of advice. You either want to be high enough up to get the good views, or you want to be low enough such that you can see trees, but not so low that people are knocking on your window. So that's that should be your you should like you should be looking at floors, three and four or high enough to get a good view. That is my little bit of advice to you. And you know, Anastasia only wants you to look on the west side of Manhattan not down where we live because she believes the sun is nicer over there.

But it's not true. Nice everywhere.

But you You are a you're a West Side girl true.

Yeah, I liked the west side. Yeah.

You lived on the east side for what? 2030 minutes before you were like I gotta get out of here. No, and college. I

lived on the Midtown East.

And what would you think? It was nice. It was great. I liked it. Really? Anyway, I've only known you to live over in the Hell's Kitchen area that seems to be if I had to pick in the Stasi neighborhood that would be it. I think if you even if you had like like boatloads of cash that you were like, you know rafting around in your money pile, would you would that be the neighborhood you would choose to live in in if you're gonna live in New York,

no central park because you'll never have construction in front of you.

Yeah, Park

anything below anything below 60s, East West stuff?

Why would you want one of those? You know? Yeah. You mean basically on 59th street then you mean on 15?

Below 70 sec. Yeah, I guess. Yeah.

So weird basically along with Central Park South, but we're talking Rebecca. Oh, yeah, we have Rebecca the boondoggle are also on the air forgot to cut. Where are you calling?

I'm calling in from my home. Dave. Where do I live? I'm just curious if you're

somewhere in Brooklyn, but I've never been to your house. I have no idea where it is true.

I so I'm basically right near the Brooklyn Museum. So

the Brooklyn the one that's right next to the Botanical Gardens.

Yes. Yes.

That's a great museum. Can I just say that like when they open again? If you have not been to the Brooklyn, what's it actually called? Does anyone know? Brooklyn Art Museum? What's it called? The Brooklyn Museum? Brooklyn Museum? Yeah, fantastic Museum. Like I was like, Well, I live in Manhattan. I've got all the museums. I got all the good stuff. Broken museum worth a visit.

Also, the guards are amazing. Okay,

listen, I like the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. It is I have Natasha that is where Anastasia perpetrated the the Santa Claus atrocity. So I have a love and for that reason, I still economics now. Like all I'm picturing is Anastasia like bent over double laughing her behind off. Well, Santa is bathed in his own puke dancing.

And Jack went and hid behind the bar. Like that was very cowardly. It

wasn't just me it was me too.

We also bent over to double laughing. Probably. And that was all serious. That was also the day when we when we pumped heritage radio. That was the best. Yes, yes. So for those who didn't tell us on last week's show, but the Stasi and I were like they the heritage kept on calling and pestering us about whether when we were going to show up and make our cocktails, we were doing a frozen drink machine at the time. We were making frozen Corsairs which is a preserved lemon drink. And Mr. Sia sends it we were talking about it wasn't that she was doing this on her own so I'm not trying to say that she's a bad person. We were both doing it right. But she sends a text to heritage basically saying so like What time tomorrow is it was the day of the event What time tomorrow is loading right. And I'm gonna we're gonna go nonfamily for just one second, right? You're gonna go non-fan Move your children

if they're listening.

So the Stasi goes at, and then they were right now and she goes, sends that text? And that was it.

That's a horrible question for you. Dave. Why do you think that heritage was checking in on you? Like, why do you think they felt the need to see if you were gonna be there? Hey,

micromanagers

Miss dassia in your whole life, in your whole life? How many times when you said you're going to do something, have you not done it? Always? No. I mean, like,

there's nothing you can say now that's backwards.

Yeah. You always do what you're gonna say likewise. Like, if someone's if I say I'm going to do a demo or something like that. Do I do it? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. But you might be late, but you will do it. I think it was more about like, the timing in general, you know, and but I will say, though, that that was an incredible party. And the fact that we got relegated to the end of it because he was spewing red wine on himself was pretty much the highlight of the party for me. And Matt, I know I saw you the next day, right? Because I came back to Santa and you

have to carry it out. I think I had his head and you had the rest of them are the other way.

