March 25, 2021 • 12 mins
Everyone wants to be a winner. Some work their entire lives to reach the top. But every now and then someone manages to sneak into the winners' circle through an unusual method. And today's tour will demonstrate exactly that.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
(00:27):
of Curiosities. The secret was in the recipe. Angelo Mariani
made his concoction in a very special way. Two ounces
of aromatic leaves to every one pint of wine. That's it.
(00:48):
That was the recipe. Angelo came up with that deceptively
simple formula at the Paris pharmacy where he worked as
an apprentice. But he wasn't planning to be the under
study for long. By all accounts, he always had the
desire to invent some new medicine that would change the
world and make him very rich in the process. And
you might say that Angelo was one of the lucky
(01:09):
ones because his dream became reality. He was helped out
by a doctor that he knew, one who was looking
for medicines that would help his patients with one of
those never ending complaints of the human body, a sore throat.
He directed his patients to the pharmacy where Angelo worked,
and things really hit a high note when the doctor
sent along one patient who needed to take better care
(01:30):
of her throat than most. After all, she was an
opera singer. She tried Angelo's experimental new topic, two ounces
of aromatic leaves in one pint of Bordeaux wine, and
she loved it. In fact, she loved it so much
that she ordered a dozen bottles, and she was only
the first of many. Angelo's dream was launched. He named
his new wine based tonic after himself, Vin Mariani, and
(01:55):
then hit the road. He knew the key to his
success to recommendations. A doctor recommending the tonic to his
patient had been the first step, and then that opera
singer recommending the tonic to others had helped spread the word.
So Angelo decided that he needed more of the same.
He made a plan to use another new and powerful technology.
(02:15):
He would send a case of his new tonic out
with the request, try the tonic and if you like it,
put down a recommendation in your own handwriting, sign it
and send it back along with a photograph. Because if
there was one thing that Angelo knew better than the
pharmacy lab. It was what makes people tick. After all,
Who doesn't like getting a free case of a new drink.
(02:36):
Who doesn't like the chance to become an influencer on
the cutting edge of a new trend. And soon enough,
those handwritten notes and photographs started coming back, ready to
be copied as advertisements for his new vin Mariani, and
the reviews were glowing. Within a few years, Angelo was
publishing booklets filled with the praise for his tonic. Artists, writers,
(02:57):
and other well known figures of the day all got
in on the fun. Although it's really not a surprise
that a product that took its first steps in the
opera should find well known musicians and composers who are
willing to sing its praises. Some even sent back a
few bars of music sketched out by hand as a
thank you for Angelo's Tonic. With each passing wave of interest,
(03:19):
Angelo had new ideas for how to spread the word
about his vin Mariani. By the eighteen nineties, he was
selling it as a tonic and stimulant for the brain,
body and nerves. His advertisement said that if it was
taken two or three times a day, in addition to
soothing the throat, lungs, and stomach of a singer. It
could cure influenza, nervousness, anemia, insomnia, even melancholy and impotence.
(03:44):
If that sounds like what we might call creative writing,
consider that literary titans like H. G. Wells and A.
Meal Zola used their pens to support it too, and
speaking for the men of medical science, apparently, the president
of the British Medical Association said that Vin MARIANI drinkers good,
and I quote climb mountains without exhaustion. These were grand
(04:05):
claims for a simple beverage, but by then there were
grand names behind his lavish posters and books. Thomas Edison
signed on and anywhere the American inventor was respected, Angelo
could expect that his tonic would find interest. William McKinley
edit his signature as well, after he was elected President
of the United States in There were testimonials for doctors
(04:28):
and drinkers beyond the US, too, like the Imperial Princess
of Brazil and the kings of Spain, Greece and Sweden.
On top of that, three popes added their recommendation. Pope
Leo the Eighth even sent Angelo a gold medal embossed
with an image of his head. It was everything that
Angelo Mariani could have wished for. His patent recipe had
(04:48):
swept the world and the gold flowed back to him
in Paris. But his twice a day tonic wasn't the
only thing brewing. You see, there was trouble on the way.
First copycats had ung up in his wake. One Georgia
pharmacist in the United States in the eighteen eighties whipped
up a concoction that added caffeine to a recipe very
much like Angelo's Vin Mariani. He even publicized it as
(05:11):
a French wine that could cure what ails you. But
if competitors swooping in to take advantage of his advertising
innovations upset Angelo, there were even bigger concerns on the horizon,
and they went right to the heart of things his recipe.
