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Good morning, mark. Hey Francis, how are you this morning? I'm doing good, man. I saw the thing that you left on my desk this morning, which was the article, uh, the thing, what was the article On? Uh, on Beer tails. Beer Cocktails, and I thought that was very interesting. The. There seems to be, uh, a growing interest in mixing beer with beverages, uh, or with other alcoholic beverages and making cocktails where beer is a component of cocktail. It's, it's all part of the cocktail craze, I think. And we're gonna obviously talk a little bit more about that with, uh, the mighty Ted Haigh in a little while. Yeah. Uh, Ted Haigh is joining us later on Ted Haigh, also known as Dr. Cocktail, is probably the foremost cocktail historian on the planet. He is a great, funny, fun and interesting guy, and he is got a great new book out. Uh, it's about lost cocktails that, you know, you don't see around very much anymore and how to make them. and we know a lot about cocktails and some of these are like, oh, that, oh, oh, yeah. Look at that, you know, things I'd heard of and never seen recipes for. Mm-hmm. So I think that's it. That's very good. We're gonna have fun talking with him later, but we're probably not gonna talk with him about beer cocktails. Why don't you think we're gonna talk about beer cocktails? Well, you know, actually let's, let's, let's trace this back a little bit. In, in, we don't mix beer with alcoholic beverages except in this country. Rarely, every once in a while. You boiler maker yeah. Or a, uh, what was the, the champagne and Guinness. Black Velvet. Black velvet. Yeah. You know, things like that. We, we do mix occasionally with. Beer. When's the last time you served a black velvet? Never, 14 years ago. For me, I think, I think I poured one once just to see what it tasted like. It was gross. Then I went, ew. And I never did it again. But a actually mixing, mixing, uh, mixing beer with other things, uh, is, is has a history. Mm-hmm. And, and you'll, you'll get an Ireland In England, people will start the day with a Shandy. Mm-hmm. And a shandy is, uh, and if you can try this, it's actually pretty good. Works best with tap beer and with a, with a hoppy kind of a beer, like a harp. Mm-hmm. But, uh, in England you'll take a little lemon soda. Uh, here you can take seven up. It doesn't work quite as well. It's a little corn syrup or seven up. But you put in just a couple ounces on the bottom, maybe two, three ounces of, of soda on the bottom of a pint glass, and then fill it up with, with harp, and that's called the Shandy. Mm-hmm. And it's very good. And actually, in doing research, for the Catherine Lombardi cocktail list, I came across the origins of the Shandy. The Shandy was actually used to be called a Shandy Gas. And, uh, it was 50% ginger ale, which of course back in those days had had ginger in it. Had ginger. That would be, that would've been one of the key ingredients of ginger ale that no longer is an ingredient of ginger ale. Um, and it was, it was half ginger ale and half, harp or, or some sort of a lagger. And then it had like a shot of something in it, like, like, Orange ous sour or something. It was really, yeah. I think it was orange. Ous Soo and I, I tried to make one, I made a, I made a gross face at Francis. I tried, tried to make one. It wasn't very good. But you, you bring up an excellent point. Uh, ginger Ale had ginger in it. Mm-hmm. One of the things that you can do is, is make, if you wanna make great cocktails, is try and avoid using commercial sodas. Mm-hmm. And if, if a cocktail calls for a commercial soda to be put in it. You need to be very careful because an ingredient that really will mess up your cocktail is high fructose corn syrup. Yeah. Remember that when a lot of these cocktails, even even the ones that call for ginger ale or things like that were invented in the thirties or the twenties or earlier even. That's not what soda was, right? Soda didn't have high fructose corn syrup in. Right. Your ginger ale would have ginger, and so it would have some ginger flavor, it would have heat. The, the sweetness would come from sugar. And I can't stress to you having enough, having worked with cocktails in our own bar, uh, a lot over the last six months or so, the addition of a splash of com, of anything that has high fructose corn syrup in it will change. The texture of your drink will make it more cloying. And you know what if, since most of us are used to drinking drinks that are mostly high fructose corn syrup mm-hmm. Uh, driven, that's where the sweetness comes from. You may not notice it, but when you make a drink without it. You will see. So how, how clean it is. And that's, and I guess that's the best word I could describe absolutely is, is that cocktails are clean, they leave your mouth and they leave your mouth tasting refreshed instead of kind of sticky and craving more corn syrup. And there are some high-end ginger beers that are out there that, that you ginger beers and ginger oils. Read the ingredients, turn it over, and if it has high fructose corn syrup on it, you, you don't want