March 25, 2026 • 38 mins
This ruby-red liqueur gets its color and flavor from the fruit of a plant most often grown as a hedgerow. Anney and Lauren dip into the science and history of sloe gin.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of iHeartRadio. I'm any
Regis and I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Lorn Vocal bamb and today we have an episode for
you about slow gin.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, was there any particular reason this was on your mind? Lauren?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Was there?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I should always be more prepared for this question than
I am.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I think I had just been exposed to slow gin,
maybe like I saw it in a liquor store or
on a menu, and I was like, what is.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Up with that?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
That's it, that's it. And it turns out a lot
of people, including me, do not know what is up
with that? Because I didn't know. I thought, and almost
everyone I have spoken to thought this as well, that
it referred to the process. Oh slow gin.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Oh yeah, yes, No it's not. It's spelled s l
o E. Yeah, not s l o W.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
And it's not a synonym for for for moving without rapidity.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I thought it was one of those like the old
English spellings, But no, it is not that drink responsibly.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Always, always always.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I don't personally think I've had a lot of experience
with slow gin. Clearly I don't know. I didn't know
what it was. I'm sure I've had it, probably but
I have not.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Maybe it's not all that common around the United States,
partially because slow does not really grow here.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yep, I love this. I feel like we're doing kind
of a teaser. Yeah, people who don't know what we're talking.
We do that sometimes.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah. I like to have fun. I like to have fun. Well,
see our episode.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
On Gin, Annie, my darling. We have definitely not done
an episode on Gin.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I keep fumbling this. I could have sorry that.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
We did an episode on the Gin and Tonic in
which we talked really extensively.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
To be fair to you, you talked really.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Extensively about the history of Gin in our Gen and
Tonic episode, But we have not done just a Gin episode,
which we should probably do. It's also been a very
long time since we did that Gen and Tonic episode,
so I feel like rehashing the history wouldn't be you know,
the worst thing.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Oh yeah, it is quite a history, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Well, once again, once again, I do know this for
a fact, though we have done a video on Gin.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yes, yeah, we went and saw the lovely humans at
old Fourth War Distillery. Uh, and they took us on
a juniper picking adventure in Oakland, cemetery and.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
We uh and they showed us the.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Process and then we kind of got sucked into the
line bottling gin and then we were just bottling like
it's at some point it ceased to be for the
video and we were just on the line bottling gin
and that's what we were doing.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yes, And I really enjoyed it. Oh yeah, so like
really rhythmic movement thing.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, it was like it was like there was a
dexterity required and like a paying attention to a bunch
of different elements.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
It was.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
It was a good day.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
It was kind of like meditating. Yeah, once you got
like the movie the rhythm.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I don't know where our videos live anymore more, but
if you can find them, they're they're under the name
food Stuff, not Saver. But if you know how to
spell our names, you might be able to find them.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I'm not sure. I haven't checked anyway.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
For some reason, I don't search for videos of myself
all that often.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
What I have checked and they are still there because
I will. I was, God, that was a good video.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Let me go check by there. Do you mean like
on YouTube? Do you mean on yes?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, Okay, okay, all right, cool, the food stuff YouTube?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Great?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Was that Underhouse Stuff Works or was that our own channel?
I don't remember anymore.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I believe it was under House Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Okay, all right, Well, but it'll.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Pop up, I think if you there yet, go type
it in. Well.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Other things that I'm nearly positive that we've done in
behind the behind the scenes, y'all, I am having a
heck of an allergy. Forty eight hours is not like
a good word for that unit of time. So I'm
a little I'm a little out there right now.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Other things I'm pretty sure exists are herbal liqueur and
or liquor related episodes and or cocktails like aquavite, vermouth.
Maybe cocktails like the Negroni or martini. Also like droop
episodes like plums, apricots, peaches like amoretto. Yeah, I don't know,
(05:33):
maybe like ice wine kind of.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I love this. Again, if you don't know what we're
talking about, you might be really trying to narrow in
what could it be, which I guess brings us to
our question.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Slojin What is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Slo Gin is a type of liquor made by crushing
and steeping these like plum adjacent berries of the blackthorn
or slow plant in gin and then sweetening to taste.
Gin being a liquor with lots of botanicals added, including
a prominent juniper flavor. But yeah, the result is a
(06:24):
ruby colored like jammy, fruity, sort of sweet tart liqueur
with varying piny, spicy, baky sort of flavors to it.
It is industrially produced, but also homemade in places where
blackthorn grows. Slow gin can be sipped on its own
or over ice, or added to cocktails. It is especially
(06:47):
popular around the winter holidays. If gin is a little
like drinking a pine tree, slow gin is sort of
like drinking a pine tree that's been just bedecked with
like glittering ornaments and rich garlands and has some sugary
(07:07):
treats wrapped up underneath. Oh that sounds lovely, right, yeah, yeah,
if you're not expecting it. If you're expecting gin and
you get some slow gin, it's a very different experience.
It's one of those like, oh, this is quite sweet,
what's happening? Yes, But but yeah, no, it's one once
(07:29):
you understand what has been given to you it is
quite nice. But okay, all right, let's unpack all of
this a little bit. So blackthorn botanical name Prunus spinosa spinosa,
I'm not sure. Blackthorn is a large shrub or a
small tree in the rose family, a close cousin to
(07:52):
plums and more widely other stone fruits like peaches and almonds.
Blackthorn's bark is very dark, and it's a very thorny shrub.
Black thorn sure makes perfect sense. These shrubs are native
and grow wild really commonly around temperate parts of Europe,
where they are sometimes used as a land borders or
(08:15):
or like dividers. They grow like densely with many stems
which they can put down new roots from. So yeah,
they're kind of big and shrubby. Yeah there. Wood is
used for useful indoor decor type items like like like
walking sticks, and the Irish shillaly is usually made from
black thorn stems that have a good like bulbous like
(08:37):
root bit still attached.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Anyway, these plants bloom or like explode really with just
lots of pretty little white flowers in the early spring
before their leaves even properly come in. If pollinated in
the summer, these flowers will develop a Each develop a
small fruit called a slow, with a skin that goes
from green to like deep purple blue. When it's ripe
(09:00):
in the early fall, slows look a little bit like
blueberry sized plums. You know. They've got like a little
tikis kind of thing going on. And yeah, they measure
like a little less than half an inch across, about
a centimeter or so. They tend to have a silvery
spread across their skins from natural yeasts. That skin is
a little bit thick, I think, and the translucent flesh
(09:21):
inside will go from green to kind of yellow orange
when it's ripe. Each will contain a sizeable pit a
single seed that looks like a small almond. Colloquially we
call them berries, but botanically they're a drupe. I understand
that the fruits are very puckery, tart, and a little
bitter when they're eaten fresh. They are usually allowed to
(09:43):
ripen all the way until the first frosts in the
fall to like really develop their sugars and flavors. The
seeds have like a cherry almond kind of flavor to them,
and also can contain toxins, so don't eat them. Like pringles,
Sloes tend to be plentiful where they grow, if a
(10:03):
little difficult to harvest due to all of those thorns.