Sounds sounds fun.

i There were there were there were some horrified children in the Botanic Garden. What is happening?

So we got on this because we're talking about the Botanic Garden. And I was just gonna say I'm more of a New York Botanic Garden Bronx fellow myself, but I do like the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. But going back to what you just said, that wine Santa was puking up wine all over himself, and then we switched him to vodka. Now, yeah, John Dewberry has just written a book called drink what you want, which is one of the

on this. It's an amazing book.

And so is that a valid thing to want to be throwing up red wine over yourself boot and rally and go on to straight vodka are not a valid thing in the in the context of drink what you want. I'm presuming that that is not the meaning of the book. So why don't you tell us a little bit about? Well,

I mean, I guess the meaning of the book is like, if it works for you, then good for you. So if that's the transition you want to make, you know, I'm not here to judge you too much. But yeah, the point of the book was to really kind of democratize or sort of, like break down, what makes drinks good on a few different kind of axes, or, you know, measurement ways of measuring. And then show people that the reason why a lot of drinks succeed or fail, is sort of based on the same principles and whether or not you're doing something, you know, super elaborate, like with, like, let's say, a road of AB or something like that, you know, or you're starting throwing something together with what you have on hand, like, you're kind of still using the basic principles and the skills are kind of the same. So you don't have to worry too much about like doing something necessarily wrong, because you don't have the right setup, it's more about, well, you're using the tools you have, and you're finding drinks that taste good, given what you're able to do at the time. So it's kind of like it's this sort of, like, after being regurgitated through like the high end bar and restaurant world for 10 years I came out on the other side being like, actually, things are really a lot more similar than they are different. And, you know, here's how, you know, here's why the Daiquiri is, you know, the kind of primordial sour and you can riff all these drinks on it, but they all kind of work in the same way, here's how to sort of, like demystify a lot of this stuff. Because I think that like, a lot of people tend to feel like, if they're not an expert at drink making, then they're just, like, completely hopeless, and they shouldn't even try, you know, so it's trying to try to get to the point where people are really just comfortable because kind of like basically being around in their own the comfort of their own environment. And then saying you can build on that if you if you want to get get fancier or more elaborate.

Right. So you start with a you start font. First of all, it's talking about that.

Are we not doing a family show?

Are we are we are he slipped? Come on style? Yes, yes. Oh, I think I didn't know the illustrations for this book. By the way. Her name

is Sarah Tennant. Jones. She's the artist based in the UK. And I feel really lucky that my publisher found her because I think she like weirdly nailed my personality based on like, not a whole time. Like she started working on the illustrations, like before the manuscript was finished. So it was kind of like this parallel process. And like, I don't think we even spoke on the phone, you know, we like sent out emails back and forth, and like shot lists, and sort of like, basic ideas. And I think she mind my Instagram pretty nicely as well. And then just like this, the whole kind of, sort of sketchy, but sharp kind of personality of the book. It was really just captured really, really expertly. And I knew I didn't want photos, because I did have a cocktail photoshoots that I have, like a pretty, like pretty good PTSD from how long it takes and how expensive they are and how it's really only to me, it's a lot about the glassware than the drink itself. So I'd rather just have more fun with it and kind of have a more presentational depiction of drinks to show like, Okay, well you could do this, but it doesn't look exactly like this. It's not wrong. You could you're still going to have a good time if it's if it works for you. So I was really adamant about illustrations. And originally I wanted to do kind of like a comic book thing, but that was like way too elaborate. So we've kind of like settled on this, and I couldn't be happier.

