Selects: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Gin

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Hey guys. It's me Josh and for this week's Selective Chosen are December 2019 episode on Jin. I don't take much of a tip anymore, but I still find that I appreciate Jin. And this episode does justice to it. In my opinion.

It has history, distillation, laws, junipers.

“Everything you can imagine to make a well-rounded floral forward stuff you should know episode.”

I hope you enjoy it very much. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know. A production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Brian.

There's Jerry over there. And we are wasted. Weasted on excitement about talking about Jin. Weasted on excitement. Uh-huh.

I like that. That's a great motto. Yeah. And not the worst band name, but not the best. It's not the best at all.

It's not an album title more like. Oh yeah. It's a good album title.

Maybe it's jungle x-rays second album.

Wasted on excitement. Yeah. Or bathtub gin. Weasted on excitement. Bats of Jin's a fish song.

Oh, it is. It's funny house.

“I was walking in the neighborhood yesterday.”

And I saw a car that was clearly like the child home for Thanksgiving. It was like this kind of beat up Jeep from Florida. And it had a fish sticker and a grateful dead sticker and like one other thing. College. And this really nice thing.

And I was like, oh man. I bet I wonder how much weed is hidden in that thing. That's funny. Welcome home son. What's that smell?

Um. Right. Oh, were you being the son? Were we acting? No.

It just. It was that. That silver coffee. It took went down the wrong. Wrong pipe.

Wrong pipe. Man. What is up with those faulty flaps? I don't know, man. Probably fresh gin.

I love gin. And I love breeding about it and researching it. And I might have a martini tonight as a result. I don't think there's any way you could not have a martini after reading about gin for hours and hours and hours.

Yeah, because gin and tonic season is over for me, sadly. Oh, yeah. And I'm into wine season, but wine season and martini season. There's some comorbidity there. Martini season's year round.

And not for me. I mean, I don't drink that many martinis. It's a mood thing. Or if I'm with Hodgman, we'd pound him.

You can't not drink martinis when Hodgman's around.

Yeah. Of course. Yeah. No comment. But correct.

So we're talking gin because gin is great. We love gin. And it turns out gin's got a pretty interesting history to it. I think so too. And we did an episode not too long ago on a short stuff, actually.

“On the difference between bourbon and whiskey, right?”

Has that been out yet even with the way our schedule works? Oh, wait, it's coming out tomorrow. Okay. Tomorrow is in today or tomorrow is in after this is released. Tomorrow is in the people who are listening to this.

The day it comes out tomorrow to them.

Okay. It's like group of humans as far as the dimension of time goes. That's right. So tomorrow, everybody. You'll hear a short stuff about the difference between whiskey and bourbon.

And one of the things that really stands out is there are a lot of laws surrounding whiskey. Especially in the United States. What makes whiskey whiskey? What you can call a specific kind of whiskey? What you can put on the label of some kinds of whiskey?

Lots and lots of laws exist. The law of the country. Don't forget that one. The spirit of America. The native spirit of America.

That's what it was. Okay. But with gin, it's quite the opposite.

“Basically as long as you have a neutral green spirit that is distilled at, I think,”

80 proof or higher. You can add whatever flavor you want to it and then you can call it gin. Okay. Which is not whatever, if you buy that thing, that I just described. Although it's technically legally gin, it's not really gin.

A lot of people call it flavored vodka. But for gin, there are specific steps you want to follow. You want to do it more than anything. There's probably going to be a taste of juniper to it. Yeah.

That is that used to be very much the case. Now, and we've talked a little bit about this on other episodes, just tangentially, I think. Is that there are many artisan gin makers now that are doing all kinds of crazy gyns. And some, many, issuing the juniper altogether. That beautiful little evergreen shrub.

All cones that have that tiny, citrusy, peppery taste that we love so much. Yeah. By the way, I should say, our buddy, Ben Harrison, of the greatest generation in friendly fire. I've seen this online elsewhere, but as far as he knows, he invented it. A smoke to gin and tonic, where he gets a little, like a chef's torch.

Okay. This smokes juniper berries, and then throws the glass on top of it upside down. And let's just smoke up and then turns it over and adds the ice and the rest of the mix in there. I would like to try that. I've had smoked man hatons and smoked whiskey drinks.

Oh, yeah. Wood smoked kind. And did it do the same thing?

Yeah, same process, but I've never ever heard of a smoked gin and tonic.

So hats off to Ben if he didn't invent that. Yeah, it was good. And I also want to, and I know shout it out before, but I get this local tonic now that's delicious. That is the real deal, you know, the chinchona bark. Mm-hmm.

And it's very different than if you're used to traditional, like, swept tonic. Doesn't taste anything like that. No. It's, you cut it with soda water. And it's a very, very lovely taste.

Oh, yeah, it's like good tonic waters, just amazingly good. Yeah, and that's, you know, if you're talking about, like, fever-tree, we'll buzz market. Sure. That is still a little more of a traditional tonic. This stuff is brown and surppy and then you mix it with the soda and it becomes sort of a real version of that stuff.