it in your cocktail. Mm-hmm. And people make their own ginger beer and their own tinctures and their own bitters. And if you wanna make your own ginger beer, you can better to do it with soda and, you know, boil a bunch of ginger with spices, et cetera, and so forth, and get yourself the flavor that you need, to make it a quality product like that. But Mark, you're the beer guy. I'm, I'm the wine guy. What, what do you think about beer tails? you know, I think they're. They could be interesting. I think if you use the right kind of beer and the right kind ingredients. Uh, this ingredient that was in Jonathan Miles column in the, the New York Times. The gr uh, I think is, has it some interesting components. It's got a, cherry infused Belgian Ale. and it's served with, cherry Haring and Kirsch That could be a decent cocktail. I haven't, I haven't actually tried it yet. We need to head out, there, I think, and, and test these out and, yeah. The, the guy who, who came up with it is, uh, Avar, Turman. It's his, it's his signature cocktail at a Cafe Al Sauce, which opened last month. It's on the Upper East Side, and he is, Mr. Turman is New York's first self-proclaimed beer sommelier. The beer Maier. I like that. The beer maier. I know exactly. And he puts great beer together with great food at the restaurant. Mm-hmm. I think it's fabulously interesting. I wanna go there. You know, I do think it's interesting, but in fairness, there are a lot of people who have been combining beer with food for a long time. For instance, the country of Belgium. Yes, but in this country, you know, we don't, we don't understand like the, the beer and food together, the way wine and food goes together, that there's so many different kinds of beer, especially Belgian and, and European beers that have so many different flavors that, you know, you, you drink differently depending on what you're eating. I remember back in the late eighties, or a guy named Chris, he worked at a place called The Old Bay in New Brunswick. Yes. a kind of Cajun Creole style restaurant, but it, beer was the, the focal point of the restaurant where most of the restaurants you see today and, even back then were, were much more wine centric. Mm-hmm. in what they paired with their, their cuisine back then they decided, the old Bay in New Brunswick decided that beer went better with their food than wine. Mm-hmm. And they focused their whole beverage program on having these really awesome beers from these really little known producers. And they were kind of at the front of that whole, uh, micro brewery craze in the, in the early to mid eighties. That was the same place that, um, the owner when, when we had this whole, uh, you know, anti French thing. he's like, I'm pouring all of the French wine in my cellar down the toilet. Of course, he only had one, he had two bottles of Dom per andon, and he made national news by pouring his French wine collection down the toilet, the two bottles of DM Perignon. And, but I, but I, I think that pairing, and we had Garrett Oliver on the, show from Brooklyn Brewery recently, pairing beer and food is, is an interesting. twist on where we are right now, where everybody thinks that it should always be wine, especially with spicy food and things like that. And, and I think that's why the Cajun Creole combination from the old Bay came about with spicy food. You know, there are some beers that are just awesome with it. Yeah. And here we have, here we have, uh, Anheuser-Busch and the big companies are getting in on this because beer sales among those kind of big beer have been flat, uh, with sales, flat plot and profit sputtering Anheuser-Busch surfing the cocktail wave with creations like the Orangutan Bud Light and orange juice. That sounds gross. Best served to an orangutan. How about, or the B two E bomb, which Budweiser's caffeinated offshoot is spiked with Jagermeister and quite appropriately. It says here in the Times, a mixture destined for a favor, drink status in the basement of fraternity houses, which is exactly where, you know what I, I have no problem with Budweiser trying to get into this, this marketplace, but maybe there's a different. A different way to do it. Maybe you should hire us. We'll come up with a cocktail. There you go. Anyway, we'll be back in just a moment talking with Ted Haigh, Doctor Cocktail about the history of American cocktails. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, Our guest today is Ted Haigh Ted's a renowned and highly respected historian of the American Cocktail. He made a big splash back in the nineties as the spirit's Maven for America Online. He is also known as Dr. Cocktail. He's been quoted on the subject in publications like The New York Times, Esquire, the Malt Advocate. Men's Journal, my particular favorite, his new book, uh, vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails is a particularly fun take on a particularly fun part of history. It's an homage to the great bartenders of the past and what some call the golden Age of the American Cocktail. Ted, welcome to the show. Thank you. Hey Ted. How are you today? I'm fabulous. Now, what was the golden age of the American cocktail and what made it the Golden Age? Hmm, interesting question. Um. That's my job. I'm a radio guy. It's your job. An hour a day anyway. Well, as they say, souffle. Anyway, um, the golden age was not the beginning. Back in the beginning, the cocktail was considered very, very bad form Indeed. Really? Yes. And I'll get into that. But to answer your question, the Golden Age probably would've begun in the 1880s, the Gilded Age. Um, where, where Boris got long and lots of brass and velvet wallpaper and bartenders who were making really complicated drinks. Indeed, the days of the nine level PO cafes extending right. Up to prohibition and then prohibition, which was intended to kill the cocktail instead gave it a new lease on life. And it, it continued, in its sort of guerilla form and as American bartenders fled there to pursue their craft, right up until the end of prohibition into the 1930s, still looking good. World War II and the, the alcohol rationing of that created a situation where the distillers were looking to do something else. They went to high ball and that was the end of the golden age. Now what do you mean when they, they went to the high ball? What? okay. Describe that. Um, what happened was what America really liked to drink from almost the colonial era up was aged American whiskey. Mm-hmm. It is what they favored and First World War I. Had alcohol rationing, then immediately on its heels prohibition, uh, severely curtailed the amount of alcohol that was produced. And, and we must remember here that, uh, uh, that there was, there were some distilleries licensed under the National Prohibition Act. To make medicinal alcohol, which was essentially pints of whiskeys that your doctor could prescribe It was, it was a good time to be friends with a doctor. I guess Legend had to watch themselves. Legend had it in, in the Irish neighborhood of Orange where, where my family comes from. I had several uncles, uncles who were quite ill most of the time. Doctor. I have a doctor. I have a crick in my neck. That's right. It's neuralgia right here. Here. Have some rum. Yeah. So. So when, when, what, what's a high ball? That, that then, that then cocktails turned over to high balls. Right? Right. So, so, so what happened is, is they were running out of age whiskey because of all these things, prohibition, and then World War ii and the distillers were almost panicking. They were saying, man, what are we gonna do? Let's market blended whiskey. That way we can add like, like 80% grain neutral spirits of whiskey. We'll have a lot more, and, and then let's just have them put it in a tall glass with sparkling water. That's your. Your high ball. Mm-hmm. And, and this led to vodka and to everything else we've seen since, right up through the, the dark era of the 1970s where even martinis and era were, were on the rocks and don't forget disco. Okay. So my favorite quite, quite the dark era. I think people, Ted, don't realize what whiskey was like back in the late 18 hundreds and the early 19 hundreds. I think people don't realize that. How wonderful. Those aged whiskeys were That's right. Tell us a little, can you tell us a little bit about how they were made and Sure. Uh, the, the, the whiskeys back then, the one thing you really need to know is they were stronger. What everybody wanted was bonded whiskey, and by bonded, I mean by, by law, it had to be stored in the government bonded warehouse for at least four years. And it had to be exactly. 100 proof. Hmm. So this was, this was a strong, aromatic, potent whiskey. Mm-hmm. But, but that's what people were used to and they loved it. And, and, uh, you know, since those days, uh, we've seen, we've seen whiskey get pretty bad Yeah. And lower in proof. And lower in proof. And now it's never come back to that. But there's still a large number of 90 proof whiskeys out there. And, and right now. He is as good as whiskey's been since prohibition. Mm. I think a lot of our listeners may, may not have ever gotten the chance to taste one of those pre-prohibition whiskeys. Oh, they were wonderful. They're they're cognac like, I mean, that's Yeah. They, they're, in my case, I have to say mm-hmm. When I was young and extra stupid, um, I. One of my first terrible drunken, hungover incidents was, was on a bottle of early times, and I did not touch whiskey for 15 years after that. Well, how, how sad. But, but somebody showed me a bottle of, of a whiskey kind of hilariously called bourbon deluxe, but in fact it was. it was distilled in 1916 and bottled in 1936. Yeah. And I looked at him and I said, sure. I'll try some of that. Mm-hmm. And I did, and it's just like you said, it's cognac like, and it's a revelation. And then Ted ha went on to be known as Dr. Cocktail. His current book is Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. It's an awesome book. And you know what? eggheads Mark and I are about cocktails and things like that. It's a great piece of history. It's visually appealing and it's a piece of history that you can get your hands dirty and make some of these cocktails. You, you, your book. Is, it's a history of