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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This episode is made possible thanks to listeners like you want to support independent food radio, go to heritage radio network.org/donate today

hello and welcome to Good News coming to you live on the network every Tuesday from man or no. perversely Julian was joined as usual with Anastasia hammer Lopez, how're you doing? We got Matt back in the booth.

I feel feel great.

Right. You are now a married man. Indeed. Yeah. How'd that go? How the wedding go?

It was man. That was great.

Yeah. How was the food?

The food was good. Lobster was very delicious. Many many pictures of lobster on the internet from that wedding. Yeah, highlight of the wedding. We pitted all of our tables of guests against each other in a cake decorating competition instead of having an actual cake. Okay, and it was the most fun.

Was anyone good at it at all? First of all, this was Rhode Island right? Indeed. Now, this I forget fancy Rhode Island. Are you like some sort of like Rockefeller? Like, you know, breakers Rhode Island or is this like, you know, kind of more mellow people?

It was? Except it was at the town owned Rotunda on the beach. So it was no it wasn't like that at

all. Rotunda is kind of a funny word. So it was anyone a good cake decorator? Or were they all just like complete nightmare.

I was very proud of the cakes. They were they were things of beauty. Somebody said we have it on video that it was like the greatest episode of nail that they'd ever seen.

Cool. Nice. Well, let me ask you this. Was this your idea? Or is this the thing that all the kids are doing nowadays? I believe this bizarre idea. Okay, so here's what needs to happen. Like are you a public or a private Instagram? Neither really, you don't have Instagram?

I haven't I think

you know, so there's no record so you like in other words if you're trying to promulgate this new wedding idea which are

we did not have asked oh my

god hey, by the way guys, dude runs like social media for radio station. No, oh,

oh. Do not do that. Okay. Job I'm messing with your wife goal is to never ever ever have that be part of my job for anything

nice. Well, point being that like this is something that our listeners in fact we know someone last week called in is about to get get married. Maybe this is something that other people might want to emulate gets down to phone. Fun. They found a phone who sprayed highly highly colored icing all over their fancy party dress.

I don't I don't know that that happened actually. But liar. I didn't see it if it did.

I well. If anyone knows how to find photos of of Matthew's wedding, let us know

Oh, I have I have some photos of the case I can show you. But you know, photos aren't great for the radio. You can

put it up on our website.

I'll put I'll put a picture too on the website. People can marvel.

So today on the radio program, we have special guests, because I've been told that it's better to have special guests and not. So it's now you know, I think of him most as existing conditions. Bananagrams champion, and I believe we mentioned on the air last week, he was so good at Bananagrams on, you know, on our birthday, six hours of Bananagrams play six min Stasio only played six hours of Bananagrams with him because she could not beat him. She would have played maybe 45 minutes today, she'd been in like even one she would have been like, embedded in this guy and quit six hours later had not beaten him. His real job, I guess is that the Nomad? Robert Sachs I hate it.

I'm very well.

I'm alright, so calling all of your Nomad related questions or Bananagrams related questions, or I don't know, like, I don't know how much you want to share about your personal self. But like you also have an interesting like, like a typical nomad. backstory. I don't know how much you want to share that on the air. But welcome calling all questions relating to this to 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. So why don't we How much do you want to say about yourself?

I mean, what did you bring? So I was asked to either promote something or bring something I really had nothing too interesting to promote, I think so I decided to promote something I could bring, which is my favorite cocktail. I feel like people like to hate on Okay, which is cosmopolitan,

right? And we're drinking them out of beer glasses. No, no, no. Ah,

brought you my preferred glassware. Now,

for the Cosmopolitan. You know, for those of you that don't know, apparently there was some sort of fight but the absence people the good folks that Absolut Vodka, have given the kind of the imprimatur of inventor to Toby Cikini, right, who's a bartender and professorial looking fellow here in New York. But the spec that the average person has done makes nowadays is fundamentally unrelated to his original spec in that his original spec is highly acidic,

acidic, highly acidic, a very big drink.

So are you so so question being me, I'm sure, you know, like, kind of like his spec and kind of what people make now you want to give people the spec, so they can see the difference between the two specs.