So for those of you that don't know that I've never had to do it, like shooting endless amounts of cocktails for a book is completely crushing. It's like the actual worse. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so I know. You know, our mutual friend, partner, Don Lee had to do a bunch of that, because he worked out with Jim Meehan, who wrote the foreword for this book on one of on one of those things. It's just like making everything look different or interesting. In the context of a book where you're doing a bazillion cocktails. It's just like, What are we gonna do with this one? You don't I mean, it's just like, like it like, it's the opposite of like, coming up with like, an interesting new cocktail recipe or a twist on a cocktail where you can feel interested in what you're doing, like being forced to make something look VIP. Especially for someone like me anyway. Where like, I don't do garnish.

Sam, I was like, money to all these drinks are so simple. Like you're just getting washed. It's basically just pictures of glassware.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's a nightmare.

So but like I didn't actually, I should have known this I guess. But like, I didn't know that. You're kind of into the kind of 50s 60s vibe. It's interesting because the illustrations and John, you commented on how much you liked the illustrations, right? Yeah. Yeah. Very, like 50s 60s like specific Americana vibe. But then obviously, the cocktails could be part of that. But then, you know the illustration of you on page 132. And God, I hope you own that outfit, right where you're like some sort of like party vampire, or a lot of shoes. Do you own that outfit? Because I wouldn't be in that normal 5060s book and I want to see you in that outfit at all times. Like, which aspects of that outfit? Do you own? Do you own the Lucite cane?

Oh, I wish man the camera be great. No, I only what do I have? That's Lucite nothing shopping list.

The funny thing

is a lot of that stuff was just was was with Sarah, like, I we didn't give her a ton of guidance on the the feeling, you know, depictions of me, you know, like feeling. I think that's feeling fancy. And there's desperate and you know, festive and all this stuff. And it really it was just like, you know, this is the basic idea. We want a picture of me doing something that represents the the mood of each chapter, you know, and I think we probably at least I didn't give her a ton of like, direct like explicit guidance, like, oh, I want you to check me and like, these, these clothes are like, you know, this, you know, pit position or anything, it was just, you know, just really, I feel like it just came down to one, two, this the chemistry between the two of us in terms of just like she understood what I was doing without having to be given a lot of like really explicit instructions. I mean, I'm sure there was a lot between her and the art director in the book, but it just felt very, it just felt very natural like and if you look at her past work, it's all has this really nice. Like you said, that kind of mod 50s sort of feeling to it, but it's sort of sort of timeless, but also calls to like it feels very specific, but it doesn't feel like dated or like kind of purity.

So you So you're telling me you don't own. The Fred MacMurray my three sons shoes on page 102. And you don't own that easy chair. I want you to own that easy chair. Because it's a feeling classic sites in the classic cocktail section. There's a picture of John the very in white white bow tie. If a by the way, for those of you that know. White bowtie Yeah, demure JDB you check out what I'm saying. That is a very demure Yeah, you're JBB in like, I mean, I wouldn't have that. I mean, it wouldn't really fit. You know, my wife being a kind of more modern architect that chair wouldn't fit in with her aesthetic, but I would sit in that chair, I want you to have that chair. And those shoes, you know. Anyway, wait, one last thing I have to ask about the picture is does that mean? So John writes about glassware. And he includes a section on coffee mugs, just so that he can say that he wishes that you would throw away your mismatched coffee mugs, and coffee mugs, or not throw them away but have but then he has to mismatch mugs? Oh no. Those are the tiki glass sections. Because I thought of that octopus has a mug and I want that octopus glass real bad. Yeah, and octopus glass?

