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,

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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.

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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.

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This is Dave Arnold host of cooking issues on heritage Radio Network. I've been a part of the HR and community for nine years nine years. Each week I record my show in the HRM studio made from two recycled shipping containers because I'm excited to bring you our listeners the most important stories from the world of food but not really food more like you know whatever and assassin I happen to be doing at that moment. I you know, technical issues all of us here at HR and make food radio because we love it. This year Hrn is celebrating its 10th anniversary but we need your support to keep food radio going strong for the next decade during the engineering community today by becoming a member go to heritage radio network.org/donate Right now you can even show some love for my show by selecting cooking issues in the designation drop down menu and if you hate me but loving Anastasia still do that select cooking issues in the designation drop down menu thanks for listening to Hrn

cooking issues coming to you live on the hairdryer network every Tuesday from you know like 12 or something like this to like you know around one from reversal. Roberta's visa reimbursement Brooklyn joined as usual Anastasia hammer Lopez How you doing good got Matt in the booth What's up I feel great by the way my voice I sound like this because I inhaled a whole lot of fiberglass over the weekend which we if we have time we can get into but so much never heard you stumble on the start so much fiberglass and you know plus at a certain point you're too old to be inhaled fiberglass on the regular

like when you're one

come on one year old can take some fiberglass to the lung. But we have in the in the studio our special guests Nick strange way how you doing? I'm very good. Yeah. I haven't seen you in a while the first time I actually got to spend a lot of time. Do you want to just he makes a gin Hepple gin, he makes it gin. And it's a funky jam. But I think to understand like kind of what's not funkiness. But like in other words, production wise funky. And in order to get into it. Maybe it helps to talk a little bit about kind of your history. Make well oh, by the way, calling your questions gin related or otherwise, to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. So you were a bartender before the big Renaissance.

Yeah, I started bartending in 88 Right so a long time ago, and I've survived

right but the injuries The thing is, is that I think one of the things that's interesting is that not only have you survived, but you've managed to stay kind of at the rolling front of what's going on. So you haven't, you haven't dinosaur it out, you know what I mean? You stayed kind of at the, at the leading edge. Now, Booker and DAX and stuff there. I have a company where the trailing edge technology where the stuff that can fall off the airplane and still flies, that's our motto. But you've managed to stay, you know, kind of at the forefront of what's going on. I remember the first time I hung out with you, to any extent, you were doing, like really kind of you were working with, I think Pernod Ricard at the time, I think you're allowed to talk about it. And it was before you came out with kind of your your limited run. The craft focused on Yeah, but you were working. You were just out working with, I think was furniture one of the big flavor houses, I forget which one it was? Was it furniture? Was it the other one was the other one? Yeah. Trevor, they called? Yeah. But so you know, you've kind of been interested in techniques of distilling and flavor creation through your consultancy company, and then later working, making the vodka. So you you come at this, honestly. And like, from a for a long time working on these kinds of problems. And from the heart. That'd be accurate. Yeah, I think

so. I mean, I think it's very easy to get bored in the bar industry. And luckily, this results came along and I wasn't at the forefront of it. I was always there. And it kept me motivated. It kept me interested. Otherwise, I would have stopped and gone and done something else if I get bored, or don't do something else. And it's boredom that drives me to do things.

That's good for me. What is it that drives us? And Stassi? No, no, no, no, no, no. We'll figure it out. If

you lose interest in what we've continued doing. I mean, I'm lucky Touchwood. And mate, long continue. I don't do things I don't like to

write. I mean, there's a thing about cooking in general, right? Bar cooking, where you have to be able occasionally to Zen out and just produce. Yeah. And I mean, otherwise, this is the wrong industry for you.

Yeah. I mean, very, very early on. I enjoyed going for walks. I know that's an odd thing to I mean, I live an unhealthy lifestyle. I drink and I smoke, and I do many things that are unhealthy. But going for a little walk through the city, and picking things and tasting things that you find along that walk. He was he can forage in the city. That was very early on. Something that really intrigued me and gave me the headspace. We don't get in the city. I think it's very easy to caged in.

