Episode 41 – Kentucky Belgian

Friends with Brews Friends with Brews Friends with Brews wow, i heard that clunky clunk. hey

Yes,

nobody knows who you are. You’re not Peter.

I’m not Peter.

No.

I thought I was Peter

My name is Vic. Yep, Vic Hudson

Vic of Hudson.

Yes of the Hudson. from the house of Hudson

Yes, not exactly not the river just the family by the way, I had you on today because mm-hmm

I wanted to talk to you about my Kentucky accent whenever I say the word Belgium. I always say Bail-jum

Yeah, it’s a little offensive. Well

What’s offensive the fact that I think that’s a Kentucky accent or the fact that I’m

No, just that you’re doing it just that you’re doing it so terribly.

I don’t know why it happened. It just comes out.

Yeah. Yeah. Hey y’all look at this. Can you hold my beer?

I don’t want to look at this and I don’t want to hold your beer

Speaking of beer though, okay, so just for the people who don’t know I’m Scott Willsey. I’m always on this podcast i’ve been on every bloody episode even though Peter Nikolaidis is off gallivanting around the country actually he has a he has a good excuse this time.

Do you want to tell us how you really feel?

Okay, Peter knows. I love him. He doesn’t care. Okay, this is interesting Vic because last time on the podcast. I believe it was last time I had something from Ferment Brewing Company and it was a bottom ferment ale and I made the joke about I don’t want to know about people’s fermented bottoms. But this time look at this. This is from Ferment Brewing Company. It’s called House Party Pale Ale and it’s a top ferment

Mmm

The only thing I haven’t seen from these guys is a middle ferment. I asked Peter is there a middle ferment and he he gave me some sarcastic answer and told me he’d never talked to me again. I don’t remember what happened. Anyway, here goes. Here’s the pour

Wait, we’re supposed to pour?

Yeah.

Oh man.

What, you already did pour? If you already did, that’s fine.

No, I didn’t. I’m drinking from the bottle. I’m low browing it.

That’s better than a can drinker.

Do you want me to? Would you like me to go get a glass?

No, I don’t. But I will say bottle drinking is way more acceptable than can drinking. There’s something about drinking out of a can.

Yeah, I don’t really like beer out of a can.

Even if I pour it in a glass because there’s a taste. I like beer from glass or from tap.

There is. And not only that, drinking out of a can means you’re in a pickup and you’re going to reach around and throw it in the bed of your pickup when you’re done with it. That’s what drinking from a can means.

Now you’re speaking my language.

See? I told you.

Hey, y’all, look at this.

Okay, so tell the listeners what you’re drinking and why you’re drinking out of a bottle.

I am drinking a… I’m going to lowbrow your podcast here. I’m bringing on the Blue Moon.

Oh, see, I will admit to you. Go ahead, say what it is, I’m sorry. I have the benefit of seeing the label.

It’s a Belgian style wheat ale.

Yeah.

But I think that it’s- It just says it’s a Belgian white.

Right.

But it’s definitely made by an American beer company.

Oh, it is.

I don’t want to quote it wrong. I think it’s like Miller or something like that.

I don’t know, but I will say-

But it’s not a bad beer. I like it. I just, I’m not a connoisseur, so.

Here’s the thing about Blue Moon is I’ve had people really slag Blue Moon, but it’s not bad. Blue Moon will pretty much please anyone.

Yeah.

And it’s so much better than the standard domestic beer product. It’s so far ahead of that.

It’s really good.

Ironically, Vic, the one Blue Moon that I’m not a huge fan of is that Belgian White. I tend to like their other wheats a little bit better.

Yeah. The ones that already have some citrus in them.

Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah. I like those, but they come in cans. I haven’t been able to find them in bottles.

Right, right.

But I do often, I’ll cut up a little slice of lemon, lime, or orange and drop into the bottle of the Belgian white.

I’ve heard that you know how to cut things, food products.

I do. - Yeah. I do.

I’ve heard that about you. We can talk about that, but—

Yesterday, I cut my finger. (laughs)

Oh my God, that reminds me, decades ago, I don’t even remember when this was, remember when Subway was a new thing?

Before we all knew that Jared was a pedo?

Way before, I mean, decades before. That was before Subway even knew that Jared was a thing, let alone a pedo. But when Subway was relatively new, it used to be, I think it actually used to be a little bit better, or maybe I, anyway, I went to Subway with a friend and we were standing there and the guy making the sandwich for someone else clearly had an encounter with the knife that he was using.

And the people said, “Hey, can you open that sandwich?” And he goes, “I didn’t bleed in it.” And they’re like, “Can you just open the sandwich and check?” He got mad. He was really pissed off He finally opened the sandwich and looked and there was blood in the sandwich if they had not insisted They would have been eating that guy’s blood.

That’s terrible.

That is terrible. So anyway, what I’m saying is don’t do that to your spouse.

I shall endeavor not to do that to my spouse

It’s okay. If you eat your own blood, you probably won’t get infected with anything that you don’t already have that way. It’s my guess.

I had to think about that one for a minute, yeah, I think so, I think so.

Vic’s like pulling out medical handbooks.

So anyway, I’m drinking this Blue Moon because the benevolent dictator of this show said that I could not count a dispelled spirit as brewed. It’s a point of contention.

Okay, you’re right, but let’s get there in a minute. But first we have to talk about what we think about this, because I also have to write down your review of the beer, what you think of it, whether you’re thumbs up or thumbs down. I’m assuming you’re thumbs up because you’ve had this before and you clearly bought it again.

So yeah, I keep it stocked in the little mini fridge in the garage. Okay, I like it. It’s pretty good beer. You know, it’s a Belgian white, but it’s really a domestic beer. I mean, when you get right down to it, but I like it better than you know, your your typical gas station selections of Miller light Budweiser Coors natural light.

Those are piss. Those are not even beer.

I think we call them salt water.

Yeah. Yeah. Basically.

This beer is I don’t like this as well as the one I had last time. Which apparently means I’m a bottom ferment guy, which I don’t even want to start analyzing that.

Mmm. Clay might have some things to say.

He probably would. But this, I don’t remember what that one was. This is a house party pale ale. And you know, I will say, ales are ales. There, I’m doing it again.

Ales?

Ales?

Yeah, for some reason the ales… Jeez! Kill me, Vic!

Can we fix that with editing?

Yes, exactly. Oh my god.

Ales?

So last time what I had was an El Lager Dorado. It’s got some agave in it, and that was a little tastier. This is a little bland, I will say. It’s a little…

Yeah.

