May 31, 2023 • 48 mins
Camper English has written about the cocktail industry in more than 50 publications and his blog, Alcademics. A student science buff turned cocktail nerd, he's a popular speaker on the bar industry circuit thanks to his detailed research into specific topics. An example is “The Ice Book,” documenting his innovative process to create clear ice, considered a “diamond” in the drinks business. Another is “Doctors and Distillers: The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits and Cocktails.”
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET.
The Connected Table Radio Show is broadcast on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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forcy Radio. Welcome to the ConnectedTable Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
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Young and David Ransom. You're insatiablycurious culinary couple. We bring you the
dynamic people who work front and centerand behind the scenes and wine, food,
spirits and hospitality around the world,and we love sharing their stories with
you. Are listeners. You're listeninglive on WIE four cy Radio every Wednesday
at too, but you can hearanything and all our shows anytime on over
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one hundred podcast channels including iHeart,Spotify, Apple and all the Biggies anytime
anywhere on demand, and we doinvite you to follow us at the Connected
Table to see where we're going andwho we're talking to today. We're talking
to someone who we've actually wanted tohave on the show a while. By
the way, I'm flying solo todaywhile David rests his voice. But I'm
excited to have this person to myself. We've known him for years. We
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run into each other at tell Usof the Cocktail all the time and always
say we must get you on ourshow. Now, we've now been hosting
the show for this is like ourtenth year. So what took us so
long? But the good news isthe time is perfect because he's now got
these two amazing books, and thenewest one is getting some great press.
We're talking today with Camper English.He is a San Francisco based cocktail and
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spirits writer and educator who's contributed tonumerous publications, and he also has his
own site, Alquademics. I'm goingto ask him what that's all about.
He's the author of two books.The one I have right here in my
hand is Doctors and Distillers, TheRemarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine,
Spirits and Cosicals. This is atopic of personal interest to me since I
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kind of straddle both eating and drinkingin health and wellness, and there's so
much interesting detail and story in this. And he has a new book out
that we're going to be discussing aswell, called the Ice Book, Cool
Cubes, Clear Spheres and Other ChillCocktail Crafts, which is getting a ton
of buzz, including a major featurein the New York Times. I have
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to tell you I was reading thepdf about this coming back from sicily I
learned more about ice than I everthought I needed to know about ice.
And it's actually very interesting because younever think about these things. But having
just recently recorded a show on waterearlier this morning, it's a natural seguay
to move into ice. So CamperEnglish, welcome to the Connected Table.
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Hi, thanks for having me.Well, you know, we've run into
as I said many times, butwhat I love about the show, and
this happened yesterday as well, withsomebody as you really get to know somebody
because the art of conversation is reallyan art, and we always like to
start our show with learning a littlebit about our guests. Backstory, Camper,
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please share yours with us. Whereyou grew up and who was Camper
English as a young boy? OhI don't remember anymore, but I grew
up in upstate New York and reallywhere and Binghamton, and I went to
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college in Boston of Boston University,and I studied physics because it was the
hardest thing I could think of,and therefore I thought there would be the
most reward. It was, youknow, it was the eighties, we
thought like that, and so physicswas hard. And I did a little
bit of research in the MRI departmentof a psychiatric hospital for a few years
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after college, and then I decidedto go to grad school for computer science
or practical major, and I didthat for about a year, didn't finish
my masters, and wrote some codefor a few years, and then I've
been writing about initially nightlife, butreally since two thousand and six about cocktails
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and spirits full time. So Ikind of turned recreation into occupation at that
point, and it's been a wildride. I think that's interesting. So
you really, you know, youwent from science practical science to the science
of eating drinking, because there isa science to cocktails in many ways.
And of course, as we weregoing to talk to about ice, I
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think that's kind of cool. I'mimpressed that you can make a sustainable living
as a cocktail and spirits writer becauseit's been like hell trying to do it
and wine. So kudos to you. Kudos to you. So you live
in San Francisco, which is agreat city for eating and drinking. We
have not been there in a while, and you travel quite a bit to
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speak. I mean, you're quitethe lecturer. How much time do you
spend on the road? Well,pre COVID, it was it was quite
often, probably a couple times amonth, And since COVID it's been more
zooms and online stuff, And I'vebeen booking a lot of talks lately with
libraries around the country, so it'smore staying home, but still doing lots
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of talks. Now that said,people are getting a little tired of watching
talks on zoom and so there's abit of a pressure to show up in
person again, and so I'm lookinginto that and doing some sort of live
hands on the ice work following theIce book, because I think people really
want to get into it and playaround. So that'll be probably mostly local
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because ice doesn't ship very well,No, it doesn't, does it.
Um was this dry eyes? Youknow your site is called Alcademics. What
is the genesis of that well,you know, it's catchy, trademark too,
very smart, it's trademarked, Butyes, I did. But initially
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we sort of um learn along withme as I'm figuring all this booze stuff
out, and I was talking toa lot of bartenders and learning what they
do and how drinks are assembled andwhy they did certain things. And but
it's gotten to the point now,all these years later, that it's more
of a teaching platform for the stuffthat I'm learning and able to share.
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But I'm really interested in the nerdyside of alcohol, you know, the
chemistry of water and ice obviously,and the why things work the way they
do. And initially, when writingabout cocktails full time, there was only
a few people in the United Statesdoing that specific focus, and I would
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write about, you know, trendslike you know, basil is the new
mint and things like that. Butover time, as a lot of other
people got really on board and cocktailswere very exciting. As we got towards
two thousand and eight or so,there was a lot of other people involved,
and I started specializing and going backto my roots and science and made
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that more my focus. And it'salso more interesting to me that way.
It's it's not just basils the NewMint anymore and listicles or listicals. I
mean, I can't beg to tellyou how many listicals are out there right
now. You've got to site thefive top barsico to the five things you
can do with basil ins to theNew Mint, the five things you know,
it's like the formula. So it'snice too. It's not journalism,
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it's just it's just it's not journalismwhen you're doing a listical. It's just
bouting it out there, your journalista practical way to write a lot of
content and publish a lot of contentand mentions a lot of brands who might
advertise on one's website. But it'snot all that interesting at the end of
the day, No, it's not. I mean I get frustrated by it
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because I could pitch them on.It's really nice when you talk to someone
who's a real journalist and who's doinga deep dive into a topic and you
definitely have a niche. Both yourbooks have a niche to them, and
we'll talk about both of them.You know, I just told you before
we went on. I interviewed awoman in Kenya this morning. Who is
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creating water from air? Jesus createdwater from wine. Supposedly she created water
from air. And then I googledmaking water and I learned there's like all
these home methods from making water fromair. She's doing it in a very
big way to help help communities.So it's a very big way to help
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communities who don't have potable water.It was also interesting to just segue from
water to ice. In doctors anddistillers, you underscore and this is important
that you know many distilled spirits andwines were consumed because water was unpotable back
in the day. Yeah. Absolutely, It's it's amazing how much is really
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predicated on that the people were drinking, particularly beer, ay any form of
labor. The people who built uppyramids in Egypt and workers in the early
part of the Industrial Revolution before therewas a switch to tea would drink beer
because it was safer and had caloriesand nutrients in it from the East and
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fermentation. And then in other partsof the world like greecent Rome, people
were drinking wine instead of water,although they were watering down the wine with
seawater a lot of the time,and so it wasn't drinking to become intoxicated,
but just drinking to hydrate, theway that people drink gatorade today during
sports tournaments, and the that meantthat the alcohol was always around and always
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very useful. Like by default,you wouldn't put your medicine into water from
the river. You would put itinto wine, or you put it into
beer, and those the alcohol haspreservative qualities, so there are other reasons
to do it as well. It'llhelp extract, say wormwood herb and make
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it liquid and easier to drink,or make your barks able to be swallowed
rather than chewed off of the treeitself. And a lot of medicine gets
into liquid form that way because thealcohol is useful for extraction and preservation.
And then what I also learned,which was a real surprise to me,
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was how much attention there was tospring water. And I didn't really get
why until I thought harder about it. That the river water is often comes
overland there as animals upstream, it'sgenerally not all that healthy to drink,
but water from mineral springs coming upout of the ground would more often be
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not contaminated. And further, thenaturally carbonated mineral springs were that would have
stomach settling properties and lots of mineralsin it, and that water was studied,
as you probably just read, andout of that study became the whole
understanding that air is made up ofmultiple elemental gases and that the fermentation that
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produces carbon dioxide is different from thechemical reaction that produces carbonated water. And
that led Louly Pasteur to really comeup with the help come up with the
germ theory of disease just studying thedifference between those two forms of busy liquids.
It's quite amazing how like lack ofpotable water overland and led to so
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many different medicinal scientific discoveries. It'sit's actually amazing. And and even to
this day, you know, I'ma lot of European friends, it will
not consume ice ices like they don't. The Europeans do not use ice,
right, They really a lot donot enjoy it at all. They want
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minimal amounts. And I've learned justin chatting with people when doing say events
for tech companies, which I usedto do a lot before the pandemic,
that in different cultures there are differentreasons for not wanting ice. A lot
of people consider it unhealthy to havevery cold beverages, that it upsets the
stomach, and you know it doesn'tupset I stomach, but I don't know.
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And then other people really just don'twant their ice to dilute their beverage.
They just want it full strength,no water in there whatsoever. It's
not that they're resistant to drink coldthings, but they don't want water diluting
them. So those are two differentreasons why people reject ice and beverages.