No, I don't. The thing with the tiki mugs is that I find like the kind of like Cucamonga like tribal imagery to be a bit racist. So I was like telling her I'm like, these are Tiki mugs. But please don't use any tribal stuff. Like try to use like other imagery like, I couldn't use Star Wars, obviously. But I do have Star Wars Tiki mugs. I just tried to find a bunch of Tiki mugs that didn't have this sort of like tribal mask or Easter Island or any of that kind of like stuff that I think is a little kind of dated for a lot for a lot of reasons. But you know, I think that the coffee mug bit was sort of like, I don't know if you if you had experienced this as writing but like a lot of times if you just sort of write and you don't really realize what it is you want to write until you're like done writing it. And I just sort of started writing about coffee mugs, and then it's kind of blacked out and as a sign like, who has matching coffee mugs like what kind of like deranged energy do you need to like not, you know, like, everyone just sort of accumulates them. And it's like, oh, I have like one mug from like a newspaper from like 1990 and then like these sort of accumulate these these random one offs. But like no one else does that for any other kind of glassware. So I just thought that was a really interesting phenomenon and basically just an excuse to write a stupid joke in the book.

So do you have a set of matching World's Best Bartender mugs? That would be a man Yeah, I do. Yeah. Now before we get into too much like one of your most famous drinks which I think is still serving PDT if you ask if so you have a tiki mug illustration here of a shark and I'm looking at this mug and it would be physically impossible to drink out of it so I'm assuming that is just there as a teaser for your drink the shark you want to talk about destroying? Yeah,

the shark is I think it's actually even though PDT is like basically just doing to go they actually have it. You know to go over trends. So you can still get it even though, you know, their menus down to like four drinks. So I feel very validated in that. And I came up with that like, a really long time ago back when, I don't know, probably like 2012. And I think everyone was very serious about cocktails. And the idea of even like having blue curacao, like, in the premises of a bar was like, kind of heretical. And I think that we actually had a bottle of blue curacao. Like, by accident, like it wasn't like an authorized purchase. So I was just kind of looking for ways to like do something stupid and I kind of started with a with the shark is like butter infused rum and like cream Frangelico and like blue Karissa. So it's this kind of it's like abomination of a drink. That doesn't make sense with any of that kind of fancy, sort of like ornate and the kind of precious drinks that you find at a lot of cocktail bars. And it was sort of a one off, like, not one off, but it was sort of like a like a, like a, like a flame war with Jimmy. And because I was kind of like, well, how far can I push this? Like, how far can I make this drink as ridiculous as possible? And it just kind of like spiraled out of control from there. And then we ended up with the blue drink with cream on the menu. That's been there for probably eight years now.

Yeah, well, whenever I go, like someone I'm with invariably, because I have a well known hatred for blue curse out not mainly stemming from the fact that I think you should just add blue food coloring to the drink, if you want to use blue, right? That's, that's my mean, it's

the same thing. Well,

but you would never choose, you would never choose that spirit.

Right to make to make blue. Right,

you would choose like you would choose like whatever your actual favorite orange liqueur is, and then just put a few drops of blue in it, right. And I always my gripe is actually to say like, my gripe has always been that. Like, it's not the blueness. That bothers me. Or the fact that it's fake. I just prefer more honesty in the fakeness. Now where you're coming from, it's an entirely different plays, it's a, it's an fu on being precious about it, which I get, and they're in like, to be honest, in the bar world. And you you can do it, you can do all of the Spirit nerdery. Right. So I feel I guess at a certain point, you feel that you've earned the right to do whatever you want, you don't have to be full spirit nerd, you can be a little more fun, little more like playful. But like, I am actually I don't have this spirit nerdery that a lot of people have like this producer, that producer, I haven't spent my time, you know, traveling the world going to different distilleries to visit all the different places like that, because that's just not my wheelhouse to have. And I've never had to, because I've never really worked behind the stick on the regular. I've never had to have those kinds of discussions with patrons. Because if you're not a spirit nerd, and a high end cocktail bar, patrons will rip you rip your new one, they'll still try to try to sniff out your your lack of knowledge in any one little category. Am I right about this?

Sometimes? Yeah, there's a particular kind of person who who gets pleasure from doing that. Right,

right. So like, kind of, I had this place where I didn't like, I didn't need to be able to kind of cut loose and say, I'm going to make something delicious with this ingredient that you hate. For me, it's more like, Well, I would never choose that spirit other than for the blue. And so like, I would rather just use blue. So that's where I'm coming from on it. You know what I mean? So it's not.

