The JYPSI Spirit with Raj Alva & Ari Sussman (TCGS S4 E1)

# Swell AI Transcript: S4 E1 TCGS (please excuse any typos)

Announcer:
Jonathan Pogash is the cocktail guru, a mixologist and hospitality expert. Ah, see? You know big words. Dude, I'm the cocktail guru. Cheers. Jeffrey's his dad, a wine and spirits author, historian, and consultant.

Jeffrey:
So, I do my homework.

Announcer:
With decades of experience, they're always looking for the next big thing. Join this father and son duo for a few laughs as they explore the hottest trends in hospitality with the service industry's leading trailblazers and tastemakers. Welcome to the Cocktail Guru Show.

Jonathan:
Hi, dad. I really like the cowboy hat there.

Jeffrey:
Well, thanks, John. I've been waiting for an excuse to wear this hat. You know, I've had this for probably 20 years, and it's brand new because I never wear it. Never wear it.

Jonathan:
Is that the one that you got in, did you get that in Colorado?

Jeffrey:
Aspen, Colorado. At the famous hat shop in Aspen.

Jonathan:
Yeah, it was

Jeffrey:
Yeah, it's a very impressive hat shop.

Jonathan:
You were working for a brand at that point, so you didn't have to pay for it, but I believe those are a gazillion, gajillion dollars.

Jeffrey:
I was working for an importer at the time, who shall remain nameless, although I love the company dearly. The head of the Colorado state, the state manager for Colorado, decided he was going to buy, with his budget, hats for every member of the team. There were, oh gosh, I don't know, there had to be like 60 or 70 of us there, maybe even a few more. Those were the days. And he sent a message that said, just go to the hat shop, have your head measured, have them put a brand on the hat with your initials, and it's on me. Wow. And we did. We all did that. We all walked. That's so we could distinguish ourselves from all the other people walking around the Aspen Food and Wine Festival. Oh, of course. Shortly after that event, a new president came onto the company. And he didn't really appreciate that particular purchase of hats.

Jonathan:
Right, so they put the kibosh on those freebies. But speaking of hats, do you see my hat?

Jeffrey:
I do.

Jonathan:
I do see her and it's a cocktail guru baseball cap, which is believe it or not by happenstance available on our shop at the cocktail guru.com. So it's never too early for holiday holiday gifts or post holiday gifts.

Jeffrey:
It's part of the cocktail guru Schmeiss. The the Schmeiss Schmeiss. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jonathan:
Well, like novelty, novelty items or but but but twice.

Jeffrey:
Well, it's not.

Jonathan:
Yeah, it's not free. And it also twice kind of to me feels like it's not useful stuff.

Jeffrey:
Oh, no, no, not at all. Schmeiss can be very useful. So the reason the reason I'm wearing my hat today is because why we all have a little wanderlust in us. Do we not? We all have a little gypsy, hint hint, a little gypsy in us. Yes. And that sense of adventure, that sense of spirit, the sense of exploration is something that I love and cherish. And that's why I'm thrilled that we're having this particular episode today featuring Whiskey Gypsy. Very exciting.

Jonathan:
Hello. We have our special guests, Raj and Ari.

Jeffrey:
Hey. Two very special guests, including Raj, who is the co-founder of this entire company and whiskey making endeavor. And Ari, who is the whiskey maker for Gypsy Whiskey, or Whiskey Gypsy, whichever way you want to call it. And both are distinguished guests. And we're thrilled to have you on board. And we welcome you to the Cocktail Guru Show.

Raj:
Thank you, Jim. We appreciate it. Thank you for having us. You're welcome.

Jeffrey:
This is an incredible project. with a fellow that most people out there probably know very well, Eric Church, the country singer, songwriter, incredible guy. I've been listening to his music for a very long time and love him. And now the two of you and Eric Church are involved in this very interesting, innovative whiskey making project. Can you tell us something about this?

Jonathan:
Hold on one second. Hold on one second. I just want to say that I don't know if I ever met Eric, but I was working on Kenny Chesney's Rum when he- Blue Chair. Yup, Blue Chair Bay. So I was their initial master mixologist. And so I went on a couple of tour dates with the whole gang. And I believe it must've been Country Fest in New England at the Patriots Stadium, where I believe Eric Church plays that venue as well. There's a little connection that was years ago. That was almost 10 years ago.

