December 24, 2013 • 45 mins
It's finally here, the best episode of the year! It's time to settle in by a nice fire, wrap up in a blanket, heat up a toddy and gather your loved ones around the mp3 player to hear Chuck and Josh talk about all of the things that make Christmas so merry and bright.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the all new twenty fourteen Toyota Corolla.
Welcome to you stuff you should know from HowStuffWorks dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast, The Very Special Podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, Charles Bryant, Jerry Rowling, and we're here.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The Gang's all here.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah. Oh oh that was hearty. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Man, this is one of my favorite episodes of the year.
This and Halloween.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Typically we're recording this one a little early, I feel like,
but it's okay.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Are you sure we can Postpon's okay? All right, let's
do it.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm excited about this.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I think this is is July. This is it weird December? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, yeah, at least we waited until December. Yeah. This
is a good way to kick off the season for us.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
So we have like a whole month to just feel great.
That's right, that's what the this is all about, Chuck,
Feeling great. Yeah, that's that's the Christmas spirit. Feeling great,
drinking hot buttered drum. Yeah that's man. I'll tell you what.
That put me in a mood for it. I've never
had one. I haven't either.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, I am going to this year.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I think I will be joining you.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I didn't know you actually put butter in a drink. Yeah,
I just thought it was called that because it was
like buttery or something.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Like a buttery nipple. Yeah, yeah, that didn't no butter
in it.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It sure doesn't, all right, but that's coming up.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, let's not get ahead of her.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
No, no, we don't want to spoil the hot buttered rum segment.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, we just wanted to say welcome to the Christmas
Extravaganza twenty thirteen. That's right, So Chuck, let's kick it
all off.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
You ever heard of a little diddy called Rudolph the
Red Nose reindeer?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Did he have a very shiny nouse? Yes, he did,
and if you saw it you might even say it glows.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I think that you could probably say that and people
they would they'd agree.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, I definitely have heard of this.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Okay, then you might not know that that's actually based
on a little poem from just a few decades ago.
It's not that old, you know, so much of Christmas
stuff is very very old. Sure, but our friends over
at Snopes got to the bottom of the origin story
of Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, well we helped, we use their material, but they
didn't get to the bottom of it. This is the
real story that is well known.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Oh okay, well it's not like they cracked the case
Merry Christmas Snopes.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah all right, so Rudolph, we're being coy. I know
all about this story, but the reason.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I had no idea the reason really Yeah, huh okay.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I mean I didn't know all the details, but I
knew that it was I knew it was not the version.
And this is why we use Snopes because a lot
of people have heard the story that it was written
by someone to provide comfort to his daughter as her
mother was dying of cancer. Yeah, and then they sold
it to a department store.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Chain and cashed in.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
That's right, not true.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
No, some of the facts are there, like the man's
wife was dying of cancer, or he did run it
by his daughter.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
True, but and there was a department store in Wall exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
But it was just it's just a little off. Yeah,
So let's talk about this. There is a man named
Robert May and he worked for a company called Montgomery Ward, Chicago,
Illinois based department store. That's right, and every year Montgomery
(03:43):
Ward used to give out coloring books Christmas theme coloring
books to kids.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, they'd buy them and just give them out as
a little promo gimmick.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Right, And the head of the copywriting division said, you
know what, we could save a lot of money if
we just made our own coloring book. But how are
we going to do this? What will the story be?
Robert May, you're very good at this kind of thing
of writing rhyming couplets for children. Why don't you get
to work on this? That's right?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
And he stamped out a cigarette and threw down his
last glass of scotch because it was nineteen thirty nine
and he was at.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Work, right, you know, at Montgomery Ward.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
That's right. And he said, sure, I'll take a stab
at this. And he kind of nicked a little bit
from the Tale of the Ugly Duckling. Yeah, and nicked
a little bit from his own childhood, because apparently he
was a bit of a small shy child. Yeah, on
the outskirts, let's say, of the popular crowd, the fringe,
the fringe. And he said, you know what, I think
(04:44):
I can use this for a story about a little
reindeer who's also on the outside and on the fringe.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
But what's the name?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I'm chuck, Well, this was I think we should use
an a literative name, is what he thought.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, because reindeer. Sure, so the first name has to
be begin with an R raloh.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
No, he tried ralloh and they said, you know, that's
a little too care free. Then they went with Reginald,
and he said that's a little too British. Yeah, so
let's just go full German with Rudolph.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, in nineteen thirty nine, why not.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah, I thought that was a little odd that he
turned down a German name in favor of or a
British name in favor of a German name. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Anyway, I'm sure our British friends find it odd too,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So then he went on and wrote the story and
rhyming couplets and did read it to his four year
four year old daughter, Barbara, who loved it. I think
it's funny that there's there were four year old's named
Barbara right back in the day. Such an old lady name. Yeah,
she loved it. And his boss was like, I like it,
but this whole red nose thing, is this a drunk reindeer?
(05:51):
Because you know, the old gin blossom. I don't know
if that's Christmas appropriate.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Right, And he said, I don't have a problem with it,
but our customers, Robert May suspected that it was really
the guy's reservations. Yeah, So he grabbed one of his
buddies in the copyright apartment and artist and illustrator and
took him to the zoo and said, see those deer,
make them cute and with a red nose.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, I bet it's. His first reaction too, was like,
you gotta be kidding me. Yeah, No one's gonna think
this reindeer is drunk, you jerk.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Right exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So, with these drawings in hand, these illustrations of a
cute little reindeer with a red nose and normally red nose,
Robert May got the sign off to go ahead with this,
and he produced this little coloring booklet called Rudolph the
Red Nose Reindeer, and it was an instant success. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
By the end of nineteen forty six they had given
out a total of six million copies. And then, of
course licensing started to poke their red nose in there
and say, hey, we'd love to license Rudolf because this
is a great story. Kids love it. And the creator
was like, that's awesome, except I don't own it because
I work for a company and anything I create as
(07:04):
owned by the company. Even though I created it, I'm
not going to see any money from it. Right, that
must be terrible.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, and so he went along his saddened way and
then thought, you know what, maybe I'm going to for
once in my life, stand up for myself.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I'm in deep, deep, crushing debt because of the bills
that I had to pay to try to keep my
wife alive, who died of cancer. Yeah, it's been seven
years of living under this debt. It's just me and
my daughter. I created Rudolph, let me go ask And
he went to the head of Montgomery Ward Suel Avery,
(07:43):
and in what proves there are Christmas miracles? Yeah, Suell
Avery said, you know what, We're going to sign the
copyright over to you, and he did.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah. It's remarkable to think that a company would revert
rights to a successful thing created by a person. It's awesome,
but I can't identify with how that's possible. I think
it was a different day and age, I guess.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Right, But I think also Chuck, we look back at
Rudolph and think it's just this cultural icon. I think
in nineteen forty six or forty seven, it hadn't blown
up like that yet. It was still popular, but it
wasn't until after Robert May secured the copyright. Yeah, that
the song that we now know and love was recorded. Yeah,
(08:31):
written by his brother in law. Yeah, Johnny Marks just
happened to know how to do that kind of things right.
And Johnny Marks actually rewrote a lot of the story,
a lot of the details of the story. Same with
the nineteen sixty five stop motion animation.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, that was the burl Ives narrated show. It's still
one of the greatest Christmas specials ever, so great and
they did take some liberties though, which I thought this
was probably one of the more interesting parts of the story.
The original story. The Rudolph wasn't one of Santa's Reindeer.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
No, not at all.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
He didn't live in the North Bowl, he wasn't part
of that whole.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Clan, and he wasn't a kid of any of the
reindeer of Santa's Reindeer, had nothing to do with them.
His parents weren't embarrassed by his abnormality. No, as a
matter of fact, it says in this article that he
was raised in a very healthy environment. Yeah, he had
a positive self attitude.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah, he wasn't like in the cartoon or in the
stop motion man, he's just like a sad sack because
he's such a freak, right, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
The original Rudolph was totally fine with himself.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah. And the other big difference is Sanna discovers Rudolph
by accident.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, he's just delivering gifts on Christmas night and spots
Rudolph in his room from the Red Glow and it
happens to be a foggy night. So he's like, hey,
I think I can use this kid to complete my
rounds tonight.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And he did. And when they got back, Santa had
some words for rudol Off. In the original poem by you,
last Night's journey was actually bossed. Without you, I'm certain
we'd all been lost.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And the great news is is that May lived the
rest of his life quite successful and even went back
to work at Montgomery Ward. And yeah, it seemed like
he had a like, really good life after that.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
He didn't have to work anymore, but he loved what
he did, so he went back to work. Good for him.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, and that, my friend, is a story of Rudolph
the Red Nose Reindeer.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Chuck. We mentioned Christmas miracles in the Rudolph part. Yeah,
there was something that happened last year in twenty twelve,
Christmas twenty twelve that a lot of people said it
was a Christmas miracle. At the very least, it was
a sweet Christmas thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
There's a little girl named Mia Maya. I'm not sure,
am I a?