They are often preserved, made into jam or jelly, fermented
into vinegar or wine or cider, or steeped in liquor
of various kinds, sometimes with other herbs and spices added.
Different places have different traditional preparations with like whatever liquor
(10:24):
is common or popular, but today, yes, we are talking
about slow gin.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
So.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Gin Gin is a.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Type of liquor made by distilling and or steeping various
herbs and spices into a neutral spirit, like a vodka.
Exactly what goes into it is highly variable, depending on
what the maker is going for, you know, like gins
can range from bitter to bright to spicy to soft,
with all kinds of like floral, citrus, woodsy or warm
(10:54):
notes in there. It's generally not barrel aged, so it
won't have the color and like the round like sort
of vanilla flavors that you get with a whiskey. Juniper
is the only like consistent ingredient, Juniper being another botanical berry.
It's actually like a really weirdly fleshy pine cone from
(11:14):
a different type of small tree slash large shrub. Some
common additions to gin include licorice or a nise, cinnamon,
citrus peel, nutmeg, saffron, savory. Basically, what you wind up
with with a gin is something kind of piny and
dry with other urban spice notes in there. So to
(11:37):
make slow gin, you crush or freeze ripe slow berries
and then add them to gin and let them steep
for like a couple months. You then strain out the
skins and the seeds and add sugar to taste. Some
makers do add the sugar at the start. Personally, if
it were me, I would like wait to see what
(11:58):
the fruit gives off to the liquor before adding any sugar. Also,
I've fermented enough things, both on purpose and accidentally that
I am personally wary of putting extra sugar in something
that's going to be sitting out for a long time.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
But that's just me.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Y'all, do whatever your grandma told you to, not gonna
argue with her. Some makers do crush the removed seeds
and do another steep with those. Again, like, always be
sure that you know what species you're dealing with. When
you're foraging, and like, probably do not eat handfuls of
droop pits by themselves, unless they are sweet almonds, which
(12:33):
are specifically bred to have less toxins in them than
other types of droop seeds. Those toxins can include things
like hydrogen cyanide, so you know, just you know, watch
out for that. Some recipes we'll call for almond flavoring
to kind of give you a little bit of that concept. Anyway,
I've read recommendations to save at least part of a
(12:55):
batch and let it mature for a year until the
next winter for the best product. Some producers do barrel
age SLOGIN to bring out different flavors in it. And yeah,
it is the sort of thing that yes, like everyone's
grandma has a recipe for around the parts of the
British Isles where it's from. However, I would say that
(13:16):
we're currently in a sort of renaissance of commercial production
SLOGIN and yeah, it can be consumed just however you like.
It is traditionally associated with Christmas where it is traditional.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, yes, well what about the.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Nutrition drink responsibly?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
We do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
A couple so I read that the market for slogin
is worth some six hundred and thirty five million dollars
a year as of twenty twenty four. European consumption makes
up about half of that and North America makes up
another quarter.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
And then all right, so okay.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
There's a pub in Kent, England called the George Inn
that started hosting Slow gin Making World Championships in two
thousand and nine, apparently after some locals at the pub
started arguing about who had the best recipe. I don't
(14:23):
think that they've held them every year, and I haven't
seen an update about them since twenty twenty three, but
they ran like at least eleven of them, not too
shabby at all. In twenty twenty two, they had thirty
entries in prizes for homemade, small batch, commercial and international
commercial varieties. They had entries from Australia, the United States.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
And France.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
The French one actually won in the homemade category. And
they always donated proceeds of all of this to charity,
different different charities.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So I love that. Yeah, arguing about food or drink
can lead to competitions and good deeds.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's a beloved pastime.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
It is. It is. Well, we do have some history
for you.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
We do, and we are going to get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for a word from our.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Okay. So, even though this isn't technically a gin, people
like to fight about that a lot. But you can
see our Gin and Tonic episode. It is, like I said,
a pretty wild one, and gin is traditionally the base
alcohol for making slow gin. For the purpose of this episode, though,
(15:55):
just know that marketing of gin goes back to the
sixteen hundreds and it was especially popular in England. Now
when it comes to slow.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, so people have been making use of slowberries for
a very long time. A lot of their pits have
been found at archaeological sites dating back like ten thousand
years or more in various parts of Europe. Apparently, OTSI
the Icepan was found with like a single slowberry on
or about his person.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
So huh, all right, Well, slow grows in the wild
throughout parts of Europe, but in this episode were largely
focusing on the UK, where they grow especially in hedgerows
that at one time separated people's properties. And this started
in the sixteen hundreds or so. These hedges were a
(16:48):
part of a series of enclosure acts enacted by Parliament,
which were meant to parcel out land and property. The
hedges served as natural fences or any branches deterred wild
animals from properties and just so happened to be a
place where slow liked to grow. Because of slow's bitter taste,
(17:10):
they historically haven't been cultivated, at least not on a
large scale, but still people were determined to find a
use for them. Beginning in the seventeenth or eighteenth century,
folks in England started harvesting the berries and adding them
into high proof gin with a little sugar. It was
something traditionally made at home or on a farm. However,
(17:34):
in the early days the resulting product was seen as
something that was low quality, which is a mindset that
didn't change until the nineteenth century when distilleries started producing
a higher quality slow gin, and one of the big
ones that is still available today, Plymouth slow Gin, debuted
in eighteen eighty three, and this was a well known
(17:55):
distillery already. Oh yeah yeah, so they this was a
new product, but people trusted this distillery. The first known
mention of slows being used in alcohol popped up in
a seventeen seventeen book called British Wonders, published by the
owner of a London tavern named ned Ward, who happened
(18:16):
to be a satirical poet. The mention seems to be
making a point about the popularity of gin at the
time and how people were putting all kinds of things
in it to cash in on that popularity. The timing
of this written mention aligns with the so called gen
craze in England, when gin was incredibly popular but also
(18:40):
not very regulated. There were a lot of things going
into it, and there were also a lot of reasons
behind the popularity. Increased ease of distilling, tensions with the
French that limited French made alcohol imports, and a few
economic measures enacted by the UK, so it was very
popular at the time. M makes sense people put slow
(19:02):
in there at first. Slow gin was yes associated with
the winter, primarily as a warming drink during the colder
months and something celebratory for the holidays as well, and
that makes sense too because the berries were often picked
in October.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And after a couple months of steeping, yeah, ready just
in time for Christmas. Yeah, exactly. However, it seems when
slogin made its way to the United States and the
nineteen hundreds, it shifted to a summer drink when bartenders
added it to soda water with citrus and an optional
egg white, and this led to the birth of the
slow gin fizz, which I guess you could go see
(19:41):
our we talked about of the gin fizz in our
New Orleans episode. Yeah, we talked about the Ramos gin
fizz in our New Orleans episodes.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
But sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I couldn't find this specifically,
but I imagine people saw in the name and were like,
let's just do it.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, oh yeah, no, and it's delightful. Sure, sure, what
a nice summer sepper exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
This change from winter drink to a summer one in
the US seemed to happen in the late eighteen hundreds.