You see, at the end of the eighteen hundreds, prohibition
efforts were on the rise, seeing as how a good
portion of the beverage was wine. That would have been
(05:33):
bad enough, but soon people started to see a problem
with the other ingredient, those aromatic leaves that really gave
his wine tonic pizzazz. After all they were coca leaves,
and it was starting to become common knowledge that what
the coca leaves produced, a stimulant known as cocaine, had
a dark, addictive downside. As the news spread, tonic drinkers
(05:55):
on both sides of the Atlantic slowly woke up to
the horror of what they had in their cabinets, and
sales of vin Mariani went down, way down. Angelo tried
to adapt, of course, he changed his formula, no more
coca leaves, which he proclaimed in a series of new advertisements,
but by then it was too late. The buying public
had already decided that vin Mariani was not the drink
(06:18):
of the future. If that stung Angelo, it couldn't have
been the only thing that hurt. Take for instance, the
realization that his rivals were more successful at rebranding the
drinks they had modeled on his rivals. Like that Georgia pharmacist.
His drink, originally called the French Wine of Coca, had
also changed its recipe. It took on a new name,
(06:39):
leaning away from the coca leaves and towards the source
of its caffeine, the cola nut, and its sales only
continued to soar Angelo's vin Mariani was consigned to history,
but that Georgia pharmacists knockoff became America's drink of choice
during Prohibition. His name John Pemberton and his version of
Angelo's bever age. Today we call it Coca cola. Running
(07:19):
a marathon or half marathon is no small feat. It
takes months of training to condition one's body, building up
the stamina to endure miles of running at a time
requires dedication, proper equipment, and the will to persevere. Olympic
athletes Bill Rogers and Steve Prefontaine ran anywhere between six
and thirteen miles a day, seven days a week. They
(07:41):
never let the cold, or rain or snow keep them
from achieving their goals. For them, running wasn't a job
or a responsibility, it was life. But for Ludovine Hamlin,
running was just away to pass the time. Ludovine or
Lou as she was called, was well known around her
hometown of Elkmont, Alabama. Everyone was really it was hard
(08:02):
to stay a stranger in a town of only four
hundred people. For the last several years, an annual charity
run called the Elkmont Trackless Train trek half marathon had
been held to raise money for the town's high school.
Runners gather in the parking lot of a local business
before taking off on the thirteen point one mile race
throughout town and on the morning of January six, two
(08:23):
thousand sixteen, the event started, like every year before it,
One sixty five competitors set out with their lofty spirits
and equally high hopes. As the fastest racers pulled ahead,
their sneakers pounding the pavement beneath them, a dark horse
approached out of nowhere. No one knew where she'd come from,
but it was clear she had never raced before, and
(08:46):
yet she blazed ahead, speeding past some while keeping pace
with others. By the half mile mark, she was already
in second place. Folks on the side of the road
cheered the newcomer on, although they also tilted their heads
at some of her odd behaved of year. For one,
she seemed preoccupied by the road kill she encountered along
the route. She also graciously accepted a slice of pizza
(09:08):
from one bystander, which she ate a little of before
burying the rest in the dirt. Then she strolled over
to the nearby creek for a few swigs of water
to wash it all down. Hydrated and happy for the
energy boost, Lou continued on, garnering encouragement from fellow runners
and onlookers alike. She also made sure to say hello
to the donkeys and cows in the fields as she passed.
(09:29):
But as more runners flew past her, Lou knew that
she had to get back on track. The end was
in sight. When the race had finally ended, Lou had
crossed the finish line after one hour and thirty two minutes,
not bad for someone who had never run a half
marathon before. Still, some of the other runners were skeptical.
They didn't remember her being at the starting line, and
(09:50):
it was obvious she hadn't registered because she wasn't wearing
a number on her chest. Had she snuck in after
the race had started, hoping that no one would notice. No.
Lu didn't even know she was in a race. She
had seen everyone running and had just decided to jump
in and join them. However, a few people did recognize
her from the parking lot at the start of the race,
(10:11):
remarking two officials and local journalists afterward how they had
said hi to her while she had walked her way
through the crowd. The explanation for her being there was simple.
Her mother had let her go outside that morning to
stroll around the family's forty acre farm, and as always,
Lou had wandered off, this time finding her way to
the Elkman's half marathon. With nothing better to do, she
(10:32):
decided to join in. There was no way anyone would
have stopped her. She was only two and a half
years old and a dog, a bloodhound in fact, one
who would have been trained to hunt escaped prisoners. Instead,
her lack of focus made her unfit to serve, but
her nose perfectly sniffed out a spot in the race.
She ran all thirteen point one miles, after which her
(10:53):
photo was sent to her owner, April, by one of
April's coworkers. It wasn't out of the ordinary for Lou
to go into town by herself, and most people knew
who she belonged to. April thought that she had gone
to see the post race hubbub and even mentioned how
cute it was that someone had placed the medal around
her neck before they took the photo. Except it wasn't
a prop. Ludovine had earned that medal herself winning seventh place,
(11:17):
and the Elkmont Trackless Train Trek half Marathon. Today it
has a much simpler name, the hound Dog Half Marathon.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
(11:39):
The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Ye
Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
(00:27):
of Curiosities. The secret was in the recipe. Angelo Mariani
made his concoction in a very special way. Two ounces
of aromatic leaves to every one pint of wine. That's it.