But that's it. I think that the senior cursor, which this isn't sponsored, or anything like that, but like the brand that we used originally, I think it's probably still the same, I think actually tastes really good. Like, it's actually a very good, like Curacao, like, look here. And then it just happens to be blue.

Well, that's good. No, senior carousel, go try it out. The other thing is also this I've noticed, and things that taste the best on their own, are not necessarily the things that taste best in a melange, you know what I'm saying? So, and this has happened to his time. And again, when you're doing recipe testing, this goes for cooking and for drinks, by the way, is that you'll test a recipe with whatever you have on hand. And then you'll be like, well, now I'm gonna go buy the good stuff thinking that that is apparently going to make your product better. Not necessarily the case.

Yes, things can definitely be less than the sum of their parts.

Yeah, yeah. And things that taste bad on their own can make things taste good in the in the levels and concentrations that you're using them. I definitely learned that doing, you know, all of my distillation work back in the day. Stars I've never asked you what's your opinion on blue drinks?

Um, I like the one Nick Bennett serves.

Yeah, What's that one called as soon as he so Nick Bennett was the head bartender at Booker and DAX where there was like a strict no blue rule. Right, although now we have, well now when we reopen in the real life like, well, you know, we have a couple of, but we just had food coloring food coloring to it. But what's the name of Nick's drink over there? porch light, the blue one. I can't remember the name of it. I remember. It's something that I feel like it's something

right now. Yeah, it's it's so good.

Like I said, it's like, for me, I don't use it for my own reasons. And I, you know, I don't know if you remember, John, you were in the audience. But we when we saw the cocktail Kingdom put on the Japanese bartender series. And, and, you know, you're for those of you that don't know, you spent how long living in Japan, like a year or something like this?

Oh, no, not that long. I mean, I spent about the, the maximum that you could spend on a tourist visa there, which is 90 days. You speak. But yeah, I mean, I studied Japanese history in college. So I had to take a lot of the language course for for the major. So so Yeah. Were you Were you part

of that? Like, I want to say like 2012 Or was that I think that's around when it was right. 2012 like, Japanese cocktail wave that was hitting the hitting the US are now

yeah, you know, I did that there. I think that's the course I think maybe we were both in I think Lynette was in it. It was like a whole like Japanese bartending course taught by this like Romanian guy. I don't know whose iPhone

No, no, I didn't go to that. But that was that. Yeah, I remember you're talking to Stanislaus. Yeah, he's he did it. He did. It tells you the cocktail, a Japanese. Okay. Ancient history. I know. But I'll give you a little bit. So everyone in the cocktail world was trying to figure out like what their kind of mystic mystic connection to the drink was going to be such that their combination of three ingredients served in a glass was going to be somehow magically and mystically better than your mixture of three ingredients put into a glass and serve is going to be Would you say it's an accurate?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of sort of, like, storytelling and baking involved in like the craft cocktail revival, if you will, of the last decade. It's finally

it's okay. Yeah. Because like, you know, a good myth, like, literally can make someone enjoy the drink more. Absolutely. Yeah. Right. And so anything you do, whether it's a story myth, like the truth and false, you know, the falsity of it isn't really the important thing. It's the enjoyment that the guest has. So I'm okay with it. I'm okay with stories. But there was a story around kind of the this. And it's not really the fault of the bartenders that they were highlighting, right that, for instance, the hard shake are these very specific Japanese styles, which were built around a very specific set, kind of cultural, like, I don't know, a cultural system in Japan for how those bars came to be the way they are, how the apprentice system works in Japan, you know, how everything works over there has generated this stuff that to an American or European is, in some ways, like very attractive, right? Very, you know, like, extremely, what's the word I'm, I can't come to the word I'm looking for, but like, compelling, right. And so it kind of hit the world by storm. And there was a group of Americans and Europeans who were like, have tapped into the mysticism of the cocktail. And they were doing this kind of work. And so, you know, you're an interesting case, because you're not like that, right? But you were also like, literally tuned in, tuned in i You could speak and you'd been over there and done this stuff, to kind of what they were talking about. So what do you think about how that kind of shook down? Yeah,