Raj:
Well, it's funny you say that there's actually a connection with Kenny and why we're in this. So, uh, I'm happy to tell you how this all started if that's where you want to start with. Sure. So, um, so I met Eric on a, uh, on a golf trip that a mutual friend of ours organized and I, Jeffrey, unlike you, didn't listen to country music. I did as a kid. My father would play Johnny Cash and some other music. And we actually watched He-Haw, which I think everybody watched back then.

SPEAKER_00:
Oh, yes.

Raj:
But for whatever reason, I moved musical genres. The 80s kind of killed my musical taste, I guess. And didn't really know who he was, but my friend kept insisting he's a big music star. Yeah, big star. So we went on this trip, and I just treat him like anybody else, and he's just a very solid human being. He's just a good guy, and we had a great time. We bonded over a lot of late-night drinking, and we were kind of picking each other's brains on our different careers and how he got to where he was, how I got to where I was, and we started talking about um, uh, my businesses. And then I started asking him about whiskey, uh, because I mentioned the Jack Daniels partnership. And he said, I'm the only, the second person ever to have my name on a bottle. Frank Sinatra was the first. And, um, I, this is another trip, but I said, um, uh, well, out of curiosity, you know, did you ever think of doing your own brand? And he said, yeah, it's really funny. You say that, uh, George straight and Kenny Chesney keep telling me I should do this. And, um, you know, they've been really pushing me to, start my own brand. And I said, he said, what do you know about it? I said, I don't really know a lot. I mean, I know the products that I like. Um, but I said, I've got a good buddy named Joe Maglioco who owns Mictors. Let me text him and see if he can give us some ideas. And so I texted him, he called back in 15 seconds and I talked to him for about an hour. And his advice was don't do it. It's a very tough.

Jeffrey:
It was good advice. It's good, solid advice.

Raj:
It was good advice. This is a very, very hard business to break into. And I, you know, you look at the, the systems kind of stacked against small producers in terms of the three tier system. It's very hard for, to break into this. So. But after a while, I just kept picking Joe's brain. I realized I knew some folks who were the ex chairman at High West and I just kept calling some people and I didn't think anything of it. Eric called me after the trip a couple times and then my friend kept pestering me. I was at a little league game. He said, Hey, did you call Eric yet? I said, no, I haven't. He said, well, he's really interested in learning and looking at this. And so. I finally called him and I said, he said, what do you think? Should we do this? I said, well, I don't know enough. Let me do more research. And that's when I started calling some of these folks up and I took about three months, almost six months. And you know, I realized a couple of things. One was there's a ton of celebrity spirits, not just in whiskey, but across the, across the spectrum. And the ones that failed were ones that basically they just took the person's name and slapped it on a bottle. And you know, that person disappeared and they were just getting a percentage. So they don't care. And I said, if we're going to do this, we got to do a couple of things. One, we have to really, it can't be you. Can't be you on the bottle. And he 100% agreed. He didn't want it to be about him. And two, we got to make sure we make the best product we can make. I don't want to go in with a Me Too product and try to convince people they should buy this. I said, we should go in at premium, because that's going to give us the most ability to really differentiate ourselves. And it has the least amount of competition. And so we fast forward another three months and he was getting kind of pissed at me. He said, what takes you so damn long? I said, well, I said, Eric, I don't think you realize how much money this is going to take to do this right. And, uh, and so we, we, I found a general manager, uh, Andrea Myers. She had worked at, um, heaven's door and angels envy. And then I really was looking for a master distiller, master blender. And I had interviewed. a lot of household names that you would know. And it was kind of fortuitous. Um, somebody mentioned Ari and I had kind of seen him in a Google search when I was looking and I just cold called him. And, uh, we had an amazing call and it was completely different than any other call, uh, that I had, uh, Ari and I kind of geeked out because I have a little bit of a science background. I was supposed to be a doctor, but unfortunately for my parents, they were very disappointed. I decided to go into business. And that was the Indian parents. It was the biggest disappointment of their lives that I didn't become a doctor. And so we kind of geeked out on the science of making product. And Ari was telling about chemical compounds and how it can affect flavor profile. And we were talking about, well, can you test it when you're making these products? And it was fascinating. So I called Eric up. I said, Eric, I want you to interview a couple of these folks. I'm not going to tell you which one I prefer, but I think you're going to be surprised. And so he called these different folks. He called me after each one. And then he spoke to Ari, and he's like, he's our guy. I said, you're right. That's the one.