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And she was seven at the time, and she lived
in New York City and we're gonna call her Maya. Okay, Maya. No,
we're gonna call her Maya. Okay. Mia had a dog
named Marley, who was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, which
were very cute, adorable sweet dogs. Yeah, and uh, Maya,
(11:24):
did I say may or Maya? I think he said Maya.
I think I said Maya. Ultimately, okay. Mia and her
mom were shopping for Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve and
they left Marley tied up outside of the store they
were in, and when they came out, he was gone.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
That's right. And thanks to video surveillance another Christmas miracle.
They saw that this jerk stole the dog.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Stole the dog. Did you see the surveillance he picked
it up and walked away with it. Yeah, it was.
The dog was clearly not happy to be manhandled by
this guy. No, but it's like, I'm a King Charles Spaniel.
What can I do?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That's right? So this sounds like not a Christmas miracle, Josh,
But it sounds like the worst Christmas story ever.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, it was Christmas Eve that this happened. The girl
said that she couldn't sleep that night. It was just
too hard, she said, which is so sad, and she'd
lost her best friend.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
All she wanted for Christmas was her dog.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Back, and she got it and her two front teeth.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Right, she's that kind of kid, exactly. So she got
her dog back thanks to a very nice lady who
that same day that the dog was stolen, was walking
through Union Square walking her own two dogs, and she
noticed a man with a shivering little dog, King Charles Spaniel,
and she just thought they didn't go together. The guy
(12:42):
was on drugs and this King Charles Spaniel looked like
it was too good friend.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Basically, well, and it was for sale. Yeah, on Christmas.
So she inquired weird.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
She inquired after the dog, and the guy said, I've
had this dog for years. I just need some money
and I hate to part with it, but yeah, well
I will if you give me some money. So the
lady actually coughed up two hundred and twenty bucks cash
right there on the spot and bought this dog from
the guy, which is pretty sweet in and of itself.
But she took it a step further.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
That's right. She took it to the vet.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
The dog was microchipped. Yeah, and she got it back
to their owner.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah. The vet called the family and said, we have
your dog on Christmas Day. It's a Christmas miracle. And
within a few minutes, Mia and her mom went and
were reunited with Marley.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yep. And the jerk was arrested.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Brandon Bacon. Yeah, that is a dog stealing Grinch's name.
If I've ever heard Brandon Bacon.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yep. And that is the story unless you have anything
else of the returned King Charles Spaniel on Christmas twenty twelve. Okay, dude,
(14:01):
now we're to an interesting part of the show where
we're going to talk about modern day mal Sanna's I
grew up with what I think was the best mall
Sanna of all time.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Oh yeah, that's a pretty weighty statement.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
The dude at North to cabmol in the nineteen seventies,
I can't remember his name was the most realistic looking
Sannah I've ever seen. Yeah, he was amazing. He was
my Sanna. And I will try and find some photos
to post when we released this of this dude. He
was great.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I didn't have a Sannah.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
He's departed now, but he really are.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
You were you like friends with this guy's family or something.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
No, but they did like a big article on him
when he died because he was like.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Oh he was that good. Huh.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah. He was known as like the best Sanna, the
best fake Sanna in all the land.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, and he really he looked the part.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I mean, really really look like Sanna, not creepy, all
natural with the beard and hair, like there was no
fake fakery going on.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, he was really really great. And that's a job,
and you can make some decent money doing it.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
You certainly can't, and you can also cough up.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
A little money trying to get there.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, depending on how much you want to create the
illusion that you are Santa himself. You're going to have
to spend some dough. A Santa suit, a good one
is going to run you about two grand. The boots
themselves are going to be about eight hundred bucks.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Leather gloves, the white ones three hundred bucks. Don't think
that hat is free white leather gloves.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Wait, what Santa? Have you ever seen that wears leather gloves?
That's creepy.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Really, you've never seen Santa wearing supple white calfskin gloves.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Oh man, we like the little white cotton gloves.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, that's what I've seen too.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I think that's mainly to prevent germs I think.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Too, which I didn't know. And it's also to make
your hands very visible at all times from what I understand.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Oh really it's a lot. Oh yeah, gotcha. Where's Sanna's hand?
It's right here.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
See.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Interesting, the white really stands out against the red.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah. I never thought about that.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
I didn't think about it either. I read it elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah. Interesting. All right, so you've laid down some serious cash.
If you want a really good theatrical beard. Let's say
you like that white one in the corner made out
of yak hair.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, because I mean, if you want a good sand
of beard, you have to go to the Yax.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It's gonna be about a grand to twelve thousand dollars.
Or maybe you can grow your own big beard. It's
still gonna cost you a little money to keep it
like perfectly white. Yes, you don't want see you red
in there, No, no salt and pepper. No, you want
to have a strictly white beard. And that'll cost you
a little bit of money.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Too, Yeah, six hundred bucks. I mean, think about it.
It's like hair coloring, right, and you want to go
to a good colorist. White's probably the hardest thing to
color hair.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, And this is all if you just want one
of each of these things, you're gonna be spending that money.
But as a Santa, you need backup wardrobe. Some of
these guys have like five or six of these outfits.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah. Apparently according to a poll by the Kringle Group,
which is basically a trade industry for santas, sure they
the twenty percent of Malsanas have five or six whole
suits tucked away in case of emergency.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, so that's like upwards of twenty grand or more Yeah,
an investment to be a Santa.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And they said in the same pole that most Sannas
have two at least.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
At least two sure, yeah, because you know, you get
Pete on at noon, you gotta go change so you
can get Pete on again at three.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah. If the Kringle Group does anything, they conduct poles
of Santa and they found that a third a third
of Malsana's have had a child pee on their lap.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I would think that happens once a year at least, sure,
don't you think.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Oh yeah, I was surprised. It seemed a little low
to me too. I thought so, But it's not just
pe like, there's all sorts of ways that kids spread
their germs.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yes, the Kringle Group said seventy five percent of Santa's
get sneezed on at least once, and forty four percent
are sneezed on or coughed on up to fifteen times
a day.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Fifteen And I'll bet that's an accurate amount too, because
I'll bet you count every time. Well it's number fourteen.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah today. Well, and there's no parent that with the
kid is like really sick and they're like, well, we
just won't do that this year. The parent's like, nope, right,
we're going Yeah, happy or.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Not get out of bed. The kid also may not
only p on you, cough on you, sneeze on you.
He may scream and tearor on you. And we actually
have a pretty great slide show on our website called
twenty three photos of terrified little kids on Santa Claus's lap.
You go to Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah, I've got one. I need to add to that.
I need to find it at my mom's house and
scan it. But there is one verified picture of me
classic case, screaming bloody murder on Santa's lap.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, I'd like to see that.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
It's good. You might also if you want to be
a Sandy, you might want to go to Santa school.
There are many, not many, they're a handful. But the
Charles W. Howard School in Albion, New York open in
nineteen thirty seven and it is the Harvard of Santa Schools.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
It was opened by the guy who played Santa in
the Macy's Parade for years and years in Your Charles Howard. Yeah,
and he did open it in Albion, but it was
later on taking over and moved to Midland, Michigan, which
is where it is now. And it is the most
adorable thing you've ever seen in your life, is it?
It really is? Okay, like the houses on campus Sana Village, Yes, yeah, yeah.
(19:36):
All of the Sanna's there refer to one another as
like Santa Chuck and Santa Josh. And they all have
like personalized vanity plates like ho ho wan and sure,
things like that.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
See the gloves.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
They also learn quite a bit of stuff like how
does like Christmas terms in sign language?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, the history of Christmas, just so you can acquainted with,
like the real story.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
History of Santa Claus. Sure, history of Saint Nick. Apparently
kids asked Santa how old he is? A lot and
Saint Nick was born seventeen hundred years ago, so you
gotta be quick on your feet.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Did they say that?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I guess some of them do. Others are asked whether
reindeer boys or girls. That's something kids always want to know,
is that a boy or girl?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And it turns out the reindeer should all be girls
because only female reindeer have antlers around Christmas time.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, and Santa has to describe that to the children.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yes, and Santa learns that at the Charles W. Howard
Santa Claus School in Midland, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Awesome. I saw a story. I'm gonna have to dig
that up for next year about these two warring Santa
Where was that? It was two Santa's basically that were
I think vying for the presidency of that group. You
were talking about the Kringle group. Yeah, and I think
it got really ugly. That's terrible. Yeah, it was a
great story that I read a few years ago. I'm
(20:58):
I'm gonna find that and save it for next year.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah. So what does this all mean in terms of
return on your investment? ROI? As I like to say.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Here, that's what Santa cares about.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, Like, can you get rich?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Play Santa? Are you asking me? Yeah? I will answer
that no. But you can make a decent enough living,
especially if you're just working for two or three months,
four months these days with the Christmas season starting earlier
and earlier and earlier. Yeah, but just for this amount
of time that you're kind of putting into it, you
can make some Santa's make up to eighty grand more,
(21:33):
make somewhere between eight grand and twelve twenty fifty grand.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, and in your bigger cities that you're nicer malls,
you're obviously going to find your better Santas that make
the top dollar. If you live out in the middle
of Kansas and you have a Hayseed mall, you might
have kind of a crappy looking Santa that makes like
twenty bucks an hour. Yeah, but hey, you got your Santa,
and good for you. They all need to be supported
(21:59):
in peed on with equal vigor. Chuck.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yes, we've now reached the point where we talk about
hot buttered drum.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, which is pretty exciting. It is uh and it's
old as the hills. It is as old of the hills.