So the spec I've seen that was his original spec was, I believe it was, was a one and a half or two of base spirit, and then 111 of citrus, cranberry juice, or cranberry cocktail, and then trailside Concho around those orange colors, and that type bracket.

And the base beer is supposed to be absolute Citron in the original event. So and by the way, like for those of you that don't know, like, bar, bar, bar people, bar people are like, super in shorthand, they're like, come on. 211 Shut up. Why? You know what I mean? Like, why? You know what I mean? Like, jerk, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, we get in this habit, but like

the story of the, where it comes from, it's like, huge, like, there's such a fight, like some people say, comes from the 30s. Like, there's this mixing, mixing caught mixing cocktails, or mixing drinks in elite bars. But it was like more of a daisy variation. That was Raspberry Lemon. Triple Sec, and Gordon's in

No, yeah, that sounds exactly like a Cosmo. This is why bartenders are so freakin dumb. Like swear to God, everyone gets so bad about actually. Someone wants to mix the beverage with similar things, only all the spirits will change. And the ratios were different. Like if I drank no one was drinking these things in the frickin 70s. Okay, all of a sudden, the 1980s rolled around and people started drinking them and it came from a specific place. And that's it. I mean, that's it. It's like, well, it's like, oh, not your fault, Robert,

but it's like, it's just part of the joy of the cosmos. Being like, either they love cosmos and they want to argue about which speck is correct. Or they want to be like, Oh, that's a terrible pink train from Sex in the City. I don't want that drink. That's that girl drink. But that's also the thing. One of the reasons I love cars Smells is because it's a perfectly decent delicious vodka sour whether you want to call it a daisy or kamikaze riff or whatever like, or more just a drink or just a drink, and people want to days gender drinks all the time, the easy riff

questions gendering drinks. Well, I love a pink drink.

Pink drinks are often delicious.

I mean, pretty much love pink

sparkling champion.

If I see something pink across the bottle, I want that. I want that. Well, like I was, at last night, I ordered a blue drink even though I hate blue drinks, just so I could have John dewberries famous drink the shark?

Well, you know, the rule was blue drinks. If that's blue, what are two?

If it's blue order to do you know, we have a question. Later on. I'll get to it. But I I want to ask someone famous person actually. Hey, you know, the blue curse out is? It's kind of a bad product. Why don't you just use a good orange liqueur and blue food coloring? And he was not happy with me. We'll get to later. But like, you don't I mean, what is like? I don't know. I don't know. Like, I'm not against fake coloring. It's just do you think the average person knows just straight up fake? Like, does the average person know that it is only fmdc Blue? Number? I think too. By the way. I think everyone in this program who's listened to us knows that my favorite Anastasia moment of all time, all time. My favorite Anastasia moment ever, ever. top five, top five. We ordered a can of fmdc blue two powder. Which PS if you don't do this, but if you somehow managed to slip your buddy a gel cap of fmdc blue two. We were using it for we're testing penetrate color penetration tests for brides is what we had before. It's intensely concentrated. So if you if you give someone this capsule which you will not do, they'll like poop poop green like straight green and they won't know why they'll be like oh like yeah, I only know people who've naturally done it by eating like more than two boxes of blueberry blueberry cereal. Blueberry blueberry blueberry cereal in one city. So anyways, I'm pretty sure I've told this before I love it so much. So I go to lunch I leave the bar the can on the on the thing I'd realized how concentrated it was like literally, like like milligrams color things. It's like very intense. And and so I was like yo this dassia Don't touch this bottle. I'm going to lunch now. And I came back why would you

do that? Why don't you just set the bottle somewhere

on a shelf but she knew it came so so this this does I come back from lunch I'm like Amis dasya Did you touch the bottle? She's like nah, nah, I'm like the why is your entire face blue wait it all over face because she's somehow touched her face and white blue all over her face she looked like violet freaking Beauregard my favorite because she was first she was pulling the shaggy I didn't do it and then like when she blew all over her face

but I feel like if you get anything in powdered form it's always like the most volatile form when you like cuz you get like anything powder I feel like people get powdered forms of stuff from like they're the people who go to like chemists not like Walgreens

a yeah yeah, no, it's so intense but like whenever I opened something like that I like we remember like after that you were like I'm getting gloves like as well as we open it we'd be careful not to sneeze or breathe too hard we open it and we like triple bag and we were done we're not happy with that stuff.