Jonathan:
That's awesome. Ari, when you got that call from Raj, and you had that conversation, were you like, oh, no, another celebrity brand? Here we go.

Ari:
Initially, yes, that was my initial response. I've been in a privileged position where when entrepreneurs have an idea of launching a whiskey brand, sometimes whether they're working with a recruiter or if they're doing their own due diligence to find production partners and whiskey makers, I do occasionally, on occasion, get these calls, and they almost always go the same way. They sort of default to what Raj had said about, we've got this celebrity, they have 10 million followers, and we're going to slap their label on a bottle, and that's the concept. And so my knee-jerk reaction always is no, because we have a limited amount of time. and bandwidth to make things, to do things, to work with people. I'm very much of the opinion that who we choose to work with in our lives and what we choose to do with our labor is, in effect, a sacred decision of how we choose to spend our lives. And initially in our conversations with Raj and I, and later on with Eric and I, it was very clear that the two of these gentlemen have a different approach to entrepreneurship, to business, to whiskey making, than just about anyone else in the industry. And that is what attracted me. And like I said, usually it's a knee jerk. No, thank you. Celebrity brands are not particularly interesting. But their idea was not to come out with a celebrity brand at all. It was to highlight creativity and craft and science and to find the intersection of all of these things. So like Raj said, the initial conversations with him They had a lot of energy. There was a lot of overlap. We talked about wine. We talked about science. And then Eric is a creative mastermind sort of in general, obviously with music and composition and performance, but also with entrepreneurship and business. So the vibe was correct from the very beginning.

Jonathan:
And how did that sort of entrepreneurial spirit between the two of you plus Eric kind of bring this into fruition? Raj, you know, after those conversations with Ari and then Eric said, yeah, Ari is our guy. What were the next steps at that point?

Raj:
Uh, coming up with the concept and it took a while. I don't know. I already was about a year and a half, two years before we actually launched from the time we started to the time we finished. Um, we, we went through a lot of iterations, some pretty crazy ones. If I told you, you just, you would laugh, um, on some of the things and they were science-based, but, uh, uh, we had like, uh, like flavored stuff. No, it was actually aging in trucks. There's an argument to it because there's movement, there's heat. Eric's driving across all over the country.

Jonathan:
little little diesel penetration.

Raj:
Yeah, we worked on that too. But but yeah, there's this whole concept of different climates. And, you know, obviously how how whiskey gets its flavor and its colors through heat cycling. And, you know, what's what's a better way to have variety and heat than going across the country in different venues? And but anyway, that was one of our many iterations. And what we What we really can't, I think, I can't remember, I think I was asking Ari about how, you know, why do they put all these grains in the barrel day one and age them at the same time? And, you know, we were kind of going back and forth and, you know, the light bulb hit with the team where we're like, well, let's just use single grains that are aged separately. and blend the master. And then we started going out and buying Ari has great connections and you know, in the whiskey world and the business just start buying a ton of inventory. And again, we're, we're Eric and I are blessed to have the pocketbooks to do this where a lot of small brands I don't think do. So we were able to go out and just find things that we really liked and just buy it and keep it. So we have a massive library of inventory. Um, so we came up with that concept and I'll let Ari take it from there in terms of how he He put it together because he really created a winner on that one.