The first known recipe resembling a slow gin fizz appeared
in an eighteen ninety eight magazine. However, slogin didn't really
gain a lot of traction here in the US until
the pre nineteen twenties, with the invention or popularization of
(20:32):
the Charlie Chaplin cocktail, which was a mixture of apricot
brandy slow gin and lime juice, allegedly invented at the
Waldorf Astoria. It exposed a lot more people to slow gin,
especially with the popularity of Charlie Chaplain at the time.
I love how often celebrities come up in these captal episodes.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
This was, of course, right before prohibition though.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
So so yeah, so very shortly after this cocktail hit
the scene.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
It was like a that yep. And then beginning in
the nineteen sixties and seventies, the slow gin fizz and
slogin in general experienced sharp decrease in popularity in the
United States. And we've spoken about this before, but that
was a dark time for cocktails in the country. During
(21:21):
the time, slogan all but faded away. Mass market American
products replaced the gin with neutral spirits, and American distillers
didn't have ready access to slow berries, so they created
a reddish, syrupy concoction instead, and from what I read,
it was coyingly sweet. But this was another fact I
(21:46):
wasn't expecting to stumble on. This slow esque syrup became
an essential ingredient in the college drink, the Alabama Slammer,
And this is a drink that is made up of Amaretto,
Southern comfort, orange juice, and this americanized slo gin. It
was invented in the seventies and perhaps was a part
(22:08):
of the true Slo Jean's slump because people weren't getting, quote,
the real thing, they were getting this like really sweet one.
But the first recipe for an Alabama slammer appeared in
a nineteen seventy one edition of The Playboy Bartender's Guide,
But after being mentioned in the last Barman speech in
(22:32):
the nineteen eighty eight movie Cocktail, the Alabama slammer went
mainstream like tgif TGI Friday's pitcher mainstream.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Wow, yeah, oh TGI Fridays, Oh TGI Fridays.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I did have a wonderful time there once when I
got delayed at an airport. That's what I'll give them.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I will say that they were the place open, the
latest in my small suburban hometown that was also willing
to put up with a bunch of teenagers while I
was in high school.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, so you know, we get it. Not a sponsor,
by the way. Okay, So moving on from being a
pitcher at TGI Fridays during the Craft Cocktail revival in
the US in the early two thousands, some producers started
attempting to recreate quote real slogin with jin as opposed
(23:35):
to a neutral spirit and with slow berries as opposed
to artificial flavors.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, and to be fairy.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
It had never gone away in European markets, but right
in the United States it had a little bit of
a drop off there. These days, slojeans are increasingly available
even here in the US. There are even some rifts
out on the market made with other different local produce,
(24:02):
like beach plums near Long Island, or Damson plums in
Upstate New York, or Shara's grapes in Australia. So yeah,
so people taking the concept of a slow gin being
like a sweetened ruby fruit kind of kind of thing,
and yeah, just taking it local, which is what it's
about anyway.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
So I love that.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I love that too. And it was interesting to me,
as I said, I didn't know slow was fruit, And
it's interesting to me how many of these other variants.
When I was reading about them, I was like, I've
never heard of a beach plum either, But I love
that people are making these localized versions.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, yeah, and right, And I also loved reading like,
like kind of adjacent to this reading, I found a
lot of stuff about other uses for slow berries, and yeah,
like adding them to different brandis, or the different herbs
and spices that might go into different concoctions to give
it a little bit more of like a winter spice
(25:09):
kind of flavor in different places.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah. Just people get up to all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
It's great they do, and listeners, we would love to
know what you have gotten up to. Oh yeah, yeah,
it's so eager to hear about this.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Oh. I feel nearly positive that we have at least
a couple of listeners who have like family recipes for
a slow gin or or maybe for one of these
other slowberry things. Yeah. Yeah, if you have, if you've
been slow picking, if you have the scars to prove it,
(25:46):
let us.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Know, Yes, please please let us know. But I think
that's what we have to say about slow gen for now.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
I think it is.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Uh. We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
And we're back.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
With the thorns. The thorns. The thorns got all look out.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I apparently really do, because especially like towards the winter,
when everything gets a little bit like older and brittle,
they can they can they a will pierce deep and
be like they can break off easily in your skin
and then you just have like a little just a
little thorn bit that's in there and it can get
infected and it's a bad time. I've heard this is
actually a huge problem. So oh no, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Well I didn't mean to make light of a huge problem.
But also, once again, it does kind of crack me
up how often humans are like challenge exceptions. You're like
worth it, I want my slogans are not going to
(27:18):
deter me. Yeah, Janet wrote, I would like to object
to your self description in the liftin episode. You are
not lowly podcasters. You are highly respectable. Once however, the
descriptor of simple you may apply with pride, as you
(27:38):
never pretend to a greater expertise than you have earned. Honestly,
in the modern information environment of false experts and opaquely
synthesized llm answers, admitting your limitations and citing your sources
are wonderful attributes, and as a trained librarian, I salute you.
You are simple podcasters and I admire you greatly for it. Additionally,
(28:04):
I wish to share with you my thoughts on the
Kensington Pride mango cultivar that is so beloved in Australia.
But so far I have written a twelve hundred word
essay on the topic, and I fear this is too
much for you and your listeners to endure. Do you
have a suggested word limit on listener mail? This is
(28:28):
fantastic for several reasons. Yes, I'm okay. First of all,
thank you for your praise of the simple podcast. Who
knows what they are?