Well, it’s pale, like its name. And I will say that for some reason the pale ales have not always been my favorite. I have trouble finding an ale… Geez. I have trouble finding one of those drinks that I like a whole lot and want to pay more money for.

So did did you possibly already drink one while you were waiting on me to update all my stuff?

No, I don’t know what’s happening to me I don’t know what’s happening to me whenever I say anything that starts with a lifting e sound i’ve suddenly be launched into southern territory and I don’t know why Maybe it’s the bottom fermented thing. That sounds like southern territory.

It’s a pale ale y’all

It is it’s pale

You’re actually close. You just need a little work.

Yeah, see, I think I am close, which is why I’m not a mimic of anybody. I can’t do the only person I ever did to my own satisfaction, and I haven’t done it in decades, so I’m not gonna try again. But I used to do a pretty good Ross Perot. But other than that, yeah, yeah. See, no one knows who do you?

I know who Ross Perot is. Damn it.

Well, I suspect that everybody that listens to this podcast.

I’m actually listening to your voice right now. And I’m thinking, yeah, you probably do do a damn good. Yeah, right. You’re already most of the way there with just your natural voice.

Exactly, yeah, you just have to turn on the accent and crank it up a little bit.

Now I gotta insist, let’s hear it.

I can’t because it’s been too… So anyway, I guess I’m gonna go thumbs up on this beer, but it’s not my favorite. It’s not one that I will buy again, but I am enjoying it right now.

Alright, I’m gonna go thumbs up on the Blue Moon, but I’m not really a beer connoisseur. I never have been. I don’t know very much about being a beer connoisseur. I don’t know what’s a good beer. I don’t know what’s a bad beer. I just know I like this.

Right, the nice thing about beer though, Vic, is you don’t really have to know, you don’t have to be a connoisseur. What you have to know is, do I, you know, okay, like you know already from listening to the show that Peter and I are not IPA fans, we hate it. They’re just overly hoppy. It’s like the IPA is made to disguise mediocre beer by being overly hoppy. And that overly hoppy-ness just doesn’t taste good. It’s not smooth and enjoyable.

Okay, let me cut in.

Yeah, go ahead.

Can you elaborate a little bit on this over hoppy-ness? Can you verbalize that at all? ‘Cause I like complete moron here. I have no frame of context for that.

It’s just kind of sharp and bitter. It’s just like an over, I don’t know how to describe it other than to say it’s sharp and bitter and I don’t like it.

I can work with sharp and bitter.

Yeah, it’s just overpowering and I don’t like it. It just takes all the smoothness out of the drink.

Yeah. So… Okay, that’s cool.

Yeah. So more of a decent ratio of, you know, wheat and grains to hops is preferable. But anyway, so we don’t like IPAs. That’s just how we are. So as you try a few beers, you’ll figure that out. And then that’s all you really need. Like, do I like Stouts? Do I like this beer company? Do I like Stouts from this beer company? Do I like, you know, wheats from this company? That’s all I’ve been doing.

What I’ve been doing though is we have a really nice selection of local brewers. And then there’s some from also from Washington and some from California anyway, and locally. So if I go to whole foods, they love to carry beers from different local brewers. And so all I have to do is go there and wander around and try different things.

Now that’s cool.

I did some searching and Kentucky does have some, a lot of, you know, local small micro brewers,

we do.

A lot of the ones that I found tended to be, you go on premise, they don’t necessarily sell stuff in the supermarket.

They’re attached to a restaurant, yeah.

And we have a lot of those too, but we also have a lot more that I found anyway. I’m sure you have them, I just don’t know what they are. I’m sure you have the ones that also package up the product and sell it in the grocery store. I just don’t know what they are.

Yeah.

I was actually given instructions to go to the Whole Foods and to do this by someone a few days ago in preparedness for potentially doing the show one day.

I don’t know who that could have been.

But I didn’t know that that show was going to be three days later.

Right, I didn’t either, and that’s what, you know.

And the whole food’s just like 50 miles away in Lexington.

Oh!

Well, I drive by Lexington every day to go to and from work. It’s not too bad out of my way or anything, but I just hadn’t had a chance yet.

The short notice thing was entirely on me, so.

Yeah, no, you’re good.

So let us now get into your contention about this brew/distill.

So everything that I’m missing and that I do not have as far as being a beer connoisseur, I have in spades with good bourbons. And whiskeys and distilled spirits in general. Bourbons are my favorites. I’m also partial to a good glass of some actual good moonshine on occasion, which is basically just whiskey that hasn’t been barrel-aged.

Do you have to hop in General Lee and go racing away from the authorities when you drink moonshine?

It helps to enjoy the experience, but it’s not required.

Although, to be fair, I don’t think those guys ever had anything to do with alcohol, did they? Or was Uncle Jesse a moonshiner?

Uncle Jesse was a moonshiner and they were bootlegging, if I recall correctly. It has been a really long time, but that seems to be what I recall.

That’s the history of NASCAR. NASCAR was born out of moonshiners.

Yes, was born from bootleggers.

Who knew?

Well, they were souping up their cars to outrun the fuzz, man.

And I’m not a NASCAR fan, I’m more of a Formula One guy, but sometimes when you watch NASCAR races you could be convinced that those guys are still drinking moonshine.

All right, here is my contention about distilled liquors and whether or not they belong on this show.

Sure, absolutely.

Conceding that it’s your show and you’re welcome to set all the rules you like. But I think that distilled spirits should still count as a brewed spirit. So we’re going to talk a little bit about how they make these things, and I’m going to walk you through this process.

Oh boy.

Am I going to be able to do this at home after?

With a little bit of equipment, you could.

All I need is like 100k?

I’m not sure. No, you don’t even need that.

You need like 100 bucks, 200 bucks maybe? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, but to make it good, to make it tolerable.

Well, to make it good, you’re going to need lots and lots of practice.

And lots of time. I need a few years, right?

Time, yeah.

You need time and you need practice. It’s not even really so much about the equipment. I mean, the guys that started all this way back when, you know, they instill some to this day, they’re literally doing it with old copper stills out in the woods.

They were using parts they found on the hillside.

Right.

So the very first start of the distilling process for any distilled spirit is called mashing in. And basically you’re going to take water, some sort of grain or sugar or fruit, you want something with some simple carbohydrates that the yeast when added to the mash, so you got your water, you got wheat, fruit, whatever have you. Corn’s really really popular that’s actually a requirement for something to be called a bourbon. The mash has to be 51% corn.

Don’t forget the smoke and a leather chair.

Well yeah you need smoke in a leather chair.