And this is this is something that taught me a
lot about our history in this country, because I did
not know that the United States was a huge rum
producer back in the day.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah to prohibition. Yep, there's something called Medford rum, which
was the pride of New England. That there's a there's
a distiller that's like reaching the end of the distillation
process as we speak. Yeah, I saw that he was
about to release some Medford rum. Yeah, for the first
time in a while, right, Yeah, Well well yeah, it's
like defunked, and it's been defunk basically been since the
(23:03):
since prohibition. Yeah, but at one time it was basically
the the heart and soul of the colonial economy. And
some people make the case that were it not for
Medford rum, the colonists might not have had enough dough
to fund the revolution.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Wow. Yeah, And I didn't know either. If you back
in the day, if you went north of New Jersey,
New York, that was like the house drink. You run
to a pub and it was rum. Yeah, and it
was dark and kind of funky.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Apparently the rum was not the the taverns.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
No, well they were probably dark and funky too, but yeah,
the rum was uh well, we'll get to that, but
it was definitely dark rum.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
It would get ahead of ourselves here, Chuck. First, let's
talk about the difference between a toddy and a sling,
and one's cold pretty much. Yeah, when you call your
drink a hot toddy, you're using a redundant term. Yeah,
toddy's hot. Yeah, but you're not even really describing it. Well,
when you're talking about whiskey, a little sugar, lemon, and bourbon,
(24:06):
that's maybe a bourbon toddy. There's all kinds of totties,
but a yeah, and hot buttered rum is a kind
of toddy. A TOADI is the predecessor to the cocktail.
And basically it's booze, water and sugar. And if it's hot,
it's a toddy.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
If it's cold, it's a sling, like a Singapore sling exactly.
Let's say so, hot buttered rum is in fact the toddy,
and it's obviously was a hit back then and still
today because it was cold and back then in New England,
you know, you didn't have the insulation we have today,
and you would you would want something to warm the belly,
(24:43):
something maybe make you a little sleepy so you could
fall asleep. And so what better to include in that
toddy than.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
A little fat, a little bit of butter.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, they had plenty of cows, so they're like, hey,
we got these churns, we got this butter laying around.
It's really good stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I got a bunch of rum, got a.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Bunch of tons of rum, and we have these hot
seering pokers in the fire.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Which I did not know about until this.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
That's pretty awesome and I'd love to make one like that. Yeah,
you know the original way, Oh, yeah, which we'll get
to in a second. But they said, let's do all
these in a glass and drink it. And it turns
out it's delicious and buttery and puts you to sleep
with a smile on your face.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
They have no idea who the first person was to
put all of it together, but by the mid eighteenth
century it was apparently all over New England. Sure, it
was pretty much everywhere in the colonies.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
George Washington loved the stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, And over time people have decided to kind of
make it a little more fru food than the original version.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
So there's there's a very widespread hot buttered rum recipe
that includes basically like a spice sweet batter where you
whip butter, yeah, together with nutmeg, cinnamon, all that stuff
and some sugar, and you replace the butter with that. Apparently.
David Wondrich, who's a cocktail historian over at Esquire Magazine,
(26:10):
says that if you do something like that in parts
of Maine, you'll be labeled the communist.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So he's anti batter. Yes, he is a straight up purist. Right, Okay,
but we're gonna tell you how to make these things.
But first we should talk about the ingredients. Yeah, you
want to use unsalted butter, that's a big one. And
you want to use good butter quality butter, not margarine
or some shed spread. Right, you want to use like
(26:36):
real butter, real nice unsalted butter.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, and you want to the more milk fat, the better.
And there was a guy who wrote the Gun Club
Drink Book. His name is Charles Brown, and he suggested
that in the hot Buttered Rum the butter was there
merely to lubricate the mustache. The author of the article
we read said, no, it's not the case. The butter
(26:59):
is hagro part of this drink, So use the as
the best butter you can put your hands on.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah, it kind of softens the corners, the rough edges
of this rum apparently. Yeah, some people include h cider
an apple cider in their drink, which can be done.
But the purists point out that's just another drink altogether. Yeah,
don't call it a hot buttered rum. No, it's something else.
It's a hot sider rum right with butter.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
So, if you are a purist and you want to
make an original og enjoyed by George Washington, Hot Buttered Rum,
how do you make it?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Well, you want to get dark rum?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, that's the that is the key. Yeah, good butter
is very important, but rum is really important. And you
were saying that it was a little dark, a little
funky back in the day, and luckily people are still
making those kinds of rum today. You want some brown rum?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah, apparently, he says. The demirera RUMs from Guyana are
really a nice way to go.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
They sure are.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Have you ever had that?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yeah, is it good?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yes, I'm not a big rum guy.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I had a bad experience with it about eighteen years ago.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Oh and you never recovered. Huh.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I haven't really gone near it since there's I would though,
for you know, it's been long enough.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
The kinds of rum that this guy's talking about, like
anything from Guyana, it's like you could drink it neat
it's good, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah. I used to, you know, worked at MEXICALI Grill
in college and not recommending this people because it's not
right to drink on the job, but we all drank
on the job. Yeah, yeah, sure, we drank rum and
cokes and that was where I drank a lot of
my rum.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
You went one tok over the line there.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
No, we were we were good. It was a college.
When you work at a college, barging me drinking while you're.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Right, but what was your what was your bad experience?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Then? I don't know. That wasn't from that, that was
from gotcha? Myers rum in New Jersey?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Oh gotcha? Yeah, Well Myers will work. It's a drum. Yeah,
if you don't have to spend fifty bucks on rum, no,
but if you wanna hot buttered rum isn't necessarily something
you're drinking every night. So maybe this year spring for
some decent rum. You'll have it around for a while.
It doesn't really go bad.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
All right, So what's the recipe?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
The recipe is as follows, Chuck, you want two ounces
of good rum, dark rum. You want three to four
ounces of hot water, one teaspoon of raw sugar. You
know that sugar and the raw stuff. Yeah that's dem ara.
Oh okay, And then you want some really good unsalted
(29:37):
butter softened.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Then what do you do?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well, there's a couple of ways. If you want to
go super old school, you're gonna heat up your mug
a little bit with some hot water. Just go ahead
and get the mug nice and chilled or nice and warm.
You don't want it chilled. You're gonna add your rum,
sugar and water and about two tablespoons of that butter.
That's a lot of butter. Yeah, and you want to
take a hot poker from the fire and plunge it
(30:04):
into your mixture until it starts bubbling. Yeah, be very
careful when doing this. Yeah, I don't use your like
fire poker because it's covered in ash.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, I don't. I don't understand it. Like what poker
are you gonna use?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Well, you're your rum poker. You would have something strictly
for this. Yeah, but let's get real, that's dangerous. Yeah,
this is the modern days.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
So if you want to make one that's slightly less colonial,
meaning it doesn't use a red hot poker to heat everything.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, get your tea kettle on pretty much.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah. Again, you warm like a heatproof mug with some water,
hot hot water, and then you dump that out and
you pour an ounce of water and some sugar and
you stir it to dissolve, yeah, boiling water. Right after that,
you add the rum, the rest of the water, and
(30:54):
that butter. Two tablespoons. Man, that's a lot of butter.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I know, I can't wait to try this, and.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
On both of them, you want to you want to
grate some fresh nutmeg on top. Yeah, and there's your
hot buttered room.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
If you want to be a communist in Maine and
make your batter, uh, you make basically you make your
spice butter sugar batter and that's sort of like just
your base, and you can scoop that out and add
it to each drink.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Right, it stands in for the butter.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, it's about let's say, if you want to make
eight servings cup of brown sugar. Man, that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Eight servings. I'm sure there's not a zero missing.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Seriously, one four ounce stick of unsalted butter, softened, one
teaspoon of ground cinnamon, I want to half teaspoons of
ground nutmeg, and one quarter teaspoon of clove. Mix that
all together in a mixing bowl. And supposedly that it's
eight servings of your batter. But sounds like it could
go a little further.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, that'll keep you up.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Maybe some people I've seen use ice cream in their batter.
Oh yeah, yeah, we just I don't know even I'm like,
that's too far.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Some might say two tablespoons of butter and a drink
is too far.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Some may and I think that's the point this holiday season.
When you're enjoying a hot buttered rum, if your age
is twenty one or older, you should adjust it however
you like and make it your own so that it
gives you a happy holiday season.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Awesome, Okay, buddy, it's time to round out the Christmas
episode with a reading. And we did this last year.