So it's probably very similar to stuff that we're drinking in India in the 19th century. I think so. So we'll go get all, we'll get to all that. Let's go back to gin. All right.

“So you start off, if you want to make gin, and I have a gin making kit from last Christmas.”

I still haven't used them. This is inspired me to go home today and actually make my own gin. And then pound it. [laughs] I'll bring some in.

We can all take it up. All right. Just a sip. But you start with that base spirit. Ethel alcohol that's 96% ABV.

So you can power a car on? Yeah. And then you read to still gin and that is one of the keys here. A real real gin. You read to still that spirit with whatever botanicals you end up choosing.

Right. But typically the main botanical that's used in the main flavor profile of gin. Aside from alcohol that you can power your car on is that juniper berry.

Traditionally. Correct. And a piney evergreeny. Some people call it like drinking a Christmas tree. What makes gin gin?

Once you've had a sip of gin, you will never mistake it for anything else for the rest of your life.

That's right. And that base spirit can be.

“Also, and you should also wait until you're 21 to have that.”

Sure. That base spirit can be wheat. It can be a rye. It can be corn. It can be barley.

But it can be really anything. There you can make potato. Gen or apple gin. I saw this company in Ireland. There was an article in Vice by Elizabeth Roosh.

Ireland's best gin is made out of milk. Yeah. I saw that too. Birth is gin. They make it.

And this is produced fully in Ireland, which is a great thing. Because it's a byproduct of cheese making that way. Sweet way. Hmm. They.

They. They use that to make gin. It's crazy. Yeah. They ferment the way and then use that.

“They distill that fermented beer basically.”

And then you distill that further in the process of the presence of botanicals. And then you have gin. It's just this multi-step process. But because you're starting out with such a ridiculously high proof alcohol. Like neutral alcohol.

You can use basically an old shoe to make that that neutral green spirit.

It's going to taste virtually the same as neutral green spirit made from or neutral spirit made from barley or from way or from potatoes or grapes. It just is the the alcoholic essence of those things. Yeah. And apparently that fermented way is what makes bay leaves as well. Which I didn't know.

Bay leaves. Yeah. Irish whiskey. Yeah. It's fermented way.

I did not know that either. And this I got to try this stuff though. It's called birth as revenge. Really Irish cream. I'm sorry.

Yeah. Would you say Irish whiskey? Yeah. No. That's the coffee additive.

That's the kind of a Gregor stuff. For grandma. Birth as revenge. It looks delicious. And it is fully made in Ireland.

And birth apparently is a cow. They are a hairdresser. Yeah. She died at age 49 after giving birth to 30 something calves over her life. Yeah.

She was a very prolific milk cow. And many ways. Yeah. But they are not the only game in town making way based in their others as well. But supposedly again, they say that there is something in the way that even once it is

still into its spirit. There is some mouth field to it or some flavor profile. A lot of people argue that there is just not the case. No matter what you make it from, you are going to arrive. Basically the same base neutral spirit.

Okay. Okay. We will find out. Just let me have something I will try. Bombay Sapphire which will learn later on perhaps kickstarted the resurgence of gin.

Yeah. Did you know that? In the United States. No. But it makes it a little bit of sense.

Now that I see the dates and the timelines when it came over. But they very proudly display their 10 different botanicals on the bottle. Juniper, of course, Cubeb berries, Angelica root, almonds, coriander, Cassia bark, Iris root, lemon peel and grains of paradise. Very nice.

And I like a bombay Sapphire martini. That is a good fallback for me. Although I am a plymoth man through and through when it comes to martinis. Yeah. And I like generally like the Hendrix.

And I like Tinker Ray. Good old fashioned Tinker Ray for the tonics. I'll get a Hendrix martini when I'm out and about. But if I'm like making it myself. I used to like the more boring straightforward London dry gins.

Right. This is the traditional ones for the martini. And then I realize like no man, you want to go the exact opposite of that. You want like the most botanical gin you can find for a gin martini. Because I mean, it's basically gin with a little bit of vermuth.

Right. So you want to taste your gin. So I've kind of gravitated toward stuff like the botanist or St. George's Botanivore.

“Those are two really, really like I guess botanicals the best way to put it.”

Gins that are out there that are really, really tasty. Is that the same George that tastes like feet? Yeah. So that is their aged like Raposato gin. Yeah, that didn't love that.

Where they made it like it was like kind of a mezcal or or aged tequila style gin. Where it was gin, but it had like some quality of like really like long aged tequila. I think you weren't prepared for it. I wonder if you'd like it now knowing like what it was going into it. Maybe.

I mean, I'm always hip to try something.

But I love a good high quality London dry gin.

Sure. I'm with you. I just like the more botanical ones these days than I used to. The botanical. The pure botanical ones. The ones that don't have any alcohol at all.

“So I think we should quickly talk about before we take our first break about just how you distill it.”

Because there's a couple of ways. And then we'll take our break.

But the first way is steeping.

And that is, you know, you steep tea. And it's the same thing basically. They're based spirit heating up and it simmers. And then you have those botanicals right in there. And the oils are releasing. And it's just infusing through the whole thing.