It's interesting in Italy they don't haveI asked for ice because for me,
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the coffee is to have to dilutethe coffee. I don't know what it
is that mean everybody else likes Italiancoffee me I have issues, But I
asked for ice. It never came, and I know the Italian word for
ice yaco, but they never camebecause I don't think they had it.
And then a couple of my Europeanfriends Italian and friends, oh no,
no ice, no no, wedon't do ice, and my French friend
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Rita Jerma, I would never havetap water. I have to have bottle
water, and I think it allstems from the age old history of something
that came from a tap is notgood for your health. And ice apparently
from what I was told by someoneI interviewed who is Italian, Oh,
no, ice is really bad forthe digestive system. Like, man,
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I live in the South, youdon't have ice and ice, you know,
because we've been traveling a lot inthe South, and something that I
never saw on the north as much, but I see your where the southern
ice boxes. You know, thekind that you go they're called the ice
boxes, a penguin on the outside, and you go up, but you
put your fifty cents in or adollar whatever, and you get your ice.
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Yeah, a big either a blockdrops out or put a bag and
it fills up automatically. And wedon't have those in San Francisco, but
I do understand that I have themmore up north in Portland and Seattle and
places like that out of the city. Just balk ice dispensers. For like
a lot of people who go campingand traveling car vacations really need more ice
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around to keep all the food coldwhile it's portable in the car and things
like that. But just the wholeconcept of ice being like always readily just
abundant, like excessive, like weshould always we believe in having too much
ice and everything, like think ofus slushy at every gas station in America
that's just tons and tons of ice, like it would makes Europeans winds.
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I think it does. So Ihave to ask this, it is ice
wasteful? I mean, is icelike because there's a lot of drought issues
and so here we are having ourice eas and a lot of ice teas
and whatnot. Is there a wasteissue with ice using a lot of ice?
Not so much with using a lotbecause that you know, the equivalent
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of using water. However, icemachines that make the nice big cubes,
like the cold draft ones that welike, and I'm not an expert in
this, but my understanding from peoplewho've studied it a little more, is
it those in order to make theice super clear. There's a lot of
water that's actually discarded in the processof raising those ice cubes. So there
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is some waste depending on the machine, But the machines that may crushed ice
and things like that, that iceis not as nearly as wasteful, at
least those machines aren't. So therehave been cocktail bars when they really wanted
to put an emphasis on roodue seeingwater waste, who didn't buy certain ice
machines. And that's something I don'tthink even most bartenders are aware of that
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sort of built in waste that canhappen. And that's mostly it's water,
and then there's energy as well.Yeah, the good ice is not real
efficient. Well. Electricity is anotherbig issue. We talked about that because
I asked disgust, you know,how you're making all these machines, how
do they run? Because you knowwe're talking about rural communities. Hre's no
electricity since she does a lot ofsolar power. But you have to think
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about that because electricity is a hugeissue. And we've been traveling to a
lot of vineyards and meeting with alot of producers of the last since January
and that issue is coming up allthe time, the electric And we interviewed
him Kathy von ziela master of winein South Africa, and she was in
the middle of load shipping, whichis the giant electrical shutdowns they're doing across
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South Africa regularly, and I'm thinking, how does that affect distillers, and
how does that affect you know,you know wine producers is so you know,
speaking of ice, Camper, Ilove ice, and I got to
stop chopping on it because it's crackingmy teeth. I have a thing.
We have these friends in New Orleans. We say with them when we go
to tales, Julie David Benson,they have the fanciest ice machine. The
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little pellets you know, Yes,they're like little baby footballs and they're kind
of textured and they're just I can'tstop chopping that ice. One I had
COVID when I was down there,I believe or not after jazz fust and
all I wanted was that stupid ice. I couldn't stop chopping on it.
Yeah. Well it's the same iceas hospitals have or oh maybe that's why
hospital ice. It's the same asthat which is also known as sonic ice.
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Yes, those stars always have it. That's an expensive machine. But
you're right they when I was,when I was in the hospital, I
was chopping on the same ice.Huh. That's and it's become a real
culty thing with the millennials and genz is. They're really into that ice
and why is that we're all gonnahave crack teeth? But why is that?
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I'm not really sure. I thinkthey're just it's that textual satisfaction of
chewing on that specific ice, likethe other ice is too hard and really
unpleasant to chew on. But I'mnot a big fan personally. I don't
really like that it's called extruded icebecause it's like shaved ice. It's packed
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back together and those little pellets that'show it's made, and it is efficient
and not wasteful like the big icecubes. But it's also kind of absorbent,
like I feel if you pour liquidinto it, kind of the ice
soaks up the liquid a bit,and I like, I guess my liquids
and my solid separate. Well,you know, ice has gotten very trendy.
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I've gotten about three press releases andpitches on designer ice. And then
I was in New Orleans and Isaw these fancy ice cube makers and on
and on and on. And thenyour book comes out, and first of
all, you developed a process tocreate clear ice, clear ice. I'm
gonna start with that. I neverreally contemplated my ice. I've never sat
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and stared at my ice cube longenough to go. Why isn't it clear
because I've never seen you know,you know, my ice is always cloudy.
But there is a preference for clearice in the bar world. What
is it about clear ice that makesit considered superior than the usual ice it
forms and it's not clear, it'sopaque. Well, well, there are
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some really minor of physical attributes thatmakes clear ice better. Clear ice melts
more slowly than cloudy ice. It'sharder, which also helps it well more
slowly, and but really the biggestimpact is just the aesthetics of it.
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It looks so much better than cloudyice, and I always liking it too.
You can drink the same champagne outof a styrofoam cup and you know,
sitting in the dump as you canin a fine dining restaurant or a
hotel bar, and technically the liquidsthe same, but the experience and the
enjoyment of it, it's going tobe very different. It's the same with
having a clear, beautiful ice sphereand a drink than having that white crescence
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building up in the glass. Idon't even like to look at pictures so
bad ice anymore. It grosses meout. It's just such a better experience
to have clear ice in a drink. Well, you worked really hard to
develop your process of creating clear icetalk to us, and apparently it's been
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adopted by bartenders all around the world. Right. Yeah, So I when
bartenders were putting their attention into bigclear cubes, and these would be bars
like Milk and Hunt in New York, and there weren't ice machines that made
the big two inch cubes that wewere, like with an old fashioned or
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something like that, and so theywould freeze large hotel pans of water into
ice and cut up. But itwasn't perfectly clear. And there were a
lot of ways that people would saythey thought helped get clearer ice, by
using boiling water, which we've allheard from our youth, but yet it
doesn't work. And some people wouldmake ice and then melt it and then
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refreeze it, and the theory wasthat made better ice. And so I
just repeated a lot of experiments becauseI was very interested. I really didn't
I thought I was just disproving things. I didn't think I was going to
figure it out. But I hadnoticed by the different containers that I was
using that the cloudy part would bein a different form in a different way
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in a cube, So a wideflat container like a lasagna pan, there
was the cloudy part was all justa thin line and across the middle,
but the edges were completely clear.And this lead with a lot of experiments
and then just a lot of thinkingabout it to the concept that just like
a pond, freezes from the topdown, because the cold there is only
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on the top, we could useit insulated container, a hard sided cooler
was the solution that I picked,and leave the top off, put it
in the freezer, and have thatwater freeze only from the top down.
And what happens is it pushes theice it forms, actually pushes out the
air from the freezing crystal lattice downtowards the bottom of that cooler. And
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so the top part of your icemade in the cooler is going to be
perfectly clear, and only the bottomone third or so is going to have
the cloudy water filled and any otherminerals as well filled ice. So we
can just freeze it for say acouple of days, and we don't get
any cloudy part of the ice,or we can let the thing free solid,
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take it out and chip off thecloudy part. You spent fourteen years.
I read the New York Times doingthis research. Well, I figured
it out within the first year.I'm like, wow, I haven't done
anything for it. I started acompany to ran it and they got bored
in twenty years. I mean,that's pretty pretty damn impressive. But and
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you detail it quite well in thebook. The shape of the container of
the link. I had no idea. But you know what, as I
read the ice book, I equatedit to making a cake. It's kind
or biscuits. You know. Idid a whole article and making biscuits,
and there's a whole process, andevery little detail matters. You know,
how cold the dough is, howmuch, how much you touch the dough,
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and you handle the dough, andthe kind of week you make,
and every little aspect helps from theshape of the you know, the shape,
the handling. And then I thought, it's the same with ice.
It's exactly the same. That's agreat parallel and one that I use and
that people so you take a longtime to figure it out and figure it
out for your own kitchen. Essentially, one might not have the dedicated freezer's
(24:08):
face that I do to ice cubes. But how big is your freezer and
how many do you have? Well? I do have a second freezer which
is not plugged in like the time. That was more for when I'm doing
events or a party or something likethat. But it's just I just have
a standard home refrigerator freezer, andI just don't keep food in the freezer.
(24:30):
Park that's only for ice. Amazing. You can freeze the clear ice
too, you noted is there aspecial way you have to freeze them?
Because there's nothing worse than portally frozenice. And it's funny, frozen ice
is like baby chicken, right,Like a baby chicken is the same thing.
Frozen ice sounds like the same thing. But it's important to store the
ice correctly, right, Yeah,you can. Your ice can get will
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smelly if you if you don't putit in a sealed container, or if
you have just food in the refrigeratorpart, the fan might be sharing the
air and last night's pizza is that'sgoing to be the flavor of your ice
the next morning, and that canbe How do you recommend storing your ice?