I think he threw it out

I think I'd throw it out and stuff he was always like can we put it in a gel cap and give it to Clifford was one of our was one of our interns can we can we can we put it in a gel cap and give it to narrow I don't believe in in messing with people's insides without letting them know. I believe you should let people know if you're messing stance Yeah, all right. Make the drink. So well. No no no mouth noises crinkles no we're gonna get sober again.

I use this golden shaker. Yeah, yeah.

So which so that's Toby's spec, which by the way people is a high acid beverage and lotions. So how much how much of the of the orange record in which orange record he originally spec was he Quach? Or is he the straight triple sets? I

think it was triple sec.

Okay. So triple sec is going to be higher, most triple sec are going to be higher in sugar than Quatro. Right. So if you try to make Toby's recipe With quatro, it will be to jarringly acidic. Right maybe you burn your throat with a higher sugar level triple sec, maybe. But still you're talking about like in a city drink so so what spec are you using? You're using a Cikini spec.

Not amusing, more of like modern adaptations I've seen which is lighter on citrus and then kind of citrus almost as a modifier and then a split of the orange liqueur and cranberry,

so lighter on the citrus meaning less acid, less acid. So if Toby knew that we were doing this now, you know if he cared he would, he would jump in here and throttle all of us.

I mean, he gets very really angry, does it? Yeah, I don't know. I've never talked to him. Just you should talk to him about it. Go ahead and

Roberts using he's got a cold and shake. It's ours Robert.

Anastasiia has which we will not eat. On the near the microphone. crackerjack birthday cake popcorn. I'm gonna say this about Cracker Jack. I love Cracker Jack comes with it needs more. Of course it comes with a prize. It's freaking Cracker Jack. But it better come with the price. If it doesn't come with the price. I'm going to jump through this lesson. The problem with Cracker Jack is it's not as good as you want it to be. It just doesn't have enough of a coating on it. Isn't Aren't you the person who starts who does not like kettle corn I should probably get what do I know that doesn't like his freakin tax doesn't DAX doesn't like kettle corn. Oh? What the hell's wrong with you? Have I told you guys a story about how my family now gets angry at my impatience. Last week when it was super hot. They only do that now? Well, I'm just kind of realized last week when it was super hot. My DAX we were ordering Chinese food because that's what that's what they want. Oh, doing dude. Never possible to do a good pour that way. Robbers trying to do the just barely crack not getting good wash line there. Robert, professional Professor now. So like, Dax orders? Soup. But it's 100 degrees outside. And I started I was like, So what do you want to show? And then like, all of a sudden now taxes like Dad, you're so aggro. And now all you need. Now all he says to me is the word soup makes fun of me. It's like soap. Like yeah, and by the way, he hated the soup, too. EggDrop. Now, some sort of like some sort of noodle soup. It's like that's not the right winner from little soup. Cheers. If you if you eat the popcorn into the mic, Robert, you will be murdered by anyone that finds you. I'll tell them where to find you. And people don't

tell them where to find me. You told them where they can harass me at my job. Yeah, what days is where I'm the what days? Are you there? A little bit. You don't have set schedule.

So I can't tell you the exact that to come again and again, in order to murder you for the cracker jack. All right. Now, before we get into serious cooking questions, this is delicious. Yeah, it's really good. Where do you where do your Bananagrams skills come from?