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, yeah, and no, And that is exactly what we're
trying to be so so I'm really glad that that
is how it comes off.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
That's perfect.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yes. Second of all, I love libraries and librarians are amazing,
so they are.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yes, Oh, thank you for your library service. It's very important.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Yes. Now, I am ecstatic that you've written a twelve
hundred word essay on a specific type of mango cultivar
and I do want to know everything about it. We've
never considered a word limit before.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
No, No, we have not.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I'll say that typically in a given listener mail, we're
probably going through I don't know, like three hundred to
five hundred words worth of listener mail. But you should
not let that stop you because A we will certainly
read it personally with interests, and B we do you know,
(29:58):
have like like law devoted listener mail episodes, perhaps that
would be appropriate for something like that or I don't know, Yeah,
mangos man.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
We could do like a like a mini series, like
an ongoing clip, a little section here in the next episode,
another section.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Tune in next week for more updates about this one Mango.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, yes, I would say, please send along the essay.
We enjoy it greatly, and then you know, if you
have the time, like a if you want to do
like a summary of your thoughts, then we will for
sure read. Yeah, but we might. We've got ideas, We've
(30:46):
got options.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yeah. Yeah, we're workshopping this as we speak.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yes, I'm very excited about this whole thing. Amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yes, yes, uh okay, making a very excited David wrote
spruce Holy bats, Spruce Man, I've been wanting to share
my experience with this delightful colonial historical beverage. Since I
heard the episode, I've also been meaning to share my
experience with Brye Whiskey. The fish Sauce episode listener mail
(31:18):
set me off and I could hold no more. I
began my home brewing journey in my twenties. The only
widely available book on the subject was Charlie Papasian's The
Complete Joy of home Brewing, originally published in the nineteen seventies.
It included a curious recipe for spruce beer that used
commercial spruce extract, a partial mash, and very little hops.
(31:41):
It wasn't traditional or very good. A few months later,
I bragged about making spruce beer at a local brew
club meeting. I was questioned and criticized on my method,
and thusly directed to seek out an infamous local brewing
mage in the Arbor Brewers Guild. A member there from
the mid eighties total me I had to find spruce
in the wild, which I did. I then tracked down
(32:04):
the legendary Mike O'Brien of the ann Arbor Brewers Guild
and showed him a branch of what I had. He
politely took it, crushed it, sniffed it, and took a
bite he chewed it as if a human goat. I
learned more about brewing beer at home in that instant
of shocking delight than I have in the twenty years
since he told me that anything you brew with won't
(32:26):
know what it tastes like unless I taste it. I've
been gathering spruce trees in this manner ever since. I
could go on and on, but I must jump to Rye.
I began my bartending adventure in Detroit's first craft cocktail
bar in twenty eleven after thirteen years as a chef.
I couldn't resist the speakeasy vibe, and I took to
mixology like bacteria to sugar. We used wild turkey one
(32:50):
oh one for various cocktails, including our owner's popular creation
On the Night You Were Born, made with Pedro Jimenez.
I added a few Pride additions to the rotating menu,
but my favorite was the Agnostic Monk, a made with
Jefferson ten year Rye, benedictine, velvet, Flernum lacktart and a
flambayed mist of Pete Scotch. I've been tearing my bookshelves
(33:11):
apart for days trying to find the postcard of the
cocktail to no avail. Then on a whim, I did
a web search to discover I myself posted it two
kindred cocktails. The year it was created, it was that
good link attached. It was so popular that if we
started to run low on the Lefroyd quarter cask, we
would take it off the back bar to save for
(33:32):
this magical elixir. And while the search for the cocktail
card was going on, you asked for college food. So
here's a brief description. Tunaramen with hot sauce and dissorted
frozen veggies. Save the beef flavor package for chili mac
It feeds a whole bachelor pad gathering with two noodle packages,
(33:54):
one Tunican, two boxes of macaroni, one can of chili,
and plenty of assorted hot sauces. Just at a case
of natty ice, and we called that a Wednesday. Thanks
for reading. I love the history dives you gals go
through with these episodes. I hope this letter finds my
fellow listeners before May, when spruce harvesting season will all
(34:14):
but end for the year. They make great tea and
the syrup is a delight in pastries. Just take care
not to boil too hard or long as you can
pull out a stringent turpines similar to turpentine not so tasty.
A long, low steep is the best.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Good tip.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, yeah, important, thank you, thank you, good spruce tip.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Sorry, sorry, you know, I can't help it.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
I know, I know, it just happens. Yeah, I know.
Good spruce tip, good college food tip.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yes, Oh my gosh, I please, I just keep writing
in with this because I do think it's such a
time in your life where you're doing things like that.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, like no one can tell you no, you don't
have any money, so you're kind of just using what
you got and yeah, you're like, let's create something.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, it's very It is very creative, a little chaotic
energy around it.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Absolutely, although like heck, like I still think I'm fancy.
If I put frozen veggies in my ramen today, I'm like,
oh man, you crack an egg in that.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
That's a whole meal, that's like an actual meal.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, I'm the same. I have my fancy ramen, which
is essentially just ramen with a little bit of stuff
in it. It's fantastic. I love it. I might eat
it tonight, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Oh yeah, oh man, that sounds good anyway.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yes, Well, one of the thoughts I had reading this
is I love how much brewing sounds like a D
and D adventure. Yeah, absolutely sounds like you have went
on a quest to find like Yoda or something.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Yeah, I mean that, Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
And how wonderful.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yes, the Brewer's Guild, I mean it's there, it's all there,
it is, it is, and it's a fantastic story.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
And someone who just ate a pine tree in front
of you, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
And then gave you very meaningful but somewhat cryptic advice
that's exactly right, exactly how it should go.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
And then I love that you couldn't find the recipe
for this drink and then realized that you had posted it.
That quite funny.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
That obviously resonates with the two of us.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, yes, yes, very much so.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
That cocktail does sound really good though, Oh goodness, right,
like like rye betedictine fulernum lack tart, which is like
a souring agent if you don't want to use citrus
juice or want like an alternative, And then yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
A mist of PD scotch wonderful. I don't have any
of those things.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Neither do I, once again great regret at the end
of these episodes, I don't have any of that. Yeah,
I am happy to know about it. Yes, yes, well.