Ari:
Yeah, this is actually one of the reasons I was so excited that we're talking with with the both of you is because Whiskey Gypsy, particularly the legacy, the international cross category blended series that we have, you have an alchemist book bottle with you. That's out, that's legacy volume two, the first one was, was called the journey. And the idea for this product family really came from two sources. It came from Eric's music directly, and it came from my experience working at bars all over the world. I've been a winemaker in France, and I've also worked with hospitality groups, setting up restaurants, setting up bars, creating bar menus, creating wine lists. And when Raj and I and Eric were having a conversation about the role grains play in mash bills, and mash bills being one of the ways that whiskey consumers seem to categorize a whiskey. It started a conversation about why are you distilling all of the grains together all the time? Why are you aging all of the grains together? There is a different production style in Canada where they do distill the grains separately and then marry them after the fact. And it reminded me of a bar that I managed where the happy hour, every day the happy hour was we would bring out, this is the distillers, this is the whiskey blenders main tool. in the world is a is a 50 milliliter graduated cylinder. This is the tool of the trade for for whiskey makers and I always recommend that bartenders keep them behind the bar as well. So the happy hour at some of the bars that I managed where customers could come and sit at the bar and we'd give them a 50 milliliter graduated cylinder and they could make whatever blend of whiskey as they wanted from the back bar. they could blend rice and bourbons and single malts and Japanese together, with the caveat that they had to write down the blend that they made in our bar book and then give flavor notes. So the concept of cross-category international blending of bottle-worthy spirits, which is what Legacy has turned into, really began as a happy hour special in bars and it became a real magnet for other bartenders who would come to Happy Hour so that they could start blending products on their own, as well as whiskey connoisseurs from around the region. That was one concept. It was also from listening to Eric's music. I, like Raj, wasn't familiar, deeply familiar with Eric's music. I had heard a couple of his songs on the radio, but it was clear from the outset that Eric is a unique composer, musician, singer-songwriter, who is incorporating these musical threads from various musical traditions. So yes, there's certainly country music, and you can hear the influence of Hank William and Johnny Cash in that entire tradition, but there's also a lot of Bob Seger, who comes from Raj and I's Neck of the Woods, and there's arena rock, and there's elements of hip-hop and blues. And one of the things that Eric does really well is weave together these different musical traditions into his own expression. So we felt like there was a cool parallel between the idea of taking whiskeys from all over the world and blending them in new styles and new ways, whiskeys that had never been blended together, certainly commercially, and it paralleled sort of Eric's creative process. So we were able to link Eric's creative process to our whiskey blending process. And the last step, the last kind of thing that we were having fun with was the legacy products are all blended in the ratios of classic American whiskey mash bills. So the very first product we put out was a 70% essentially corn, 21% rye, 9% malted barley. So a reconstructed mash bill using really nice grain forward spirits. The Alchemist, which is the one you have behind you, is our riff on a 36% rye or a high rye mash bill. So it's 60% 11-year-old corn whiskey, 36% 18-year-old rye, finished in three different barrels, and then 4% Indian single malt. So again, we're playing with the idea of mash bill and playing with the idea of blending international whiskeys from various categories. Look at this.

Jeffrey:
Oh, look at that. That's super cool. This is the alchemist hidden in a false book. It's beautifully done. It looks and feels like an actual book.

Jonathan:
It's beautiful. I want to take a quick break. And then when we come back, I'd like to taste the product, because, Dad, we both have some. And I'm going to taste it with you. And then, more importantly, Raj, when we come back from the break, we also need to know how many mulligans Eric Church is allowed when you play a match. OK, we'll be right back.

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Jonathan:
Okay, and now we're back. You don't have to answer the Mulligan question, but I'd like to... It depends if he's on my team or not. Oh, right. Okay. I'd like to try our Gypsy Explorer, 103 proof, right? So 51.5% ABV. That's strength. It's cask strength. It has a really interesting, so 66% corn, 30% rye, 4% malted barley. And then it has a flavor profile on the back, which is I think very helpful for people. I don't see that very often. and distilled in Kentucky and Indiana. So you source your product from Kentucky and Indiana, and then finished, blended, bottled at Whiskey Gypsy in Nashville, which I assume is where you're calling in from, Ari? in a, where are you right now, Ari?

Ari:
I'm in an undisclosed bunker. No, just kidding. I happen to be in a whiskey warehouse in Michigan, but I am down at the Whiskey Gypsy barrel warehouse in Nashville very regularly.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. And the Explorer consists of two bourbons. aged for six years each?

Ari:
Correct. Yeah, that's right. In fact, it's a high rye and a low rye blended together to achieve a mid-rye profile. So it's a little different. The base spirit is a little different than most anything out there. And then it goes through a secondary aging. with wood from two different regions from American oak from Appalachia and French oak from the Tronce Forest. And there are varieties of American oak, depending on where the American oak grows, whether it's Missouri or the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia or Minnesota, it will have quite different characteristics. So American oak is a broad category. Same with French oak. And so we looked at various forests, very specific forests around France to determine the right location, the right origin for the wood. And these were the two forests that we decided upon.

Jeffrey:
And the American oak comes from North Carolina, correct?

Ari:
That's right. Oak stands in North Carolina.

Jeffrey:
In an area that is close to Eric Church's childhood home?