the cocktail. It's also a great cocktail recipe book for cocktails people may not,, find elsewhere. And I think that's amazing. Exactly. We were talking about whiskey before and how things turned over from, from the golden age of the cocktail, which was sort of a, were whiskey based and aromatic and flavorful cocktails to, to today vodka based, right? Colorful candy things. You, you write in your book, and it really struck me, you said that as consumers we have a certain responsibility, and one of the things that you bemoan is that as consumers in America, we've lost our ability to, or, or lost placing a value on the ability to gain acquired tastes. Can you talk to us about that? Definitely. there's a lot of blame to go around. I mean, the distillers, they don't care. You're, you're on the restaurant guys. We're not afraid to assign blame. Perfect. Anyway. The, the, the distillers, you know, they just want to sell their product and, and if they, if they're gonna do cocktails, if cocktails are the big thing, they're gonna mix a cocktail that they're gonna get the most people to, like, what, what do they do? They make it sweet. They make it fruity. they hide the tang of alcohol. there has been at least one generation in this country. Brought up to like that very thing. Mm-hmm. So, and to me this is an invitation to alcoholism. Right. Well, you know, I just wanna, I wanna clarify 'cause we only have a minute left in the segment and I wanna come back to it after the news. Mm-hmm. But, you know, people may be listening and think, oh, well they want there, there must be alcoholics. They want the drink to taste like alcohol. And that's not exactly. it's, there's a counterintuitive thing going on here. No, it's quite the opposite, right? I mean it to make it something that only an adult would like. I mean, my litmus paper is, would a child like it, right? Mm-hmm. And if a child would like it, that's when I, when I say it's an invitation to a alcoholism, it shouldn't be candy. You know what's funny? And one of the current drinks, more modern, modern drinks that I do like is a Cosmopolitan. But I saw a man drinking a Cosmopolitan while eating a steak in the restaurant the other night. That's so wrong. I felt like I was like, you're 29. What are you doing with the pink drink in your steak? We'll be back in a moment. We're talking with Ted Ha. His book is Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. Uh, we'll be talking more with him after the news. And remember, your steak should be pink, not your drink. Ted Haigh is a renowned and highly respected historian of the American Cocktail. Uh, he's been quoted on the subject in publications like The New York Times, Esquire, the Malt Advocate. Uh, his new book is Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. It's a particularly fun and well-written book from one of the top experts in the field. Mark and I love it and are gonna make some cocktails from it at our restaurant. I really fell in love with a couple of those cocktails. Hey, Ted, when you look. At, at sort of resurrecting forgotten cocktails, and we are in the dawn of another. I don't know if it's another golden age, but it's at least a renaissance of cocktails in America. Exactly. So what, what made you, what was your guiding principle for what was included in this book? Well, first of all, I mean this book in, in a sense, took years to write. In fact, it was written in just under a year, but. It, it was the years of a, I mean, this book started out to be this giant tome back in when I first decided I wanted to write a book, but then it became so daunting. it was sort of dead in the water when, uh, Rockport Press came to me and wanted me to do this, this book. Mm-hmm. Um, it was, it was at a funny time. I was working on the biggest film in Hollywood. I just bought a house. I'd just gotten married. I was renovating the house and they want me to write a book. Mm-hmm. but they said, you know, it's just gonna be a few recipes, just a little bit of text in there. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I was like, yeah, I could do that. And then they were like, and then we're gonna call something like New Kiki cocktails. And I was like, and they said, but we'll tailor it to you. And I said, okay. Well then that concept's entirely out. Right. So I do, and of course it expands into a much bigger thing because I couldn't just do a little bit of text like I wanted it to be a serious thing. So packed in this small book is just all this information, and to specifically answer your question, the drinks were. Many of them were accumulated loves of mine. And, and I'm, and I like you guys and, and, and somewhat of an iconoclast in that, in that I, I don't wanna do what everybody else just does. Mm-hmm. I wanna go for the different stuff. I wanna go, were there other good drinks that we're not drinking now? Why aren't they being drunk anymore? What, what's the deal and how do you find these things? I mean, are they gone, do you find them in books? Do you, how do you find them? Yes. Books and newspapers. I've got a very large collection of antique bar guides from the first one ever