I grew up in a very competitive family that really use games is a way of just passive aggressively braiding each other and making each other feel like they are intellectually inferior. And word games are very good at that because you can really like up your intellectual prowess by being like, look at my vast knowledge of the English language. But when I learned it wasn't called Bananagrams I feel like this is a very like, make it accessible money. Maybe look like oh, there's banana bag. They'll buy that when I played it as a kid. It was a game called Syzygy says synergy which is a word. It is a word and a bad movie. Interesting that I didn't know but it came in this sense the movie synergy is a real word. This giant kind of ornate velvet bag with these gold robes. And then there are these soft red plastic tiles. They have these very ornate kind of like, tarot card looking images on all the wildcard tiles that are not played it. Book or no

no wildcard dassia hates wildcards as we know from last week know that you know, wildcard Yeah, no two letter words that you don't use in normal daily speech.

No spellings of letters. No,

she won't even allow el which is really elevated rail which is What

about a volcanic rock?

No. Do you use that and when you talk about that

normal people use scrabbling

the people that it's aware of.

And it's a good way to store extra vows. You know, I'm saying for when you get when you get continent shafted,

but I feel like the real. So playing law were games like law Scrabble, growing up the game upwards.

Do you guys ever play that as some sort of 3d Scrabble,

it was Scrabble, where you could build on top of tiles to change words. So got a little frustrating. But was Bananagrams I feel like the real skill aside is don't be married to anything you've made like you have to constantly be shifting, moving your board around, like sacrifice half your board. And just like trust that you can make it recipe development. Also being like, very strategic with when you dump which is where you put one tile back that you don't want to use any draw three more. Because the more tiles you have, like the better chance you have of making work, and so

I never I never I don't really even care. I never don't early I'm always just like, I've never done Robert is now lounging. This is your Bananagrams lounge. No, he's eating the popcorn away from the mic. So after you to come back and let us know how it is. I have some questions. I will get to it. Okay, this one's from Anaa right because pronouncing A's and ABC from Dublin Ireland. By the way. I have father Bill staying with me now the why the cocktail priest? He's a priest. Priests when they go around, they stay with people. That's how it works. Was he coming back from tales? Yes. Coming back from tales he's going out? No Dad says it can't be sleeping it that's his bed. This is not important on the anyway, he's the cocktail priest. And he's going back to Dublin still stay with people what?

Like they get free stays at people's houses.

What do you charge your friends?

The Stasi doesn't know stuff. Like, if you've met Anastasia for 25 minutes, you can stay at her house for two years. Make sure that you drink all of her wine and ask her to go get groceries for you. Right? And or make sure that you play loud music when she's on the conference call. If you ever have to do business with Anastasia or myself, just realize that you're going to have to hear some sort of stupid crap in the background because neither of us can be bothered to go to a quiet place to have our conference call. And whichever one of us is making the noise the other one will yell at them like incessantly for being such Jacquard.

We're changing that we're changing that. How are we gonna change that? No, you're

gonna turn a person

on Saturday, instead, we're changing that. Oh, okay. So

I will say we were yelling at each other to be fair. And I said what I said in the Stasi is is that no one thinks we're grown adults. Everyone thinks I'm a freaking Joker ever. Not comedians. I was like, Yo, she's like, people like us. It's like people like Joker's but we're not comedians. We're supposed to be in business. And she was like, Yeah, you know, anyway, so like, this is the kind of telephone conversation I have. I'm waiting for my bags anyway. Okay, so

Oh, and when you called me I was on the beach. And nobody could get through no text could be sent and I couldn't like call anybody for some reason. Your call came through and it was like pristine. 3g, like one bar. Wailing was just loud and clear.

I have to say this people the argument started over and listeners will know. Over. I'm just gonna say this straight up. I'm just gonna put this out there. So it's not about cooking. Jesus. Okay, let's is all right. Miss dassia wants to make this product called the wine Santa. Now, the wine Santa for those of you I don't know. They've never heard this show before. Yeah, as Robert says that nightmare machine is a is a large poorly made animatronic Santa. That can also be a zombie

for Halloween. Okay, well, what?