Exactly. The other way. And you know, Emily has a still now. I'd love to maybe get in there and try some of this for real. I did not know that. Does she like carry a Tommy gun around and we're florling for coat?

No, she's got a copper still. She's, uh, she goes to Athens Georgia once a week to harvest herbs. And then distills herbs for products. I did know that. Yeah, it's very cool. That is super cool.

It's a lot of fun to tear out there doing that stuff. Yeah, that's neat. And then the other way is vapor infusion. And that is what Bombay Sapphire does. And that is when you have the botanicals and a basket hanging above the boiling spirit and that vapor rises.

And it does it more through like that steam, I guess. Right. So, or you can combine the two, which is what another kind of St. George in Terwar does, where they use the steeping method for most of the botanicals.

“And then they use the vapor method for, I think, like Douglas Fur and Bay Laurel leaves.”

So it's, it's got like kind of the tea of botanicals brewing and then just vaporizing through those other those last two. So cool. It is pretty cool, actually. Alright, now we'll take a break and we'll come back and talk a little bit about the types of gin, which also entails some history right after this.

Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age? What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He's still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wagged Getting change the paddock forever?

That day is just seared into my memory. I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on no grip. A Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under explored pockets of the sport. In each episode a different guest and I will go deeper into the Waggy Miss Haps scandals and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years.

Listen to no grip on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The people with some was up and it's Questlove. So recently I had the incredible opportunity to have a real conversation with actors and producer Jamie Lee Curtis, ahead of the release of our new thriller series, Scar Petta.

I can honestly say I've never done an interview like that before, you know, at one point I set my laptop down.

And we just started chatting as old friends, recent Oscar recipient, so we have some commonality there. I predict that by the way. And you said these words to me, "Dust off your mantle." Yes. And I looked at you and I said, "What?"

And you said, "Dust off your mantle." And then I left and that was it.

“And then when all of that happened, I remember the next morning I think I wanted to like write you and go,”

"How did you know?" According to the Questlove Show or on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, this is Josh from Stuff You Should Know, with a message that could change your life. The stuff you should know, "Think Spring Podcast Playlist" is available now, whether spring has sprung in your neck of the wood yet or not.

The stuff you should know, "Think Spring Playlist" will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the stuff you should know, "Think Spring Playlist" on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we've taken our break, we had our little half sandwiches.

And we're ready to talk about it. I can't believe you still cut the crust off, it's very interesting for a girl.

I just think it's a little, it always has like a crusty taste to it that I'm not fond.

Do you think, yeah, I think if you said, you know, "Do you want the magic ring left on your bread?"

“I think kids would probably have a whole different view, but if you say, "Do you want the crust?"”

I disagree, I think that magic ring would be a gross term now. Look at that magic ring, you old guy, he keeps staring at us. We'll just insert Josh Clark's magic word of choice. Magic ringy. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't even have to use the word magic,

but what would you call crust that sounds better to a kid? I'm saying no matter what you call it, I think it would become synonymous with something gross. I know, but I'm asking you to, yes and-- Fine, let's see, yes and--

It's not my strong suit, I failed out of improv. Yours is more no, but-- All right, no. There's no butt. It's no--

It's just what you're talking about. The rainbow ring. Okay, great. The rainbow circle. I love it.

Yeah, I don't like it. I'll go back and edit this part out. All right, so let's talk about Jen.

“We already talked about the fact that it has to be--”

If you ask me, really distilled with these botanicals to be real Jen. Right. Otherwise, flavored vodka, that name can come up, and that's a dirty word. Yes. But distilled, London dry Jen.

Some of the big cats, beef eater and Gordon's and tank array, are some of those big daddy London dry, like I said, I'm a Plymouth guy. I like Plymouth too. Yeah?

Mm-hmm. But these are not sweet. That's why they're called dry jins. Right, sweet jins are-- I have a long history, and they actually predate Jen for many,

many years. But the London dry Jen is what most people think of when they think of Jen. And London dry Jen is actually subcategory of a larger category, which is distilled Jen.

You got Jen, which is basically flavor vodka,

which you could literally put any flavor into this neutral spirit and call it Jen. Distilled Jen means it went through that process like we described before the break. And London dry is one of those. That's right.

Right? Is that basically what you just said? Yeah. I mean, I was listening and following it, but it just seemed off. Interesting.

Well, I'm glad you cleared that up. I'm sorry, but that's all right. Then we get to Old Tom Jen. And this has an interesting history of its etymology. And I got this from Marc Vierthauer at Tales of the Cocktail.com.

Apparently the name Old Tom comes from these plaques that hung outside of pubs that look like there was like the shape of an old Tom cat head. And get this. And this is amazing. Apparently in London, if you had this sign hanging up in the window,

underneath the cat's paw was a slot and a lead pipe and attached to a funnel. And you could go down the street in England and drop a coin in the slot and get a shot of Jen in your mouth. Yeah, from under the cat's paw.

Amazing. I saw that too. I saw that it originated Chuck with this guy named Captain Dudley Brad Street. And the whole reason he started doing this was because there was a law that said that the informant had to know the name

of the person who was selling the illegal Jen for the cops to have probable cause to rate a place. Oh, interesting. So he hold himself up in this house on this one alley, blue anchor alley and started selling Jen that way anonymously.