What do we do? The Shoemaker or something? Little Kids
in the Shoes did some story about some magical shoes
(32:43):
that were made overnight or something.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Oh about clothing elves.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, yeah, I can't remember the name of it, but
it's very It's a classic Christmas story, as is the
Gift of the Magi by O.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Henry, who is one of my favorite authors of all time.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah really yeah, he makes a great any bar two
he does, so now, folks, Merry Christmas. Twenty thirteen, a
reading from Josh and Chuck. The Gift of the matchup
one dollar and eighty seven cents. That was all, and
(33:19):
sixty cents of it was in pennies. Penny saved one
and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer, and
the vegetable man and the butcher, until one's cheeks burned
with a silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing
implied three times. Della counted it one dollar and eighty
seven cents, and the next day would be Christmas. There
was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the
(33:41):
shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it, which
instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles,
and smiles, with sniffles predominating, while the mistress of the
home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second.
Take a look at the home. A furnished flat at
eight dollars per week did not exactly beggar description, but
(34:03):
it certainly had that word on the lookout for the
Mendicancy squad, go look out for those guys. And the
vestibule below was a letterbox into which no letter would go,
and an electric button for which no mortal finger could
coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing
the name mister James Dillingham Young. The Dillingham had been
(34:25):
flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity,
when its possessor was being paid thirty dollars per week.
Now when the income was shrunk to twenty dollars though,
they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and
unassuming d But whenever mister James Dillingham Young came home
and reached his flat above, he was called Jim and
greatly hugged by missus. James Dillingham Young already introduced to
(34:48):
you as Della, which is all very good. Della finished
her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag.
She stood by the window and looked out dully at
a gray cat walking a gray fence and a girl backyard.
Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only one
dollar and eighty seven cents with which to buy Jim
a present. She had been saving every penny she could
(35:08):
for months, with the result twenty dollars a week doesn't
go too far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated.
They always are only one dollar and eighty seven cents
to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a
happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him,
something fine and rare, and sterling, something just a little
bit nearer to being worthy of the honor being owed
(35:31):
by Jim. There was a peer glass between the windows
of the room. Perhaps you have seen a peer glass
and an eight dollar flat. A very thin and agile
person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence
of longitudinal strips, obtained a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della,
being slender, had mastered the yard. Suddenly she whirled from
the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were
(35:53):
shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within
twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let
it fall to its full length.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Now there are two possessions of the James Dillingham youngs
in which they both took a mighty pride. One was
Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's.
The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Shiba
lived in the flat across the air shaft, Della would
have let her hair hang out the window someday to dry,
just to depreciate her majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King
(36:23):
Solomon bid the janitor with all his treasures piled up
in the basement. Jim would have pulled out his watch
every time he passed, just to see him pluck at
his beard from envy. So now Della's beautiful hair fell
about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters.
It reached below her knee and made itself almost a
garment for her. And then she did it up again,
nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and
(36:45):
stood still while a tear or two splashed on the
worn red carpet, on, when her old brown jacket on,
when her old brown hat, with a whirl of skirts,
and with the brilliant sparkles still in her eyes, she
fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street,
where she stopped. The sign read Madame Sophrony Hair goods
of all kinds one flight up. Della ran and collected herself, panting.
(37:08):
Madame large, two white, chilly, hardly looked the sofrony. Will
you buy my hair, asked Ella. I buy hair, said Madame.
Take your hat off and let's have a sight at
the looks of it. Down rippled the brown cascade. Twenty dollars,
said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand. Give
it to me quick, said Della. Oh. In the next
(37:29):
two hours trip by on rosy wings, forget the hashed metaphor,
she was ransacking the stores for Jim's present. She found
it at last. It surely had been made for Jim
and no one else. There was no other like it
in any of the stores, than she had turned all
of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain,
simple and chased in design, properly proclaiming its value by
(37:51):
substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation, as all good
things should do. It was even worthy of the watch.
As soon as she saw it, she knew that it
must be Jim's. It was like him, quietness and value.
The description applied to both twenty one dollars they took
from her for it, and she hurried home with the
eighty seven cents. With that chain on his watch, Jim
(38:14):
might be properly anxious about the time in any company.
Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it
on the sly on account of the old leather strap
that he used in place with the chain. When Della
reached home, her intoxication gave way a little to prudence
and reason. She got her curling irons out and lighted
the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made
by generosity added to love, which is always a tremendous task,
(38:37):
dear friends, a mammoth task. Within forty minutes, her head
was covered with tiny, close lying curls that made her
look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her
reflection in the mirror long, carefully and critically. If Jim
doesn't kill me, she said to herself, before he takes
a second look at me, he'll say, I look like
a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do? Oh?
(38:58):
What could I do with a doll in eighty seven cents?
At seven o'clock, the coffee was made and the frying
pan was back on the stove, hot and ready to
cook the chops.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in
her hand and sat on the corner of the table
near the door that he always entered. Then she heard
a step on the stair away down on the first flight,
and she turned white for just a moment. She had
a habit for saying a little silent prayer about the
simplest everyday things. And now she whispered, please God, make
(39:29):
him think I'm still pretty. She cut her hair off
right to make money to buy this gift. Yeah, okay,
got twenty dollars for it, So she looks like Anne
Hathaway and Lema's.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Rob Yes, all right, but with curly hair.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it.
He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow. He was
only twenty two and about to be burdened with a family.
He needed a new overcoat, and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter
at the scent of a quail. His eyes were fixed
upon Della, and there was an expression in them that
she could not read, and it terrified her. It was
(40:04):
not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any
of these sentiments that she had been prepared for. He
simply stared at her fixedly, with a peculiar expression on
his face. Della wriggled off the table and went for him,
Jim Darling. She cried, don't look at me that way.
I had my hair cut off in soul because I
(40:25):
couldn't have lift through Christmas without giving you a present.
It'll grow out again. You won't mind, will you. I
just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast.
Say Merry Christmas, Jim, and let's be happy. You don't
know what a nice, beautiful, nice gift I've got for you.
You've cut off your hair, asked Jim laboriously, as if
he had not arrived at that patent fact yet, even
(40:47):
after the hardest mental labor, cut it off and sold it,
said Della. Don't you like me just as well?
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Anyhow?
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I'm me without my hair, ain't I. Jim looked a
round the room curiously. You say your hair is gone,
he said, with an air all my idiocy. You needn't
look for it, said Della. It's sold. I tell you,
sold and gone too. It's Christmas Eve boy. Be good
to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs
of my head were numbered, she went on with sudden
(41:14):
serious sweetness. But nobody could ever count my love for you.
Shall I put the chops on Jim. Out of his trance,
Jim seemed quickly to wake. He unfolded his Della for
ten seconds. Let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential
object in the other direction, eight dollars a week or
a million a year, what is the difference? A mathematician
(41:35):
or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The
magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them.
This dark assertion will be illuminated later on. Jim drew
a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon
the table. Don't make any mistake, Dell, he said about me.
I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut,
or a shave, or a shampoo that could make me
like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package,
(41:59):
you may see why you had me going a while.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
At first, white fingers and nimble tore at the string
and paper, and then an ecstatic scream of joy, and
then alas quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails,
necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of
the Lord of the flat. For there lay the combs,
the set of combs side and back that Della had
(42:22):
worshiped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell,
with jeweled rims, just the shade to wear in the beautiful,
vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her
heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the
least hope of possession, And now they were hers. But
the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
(42:42):
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length
she was able to look up with dim eyes and
smile and say, my hair grows so fast. Jim, and
then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried,
oh oh. Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present.
She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm.
The dull, precious metal seemed to flash with the reflection
(43:02):
of her brightened, ardent spirit. Isn't it a dandy, Jim?
I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have
to look at the time a hundred times a day. Now,
give me your watch. I want to see how it
looks on you. Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on
the couch and put his hands under the back of
his head and smiled. Dell said he let's put our
Christmas presents away and keep them awhile they're too nice.
(43:24):
To use. Just at present. I sold the watch to
get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose
you put the chops on the magi. As you know,
were wise men, wonderfully wise men who brought gifts to
the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of
giving Christmas presents. Being wise, Their gifts were no doubt
wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case
(43:45):
of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you
the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat
who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures
of their house. But in a last word to the
whys of these day's, let it be said that of
all who give gifts, these two were the wisest, Oh,
all who give and received gifts, such as they are wisest,
(44:09):
everywhere they are wisest. They are the Magi. But do
you think of that?
Speaker 1 (44:20):
I think it was one of the great ironic stories
of all time.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Well, that's so Henry, he's the master of the ironic twist.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yeah, and it's not lame at all. No, he says
lame late at the end. But that's one of those words.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
It's a little different now he's self deprecating. Yeah, I
get it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
So yeah, man, how about that Combs he sold the watch. Yeah,
but they got the chops.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yeah, the chops. When I was reading that, I was like,
chops sound pretty good.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, that sounds real good.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah. You got anything else? I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Merry Christmas, everyone, Merry Christmas for another great year. Buddy
and Jerry.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, Merry Christmas, Chuck, Merry Christmas, Jerry. Jerry says, Merry
Christmas too, and to all a good night, to all,
a good night.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
HowStuffWorks dot com. Brought to you by the all new
twenty fourteen Toyota Corolla
Brought to you by the all new twenty fourteen Toyota Corolla.