Thank you to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
or emails Hello at saberpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Instagram and blue Sky at saber pod, and we
do hope to hear from you. Savor is production of
iHeartRadio four more podcasts from my Heart Radio. You can
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super
producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(38:13):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of iHeartRadio. I'm any
Regis and I'm.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Lorn Vocal bamb and today we have an episode for
you about slow gin.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, was there any particular reason this was on your mind? Lauren?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Was there?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I should always be more prepared for this question than
I am.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I think I had just been exposed to slow gin,
maybe like I saw it in a liquor store or
on a menu, and I was like, what is.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Up with that?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
That's it, that's it. And it turns out a lot
of people, including me, do not know what is up
with that? Because I didn't know. I thought, and almost
everyone I have spoken to thought this as well, that
it referred to the process. Oh slow gin.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Oh yeah, yes, No it's not. It's spelled s l
o E. Yeah, not s l o W.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
And it's not a synonym for for for moving without rapidity.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
I thought it was one of those like the old
English spellings, But no, it is not that drink responsibly.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Always, always always.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I don't personally think I've had a lot of experience
with slow gin. Clearly I don't know. I didn't know
what it was. I'm sure I've had it, probably but
I have not.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Maybe it's not all that common around the United States,
partially because slow does not really grow here.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yep, I love this. I feel like we're doing kind
of a teaser. Yeah, people who don't know what we're talking.
We do that sometimes.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah. I like to have fun. I like to have fun. Well,
see our episode.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
On Gin, Annie, my darling. We have definitely not done
an episode on Gin.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I keep fumbling this. I could have sorry that.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
We did an episode on the Gin and Tonic in
which we talked really extensively.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
To be fair to you, you talked really.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Extensively about the history of Gin in our Gen and
Tonic episode, But we have not done just a Gin episode,
which we should probably do. It's also been a very
long time since we did that Gen and Tonic episode,
so I feel like rehashing the history wouldn't be you know,
the worst thing.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Oh yeah, it is quite a history, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Well, once again, once again, I do know this for
a fact, though we have done a video on Gin.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yes, yeah, we went and saw the lovely humans at
old Fourth War Distillery. Uh, and they took us on
a juniper picking adventure in Oakland, cemetery and.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
We uh and they showed us the.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Process and then we kind of got sucked into the
line bottling gin and then we were just bottling like
it's at some point it ceased to be for the
video and we were just on the line bottling gin
and that's what we were doing.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yes, And I really enjoyed it. Oh yeah, so like
really rhythmic movement thing.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Oh man.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, it was like it was like there was a
dexterity required and like a paying attention to a bunch
of different elements.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
It was.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
It was a good day.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
It was kind of like meditating. Yeah, once you got
like the movie the rhythm.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Yeah yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I don't know where our videos live anymore more, but
if you can find them, they're they're under the name
food Stuff, not Saver. But if you know how to
spell our names, you might be able to find them.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I'm not sure. I haven't checked anyway.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
For some reason, I don't search for videos of myself
all that often.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
What I have checked and they are still there because
I will. I was, God, that was a good video.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Let me go check by there. Do you mean like
on YouTube? Do you mean on yes?
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, Okay, okay, all right, cool, the food stuff YouTube?
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Great?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Was that Underhouse Stuff Works or was that our own channel?
I don't remember anymore.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I believe it was under House Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Okay, all right, Well, but it'll.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Pop up, I think if you there yet, go type
it in. Well.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Other things that I'm nearly positive that we've done in
behind the behind the scenes, y'all, I am having a
heck of an allergy. Forty eight hours is not like
a good word for that unit of time. So I'm
a little I'm a little out there right now.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
But yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Other things I'm pretty sure exists are herbal liqueur and
or liquor related episodes and or cocktails like aquavite, vermouth.
Maybe cocktails like the Negroni or martini. Also like droop
episodes like plums, apricots, peaches like amoretto. Yeah, I don't know,
(05:33):
maybe like ice wine kind of.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I love this. Again, if you don't know what we're
talking about, you might be really trying to narrow in
what could it be, which I guess brings us to
our question.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Slojin What is it? Well?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Slo Gin is a type of liquor made by crushing
and steeping these like plum adjacent berries of the blackthorn
or slow plant in gin and then sweetening to taste.
Gin being a liquor with lots of botanicals added, including
a prominent juniper flavor. But yeah, the result is a
(06:24):
ruby colored like jammy, fruity, sort of sweet tart liqueur
with varying piny, spicy, baky sort of flavors to it.
It is industrially produced, but also homemade in places where
blackthorn grows. Slow gin can be sipped on its own
or over ice, or added to cocktails. It is especially
(06:47):
popular around the winter holidays. If gin is a little
like drinking a pine tree, slow gin is sort of
like drinking a pine tree that's been just bedecked with
like glittering ornaments and rich garlands and has some sugary
(07:07):
treats wrapped up underneath. Oh that sounds lovely, right, yeah, yeah,
if you're not expecting it. If you're expecting gin and
you get some slow gin, it's a very different experience.
It's one of those like, oh, this is quite sweet,
what's happening? Yes, But but yeah, no, it's one once
(07:29):
you understand what has been given to you it is
quite nice. But okay, all right, let's unpack all of
this a little bit. So blackthorn botanical name Prunus spinosa spinosa,
I'm not sure. Blackthorn is a large shrub or a
small tree in the rose family, a close cousin to
(07:52):
plums and more widely other stone fruits like peaches and almonds.
Blackthorn's bark is very dark, and it's a very thorny shrub.
Black thorn sure makes perfect sense. These shrubs are native
and grow wild really commonly around temperate parts of Europe,
where they are sometimes used as a land borders or
(08:15):
or like dividers. They grow like densely with many stems
which they can put down new roots from. So yeah,
they're kind of big and shrubby. Yeah there. Wood is
used for useful indoor decor type items like like like
walking sticks, and the Irish shillaly is usually made from
black thorn stems that have a good like bulbous like
(08:37):
root bit still attached.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Anyway, these plants bloom or like explode really with just
lots of pretty little white flowers in the early spring
before their leaves even properly come in. If pollinated in
the summer, these flowers will develop a Each develop a
small fruit called a slow, with a skin that goes
from green to like deep purple blue. When it's ripe
(09:00):
in the early fall, slows look a little bit like
blueberry sized plums. You know. They've got like a little
tikis kind of thing going on. And yeah, they measure
like a little less than half an inch across, about
a centimeter or so. They tend to have a silvery
spread across their skins from natural yeasts. That skin is
a little bit thick, I think, and the translucent flesh
(09:21):
inside will go from green to kind of yellow orange
when it's ripe. Each will contain a sizeable pit a
single seed that looks like a small almond. Colloquially we
call them berries, but botanically they're a drupe. I understand
that the fruits are very puckery, tart, and a little
bitter when they're eaten fresh. They are usually allowed to
(09:43):
ripen all the way until the first frosts in the
fall to like really develop their sugars and flavors. The
seeds have like a cherry almond kind of flavor to them,
and also can contain toxins, so don't eat them. Like pringles,
Sloes tend to be plentiful where they grow, if a
(10:03):
little difficult to harvest due to all of those thorns.