And because no one knew who was selling it,

the cops could never rate the place.

Wow. But yeah, it was under the paw of an old, like a statue or sign or something of an old Tom cat. I love it. Old Tom went away.

It was very much sweeter that was when they were using sugar and a lot of botanicals because the base spirit wasn't that great, taste wise. So they loaded it up with sugar and this other stuff. And prohibition basically killed old Tom Jen for a long time.

By the time people started, you know, prohibition was over. They didn't really have a taste forward anymore. And it is it is made to come back in recent years, though. A bit of a comeback.

“You if you are interested in trying, you should start with”

the random old Tom Jen. What about Navy strength, Jen? I love that stuff. Have you ever had that? No, I don't know if I have or not actually.

It will make you blind. Really. Your hangover is noticeably worse the next day for the same amount of booze. It's just what's a brand.

Stronger stuff. I think anchor. I believe anchor makes a Navy strength, Jen. That would make sense. I was positive that's who's I've had.

But it's just like this higher proof. I think like Jen can be as low as like 37.5%.

Okay.

“And there's just a noticeable difference in it.”

And the taste is, you know, it's not terribly much different. It's just the potency of it. But it's actually. It got its name from a pretty great little legend from what I understand. Yeah, that's in the Navy.

They loved them some Jen in the Navy. And they actually got Jen rations. And so sailors would test it out to see if it was, you know, up to snuff or if it was watered down. And they would drizzle it over a little pinch of gunpowder

and then light it. And if it lit, then it was Navy strength. Yeah. I love it. And it's not like a legal classification or anything.

Is it? It's just kind of like a. Well, it says, it says Navy strength Jen is at least 57.1%. So I don't know if there's a law in the EU or if that's just a sort of a standard. But that's that's where the name came from at least.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's potent stuff. What about Jen Ever?

“So that is basically like the predecessor of Jen, right?”

I mean, this Dutch drink that was first drunk to for people to get drunk off of. Yeah, that's made more out of a malt wine. I think 15 to 50% malt wine. Mm-hmm. And so it, you know, it can kind of, it's sort of like the maltiness of a whiskey, but the botanicals of a Jen.

I think I've always heard that old Tom and Geneva are a lot alike.

Oh, really? Yeah. They bear a resemblance. Interesting. But so Geneva is like a pretty good place to start as far as this history of Jen goes.

Because it was like I was saying like a proto Jen, like one of the first. I guess the direct predecessor of Jen is we understand it today. But even further back than that, that essential component of Jen, the Juniper Berry, has been used at least since the 70s. And now the 1970s, I mean, just the straight up 70s. There's a recipe from Pliny the Elder, for 76 or 77 CE that used Juniper berries.

And you just were supposed to boil some white wine with Juniper berries. And then drink it and it was a curative and probably got you pretty drunk. And then I thought about this, this was like two years before he died at the eruption of Vesuvius. Interesting. No, we heard kind of chilling.

Well, we see how to nice couple of years there at the end. He definitely did. The word, Geneva, GE and EVR is actually Dutch for Juniper. And it is, it does come hail from Holland. And apparently in the 13th and 14th centuries,

these, and this was when people were using herbs as medicine. They obviously still do that today. That's what Emily's doing. But apothecaries there were experimenting with all kinds of curative herbs and medical tonics and stuff like that. And Juniper was definitely in that category. But where Geneva took a right turn was, they said,

Wow, let's just get drunk. Like, it's not so much a cure all, but I mean, maybe it could cure some things. But it was a drink that you drank to get drunk.

It was like, yeah, the first spirit out of, I believe out of Europe for that people drank.

I mean, they had beer and wine and everything before. But Geneva was like this, the first hard blicker. I think that people really drank. And like you said, it was a multid wine, right? Yeah, that's the base.

Which sounds like something you buy in a convenient store. Drink out of a paper bag, like, multid wine. But they would add like sugar to it and it had Juniper, which is why a lot of people say this is the direct predecessor of Jin. And it was how the UK was introduced to Jin was Geneva.

“Because I think in the 15th century, maybe something like that?”

16th. This 16th century, Queen Elizabeth, the first sense of her royal soldiers to the Netherlands to fight alongside the Dutch when they were fighting for independence. And the Dutch said, hey, man, take a couple shots of this Geneva. And you'll fight anybody. You won't be scared at all.

And the English like that a lot. And so they brought Geneva back with them, or it tastes for it, at least. And Geneva eventually got shortened to Jin. That's where we got the word Jin from. That's right. And about close to 100 years later,

the end of the Anglo-Dutch War event, you could actually import it legally by the barrel. And they were called strong water shops. It was the early liquor stores and London, we're going to love that. I'm sure there are places in America where they have a gang to that title. Oh, yeah. And they also wear arm garders, probably so.

I'm so glad you taught me that word.

Because I've always just called, you know, there's like,

Our tiny arm bands. And it never had quite the punch. Yeah, arm garders. The first Jin Distillery in Britain in Plymouth, right?