Welcome to you stuff you should know from HowStuffWorks dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast, The Very Special Podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, Charles Bryant, Jerry Rowling, and we're here.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The Gang's all here.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah. Oh oh that was hearty. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Man, this is one of my favorite episodes of the year.
This and Halloween.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Typically we're recording this one a little early, I feel like,
but it's okay.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Are you sure we can Postpon's okay? All right, let's
do it.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm excited about this.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
I think this is is July. This is it weird December? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, yeah, at least we waited until December. Yeah. This
is a good way to kick off the season for us.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Agreed.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
So we have like a whole month to just feel great.
That's right, that's what the this is all about, Chuck,
Feeling great. Yeah, that's that's the Christmas spirit. Feeling great,
drinking hot buttered drum. Yeah that's man. I'll tell you what.
That put me in a mood for it. I've never
had one. I haven't either.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Well, I am going to this year.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I think I will be joining you.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
I didn't know you actually put butter in a drink. Yeah,
I just thought it was called that because it was
like buttery or something.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Like a buttery nipple. Yeah, yeah, that didn't no butter
in it.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It sure doesn't, all right, but that's coming up.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, let's not get ahead of her.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
No, no, we don't want to spoil the hot buttered rum segment.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, we just wanted to say welcome to the Christmas
Extravaganza twenty thirteen. That's right, So Chuck, let's kick it
all off.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
You ever heard of a little diddy called Rudolph the
Red Nose reindeer?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Did he have a very shiny nouse? Yes, he did,
and if you saw it you might even say it glows.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
I think that you could probably say that and people
they would they'd agree.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, I definitely have heard of this.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Okay, then you might not know that that's actually based
on a little poem from just a few decades ago.
It's not that old, you know, so much of Christmas
stuff is very very old. Sure, but our friends over
at Snopes got to the bottom of the origin story
of Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah, well we helped, we use their material, but they
didn't get to the bottom of it. This is the
real story that is well known.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Oh okay, well it's not like they cracked the case
Merry Christmas Snopes.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah all right, so Rudolph, we're being coy. I know
all about this story, but the reason.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I had no idea the reason really Yeah, huh okay.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I mean I didn't know all the details, but I
knew that it was I knew it was not the version.
And this is why we use Snopes because a lot
of people have heard the story that it was written
by someone to provide comfort to his daughter as her
mother was dying of cancer. Yeah, and then they sold
it to a department store.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Chain and cashed in.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
That's right, not true.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
No, some of the facts are there, like the man's
wife was dying of cancer, or he did run it
by his daughter.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
True, but and there was a department store in Wall exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
But it was just it's just a little off. Yeah,
So let's talk about this. There is a man named
Robert May and he worked for a company called Montgomery Ward, Chicago,
Illinois based department store. That's right, and every year Montgomery
(03:43):
Ward used to give out coloring books Christmas theme coloring
books to kids.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, they'd buy them and just give them out as
a little promo gimmick.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Right, And the head of the copywriting division said, you
know what, we could save a lot of money if
we just made our own coloring book. But how are
we going to do this? What will the story be?
Robert May, you're very good at this kind of thing
of writing rhyming couplets for children. Why don't you get
to work on this? That's right?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
And he stamped out a cigarette and threw down his
last glass of scotch because it was nineteen thirty nine
and he was at.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Work, right, you know, at Montgomery Ward.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
That's right. And he said, sure, I'll take a stab
at this. And he kind of nicked a little bit
from the Tale of the Ugly Duckling. Yeah, and nicked
a little bit from his own childhood, because apparently he
was a bit of a small shy child. Yeah, on
the outskirts, let's say, of the popular crowd, the fringe,
the fringe. And he said, you know what, I think
(04:44):
I can use this for a story about a little
reindeer who's also on the outside and on the fringe.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
But what's the name?
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I'm chuck, Well, this was I think we should use
an a literative name, is what he thought.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, because reindeer. Sure, so the first name has to
be begin with an R raloh.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
No, he tried ralloh and they said, you know, that's
a little too care free. Then they went with Reginald,
and he said that's a little too British. Yeah, so
let's just go full German with Rudolph.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, in nineteen thirty nine, why not.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah, I thought that was a little odd that he
turned down a German name in favor of or a
British name in favor of a German name. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Anyway, I'm sure our British friends find it odd too,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So then he went on and wrote the story and
rhyming couplets and did read it to his four year
four year old daughter, Barbara, who loved it. I think
it's funny that there's there were four year old's named
Barbara right back in the day. Such an old lady name. Yeah,
she loved it. And his boss was like, I like it,
but this whole red nose thing, is this a drunk reindeer?
(05:51):
Because you know, the old gin blossom. I don't know
if that's Christmas appropriate.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Right, And he said, I don't have a problem with it,
but our customers, Robert May suspected that it was really
the guy's reservations. Yeah, So he grabbed one of his
buddies in the copyright apartment and artist and illustrator and
took him to the zoo and said, see those deer,
make them cute and with a red nose.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, I bet it's. His first reaction too, was like,
you gotta be kidding me. Yeah, No one's gonna think
this reindeer is drunk, you jerk.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Right exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
So, with these drawings in hand, these illustrations of a
cute little reindeer with a red nose and normally red nose,
Robert May got the sign off to go ahead with this,
and he produced this little coloring booklet called Rudolph the
Red Nose Reindeer, and it was an instant success. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
By the end of nineteen forty six they had given
out a total of six million copies. And then, of
course licensing started to poke their red nose in there
and say, hey, we'd love to license Rudolf because this
is a great story. Kids love it. And the creator
was like, that's awesome, except I don't own it because
I work for a company and anything I create as
(07:04):
owned by the company. Even though I created it, I'm
not going to see any money from it. Right, that
must be terrible.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, and so he went along his saddened way and
then thought, you know what, maybe I'm going to for
once in my life, stand up for myself.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
I'm in deep, deep, crushing debt because of the bills
that I had to pay to try to keep my
wife alive, who died of cancer. Yeah, it's been seven
years of living under this debt. It's just me and
my daughter. I created Rudolph, let me go ask And
he went to the head of Montgomery Ward Suel Avery,
(07:43):
and in what proves there are Christmas miracles? Yeah, Suell
Avery said, you know what, We're going to sign the
copyright over to you, and he did.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah. It's remarkable to think that a company would revert
rights to a successful thing created by a person. It's awesome,
but I can't identify with how that's possible. I think
it was a different day and age, I guess.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Right, But I think also Chuck, we look back at
Rudolph and think it's just this cultural icon. I think
in nineteen forty six or forty seven, it hadn't blown
up like that yet. It was still popular, but it
wasn't until after Robert May secured the copyright. Yeah, that
the song that we now know and love was recorded. Yeah,
(08:31):
written by his brother in law. Yeah, Johnny Marks just
happened to know how to do that kind of things right.
And Johnny Marks actually rewrote a lot of the story,
a lot of the details of the story. Same with
the nineteen sixty five stop motion animation.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah, that was the burl Ives narrated show. It's still
one of the greatest Christmas specials ever, so great and
they did take some liberties though, which I thought this
was probably one of the more interesting parts of the story.
The original story. The Rudolph wasn't one of Santa's Reindeer.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
No, not at all.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
He didn't live in the North Bowl, he wasn't part
of that whole.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Clan, and he wasn't a kid of any of the
reindeer of Santa's Reindeer, had nothing to do with them.
His parents weren't embarrassed by his abnormality. No, as a
matter of fact, it says in this article that he
was raised in a very healthy environment. Yeah, he had
a positive self attitude.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah, he wasn't like in the cartoon or in the
stop motion man, he's just like a sad sack because
he's such a freak, right, you know.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
The original Rudolph was totally fine with himself.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah. And the other big difference is Sanna discovers Rudolph
by accident.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, he's just delivering gifts on Christmas night and spots
Rudolph in his room from the Red Glow and it
happens to be a foggy night. So he's like, hey,
I think I can use this kid to complete my
rounds tonight.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And he did. And when they got back, Santa had
some words for rudol Off. In the original poem by you,
last Night's journey was actually bossed. Without you, I'm certain
we'd all been lost.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
And the great news is is that May lived the
rest of his life quite successful and even went back
to work at Montgomery Ward. And yeah, it seemed like
he had a like, really good life after that.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
He didn't have to work anymore, but he loved what
he did, so he went back to work. Good for him.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, and that, my friend, is a story of Rudolph
the Red Nose Reindeer.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Chuck. We mentioned Christmas miracles in the Rudolph part. Yeah,
there was something that happened last year in twenty twelve,
Christmas twenty twelve that a lot of people said it
was a Christmas miracle. At the very least, it was
a sweet Christmas thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
There's a little girl named Mia Maya. I'm not sure,
am I a?
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
And she was seven at the time, and she lived
in New York City and we're gonna call her Maya. Okay, Maya. No,
we're gonna call her Maya. Okay. Mia had a dog
named Marley, who was a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, which
were very cute, adorable sweet dogs. Yeah, and uh, Maya,
(11:24):
did I say may or Maya? I think he said Maya.