They are often preserved, made into jam or jelly, fermented
into vinegar or wine or cider, or steeped in liquor
of various kinds, sometimes with other herbs and spices added.
Different places have different traditional preparations with like whatever liquor
(10:24):
is common or popular, but today, yes, we are talking
about slow gin.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
So.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Gin Gin is a.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Type of liquor made by distilling and or steeping various
herbs and spices into a neutral spirit, like a vodka.
Exactly what goes into it is highly variable, depending on
what the maker is going for, you know, like gins
can range from bitter to bright to spicy to soft,
with all kinds of like floral, citrus, woodsy or warm
(10:54):
notes in there. It's generally not barrel aged, so it
won't have the color and like the round like sort
of vanilla flavors that you get with a whiskey. Juniper
is the only like consistent ingredient, Juniper being another botanical berry.
It's actually like a really weirdly fleshy pine cone from
(11:14):
a different type of small tree slash large shrub. Some
common additions to gin include licorice or a nise, cinnamon,
citrus peel, nutmeg, saffron, savory. Basically, what you wind up
with with a gin is something kind of piny and
dry with other urban spice notes in there. So to
(11:37):
make slow gin, you crush or freeze ripe slow berries
and then add them to gin and let them steep
for like a couple months. You then strain out the
skins and the seeds and add sugar to taste. Some
makers do add the sugar at the start. Personally, if
it were me, I would like wait to see what
(11:58):
the fruit gives off to the liquor before adding any sugar. Also,
I've fermented enough things, both on purpose and accidentally that
I am personally wary of putting extra sugar in something
that's going to be sitting out for a long time.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
But that's just me.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Y'all, do whatever your grandma told you to, not gonna
argue with her. Some makers do crush the removed seeds
and do another steep with those. Again, like, always be
sure that you know what species you're dealing with. When
you're foraging, and like, probably do not eat handfuls of
droop pits by themselves, unless they are sweet almonds, which
(12:33):
are specifically bred to have less toxins in them than
other types of droop seeds. Those toxins can include things
like hydrogen cyanide, so you know, just you know, watch
out for that. Some recipes we'll call for almond flavoring
to kind of give you a little bit of that concept. Anyway,
I've read recommendations to save at least part of a
(12:55):
batch and let it mature for a year until the
next winter for the best product. Some producers do barrel
age SLOGIN to bring out different flavors in it. And yeah,
it is the sort of thing that yes, like everyone's
grandma has a recipe for around the parts of the
British Isles where it's from. However, I would say that
(13:16):
we're currently in a sort of renaissance of commercial production
SLOGIN and yeah, it can be consumed just however you like.
It is traditionally associated with Christmas where it is traditional.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, yes, well what about the.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Nutrition drink responsibly?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
We do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
A couple so I read that the market for slogin
is worth some six hundred and thirty five million dollars
a year as of twenty twenty four. European consumption makes
up about half of that and North America makes up
another quarter.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
And then all right, so okay.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
There's a pub in Kent, England called the George Inn
that started hosting Slow gin Making World Championships in two
thousand and nine, apparently after some locals at the pub
started arguing about who had the best recipe. I don't
(14:23):
think that they've held them every year, and I haven't
seen an update about them since twenty twenty three, but
they ran like at least eleven of them, not too
shabby at all. In twenty twenty two, they had thirty
entries in prizes for homemade, small batch, commercial and international
commercial varieties. They had entries from Australia, the United States.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
And France.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
The French one actually won in the homemade category. And
they always donated proceeds of all of this to charity,
different different charities.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
So I love that. Yeah, arguing about food or drink
can lead to competitions and good deeds.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's a beloved pastime.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
It is. It is. Well, we do have some history
for you.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
We do, and we are going to get into that
as soon as we get back from a quick break
for a word from our.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Okay. So, even though this isn't technically a gin, people
like to fight about that a lot. But you can
see our Gin and Tonic episode. It is, like I said,
a pretty wild one, and gin is traditionally the base
alcohol for making slow gin. For the purpose of this episode, though,
(15:55):
just know that marketing of gin goes back to the
sixteen hundreds and it was especially popular in England. Now
when it comes to slow.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, so people have been making use of slowberries for
a very long time. A lot of their pits have
been found at archaeological sites dating back like ten thousand
years or more in various parts of Europe. Apparently, OTSI
the Icepan was found with like a single slowberry on
or about his person.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
So huh, all right, Well, slow grows in the wild
throughout parts of Europe, but in this episode were largely
focusing on the UK, where they grow especially in hedgerows
that at one time separated people's properties. And this started
in the sixteen hundreds or so. These hedges were a
(16:48):
part of a series of enclosure acts enacted by Parliament,
which were meant to parcel out land and property. The
hedges served as natural fences or any branches deterred wild
animals from properties and just so happened to be a
place where slow liked to grow. Because of slow's bitter taste,
(17:10):
they historically haven't been cultivated, at least not on a
large scale, but still people were determined to find a
use for them. Beginning in the seventeenth or eighteenth century,
folks in England started harvesting the berries and adding them
into high proof gin with a little sugar. It was
something traditionally made at home or on a farm. However,
(17:34):
in the early days the resulting product was seen as
something that was low quality, which is a mindset that
didn't change until the nineteenth century when distilleries started producing
a higher quality slow gin, and one of the big
ones that is still available today, Plymouth slow Gin, debuted
in eighteen eighty three, and this was a well known
(17:55):
distillery already. Oh yeah yeah, so they this was a
new product, but people trusted this distillery. The first known
mention of slows being used in alcohol popped up in
a seventeen seventeen book called British Wonders, published by the
owner of a London tavern named ned Ward, who happened
(18:16):
to be a satirical poet. The mention seems to be
making a point about the popularity of gin at the
time and how people were putting all kinds of things
in it to cash in on that popularity. The timing
of this written mention aligns with the so called gen
craze in England, when gin was incredibly popular but also
(18:40):
not very regulated. There were a lot of things going
into it, and there were also a lot of reasons
behind the popularity. Increased ease of distilling, tensions with the
French that limited French made alcohol imports, and a few
economic measures enacted by the UK, so it was very
popular at the time. M makes sense people put slow
(19:02):
in there at first. Slow gin was yes associated with
the winter, primarily as a warming drink during the colder
months and something celebratory for the holidays as well, and
that makes sense too because the berries were often picked
in October.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And after a couple months of steeping, yeah, ready just
in time for Christmas. Yeah, exactly. However, it seems when
slogin made its way to the United States and the
nineteen hundreds, it shifted to a summer drink when bartenders
added it to soda water with citrus and an optional
egg white, and this led to the birth of the
slow gin fizz, which I guess you could go see
(19:41):
our we talked about of the gin fizz in our
New Orleans episode. Yeah, we talked about the Ramos gin
fizz in our New Orleans episodes.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
But sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, because I couldn't find this specifically,
but I imagine people saw in the name and were like,
let's just do it.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
Yeah, oh yeah, no, and it's delightful. Sure, sure, what
a nice summer sepper exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
This change from winter drink to a summer one in
the US seemed to happen in the late eighteen hundreds.