published to present. Mm-hmm. one of the things that I wanna explain to everybody, well, two things. One that Ted Haigh does this whole cocktail thing, I don't wanna say on the side 'cause it's become a full-time. How about in addition to full-time, gig for you, but he's also a, a graphic designer for feature movies. Dale DeGraff, who is the greatest American living bartender, and probably the correct, the greatest bartender in the world, refers to you as, as the greatest. cocktail historian in the world, and actually, when he says about your collection of, of old bar guides, I've heard it in legend. I wanna come to your house and, and like snake it. But Dale says that you have the, the, the most amazing collection of, cocktail literature, period. And he has an amazing collection. I can only imagine what yours is all about. I, I just have to say, I mean, I've got nowadays in this, in the, in the world of the internet, I have some stiff competition in terms of both cocktail historians and the other things too. David, who's a. The drink maven for Esquire Magazine is, is wonderful. Yeah. And I mean, a conversation between us is gonna make people's eyes roll up in their head so fast they'll get whiplash. Right, right, right. You know, just getting into the, let's just say it would be best to be drinking a cocktail while listening to you two. That's right. Right. We do that. Everything over and, and among bar literature, there's a guy named Brian Ray who really sort of created the beverage manager position. From scratch. Mm-hmm. And he's, I think, got the biggest collection of these things. But what I do that they don't do is integrate all these bar books with already all these bar bottles. I look at 'em, I try to figure out what the ingredients are, and then I try to find them. And I've got ingredients that haven't been made in a hundred years. So you make ingredients. No, no. I, I, I find them. How do you I I will ferret them out. Alright. Here, here, let me give you an example of something that I just saw in your book. You, I, I was amazed 'cause I just read your book last night. Um. And you use the same thing that I used and I like to make a Brooklyn cocktail 'cause we have a restaurant Oh it's great. Based in Marsh's grandmother. And one of the ingredients in there is Amer Pi Cone. And I know that Amer Pi cone that you can buy, you know, is not, you can't get Amer pi cone like there was Amer Pi cone back when the Brooklyn was popular. That's right. And you recommend using. Uh, Ani. Am mayor. A mayor. Yeah. Which is, I mean, how did you find I, 'cause I don't know how I found it, but how did you find it? This is actually really easy. I mean, because one of the great bason for the pecan punch in California where I live is Bakersfield. Mm-hmm. And you have to be a little crazy to travel all the way to Bakersfield just to have a pecan punch. But that's what I did. And, and I, I met one guy there. Who was a former member of Devo who had done the same thing. You know, we iconoclast have to stick together. Anyway, that's where I discovered Torani Mayor because? Because they couldn't get real Am America kan either? I mean, first of all, Amer Pean went from something that was like. 80 proof. Right now it's weak. Something that's now like 16 or 32. Or even if you can get the American gun. Right. So it's like 16% alcohol, 32 proof. That's right. Exactly. And, and so yes, e. And so even if you could get the real thing, and it's really hard to get that. I mean, I think the company in France is having some problems. So this American company who actually makes the Tara flavoring syrups, but keeps this thing entirely segregated. It's not on the website or anything. Makes this. And so what were the bartenders in Bakersfield? The ones expert in making? Punch. And by the way, for your listeners, that's P-I-C-O-N, not like a piam. And uh, you know, you're a little nutty, right? You know that right? More like a piam. Yeah, yeah. Just go ahead. Go ahead. Anyway, that's what they were using and I said if that's what they're using, that's what I'm gonna use. Who there it was, you know, it's funny 'cause I thought the same thing. I was ripping my hair out 'cause I wanted to make it Brooklyn. Mm-hmm. Because the whole thing is an Italian American restaurant based on Marsh's grandmother from Brooklyn. And I, and I wanted a section called the Barrows. So I had in man, uh, Manhattan and I had a Bronx and I needed a Brooklyn. Yes. And for a Staten Island, we just take a bunch of garbage from the kitchen and put it in it. glass. In a blender. In a blender. Right. Exactly. Now that's for almost Staten Island listeners. I'm really sorry about that. The guy that is a pot calling the Kettle black. The guy from Jersey making fun of Staten Island. Right. Well, you know, and anyway, but you find it in the most unlikely sources, but the flavors are right on. You'd think it's a, a flavoring syrup company. It wouldn't be very high quality, but it is. Hey, now let me ask, in your research, did you find drinks that are, were historically important, that were popular at one time, that are best left in the past? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, and, and one of them, this, this will be one of the few great props I give to vodka here, but the screwdriver, the simple screwdriver was based on an earlier drink called an orange blossom. What was an orange blossom? Gin and orange juice. That's just disgusting. I mean, sometimes, sometimes the future is brighter. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, Ted, mentions vodka here. Not a big fan of vodka. Are you? Not really. I mean, actually what I'm not a fan of is the Bureau of Alcohol, tobacco, and Firearms definition of vodka, which is, which is it's supposed to be flavorless. Mm-hmm. When the best thing you can say about a spirit is how smooth it is. Well. Smoothness is highly overrated. How little it tastes like anything. That's right. Exactly. Whereas some of these, the, the, the older styles of Russian vodka, like Zubrowka mm-hmm. Zeak, uh, and, and other strangely named such things are wonderful. They're, they're fabulous. Ted, they're not that strangely named if you speak Russian. Right, right. Well if but if, but with those things, are they good ingredients in cocktails or, or, or are good vodka's best just drunk straight? Well, I, I, while wearing a firm, I like to drink them straight. Although there's this weird thing where you mix zco, which is flavored with a strain of bison grass, with. Apple juice. And I saw that and I thought, that sounds disgusting. Uhhuh. It isn't. It's wonderful, really. I mean, and this is something that they did historically and, and it's wonderful. So sometimes you just never know. And there there's a lot, there's a lot more future to the cocktail. Well, you know, it's funny 'cause I'm just trying to think of how you'd market that. I can see that on the cocktail we have the bison grass and apple juice fizz. Nice. Not gonna go. Hey listen, when we come back I want to talk about, uh, our new generation of cocktails, uh, how to use these old cocktails in a new setting. And I wanna talk with you about raw eggs. Can we do that? Right on. Super. We'll be back in just a moment. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys, Now, Ted, we're coming up on a pretty important event and an organization that I know you're involved with. You've been involved with the Museum of the American Cocktail, which you can find links to that on our site, and you guys are celebrating what is may or may not be the 200th anniversary of the American cocktail. Nicely put, well. Elaborate. Well, here's the deal. Yep. Um, the internet has changed everything about how knowledge is acquired. Historically, what happened is, uh, is they are, they're suddenly scanning all of these 19th and 18th century newspapers in digitally, and then they're performing on them a process called OCR, optical Character Recognition. Mm-hmm. This means. You can search on the term cocktails, you can search a range of years, say 1800 to 1820, and it'll pick it up. Mm-hmm. So you don't have to read through these things anymore. Mm-hmm. So, ever since the 1930s, the, the, the best known resources said the cocktail first saw print in May of 1806 in a Hudson, New York newspaper called The Balance and Colombian Repository. So we based the 200th anniversary of the cocktail this year on that. Well, in September of last year, Mr. David, Dr. David Ridge, actually, who I've mentioned before, discovered in a newspaper called The Farmer's Cabinet, a reference to the cocktail in 1803. Mm. So we missed it. That's whole moment. Well, except this was just a narrative. I woke up, had cocktail, you know, Uhhuh went on down the street, that sort of thing. So, and that's all it said. So the, the, the 1806 date is still the first definition of the cocktail. We understand what a cocktail is. As, as of this point. It may not have been, nobody even suggested it was the birth of the cocktail because nobody really knows. Mm-hmm. We just know when it saw print and, and whether or not this earlier guy. You know, had adhered to what we think of as a cocktail based on the balance in Colombian repository definition. Mm-hmm. Is anybody's guess. Hmm. So we don't mind letting it stay as the 200th anniversary of the cocktail de plus the invitations have been printed. I'm sorry. Exactly. Plus the invitations have been printed. actually the restaurant guys are gonna go attend the, the celebration in New York and we're gonna bring our microphones and, and bring a little of that celebration to y'all out there listening in on the radio and on the computer. So that should be a lot of fun. talk to Dave Wonder. He's a little devil actually. I sat with Dave Wonder on a, on a vodka focus group that Dale put together with the folks from the Flatiron Lounge and employees only, which are two great cocktail bars in Manhattan. Recently, we sat on a vodka panel. They didn't invite me to that. Well, you're, you're all the way on the West coast. It was, you know, it was just, it was put together by these, these people who are in, are launching a vodka real cocktail bartenders are, are often accused of being vodka snobs. And, and Ted by the way, virtual vodka tasting doesn't work as well.