I saw that in 1840 Booth was the first.

Yeah, really. In Distillery. Okay. But in that the Plymouth one was, maybe that was like the 1700s. I'm not sure.

There was a big rush to establishing Jin Distilleries in this period that we're talking about. All right. Well, I don't have a date for the Plymouth one, actually. Let me look it up while you're talking. All right.

Well, let's flash forward then to the Jin craze. Because Jin, depending on who you're asking, was the crack of the 1600s in England. William of Orange Protestant King of the Netherlands went to assume the throne of Great Britain during the glorious revolution.

And they were drinking that Geneva and they loved it as the royalty. But the working class could not afford this stuff. So they started making their own rot-gut like bathtub gin. All right. And apparently bathtub gin is, it is not brew or not brew.

It's not distilled in a bathtub. It can be mixed with botanicals in a bathtub. But from what I saw the main reason it's called bathtub gin is because to water it down and top it off with water, you couldn't fit it in these bottles in a sink.

So you had to do that in a bathtub. Oh, okay.

“But I think they were mixing up botanicals and stuff too.”

But at any rate, this rot-gut gin in the early 1700s, and by the mid 1700s, there was a full on gin problem in the UK. Yeah, it was called the gin craze. Especially if you read the tracks railing against it at the time and newspaper editorials and stories about just the depravity

that was going on because of gin. Like the whole country was just totally off as rocker on gin. And not even like good gin or even Geneva. This bathtub rocket stuff that you were talking about where they would add things like turpentine to give it a piny flavor

because they didn't have juniper berries. They would add sulfuric acid to give it a hot after taste like it was supposed to have just really, really bad stuff. And it was making people crazy. And there were stories about mothers who there's a woman named Judith Defore

who kills her own daughter so that she could sell her clothes to buy more gin or parents like selling their kids and to slavery to buy more gin. You know, people turning into sex workers just to get gin money. And just supposedly it was like you said it was just like the crack epidemic

and the same kind of response to it as well here in the United States. But this is gin back in the early 18th century. Yeah, and for sure there was a gin problem.

“Now historians look back a little bit and they're like, you know what?”

But these articles were written and these op-eds were written by the upper class and Britain.

And they had basically an obsession with the English character

being degraded and dragged through the mud by these gin drunks. So take it with a grain of salt. Their for sure was a gin problem. But they're basically like, is it chicken or an egg thing going on? Right.

Because their like urbanization is going rampant and London at the time and was the gin craze a product of this poverty or the cause of it. And by all accounts of these days it looks like it was sort of a product of it. I saw that they were at least two documented cases of spontaneous human combustion from drinking this gin.

Wow. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. It's a hardcore gin. Geez.

There were eight different gin acts from Parliament over about a 22 year period.

Basically, I mean, they said different things.

But one of the big ones was, hey, you can't put these. You can't put sulfuric acid in this stuff and sell it anymore. Right. And little by little, these incremental laws over these eight acts like made it really expensive to have a license to sell gin.

Really expensive to import neutral spirits. And just basically made it so that unless you owned a large distillery and an established like tavern, you could not legally engage in selling or producing gin. In gen.

Yeah.

“I think that's what they said in the act.”

In a gen. Yes. That's not part of taking gen. Right. So especially if your name is my cocaine.

Oh. You finally did it. I don't know. Did I do it? If I did, it was accidental.

No, you didn't. Okay. So, but over the course of these acts, it left just like these handful of huge distilleries, like booths, plimmits, plimmits, by the way, was the first those in the late 18th century. Oh, nice.

But all the small distilleries went away just by law. And so when this artisanal revolution that we're currently going in, that's going on now, swept over to England, this company called Sipsmiths, when to go start their own.

And they found out that they couldn't buy law. That was 200 years old. So they had to lobby.

And they were the first company in 200 years

to get a license to Bruce or distill small batch. Well, England. Amazing. Because of those gin acts. That's pretty great.

I think so too. All right. Well, let's take another little break here. And we'll talk more about gin right after this. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade?

“Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age?”

What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He's still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wagged Getting change the paddock forever?

That day is just seared into my memory. I'm culturewriter and F1 expert Lily Herman. And these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on no grip. A Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under explored pockets of the sport.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. The people with soap was up. It's Questlove. So recently I had the incredible opportunity to have a real conversation with actors and producer Jamie Lee Curtis ahead of the release

of our new thriller series, Scar Petta.

I can honestly say I've never done an interview like that before

at one point I set my laptop down. And we just started chatting as old friends, recent Oscar recipient. So we have some commonality there. I predict that by the way.

And you said these words to me. Dust off your mantle. Yes. And I looked at you and I said what? And you said dust off your mantle?

Mm-hmm. And then I left and that was it. And then when all of that happened, I remember the next morning I,

“I think I wanted to like write you and go,”

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37th Central.

“And listen to the I-Hart Radio stations across America”

and the Free I-Hart app. [music playing] All right. So Jen is going strong in the 1700s. Some might say it's a problem.

Flash forward to the 1800s. Okay. 1830. And the invention of the continuous still came about. That's pretty big.