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I use your good ice, notyour shitty ice. Yes, bad
ice, you just throw it out. That's that's how you store it.
You store it in the bottom ofthe sink. The good ice, I
just I just use ziploc bags.Um, that's the easiest way you can
use any kind of sealed container.Plastic is usually just easier because it's more
pliable. Um. But yeah,once it's in a bag or something like
(25:37):
that, then it's not going toabsorb smells and it's not going to sublimate
and become smaller and smaller over time. Do clear ice melts more slowly?
You may have said that, butI just want to do it. You
said that, I think it doesnot melt as slowly, which is another
benefit because you know what your icemelting into your drink, right, Yes,
Well, depending on the drink,Like if we have a mint jewel,
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we want brushed ice, and it'sgoing to be a lot of delution
really fast. So the smaller thepieces of ice than the more surface area
there is, and the faster it'sgoing to dilute the same temperature beverage as
a one large sort of sphere ofice has the least amount of surface area
(26:22):
to volume ratio. So if youwant a glass of whiskey that's a little
chilled but not super wet. Youuse a big sphere of ice in that
glass whiskey, and it's now aslow sipper. You've got twenty minutes or
more to enjoy that drink at roughlythe same temperature the whole time, Whereas
if you poured that whiskey over crustice, you've got a watery whiskey right
(26:45):
away. Which you know, maybethat's that's your jewelt, that that that
is a nice, real cold glassof whiskey ready instantly, but it's we
just plan for the dilution and thenchoose sea ice accordingly. Well. I
learned that, you know, ittells one of the teen tails with the
cocktails I attended, and it reallydoes make a big difference. I remember
going to one of the bars,one of the great speakeasy bars in New
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York, and having a beautiful drinkwith this long banana shaped piece of ice,
not the kind that during is mymother's cheap ice maker right now the
oo, but a nice beautiful spear, long like almost like a leaf,
and it was it was surely solid, and it was very beautiful. But
I asked about that, and there'sa very there was a you know,
it didn't ice. Was it goingto melt as much as you said it
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doesn't, de Luke, But you'reright with a mint julip or something where
you want crush sites. It's ahome of the ball game and and ice
matters. I have a question.You have a beautiful photos in there.
Let's give a shit out to yourphotographers. Yeah, a former bartender from
San Francisco. She understands cocktails andalso how you photographed cocktails. She has
an amazing palette as well. Andthere's a instruction on how to carve an
(27:56):
ice diamond in the book and sheactually carved the ice timing that's in the
book because she's far better at itthan I am. So she's a multi
talented photographer. So yeah, thephotography is pretty trific. And the examples,
I mean, you have examples withice with flowers in them. You
have one that's a shape of askull, which kind of got to me.
(28:17):
You got you know, I neverthought, but I was reading I
don't know where what article I wasreading, but you know, the caterers
are all into making these beautiful icedesigns now with things in them. But
there's the science to putting something inice, whether it's a bug, which
I think you have one of thosein there too, a flower, or
a diamond ring. To propose isyou know, how do you do that?
(28:40):
How do you capture the the itemin the ice? Well, the
trick is capturing it in clear ice, because of course we haven't. We
have to. We're going to usethe same similar system of an insulated container
to make clear ice, and thenthe object that we freeze inside of it,
well, we really wanted to ideallynot touch the sides of the container
(29:00):
so it looks like it's floating inthe ice. And there are a bunch
of different ways to do that.The big events they will use the big
ice sculpture making machine and that comesa big three hundred pound block that you
can freeze all sorts of things inand then those are cut up with band
saws, and that's the way thatyou do if you're making hundreds of ice
cubes for something. That said,there are now a lot of clear ice
(29:25):
trays for both cubes and sphears.They still use an insulated container, but
then basically the if you think ofa typical ice cube tray, there's that's
rested on the surface of the container, and there's a whole poked in the
bottom, so it freeze us fromthe top down. The air goes sing
out the hole in the bottom,and what you have in the trays just
(29:45):
a clear ice cube. And sothose make it really convenient to add a
flower to the tray, as longas the flowers floating on top of the
surface, which a lot of flowersdo that. I won't praise it all,
but we would put something in thewater each compartment of the tray and
freeze it. That's the short andeasy way to do it. And some
objects might float or sink, andwe might put them in a cube tray
(30:08):
versus a sphere which is usually enclosed, so I'll hold things down and it's
a lot of trial and error atthat point, you know, it really
is. And it brings to mindmany years ago when we were producing incredible
events, we worked with this guynamed Joey Ice. He was the ice
sculpture King of New York and hewould do ice of everything. One time
(30:33):
camper for Restaurant Week, we alwaysdid a big stunt, you know,
stick as I used to say,bring out the bring out the Papa Razzi
photography. He created We created acafe made of ice. It's called the
Ice Cafe, and it literally wastable and bench chairs and an ice menu
and ice objects that look like plates, like a whole set. I still
(30:56):
have the photo and it was outsideRockafella Center and just for laughs, we
gave it as a gap guide reviewand it was incredible. But it was
an idea I had. It wasmy idea, and I said do it.
And he was a master at creatingit. And it's a lot.
Were you going to have a lotof strength and he had. He could.
(31:17):
He could do a lot with us. He could do a lot with
an electric saw. It was amazing. Yeah, have you never made an
ice sculpture. I have not.I'm really not a talented person with my
hands. I'm not a craftsperson.I was worried that as I got into
ice, I was gonna have tolearn, but I pretty much avoided learning
anything hands on. That said,I've got my ice. Diamonds are a
(31:37):
lot better than they used to be. But I do the basics of cutting
a slab of ice up into cubes, and I can carve a sneer if
forest and things like that. Butthe ice sculpture people. They're great with
just a chainsaw. They're doing allsorts of three D stuff that I could
(31:59):
I could never get. It's justincredible. I'm just, you know,
looking up design her ice. Ifound one site. You know, I'm
sure ice Modern. They have somepretty awesome photos in here. And here's
one of a shot glass made ofice with the spirit in it. I
love that. Yes, So there'sa company out of La Disco Cubes,
(32:20):
a woman who does very amazing cubesfor now a lot of high end clients.
A couple months ago, there wasa New York Times story that included
a lot of her stuff. Andshe has these like corporate logos frozen in
the middle of cubes in a waythat I don't think anyone else has figured
out how she does it yet.She's she's really good. And I saw
that. I'm looking to say Iremember that. I just I was intrigued
(32:44):
by this because I said, I'veseen a couple of stories and products and
a couple of pitches, and I'mlike, hmm, there's something there.
You know. I like ice.It's kind of cool, and I think,
um, I just never knew thescience put it. I really we
never knew the science behind clear icein the book is it's it's out in
(33:05):
May. We're talking in May rightnow, supre record, Uh what do
you are? You're busy doing librarytalks. When you do your library talks,
you're talking about ice. You're talkingabout doctors and Distiller's book that is
about doctors and distillers. I realizedthat the Ice book this is coming out.
I think it's about nine months afterDoctors and Distillers, which is a
bit soon. It feels soon rightnow, but it's summer and it's an
(33:30):
ice book, so May is theright month afloor to come out. And
but I realized that I really needto get more value out of Doctors and
Distillers because that one was almost threeyears of research and writing and I worked
really hard on it, and it'syou it's basically a dissertation, and yeah,
I think it deserves a bit morelove and attention. So I met
(33:52):
another writer who's a food historian,who has been doing talks for years and
years, and I said, howare you working them all? She's like,
oh, a lot of them areat libraries. They pay, so
libraries pay, really they can.And so I went to wow down the
list of all of the libraries ofwhich there were hundreds, and distillers and
(34:17):
email or contacted them and applied,and you know, a lot say no,
but so far a few have saidyes. And I've been doing talks
and they're going really well. Ido really enjoy public speaking. And there's
so much that people don't know aboutthe history of alcohol in medicine, how
they're absolutely bundled together throughout almost allof history until recent years when it's actually
(34:43):
the attempt to unbundle them right nowis a challenge for people because you know,
hand sanitizer that's coming from distilled spirits, right, a lot of other
antibacterials, antimicrobials those alcohol is thething that kills the ugs in them.
And still herbal medicine. Step oneis take your herb and put it in
(35:05):
hyproof alcohol to extract its medicinal properties. So it's it's kind of harder to
get along without alcohol in medicine,and you know, there's good reasons to
avoid it. There are people whohave issues and we don't want to put
a temptation in front of them,or we want to provide an option that
they don't have to deal with ethanoland using medicine or mouthwash and things like
(35:27):
that, cough medicine as well.But it's kind of proven to be a
challenge to get the alcohol out ofeverything because it's so useful. Well,
I have to tell you. Iwas just in rouss Own, France and
went to the beer distillery b yr R h oh nice. And you
know, I wish the organizer ofthe trip had given us. You know,
(35:49):
this is so crazy. I wasexcited to go because I'm genuinely interested
in this topic and I was soexcited and was looking forward to a tour
and instead they signed us to doDon't Gag an escape room project and all
I want to was escape because soI just left the group because I could
not care about figuring out all outon an iPad. And I went around,
(36:10):
I sniffed all the herbs and youknow, and I went up,
I said, can I please haveit? I'd like to taste the beer.
No, you haven't finished the escaperoom project yet, but I don't
want to do it. I justwant to taste the beer. But it's
there's a great history there about themedicinal properties of that you know, particular
product and all the other French liqueursthat came just Silitsa came out of there.
(36:34):
And of course, you know,one of the most famous is Chartrus.