I feel like golden Retrievers are the ones who started the whiskey business.

So For what let’s let’s keep it simple and we’ll stick with bourbon so that we don’t have to complicate things too much So you’re gonna start by heating some water and you don’t want it quite boiling but you want to get it pretty good and warm and you’re gonna dump all your sugar and usually ground corn in and then you can add some wheats and stuff some barleys some people like to add a rye in and Like I said for it to count as a bourbon. It’s got to be at least 51% corn. Okay, so you heat your water

Yes, so right now you’re going down the path of bourbon specifically.

Yes.

Okay put a pin in this question: what is bourbon compared to regular whiskey? We have to talk about these things later, but go ahead continue on with your process

Okay, you got your your warm water your hot water. It’s not quite boiling You want to heat it up pretty good, but not quite to boil.

Is this water in a bathtub?

I wouldn’t want to drink that, but yeah, theoretically it could be.

Okay.

Now we’re talking about Bathtub Jim. Bathtub Gin. You’re getting into some prohibition stuff there.

It probably was Bathtub Jim that came up with Bathtub Gin.

You take your water, you dump your grains in, and then you dump your sugar in, and then you dump in your yeast. And you’re going to stir that up real good. And then you’re going to take it and you’re going to dump it into a big mash barrel. What’s popular these days are big, huge, large plastic totes and tubs and things like that.

Ooh, this is…

50-gallon drums.

Breaking bad material here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, like those things Walt and Jesse dissolved bodies in near the end there? One of those is a perfect mash barrel. So after you get that all mixed up real good, then you’re just going to take it and you’re going to dump it all in there, and then you’re going to fill the thing the rest of the way with water. And then you’re going to loosely cover it. You want to let it breathe, but you want to keep it covered so nothing gets in there while it’s sitting out off in the woods. And you’re going to let that sit for about a week to two weeks, depending on what you got in there, while it ferments. And this is the part where I say it counts as brewed. Is that not like a steeping process, a brewing process?

Yeah, and I, when I was looking it up, because I realized I don’t actually know if that’s a fair statement. basically distilled spirits are the distillation of items that are already brewed. So I think technically, yeah.

In fact, most people actually call the mash when it’s done and it’s ready to run. A lot of people just call it a beer because that’s what it essentially is.

Right.

At that point, it’s got about the alcohol-proof concentrate of a strong beer. Peter probably wouldn’t drink it. It’d be too stout for him because he likes those low brew beers, apparently.

Well, he does drink a lot of stouts too. Like, I’m pretty sure that his favorite one, the Omagong, whatever it is. Now I have to go to… Vic, did I tell you that our website, friendswithbrews.com, has a really good brews list and it’s got a great search on it? But if I go to friendswithbrews.com/brews/1 and then I jump to the last page, which is 9. Oh yeah, his three philosophers double chocolate. There’s nothing lightweight about that one. He’ll drink some dark stuff too. It’s just lately Like the places he’s been going and some of the beers he’s been getting have been lighter But that doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t like the strong ones

Now I guess my question is though Okay, technically that could be called a beer at that point But it’s probably not crafted in such a way that you would want to drink it as a beer most likely that’s what I’m guessing

Right, it would be a pretty rough beer. Yeah, right But you could drink it and you’d get a buzz from it

Yeah

But I wouldn’t want to so at that point when the mash is done working off and it’s basically a beer then they take that mash and they dump it into the still and When they put it in the still what they want to do is very carefully heat it So that you get just above the evaporation point of the alcohol But you don’t want to go to the evaporation point of the water.

Okay, sure, of course.

So it stays right in between there.

You’re trying to produce a liquid.

Yes. You want to steam off the booze, but not the water.

Right. Okay.

And then it runs through the still, and what comes out the other end is a much higher proof, purer product.

So if you’re getting rid of the alcohol, how is it that you’re coming out with something that’s higher proof?

Well, you’re not getting rid of the alcohol, you’re getting rid of the rest of the mash and you’re keeping the alcohol.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. What comes out the other end of the still out of what’s called the worm is the whiskey.

I know, I-

But it’s still not quite whiskey yet.

Did there have to be a worm?

(both laughing)

So the worm gets its name because it’s basically a coiled up piece of copper tube. And it comes out of the top of the still and runs over and down into the worm, which is this copper coiled up piece of tube, that’s sitting down in cold water, which causes the evaporated alcohol to recondense.

Gotcha.

And then it runs out and out the bottom and they catch it in tubs, totes, jugs, whatever.

Whatever. Mason jars.

Yeah, whatever’s laying around the house.

Mason jars, pretty popular out in the woods. All of this I’m sure is much more professional and sanitary looking in a professional distillery.

I don’t know.

I haven’t really had access to that, so.

As a person that lives in Portland, I can say that they never let an opportunity to use a mason jar slip by, I will say that. So it could very well be that if you wandered into a distillery around here, you would see people running around with boxes of mason jars.

Excellent. - Yeah.

So. - I approve.

Now that we understand that, explain to me the difference in—

Well, it’s still not bourbon yet.

Okay, uh-oh.

It’s still not even whiskey yet. At that point it’s just moonshine, it’s just a clear liquor.

We’re not even done yet, oh my god. Okay, so tell me how you get from the shine to the… shinier, I don’t know.

So you take this white lightning, this clear liquor, it’s just…

White lightning. I love that there’s even a term for it. It makes it sound like it does get distributed.

That’s the old school term for it. And it was called moonshine because they usually ran at night, you know, under the moonlight.

Yeah.

Anyway, you take that and you put it in a barrel and you sit in a warehouse for about four or five years to age. And then you get whiskey.

Do you always make the barrels out of oak? What else is used for this?

They could use all kinds of wood for it, but for it to be a bourbon, it’s got to be oak.

You wouldn’t use balsa wood for sure, I’m guessing.

No.

Okay.

So how much of the— so how can you control how much of the flavor of that wood this drink takes on? Because again, I don’t want chairs, I don’t want smoke, I don’t necessarily like wood.

That is where the experience of the distiller comes in. That’s where your time comes in. Any idiot can put it in a wood barrel, age it, and get whiskey out of it.

Hoo hoo! I have a chance! So you’re saying there’s a chance?

So you’re telling me there’s a chance?

Yeah!

Yeah, even I could do it.

Even I could do it.

No, seriously, a lot of it depends on the ingredients that went into the mash right from the start. A lot of it is in the distilling process. There’s places that they call “cuts” in the distilling process. So like the very first thing that comes out of the still is usually pretty heavy in methanol. And you don’t necessarily want to drink that.