You have to buy a different animatronic figure. It's not like fudgy the freaking whale where it's like either Santa or Fudgie. The whale or a zombie. You know, or whatever it is what it is. Anyway. You have to go buy wine zombie and wine Santa otherwise zombie makes a lot more sense. Yeah, anyways, because that why wouldn't they puke out wine. They don't need it. They need brains. Right? I mean, Santa just had too much but he's typically eating milk. You would think that Santa would be puking up milk punch anyway. Look like Santa. But point being what wine Santa is is a poorly made animatronic Santa who is holding a ate. A Punchbowl also poorly fabricated with a pump coming out of his mouth such they give away the IP. Everyone has seen it, you've already released it. There's no IP released it legally it's done anyway. So then you have the trademark. So like, then a tube is coming out of the mouth. And he's vomiting. liquids into this bowl could be non alcoholic she wants to eliminate for kids love puking lemonade, Santa. And for good measure. Typically, when people tried to dispense it, they drip it all up in his beard and so his beard is covered with whatever sort of disgusting product has been going through. And also typically he is has an unfortunate, shall we say center of gravity, such that he will tip forward, like spill all of his drink and then continue puking onto the ground thankfully, face down so we know he won't choke on his own vomit while continuing to dance his animatronic dance on the ground. If Steven hoppy from a penalty was there, maybe sans will get punched in the chest. His head may fly off. I don't know, may happen has happened anyway. So this isn't stasis business idea. And Stasi believes that everyone on Earth wants one of these things, and it's going to be the next Billy Bass. For those of you that don't remember, Billy Bass is the fish the dead fish on the wall, who flaps his head and tail back and forth and sings I forget. We believe that things have been really bad things.

To the river. Yeah, throw

me in the Yeah. Take Me

to the River. Yeah, everyone bought one of those because they're there were 12 bucks. So what's our target price for this associate? 50 dogs?

I didn't do it. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't finish it tell angry. Family Show

record setting family show.

So that is not perfect customer to pretend that I was gonna say something nice all along. That is not feasible. not feasible. Like you're looking at at least $120 problem. Okay. Right to sell to people. So the question is, is that she thinks this is the big money idea. I was like, well, in all the years that you've done it, which is like to be fair for years, so if you get it granted, she already has, oh, grand sponsor this, isn't it? But like, we've made a grand total of $0

I put all my money into it.

Oh my God, that's not the case. That's true.

I put a lot of money into it.

How much money $3,000 That's a lie.

What $3,000 All the Santos the trademark the slepping it around

flipping around that number of no i. So we've lost we've lost $3,000 has been lost

invest my money. It's it has nothing to do with your money. And

then let's say my money I'm saying in general $3,000 has gone down the poop chute. And no money has come in. And the admin Stasi believes that the big money is in wind Santas. So here's what I agreed to. First of all, she's like, I'm gonna call the guys in China. Hi. Like, dealing with Booker. Like we'd like a two year old. So anyway, so she calls up the company in China that we deal with. And I like don't call them because we're new with them. And we want them to think that we're serious people. Because they work on a contingency basis. In other words, they only make money when we get products shipped from China. Right? So I was like, I don't want them to think that they're investing their time poorly. So don't go with some sort of crazy idea that

a bunch of videos of wine Tanja?

Yes. And this precipitated the argument, but this is because the Stasi somehow thought that that was okay. Because what I said to her was like, Look, you know, cuz she hates crowdfunding. So I was like, Look, I don't think there's an actual market of people who will pay $129 Let's say for a an animatronic vomiting Santa. Right.

That can also be a zombie in a football

player. It can't also be that because that's a separate I don't know. No,

Dave, you it comes with three outfits with an animatronic thing. Oh, it's

100. Now it's $160. Okay.

Would you buy one, Robert? Yeah, no, he wouldn't. Well,

I thought Robert was going through his wallet, right.

Anyway, point being that I was like, this is the kind of thing people like to say they're gonna buy but will not buy. So what I said was, we need to make about five that for an item like that, in order to make it you need to make about 5000 of them, right? Because think about it this way. I said do the numbers for the guys in in China, our company in China to work with us? If they're going to make I'm just giving you numbers in case you guys want to build something if you have an agent, a good agent, they're going to take roughly 15% of what's called FOB freight on board. So whatever you're paying the factory in China to port let's say in Shenzhen, which is where animatronics are made. If you you We're gonna pay them 15% of whatever that number is not the retail number. So let's say you're gonna make 5000 of them, that's all they get 5000 times, whatever your price in China is times 0.15 That's what they're making. So they have to do a calculation in their head is worth it. You know what I mean? So they're checking to see if it's worth it, then they can't know because no one knows what the market is. So I said, What I said is that if you you hate Kickstarters but if if the if the boondoggle or who for some reason is also on board with the wine Santa boondockers Rebecca pocket XR PR person for our mighty mighty spins, all in series, all PR

calls on the boondoggle are now themed around board for the wine Santa.