I think I said Maya. Ultimately, okay. Mia and her
mom were shopping for Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve and
they left Marley tied up outside of the store they
were in, and when they came out, he was gone.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
That's right. And thanks to video surveillance another Christmas miracle.
They saw that this jerk stole the dog.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Stole the dog. Did you see the surveillance he picked
it up and walked away with it. Yeah, it was.
The dog was clearly not happy to be manhandled by
this guy. No, but it's like, I'm a King Charles Spaniel.
What can I do?
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That's right? So this sounds like not a Christmas miracle, Josh,
But it sounds like the worst Christmas story ever.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
Yeah, it was Christmas Eve that this happened. The girl
said that she couldn't sleep that night. It was just
too hard, she said, which is so sad, and she'd
lost her best friend.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
All she wanted for Christmas was her dog.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Back, and she got it and her two front teeth.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Right, she's that kind of kid, exactly. So she got
her dog back thanks to a very nice lady who
that same day that the dog was stolen, was walking
through Union Square walking her own two dogs, and she
noticed a man with a shivering little dog, King Charles Spaniel,
and she just thought they didn't go together. The guy
(12:42):
was on drugs and this King Charles Spaniel looked like
it was too good friend.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Basically, well, and it was for sale. Yeah, on Christmas.
So she inquired weird.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
She inquired after the dog, and the guy said, I've
had this dog for years. I just need some money
and I hate to part with it, but yeah, well
I will if you give me some money. So the
lady actually coughed up two hundred and twenty bucks cash
right there on the spot and bought this dog from
the guy, which is pretty sweet in and of itself.
But she took it a step further.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
That's right. She took it to the vet.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
The dog was microchipped. Yeah, and she got it back
to their owner.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah. The vet called the family and said, we have
your dog on Christmas Day. It's a Christmas miracle. And
within a few minutes, Mia and her mom went and
were reunited with Marley.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yep. And the jerk was arrested.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Brandon Bacon. Yeah, that is a dog stealing Grinch's name.
If I've ever heard Brandon Bacon.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Yep. And that is the story unless you have anything
else of the returned King Charles Spaniel on Christmas twenty twelve. Okay, dude,
(14:01):
now we're to an interesting part of the show where
we're going to talk about modern day mal Sanna's I
grew up with what I think was the best mall
Sanna of all time.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Oh yeah, that's a pretty weighty statement.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
The dude at North to cabmol in the nineteen seventies,
I can't remember his name was the most realistic looking
Sannah I've ever seen. Yeah, he was amazing. He was
my Sanna. And I will try and find some photos
to post when we released this of this dude. He
was great.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
I didn't have a Sannah.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
He's departed now, but he really are.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
You were you like friends with this guy's family or something.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
No, but they did like a big article on him
when he died because he was like.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Oh he was that good. Huh.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah. He was known as like the best Sanna, the
best fake Sanna in all the land.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, and he really he looked the part.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
I mean, really really look like Sanna, not creepy, all
natural with the beard and hair, like there was no
fake fakery going on.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, he was really really great. And that's a job,
and you can make some decent money doing it.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
You certainly can't, and you can also cough up.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
A little money trying to get there.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Yeah, depending on how much you want to create the
illusion that you are Santa himself. You're going to have
to spend some dough. A Santa suit, a good one
is going to run you about two grand. The boots
themselves are going to be about eight hundred bucks.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Leather gloves, the white ones three hundred bucks. Don't think
that hat is free white leather gloves.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Wait, what Santa? Have you ever seen that wears leather gloves?
That's creepy.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Really, you've never seen Santa wearing supple white calfskin gloves.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Oh man, we like the little white cotton gloves.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yeah, that's what I've seen too.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I think that's mainly to prevent germs I think.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Too, which I didn't know. And it's also to make
your hands very visible at all times from what I understand.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Oh really it's a lot. Oh yeah, gotcha. Where's Sanna's hand?
It's right here.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
See.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Interesting, the white really stands out against the red.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah. I never thought about that.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
I didn't think about it either. I read it elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah. Interesting. All right, so you've laid down some serious cash.
If you want a really good theatrical beard. Let's say
you like that white one in the corner made out
of yak hair.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, because I mean, if you want a good sand
of beard, you have to go to the Yax.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
It's gonna be about a grand to twelve thousand dollars.
Or maybe you can grow your own big beard. It's
still gonna cost you a little money to keep it
like perfectly white. Yes, you don't want see you red
in there, No, no salt and pepper. No, you want
to have a strictly white beard. And that'll cost you
a little bit of money.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Too, Yeah, six hundred bucks. I mean, think about it.
It's like hair coloring, right, and you want to go
to a good colorist. White's probably the hardest thing to
color hair.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
Yeah, And this is all if you just want one
of each of these things, you're gonna be spending that money.
But as a Santa, you need backup wardrobe. Some of
these guys have like five or six of these outfits.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah. Apparently according to a poll by the Kringle Group,
which is basically a trade industry for santas, sure they
the twenty percent of Malsanas have five or six whole
suits tucked away in case of emergency.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Yeah, so that's like upwards of twenty grand or more Yeah,
an investment to be a Santa.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
And they said in the same pole that most Sannas
have two at least.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
At least two sure, yeah, because you know, you get
Pete on at noon, you gotta go change so you
can get Pete on again at three.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah. If the Kringle Group does anything, they conduct poles
of Santa and they found that a third a third
of Malsana's have had a child pee on their lap.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I would think that happens once a year at least, sure,
don't you think.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Oh yeah, I was surprised. It seemed a little low
to me too. I thought so, But it's not just
pe like, there's all sorts of ways that kids spread
their germs.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yes, the Kringle Group said seventy five percent of Santa's
get sneezed on at least once, and forty four percent
are sneezed on or coughed on up to fifteen times
a day.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Fifteen And I'll bet that's an accurate amount too, because
I'll bet you count every time. Well it's number fourteen.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Yeah today. Well, and there's no parent that with the
kid is like really sick and they're like, well, we
just won't do that this year. The parent's like, nope, right,
we're going Yeah, happy or.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Not get out of bed. The kid also may not
only p on you, cough on you, sneeze on you.
He may scream and tearor on you. And we actually
have a pretty great slide show on our website called
twenty three photos of terrified little kids on Santa Claus's lap.
You go to Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah, I've got one. I need to add to that.
I need to find it at my mom's house and
scan it. But there is one verified picture of me
classic case, screaming bloody murder on Santa's lap.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, I'd like to see that.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
It's good. You might also if you want to be
a Sandy, you might want to go to Santa school.
There are many, not many, they're a handful. But the
Charles W. Howard School in Albion, New York open in
nineteen thirty seven and it is the Harvard of Santa Schools.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
It was opened by the guy who played Santa in
the Macy's Parade for years and years in Your Charles Howard. Yeah,
and he did open it in Albion, but it was
later on taking over and moved to Midland, Michigan, which
is where it is now. And it is the most
adorable thing you've ever seen in your life, is it?
It really is? Okay, like the houses on campus Sana Village, Yes, yeah, yeah.
(19:36):
All of the Sanna's there refer to one another as
like Santa Chuck and Santa Josh. And they all have
like personalized vanity plates like ho ho wan and sure,
things like that.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
See the gloves.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
They also learn quite a bit of stuff like how
does like Christmas terms in sign language?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, the history of Christmas, just so you can acquainted with,
like the real story.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
History of Santa Claus. Sure, history of Saint Nick. Apparently
kids asked Santa how old he is? A lot and
Saint Nick was born seventeen hundred years ago, so you
gotta be quick on your feet.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Did they say that?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I guess some of them do. Others are asked whether
reindeer boys or girls. That's something kids always want to know,
is that a boy or girl?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:21):
And it turns out the reindeer should all be girls
because only female reindeer have antlers around Christmas time.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Yeah, and Santa has to describe that to the children.
Speaker 2 (20:32):
Yes, and Santa learns that at the Charles W. Howard
Santa Claus School in Midland, Michigan.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Awesome. I saw a story. I'm gonna have to dig
that up for next year about these two warring Santa
Where was that? It was two Santa's basically that were
I think vying for the presidency of that group. You
were talking about the Kringle group. Yeah, and I think
it got really ugly. That's terrible. Yeah, it was a
great story that I read a few years ago. I'm
(20:58):
I'm gonna find that and save it for next year.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah. So what does this all mean in terms of
return on your investment? ROI? As I like to say.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Here, that's what Santa cares about.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, Like, can you get rich?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Play Santa? Are you asking me? Yeah? I will answer
that no. But you can make a decent enough living,
especially if you're just working for two or three months,
four months these days with the Christmas season starting earlier
and earlier and earlier. Yeah, but just for this amount
of time that you're kind of putting into it, you
can make some Santa's make up to eighty grand more,
(21:33):
make somewhere between eight grand and twelve twenty fifty grand.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, and in your bigger cities that you're nicer malls,
you're obviously going to find your better Santas that make
the top dollar. If you live out in the middle
of Kansas and you have a Hayseed mall, you might
have kind of a crappy looking Santa that makes like
twenty bucks an hour. Yeah, but hey, you got your Santa,
and good for you. They all need to be supported
(21:59):
in peed on with equal vigor. Chuck.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yes, we've now reached the point where we talk about
hot buttered drum.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah, which is pretty exciting. It is uh and it's
old as the hills. It is as old of the hills.