If you come over to my house, you see Emily down there. She doesn't have it. She has a traditional copper pot still. Which means that you. You can do one thing at a time, basically.

You boil your mash. And the alcohol. That boil that off. You collect that distilled spirit in the end. But then you got to start all over again.

The continuous still was a very, and the other bad part about that is your ABV is going to be pretty low. All right. If you're doing the single pot. That's your alcohol by volume.

That's right. Because the longer it was say distilled,

the ultimate spirit you captured would be, right?

That's right. Okay. So if you have a continuous still, which was what was invented in 1830, that means you can just keep going,

man.

“You just keep throwing that mash in there.”

And you keep that process going. And you get more and more pure. As you go. And you're going to get that beautiful clear, gray and alcohol around 96% in the end.

And that really, really changed the game. Yeah. Because so like these continuous stills are coffee stills after the man who invented them, it's like the spirit rises

through increasingly higher up stages. And it's reheated and heated. And so it becomes pure and pure. The higher up it goes. And then eventually it gets tapped off.

And then you have that high test alcohol. And because you could get pure alcohol to use as the base spirit for gin, you had less of a funky foul nasty taste that you needed to cover up with stuff like

botanicals or sugar or turpentine, which meant that you could produce gin with a much pure gin that eventually evolved into London dry gin. Yeah.

And London dry gin again with the dry. That means it's not a sugary, apparently, Victorians in the upper class at one point decided

to basically lower their sugar intake.

I don't know if those just a major health kick going on. It sounds like John Harvey Kellogg's work here. Yeah, maybe so. But that's when they started getting rid of the sugar.

“And that's why you get this dry version,”

which became the London dry gin. Yeah. And the rest is history. They started producing some really high-quality gins in England at the time.

Yeah, they did. I think that's when the like booths and bootles and all those guys started. Be feeder. Be feeder.

And that was great. That was fine for the while. Like you said, the navy was getting their rations and then going out to see what they're gin and testing it on gum powder and all that.

But one of the things that you'll look at, especially with the London dry gin, is while there's no sugar, there's like a really interesting combination of those botanicals. And a botanical, we didn't really say,

but I think it's kind of self-evident. It's any kind of like root, plant, seed, leaf, stem, bark, whatever. That's used to add a particular flavor profile to gin, typically junipers like the chief botanical in a gin.

But if you look at like these lists of botanicals that are frequently used in London dry gin, they come from all over the world. And it's no coincidence that England was at the height of its imperial colonial power

at a time when London dry gin developed because it was an imposition to bring all these ingredients from all over the world to the distilleries that had set up shop in London.

“Yeah, I mean, I think even the Bombay Sapphire”

has each country listed behind the botanical and they're all from 10 different places or 11 different places. Yeah, pretty cool. And it's pretty cool.

So the seafaring of the Brits, British Sea Power, have you ever heard of that band? Yeah, they're good. I still love those guys. They were like early 2000s, right?

Yeah, that was a big alley band for me. Oh, okay, I didn't know where they were from. No, no, that when I lived in LA. Oh, I see. They're British.

I always think so they were from like the era

of Montreal and someone still loves you, Boris Yeltson, and all those kind of indie bands at the same time, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Love those guys.

British Sea Power. But that had a lot to do with gin because the Brits and their Navy were very strong and they sailed a lot and traveled all over the world, obviously, because they had certain interests

like conquering your country and making it their own. And getting their hands on your botanicals. That's right. And also getting there until like, let's say, the tropics

and say, I'm like, wow, I've never been here before. What are these things that we can eat and drink? And what is this disease malaria? Mm-hmm.

I don't want to get that. And so they looked at the, you know, the people from there, obviously, to get their clue on, like, they're fine. All right. How can we be like them?

And the natives of South America chewed on that ginchonatry and that bark to combat malaria. And ginchonat is pretty wondrous. That bark has a natural chemical.

And that is the quinine that you hear, you know, if you look at a tonic bottle, it contains quinine. Mm-hmm. And it calms your, you know, it makes you feel better if you have malaria.

But it also disrupts the metabolism of the parasite and kills it. So it's a medicament as well as a, a help you feel better type of thing. Oh, wow.

What? Medicament. I'm going to predicament because my heart's all afloat. Uh, I don't know how to work.

But these doctors were like, hey, yeah, you British soldier.

“You should, they started prescribing this stuff.”

This ginchonat bark and colonists in India and South America. And they were eating a ton of it, 700 tons. Actually, in the 1840s, 700 tons of ginchonat bark a year were being eaten by British soldiers and settlers.

Yep. And so they figured out how to, I guess, distill quinine. Probably using a coffee still. And started putting it into tonic, like making this tonic water.

But basically, I'm sure what you're buying

is just distill quinine from the chinchonat bark. Um, it's got to be, right? I mean, that's fine. I'm going to look at the other stuff in there and maybe I'll follow up with some ingredients.

Okay, do. And bring me some soup, please. Okay. Um, but so with quinine, like you were, you were basically taking a dose of quinine

in a shot of tonic water. And so because everybody was sailing around the world on British ships with gin in one hand and tonic water in the other hand, they eventually put the two together

and came up with the gin and tonic. Throw a lemon or a lime slice in there to combat scurvy. And you have a complete drink. That's amazing.