Ari:
Two things. Yeah, absolutely. It comes from Eric Church's area where he still spends half of the year when he's not in Nashville. Appalachia is also, when we were initially talking about inspirations for the brand in general, one of the things that Eric said he has always been inspired by is the troubadour tradition. the idea of, it goes back hundreds and hundreds of years, of essentially a new form of poetic expression, which are poets who travel around and compose songs of love and their own life. And the country music tradition and the rock and roll tradition come out of the troubadour tradition. And so for Explore, which is a series, we have multiple releases within the series, we start with a foundation of fully mature American whiskey. And then our take on wood aging, which is a popular trend that many brands do, but our unique take on it is we become hyper-specific about where the woods come from and why we chose woods from those areas. And it always begins with quality. So we're selecting the finest woods to influence the character of the whiskey. But for the first explorer, we also wanted to honor the troubadour tradition. And so we chose two locations that not only have world-class wood, but also tie into the troubadour tradition. So the troubadours initially began hundreds and hundreds of years ago in France, in the Troncet forest, which if you're a wine person these days, you know the Troncet forest produces the oak barrels for Bordeaux. and to stand up to liquid, to wine of that depth and character, you need oak from a place like the Tronce Forest. So we wanted to make sure that we incorporated some of this historic wood that ties back to the origins of the Troubadour tradition, but also incorporate wood from the cradle of the Troubadour tradition in the United States, which is Appalachia. So this is sort of an old world and new world homage to the Troubadour tradition.

Jeffrey:
Well, now we want to talk about the actual whiskeys that we've been discussing. We really need to taste this.

Jonathan:
Yes, we have. We have. That's exactly what we've been doing, dad. Where have you been?

Jeffrey:
Tasting.

Jonathan:
Okay. Yes, I've tasted it. But what I wanted to know, if I may, Raj, as far as once the juice and the bottle and all of that was created, was there a specific strategy that you were following to bring it to market? And also, how do you want the consumers to consume it versus the trade, all of that stuff?

Raj:
I'll talk about the tiers of the business and the products. And that's really how I think about it in terms of for the consumer. But, you know, we started obviously with Legacy, which was a premium, ultra premium price point 200. We thought Explorer, launching Explorer would be a nice way to get more people into the brand. And that's in the 60s. And we have another product coming out in February, I believe, maybe March, which will be even more approachable. They'll be in the forties. And to me, that's a great way to get a lot of different people into the brand that might not be able to afford the more expensive ones.

Jonathan:
So that comes out in March, you said, right?

Raj:
Yeah. So we're trying to decide the exact launch, but somewhere around March.

Jonathan:
That would be good. I'm just thinking from a bar perspective that as far as the cost goes and for cocktails, that's probably, that's definitely more approachable. Yeah.

Raj:
That's right. It was, we were, when we were launching the brand, we knew we'd have a problem on premise because we just, it was too expensive for on premise when you think about their markup. And so Explorer got a little closer, but it's still a little expensive. This next one is going to be a lot easier. And you're, you feel a little guilty blending a $200 bottle. So this, this one will be made for either drinking straight because it will be very smooth. And I can let Ari talk about that. And. or blending.

Jonathan:
Even that $200 one, we do pop-ups across the country. We did one at the Bellagio at their speakeasy called The Vault. They have a reserve list of cocktails and They use $200, $300 spirits in their cocktails. So I could see that there, but I'm sorry. Yes, in Vegas. Exactly. Yeah. But I cut you off. You were just about to say Eric Church drinks.

Raj:
Oh, but Eric, you know, likes drinking whiskey with Coke. And so it's a little difficult to justify drinking, although, you know, it's an honor you can do, I guess, but drinking Legacy of Coke. Well, that's classic. Too many flavors in there to dilute it down with Coke.

Jonathan:
That's also been featured in lyrics, you know, I'm drinking the whiskey and Coke in the back back truck. I don't know.

Jeffrey:
The drink in my hand is one of my favorite songs.

Raj:
Yes, my kids like that song too. They're a little young to like it, but they like it.

Jeffrey:
Also, I did want to say briefly that I've been tasting these quite a bit and they improve dramatically with aeration.

Raj:
Just wanted to mention that. It's funny you say that. Ari, you should talk about that, because as a novice relative to Ari, I pointed that out to him. I said, Ari, this is fascinating. I tried it over 30 seconds, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. And why is that? Ari can explain.