And this is this is something that taught me a
lot about our history in this country, because I did
not know that the United States was a huge rum
producer back in the day.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah to prohibition. Yep, there's something called Medford rum, which
was the pride of New England. That there's a there's
a distiller that's like reaching the end of the distillation
process as we speak. Yeah, I saw that he was
about to release some Medford rum. Yeah, for the first
time in a while, right, Yeah, Well well yeah, it's
like defunked, and it's been defunk basically been since the
(23:03):
since prohibition. Yeah, but at one time it was basically
the the heart and soul of the colonial economy. And
some people make the case that were it not for
Medford rum, the colonists might not have had enough dough
to fund the revolution.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Wow. Yeah, And I didn't know either. If you back
in the day, if you went north of New Jersey,
New York, that was like the house drink. You run
to a pub and it was rum. Yeah, and it
was dark and kind of funky.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Apparently the rum was not the the taverns.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
No, well they were probably dark and funky too, but yeah,
the rum was uh well, we'll get to that, but
it was definitely dark rum.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
It would get ahead of ourselves here, Chuck. First, let's
talk about the difference between a toddy and a sling,
and one's cold pretty much. Yeah, when you call your
drink a hot toddy, you're using a redundant term. Yeah,
toddy's hot. Yeah, but you're not even really describing it. Well,
when you're talking about whiskey, a little sugar, lemon, and bourbon,
(24:06):
that's maybe a bourbon toddy. There's all kinds of totties,
but a yeah, and hot buttered rum is a kind
of toddy. A TOADI is the predecessor to the cocktail.
And basically it's booze, water and sugar. And if it's hot,
it's a toddy.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
If it's cold, it's a sling, like a Singapore sling exactly.
Let's say so, hot buttered rum is in fact the toddy,
and it's obviously was a hit back then and still
today because it was cold and back then in New England,
you know, you didn't have the insulation we have today,
and you would you would want something to warm the belly,
(24:43):
something maybe make you a little sleepy so you could
fall asleep. And so what better to include in that
toddy than.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
A little fat, a little bit of butter.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, they had plenty of cows, so they're like, hey,
we got these churns, we got this butter laying around.
It's really good stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I got a bunch of rum, got a.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Bunch of tons of rum, and we have these hot
seering pokers in the fire.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Which I did not know about until this.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
That's pretty awesome and I'd love to make one like that. Yeah,
you know the original way, Oh, yeah, which we'll get
to in a second. But they said, let's do all
these in a glass and drink it. And it turns
out it's delicious and buttery and puts you to sleep
with a smile on your face.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
They have no idea who the first person was to
put all of it together, but by the mid eighteenth
century it was apparently all over New England. Sure, it
was pretty much everywhere in the colonies.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
George Washington loved the stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, And over time people have decided to kind of
make it a little more fru food than the original version.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
So there's there's a very widespread hot buttered rum recipe
that includes basically like a spice sweet batter where you
whip butter, yeah, together with nutmeg, cinnamon, all that stuff
and some sugar, and you replace the butter with that. Apparently.
David Wondrich, who's a cocktail historian over at Esquire Magazine,
(26:10):
says that if you do something like that in parts
of Maine, you'll be labeled the communist.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
So he's anti batter. Yes, he is a straight up purist. Right, Okay,
but we're gonna tell you how to make these things.
But first we should talk about the ingredients. Yeah, you
want to use unsalted butter, that's a big one. And
you want to use good butter quality butter, not margarine
or some shed spread. Right, you want to use like
(26:36):
real butter, real nice unsalted butter.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Yeah, and you want to the more milk fat, the better.
And there was a guy who wrote the Gun Club
Drink Book. His name is Charles Brown, and he suggested
that in the hot Buttered Rum the butter was there
merely to lubricate the mustache. The author of the article
we read said, no, it's not the case. The butter
(26:59):
is hagro part of this drink, So use the as
the best butter you can put your hands on.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah, it kind of softens the corners, the rough edges
of this rum apparently. Yeah, some people include h cider
an apple cider in their drink, which can be done.
But the purists point out that's just another drink altogether. Yeah,
don't call it a hot buttered rum. No, it's something else.
It's a hot sider rum right with butter.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
So, if you are a purist and you want to
make an original og enjoyed by George Washington, Hot Buttered Rum,
how do you make it?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Well, you want to get dark rum?
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, that's the that is the key. Yeah, good butter
is very important, but rum is really important. And you
were saying that it was a little dark, a little
funky back in the day, and luckily people are still
making those kinds of rum today. You want some brown rum?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Yeah, apparently, he says. The demirera RUMs from Guyana are
really a nice way to go.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
They sure are.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Have you ever had that?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Yeah, is it good?
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Yes, I'm not a big rum guy.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
I had a bad experience with it about eighteen years ago.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Oh and you never recovered. Huh.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I haven't really gone near it since there's I would though,
for you know, it's been long enough.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
The kinds of rum that this guy's talking about, like
anything from Guyana, it's like you could drink it neat
it's good, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah. I used to, you know, worked at MEXICALI Grill
in college and not recommending this people because it's not
right to drink on the job, but we all drank
on the job. Yeah, yeah, sure, we drank rum and
cokes and that was where I drank a lot of
my rum.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
You went one tok over the line there.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
No, we were we were good. It was a college.
When you work at a college, barging me drinking while you're.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Right, but what was your what was your bad experience?
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Then? I don't know. That wasn't from that, that was
from gotcha? Myers rum in New Jersey?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Oh gotcha? Yeah, Well Myers will work. It's a drum. Yeah,
if you don't have to spend fifty bucks on rum, no,
but if you wanna hot buttered rum isn't necessarily something
you're drinking every night. So maybe this year spring for
some decent rum. You'll have it around for a while.
It doesn't really go bad.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
All right, So what's the recipe?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
The recipe is as follows, Chuck, you want two ounces
of good rum, dark rum. You want three to four
ounces of hot water, one teaspoon of raw sugar. You
know that sugar and the raw stuff. Yeah that's dem ara.
Oh okay, And then you want some really good unsalted
(29:37):
butter softened.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Then what do you do?
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Well, there's a couple of ways. If you want to
go super old school, you're gonna heat up your mug
a little bit with some hot water. Just go ahead
and get the mug nice and chilled or nice and warm.
You don't want it chilled. You're gonna add your rum,
sugar and water and about two tablespoons of that butter.
That's a lot of butter. Yeah, and you want to
take a hot poker from the fire and plunge it
(30:04):
into your mixture until it starts bubbling. Yeah, be very
careful when doing this. Yeah, I don't use your like
fire poker because it's covered in ash.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, I don't. I don't understand it. Like what poker
are you gonna use?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Well, you're your rum poker. You would have something strictly
for this. Yeah, but let's get real, that's dangerous. Yeah,
this is the modern days.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
So if you want to make one that's slightly less colonial,
meaning it doesn't use a red hot poker to heat everything.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Yeah, get your tea kettle on pretty much.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Yeah. Again, you warm like a heatproof mug with some water,
hot hot water, and then you dump that out and
you pour an ounce of water and some sugar and
you stir it to dissolve, yeah, boiling water. Right after that,
you add the rum, the rest of the water, and
(30:54):
that butter. Two tablespoons. Man, that's a lot of butter.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
I know, I can't wait to try this, and.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
On both of them, you want to you want to
grate some fresh nutmeg on top. Yeah, and there's your
hot buttered room.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
If you want to be a communist in Maine and
make your batter, uh, you make basically you make your
spice butter sugar batter and that's sort of like just
your base, and you can scoop that out and add
it to each drink.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Right, it stands in for the butter.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Yeah, it's about let's say, if you want to make
eight servings cup of brown sugar. Man, that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Eight servings. I'm sure there's not a zero missing.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Seriously, one four ounce stick of unsalted butter, softened, one
teaspoon of ground cinnamon, I want to half teaspoons of
ground nutmeg, and one quarter teaspoon of clove. Mix that
all together in a mixing bowl. And supposedly that it's
eight servings of your batter. But sounds like it could
go a little further.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Yeah, that'll keep you up.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Maybe some people I've seen use ice cream in their batter.
Oh yeah, yeah, we just I don't know even I'm like,
that's too far.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Some might say two tablespoons of butter and a drink
is too far.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Some may and I think that's the point this holiday season.
When you're enjoying a hot buttered rum, if your age
is twenty one or older, you should adjust it however
you like and make it your own so that it
gives you a happy holiday season.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Awesome, Okay, buddy, it's time to round out the Christmas
episode with a reading. And we did this last year.