Tell me about it. Yeah, Miss Darcy. And I think both have a love hate relationship with our with our fine city, which I still love New York. But you know, just sucks. Yeah,

I'm lucky I now live in Denmark. So I commute into the city. I go into London, maybe twice a month. I get my fix of the city and I then get the hell out there.

Speaking of forage, you know, the existing conditions. I don't know if they haven't today at our bar. We currently have a New York City forage. I tried. It's really good. Thanks. Yeah, linen linens in Oh, cool. And so, you know, if you're walking down the street of a city, and you're like, what's that smell and it's pleasant. There's a good chance in temperate regions. I mean, we're not like a honeysuckle kind of an area or like wild rose bushes or whatnot. Linden flowers. Amazing. Smell right linens are amazing. Yeah, so we nitro model the Linden into a light because it's a light flavor into clematis. Because it's light. And simple. That's it. Like Linden. Simple lemon and simple is good. Yeah, simple is always good. I know. All right. So you want to describe your describer? You we actually do have a caller on the line. You want to hit that first. Alright, let's see what they let's see. Caller Is this a, a gin or a cooking or just a random rant related question?

It is a cooking related question.

All right, what do you got for me?

On a podcast a while ago, you mentioned getting into a tiff with some well known chefs about the use of tongues. Is it more than an aesthetic issue or I wanted to understand the pros and cons, but

so it was my brother in law while they do frame Dave Chang and a number of other people on the anti Tom side. And I think what it is, is that generation IE, they're all my age or younger, you know, my age, are you around my age, that generation. You know, I think that they just saw the tongs as a sign of disrespect it that someone would go grab, let's say the example they always say, well, you're gonna get a big, get a nice piece of fish, and you're gonna grab it with the tongs and flip it destroy. They're just like, No, that's not what tongs are for doesn't mean tongs have don't have a place in the kitchen. So I think, you know, they saw a bunch of younger cooks that they deemed sloppy, who were using the tongs in ways that damaged food right now, they're not talking about like at home on your grill, you know, moving stuff around with tongs like that, but you know, they're talking in their kitchens when so Someone's like flipping a piece of fish, they wanted to see a fish spatula, maybe if you needed extra support a spoon or something over it, gently flip it over. And they didn't want to see kind of, you know, you know, roughed up roughhousing with the tongs. And that was their main gripe, my only issue with tongs is, is that if you should ever make the mistake of going into a deep fryer with tongs once and then lifting your hand up, and having the hot oil run down the inside channel of the tongs, down your wrist, you'll never make that mistake again. So tongs can have their dangerous aspects to for sure. But I mean, I mean, come on, Tom. So am I right? I don't know. I'm very I'm pro tongs. I'm also pro, you know, telling people in your kitchen flip fish the way you want. You know what I mean? Don't rip things about with tongs. But whatever. Alright, so you have a spritz bottle. First of all, you have your gin, we'll have the gin then you have three bottles of water of not water of water clear, I'm assuming distillate Yep. And a spritz bottle. So what's going on here?

Well, when we started making the gin, I think there's a too much respect for tradition in the distilling business, and most technology that has been used as 19th century technology. And like you as an earlier adopter of relative apps and distilling under pressure. And we decided we're going to always use a road map. At some point, we weren't going to throw away the baby with the bathwater. So we've got a couple of potstill, we run distillate through that, which has a certain character, then we run a road map. And then one of my partners is a guy called Cabri. Hill, who's actually the guy who introduced relative apps to me and Tony and variously throughout the world. And he had always been banging on about this technology that I still don't totally understand, called supercritical gas extraction. Yeah, good stuff. So we combine all three bits of technology. And what we find is it creates a full of flavor, and we get flavors you can't get via traditional distillation, traditional distillation is limited, but essential.

So with the supercritical, you're doing like supercritical co2, then then putting that base into what.