Robert, this is why you win a Bananagrams This is why you're a winner. I'm a winner. I feel it. We were talking about Beck before, right? Yes, because I'm the loser. Anyway. So anyway, the point is, is I was like if you can kickstart this sucker and get 5000 orders such that I know that 5000 people want this if you can somehow create the media poop storm and have this be the next electric cooler. Remember the electric cooler that sold all that all that $5 million and electric coolers. Like if you can pre sell 5000 Wind Sanders, I will gladly go into the wind Santa business. So she immediately called up. Our folks in China was like, Yo, we need

to know how much it costs.

You can't know how much it costs until you make a product. You're gonna make the

prototype. I need a wind zombie by October.

Winning by October why by October 30. Oh, personally.

We have an active chat discussion going on. I'm sure we gave it away in here. Sure. The original question from Michael was can you pressurize an ISI whip or with a tank of nitrogen instead of using all those tiny cartridges nitrogen or nitrous? Well, and to sorry, is what he said. But like a chemical formula and to was all he said that's nitrogen. Thank you. Yes, you can. I think Dave talked about him before using co2 without being an adapter. And then Elvin said I've definitely heard of adapters for soda streams and drink mates before but a cursory search doesn't reveal anything similar for ISR.

Did you say crispy search cursory Oh, I know for a fact someone used to make it that was unconscionably expensive. If you know anyone with machine shops skills, it's fair. Oh, my God.

I hope you don't crunch in the mic.

I hope you don't have any sort of vermin problems in your studio. Oh,

oh, popcorn. Great.

It was the popcorn turnover.

And you know what the good news is? mice don't like popcorn. Oh, wait. Oh, oh, wait, they love popcorn.

Don't like word games. love popcorn. smelled the wrong thing

is like, stars. He's like, hey, I want to be nice to the vermin.

Don't worry, I got you in the stars. Yeah,

yeah. So anyone with basic machine shop skills can do it. I like whatever I'm not getting getting into. The problem you have to worry about is you really want to make sure that that part is well built the part that connects onto the pressure adapters. Now the good news is, is that you're using a regulator. So it's never going to be as high of a pressure as it would be with a cartridge. But literally, that's the part that killed that lady, that blogger, that's the part that blew up I believe shot off and hit her in the figure, whether it's chest or face and killed or so just want to be careful. But anyone with basic machine shop skills can do it. There used to be a company that built it. When they they charged a lot, I don't remember the name of it, they might be out of business, but you can you can find it. I actually made my own tops for the rippers out of a very high grade food food grade urethane from a company called hepco. So the way to do that is to just make the best way to do that is to make a mold with silicone out of the original, then disassemble it, you know, make a plastic positive, then machine that plastic positive, then recast it with all of the adapters that you need. That's what I did, but it is kind of a pain in the butt. So maybe it's not worth it for you to do that. What's the fob on the fob afraid on board zero because I had to pay for all. By the way, speaking of Booker index, making things existing conditions. In the next two weeks, we will be announcing our Booker indexes. It's not the next project that we started working on in China, but it's going to be our next thing in the jig. Our next potentially patent pending thing of a jig right Anastasia next two weeks, and I accidentally texted someone who didn't know about it and the Stasio threatened to murder them not even wait for them to go to sleep threatened to murder if they talk to the person who's currently in Thailand. And he said, Who am I going to tell the monkey that's sitting in my windows? Like, don't you tell that monkey? Do you call it a thieving, thieving effing monkey? As everyone knows those those window monkeys are thieves. Everybody knows this. I've never even been there and I know that they're thieves anyway. Do we ever get to this question? No. All right, Anna called in. Thanks for the episodes I'm listening in reverse order. And I'm currently back to 127 from 2013 She's what are we on now? Matt?