Francis 30:31

Yeah, that's so, so we tasted and, and the reason is because, you know. No bartender is ever really gonna recommend a vodka. 'cause frankly, it doesn't matter once you put it in the cranberry juice with the lime on it, you know, it doesn't matter that much. Right? And, you know, we sat down with the, these vodka people and these, these cocktail experts. And some, somehow I got included. I don't know how, but I was sitting next to David Wonder and we tasted age vodkas blind, and they're vodka did pretty well. And they asked us what our, our feedback was. And I said, well, your vodkas did very well, but it doesn't matter at all. Listen. What do you mean it doesn't matter? People choose a vodka based on a magazine ad, and if you swapped out people's vodkas and put something different in the bottle, they wouldn't know. Right. Is it in a cool frosty bottle? Yeah. I mean, whiskey drinkers will know if you give them the wrong whiskey. I have to ask. I have to ask. Are you guys aware of a website called, oh my god, it burns.com? No. What's that? Okay. This is the cool thing, these college kids. Took bottles of the worst rock gut vodka, the rawest thing, and poured 'em six times through a Brita filter. Uhhuh came out like Kettle One. Oh really? Oh nice. Doesn't that tell you something? That's, oh my god. It burns.com and I think we just burned the Kettle One people here in just a moment. We'll be back in just a moment. We're talking with Ted Ha Ted Haigh. He is Dr. Cocktail and author of Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. We'll be back in just a moment. There are a few places in New York, our friend Audrey's Place that we always talk about. The Pegu Club is probably the center of gravity of cocktails in New York now. And hopefully the center of gravity of cocktails in New Jersey is gonna be Catherine Lombardi. We use an ingredient, that, you know what real cocktails use we use. Raw egg whites. I mean, more properly we coddle the eggs. But how important are, are raw eggs and And are people justifiably afraid of them or are they okay in drinks? What, what you, what do you stand on? Raw eggs. Um, I, I believe in them and I believe that, uh, I mean obviously what people are worried about are, are bugs or, or botulism and so on and so forth. Salmonella. Sure. Yeah. Exactly. And, the way to avoid that is you put the egg in first. You then put the high poop liquor on top of it. Boom. It's dead, even if there was something wrong with it. But with modern refrigeration, it's just not an issue. And you can get pasteurized eggs where there's no possibility of this if you look for them. And the other thing is, if you wanna be careful at home, well what we do is you, you drop it in hot boiling water for 30 seconds and, and you, then you're there and you're done co egg and you have a car, you go, most of the salmonella remembers on the outside of the shell. That's right. but the other thing is you get, you get a lot of people not using them for. They think it's gonna taste like scrambled eggs, right? It doesn't, it doesn't, even if you use a whole egg, all it gives, it is a creamy consistency. It, a frothing effect. It's, it's a creamy consistency. It doesn't taste like egg, it just does. Good thing. It's an ingredient, just like any of the other ingredients you're putting in,

33:17

It should marry with what you're putting into it And, and, and a lot of these classic cocktails, it's absolutely imperative that you have it to make them

Speaker 5 33:22

The real deal. Hey, we wanna thank you a lot for coming on, Ted.

Speaker 6 33:25

Absolutely. Ted, you've been great. You gotta be on the show again. I wanna.

Speaker 5 33:28

Hey, great. And if you're ever out in New Jersey and I find out that you were in Central Jersey and thirsty and didn't come by, I was gonna be really mad at you. Gonna

Speaker 6 33:34

put the guys

Speaker 5 33:35

out on you. Yeah, exactly. Hey, thanks a lot. Again, that was Ted Haig. Uh, his book is Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails. You can go pick it up. You can find out how to do that linking right through our website at Hope you've enjoyed the hour listening to us babble on about the cocktail. Hey, Mark, let's go get a drink.

Speaker 6 33:46

I'm thirsty.

Speaker 5 33:47

I'm Francis Schaeff.

Speaker 6 33:48

And I'm Mark Kuss.

Speaker 5 33:49

We are the Restaurant Guys, Central Jersey 14-