So we do Juniper through our supercritical gas extract, which we then hauled into ethanol, and then mixing at the end. So we basically make a London dry gin on the pasta with 11 botanicals, and it's fairly classic and style, then we run six botanicals separately, through the vacuum still blend those in. And then we blend the supercritical gas extract him as well.

So without giving away any trade secrets, no trade secrets. Well, like so like, of, of I know, you're probably a 700 cl guy, but for 750 person like myself, what percentage of that is potstill product, what percentage of that is

it'll be approximately 70% potstill coming off it. And then the other bits go in, there's probably 15% is coming off the, the vacuum stills, and then the rest is co2, the co2 is very, very small.

You can it's super strong.

It's just insane. I mean, it's ridiculous stuff. And this is our that is this is the co2 extract. So if we put a kilo of juniper into our co2 Extract, we'll pull off and I'll have to talk in milliliters rather than answers, we'll probably get 25 milliliters or pure oil. I don't really know what it's exactly. It's coming off there. But and that will go into about a liter and then that'll go across six or so 600 bottles or so. It's super pokey.

Yeah. And that's it. So how diluted is this stuff,

this is diluted down so that I could get in to the US having the rubber gloves on in immigration. It was that's diluted down about half and half 68 ABV. And it's still super bulky. I mean, the first again, I don't really understand the technology. I mean, I learn things. I'm an autodidactic. So I will learn things in the stupid way. So when we first tested the machines, I was hesitant and disbelieving of it. And we went into a laboratory in Newcastle. And they turned on this machine, which is a very unimpressive looking piece of technology. It looked like an old Amstrad computer case. And some buttons made things a bit of noise. And when the lab technicians went out a little drip started to come off this little needle and I put it on my finger and then stuck it in my mouth. Idiot. But it's the way I learned. You know, it's not how I encourage people to learn things by doing it like that. But I couldn't taste anything apart from Juniper for about a week. It was so intense for flavor.

I have made the same error with straight flavor compounds and it's it can be

Yeah, it's not the way to do it. But you do understand the effect of it if you do it that way. Yeah, I did

that once with methyl anthranilate which is the fake without fake Concord grape aroma, and I got it all in my mouth is straight chemical in my mouth and It messed me up. Yeah, for like a

week. And yeah, it takes a long time to get I mean, you know, I think we did some gas chromatography or on our different parts of distillation. So we ran juniper and our potstill, we ran it in the vacuum still. And we ran it through the co2 extract. And if we ran our potstill efficiently, we could extract about 60% of the flavor compounds in and we were changing compounds, because obviously we're cooking. When we went in the vacuum, still, we can get to 70%. And with less change, because again, the woman to co2, we can get 90% efficiency,

do the part people use supercritical co2.

They use it when you guess that's when when, when I was looking to buy my technology, I get kept getting led to California and websites. Yeah. And they're using it to extract THC. Yeah,

I mean, that's what's interesting about it. So to me is that, you know, for years back when I was at the French culinary, which, you know, I haven't been actively in a long time, you know, we were always looking for, there was two things we were always looking to do extract flavors, separate flavors, that's basically nine out of 10 or, you know, extract, you know, solids liquid. That was always the game mix, you know, with a lot of the or create textures. That was the other game, you know, what I mean that we're playing with these kinds of new techniques, and I'd always wanted to have supercritical co2 but the price was just out of like out like no one was doing it on a pilot level. And even the pilot machines were built for labs that were going to do it bigger so they weren't inexpensive and I'm really not expensive but really, even within shooting distance, you know, any reasonable and DIY and with the pressures involved in Siemens such a smart idea because you know, pressures are high very high super high and and so you know, once again, I mean, thanks to the drug industry, potheads because I think the more potheads want to do this on a smaller scale, the more chefs and bartenders are going to be able to use this technology I mean, like you can get a rig down now for like 10 grand right or something like this and