What do we do? The Shoemaker or something? Little Kids
in the Shoes did some story about some magical shoes
(32:43):
that were made overnight or something.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Oh about clothing elves.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Yeah, yeah, I can't remember the name of it, but
it's very It's a classic Christmas story, as is the
Gift of the Magi by O.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Henry, who is one of my favorite authors of all time.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Yeah really yeah, he makes a great any bar two
he does, so now, folks, Merry Christmas. Twenty thirteen, a
reading from Josh and Chuck. The Gift of the matchup
one dollar and eighty seven cents. That was all, and
(33:19):
sixty cents of it was in pennies. Penny saved one
and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer, and
the vegetable man and the butcher, until one's cheeks burned
with a silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing
implied three times. Della counted it one dollar and eighty
seven cents, and the next day would be Christmas. There
was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the
(33:41):
shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it, which
instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles,
and smiles, with sniffles predominating, while the mistress of the
home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second.
Take a look at the home. A furnished flat at
eight dollars per week did not exactly beggar description, but
(34:03):
it certainly had that word on the lookout for the
Mendicancy squad, go look out for those guys. And the
vestibule below was a letterbox into which no letter would go,
and an electric button for which no mortal finger could
coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing
the name mister James Dillingham Young. The Dillingham had been
(34:25):
flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity,
when its possessor was being paid thirty dollars per week.
Now when the income was shrunk to twenty dollars though,
they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and
unassuming d But whenever mister James Dillingham Young came home
and reached his flat above, he was called Jim and
greatly hugged by missus. James Dillingham Young already introduced to
(34:48):
you as Della, which is all very good. Della finished
her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag.
She stood by the window and looked out dully at
a gray cat walking a gray fence and a girl backyard.
Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only one
dollar and eighty seven cents with which to buy Jim
a present. She had been saving every penny she could
(35:08):
for months, with the result twenty dollars a week doesn't
go too far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated.
They always are only one dollar and eighty seven cents
to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a
happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him,
something fine and rare, and sterling, something just a little
bit nearer to being worthy of the honor being owed
(35:31):
by Jim. There was a peer glass between the windows
of the room. Perhaps you have seen a peer glass
and an eight dollar flat. A very thin and agile
person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence
of longitudinal strips, obtained a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della,
being slender, had mastered the yard. Suddenly she whirled from
the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were
(35:53):
shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within
twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let
it fall to its full length.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Now there are two possessions of the James Dillingham youngs
in which they both took a mighty pride. One was
Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's.
The other was Della's hair. Had the Queen of Shiba
lived in the flat across the air shaft, Della would
have let her hair hang out the window someday to dry,
just to depreciate her majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King
(36:23):
Solomon bid the janitor with all his treasures piled up
in the basement. Jim would have pulled out his watch
every time he passed, just to see him pluck at
his beard from envy. So now Della's beautiful hair fell
about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters.
It reached below her knee and made itself almost a
garment for her. And then she did it up again,
nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and
(36:45):
stood still while a tear or two splashed on the
worn red carpet, on, when her old brown jacket on,
when her old brown hat, with a whirl of skirts,
and with the brilliant sparkles still in her eyes, she
fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street,
where she stopped. The sign read Madame Sophrony Hair goods
of all kinds one flight up. Della ran and collected herself, panting.
(37:08):
Madame large, two white, chilly, hardly looked the sofrony. Will
you buy my hair, asked Ella. I buy hair, said Madame.
Take your hat off and let's have a sight at
the looks of it. Down rippled the brown cascade. Twenty dollars,
said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand. Give
it to me quick, said Della. Oh. In the next
(37:29):
two hours trip by on rosy wings, forget the hashed metaphor,
she was ransacking the stores for Jim's present. She found
it at last. It surely had been made for Jim
and no one else. There was no other like it
in any of the stores, than she had turned all
of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain,
simple and chased in design, properly proclaiming its value by
(37:51):
substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation, as all good
things should do. It was even worthy of the watch.
As soon as she saw it, she knew that it
must be Jim's. It was like him, quietness and value.
The description applied to both twenty one dollars they took
from her for it, and she hurried home with the
eighty seven cents. With that chain on his watch, Jim
(38:14):
might be properly anxious about the time in any company.
Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it
on the sly on account of the old leather strap
that he used in place with the chain. When Della
reached home, her intoxication gave way a little to prudence
and reason. She got her curling irons out and lighted
the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made
by generosity added to love, which is always a tremendous task,
(38:37):
dear friends, a mammoth task. Within forty minutes, her head
was covered with tiny, close lying curls that made her
look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her
reflection in the mirror long, carefully and critically. If Jim
doesn't kill me, she said to herself, before he takes
a second look at me, he'll say, I look like
a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do? Oh?
(38:58):
What could I do with a doll in eighty seven cents?
At seven o'clock, the coffee was made and the frying
pan was back on the stove, hot and ready to
cook the chops.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in
her hand and sat on the corner of the table
near the door that he always entered. Then she heard
a step on the stair away down on the first flight,
and she turned white for just a moment. She had
a habit for saying a little silent prayer about the
simplest everyday things. And now she whispered, please God, make
(39:29):
him think I'm still pretty. She cut her hair off
right to make money to buy this gift. Yeah, okay,
got twenty dollars for it, So she looks like Anne
Hathaway and Lema's.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Rob Yes, all right, but with curly hair.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it.
He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow. He was
only twenty two and about to be burdened with a family.
He needed a new overcoat, and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter
at the scent of a quail. His eyes were fixed
upon Della, and there was an expression in them that
she could not read, and it terrified her. It was
(40:04):
not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any
of these sentiments that she had been prepared for. He
simply stared at her fixedly, with a peculiar expression on
his face. Della wriggled off the table and went for him,
Jim Darling. She cried, don't look at me that way.
I had my hair cut off in soul because I
(40:25):
couldn't have lift through Christmas without giving you a present.
It'll grow out again. You won't mind, will you. I
just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast.
Say Merry Christmas, Jim, and let's be happy. You don't
know what a nice, beautiful, nice gift I've got for you.
You've cut off your hair, asked Jim laboriously, as if
he had not arrived at that patent fact yet, even
(40:47):
after the hardest mental labor, cut it off and sold it,
said Della. Don't you like me just as well?
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Anyhow?
Speaker 1 (40:53):
I'm me without my hair, ain't I. Jim looked a
round the room curiously. You say your hair is gone,
he said, with an air all my idiocy. You needn't
look for it, said Della. It's sold. I tell you,
sold and gone too. It's Christmas Eve boy. Be good
to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs
of my head were numbered, she went on with sudden
(41:14):
serious sweetness. But nobody could ever count my love for you.
Shall I put the chops on Jim. Out of his trance,
Jim seemed quickly to wake. He unfolded his Della for
ten seconds. Let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential
object in the other direction, eight dollars a week or
a million a year, what is the difference? A mathematician
(41:35):
or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The
magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them.
This dark assertion will be illuminated later on. Jim drew
a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon
the table. Don't make any mistake, Dell, he said about me.
I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut,
or a shave, or a shampoo that could make me
like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package,
(41:59):
you may see why you had me going a while.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
At first, white fingers and nimble tore at the string
and paper, and then an ecstatic scream of joy, and
then alas quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails,
necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of
the Lord of the flat. For there lay the combs,
the set of combs side and back that Della had
(42:22):
worshiped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell,
with jeweled rims, just the shade to wear in the beautiful,
vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her
heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the
least hope of possession, And now they were hers. But
the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
(42:42):
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length
she was able to look up with dim eyes and
smile and say, my hair grows so fast. Jim, and
then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried,
oh oh. Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present.
She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm.
The dull, precious metal seemed to flash with the reflection
(43:02):
of her brightened, ardent spirit. Isn't it a dandy, Jim?
I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have
to look at the time a hundred times a day. Now,
give me your watch. I want to see how it
looks on you. Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on
the couch and put his hands under the back of
his head and smiled. Dell said he let's put our
Christmas presents away and keep them awhile they're too nice.
(43:24):
To use. Just at present. I sold the watch to
get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose
you put the chops on the magi. As you know,
were wise men, wonderfully wise men who brought gifts to
the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of
giving Christmas presents. Being wise, Their gifts were no doubt
wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case
(43:45):
of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you
the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat
who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures
of their house. But in a last word to the
whys of these day's, let it be said that of
all who give gifts, these two were the wisest, Oh,
all who give and received gifts, such as they are wisest,
(44:09):
everywhere they are wisest. They are the Magi. But do
you think of that?
Speaker 1 (44:20):
I think it was one of the great ironic stories
of all time.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Well, that's so Henry, he's the master of the ironic twist.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yeah, and it's not lame at all. No, he says
lame late at the end. But that's one of those words.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
It's a little different now he's self deprecating. Yeah, I
get it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
So yeah, man, how about that Combs he sold the watch. Yeah,
but they got the chops.
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yeah, the chops. When I was reading that, I was like,
chops sound pretty good.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah, that sounds real good.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah. You got anything else? I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
Merry Christmas, everyone, Merry Christmas for another great year. Buddy
and Jerry.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
Yeah, Merry Christmas, Chuck, Merry Christmas, Jerry. Jerry says, Merry
Christmas too, and to all a good night, to all,
a good night.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
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