A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - What Does Your Favorite Cocktail Say About You? ft. Greg Titian

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

Today, we're joined by Greg Titian, host of the YouTube show How To Drink, to talk about what your favorite cocktail says about you! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. If old fashions are for traditionalists and vodka Red Bulls are for party animals, then who the hell are infected white head shots for? Today, we're talking about what your favorite cocktail says about you. Because this is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense.

A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Ayer. And I'm your host, Nicole Inaidi. And today we are excited to be joined by Greg Tishin. Greg's the host of the YouTube show, How to Drink, a show about making drinks and how to drink them. He lives in New York City, and even though he's never worked in a bar, he sure enjoys making cocktails, drinking cocktails, and talking about movies, video games, and books all along the way. He's no stranger to the classic cocktails as well as the weird ones.

Welcome to the podcast, Greg. Hi, Greg. Guys, thank you so much for having me on. That was a great intro. Wow. Dude, I always ask our guests to rate our intros out of 10 because we work really hard on them. It's so hard for me to bring myself to write my intro. I get, that's one of those things like resume writing where I get really self-conscious

like, I'm just going to avoid this job. I don't want to do it. I don't know. It makes me feel yucky. Like, can I just take that? That was great. Thank you. Yeah.

You can copy and paste that word for word. Perfect. A hundred percent. Yeah. Just pay us like 10% royalties on all future earnings and you're totally good. 10% on all future. Okay, cool. Then mow me $10.

Or a $10 flat rate to Nicole. $10 flat rate to me. That's okay. You can buy a cocktail. Hey, what a segue. You can buy one third of a cocktail in Los Angeles at that price. That's probably about right too. But no, so Greg, tell us about your background in cocktails, how you got into it.

I mean, I love watching How to Drink. I mean, I'm always looking for cocktail inspiration cause I'm like somewhat of a noob to the world, but tell us about your background. So why, why drinks? I'll tell you. So when I,

so many different ways I could tell this story. So you just tell me what I've told enough and I'll stop. That's great. I'll just scream at you. The short version is that I was just always that Weird dude who preferred cocktails To beer when my friends were throwing Parties and stuff when I was a younger Of age gentleman mainly because

I don't know why most beers And I found out recently that no It's not all beers it's just the cheap beers my friends Were buying make me feel like I ate an Entire loaf of bread like After four sips like I just cannot Breathe and like Why are you enjoying this? Oh my God.

Um, so I like the, you know, I find the cocktails are just feel lighter and better for me. But, um, like the, the, the cascade of events that like led to how to drink is kind of a weird and specific tale. Um, I always had like this interest in cocktails and I got, I had this PA job in the early two thousands, um, at a place called Michael Sharama company where we made food commercials, which was like doing like super slow motion, 35 millimeter production of like Wendy's salads exploding and stuff. It was like my first gig.

I remember we built an air can and blew up. Love commercial food production. It was crazy. I mean, like, and I, I got to like absorb by osmosis, I guess a lot of that,

like an interest in some of the tricks of the trade of like slow motion, macro cinematography. And then moved on and file that away into the, you know, back of my brain. And then I went to film school and I got out of film school and I couldn't find a job. And a friend convinced me to become an editor and I became an editor and I made a living as an editor freelance like around for a while.

And then, um, my wife and I were in the city, uh, well, not my girlfriend and I were in the city, uh, to, to propose. I just, I whisked her away to New York for the weekend to propose. We got engaged and I, we were at this bar. It's called the back room. And I was like, not really into it. We were both like, let's get out of here. And I was like, you know, there's a place in this neighborhood called milk and honey.

I don't know where it is, where you can find it. That's like they, uh, not, not to jump the gun here, but they, I believe, are the progenitor of my favorite cocktail of all time, Milk and Honey.

They're like a legendary craft cocktail bar, right? Yeah. Milk, I mean, sorry too, by the way.

I've just dominated the mic since we started this show. No, you're the guest, man. Take your shoes off. Sit down. Get comfy.

Feel free to just edit, like in post, just edit in like air sirens and like responses and stuff has anyone called you like the liquid food babish

because I feel like it's just it's given me like I was just about to say that yeah no one has ever said the liquid food

babish I was thinking you could say liquid food it's gross to say that but sounds like you're just babish with no teeth I was gonna say

the cocktail babbish. Yeah, it makes more sense. That's just me. Yeah, I've gotten that comparison once or twice. So that's awesome, man. And now you've been running the YouTube channel for a couple of years now, right? Six years. Wow, wonderful.

Holy crap, man. Yeah, man. You're like OG. Oh, yep, me. OG. That's the oldest of Gs. OG. Oh, gee. That's the oldest of Gs.