376.

Second, my question I've been looking into bottling low alcohol drinks and a foul and having to be shelf stable. For this I plan on using a corny keg and a counter pressure bottle filler to minimize foaming and carbonation loss. From my research the alcohol would need to be the 18% range or so to be guaranteed a preservative. I don't think it needs to be quite that high if it's going to be carbonated but yeah. Which is too high for the alcoholic soda vibe. I'm looking for five to 8% ABV, what would be the best way of guaranteeing that the bottles won't spoil or start fermenting? I was considering sodium benzoate but it is ineffective against some yeasts and unfortunately reacts with ascorbic acid which is vitamin C people creating carcinogenic benzene. First of all, you got to sell it if you want it you say delicious benzene, you don't say carcinogenic benzene is a delicious benzene and then people aren't worried about it. FYI, it is true that ascorbic acid, sodium benzoate has a couple of problems. One it tastes bad to like weight and so like if you get if you get sauerkraut that's preserved with sodium benzoate. Like, I don't like it. You don't I mean it tastes bad. The other problem is is that with in conjunction with ascorbic acid, vitamin C, which is used in a lot of it's present in a lot of citruses and I use it as an antioxidant all the time. It's my favorite antioxidant. I prefer it infinitely over all sulfites because not everyone tastes sulfites. Not only are many people allergic to sulfites Are you either they are they believe they are they're allergic to it gives them headaches. But people's taste thresholds for sulfites are wildly different. And so even if you can't taste the level of sulfites that are in your drink, other people can and sometimes free sulfurous volatiles can be created and cause a steak. I'm not going to call you out ciders who have had this happen to but it's happening anyway. So the other problem is it with ascorbic acid, which is my antioxidant choices I just said, you can create benzene, but it's in the presence of heat. So typically, at you know, refrigeration and low shelf temperatures, you're not going to be causing that reaction to happen. But it's something to think about. But the fact that a lot of people don't like it, and that it doesn't taste good. You know, the benzene is just an added kind of reason not to do it. The other thing that's effective against many years things is potassium sorbate. potassium sorbate, I don't think is as problematic as benzoate it's usually not I think 100% effective on its own. But that's something to look into. The other thing you could only you mentioned this pasteurization is sometimes used by hard cider makers to halt fermentation early and bottled cider. Would that be a panacea in this situation? And the answer, the answer is both Yes. And no. So when a Stasi and I were looking to make sodas, God Remember that, what a nightmare. Remember how terrible that was? Remember, like how, like, we didn't want to get up in the morning. And we're like, I gotta talk to a guy oh my god. So like, Megan, it's like, it's just like, it's just get her. Okay. So like, the problem with it is this, you can bottle your product, and then he pasteurize it, right, and you only need temperatures of about 60 degrees Celsius, I'll give you Celsius since you're in Dublin, or like 140 degrees Fahrenheit, Fahrenheit for us here in the US of A. And the problem, though, is is that the pressure in a carbonated drink goes up drastically when it's heated to those temperatures. And so there's a limit on how carbonated something can be. So just as an FYI, like a very, when you talk to a professional bottler, they're going to ask you this, Hey, I mean with whatever accent they happen to have in Dublin, a how many volumes of co2 you want in that in a volume of co2 is two grams of carbon dioxide per liter of beverage, right? And the correct answer for Anastasia and I was like, We want like for four and a half, and they're like, Nah, like the most you're going to be able to get with heat pasteurization in a bottle because they're worried about the bottles rupturing. So first of all, you're gonna have to buy a more fancy, expensive, thicker bottle, but the most I think that they can do is about two and a half, three volumes of carbonation. So that's like, maybe up to law Like six grams per liter of co2 in your beverage before they're going to be worried about stuff exploding in the tunnel pasteurizer. Now, you could just wing it and pray and then throw away the ones that have shattered and sprayed glass into your eye. But, you know, I don't necessarily, I don't necessarily recommend it, but it is a good solution if you like what I like to call West Coast carbonation, ie light carbonation, ie poor combination. But no key I love you was close Come on. But the so you can do it. Another thing is it everything depends on whether you're doing a couple, or you're doing this professionally, if you're going to do just a couple of them instead of professionally, you could try because if you're going to do it on your own, you don't need it to be validated by a third party, none of this stuff is going to kill you. It's just going to taste bad, right? If it starts fermenting, it's just going to get drier, more highly carbonated. And perhaps explode, it will not most likely with the flavors that are in these kinds of things actually spoil in a way that will cause danger, it will just be a lower quality product, just like just like myself. And so you can run some experiments. Now what I've always wanted to do is build a and it's hard, it's expensive to do commercially, because to do commercially, things need to be done quickly. And with high throughput, but a UV pasteurizer. If you buy a bunch of high intensity UV lights and put them in a box, and you're willing to have these things sit there under UV light, you can just test how long it takes to zap all the bad stuff in it without spoiling and without it changing the flavor and I've had UV pasteurized cider before, and it is a lot better than he pasteurized cider. So anyway, good luck with that. Good luck with that. Right? What do you have to say about the birthday? Cracker Jacks? Good.