Ari:
I was fascinated by his explanation for it. Yeah, these are complex whiskeys, especially Legacy with the three different 10 plus year old components. Benefits from aeration in the same way that a wine that may have been in a bottle for 10 years or more also benefits from aeration. there's chemical changes that happen when oxygen is introduced into this liquid, especially when there's as many different compounds floating around like in this blend. So not only does it change over time as air essentially creates chemical reactions, but if you add even a little bit of water and change the ethanol water ratio, compounds and aromas will come out of solution, or ice will do the same thing. So these are really, All of the products that we make, whether it's because of the secondary wood aging or because of the complexity of the spirits and the blend, evolve in the glass. It's a story that sort of opens up in the glass. So we encourage you to sit with it, spin around, let the air get in there, see how it affects the aroma. Add a little bit of ice or a little bit of water and these spirits, like all complex spirits, evolve in the glass and you'll have a different experience between your first sip and your last sip.

Jonathan:
And dad, I'm just noticing the glass that you're using to taste and then the glass that I have. So I have a Glencairn glass and you have what kind of glass?

Jeffrey:
I'm using actually both of them are Cognac tasting glasses. Cause I love them. I love the shapes. And I think they really highlight spirits very nicely, whether it's Cognac or whiskey or rum. Very good. And I'll tell you, the Explorer is really coming into its own and becoming much smoother and more delicate than it was just even a few minutes ago.

Jonathan:
Yes, I'm getting some Barry notes that I didn't have before. I guess that drives me.

Ari:
Exactly, the dry fruit comes through. The Explorer is pretty smooth for an 103 proof spirit. One of the reasons is that's a choice that we made in the production process, which is when we're allowing the spirits to marry, to meld in a tank. Most distilleries will close the tank to keep everything inside. We actually crack the top of the tank and we allow some of the more volatile compounds, which are the compounds that tend to burn the nostril, those most volatile compounds. We let the spirits marry for at least 72 hours. That will blow off some of those more volatile compounds and it creates a smoother spirit. It takes longer. It takes a little bit more babysitting than your traditional harvest a barrel, bottle a barrel. It's an added step in the process, but we think it yields a better product.

Jeffrey:
And normally I wouldn't expect a six-year-old bourbon to be as smooth as this one. Really, really good.

Jonathan:
It's really delicious. And, you know, we always wish that we had more time to chat with you guys and our guests in general, but our time has come to a close. But I do wanna say that Raj, my dad and I are available to play a foursome with you and Eric anytime. Anytime.

Raj:
Are you guys golf, are you golfers?

Jonathan:
A little bit.

Jeffrey:
I need a hundred mulligans.

Jonathan:
You need about a hundred. And a bunch of boxes of balls.

Raj:
And a lot of balls. We have plenty of whiskey gypsy balls.

Jonathan:
And whiskey, we'd love to, and we're also available to kind of, you know, just go on tour with Eric and the whiskey, you know, personal mixologists.

Jeffrey:
I'll fit right in with my hat.

Jonathan:
You will fit right in. Well, thank you so much. Best of luck with the product. And at some point, we'd love to hang out in person and do some more stuff together. So thanks so much.

Raj:
That'll be great. We appreciate it.

Jeffrey:
Thank you very much. Thank you for the time. Ari, thank you so much. It was wonderful meeting you both and discussing gypsy whiskey with you. Thank you.

Raj:
Ditto. Thank you.

Announcer:
The Cocktail Guru presents Cocktail Commentary with Jeffrey Pogash. Sit back and enjoy the story of the flowing bowl.