And the Carthusian monks are not doingsharktruse right now because they want to
rest and focus on their spirituality.They're not expanding production okay demand, so
they're still gonna make it, butthey're not going to make more of it
than they're already making. So whyis Chartrus become I was at another trip
in the Rhone and we were tastingwine right and all of a sudden,
(36:58):
this I don't know, it wasbigger than it was, bigger than a
magnum, came out of sar truce. At the end of our tasting.
It was incredible. What is thebest our truce that has the pill?
Maybe sheer a little story because itwas made by monks. A lot of
alcohol was made by monks, bythe way, and it's wine. As
we know, What was it aboutthis particular product that gave it its its
(37:22):
heritage? Well, it's it reallyis one of the most direct it's not
even a descendant. It's it's stillthe same product as far as we know,
as it was in the early eighteenhundreds when it was first commercialized.
So during the Middle Ages the laterMiddle Ages, the centers of knowledge and
Europe were the monasteries and nunneries.They were the few people who could read
(37:46):
and write. They would have herbgardens on site and provide medical care both
for themselves and usually for the surroundingvillages. They're often landlords, so it
was kind of taking care of thecommunity as well, and out of that
comes the tradition of producing medicines forthe local community and sometimes to sell to
(38:08):
people, and so Chartrouss has beenproducing products for many years. The chartrous
is famously based on a parchment datingto sixteen o five and it took more
than a hundred years for the monksto kind of perfect it and turn it
into a product that they would sellor treat. And they also made things
(38:31):
like toothpaste that they would sell topeople. Then due to some economic changes,
they needed to earn money for theirorders, and so they commercialize chartrups
in the early eighteen hundreds. Youprobably know that chartrous comes in there's the
green and yellow, which are whatwe drank in our cocktails or sipping on
(38:52):
its own But then there's also thesort of the concentrated Chartrus elixir vegetal,
which has long been sold. Itis still sold in pharmacies in France today,
and that's I believe it's on ageand it's slightly higher proof. And
like Grandma's take a little spoonful ofmedicine and every evening makes the medicine.
(39:12):
Spoonful of sugar makes that medicine godown. But we a lot of people
just take that medicine and have itgo down, isn't it at that point
of digestive, that little concentrated it'sgenerally Yeah, all of these um medicinal
spirits like the beer and that youhad, and things like for net Broca
and copart and everything like that,they all have bitter herbs which do a
(39:34):
lot of beneficial work for digestion.They hope either stimulate the palate or help
with digestion at the end. Bitterthings do that to the human body,
how we work and how we workwith plants, and therefore all of these
Startus is more herbal than bitter forsure, but still helps with digestion as
(39:55):
does It's very high proof, alsokind of cuts through the your nice fatty
meal you're having in France. Well, you know, I remember was a
little girl, I get sick andmy mother was always working in and around.
My dad would give me rock andrye right for a chest condection.
He was a little girl drinking rockand rye and he would give me bitters.
(40:16):
And you know, I grew upand you bidders has alcohol in it,
but I would have a lot ofbidders from a little girl on.
So that's what I grew up knowingis a way to settle my stomach or
my congestion, depending what it's.You know what else I liked in the
book. I'm not a huge beerdrinker, but I had to love the
story of Guinness. HM so teraa little bit about that because I didn't
(40:37):
realize it was like, you know, Guinness for the workers, know it
for the workers? Yeah, itwas. Guinness has always had this association
with being extra robust and healthy,even though it's it's actually quite light and
texture, it's really not. Itlooks more intense than it is. I
think it's just drinkable and delicious.But it's had an association with having a
(40:58):
high iron content being good for bloodor replacing fluids. So it was long
associated with if you donated blood,particularly in Ireland, you were given a
free pint of guinness and that wouldboth as a reward and to supposedly help
replenish the blood as well as breastfeedingmothers were very often into the nineteen eighties
(41:22):
at least recommended to drink a guinnesswhile breastfeeding. And so there's this long
history associated with the healthfulness of thatspecific beer and drinking it to replace fluids.
And in the guinness workers were getting, they were encouraged to drink it,
you know, to keep their energylevel up and with the brewery,
(41:45):
which I thought was interesting because youknow, drinking on the job is always
like poop pood on now, butit was not poop pooed on then,
which was kind of interesting. There'sa lot has been written, and I've
written about the story of gin andTonic and and and why tonic is so
important and Gin and you know,a lot of these which gets back to
(42:06):
a lot of these cocktails were createdas ways to help transportation. You know,
people were traveling by ship, andscurvy and digestive issues and other issues
and unsanitary conditions were just rampant onthe ships, so a lot of fortification
was used to keep people, keeppeople well. Right. Yeah, everything
from the beverages that we enjoy todayjust recreationally were created or streamlined to prevent
(42:35):
scurvy. That's of course, ourcitrus to stave off and cure malaria.
That is the quinine that's not onlyin tonic, it's in basically every bitter
beverage you can think of has quininein it. They just don't really advertise
it that much anymore. But Icall it, like the electrolytes of eighteen
fifty, just a thing. Wedon't know if it's going to help,
but it can hurt. So itactually can hurt in high doses, but
(42:58):
that's another story. And we havethe gin which has juniper, which is
long used as a diuretic and hadother purposes as well. And of the
wormwood from absence, which was usednot just to stimulate digestion but also supposedly
to people of intestinal parasites, whetherit worked for that or not, And
(43:20):
just the basis of so much ofwhat we drink today was either directly medicinal
or used in a practice of medicine, such as rock and rye is rye
whiskey based with some sweetener, andat some point in history, things like
horehound and things that are treat lungissues were added to it. And so
(43:43):
wherever you were in the world,if you were in America drinking whiskey,
or in London drinking gin, orFrance drinking brandy, every alcoholic substance had
a medicinal use. It was usedas the basis of the local medicine.
And just what would change is thespirit made from local crops. And it's
(44:05):
still done throughout the world today.Um, if you study holistic medicine,
and particularly in Asia and Europe,it just seems the United States is scuttle,
stuffy. Yeah, we're we're abit puritanical on that. Still don't
We don't mix our alcohol or ourmedicine at all. But yeah, and
I kind of in doctors and distillers, I tried my best to avoid a
(44:30):
lot of um, sort of traditionalmedicine, formerly noticed folk medicine that was
used around the world because I didn'tnot all of it comes out of sort
of the medical philosophy, which Ireally wanted to focus on, why do
people think, why do people useit? From a practical perspective and what
they thought it was going to do. The early medical philosophies and the alchemists
(44:53):
and the theory of the four humorsand all of that is involved early in
the book, and it helped whypeople would create certain forms of medicine that
last many of them through this day. It was based on a complete misunderstanding
of human anatomy. However, itformed a lot of things that we still
(45:14):
drink and eating as well. It'sa terrific read, and you know,
the books are both very different.The Ice Book is very focused, has
a lot of science and tech init and been also some beautiful photography,
and if you're really into ice andhow to create this very special type and
understanding ice, it's a great readif you're really into just almost anecdotal but
(45:37):
deep dive science as well, andcultural background of the medicinal history books called
Doctors and Distillers, the remarkable medicinalhistory of beer, wine, spirits,
and cuttholes. It's a terrific read. You know, it's interesting as we
come to a close two things.You know, I think we're the country
where all the things that were oncemedicinal now have warning symbols on them,
(45:58):
and everything's hazardous to your health.I just wish the labeling that that is
so carefully applied to alcohol and cigaretteswe go on processed food. That's all
I have to say about that,because we're so liberal with processed foods and
high sugar and it really stuff thatis also poison as to your system.
And we're eating in large quantities andabusing, but we're so busy focused on
(46:22):
alcohol and alcohol products and other thingsthat we're you know, we got to
shift that and balance out that equationhere, truly, we really do.
So you're on you, you've gotsome downtime. Where are you and what's
in your glass? When you're notdoing all this work and self promoting your
book and writing and speaking. Whereare you and what's in your glass?
(46:45):
Well? There's some ice in theglass, that's for sure, because I'm
just making tons of ice and figuringout new ways to cut it. I'm
really into ice tools right now,and so I'm buying new sharp things to
ice cubes, and then I'm justgoing to pour something on it, whether
that's just a sparkling water on aday off or a bourbon on a day
(47:07):
on. We have those two.I'm on our week off right now.
Between trips we go dry. Yeah, well, I'm with you. I
love ice. I'm a Southern girl. We love ice and the Europeans sake.
I'm crazy when I asked for it, but I love my ice.
(47:28):
I like it good, good enough. Yeah, I like it good.
I don't like I don't like icemachine ice. We have an ice machine
here with my mother's house. It'sgross. I like good ice. Um.
It does make a difference, andyour your book really points it out.
So thank you Campering. Congratulations forall the great pressure getting now and
we'll continue to get I hope tosee you around sometime. We've been talking
(47:49):
with Camper English, author of twobooks that we've been talking about. Alcademics
is his website, Look him up, follow him and check out these books.
Thank you for joining us today.Thanks a lot. Thank you talking
to you once again, and you'vebeen listening to The Connected Table live today.