I think I was I was this a fairly cheap one else was 50. But don't they make an

even smaller pothead one for they will

do. I think, I think we're getting with all that technology, the more that people use it, I mean, rotor bats were prohibitively expensive when I started using them,

they're still they could be, they could be cheaper. I've always wanted to build one. Yeah, it's just the markets not that high. I already have enough P I have enough trouble. The Stasi right or wrong, we have enough trouble getting people to use a center for users with a training. Imagine the training that goes with a roadmap to get the flavors you want out of it to really control the roadmap. The training is just

there's there's a cool place in London now called crucible and whether you've been to crucible in London's set up by a guy called Stu bail, who used to work for me and Tony see in the past. And he's basically gone out and bought a road map, a centrifuge, and bartenders can rent them by the hour now now like and he'll give a training on it. So when you go in there, you join as a club. And then you have to go through a training thing. And then you can go use it whenever you like,

I haven't seen him in years. I haven't seen him back since back when he was at 69 Colebrook rallies doing good as crazy as ever because he still had like he always has that like characteristic like little

gray but going through his eyebrows. Yeah, he's still got that.

Wild, how can you lose that? Like, let's say let's say your eyebrow came in all of a sudden black one day you're like, well, that's not meaning. That one little bit article, so we're gonna take this

Yeah, we should do well, what I brought it in, I brought in the potstill which is basically London dry gin, to see where we start, and then you can see how it evolves.

And then what is this one water to

this is a 43 Everyone's gonna get 43 And that's what

you that's what your bottle proof is.

That's what the bottle proof is. We it took us two years to come up with the recipe. We it took us two years to get the funding. So while we were getting the funding, we were coming up with recipes. This is fairly standard. I think when we started I would have probably made a slightly murkier more forage feral gin. And then as time went by, I started noticing that every now the USP on Agenda Jason the stick an extra botanical in and actually USP,

yeah, for those of you that don't know that unique selling proposition.

And as time went by, I started to realize actually, the gyms I really liked, were the ones that have stood the test of time, the Beefeaters the tank, race, diplomas, etc. They've been around for 100 years. And we're fairly classic. And they were about Juniper, right?

And also like, the more the closer, you hit one of those things, the more versatile it's going to be for someone that because the thing is if you're if your gym is whey, very different, right? It's going to work in a couple cocktails, you get people to make a signature cocktail with it. But I mean,

I think what tends to happen again, when you look at those genes is when you mix with them, one of the botanical skews and becomes forward and it's never the Juniper, or very rarely in some of the older classic jeans is but in more of the modern jeans, as soon as you add vermouth or tonic water, whatever simple mix, you're adding to it. It'll be the card When that pops out or whatever esoteric botanical, they've decided to put in, spins out. And actually Juniper is the heart of gin. We have our own Juniper an island. So the Juniper was always an inspiration. So it became much more it became focused back in on the Juniper.

Let's bring it let's take these other things and come back to the junior places. I was saying something before we started about Juniper problems.

Yes, this is this is opportunity to talk about this is green juniper. From our plants. Juniper problems, the Juniper problems are twofold. In the UK, they're not so much in America, but a little bit like for Luxor in the 19th century, there are a couple of things that are wiping out Juniper across the UK, there's a little insect bug, something that's eating it. And there's also a mold type thing that's killing it. We're really lucky, we're in the middle of a national park. We have a military shooting range, one side of us, so nobody goes there. And then the other side is basically big Marlins that are owned privately. So there's no way that people can get this shit into our land now from

from an American perspective, because we've heard this all the time. What the hell is more exactly?

The more thing is probably unique to the UK. There are Oh imagine in Scandinavia a few more. So it's mainly if you imagine what Scotland looks like. Yeah, that is more than generally. It's a lot of Heather. A lot of Bracken wild blueberries built blueberries they called in the UK, so like shrubby? Yes, yes. The shrubs tend to grow to about half a metre, a couple of feet high. Yeah. And it tends to change color constantly goes really bright green in the summer due to the blueberry plugs or the blueberries or really vivid green and almost acid green color. And it's sitting down on peat. So Peters decayed plant matter that's been sat and compressed, acidic soil is an acidic soil in general. The Juniper oddly doesn't particularly like the acidic soil. So it will grow where we have it's growing in stands on water causes where the acidity isn't quite so high. And the junipers we have, I believe, will be five or 600 years old. Whoa, yeah, I mean that most people name their stills, Myrtle or whatever they are. Juniper plants are named. Wow. So we have Miriam, who I think is approximately 500 years old. At the base, she is about three or four feet across.