It’s I don’t know that they say it’s toxic

I don’t know that it’s actually gonna kill you but I know it can produce a really wicked hangover.

Yeah, I don’t

So they they take that and they cast that off that’s known as casting off the heads. That’s the first cut fling it over their shoulder just literally they just literally pour it out and So that’s got your first cut and then they run the still for a while collecting the shine that they’re going to use and Then when it starts getting to the point to where it’s getting lower and proof and you’re getting a lot more of the mash than Than the alcohol then you make your third your second final cut And that’s basically you just turn you turn off the still you’re done

Okay

And so that a lot of what your final products gonna taste like comes from those cuts knowing when to do those cuts and what went into the mash to start with and then there is What goes into the barrel and what kind of barrel you put it in what kind of conditions you age it in all of those Are just those are tricks of the trade that you only learn from experience

And like like with any chemistry experiment. Yeah, okay, so now You were talking about bourbon.

Mm-hmm.

You’re not you say you’re not a connoisseur beer and to be honest I’m not either Adam Bell is more of a he knows how stuff is made and what how it affects flavor

Yeah I listened to that when I was enjoying his conversation near the end there where he was talking about the difference in the cost of the Bourbons.

Yeah, so tell me about the difference between bourbon whiskey

a bourbon is a whiskey

I get I just explain this categorization

All Bourbons are a whiskey, but not all whiskeys are bourbon.

Yes, that makes sense for sure

A whiskey is just an aged Product in wood

is a whiskey a subset of anything else or is whiskey the

oh no whiskey’s whiskey’s a thing Whiskey’s a thing, like vodka’s a thing, like gin’s a thing, like tequila’s a thing.

So if you wanted to think of it in programming terms, you could say that bourbon and everything else inherit from whiskey.

Yes. Bourbon’s a subclass of whiskey.

Right.

Bourbon’s a subclass, whiskey’s the superclass.

So what makes bourbon unique from regular whiskey?

Okay.

And why did you start with bourbon, by the way? Here comes the vic analysis segment, hmm-hmm!

That’s just because I grew up here in Kentucky and that’s kind of what I had access to. Actually, the very first time I got drunk was on Moonshine and I was like far younger than I should have been. I don’t know if we want to discuss that on your show, but…

No, it’s okay. I’m sure many seven-year-olds have partaken of…

I wasn’t quite that young. I was like 13 or 14. But just growing up here in Kentucky and just exposure to it, access to it, you know, everybody in the States really proud of it. You know, because we don’t really have anything else to be proud of here.

No, you’ve got what was that senator’s name?

Oh, no. No. Now I need a bourbon.

That whiskey that you sent me, was that a bourbon?

No, that was just a whiskey.

Okay.

So in Kentucky, you do also make whiskies that are…

Well, that’s actually that that I see wasn’t made in Kentucky.

That was made in Tennessee or Virginia.

Oh, that’s right. That’s right.

Yeah, there are whiskies made. Yeah, there are whiskies made here that aren’t bourbon.

Okay.

People are considered outsiders and they don’t get to hang out with the bourbon people.

No, they make pretty good stuff too. There’s a lot of really good whiskey that’s not bourbon. I just happen to have an affinity for that, you know, because of the Kentucky Connect.

Okay, so what’s the difference again?

Okay, so according to the Book of Knowledge, aka the Wikipedia, the federal standards of identity for distilled spirits codified under 27 CFR 522 states that bourbon made for US consumption must be produced in the US and its territories, Puerto Rico, as well as the District of Columbia, made from a grain mixture that is at least 50% corn, 51% corn, sorry, aged in new charred oak containers. But there’s room to vary in what kind of oak.

So that’s how you get a lot of your different flavors. Distilled to no more than 160 proof, 80% alcohol by volume.

That would make Peter happy. He’s fascinated with alcohol by volume.

Entered into the container for aging at no more than 125 proof, so you gotta temper it down to 125 proof before you start aging it. 62% alcohol by volume for Peter.

Oh, of course, Vic! Who wouldn’t temper it down to 120?

For Peter, 125 proof would be 62.5% alcohol by volume. It has to be bottled like other whiskeys at 80 proof or more. 40% alcohol by volume. There is no minimum specification for the aging period. Products for as aged for as little as 3 months are sold as bourbon.

Or it could be that granddaddy had some aging and he died and nobody found out about it until 20 years later.

Oh that’d be some good stuff. The exception is what they call “straight” bourbon, which has a minimum aging of two years. In addition, any bourbon aged for less than four years must include an age statement on its label.

Okay, I did not realize there was going to be a rulebook associated with this.

You asked the question! I’m still not done yet.

Continue with the rules.

Bourbon that meets the above requirements has been aged for a minimum of two years and does not have added coloring, flavoring, or other spirits, may be, but is not required to be, called straight bourbon.

Ah.

Bourbon that is labeled as straight that has been aged under four years must be labeled with the duration of its aging. Bourbon that has an age stated on its label must be labeled with the age of the youngest whiskey in the bottle, not counting the age of any added neutral grain spirits, and bourbon that is labeled as blended.

Okay, I can buy that part. That makes sense.

As neutral grain spirits are not considered whiskey under the regulations and are not required to be aged at all.

Wait, say that part again? What’s not required to be aged? Some kind of grain.

Neutral grain spirits.

What is that?

That’s like straight out of the steel.

I’m confused again. But go ahead.

Okay. They’re not considered whiskey under the regulations and they’re not required to be aged at all. Now, bottled in bond bourbon is a subcategory, so we’re going a few subclasses deep.

[laughs]

Why?

People, there’s some bored people in the world, aren’t there?

Well, we just, we like our drink, man.

Do you have to categorize it so heavily?

It’s a subcategory of straight bourbon and must be aged for four years, and it’s usually, I think, about 100 proof.

Wow.

Bourbon that is labeled as blended may contain added flavoring or other spirits such as unaged, neutral grain spirits, but at least 51% of the product must be straight bourbon. High rye bourbon is not a legally defined term, but usually means bourbon with 20 to 35% rye. High wheat bourbons are described as more mild and subdued.

Is this one of those endlessly scrolling MySpace pages, or does it have an end?

I’m reading from the Wikipedia. I am about done though.

Bourbon that has been aged for fewer than three years cannot be legally referred to as whiskey in the EU. Well, I don’t care about the EU.

Even I know that, “Oh, three years. Ugh, get away. Losers.”

There’s actually some hacks you can do to age it quicker.

Um, you understand that the word age implies the essence of time.