Just Melanie Young flying solo, butDavid Ransom is always with me in
(48:10):
spirit and spirits as we travel aroundthe world, and as always our message
is to you stay insatiably curious.Thank you,
The topics and opinions expressed in thefollowing show are solely those of the hosts
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shall be extended to w forcy Radioor its employees or affiliates. Any questions
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(00:22):
forcy Radio. Welcome to the ConnectedTable Live. We're your hosts, Melanie
(00:44):
Young and David Ransom. You're insatiablycurious culinary couple. We bring you the
dynamic people who work front and centerand behind the scenes and wine, food,
spirits and hospitality around the world,and we love sharing their stories with
you. Are listeners. You're listeninglive on WIE four cy Radio every Wednesday
at too, but you can hearanything and all our shows anytime on over
(01:07):
one hundred podcast channels including iHeart,Spotify, Apple and all the Biggies anytime
anywhere on demand, and we doinvite you to follow us at the Connected
Table to see where we're going andwho we're talking to today. We're talking
to someone who we've actually wanted tohave on the show a while. By
the way, I'm flying solo todaywhile David rests his voice. But I'm
excited to have this person to myself. We've known him for years. We
(01:30):
run into each other at tell Usof the Cocktail all the time and always
say we must get you on ourshow. Now, we've now been hosting
the show for this is like ourtenth year. So what took us so
long? But the good news isthe time is perfect because he's now got
these two amazing books, and thenewest one is getting some great press.
We're talking today with Camper English.He is a San Francisco based cocktail and
(01:53):
spirits writer and educator who's contributed tonumerous publications, and he also has his
own site, Alquademics. I'm goingto ask him what that's all about.
He's the author of two books.The one I have right here in my
hand is Doctors and Distillers, TheRemarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine,
Spirits and Cosicals. This is atopic of personal interest to me since I
(02:16):
kind of straddle both eating and drinkingin health and wellness, and there's so
much interesting detail and story in this. And he has a new book out
that we're going to be discussing aswell, called the Ice Book, Cool
Cubes, Clear Spheres and Other ChillCocktail Crafts, which is getting a ton
of buzz, including a major featurein the New York Times. I have
(02:38):
to tell you I was reading thepdf about this coming back from sicily I
learned more about ice than I everthought I needed to know about ice.
And it's actually very interesting because younever think about these things. But having
just recently recorded a show on waterearlier this morning, it's a natural seguay
to move into ice. So CamperEnglish, welcome to the Connected Table.
(03:02):
Hi, thanks for having me.Well, you know, we've run into
as I said many times, butwhat I love about the show, and
this happened yesterday as well, withsomebody as you really get to know somebody
because the art of conversation is reallyan art, and we always like to
start our show with learning a littlebit about our guests. Backstory, Camper,
(03:23):
please share yours with us. Whereyou grew up and who was Camper
English as a young boy? OhI don't remember anymore, but I grew
up in upstate New York and reallywhere and Binghamton, and I went to
(03:45):
college in Boston of Boston University,and I studied physics because it was the
hardest thing I could think of,and therefore I thought there would be the
most reward. It was, youknow, it was the eighties, we
thought like that, and so physicswas hard. And I did a little
bit of research in the MRI departmentof a psychiatric hospital for a few years
(04:05):
after college, and then I decidedto go to grad school for computer science
or practical major, and I didthat for about a year, didn't finish
my masters, and wrote some codefor a few years, and then I've
been writing about initially nightlife, butreally since two thousand and six about cocktails
(04:29):
and spirits full time. So Ikind of turned recreation into occupation at that
point, and it's been a wildride. I think that's interesting. So
you really, you know, youwent from science practical science to the science
of eating drinking, because there isa science to cocktails in many ways.
And of course, as we weregoing to talk to about ice, I
(04:51):
think that's kind of cool. I'mimpressed that you can make a sustainable living
as a cocktail and spirits writer becauseit's been like hell trying to do it
and wine. So kudos to you. Kudos to you. So you live
in San Francisco, which is agreat city for eating and drinking. We
have not been there in a while, and you travel quite a bit to
(05:14):
speak. I mean, you're quitethe lecturer. How much time do you
spend on the road? Well,pre COVID, it was it was quite
often, probably a couple times amonth, And since COVID it's been more
zooms and online stuff, And I'vebeen booking a lot of talks lately with
libraries around the country, so it'smore staying home, but still doing lots
(05:39):
of talks. Now that said,people are getting a little tired of watching
talks on zoom and so there's abit of a pressure to show up in
person again, and so I'm lookinginto that and doing some sort of live
hands on the ice work following theIce book, because I think people really
want to get into it and playaround. So that'll be probably mostly local
(06:02):
because ice doesn't ship very well,No, it doesn't, does it.
Um was this dry eyes? Youknow your site is called Alcademics. What
is the genesis of that well,you know, it's catchy, trademark too,
very smart, it's trademarked, Butyes, I did. But initially
(06:25):
we sort of um learn along withme as I'm figuring all this booze stuff
out, and I was talking toa lot of bartenders and learning what they
do and how drinks are assembled andwhy they did certain things. And but
it's gotten to the point now,all these years later, that it's more
of a teaching platform for the stuffthat I'm learning and able to share.
(06:46):
But I'm really interested in the nerdyside of alcohol, you know, the
chemistry of water and ice obviously,and the why things work the way they
do. And initially, when writingabout cocktails full time, there was only
a few people in the United Statesdoing that specific focus, and I would
(07:10):
write about, you know, trendslike you know, basil is the new
mint and things like that. Butover time, as a lot of other
people got really on board and cocktailswere very exciting. As we got towards
two thousand and eight or so,there was a lot of other people involved,
and I started specializing and going backto my roots and science and made
(07:32):
that more my focus. And it'salso more interesting to me that way.
It's it's not just basils the NewMint anymore and listicles or listicals. I
mean, I can't beg to tellyou how many listicals are out there right
now. You've got to site thefive top barsico to the five things you
can do with basil ins to theNew Mint, the five things you know,
it's like the formula. So it'snice too. It's not journalism,
(07:55):
it's just it's just it's not journalismwhen you're doing a listical. It's just
bouting it out there, your journalista practical way to write a lot of
content and publish a lot of contentand mentions a lot of brands who might
advertise on one's website. But it'snot all that interesting at the end of
the day, No, it's not. I mean I get frustrated by it
(08:18):
because I could pitch them on.It's really nice when you talk to someone
who's a real journalist and who's doinga deep dive into a topic and you
definitely have a niche. Both yourbooks have a niche to them, and
we'll talk about both of them.You know, I just told you before
we went on. I interviewed awoman in Kenya this morning. Who is
(08:39):
creating water from air? Jesus createdwater from wine. Supposedly she created water
from air. And then I googledmaking water and I learned there's like all
these home methods from making water fromair. She's doing it in a very
big way to help help communities.So it's a very big way to help
(09:01):
communities who don't have potable water.It was also interesting to just segue from
water to ice. In doctors anddistillers, you underscore and this is important
that you know many distilled spirits andwines were consumed because water was unpotable back
in the day. Yeah. Absolutely, It's it's amazing how much is really
(09:24):
predicated on that the people were drinking, particularly beer, ay any form of
labor. The people who built uppyramids in Egypt and workers in the early
part of the Industrial Revolution before therewas a switch to tea would drink beer
because it was safer and had caloriesand nutrients in it from the East and
(09:46):
fermentation. And then in other partsof the world like greecent Rome, people
were drinking wine instead of water,although they were watering down the wine with
seawater a lot of the time,and so it wasn't drinking to become intoxicated,
but just drinking to hydrate, theway that people drink gatorade today during
sports tournaments, and the that meantthat the alcohol was always around and always
(10:11):
very useful. Like by default,you wouldn't put your medicine into water from
the river. You would put itinto wine, or you put it into
beer, and those the alcohol haspreservative qualities, so there are other reasons
to do it as well. It'llhelp extract, say wormwood herb and make
(10:31):
it liquid and easier to drink,or make your barks able to be swallowed
rather than chewed off of the treeitself. And a lot of medicine gets
into liquid form that way because thealcohol is useful for extraction and preservation.
And then what I also learned,which was a real surprise to me,
(10:52):
was how much attention there was tospring water. And I didn't really get
why until I thought harder about it. That the river water is often comes
overland there as animals upstream, it'sgenerally not all that healthy to drink,
but water from mineral springs coming upout of the ground would more often be
(11:13):
not contaminated. And further, thenaturally carbonated mineral springs were that would have
stomach settling properties and lots of mineralsin it, and that water was studied,
as you probably just read, andout of that study became the whole
understanding that air is made up ofmultiple elemental gases and that the fermentation that
(11:39):
produces carbon dioxide is different from thechemical reaction that produces carbonated water. And
that led Louly Pasteur to really comeup with the help come up with the
germ theory of disease just studying thedifference between those two forms of busy liquids.
It's quite amazing how like lack ofpotable water overland and led to so
(12:01):
many different medicinal scientific discoveries. It'sit's actually amazing. And and even to
this day, you know, I'ma lot of European friends, it will
not consume ice ices like they don't. The Europeans do not use ice,
right, They really a lot donot enjoy it at all. They want
(12:22):
minimal amounts. And I've learned justin chatting with people when doing say events
for tech companies, which I usedto do a lot before the pandemic,
that in different cultures there are differentreasons for not wanting ice. A lot
of people consider it unhealthy to havevery cold beverages, that it upsets the
stomach, and you know it doesn'tupset I stomach, but I don't know.
(12:43):
And then other people really just don'twant their ice to dilute their beverage.
They just want it full strength,no water in there whatsoever. It's
not that they're resistant to drink coldthings, but they don't want water diluting
them. So those are two differentreasons why people reject ice and beverages.
It's interesting in Italy they don't haveI asked for ice because for me,
(13:07):
the coffee is to have to dilutethe coffee. I don't know what it
is that mean everybody else likes Italiancoffee me I have issues, But I
asked for ice. It never came, and I know the Italian word for
ice yaco, but they never camebecause I don't think they had it.