The first known recipe resembling a slow gin fizz appeared
in an eighteen ninety eight magazine. However, slogin didn't really
gain a lot of traction here in the US until
the pre nineteen twenties, with the invention or popularization of
(20:32):
the Charlie Chaplin cocktail, which was a mixture of apricot
brandy slow gin and lime juice, allegedly invented at the
Waldorf Astoria. It exposed a lot more people to slow gin,
especially with the popularity of Charlie Chaplain at the time.
I love how often celebrities come up in these captal episodes.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
This was, of course, right before prohibition though.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
So so yeah, so very shortly after this cocktail hit
the scene.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
It was like a that yep. And then beginning in
the nineteen sixties and seventies, the slow gin fizz and
slogin in general experienced sharp decrease in popularity in the
United States. And we've spoken about this before, but that
was a dark time for cocktails in the country. During
(21:21):
the time, slogan all but faded away. Mass market American
products replaced the gin with neutral spirits, and American distillers
didn't have ready access to slow berries, so they created
a reddish, syrupy concoction instead, and from what I read,
it was coyingly sweet. But this was another fact I
(21:46):
wasn't expecting to stumble on. This slow esque syrup became
an essential ingredient in the college drink, the Alabama Slammer,
And this is a drink that is made up of Amaretto,
Southern comfort, orange juice, and this americanized slo gin. It
was invented in the seventies and perhaps was a part
(22:08):
of the true Slo Jean's slump because people weren't getting, quote,
the real thing, they were getting this like really sweet one.
But the first recipe for an Alabama slammer appeared in
a nineteen seventy one edition of The Playboy Bartender's Guide,
But after being mentioned in the last Barman speech in
(22:32):
the nineteen eighty eight movie Cocktail, the Alabama slammer went
mainstream like tgif TGI Friday's pitcher mainstream.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Wow, yeah, oh TGI Fridays, Oh TGI Fridays.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I did have a wonderful time there once when I
got delayed at an airport. That's what I'll give them.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
I will say that they were the place open, the
latest in my small suburban hometown that was also willing
to put up with a bunch of teenagers while I
was in high school.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, so you know, we get it. Not a sponsor,
by the way. Okay, So moving on from being a
pitcher at TGI Fridays during the Craft Cocktail revival in
the US in the early two thousands, some producers started
attempting to recreate quote real slogin with jin as opposed
(23:35):
to a neutral spirit and with slow berries as opposed
to artificial flavors.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Yeah, and to be fairy.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
It had never gone away in European markets, but right
in the United States it had a little bit of
a drop off there. These days, slojeans are increasingly available
even here in the US. There are even some rifts
out on the market made with other different local produce,
(24:02):
like beach plums near Long Island, or Damson plums in
Upstate New York, or Shara's grapes in Australia. So yeah,
so people taking the concept of a slow gin being
like a sweetened ruby fruit kind of kind of thing,
and yeah, just taking it local, which is what it's
about anyway.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
So I love that.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I love that too. And it was interesting to me,
as I said, I didn't know slow was fruit, And
it's interesting to me how many of these other variants.
When I was reading about them, I was like, I've
never heard of a beach plum either, But I love
that people are making these localized versions.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, yeah, and right, And I also loved reading like,
like kind of adjacent to this reading, I found a
lot of stuff about other uses for slow berries, and yeah,
like adding them to different brandis, or the different herbs
and spices that might go into different concoctions to give
it a little bit more of like a winter spice
(25:09):
kind of flavor in different places.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah. Just people get up to all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
It's great they do, and listeners, we would love to
know what you have gotten up to. Oh yeah, yeah,
it's so eager to hear about this.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Oh. I feel nearly positive that we have at least
a couple of listeners who have like family recipes for
a slow gin or or maybe for one of these
other slowberry things. Yeah. Yeah, if you have, if you've
been slow picking, if you have the scars to prove it,
(25:46):
let us.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Know, Yes, please please let us know. But I think
that's what we have to say about slow gen for now.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
I think it is.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Uh. We do already have some listener mail for you, though,
and we are going to get into that as soon
as we get back from one more quick break for
word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
And we're back.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
With the thorns. The thorns. The thorns got all look out.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
I apparently really do, because especially like towards the winter,
when everything gets a little bit like older and brittle,
they can they can they a will pierce deep and
be like they can break off easily in your skin
and then you just have like a little just a
little thorn bit that's in there and it can get
infected and it's a bad time. I've heard this is
actually a huge problem. So oh no, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Well I didn't mean to make light of a huge problem.
But also, once again, it does kind of crack me
up how often humans are like challenge exceptions. You're like
worth it, I want my slogans are not going to
(27:18):
deter me. Yeah, Janet wrote, I would like to object
to your self description in the liftin episode. You are
not lowly podcasters. You are highly respectable. Once however, the
descriptor of simple you may apply with pride, as you
(27:38):
never pretend to a greater expertise than you have earned. Honestly,
in the modern information environment of false experts and opaquely
synthesized llm answers, admitting your limitations and citing your sources
are wonderful attributes, and as a trained librarian, I salute you.
You are simple podcasters and I admire you greatly for it. Additionally,
(28:04):
I wish to share with you my thoughts on the
Kensington Pride mango cultivar that is so beloved in Australia.
But so far I have written a twelve hundred word
essay on the topic, and I fear this is too
much for you and your listeners to endure. Do you
have a suggested word limit on listener mail? This is
(28:28):
fantastic for several reasons. Yes, I'm okay. First of all,
thank you for your praise of the simple podcast. Who
knows what they are?