Okay, there are some hacks that you can do to get the effect of age without the aging. How’s that? Is that better? Is that more to your liking?

Yes, yes, yes.

So like, you could take a barrel of whiskey and you could put it on a boat at sea for six months and because of the sloshing around on the boat.

This is getting expensive.

This is getting more expensive.

Now, we’re leaving the Wikipedia behind, and the rest of this is just out of my head from years of experience learning about this stuff.

So what’s happening in the aging process? Why is that so important?

Basically, their warehouse is full of barrels that they protect them from rain and stuff like that, but they’re vented and they’re open to the temperature changes.

Wait, so people could just scale the wall and dive through the thing?

No, they usually have pretty good security.

Oh, like a German shepherd running around?

That and an old guy with a flashlight, you know.

[laughter]

Bourbon’s a big industry, man.

No, I understand that. That’s why I was saying, this is valuable product. I was expecting it to be locked away very securely.

You want the aging warehouses to be exposed to temperature changes, but not the rain, the sleet, and the snow. So what’s happening is the temperature changes caused the whiskey in the barrel to expand and contract, and they caused the barrel to expand and contract. So it’s literally pushing the whiskey in and out of the wood.

Does this explain why whiskeys are more popular in certain locations than others?

Because you actually need this randomness of the weather to help with this process. Yeah, well, in over four years, if you’re in a place, you know, like Kentucky, that’s actually got seasons, I don’t know that you do too well trying to age bourbon in California, where it’s like 72 degrees all year long, but…

That’s what I mean! In LA, this wouldn’t work so well.

Right, yeah. Because what’s happening is it’s actually pushing the whiskey, the bourbon, in and out of that wood. And you know, it flavors it, it colors it, it adds flavor notes.

Okay, on the one hand, that’s bloody ingenious. On the other hand, that is laziness to the extreme. We’ll just let the weather push our whiskey around for us.

So the way you can accelerate the process and you can speed it up is by moving the barrel around.

Hence the sloshing.

Yeah. So like, you could take it, you could put it on a boat or something like that. A lot of people work out some clever things that will rotate and shift their barrels once a day or a couple times a day or whatever. You can get the aged effect much quicker than having to wait all that time, but you’re not going to sell it.

It’s not going to meet the legal requirements.

Right. So people who can’t afford the boat, they have to wait for a thunderstorm or two.

Yes.

[laughter]

Either that or just let it roll around in the back of their pickup truck on their way to and from work every day for six months.

As they toss their Budweiser cans over their shoulder.

Yes! Yes! Now you’re getting it!

Okay, that makes a lot of sense actually. Wow, this is fascinating. See, this is where, if you can understand all this stuff, beer is not a problem.

Yeah, I’ve just never applied it to it.

Making beer is probably not that simple, like making good beer. Like I’ve had people who said, “Hey, I made this beer and you drink it,” and it’s literally formaldehyde.

Did you just call it simple? It’s not simple.

It’s not simple. It’s simple by comparison. And you don’t have all these regulations and rule books as to… I’m sure there are beer rules.

I think if you have master distillers in your audience, you’re offending them right now.

No, I’m not calling distillery simple. I’m saying beer is simple by comparison.

Oh, you’re saying beer is the simple thing. I thought you were calling the whiskey the simple thing.

No, oh my god, no! How could I? You just went on for four hours about all the rules, and I still don’t comprehend all of them. Because there’s a time component, a materials component, a process component. These are all rules. These are all subjected to rules

Yeah

There’s probably a rule about how close you can stand to the barrels while they age

You know, you can’t have more than 20 minutes of people standing near a specific barrel. I’ve never heard that but no

I’m guarantee you there’s that rule

I guess it’s possible that a group of people touring the warehouse might gradually alter the temperature of it and therefore

And the methane content of the room

[laughter]

Yeah, you know what? That’s soaking into your whiskey.

Here’s another “Let’s analyze Vic” question for you. You are familiar with American whiskeys and bourbons and so forth. Presumably, the ones that you’ve drink— you drink a lot of Kentucky ones, you drink some of these other ones, like Climax, it was a big one that you liked for a while.

You should specify that Climax is the name of a brand of moonshine and whiskey.

I think it’s the name of a location and hence they got the name of the whiskey from it.

Yeah, exactly. Climax Virginia. They named it after the place the guy was from.

Have you ever tried whiskeys from other places? I know you haven’t had a Japanese whiskey.

I have not had a Japanese whiskey.

And for a while that was excusable because they got so bloody… because they became popular, Japanese whiskeys got immeasurably inexpensive. Like you can’t afford…

Yeah, I think the same thing goes on in scotch market.

Yeah, that’s why… oh, so you’ve had scotches.

I have had some scotches. I believe Jamison’s a scotch. Pretty sure that’s a scotch.

There are some good scotches, aren’t there, right?

Yeah, yeah, there’s some good scotches. It’s not really my thing, but there are some good scotches.

See, I think some of the favorite ones I’ve had have been scotches, but they have to be smooth. They can’t, again, get the leather chair out of there. Okay, so what else have you tried? Just list them off.

I’ve tried some scotches, some Tennessee whiskeys. Jack Daniels is pretty popular, pretty famous. It’s Tennessee whiskey. Little known fact, or maybe actually a widely known fact, Tennessee whiskey is basically bourbon. It’s just called Tennessee whiskey because it’s from Tennessee. But their requirements aren’t much different from bourbon. They’re almost essentially the same thing.

Okay.

Some of those are pretty good. I’ve tried lots and lots of different moonshines and stuff that I’ve liked in the past.

Now let’s talk about cost. I spend too much money on beer. Like, just buying beer, like not even drinking that much, but just buying beer to me seems expensive.

Yeah.

That is a drop in the barrel, if you will, compared to the cost of whiskies.

Yeah, people can really spend some money on whiskies and bourbons, and like, I admittedly spend more than I should, but even I am not buying like the truly expensive top shelf. You know, there’s some stuff out there called Pappy Van Winkle. We talked about it on an episode of Rabbit Hole way back. I mean, it literally goes for hundreds of dollars a bottle.

Yep.

Most of the things that I drink are pretty similar to like what Adam was talking about in your last episode. I’m drinking from the mid to lower top shelf bourbons. You know, I like the ones that are usually in like the $40 to $60 bottle range.

That’s what I was gonna ask you is what’s the lowest you’ll go? Are there actually… can you actually buy a bloody whiskey cheaper than that right now?

I don’t even know.