And then a couple of my Europeanfriends Italian and friends, oh no,
no ice, no no, wedon't do ice, and my French friend
(13:28):
Rita Jerma, I would never havetap water. I have to have bottle
water, and I think it allstems from the age old history of something
that came from a tap is notgood for your health. And ice apparently
from what I was told by someoneI interviewed who is Italian, Oh,
no, ice is really bad forthe digestive system. Like, man,
(13:50):
I live in the South, youdon't have ice and ice, you know,
because we've been traveling a lot inthe South, and something that I
never saw on the north as much, but I see your where the southern
ice boxes. You know, thekind that you go they're called the ice
boxes, a penguin on the outside, and you go up, but you
put your fifty cents in or adollar whatever, and you get your ice.
(14:11):
Yeah, a big either a blockdrops out or put a bag and
it fills up automatically. And wedon't have those in San Francisco, but
I do understand that I have themmore up north in Portland and Seattle and
places like that out of the city. Just balk ice dispensers. For like
a lot of people who go campingand traveling car vacations really need more ice
(14:37):
around to keep all the food coldwhile it's portable in the car and things
like that. But just the wholeconcept of ice being like always readily just
abundant, like excessive, like weshould always we believe in having too much
ice and everything, like think ofus slushy at every gas station in America
that's just tons and tons of ice, like it would makes Europeans winds.
(15:01):
I think it does. So Ihave to ask this, it is ice
wasteful? I mean, is icelike because there's a lot of drought issues
and so here we are having ourice eas and a lot of ice teas
and whatnot. Is there a wasteissue with ice using a lot of ice?
Not so much with using a lotbecause that you know, the equivalent
(15:22):
of using water. However, icemachines that make the nice big cubes,
like the cold draft ones that welike, and I'm not an expert in
this, but my understanding from peoplewho've studied it a little more, is
it those in order to make theice super clear. There's a lot of
water that's actually discarded in the processof raising those ice cubes. So there
(15:45):
is some waste depending on the machine, But the machines that may crushed ice
and things like that, that iceis not as nearly as wasteful, at
least those machines aren't. So therehave been cocktail bars when they really wanted
to put an emphasis on roodue seeingwater waste, who didn't buy certain ice
machines. And that's something I don'tthink even most bartenders are aware of that
(16:07):
sort of built in waste that canhappen. And that's mostly it's water,
and then there's energy as well.Yeah, the good ice is not real
efficient. Well. Electricity is anotherbig issue. We talked about that because
I asked disgust, you know,how you're making all these machines, how
do they run? Because you knowwe're talking about rural communities. Hre's no
electricity since she does a lot ofsolar power. But you have to think
(16:30):
about that because electricity is a hugeissue. And we've been traveling to a
lot of vineyards and meeting with alot of producers of the last since January
and that issue is coming up allthe time, the electric And we interviewed
him Kathy von ziela master of winein South Africa, and she was in
the middle of load shipping, whichis the giant electrical shutdowns they're doing across
(16:51):
South Africa regularly, and I'm thinking, how does that affect distillers, and
how does that affect you know,you know wine producers is so you know,
speaking of ice, Camper, Ilove ice, and I got to
stop chopping on it because it's crackingmy teeth. I have a thing.
We have these friends in New Orleans. We say with them when we go
to tales, Julie David Benson,they have the fanciest ice machine. The
(17:15):
little pellets you know, Yes,they're like little baby footballs and they're kind
of textured and they're just I can'tstop chopping that ice. One I had
COVID when I was down there,I believe or not after jazz fust and
all I wanted was that stupid ice. I couldn't stop chopping on it.
Yeah. Well it's the same iceas hospitals have or oh maybe that's why
hospital ice. It's the same asthat which is also known as sonic ice.
(17:38):
Yes, those stars always have it. That's an expensive machine. But
you're right they when I was,when I was in the hospital, I
was chopping on the same ice.Huh. That's and it's become a real
culty thing with the millennials and genz is. They're really into that ice
and why is that we're all gonnahave crack teeth? But why is that?
(18:00):
I'm not really sure. I thinkthey're just it's that textual satisfaction of
chewing on that specific ice, likethe other ice is too hard and really
unpleasant to chew on. But I'mnot a big fan personally. I don't
really like that it's called extruded icebecause it's like shaved ice. It's packed
(18:22):
back together and those little pellets that'show it's made, and it is efficient
and not wasteful like the big icecubes. But it's also kind of absorbent,
like I feel if you pour liquidinto it, kind of the ice
soaks up the liquid a bit,and I like, I guess my liquids
and my solid separate. Well,you know, ice has gotten very trendy.
(18:47):
I've gotten about three press releases andpitches on designer ice. And then
I was in New Orleans and Isaw these fancy ice cube makers and on
and on and on. And thenyour book comes out, and first of
all, you developed a process tocreate clear ice, clear ice. I'm
gonna start with that. I neverreally contemplated my ice. I've never sat
(19:10):
and stared at my ice cube longenough to go. Why isn't it clear
because I've never seen you know,you know, my ice is always cloudy.
But there is a preference for clearice in the bar world. What
is it about clear ice that makesit considered superior than the usual ice it
forms and it's not clear, it'sopaque. Well, well, there are
(19:33):
some really minor of physical attributes thatmakes clear ice better. Clear ice melts
more slowly than cloudy ice. It'sharder, which also helps it well more
slowly, and but really the biggestimpact is just the aesthetics of it.
(19:56):
It looks so much better than cloudyice, and I always liking it too.
You can drink the same champagne outof a styrofoam cup and you know,
sitting in the dump as you canin a fine dining restaurant or a
hotel bar, and technically the liquidsthe same, but the experience and the
enjoyment of it, it's going tobe very different. It's the same with
having a clear, beautiful ice sphereand a drink than having that white crescence
(20:23):
building up in the glass. Idon't even like to look at pictures so
bad ice anymore. It grosses meout. It's just such a better experience
to have clear ice in a drink. Well, you worked really hard to
develop your process of creating clear icetalk to us, and apparently it's been
(20:45):
adopted by bartenders all around the world. Right. Yeah, So I when
bartenders were putting their attention into bigclear cubes, and these would be bars
like Milk and Hunt in New York, and there weren't ice machines that made
the big two inch cubes that wewere, like with an old fashioned or
(21:07):
something like that, and so theywould freeze large hotel pans of water into
ice and cut up. But itwasn't perfectly clear. And there were a
lot of ways that people would saythey thought helped get clearer ice, by
using boiling water, which we've allheard from our youth, but yet it
doesn't work. And some people wouldmake ice and then melt it and then
(21:33):
refreeze it, and the theory wasthat made better ice. And so I
just repeated a lot of experiments becauseI was very interested. I really didn't
I thought I was just disproving things. I didn't think I was going to
figure it out. But I hadnoticed by the different containers that I was
using that the cloudy part would bein a different form in a different way
(21:56):
in a cube, So a wideflat container like a lasagna pan, there
was the cloudy part was all justa thin line and across the middle,
but the edges were completely clear.And this lead with a lot of experiments
and then just a lot of thinkingabout it to the concept that just like
a pond, freezes from the topdown, because the cold there is only
(22:18):
on the top, we could useit insulated container, a hard sided cooler
was the solution that I picked,and leave the top off, put it
in the freezer, and have thatwater freeze only from the top down.
And what happens is it pushes theice it forms, actually pushes out the
air from the freezing crystal lattice downtowards the bottom of that cooler. And
(22:42):
so the top part of your icemade in the cooler is going to be
perfectly clear, and only the bottomone third or so is going to have
the cloudy water filled and any otherminerals as well filled ice. So we
can just freeze it for say acouple of days, and we don't get
any cloudy part of the ice,or we can let the thing free solid,
(23:03):
take it out and chip off thecloudy part. You spent fourteen years.
I read the New York Times doingthis research. Well, I figured
it out within the first year.I'm like, wow, I haven't done
anything for it. I started acompany to ran it and they got bored
in twenty years. I mean,that's pretty pretty damn impressive. But and
(23:23):
you detail it quite well in thebook. The shape of the container of
the link. I had no idea. But you know what, as I
read the ice book, I equatedit to making a cake. It's kind
or biscuits. You know. Idid a whole article and making biscuits,
and there's a whole process, andevery little detail matters. You know,
how cold the dough is, howmuch, how much you touch the dough,
(23:45):
and you handle the dough, andthe kind of week you make,
and every little aspect helps from theshape of the you know, the shape,
the handling. And then I thought, it's the same with ice.
It's exactly the same. That's agreat parallel and one that I use and
that people so you take a longtime to figure it out and figure it
out for your own kitchen. Essentially, one might not have the dedicated freezer's
(24:08):
face that I do to ice cubes. But how big is your freezer and
how many do you have? Well? I do have a second freezer which
is not plugged in like the time. That was more for when I'm doing
events or a party or something likethat. But it's just I just have
a standard home refrigerator freezer, andI just don't keep food in the freezer.
(24:30):
Park that's only for ice. Amazing. You can freeze the clear ice
too, you noted is there aspecial way you have to freeze them?
Because there's nothing worse than portally frozenice. And it's funny, frozen ice
is like baby chicken, right,Like a baby chicken is the same thing.