It is.

“And apparently a lot of these ginchonat tails”

were born out of the nasty taste of the original alcohol.

So they, you know, we were talking about that rot gut gin. What do you do? You're going to mix it with a lot of stuff to try and make it more drinkable. That is not the martini however.

This is a pretty neat story. And the 1870s and 80s is when martinis were born. And this is from a gentleman named Richard Barnett. And this makes so much sense.

It's very cool. He said the martini is an embodiment of American history. At its most diverse. Dutch in English gin makes with French for mouth.

Serve with Mediterranean olives. German Jewish pickled onions or Caribbean lemons. Yep. And that glass, which, by the way, one of my more anoints is in life.

Biggest anoints is when you get a martini these days. It's a weird glass. Yeah. Just get a martini glass. But do you like the big honken 90s

Karen from willing grace style martinis glasses? Yeah. Or like the classic 60s madman martini glass. Well, okay. More compact version.

I like them both. I'll take a, I'll take either one. But just give me that conical glass. Mm-hmm. Don't give me like a tulip glass.

I've not seen a martini in a tulip glass. I have. There are places around town that serve them in these little tulip glasses. Mm-hmm. I think just do it right.

Yeah, do it right. I mean, it's, it's literally called a martini glass. It's the glass meant for it. Yeah. It's just like serving a margarita.

Well, you can serve a margarita in a lot of different things, I guess. Sure. You can just cup your hands and drink a margarita out of there. And people have me cleaning me. That's true.

You can, you can get a margarita ingredient to pour down your throat. You don't even need to use your hands. That's true. It's seen your frogs. The 1920s is when the gin craze kind of was re-kick started again.

Mm-hmm. Because of prohibition. And they even went back to putting like disgusting ingredients in there. Yeah, just there. Yeah, just there.

Not the gin craze, like, oh, everybody likes gin.

“Like the gin craze, like everybody's going bonkers because of the terrible gin they're drinking, right?”

Well, and everyone's drinking gin because it was, uh, it wasn't just straight up ethyl alcohol from a moonshine. They're like, hey, at least let's throw some, uh, quote unquote ingredients in here. Oh, yeah, turpentine again. Yeah.

They used the same stuff that they used in the original gin craze. So if you're a cast in turpentine. I know. And that grows. It's a classic recipe.

Yeah. Gross, dude. Uh, what else was made? The Manhattan, the gin fizz, the gimlet. Yep.

These are all born out of that, uh, sort of 1930s post prohibition cocktail movement. Yeah. We talked a lot about the origin of some of those drinks in that how bars work live episode, yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. But it's funny to think like some of our favorite cocktails were built to combat the tastes of nasty gin. Yeah. Which is why people are like, oh, yeah, don't use the good stuff to mix. Like the whole reason for mixing is to cover up the nasty stuff.

Yeah. Just drink the good stuff straight. Although I cannot imagine just drinking like a neat room temperature gin that does not sound good to me.

Well, let me tell you the story of my first gin experience in Athens and college.

Um, and Dave Rus put this article together for us. And he very suitly points out that if you're a child of the seven years in ADC probably didn't drink like a gin and tonic early on. Like this is something you may have picked up on later. And that was the case for me. It was late college and that was a fellow waiter at Mexicoic Grill that was there for just a brief period named Don.

It doesn't matter.

“And Don and I ended up out on the river late night at O'Connie Springs Park with a half gallon of Seagram's gin.”

Oh my god. Just took it too far and we're drinking it right out of the bottle and waiting out into the river and not being very safe quite frankly. That doesn't sound like that.

But I'll always remember Don for that. He introduced me to gin and he introduced me unsuccessfully to the Dave Matthews band.

It didn't stick out. I don't know why those always stick out to me. But Don was the first guy who's like, man, this band is playing across the street. And he's crazy. He's kind of jazzy and their multiracial. And it's like, you never heard anything like it.

And that was Dave Matthews band. Yeah, he was right about that. He was actually correct about two things. It's jazzy and multiracial. Man, Seagram's right out of the handle.

Oh boy, it was bad. But I remember very distinctly like tasting that tiny gin and thinking like, Oh, this isn't a good thing to drink like this. No, it took me many years to finally come around to gin and be like, Oh, okay.

I'd like to vodka martinis for, that was one of my first drinks ever was vodka martinis. And when you were about 13. Yeah, pretty much in my tree house smoking cigarettes and drinking vodka martinis with a silver before 9th grade. But like, I, so I would drink vodka martinis.

It wasn't like I just couldn't take the taste of like straight up alcohol. But for some reason, I did not like gin. And then I finally gave it a chance. I was like, actually, this is way better than vodka.

And I've never been a vodka guy.

Unless you're talking about that delightful birthday cake flavored vodka. Is that a thing? Yeah. Yeah.

“Hey, we don't judge man if that's what you want to do.”

Oh, sure. Of course. Gin is making a big comeback now, though. Like we said, it may have started in the late 90s when Bombay Sapphire first came to the US.