Yeah, yeah, there’s there’s lots of cheap whiskey. So when you go into the store, if you’re looking for them, they’re usually going to be down closer to the ground. I mean, there’s a reason they call top shelf top shelf.

They’re closer to the ground because the people who come in drunk are going to be looking down there already anyway.

Now typically speaking, the closer to the floor you get, the cheaper it is and the higher up the more expensive it is. And you’re going to see the little security devices attached around each bottleneck and all that good stuff.

And they put them way up there so that only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar could reach it.

Yeah, but you won’t typically find like that Pappy Van Winkle. I don’t even know where people actually get it because I don’t think you walk into liquor stores and actually see that in there. You don’t oftentimes walk, or at least not the ones I frequent, you don’t oftentimes walk in there and see even hundred dollar bottles in there or two hundred dollar bottles in there.

Oh, oh my god, have I got some liquor stores for you. There is a liquor store. So I have a friend named Colin who also works at Monolith 3000. and he does occasionally get some pretty expensive whiskeys, and his brother gifts him some stuff too. I know he’s had well over $300 bottles worth, but anyway, there’s a whiskey store that he showed me one time, and that has got, you would enjoy that store.

Yeah.

I’ve got a friend whose dad searches like far and wide for the rare and expensive whiskeys.

When you quit your job and come visit, which will be pretty soon here, I guess tomorrow or something.

Yeah, okay. I’m getting paid for this right? Yeah, so I’m gonna get Publishing royalty something it’s gonna start coming in and I can quit

the cash empire that is friends with brews Has you covered my friend

Okay? All right? Yeah, I should be there by next week

Does it take you that long to evade the law while driving to Oregon?

No, I mean you are like all the way across the country

That is true, and you do have to drive if you’re gonna do it proper moonshine style.

That’s right

So in your locale, you don’t have to give your GPS coordinates, but in your location Do you have access to stuff or do you find yourself mostly ordering stuff?

Yeah, basically the only thing I’ve really had to order was the moonshines Because they’re you know, they’re a smaller craft thing like what you were talking about with the local beers and stuff So you won’t find them stocked in liquor stores and stuff Most of the stuff that I would actually pay for and drink I’ve got pretty good access to

that’s cool

I am a pretty big fan of some of the names of what I like lately. There’s one called Log Branch, which is made by Wild Turkey, and Matthew McConaughey’s got some sort of connection to it, although I don’t know what.

Really? Wait.

Yeah, it’s got his name attached to it.

But that’s a local thing? Well, he’s a Texas boy.

It’s local in the sense that it’s made here in Kentucky at Wild Turkey.

Yeah, but he’s a Texas boy. He can’t.

Yeah, but he’s—from what I understand, I think he’s also a real cowboy, too.

Texas is not allowed to admit that other states exist. You know what I like about him? I like the fact that, and maybe it took a tragedy in his own hometown for it to happen, I don’t know. I don’t know what his views were before. Because I feel like he’s, as Hollywood types go, he’s more conservative. He’s not Clint Eastwood. I liked when he came out about the gun thing, and he was just like, “You guys…”

Something’s gotta change.

Yeah, exactly. I really appreciated that from him. And granted, how could he not? I mean, he wouldn’t be human if he didn’t feel that way, considering what happened in his own hometown. But that doesn’t mean, I mean, oh my God, there’s so many people whose states and towns have been wracked by this violence, and they still don’t want to change anything. So yeah, it’s entirely possible.

It’s hard to find a state and town that hasn’t been touched by it these days, man. It’s really sad.

Right. And in some of them, the people are still defending the guns.

From my cold dead hands.

(laughs)

Anyway.

Anyway, Long Branch, it’s a really good bourbon. It’s one of my favorites right now. There’s one called Wilderness Trail I like a lot. I don’t drink a whole lot of it ‘cause it’s like 100 or 110 proof, so it’s pretty potent. It’s pretty good. I’m a fan. I always keep Maker’s Mark in the house. I always keep Woodford Reserve in the house. Those are pretty popular names. Again, they’re not the great bourbons, but they’re good bourbons.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Barton makes some decent ones, although I’m at a loss for the name of it right now. Ordinarily, I’d have a long list, but I’m kind of drawing a blank right now. There’s some stuff called Basil and Hayden I’ve been really fond of right now. It’s actually made by Jim Beam.

Really? Basil, as in the Basil Basil?

Yeah, Basil and Hayden. And I think that’s the name of two guys.

Oh, I was gonna say, because an herb and a man’s name don’t-

Yeah, no, it’s not an herb. But it’s just, there’s lots of them. Speaking of Jim Beam, you know, so your less expensive ones, your Jim Beam, your Jack Daniels. There’s Ancient Age is a decent inexpensive one.

Ancient Age?

Ancient Age, that’s the name of a bourbon, yeah.

That is a cool name.

That is a cool name. They’ve actually got a pretty cool looking label too.

I gotta look that up.

Yeah, it’s pretty cool and they’ve got a pretty good looking label and a pretty good logo. It’s not the greatest bourbon in the world, but it’s not the worst either. I grew up drinking lots of it because it was cheaper, we had more access to it.

The story of Vic’s life, I had access.

Mm-hmm.

There’s some stuff that we call budget bourbon called Benchmark.

Wait, is this from Buffalo Trace Distillery? Is that the ancient age?

Yeah, I think it actually is. A lot of these bourbons you’re gonna find out come from the same two or three distilleries. Kind of like GM makes Chevy, they make GMC, they make Cadillac.

Yeah, this ancient age has corn caramel toffee and vanilla. I actually want this.

You should try it. It’s pretty accessible and not terribly expensive.

Is it something that you can drink without burning?

Most of it’s gonna have a burn to it.

This guy at work gave me some Japanese whiskey and I’ve had other Japanese whiskeys that were way more smooth. This stuff burns. I have to, what’s it called when you put water in it?

I don’t like that. Chase it with soda, don’t put water in it.

But what do you call it when you dilute something? Dilute, that’s the word.

Dilute, yeah.

Can you tell that I didn’t really have any food today before we decided to impromptu do this podcast and me drink beer?

Yeah? Hitting you a little bit?

A little bit, yeah.

It’ll be evening before I can be ready to work out, let’s put it that way.

Hmm. I’m glad I did my working out first.

Yeah, that is the best way to do it. But, see, Peter says that when he, even if he gets a tiny bit, he can’t work out that same day, even if he gets minorly buzzed. I don’t have any problem. I’ll be fine in about two or three hours.