Frozen ice sounds like the same thing. But it's important to store the
ice correctly, right, Yeah,you can. Your ice can get will
(24:53):
smelly if you if you don't putit in a sealed container, or if
you have just food in the refrigeratorpart, the fan might be sharing the
air and last night's pizza is that'sgoing to be the flavor of your ice
the next morning, and that canbe How do you recommend storing your ice?
(25:14):
I use your good ice, notyour shitty ice. Yes, bad
ice, you just throw it out. That's that's how you store it.
You store it in the bottom ofthe sink. The good ice, I
just I just use ziploc bags.Um, that's the easiest way you can
use any kind of sealed container.Plastic is usually just easier because it's more
pliable. Um. But yeah,once it's in a bag or something like
(25:37):
that, then it's not going toabsorb smells and it's not going to sublimate
and become smaller and smaller over time. Do clear ice melts more slowly?
You may have said that, butI just want to do it. You
said that, I think it doesnot melt as slowly, which is another
benefit because you know what your icemelting into your drink, right, Yes,
Well, depending on the drink,Like if we have a mint jewel,
(26:00):
we want brushed ice, and it'sgoing to be a lot of delution
really fast. So the smaller thepieces of ice than the more surface area
there is, and the faster it'sgoing to dilute the same temperature beverage as
a one large sort of sphere ofice has the least amount of surface area
(26:22):
to volume ratio. So if youwant a glass of whiskey that's a little
chilled but not super wet. Youuse a big sphere of ice in that
glass whiskey, and it's now aslow sipper. You've got twenty minutes or
more to enjoy that drink at roughlythe same temperature the whole time, Whereas
if you poured that whiskey over crustice, you've got a watery whiskey right
(26:45):
away. Which you know, maybethat's that's your jewelt, that that that
is a nice, real cold glassof whiskey ready instantly, but it's we
just plan for the dilution and thenchoose sea ice accordingly. Well. I
learned that, you know, ittells one of the teen tails with the
cocktails I attended, and it reallydoes make a big difference. I remember
going to one of the bars,one of the great speakeasy bars in New
(27:10):
York, and having a beautiful drinkwith this long banana shaped piece of ice,
not the kind that during is mymother's cheap ice maker right now the
oo, but a nice beautiful spear, long like almost like a leaf,
and it was it was surely solid, and it was very beautiful. But
I asked about that, and there'sa very there was a you know,
it didn't ice. Was it goingto melt as much as you said it
(27:32):
doesn't, de Luke, But you'reright with a mint julip or something where
you want crush sites. It's ahome of the ball game and and ice
matters. I have a question.You have a beautiful photos in there.
Let's give a shit out to yourphotographers. Yeah, a former bartender from
San Francisco. She understands cocktails andalso how you photographed cocktails. She has
an amazing palette as well. Andthere's a instruction on how to carve an
(27:56):
ice diamond in the book and sheactually carved the ice timing that's in the
book because she's far better at itthan I am. So she's a multi
talented photographer. So yeah, thephotography is pretty trific. And the examples,
I mean, you have examples withice with flowers in them. You
have one that's a shape of askull, which kind of got to me.
(28:17):
You got you know, I neverthought, but I was reading I
don't know where what article I wasreading, but you know, the caterers
are all into making these beautiful icedesigns now with things in them. But
there's the science to putting something inice, whether it's a bug, which
I think you have one of thosein there too, a flower, or
a diamond ring. To propose isyou know, how do you do that?
(28:40):
How do you capture the the itemin the ice? Well, the
trick is capturing it in clear ice, because of course we haven't. We
have to. We're going to usethe same similar system of an insulated container
to make clear ice, and thenthe object that we freeze inside of it,
well, we really wanted to ideallynot touch the sides of the container
(29:00):
so it looks like it's floating inthe ice. And there are a bunch
of different ways to do that.The big events they will use the big
ice sculpture making machine and that comesa big three hundred pound block that you
can freeze all sorts of things inand then those are cut up with band
saws, and that's the way thatyou do if you're making hundreds of ice
cubes for something. That said,there are now a lot of clear ice
(29:25):
trays for both cubes and sphears.They still use an insulated container, but
then basically the if you think ofa typical ice cube tray, there's that's
rested on the surface of the container, and there's a whole poked in the
bottom, so it freeze us fromthe top down. The air goes sing
out the hole in the bottom,and what you have in the trays just
(29:45):
a clear ice cube. And sothose make it really convenient to add a
flower to the tray, as longas the flowers floating on top of the
surface, which a lot of flowersdo that. I won't praise it all,
but we would put something in thewater each compartment of the tray and
freeze it. That's the short andeasy way to do it. And some
objects might float or sink, andwe might put them in a cube tray
(30:08):
versus a sphere which is usually enclosed, so I'll hold things down and it's
a lot of trial and error atthat point, you know, it really
is. And it brings to mindmany years ago when we were producing incredible
events, we worked with this guynamed Joey Ice. He was the ice
sculpture King of New York and hewould do ice of everything. One time
(30:33):
camper for Restaurant Week, we alwaysdid a big stunt, you know,
stick as I used to say,bring out the bring out the Papa Razzi
photography. He created We created acafe made of ice. It's called the
Ice Cafe, and it literally wastable and bench chairs and an ice menu
and ice objects that look like plates, like a whole set. I still
(30:56):
have the photo and it was outsideRockafella Center and just for laughs, we
gave it as a gap guide reviewand it was incredible. But it was
an idea I had. It wasmy idea, and I said do it.
And he was a master at creatingit. And it's a lot.
Were you going to have a lotof strength and he had. He could.
(31:17):
He could do a lot with us. He could do a lot with
an electric saw. It was amazing. Yeah, have you never made an
ice sculpture. I have not.I'm really not a talented person with my
hands. I'm not a craftsperson.I was worried that as I got into
ice, I was gonna have tolearn, but I pretty much avoided learning
anything hands on. That said,I've got my ice. Diamonds are a
(31:37):
lot better than they used to be. But I do the basics of cutting
a slab of ice up into cubes, and I can carve a sneer if
forest and things like that. Butthe ice sculpture people. They're great with
just a chainsaw. They're doing allsorts of three D stuff that I could
(31:59):
I could never get. It's justincredible. I'm just, you know,
looking up design her ice. Ifound one site. You know, I'm
sure ice Modern. They have somepretty awesome photos in here. And here's
one of a shot glass made ofice with the spirit in it. I
love that. Yes, So there'sa company out of La Disco Cubes,
(32:20):
a woman who does very amazing cubesfor now a lot of high end clients.
A couple months ago, there wasa New York Times story that included
a lot of her stuff. Andshe has these like corporate logos frozen in
the middle of cubes in a waythat I don't think anyone else has figured
out how she does it yet.She's she's really good. And I saw
that. I'm looking to say Iremember that. I just I was intrigued
(32:44):
by this because I said, I'veseen a couple of stories and products and
a couple of pitches, and I'mlike, hmm, there's something there.
You know. I like ice.It's kind of cool, and I think,
um, I just never knew thescience put it. I really we
never knew the science behind clear icein the book is it's it's out in
(33:05):
May. We're talking in May rightnow, supre record, Uh what do
you are? You're busy doing librarytalks. When you do your library talks,
you're talking about ice. You're talkingabout doctors and Distiller's book that is
about doctors and distillers. I realizedthat the Ice book this is coming out.
I think it's about nine months afterDoctors and Distillers, which is a
bit soon. It feels soon rightnow, but it's summer and it's an
(33:30):
ice book, so May is theright month afloor to come out. And
but I realized that I really needto get more value out of Doctors and
Distillers because that one was almost threeyears of research and writing and I worked
really hard on it, and it'syou it's basically a dissertation, and yeah,
I think it deserves a bit morelove and attention. So I met
(33:52):
another writer who's a food historian,who has been doing talks for years and
years, and I said, howare you working them all? She's like,
oh, a lot of them areat libraries. They pay, so
libraries pay, really they can.And so I went to wow down the
list of all of the libraries ofwhich there were hundreds, and distillers and
(34:17):
email or contacted them and applied,and you know, a lot say no,
but so far a few have saidyes. And I've been doing talks
and they're going really well. Ido really enjoy public speaking. And there's
so much that people don't know aboutthe history of alcohol in medicine, how
they're absolutely bundled together throughout almost allof history until recent years when it's actually
(34:43):
the attempt to unbundle them right nowis a challenge for people because you know,
hand sanitizer that's coming from distilled spirits, right, a lot of other
antibacterials, antimicrobials those alcohol is thething that kills the ugs in them.
And still herbal medicine. Step oneis take your herb and put it in
(35:05):
hyproof alcohol to extract its medicinal properties. So it's it's kind of harder to
get along without alcohol in medicine,and you know, there's good reasons to
avoid it. There are people whohave issues and we don't want to put
a temptation in front of them,or we want to provide an option that
they don't have to deal with ethanoland using medicine or mouthwash and things like
(35:27):
that, cough medicine as well.But it's kind of proven to be a
challenge to get the alcohol out ofeverything because it's so useful. Well,
I have to tell you. Iwas just in rouss Own, France and
went to the beer distillery b yr R h oh nice. And you
know, I wish the organizer ofthe trip had given us. You know,
(35:49):
this is so crazy. I wasexcited to go because I'm genuinely interested
in this topic and I was soexcited and was looking forward to a tour
and instead they signed us to doDon't Gag an escape room project and all
I want to was escape because soI just left the group because I could
not care about figuring out all outon an iPad. And I went around,
(36:10):
I sniffed all the herbs and youknow, and I went up,
I said, can I please haveit? I'd like to taste the beer.