Now, when I'm used to like American ornamental Juniper, which is not such an ageist or magisterial thing, yeah. Are these are they still because of where they grow? Are they low and spread out? Are they

the weather where we are? It's particularly horrendous. I mean, it's sometimes stunningly beautiful, but it's pretty wild. And it's not massively cold, but it's horrendously windy, so they tend to be growing inside little valleys, and they are hunkered down against the elements. They are twisted and old and they follow the contours of the land. If you go to go to Italy, you'll see Juniper growing and it's beautifully grounded and uprights, like you know, a lot of it looks like the typical Italian rarer out hours are wizard and old fiends and hags of the more that sits low into the hill as by style like that, but they have a unique flavor that the one you just tasted is the green, which nobody has, again, I think one person started using green Jr. But we use the green because the green, the Juniper takes two and a half years to ripen on the bush, it only ripens on the female bushes. There are males and females we have a lot of males who are only active once a year. And for the rest of the year, they don't do very much. And it's the females that you want. Do you even bother naming the male ones? The males have no names. It's only females who have names. Yeah. But because of the age of this Juniper, or these Juniper plants, they are unique. And the green has a there's a certain when you smell the green. It has some sort of like sandal woody aroma. I don't know what they call it in Roman Catholic Church where you swing those. It has that it reminds me of going into a Catholic Church.

Yeah, which technique was this was that's vacuum distillate Catholic. It's got that fresh? Yeah. Like all their note, you know what I mean?

Yeah. And it's there. And I think, you know, when we've seen the GCMS, we've we're capturing about 70% of the flavor compounds

is there those of you that never used a vacuum seal before, it's got two main advantages one you get, you know, As Nick said, a very high capture rate of the flavors involved. Also, you're under vacuum. So there's almost no oxidation of compounds and there's little to no depending on how you're running it. Little to no heat. So it's the I mean, I haven't tasted supercritical, but of the stuff that you can normally accomplish. It's kind of always got the freshness, the high notes, all of that stuff, which is which is very nice. Now I'm interested. So tree to tree, how different is the flavor even like with the same varieties? Is it like a mulberry tree where two trees one is garbage and one's delicious?

Well, no, I mean, they tend to ripen at different rates. So again, we're fairly lucky that because the distillery is in the heart of of where we produce a lot of botanicals, we can taste them during the course. And we had two years to run up to it. So we saw them over the seasons. And so we now harvest at specific times of year where we think the flavor is right. From bush to Bush, I don't think there's a huge amount of difference, or not enough that it will become critical to us.

And when you see green Juniper is never gonna go away,

it will go, it will go black the following year. So we don't harvest our black juniper berries to use in the gin, we harvest them to propagate more Juniper bushes. So we have a propagation program because of the diseases that can things that were obviously paranoid about it. So we now have several 100 plants in propagation. From the blackberries, we let the animals take back and we propagate.

So then there are the other one, the more standard, where are you sourcing those from? Does it matter, do you it does

make a big difference we source so in the potstill. We run Macedonian and Italian Juniper, we chose those two because we like the flavor profile of them. And we also, to be honest, I didn't particularly like the flavor profile of our black gene variants. I think they'll have a place at some point. But they didn't taste as robust. The green, the green was very, very distinct.

Their regular Juniper is great. And cooking is wonderful.

Yeah, it's really, really well, I

think it's under use in cooking.

I mean, where I am, because I'm based in Denmark. So in the Scandinavian regions, you'll find it cropping up constantly. Now, it's one of the prevalent flavors.