It's there. Yeah. My usual way of ingesting corn.

What's your usual way? Well, let's let's know where you're from.

I am from the exact bullseye of the continental United States, St. Louis, Missouri. Well, the exact middle is steel filled.

Steel Ville, Missouri. Is this including Alaska and Hawaii Medal,

the continental units.

So you've just said that everyone in Alaska and Hawaii can go hang

Alaska might be counted. On the continent.

We don't count that. You mean I pretty sure you probably mean the lower 48 Probably. Yeah.

All right. Another something like people say there. It's not like hard facts.

Do did you go back there for the Eclipse. I wanted to fly to St. Louis to see the clips. I didn't. The last one we had the last really big one like St. Louis was right at the

good zone. Right on the epicenter.

Yeah. Did you go back? I did not. Is it because you hate fun things?

No, it's because I am a workaholic.

I was it tells the cocktail. And by the way, congratulations to our sister bar Katana kitten for beating us at best new bar in America. Congratulations to masa and the whole team over there. Equitana kitten, but when you go to tell us the cocktail, if you ever go it's the big, you know, festival I don't know trade show. Convention cocktail convention in New Orleans when it's, you know, horribly hot. I went there and like this. This person was like, I wanted to go talk to someone and she was like, Oh, yes, we have a three room experience. And the end of the experience was the one person I just want to say hey, how are ya? And then leave? Right cuz that's all I like to do. Hey, how are you? I'm still alive. Oh, yeah. And we right. So she's like, there's a three room experience. I looked her straight in the face was like I hate experience. And she's like I hate it. She's just go to the third room.

I was like, I just want to say it's still alive and well in and Roberta's what is breastfeeding at the table?

Anastasia? Anastasia, it's been a while. But you're people who are allowed to do that last? What people are allowed to do that. Baby got to eat.

I don't mind when people breastfeed

then why did you bring it up? If you don't mind it? Why'd you bring it up? You don't want to talk about it?

No, you brought it up. It's just when you're eating as an as an eater.

A child is eating.

Yeah. But I would think you'd want to like cover the breastfeeding with you know, like,

how impel is it that also you're crazy ourselves while we eat our heads. Yeah, all of us. Put a towel over your head and your plate

as though we're eating Ortolani Yeah,

if you had told me that this conversation was going to take place but you had like stripped the names away and you're like Guess who said which thing? You? I would have gotten that wrong?

Yeah, well, that's the thing. Like, this is why I've said many times and I've had people tweet me tweet storms on how I'm meaning crazy tweet storms and how I'm too mean and too crazy. Nastasia is the only frat boy I hang out with you For real, you know what I mean? Like for real people? Unbelievable. She's like, besides he's like, is women what are they doing with the breastfeeding table? Am I right get him me a beer. What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you? Baby's got to eat. It's incredibly painful to hold it in when but the Have you been to the bathrooms here? Do you want her to have to go to the bathroom here breast breastfeeding