I mean, I think that there's like a, it's a little bit problematic in terms of just like a, like an American person, like, goes to Japan for a week, and then tries to teach people the hardship, I think that's a case of kind of any body of knowledge, like a lot of people get an exposure to it, and they think they know a lot about it, and then they go and like kind of tried to claim it as their own. And that just sort of makes you look foolish, and can be harmful in many contexts. So for me, it's like I knew enough to know that this was way more than I was willing to get myself involved in. And in order to claim any kind of expertise or sort of any kind of like authority over this, it would be a lot more work than I was willing to put in. Just knowing what I know about about Japanese culture, you know, my limited awareness like I knew it's not something you could take like a seminar or weekly seminar and all sudden be able to be teaching other people how to do it or do even claim it you know how to do it. So for me, I was just like, that's enough for me like I like I this is cool to watch. Like, it's interesting to hear about. I don't believe a lot of this stuff. I feel like a lot of this stuff is like gets like sort of telephone game data of like the real have authentic sources and then people start repeating it. And then it becomes this weird, like bastardized lore about like ice chips and air bubbles and you know, all these sort of silly things that that can get really kind of more about the bartender than the person who's who's drinking it, which goes back to like, the kind of storytelling thing where it's like, yes, if you want to be like, tell a compelling story with something you're serving as a bartender, but also if it's just about you showing off and that's like, really the opposite of hospitality. So I just knew that it was just, I was never gonna get there. So I just didn't even bother. But I appreciate it. And I think it's, I think it's cool, and I love it. But I'm not going to tell you tell people how to how to do a hard trick. And I can never get those papers and shakers open anyway. So that was also a big big disqualifier on a practical standpoint,

when they were doing their demos here, right? So, like, suppresion that are the weird ones that like mesh in a way that doesn't seem like it's going to be physically possible for them to go look it up. It's a thing. And the cobblers also like, you know, any Americans going to want to be able to do two, two and a half drinks per run, because that's just the way we operate. You know what I mean? So like those cobbler shakers and the giant cobbler shakers. Have you ever had one that doesn't leak? No. Yeah. So the first one I ever saw Plymouth gin. Back when Simon Ford was running Plymouth chin made these giant shakers. I don't even know how much they hold. But like, you know, like, oh, I

use those at some bar. Yeah, I could, I made like, probably 10 drinks at once in one of those things.

And they are impressive. They leak like a mother, you know what I mean? There's just they leak. Anyway. Anyhow, alright. So now an interesting thing here that it's kind of like a, the book we're talking about. Now, again, drink, what you want, is you're trying to kind of make people feel like a little bit less nervous about doing things. And I think there's something that you touch on that, I think would be very useful for a lot of our listeners, a lot of the kinds of questions that we get on the people who kind of call in or that I talked to kind of off air. You know, like, it seems that there's people who are like very well versed in technique, or in, in spirits lore, or in spirits or food lore, but then when they have to go do something outside of what would be their normal comfort zone, they get very nervous. And so this idea of going to like a relative's house or an in laws house, and having to make something from whatever they have can be kind of nerve wracking, right? Because you don't want to insult them by saying, I can't work with your filth, you know what I mean? But on the other hand, you want to do something that is good. So this is something you address, you want to talk about it?