(00:48):
That was the recipe. Angelo came up with that deceptively
simple formula at the Paris pharmacy where he worked as
an apprentice. But he wasn't planning to be the under
study for long. By all accounts, he always had the
desire to invent some new medicine that would change the
world and make him very rich in the process. And
you might say that Angelo was one of the lucky
(01:09):
ones because his dream became reality. He was helped out
by a doctor that he knew, one who was looking
for medicines that would help his patients with one of
those never ending complaints of the human body, a sore throat.
He directed his patients to the pharmacy where Angelo worked,
and things really hit a high note when the doctor
sent along one patient who needed to take better care
(01:30):
of her throat than most. After all, she was an
opera singer. She tried Angelo's experimental new topic, two ounces
of aromatic leaves in one pint of Bordeaux wine, and
she loved it. In fact, she loved it so much
that she ordered a dozen bottles, and she was only
the first of many. Angelo's dream was launched. He named
his new wine based tonic after himself, Vin Mariani, and
(01:55):
then hit the road. He knew the key to his
success to recommendations. A doctor recommending the tonic to his
patient had been the first step, and then that opera
singer recommending the tonic to others had helped spread the word.
So Angelo decided that he needed more of the same.
He made a plan to use another new and powerful technology.
(02:15):
He would send a case of his new tonic out
with the request, try the tonic and if you like it,
put down a recommendation in your own handwriting, sign it
and send it back along with a photograph. Because if
there was one thing that Angelo knew better than the
pharmacy lab. It was what makes people tick. After all,
Who doesn't like getting a free case of a new drink.
(02:36):
Who doesn't like the chance to become an influencer on
the cutting edge of a new trend. And soon enough,
those handwritten notes and photographs started coming back, ready to
be copied as advertisements for his new vin Mariani, and
the reviews were glowing. Within a few years, Angelo was
publishing booklets filled with the praise for his tonic. Artists, writers,
(02:57):
and other well known figures of the day all got
in on the fun. Although it's really not a surprise
that a product that took its first steps in the
opera should find well known musicians and composers who are
willing to sing its praises. Some even sent back a
few bars of music sketched out by hand as a
thank you for Angelo's Tonic. With each passing wave of interest,
(03:19):
Angelo had new ideas for how to spread the word
about his vin Mariani. By the eighteen nineties, he was
selling it as a tonic and stimulant for the brain,
body and nerves. His advertisement said that if it was
taken two or three times a day, in addition to
soothing the throat, lungs, and stomach of a singer. It
could cure influenza, nervousness, anemia, insomnia, even melancholy and impotence.
(03:44):
If that sounds like what we might call creative writing,
consider that literary titans like H. G. Wells and A.
Meal Zola used their pens to support it too, and
speaking for the men of medical science, apparently, the president
of the British Medical Association said that Vin MARIANI drinkers good,
and I quote climb mountains without exhaustion. These were grand
(04:05):
claims for a simple beverage, but by then there were
grand names behind his lavish posters and books. Thomas Edison
signed on and anywhere the American inventor was respected, Angelo
could expect that his tonic would find interest. William McKinley
edit his signature as well, after he was elected President
of the United States in There were testimonials for doctors
(04:28):
and drinkers beyond the US, too, like the Imperial Princess
of Brazil and the kings of Spain, Greece and Sweden.
On top of that, three popes added their recommendation. Pope
Leo the Eighth even sent Angelo a gold medal embossed
with an image of his head. It was everything that
Angelo Mariani could have wished for. His patent recipe had
(04:48):
swept the world and the gold flowed back to him
in Paris. But his twice a day tonic wasn't the
only thing brewing. You see, there was trouble on the way.
First copycats had ung up in his wake. One Georgia
pharmacist in the United States in the eighteen eighties whipped
up a concoction that added caffeine to a recipe very
much like Angelo's Vin Mariani. He even publicized it as
(05:11):
a French wine that could cure what ails you. But
if competitors swooping in to take advantage of his advertising
innovations upset Angelo, there were even bigger concerns on the horizon,
and they went right to the heart of things his recipe.