For some people, man, it all just depends on how much it hits you. And I mean, alcohol can really take its toll on your body, you know. He gives us a hard time about it, and he’s kind of preachy about it sometimes, but Clay is not wrong. We are poisoning our bodies when we consume it.

Oh, absolutely. It is a poison.

Some people can handle it better than others. I’m admittedly far too much of a professional for it.

To me, I like drinking alcohol and not getting buzzed.

That’s actually where I’m at these days. I fail at it more often than I should, but my goal is usually to just pace myself so So that, like, I like to sip on it, I like to enjoy it, I genuinely like the flavor and the taste and experiencing the different flavor notes that come from the different drinks and stuff.

Exactly, that’s what the beer is for me.

With the goal to pace yourself so that maybe you get a slight little bit of a buzz, but social gatherings are a problem where people tend to overconsume, you know, and get drunk.

You never want to be the first one where people can see, “Oh, this guy’s been drinking.”

This is true.

Okay, let me introduce a concept to you that you probably never heard this term because I think it’s kind of unique to me and some friends, but it’s a pretty well-known concept. I call it the third drink problem.

Yes. I’m with you.

See, I thought you would know. You take your first drink, and by drink I don’t mean just a drink from the glass. I mean like the glass is a drink.

Yeah, drink the glass.

Yep. You’re sipping on it, you’re enjoying it, you’re having a good time, you’re doing okay. Most people can even move on to the second drink. They can still sip on it, enjoy it, still socialize.

Depends on the drink, but yes, absolutely.

Still keep all their clothes on, still not throw rocks at the neighbors, and they can still function. Usually when you get into the third drink, depending on how much time has passed, is when you start getting into trouble. That’s when you’re starting to get pretty hammered, and that’s when any thought of pacing in moderation goes out the window.

Exactly.

And the third drink quickly becomes the fourth and the fifth and the sixth.

And even if nothing bad happens, even if you don’t do anything, it’s too much.

You are drunk. You’re gonna pay. You’re gonna pay. You’re gonna get sick. For most people, you’re probably gonna have a pretty rough hangover the next day.

Even if you don’t later, you’re just gonna be going, “Why did I do that? That just ruined the experience and now my body doesn’t feel good.”

You might wake up and wonder how you got that wound on your head and where your glasses went.

Okay, let’s talk about your cooking. Just briefly, I realize I’ve used up way more of your time than I said I would.

Ah, you’re good. You’re good. We haven’t talked in a long time, I’m enjoying it.

I am enjoying this too, this is great.

I love podcasting with you, man.

I don’t know if the listeners would agree, but I think we do a good podcast together.

I don’t care if they agree.

I don’t either, bastards. Those fickle listeners. See, now I’m getting rid of everybody who’s not from Virginia. I’m getting rid of all the rest of the people that are left.

We’re gonna have no listeners left.

Yeah, sorry Peter.

Sorry, Peter.

Talk about your cooking. You’ve really gotten into the cooking game recently.

I have. I really enjoy it.

What got you into that, and what kind of things are you experimenting with?

Well, what got me into it, I mean, I’ve always enjoyed being pretty creative out on my grill on the back porch. I’ve done that for as long as you guys have ever known me. What honestly got me into the cooking, like seriously into it the way I have been the last few years, was the wife and I on the TJ Maxx one day and we saw this just this really beautiful cutting board and you guys were seeing this cutting board a whole lot.

It is beautiful. I will attest to this.

And the thing was $15, Scott.

That’s actually a bit of a bargain.

That’s a lot of a bargain from my understanding, you know, it’s just this really nice, it’s well over an inch thick piece of butcher block, it’s got great surface area. I think the thing’s like two feet long by one feet wide, something like that? I’d have to measure it. It’s pretty good. I’ll give you a picture for show notes if you want it.

With wood cutting boards, how do you keep meat, raw meat, from becoming a problem?

I don’t put meat on it. I have plastic for meat. All that ever goes on this cutting board is vegetables. Occasionally bread, but mostly just vegetables. Do you know if anybody does use wood cutting boards for meat? A lot of people do.

And then they only use it for meat?

Well, there’s people that will use them for everything too. There’s a lot of mixed points of view about it. I wouldn’t mix them.

I wouldn’t.

I don’t feel like it’s sanitary. I feel like it’s a recipe for infectious bacteria and stuff. But there are also other people that say, depending on how you’re using it, not necessarily in the same cooking session, but from one cooking session to the next, it can be veggies one time and meat the next. There’s a lot of people that will present a pretty reasonable argument that any bacteria that’s left in that wood, by the time you wash it and dry it, and then it sits there until the next cooking, it’s probably not still gonna be alive. Not a risk that I want to take, but…

Well especially if you’re chopping stuff on it that you’re not gonna cook.

Especially that.

Yeah. But they present a reasonable argument for it. Personally for me, I just… vegetables and fruits get cut on my wood cutting board. And I’ve got plastic for meats and chicken and fish and stuff like that.

You don’t just use the countertop like an animal?

So we brought home this cutting board and I was just like, “Alright, so I bought it because it was pretty, but I should probably actually use the thing.” So I started looking for things that we could make with lots more fresh produce, good fresh vegetables and stuff, so I’d have an excuse to use the thing. And then we were on a trip to Tennessee a couple of years back.

To buy whiskey.

Well, I do sometimes buy whiskey in Tennessee, but we weren’t there just for that. We were actually just on a little vacation. And the cast iron company lodge has got factory outlet stores down there and we just happened to stumble into one on a whim.

Just happened. It couldn’t have been foreseen.

And I’m just looking around at all this great cast iron and I’m getting all nostalgic and remembering you know that Granny always cooked on cast iron and man those pork chops were the bomb.

I’m so glad the word nostalgic followed that getting all because I was afraid where you were going with this.

And so the next thing you know we’re walking out with a, I think I left that day with about 150 bucks worth of cast iron, something like that.

Well, are you giving the price that you paid or the real price? Because I think it would have been, the real price would have been higher.

The price I paid. They could have been a lot higher. Because if you go into the factory stores, they have what they call the seconds rack, which are things with very, very minor blemishes and defects that they just won’t sell as part of the main line. And many of the pieces are discounted like up to 50%, sometimes even more than that. If I bought from the mainline off the regular retail shelf, there probably would have been like $400 worth of cast iron. It’s a defect from the point of sale, but it’s not really a defect. So when you’re buying a pre-seasoned cast iron skillet, and a tiny little piece of that pre-seasoning is flaked off, it’s technically a defect, but it’s not really a defect, because all you gotta do is season that sucker, and then it’s just as good as…

So here’s the problem, Vic. You and I are coming up against an hour and we’re just now reaching the seasoning topic. I have a feeling I’m going to have to have you back on because this is an endless, endless road. One thing I do want to ask you about though is, does seasoning come off into the food? It has to, right?