Well, yeah, I mean, I think that you have to sort of, I mean, I think that there's like a element of like, knowing your own limitations too. When you when you do things and with like, I think you're referring to like my in laws flowchart, which sort of like is a nice way of like, looking at how I think in terms of like, backup plans, and like, catastrophic anxiety fantasies, but like, you know, if you're, if you're in a place where you think you can pull something off, like a drink, even if you're like rummaging through someone's house, or if you're like at the beach, or if you're in these places, where you just don't have everything at your fingertips and you want to do something with what you have rather than planning and going shopping and all that it's clutter about managing expectations, and you're not going to make you know, like a perfect Ramos didn't visit or something super elaborate with, you know, whatever you have on hand. But if you sort of set yourself up to be okay with like, surprising yourself and sort of like, being cool with like, being having things rough around the edges or, or even just be having it be a total failure. I mean, there's like, so many times, I've thought I've made an amazing drink and taste. And you're just like, well, you know, you're not really risking a whole lot. So the idea that you're going to like, like, you're probably not going to create anything, it's going to explode. You're not going to kill anybody probably. So like you just like try it out. And here are some principles that you can apply across many different kinds of, of scenarios like balance, like dilution, like temperature, like if you can kind of achieve these these goals in terms of like getting your drink cold enough for it with enough water or air creating it. In the case of certain drinks. Like you can kind of use your ingenuity and use like your knowledge of like the endpoint, rather than getting too hung up on like, oh, I don't have a shaker or I don't have the right bar spoon. Or like should I have like gin instead of vodka like you can sort of what you can sort of see through the kind of immediate limitations and kind of get to this endpoint. And it's a little bit more kind of liberating. And it just makes it more fun, I

think. Do you think it's I think it's hard maybe though sometimes for people to give themselves As permission to be liberated, right? So like, for instance, like for us, like, if you go somewhere, and you're like, oh, big cocktail person made the cocktail. Oh, you know, you're like, geez, you know what I mean? It's

like a verbatim quote from people.

Yeah, I mean, it happens. And then so like, if you know, if in and this is going to happen to a lot of people, I think, who you know, are listening is when they go to somebody's house, right? They are going to be the person. Oh, fruity drink person, blah, blah. And then you're like, and then if then you feel if you don't give something that knocks their socks off? You're a dick. Yeah, you're Yeah. Right. And so what I think like, what I think, you know, it's hard to give yourself permission to eff up. But I think it's kind of necessary for your own sanity, and also to do a good job with what you have on hand.

Yeah, and I think it also has to do with like, the way that the craft of bartending has been sort of perceived over the years. And, you know, if you heard someone were to read a cookbook, and they came over to your house, you wouldn't be like, ooh, like, make me a baked Alaska, and then look at them funny, when they didn't do it, you know, you understand that there's like, a lot of preparation and expertise that goes into it. But I think people don't have a lot of same background in terms of cocktails. So they're like, Oh, well, you know, you're just a bartender, you just, like, throw something together, like, whatever, that's it, and it looks easy, or you don't understand kind of the expertise or complexity that goes into it. And so you think it's just this thing that you can just kind of do wherever, which is true, to a certain extent, the same way you can, like, make a sandwich in a lot of places that aren't a professional kitchen. But I think it sort of has to do with like this kind of catch up that the public is playing with, like, actually, the skill and expertise and, and the kind of like, lots of hard work that goes into making, like really excellent cocktails look very easy when you go into like a cocktail bar, and some bartender does, you know, does two seconds throws together something that's that probably took, like, you know, who knows, like a week of preparation in the back and downstairs, bar racks, etc. But you just don't see that. So I think people have this kind of warped view about, like, what it takes to make a drink. And I think I had that too, like I talked about in the book where I thought I knew everything. And so I would just go to a friend's house and be like, Girl, I'm gonna make you something. And I'm like, like, I don't even shake her. I don't even have like, single syrup. Yeah, you'd still you'd have to, like kind of catch up with your own. Like, what you don't know about what you know. So I think that we're kind of in that still. Where it's either it seems like, really, they're really inaccessible, or like really simple and easy. And there's no, there isn't a lot of like, middle ground. And like New Orleans.