Stassi you get it that much here in the US? No, no, no. Do you like it? I like it. Yeah.

So what actually we're talking about the Juniper. So this is the co2 Extract, as we use it. So this has been watered diluted way the hell watered way the hell down in my strangely. I don't know what to describe that as urine colored bottle.

For Americans country to eliminate Yeah.

That's a more polite way of saying it.

Yeah, it's got a kick to it. Yeah.

It's like, it's also got more of kind of a, like a black pepper note. And then the other not black, you know, like a peppery note in the back is that just, it's the same proof. So it's not the alcohol, it's,

it's just the thing is, through distillation, you're not getting sugars and oils. Through co2 extraction, we take the sugars and the oil. So it gives a mouthfeel, which is different, I think, due to the oils and the sugars, and the flavor profile is drastically different to any of our distillation techniques.

Now, let me ask you, speaking of distillation, right, so there is in, okay, I just put it this way, in the industry, in every industry, there are things that get a bad name for a good reason. And then people can't get around why those things got a bad name. And so they can't wrap their head around someone using something for a good reason. So I've always said this, is that if you're doing something to make the product better, then you're doing a good thing, if you're doing it to make it simply to make it cheaper than you're doing a bad thing. Now, there are a lot of people who are against extract based gyms, right, because it's seen as the kind of fake adulterated bathtub variety, where he just buying chemicals and making a gin. Now, someone who doesn't kind of understand what you're doing, could see the use of supercritical extracts as extract based gin making, I would argue that you're just trying to control the flavor even more. And clearly, it's not making it any cheaper,

donate doesn't make it cheaper, it makes it more expensive,

right. But do you have that problem? Do you have to explain that to people adding extracts as opposed to only being a distillate? Do you have these purist? Or are we are we thankfully moved beyond that?

I think we start I mean, I think we're starting to move beyond that. I think the gin category or the way they categorize juniors, London dry being seen as the epitome and the height of good quality gin is a fairly archaic idea.

Yeah, I was just having this argument yesterday. Like, why do you even have to call something London dry? If it's not London dry, then tell me something. I mean, it's like because it's the standard.

It's the standard way of doing everything. And it's using, you know, 19th century technology, in many cases, very crudely. I think, the more we talk about using technology, and the more it's a little bit like the food business now a lot of cutting edge technology in the food business was first used in the cheaper end of the food business for properties of cost. Yeah. Whereas when you put it in the hands of the guys that know more or Bulli or whoever it Heston, it's seen as being creative and genius. You put it in the hands of one of the big fast food chains, and it seems been the evil is who's

well all during the early 2000s. That was the fight that was the fight to show that using technology in the kitchen or in bar, as long as you're used. doing it for the right reason you're doing an honorable thing. And it was a huge fucking, like a lot of the old guard back then were just, they would beat on you. You know what I mean? Like, they would beat on you call you industrial call? Yeah. You know, I mean, like,

everything is industrial. I mean, again, industrial has negative, but if it's industrious, it's not a negative. I mean, I think we have to talk about technology, technology is important. It adds flavors that I cannot get through tradition. And I'm interested in flavors. So if you're interested in flavors, whether you like them or not, it's a different thing. But the creation of flavors and the exposure of flavors through technology, it's got to be a good thing,

right? Especially if, if your goal, which is what I'm getting off, your goal is not to produce something with a bunch of different flavors from what Jen would normally have. Right? Because that's been done by a million people. And you're not out to just try to make you know, I'm gonna remake before I'm gonna read that Beefeater or remake tank. You know what I mean? Like, you're not going to, by the way, Gordon's two people drink Gordon's anymore. Anyway.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. It's the right ABV. Yeah, so cheap and 37 and a half. And

that's, that's Yeah, yeah. What you're trying to do is make something that is gin flavored was a different like with it, and like, like you say, with unique selling proposition and you know, I feel very simpatico with that, because I'm not trying to necessarily make things that are wacky. I just want to do it the way I'm doing it to get the flavor, right. Yeah,

I'm off to flavor. I'm interested in flavor. I mean, the reason I like the Bible is because it deals with flavor. I like the food world as well, but I'm not as good as a chef.