You see, at the end of the eighteen hundreds, prohibition
efforts were on the rise, seeing as how a good
portion of the beverage was wine. That would have been
(05:33):
bad enough, but soon people started to see a problem
with the other ingredient, those aromatic leaves that really gave
his wine tonic pizzazz. After all they were coca leaves,
and it was starting to become common knowledge that what
the coca leaves produced, a stimulant known as cocaine, had
a dark, addictive downside. As the news spread, tonic drinkers
(05:55):
on both sides of the Atlantic slowly woke up to
the horror of what they had in their cabinets, and
sales of vin Mariani went down, way down. Angelo tried
to adapt, of course, he changed his formula, no more
coca leaves, which he proclaimed in a series of new advertisements,
but by then it was too late. The buying public
had already decided that vin Mariani was not the drink
(06:18):
of the future. If that stung Angelo, it couldn't have
been the only thing that hurt. Take for instance, the
realization that his rivals were more successful at rebranding the
drinks they had modeled on his rivals. Like that Georgia pharmacist.
His drink, originally called the French Wine of Coca, had
also changed its recipe. It took on a new name,
(06:39):
leaning away from the coca leaves and towards the source
of its caffeine, the cola nut, and its sales only
continued to soar Angelo's vin Mariani was consigned to history,
but that Georgia pharmacists knockoff became America's drink of choice
during Prohibition. His name John Pemberton and his version of
Angelo's bever age. Today we call it Coca cola. Running
(07:19):
a marathon or half marathon is no small feat. It
takes months of training to condition one's body, building up
the stamina to endure miles of running at a time
requires dedication, proper equipment, and the will to persevere. Olympic
athletes Bill Rogers and Steve Prefontaine ran anywhere between six
and thirteen miles a day, seven days a week. They
(07:41):
never let the cold, or rain or snow keep them
from achieving their goals. For them, running wasn't a job
or a responsibility, it was life. But for Ludovine Hamlin,
running was just away to pass the time. Ludovine or
Lou as she was called, was well known around her
hometown of Elkmont, Alabama. Everyone was really it was hard
(08:02):
to stay a stranger in a town of only four
hundred people. For the last several years, an annual charity
run called the Elkmont Trackless Train trek half marathon had
been held to raise money for the town's high school.
Runners gather in the parking lot of a local business
before taking off on the thirteen point one mile race
throughout town and on the morning of January six, two
(08:23):
thousand sixteen, the event started, like every year before it,
One sixty five competitors set out with their lofty spirits
and equally high hopes. As the fastest racers pulled ahead,
their sneakers pounding the pavement beneath them, a dark horse
approached out of nowhere. No one knew where she'd come from,
but it was clear she had never raced before, and
(08:46):
yet she blazed ahead, speeding past some while keeping pace
with others. By the half mile mark, she was already
in second place. Folks on the side of the road
cheered the newcomer on, although they also tilted their heads
at some of her odd behaved of year. For one,
she seemed preoccupied by the road kill she encountered along
the route. She also graciously accepted a slice of pizza
(09:08):
from one bystander, which she ate a little of before
burying the rest in the dirt. Then she strolled over
to the nearby creek for a few swigs of water
to wash it all down. Hydrated and happy for the
energy boost, Lou continued on, garnering encouragement from fellow runners
and onlookers alike. She also made sure to say hello
to the donkeys and cows in the fields as she passed.
(09:29):
But as more runners flew past her, Lou knew that
she had to get back on track. The end was
in sight. When the race had finally ended, Lou had
crossed the finish line after one hour and thirty two minutes,
not bad for someone who had never run a half
marathon before. Still, some of the other runners were skeptical.
They didn't remember her being at the starting line, and
(09:50):
it was obvious she hadn't registered because she wasn't wearing
a number on her chest. Had she snuck in after
the race had started, hoping that no one would notice. No.
Lu didn't even know she was in a race. She
had seen everyone running and had just decided to jump
in and join them. However, a few people did recognize
her from the parking lot at the start of the race,
(10:11):
remarking two officials and local journalists afterward how they had
said hi to her while she had walked her way
through the crowd. The explanation for her being there was simple.
Her mother had let her go outside that morning to
stroll around the family's forty acre farm, and as always,
Lou had wandered off, this time finding her way to
the Elkman's half marathon. With nothing better to do, she
(10:32):
decided to join in. There was no way anyone would
have stopped her. She was only two and a half
years old and a dog, a bloodhound in fact, one
who would have been trained to hunt escaped prisoners. Instead,
her lack of focus made her unfit to serve, but
her nose perfectly sniffed out a spot in the race.
She ran all thirteen point one miles, after which her
(10:53):
photo was sent to her owner, April, by one of
April's coworkers. It wasn't out of the ordinary for Lou
to go into town by herself, and most people knew
who she belonged to. April thought that she had gone
to see the post race hubbub and even mentioned how
cute it was that someone had placed the medal around
her neck before they took the photo. Except it wasn't
a prop. Ludovine had earned that medal herself winning seventh place,
(11:17):
and the Elkmont Trackless Train Trek half Marathon. Today it
has a much simpler name, the hound Dog Half Marathon.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
(11:39):
The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Ye
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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