Yeah. Apparently it was a pretty big hit. Then Hendrix came along in the US in 2003. Yeah. Well, that Hendrix, we're saying as many brands as possible.

And the hopes that they'll send us hints. Yeah. But you're a lot of whiskey. We never get gin. Yeah.

No. No. Everyone's in a while. We've gotten gin, but not ever. No.

Not really. But the gin is on still. Nice. Did you just coin that? I did.

That was really good. Thanks. Gin is shot. Gin is on. And medicint.

Medicint. Oh, even better. That's a real word, though. I didn't make that up. I know.

But you just pull it out of the ether. It's great. Fantastic. I thought you were still going. And I didn't interrupt it.

You're going to pick up again. You think after like 12 years of doing this, we would have had that figured out by now. Oh, I got nothing else. I don't have anything else either except the gin is great. It is great stuff.

If you're of legal age. Yeah. Drink responsibly. Yeah. Don't drive.

Certainly. Nope. Make it really easy on you to not drive these days. Yeah. That's right.

Right. Hailing apps. You have zero excuse these. That's right.

“Well, if you want to know more about gin.”

Well, again, I guess if you're 21, give it a try. See what happens. But like Chuck said, drink responsibly. If you're not 21, you can have to wait. Sorry.

And since I said, you're going to have to wait. Sorry. It's time for listener mail. All right. So listener mail.

This one is, let me see here. Oh, this is a hand-type letter. Look at the sign. It's nice. Not an email.

No. It's a printed email. It's also not written in the cutout magazine letters. That's nice. I think it's written.

So this is from Westwood, southernland. And he's a guy who sent us that beef jerky. Oh, yeah. Thanks, Westwood. Hey, guys.

My name is Westwood, southernland. Currently a college sophomore in environmental engineering at University of Colorado. Boulder. Scobuffs. He says.

Sure. I'm your biggest fan, but I can't compete with my dad who introduced me to your podcast. He's been listening for years and even acts on some of your information. After hearing your podcast about bees.

Uh, the first one, not the beekeeping.

Okay. He became a beekeeper. Wow. He has reaped the rewards for years now in increased production from our fruit trees as well as getting some honey. That's awesome.

Though he has to deal with the bear. He eats in in that picture of the bear. That's the local cop that hassles on all the time. No, it's a bear. After his honey and he named the bear, Jerry.

Great is that. He's great. He also invested money into a stock. I'm sorry, into any stock that worked with CRISPR. Oh, smart guy.

Uh, and after hearing your gene editing podcast and he is very happy with the results. Way to go. That's nice. I didn't. I should have.

Yeah. We didn't even take her on her bike. What's my problem?

I love that stuff. And I was selling enough that I spent lots of hours cutting, marinating, laying meat and bagging jerky. During those long hours, my dad would help.

“I mean, listen to stuff you should know one after the other.”

And made time go by very quickly. Just wanted to say thank you for your wisdom, comedy, insight and making my days of jerky production a bit easier. I've included some samples of my jerky as a thank you. And that is Westwood Sutherland, and you can find his beef jerky at westsidejerky.com.

I believe Westwood comes from a pretty amazing family.

And you know what, let me correct that too. He does come from an amazing family. It is Westside as in Westwood. So W-E-S-T-S-I-D-E jerky.com. The extra S stands for Super.

Small batch, flank steak, beef jerky. Gluten free, and 100% not vegan. That's right.

That's what he says on his card.

Thanks, Westwood. That was pretty cool, and hats off to your dad too for being so cool as well. That's right. We need to do a administrative detail soon, because I came across the list. We've got stuff that was given to us a year ago at like shows in October.

Oh wow. Yeah, so we need to do it soon, okay? Totally.

“Well, if you want to get in touch with us like Westwood did, you can go on to our social links, [email protected].”

And you can also send us an email where you can send us a type written letter, but try an email too. You can send it off to [email protected]. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

The people with us up was up. It's Questlove.

So recently, I had the incredible opportunity to have a real conversation with actress and producer.

Jamie Lee Curtis from routines to recovery, true lies, and a certain Jermaine Jackson music video. Jamie's real and raw, and something I really admire about her. I'm so happy that I'm the head, and charge at 67 that I have the perspective that I have at my age. To really be able to put all of this into context. Listen to the Questlove show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, it's show interesting host of the spirit daughter podcast. Where we talk about astrology, natal charts, and how to step into your most vibrant life. And today, I'm talking with my dear friend, Crystal Williams.

“It can change you in the best way possible.”

Dance with the change, dance with the breakdowns, the embodiment of Pisces intuition with capricorn power moves. Just so I'm like delusionally proud of my chart. Listen to the spirit daughter podcast, starting on February 24th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hey there, this is Josh from stuff you should know, with a message that could change your life.

The stuff you should know, think spring podcast playlist is available now, whether spring is sprung in your neck of the wood yet or not. The stuff you should know, think spring playlist will make you want to get your overalls on, get outside, and get your hands in the dirt. You can get the stuff you should know, think spring playlist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast. Or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeartPodcast.

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