Alright, we're gonna take this call and then we're gonna taste the gin altogether.

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Call Are you on the air? I hear it's urgent.

Hi, it is a bit urgent. Thanks for taking my call. I'm sorry, Najin question which is cooking issue and a wedding issue. So I'm getting married at the end of the month. And we're definitely going to get a bunch of different charcuterie including I'm leaning towards the story on him. I know

you have issues with that. The hammer is great. I don't like the name. Right?

We just wanted something American but with Yeah, that European style that we can fly is really, really, really thin. The issue is that because of the venue, we have storage and transportation issues, so we're gonna have to do it ahead of time for all the charcuterie but I'm particularly worried about the hammer because you know, it's thin and it can dry out. And I just want to make sure what would you say is like the maximum time and the best storage opportunities that we can try and do for that? Yeah, like and we can't put we don't have like a vacuum, like save or anything like that.

Right? So by the way, I had some delete, do you not? Did you get it through? Like okay, full disclosure, Patrick Martin's Heritage Foods is the founder of this radio network. But did you buy it through? Did you buy it through heritage or did you get it directly from Sam Edwards?

I haven't bought it yet. So if you haven't suggested when I was about to pull the trigger on that, like this week, as soon as possible,

not to push the you know, the house brand here but Patrick Patrick Martens and heritage foods, they get a lot of heritage fried meat, that's their deal, right. And a lot of the things that they get are like very nice, very highly marbled. And over the past five, six years, they've been selling raw hams to some of the better producers so your, your new Sims, which is Nancy Mahaffey, who was at the bar the other day, which is a fantastic ham. And also Sam Edwards is Siriano and he has a couple others but then typically those ones a lot of them are sold back to and distributed by Heritage Foods. So if you want an American ham, kind of an American taste, but you really want like a highly marbled like really kind of anxious ham, I have tried a bunch of them and they are delicious. So like to see what they see what they have and also Patrick will guarantee the age on a ham. So you know he likes to take ones that are a year better. So that you know once you get over about a year, they start slicing better, they're not going to be as wet and this is going to be an issue for you. If you take a nine month old ham and slice it it will slice fine him right now. But on storage, it will gum up a lot more than like a ham, it's age for a year. Likewise, a ham that has more fat, as long as you don't get it hot, has more fat but is more aged will tend to hold better once it's sliced than one that is, you know, got more moisture and less fat. That's just life. That's how life works. But now, I also have to say obviously, that like in the world of slice things, you'd rather have someone slice your salmon for you right now and eat it. You'd much rather have that than buy prepackaged sliced, you know, locks or Nova in my in my book, you know, if you've never had someone slice Nover locks for you and then eaten it right away. You have not had the proper smoked salmon. But ham is similar, not quite as bad, but don't despair, your main problem is going to be separating them out. And if you can get like that waxy butcher paper, you've got to get the one cut right Bran wax paper that you buy in the supermarket is not durable enough and the moisture in the ham will wrinkle it and then it'll get nasty get the get nice stuff like a butcher would use and, or like like depose here in New York or Delhi has. And if you layer the slices consistently, you can overlap them a little bit and they should peel apart. But you overlap them and then always have the one layer on paper and not on the other you will be able to separate them and present them nicely on a theme. But that's really the only way to do it. So you get them on the paper. You can then fold the paper like triptych style as long as you're never folding ham on him ever. And then wrapping that excluding the oxygen from it so that the the fat doesn't oxidize. And you should be able to keep it in relatively fine feather for for the big day. Got it? Awesome. Anything else for the wedding? You're not catering yourself? Are you please tell me you're not.

I am not catering. But I set it up like productions that I do in Los Angeles. So I'm kind of used to the vendor thing. I will say that, like you. I also never called my inlaws by name. And my mom was super mad when she they found out a couple years back. So I totally understand that.