Jeffrey:
Hello, my friends, and welcome back to Cocktail Commentary. I know it's hard to imagine what life was like before we had cocktails, but my friends, there was such a moment in time. And what a fun and glorious moment it must have been, really. In fact, it was a simpler life, less complicated, and in some ways, more satisfying. There were fewer choices. Today, when you go to a bar, you have to wade knee-deep in this martini, or that martini, or the teeny weeny martini. You know what I mean. Some of you already know that Jerry Thomas, a.k.a. Professor Jeremiah Thomas, is the one who first codified the cocktail in his 1862 book, How to Mix Drinks or the Bon Vivant's Companion. This is the cocktail lover's Bible, since it's the first time that cocktail recipes were published in book form. We know that there were most likely cocktail recipes written on scraps of paper, but not available in a book for the world to see until renowned bartender Jerry Thomas came along. So exactly what type of book with drink recipes was available before 1862? People drank, right? Yeah, they did. They had to get their recipes from somewhere. Interestingly, a woman, that's right, I said a woman, by the name of Mrs. Isabella Beaton, published a world-famous, groundbreaking work called Mrs. Beaton's Book of Household Management in 1861. a year before Jerry Thomas' book, in which she did include a few recipes for spirit-based beverages, along with non-alcoholic drinks. But the word cocktail is nowhere to be found, of course. We have to go back to 1827 to find a book devoted entirely to mixed drink recipes. Its title is Oxford Nightcaps, and yes, it was published for Oxford University. The subtitle is, quote, being a collection of receipts used for making beverages in the university. These are recipes used when dignitaries, such as members of the clergy, would come to pay a visit to the university. Fittingly enough, the first recipe in the book is called bishop, which is a hot spiced wine. But it appears that the students at Oxford enjoyed their nightcaps as well and were quite discriminating in their drinking habits. It is to be presumed that some of these recipes came from the students themselves. The beverage that dominates the book is one that permeated British society at that time. Punch. That's right. Before there were cocktails, there was punch. It just so happens that the first written reference to punch was in 1632. That's how far back it goes, more than 200 years before the word cocktail entered our vocabulary. Punch at this time was a highfalutin drink. Yeah, it was considered fancy and ceremonial. Punch-making was a ritual among upper-class British gents. I'm not talking about the punch from my youth made with yago sangria, Kool-Aid, and a hefty dose of ginger ale. Nope, not that kind. The punch drinks found in Oxford nightcaps are proper punches. They were made with the finest ingredients, the best rum or the best brandy, probably from the Cognac region of France, rather than generic brandy. For centuries, English gentlemen bonded over the flowing bowl, as it was known, and passed down the art of punchmaking from one generation to the next. So what exactly was this phenomenon known as punch? Allow me to quote a little ditty from the aforementioned Oxford nightcaps. When e'er a bowl of punch we make, four striking opposites we take, the strong, the small, the sharp, the sweet, together mixed, most kindly meet. And when they happily unite, the bowl is pregnant with delight. I bet you didn't think that you'd be learning about pregnant bowls in this episode, but here we have it, a punch bowl that is so full of deliciousness that it squeals with delight, making all who partake of it very happy indeed. The word punch most likely derives from the Hindu word for the number five, panch, or the Persian word panj. Why the number five? Simple. It takes five ingredients to make a proper punch. Brandy or rum, or the usual spirits, along with citrus juice, lemons, or oranges, sugar, water, and a spice. Since India, or possibly Pakistan, appears to be the birthplace of punch, it is highly probable that tea was the required spice. And voila, we have the five essential components of a punch. In the American colonies, punch was a very popular drink, and it flowed liberally. At one community meeting in New England in the year 1785, 80 men attended and consumed 30 bowls of punch before the meeting, and 40 more bowls that evening during dinner. Eventually, colonial wives banded together to put a stop to these raucous events, but the punch bowl remained an effective tool of persuasion at the polls on election day. You know, the philosophy was if you ply the voter with punch, he might be convinced to vote for the candidate of your choice. Eventually, the practice was banned during elections, but punch continued to thrive in various forms. And now you'll learn the rest of the story. Hmm. In the 19th century, America's wealthy elite spent a great deal of time hosting the most lavish dinners imaginable at restaurants that were created specifically to cater to this ritzy clientele. The Astors, the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, J.P. Morgan, and the Carnegies, just to name a few, flocked to the palaces of gastronomy like Delmonico's, the Waldorf Astoria, and Sherry's, where great food was served and guests were often treated to performances that would rival the spectacular and glitzy Las Vegas floor shows of today. You don't believe me? Punch was served at all of these events, mostly a frozen Roman punch topped with a dollop of meringue, served as individual cocktails during the intermezzo, a palate cleanser between courses. In the Gilded Age of 1896, the infamous Seeley Brothers dinner was held in a very private room at Sherry's Restaurant, owned by Louis Sherry, whose name became synonymous with fancy ice cream when I was growing up. The dinner, a bachelor party, featured the exotic dancer Little Egypt and her troupe as the guest headliner. For those of you who don't recognize the name, Little Egypt is the young lady who made the hoochie coochie famous. Before the evening ended, New York's finest police officers raided the joint. In the chaos, Little Egypt escaped and was nowhere to be found, but she ended up suing the Seeley brothers for non-payment of her fee, and it is said that the brothers were never able to overcome the scandalous publicity. Exactly who were these guys? As it turns out, Herbert and Duncan had quite a lineage to live up to. It seems that their middle name was Barnum. Yes, like P.T. Barnum, the great showman and founder of the circus, who was their grandfather. And now, you know the rest of the story.

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