It can sometimes, yeah.

But your seasoning was stuff that’s just food product anyway.

It’s a polymerized oil, so it’s not going to hurt you. It’s oil that you burnt.

Well, okay, so here is my question. They have shown that burning specific foods that you can eat can also be cancer causing. I’m assuming there’s been heavy research from the cast iron industry into—

There has and there is, and I actually can give you a pretty quick answer for that one. So if you’re cooking with oil in a skillet, the general rule is if you heat it up enough so that the oil starts smoking, then you’re releasing the free radicals that are in the oil. and you’re gonna make it kind of carcinogenic. Kind of. Carcinogenic. Carcinogenic.

Carcinogenic.

Carcinogenic, that’s it.

I can’t say ale, but I can say carcinogenic.

The responsible advice for that is if your oils reach that point, you should toss it out, let your skillet cool down and put in fresh clean oil. However, when you season a pan with oils, you are heating it to that smoking point and then beyond. And while it’s smoking, those free radicals are releasing. So there is an argument to be made that there’s stuff in the air when you’re seasoning pans, which is kind of like why I want to get a spare oven to stick out in the garage, but that’s a different story for another day.

You subjected your wife to those carcinogens for like three weeks straight.

Shh, it still goes on all the time.

Oh, you’re still doing it.

Not as heavy as in the early days, but yeah. Anyway, once you get beyond that, and you get it to a polymerized state, then all the free radicals are gone. So if you have the seasoning flaking off in the food or whatever, it’s gonna be fine. You’ve already gone past the point where there were free radicals and they’re gone now.

You know that scientific knowledge and scientific understanding of things changes all the time, right?

It does.

So you could still be killing yourself.

It’s possible. It seems rather unlikely to me. Cast iron cooking’s been a thing for a few hundred years now.

Yeah, but people keep dying. The people that have been cooking die, Vic!

You can argue just as much that you should never really use a skillet with Teflon in it too.

You could also argue that you should never be born because eventually you’re going to die.

There is that. It’s a fate we’re all headed toward.

All right, well that’s cool. So what kind of foods have you been experimenting with lately that you really enjoy?

Been doing some stuff with chicken. I’ve been, sad to say, enjoying a lot of frying lately.

Sad to say.

Breading it and frying it. I’ve been making homemade steak fries, you know, just cutting up a potato and frying it. I’ve gotten really good at that. Those are really good.

I understand why you said unfortunately, but it is hard not to enjoy some particular good fried foods.

It’s unfortunate for my health. It is not unfortunate when you’re consuming them and enjoying them.

Right, exactly.

Working on right now, making some taco stuff. Been enjoying, you know, learning about some Mexican cooking and stuff. Making tacos, tortas, salsas, that kind of thing.

That’s good. You’re gonna make it impossible for you to go back to the Taco Bell that you used to go to.

Actually, I still enjoy Taco Bell. It has its place. It’s not the same, but it has its place. I call them blasphemous tacos these days.

I have a friend at work named Mark who is a known… In fact, I think he kept one of the local Taco Bells in business single-handedly. And he used to be a guy who, we joked, would go out to eat with us at a really nice place and then would stop at Taco Bell on his way home. It was just funny because he was Mr. Taco Bell. In fact, when he, I think he had a, did he have a sabbatical? I don’t remember. He was gone for some reason. And when he came back, we had decorated his office with like huge pile. We made a volcano out of Taco Bell hot sauce packets.

You know, there isn’t really anything, I like, I don’t know about your Taco Bells there in Portland. There isn’t really anything Mexican on the menu at Taco Bell’s here in Kentucky.

Not at all, not at all.

No, no.

(laughing)

But it’s good and it has its place.

The Crunchwrap Supremes can be pretty good. I usually like their…

I eat one of those on occasion.

I usually like the grilled stuffed burrito type things.

Yeah, I like the bean burritos. They’re pretty plain and basic, but they’re good.

Vic, you know what’s hilarious?

What?

The cat that we had at the time, Oliver, I don’t know where this came from. But one night I was working late, I came home and I said, “You know what? I just want a bean burrito.” “A bean burrito would be good.” So I bought a bean burrito at Taco Bell, I came home. He attacked me for that bean burrito! And it wasn’t meat. It had nothing in it except beans, cheese, and flour tortilla.

The… I think there’s a red sauce or something in there too.

And he just went nuts. He was fighting me for that burrito and it just cracked me up so much. I’ve never seen a cat fight someone for a plain bean burrito.

Did you surrender and let the poor little guy have some?

No, but I did check to see if there was catnip lying on the floor or something. There wasn’t, but…

[Laughter]

My cats are pretty… for the most part they ignore human food. Every now and then something will get their attention.

Oh, our guy… the guy we have now midnight, he will…

Yeah.

He will sit and he’ll get up on the little table we have in the TV room and he’ll sit there and he’ll look at us and he’ll wait until we let him smell stuff and he’ll decide based on that whether or not he wants to try any. He loves Doritos, I’m not kidding. Nacho Doritos, he loves. He doesn’t like any other kind of chips, but he likes Nacho Doritos.

That’s cool.

It’s weird, yeah, it’s bizarre. Anyway, maybe we should, you’ll definitely be on again, or at least we’ll-

That’s cool.

There needs to be, I feel like, I don’t know how much more editing I can volunteer for in my life, ‘cause I’ve got this podcast that I edit every week, as much as possible, I try to do weekly to be consistent.

Yeah.

And then, but it’s a quick edit. And then I’ve got, so we’re doing, Is Ths the Show biweekly. And I will do every other one. And so once a month I’ll have to edit a “Is this the show?” But I feel like you and I should do… The problem is we can’t talk without going an hour. But I feel like you and I should do like a shorter show.

I feel like if we did it more often maybe we could actually do better at hitting that goal.

That’s probably true.

We haven’t talked for a long time.

Like this.

Yeah.

So anyway, we should think of something.

Yeah.

I’m definitely interested.

Okay.

Alright.

Well, if it was Peter I would ask him to hit a big red button, but I don’t… What color buttons do you have in front of you?

I have… actually they changed it in Audio Hijack. It’s yellow and it says stop.

Oh you call that yellow, I call it orange. It’s orange compared to whatever whiskey you like to drink though.

Oh yeah, definitely.

Then it’s orange.

Shall I push the orange button?

You shall.