Well. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, once you don't do something you've got to dig in. You know, yeah, I get certain things. I'm too old to change, you know, like, anyway, I gotta have a good time. I hope it all works. Well let us know how the ham was. Will do. Thank you very much. All right.

All right. So let's taste this gin. Yeah, so this is the this is the finished product. So this is the six different vacuum distillate some of the repeats. So again, some of the thing is, and I think I like it when I make cocktails as well as I like layering the same flavor in different iterations over the top of all to increase the amplitude of that particular flavor, whether it be black currents or whatever. So if I make a black current drink I'll generally use black current two or three times in a drink. Right I suppose more of that flavor

right lot less if you add a bunch of different things. It's just

good. Just muddling things up. Becomes murky and cloudy. Yeah. Shotgun mixing, I call it and then the main thing is it's very classic jet kind of water and someone

want to see what tastes like when it waters hears it. So by the way, hopefully we're not making any mouth noises. We had a comment question in from last week's show. Can you read that one and stop? Yeah. Oh, my goodness. You should. You should take a gander. While you're pouring this. I'm going to read this. Nick. Oh from Cincinnati writes in. Zooming back for one second. This is not unique. This is Niko from Cincinnati. I've never been to Cincinnati.

Cincinnati. No, but my friend is

oh, your friends a violinist in Cincinnati. You know, all I can think about now that you can put music in Cincinnati in my head and I got Wk ARP going through my head. Now the song is going through my head. Sorry, I won't sing it for you. Because my voice is not up to singing some blues to it there. So hey, Anastasia, I'm looking to buy a sizzle, which is a piece of equipment that Anastasia and I manufacture. But the replacement screens seem absurdly expensive 25 to $30 for some little metal screens. At the moment, this is the only thing keeping me from buying question. What makes Sears all screen so expensive? And too? Are there any plans to do something to bring down the price? Well, Nick, the short answer is, is it is this is going to be unbelievable to you. But literally half the manufacturing price of the entire unit is that one little metal screen. They tend not to break in home use by the way, like very rarely do they burn out and that's one of the reasons they're so expensive. First of all, the rear metal screen is not any normal alloy. It's Incoloy or Inconel and forget 693 is the rear whether it's cinco lawyer and canal it's it. It was a metal that was developed for Arizona based technology to be in the back and have, you know, Turbo jets for the exhaust nozzles prior to the development of ceramics for the same thing, so no one uses high technology, high temperature metals in that application anymore. So there's almost literally no market for this metal in the world anywhere. It's made by a corporation called specialty metal, specialty metal would not make wire for us. So it's the only metal that we were able to find that could withstand the heat. So we had to find someone in China who would do a knockoff alloy of this super metal that's no longer used by anyone and was never used in screen formation, then have them make it into a screen. But we're not done yet. That still was not. That's not even all of the cost. That's like half of that cost. The other part is, is that we found that they were still burning out even with the 693 in it. So we have them electric coated electroplated with palladium, and palladium ain't cheap, and electroplating with palladium ain't cheap. Now, it is possible in the future, we'll be able to bring the price down a little bit because currently, we were not able to sort source and industrial palladium producer. So it's literally someone who coats jewelry with Palladium is what we use. So half the cost of the entire thing for us is that little screen in the back but the good news is we've done a lot of work on that little screen, and odds are unless you're really burning in a lot, it's not going to break. We say it's accurate. And secondly, Matt, they don't Nick does not want us to do pledge drives on this program anymore unless you buy airtime which is a strong idea. I like that. And then the last thing is the next thing the Cook's Illustrated guy Paul friend of the show Paul the next thing Paul eats on Mike can be my buddy he is the A version of but but he says the next thing eats on the aircon on Mike can be my buddy Dave friends fed and pretzels from an MRE for some reason and the sociopath just lean right into the mic and chew disgusting please bad Paul. I had to turn the podcast off that guy ruined my commute