No, you haven't finished the escaperoom project yet, but I don't
want to do it. I justwant to taste the beer. But it's
there's a great history there about themedicinal properties of that you know, particular
product and all the other French liqueursthat came just Silitsa came out of there.
(36:34):
And of course, you know,one of the most famous is Chartrus.
And the Carthusian monks are not doingsharktruse right now because they want to
rest and focus on their spirituality.They're not expanding production okay demand, so
they're still gonna make it, butthey're not going to make more of it
than they're already making. So whyis Chartrus become I was at another trip
in the Rhone and we were tastingwine right and all of a sudden,
(36:58):
this I don't know, it wasbigger than it was, bigger than a
magnum, came out of sar truce. At the end of our tasting.
It was incredible. What is thebest our truce that has the pill?
Maybe sheer a little story because itwas made by monks. A lot of
alcohol was made by monks, bythe way, and it's wine. As
we know, What was it aboutthis particular product that gave it its its
(37:22):
heritage? Well, it's it reallyis one of the most direct it's not
even a descendant. It's it's stillthe same product as far as we know,
as it was in the early eighteenhundreds when it was first commercialized.
So during the Middle Ages the laterMiddle Ages, the centers of knowledge and
Europe were the monasteries and nunneries.They were the few people who could read
(37:46):
and write. They would have herbgardens on site and provide medical care both
for themselves and usually for the surroundingvillages. They're often landlords, so it
was kind of taking care of thecommunity as well, and out of that
comes the tradition of producing medicines forthe local community and sometimes to sell to
(38:08):
people, and so Chartrouss has beenproducing products for many years. The chartrous
is famously based on a parchment datingto sixteen o five and it took more
than a hundred years for the monksto kind of perfect it and turn it
into a product that they would sellor treat. And they also made things
(38:31):
like toothpaste that they would sell topeople. Then due to some economic changes,
they needed to earn money for theirorders, and so they commercialize chartrups
in the early eighteen hundreds. Youprobably know that chartrous comes in there's the
green and yellow, which are whatwe drank in our cocktails or sipping on
(38:52):
its own But then there's also thesort of the concentrated Chartrus elixir vegetal,
which has long been sold. Itis still sold in pharmacies in France today,
and that's I believe it's on ageand it's slightly higher proof. And
like Grandma's take a little spoonful ofmedicine and every evening makes the medicine.
(39:12):
Spoonful of sugar makes that medicine godown. But we a lot of people
just take that medicine and have itgo down, isn't it at that point
of digestive, that little concentrated it'sgenerally Yeah, all of these um medicinal
spirits like the beer and that youhad, and things like for net Broca
and copart and everything like that,they all have bitter herbs which do a
(39:34):
lot of beneficial work for digestion.They hope either stimulate the palate or help
with digestion at the end. Bitterthings do that to the human body,
how we work and how we workwith plants, and therefore all of these
Startus is more herbal than bitter forsure, but still helps with digestion as
(39:55):
does It's very high proof, alsokind of cuts through the your nice fatty
meal you're having in France. Well, you know, I remember was a
little girl, I get sick andmy mother was always working in and around.
My dad would give me rock andrye right for a chest condection.
He was a little girl drinking rockand rye and he would give me bitters.
(40:16):
And you know, I grew upand you bidders has alcohol in it,
but I would have a lot ofbidders from a little girl on.
So that's what I grew up knowingis a way to settle my stomach or
my congestion, depending what it's.You know what else I liked in the
book. I'm not a huge beerdrinker, but I had to love the
story of Guinness. HM so teraa little bit about that because I didn't
(40:37):
realize it was like, you know, Guinness for the workers, know it
for the workers? Yeah, itwas. Guinness has always had this association
with being extra robust and healthy,even though it's it's actually quite light and
texture, it's really not. Itlooks more intense than it is. I
think it's just drinkable and delicious.But it's had an association with having a
(40:58):
high iron content being good for bloodor replacing fluids. So it was long
associated with if you donated blood,particularly in Ireland, you were given a
free pint of guinness and that wouldboth as a reward and to supposedly help
replenish the blood as well as breastfeedingmothers were very often into the nineteen eighties
(41:22):
at least recommended to drink a guinnesswhile breastfeeding. And so there's this long
history associated with the healthfulness of thatspecific beer and drinking it to replace fluids.
And in the guinness workers were getting, they were encouraged to drink it,
you know, to keep their energylevel up and with the brewery,
(41:45):
which I thought was interesting because youknow, drinking on the job is always
like poop pood on now, butit was not poop pooed on then,
which was kind of interesting. There'sa lot has been written, and I've
written about the story of gin andTonic and and and why tonic is so
important and Gin and you know,a lot of these which gets back to
(42:06):
a lot of these cocktails were createdas ways to help transportation. You know,
people were traveling by ship, andscurvy and digestive issues and other issues
and unsanitary conditions were just rampant onthe ships, so a lot of fortification
was used to keep people, keeppeople well. Right. Yeah, everything
from the beverages that we enjoy todayjust recreationally were created or streamlined to prevent
(42:35):
scurvy. That's of course, ourcitrus to stave off and cure malaria.
That is the quinine that's not onlyin tonic, it's in basically every bitter
beverage you can think of has quininein it. They just don't really advertise
it that much anymore. But Icall it, like the electrolytes of eighteen
fifty, just a thing. Wedon't know if it's going to help,
but it can hurt. So itactually can hurt in high doses, but
(42:58):
that's another story. And we havethe gin which has juniper, which is
long used as a diuretic and hadother purposes as well. And of the
wormwood from absence, which was usednot just to stimulate digestion but also supposedly
to people of intestinal parasites, whetherit worked for that or not, And
(43:20):
just the basis of so much ofwhat we drink today was either directly medicinal
or used in a practice of medicine, such as rock and rye is rye
whiskey based with some sweetener, andat some point in history, things like
horehound and things that are treat lungissues were added to it. And so
(43:43):
wherever you were in the world,if you were in America drinking whiskey,
or in London drinking gin, orFrance drinking brandy, every alcoholic substance had
a medicinal use. It was usedas the basis of the local medicine.
And just what would change is thespirit made from local crops. And it's
(44:05):
still done throughout the world today.Um, if you study holistic medicine,
and particularly in Asia and Europe,it just seems the United States is scuttle,
stuffy. Yeah, we're we're abit puritanical on that. Still don't
We don't mix our alcohol or ourmedicine at all. But yeah, and
I kind of in doctors and distillers, I tried my best to avoid a
(44:30):
lot of um, sort of traditionalmedicine, formerly noticed folk medicine that was
used around the world because I didn'tnot all of it comes out of sort
of the medical philosophy, which Ireally wanted to focus on, why do
people think, why do people useit? From a practical perspective and what
they thought it was going to do. The early medical philosophies and the alchemists
(44:53):
and the theory of the four humorsand all of that is involved early in
the book, and it helped whypeople would create certain forms of medicine that
last many of them through this day. It was based on a complete misunderstanding
of human anatomy. However, itformed a lot of things that we still
(45:14):
drink and eating as well. It'sa terrific read, and you know,
the books are both very different.The Ice Book is very focused, has
a lot of science and tech init and been also some beautiful photography,
and if you're really into ice andhow to create this very special type and
understanding ice, it's a great readif you're really into just almost anecdotal but
(45:37):
deep dive science as well, andcultural background of the medicinal history books called
Doctors and Distillers, the remarkable medicinalhistory of beer, wine, spirits,
and cuttholes. It's a terrific read. You know, it's interesting as we
come to a close two things.You know, I think we're the country
where all the things that were oncemedicinal now have warning symbols on them,
(45:58):
and everything's hazardous to your health.I just wish the labeling that that is
so carefully applied to alcohol and cigaretteswe go on processed food. That's all
I have to say about that,because we're so liberal with processed foods and
high sugar and it really stuff thatis also poison as to your system.
And we're eating in large quantities andabusing, but we're so busy focused on
(46:22):
alcohol and alcohol products and other thingsthat we're you know, we got to
shift that and balance out that equationhere, truly, we really do.
So you're on you, you've gotsome downtime. Where are you and what's
in your glass? When you're notdoing all this work and self promoting your
book and writing and speaking. Whereare you and what's in your glass?
(46:45):
Well? There's some ice in theglass, that's for sure, because I'm
just making tons of ice and figuringout new ways to cut it. I'm
really into ice tools right now,and so I'm buying new sharp things to
ice cubes, and then I'm justgoing to pour something on it, whether
that's just a sparkling water on aday off or a bourbon on a day
(47:07):
on. We have those two.I'm on our week off right now.
Between trips we go dry. Yeah, well, I'm with you. I
love ice. I'm a Southern girl. We love ice and the Europeans sake.
I'm crazy when I asked for it, but I love my ice.
(47:28):
I like it good, good enough. Yeah, I like it good.
I don't like I don't like icemachine ice. We have an ice machine
here with my mother's house. It'sgross. I like good ice. Um.
It does make a difference, andyour your book really points it out.
So thank you Campering. Congratulations forall the great pressure getting now and
we'll continue to get I hope tosee you around sometime. We've been talking
(47:49):
with Camper English, author of twobooks that we've been talking about. Alcademics
is his website, Look him up, follow him and check out these books.
Thank you for joining us today.Thanks a lot. Thank you talking
to you once again, and you'vebeen listening to The Connected Table live today.
Just Melanie Young flying solo, butDavid Ransom is always with me in
(48:10):
spirit and spirits as we travel aroundthe world, and as always our message
is to you stay insatiably curious.Thank you,
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