Speaker 3 (28:48):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, yeah, and no, And that is exactly what we're
trying to be so so I'm really glad that that
is how it comes off.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
That's perfect.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yes. Second of all, I love libraries and librarians are amazing,
so they are.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yes, Oh, thank you for your library service. It's very important.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Yes. Now, I am ecstatic that you've written a twelve
hundred word essay on a specific type of mango cultivar
and I do want to know everything about it. We've
never considered a word limit before.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
No, No, we have not.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
I'll say that typically in a given listener mail, we're
probably going through I don't know, like three hundred to
five hundred words worth of listener mail. But you should
not let that stop you because A we will certainly
read it personally with interests, and B we do you know,
(29:58):
have like like law devoted listener mail episodes, perhaps that
would be appropriate for something like that or I don't know, Yeah,
mangos man.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
We could do like a like a mini series, like
an ongoing clip, a little section here in the next episode,
another section.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Tune in next week for more updates about this one Mango.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, yes, I would say, please send along the essay.
We enjoy it greatly, and then you know, if you
have the time, like a if you want to do
like a summary of your thoughts, then we will for
sure read. Yeah, but we might. We've got ideas, We've
(30:46):
got options.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Yeah. Yeah, we're workshopping this as we speak.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yes, I'm very excited about this whole thing. Amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yes, yes, uh okay, making a very excited David wrote
spruce Holy bats, Spruce Man, I've been wanting to share
my experience with this delightful colonial historical beverage. Since I
heard the episode, I've also been meaning to share my
experience with Brye Whiskey. The fish Sauce episode listener mail
(31:18):
set me off and I could hold no more. I
began my home brewing journey in my twenties. The only
widely available book on the subject was Charlie Papasian's The
Complete Joy of home Brewing, originally published in the nineteen seventies.
It included a curious recipe for spruce beer that used
commercial spruce extract, a partial mash, and very little hops.
(31:41):
It wasn't traditional or very good. A few months later,
I bragged about making spruce beer at a local brew
club meeting. I was questioned and criticized on my method,
and thusly directed to seek out an infamous local brewing
mage in the Arbor Brewers Guild. A member there from
the mid eighties total me I had to find spruce
in the wild, which I did. I then tracked down
(32:04):
the legendary Mike O'Brien of the ann Arbor Brewers Guild
and showed him a branch of what I had. He
politely took it, crushed it, sniffed it, and took a
bite he chewed it as if a human goat. I
learned more about brewing beer at home in that instant
of shocking delight than I have in the twenty years
since he told me that anything you brew with won't
(32:26):
know what it tastes like unless I taste it. I've
been gathering spruce trees in this manner ever since. I
could go on and on, but I must jump to Rye.
I began my bartending adventure in Detroit's first craft cocktail
bar in twenty eleven after thirteen years as a chef.
I couldn't resist the speakeasy vibe, and I took to
mixology like bacteria to sugar. We used wild turkey one
(32:50):
oh one for various cocktails, including our owner's popular creation
On the Night You Were Born, made with Pedro Jimenez.
I added a few Pride additions to the rotating menu,
but my favorite was the Agnostic Monk, a made with
Jefferson ten year Rye, benedictine, velvet, Flernum lacktart and a
flambayed mist of Pete Scotch. I've been tearing my bookshelves
(33:11):
apart for days trying to find the postcard of the
cocktail to no avail. Then on a whim, I did
a web search to discover I myself posted it two
kindred cocktails. The year it was created, it was that
good link attached. It was so popular that if we
started to run low on the Lefroyd quarter cask, we
would take it off the back bar to save for
(33:32):
this magical elixir. And while the search for the cocktail
card was going on, you asked for college food. So
here's a brief description. Tunaramen with hot sauce and dissorted
frozen veggies. Save the beef flavor package for chili mac
It feeds a whole bachelor pad gathering with two noodle packages,
(33:54):
one Tunican, two boxes of macaroni, one can of chili,
and plenty of assorted hot sauces. Just at a case
of natty ice, and we called that a Wednesday. Thanks
for reading. I love the history dives you gals go
through with these episodes. I hope this letter finds my
fellow listeners before May, when spruce harvesting season will all
(34:14):
but end for the year. They make great tea and
the syrup is a delight in pastries. Just take care
not to boil too hard or long as you can
pull out a stringent turpines similar to turpentine not so tasty.
A long, low steep is the best.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
Good tip.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, yeah, important, thank you, thank you, good spruce tip.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Sorry, sorry, you know, I can't help it.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
I know, I know, it just happens. Yeah, I know.
Good spruce tip, good college food tip.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yes, Oh my gosh, I please, I just keep writing
in with this because I do think it's such a
time in your life where you're doing things like that.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, like no one can tell you no, you don't
have any money, so you're kind of just using what
you got and yeah, you're like, let's create something.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, it's very It is very creative, a little chaotic
energy around it.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Absolutely, although like heck, like I still think I'm fancy.
If I put frozen veggies in my ramen today, I'm like,
oh man, you crack an egg in that.
Speaker 3 (35:36):
That's a whole meal, that's like an actual meal.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, I'm the same. I have my fancy ramen, which
is essentially just ramen with a little bit of stuff
in it. It's fantastic. I love it. I might eat
it tonight, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Oh yeah, oh man, that sounds good anyway.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yes, Well, one of the thoughts I had reading this
is I love how much brewing sounds like a D
and D adventure. Yeah, absolutely sounds like you have went
on a quest to find like Yoda or something.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Yeah, I mean that, Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
And how wonderful.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Yes, the Brewer's Guild, I mean it's there, it's all there,
it is, it is, and it's a fantastic story.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
And someone who just ate a pine tree in front
of you, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
And then gave you very meaningful but somewhat cryptic advice
that's exactly right, exactly how it should go.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
And then I love that you couldn't find the recipe
for this drink and then realized that you had posted it.
That quite funny.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
That obviously resonates with the two of us.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, yes, yes, very much so.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
That cocktail does sound really good though, Oh goodness, right,
like like rye betedictine fulernum lack tart, which is like
a souring agent if you don't want to use citrus
juice or want like an alternative, And then yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
A mist of PD scotch wonderful. I don't have any
of those things.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Neither do I, once again great regret at the end
of these episodes, I don't have any of that. Yeah,
I am happy to know about it. Yes, yes, well.
Thank you to both of these listeners for writing in.
If you would like to write to us, you can
or emails Hello at saberpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Instagram and blue Sky at saber pod, and we
do hope to hear from you. Savor is production of
iHeartRadio four more podcasts from my Heart Radio. You can
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super
producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(38:13):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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