It started like much more in drips and drabs where it was like, okay, we will put together a production and we'll shoot like literally the first seven episodes of How to Drink was shot in a very long day in my living room with me and two other people. And then I spent, you know, one of those a week was being released. And I said, well, if I get a thousand subscribers, I guess I'll do more. I thought I was filming like a reel for close-up tabletop food work for directing. And I was like, but also let's make it a web series because I'm a millennial and I got to monetize everything I do. Smart, smart, smart.

And in reality, I was like, I had nobody to send a reel to. Like everybody, like when I had been working, I was working as an editor and, you know, tell your boss like hey i would like to direct food commercials a bit that's great i don't make those what do you want from me yeah um and the people that i had worked with at michael shraman company only worked at michael shraman company and also that was like when i say early like it was 2003 i was making this show in 2015 so it was like most of those people are retired.

A lot of these were very old people who had moved on. Um, so I didn't know, I didn't know what the hell to do with the daggum reel anyway. It's funny because you know, both of us, like you've had a little bit of experience chefing, right? But like I've only worked in the media world and we've actually gotten some comments who were like, how did you get your jobs if you've never been a chef in a restaurant and it's like because i have been doing the exact thing that i'm good at and doing right now my entire career so like the fact that you have a

film background i think is really cool and it shows like that's a hugely important part right it's not just totally oh i've been you know slinging brunch drinks for the last 10 years or something it's like no i'm a professional i a professional. I know how to shoot. I know how to edit. I know how to be on camera. I have nothing but respect for the people who make fake food on the internet that no one actually consumes. Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

Up top. Stunt foods. Stunt food, baby. That's what we do. Some of it is. Some of it is. All right, so let's get the question in hand here. We're talking about what your favorite cocktail

says about you. Because I think cocktails are one of those things that are like, I call them like an identity food, right? If somebody asks you what your favorite cocktail is, then whatever you tell them, it reveals more about you as a person than it does simply what kind of tastes you like inside your mouth. Right. And so I think it's a really loaded question. And like, I know for myself, what I order at a bar, it depends entirely on the context, right? Yeah. I mean, everyone has a go-to drink, I would like to think.

But it also depends on the environment, what I had to eat that day, who I'm with is also going to depend. That's going to like change my drink order. Oh, it's a loaded question. Yeah, of course. But Greg, what do you think like cocktails say about you in general? I think that, well, first off, well, it's a good question. What do cocktails- Feel free to disagree. They could say nothing about you too. Yeah. What do cocktails say about you? When I first got into cocktails, when I was a young man in the nigh early 2000s, I think what it said about me, particularly not

being a guy who lived in lower Manhattan at that time was that I was a snob. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. But that was probably a little bit deliberate by yourself too. You probably wanted people to think that you were punching above your weight class. When, when, when you are a young man trying to find his place in the world, there is, you must project an image. image i i went to many a wedding in those days and ordered a martini that i hated and i walked around that wedding with that martini in my hand wearing a suit sipping and thinking like that's darn right i'm drinking this martini i'm a martini man look at me i'm a martini man um no of course absolutely uh now i like martinis but i don't like

those i still don't like those martinis. Yeah. Brief aside, I can't stand a drop of olive brine in my martini. I love olives, but rinse them off. Rinse them off. Wait, so what is your martini technique? Because I'm on the opposite level where I want it to be about 50-50 just olive juice, sweet vermouth, and a dash of gin.

Sweet vermouth. Not really, but not sweet vermouth. No, that's fine. Yeah, I think that that's fine. No, actually, I don't, and a dash of gin. Sweet vermouth? Not really, but, or not sweet vermouth, sorry. No, that's fine. Yeah, I think that that's fine. No, actually, I don't mess with martinis at all. That is one of those drinks that I don't believe I've ordered more than once at a bar in my entire life. Oh, really?

I made one and I never went back again. Yep. And so I just don't mess with them. But like, what do you think, if somebody says their favorite drink is a martini, what does that say about them? They're gonna, oh man, I wanna give you a short answer, but they need to say a lot more than their, if they only say their favorite drink is a martini, what does that say about them? They're going to need, oh man, I want to give you a short answer, but they need to say a

lot more than their, if they only say their favorite drink is a martini, it says to me that they're very surface spaced person and they haven't really thought a lot about themselves or their place in the world or their drink order. A martini is so specific to just say my favorite drink is a martini is like saying i'm trying to think like my favorite cars have four wheels like you know it's such a just because there's so many specificities that go into yeah yeah like as tiny i mean like if a guy tells me my favorite drink is a vesper martini i know two things they have terrible taste and they wish they were james bond like that's it yeah that's that's really the only reason to drink a Vesper.

It's awful. Although I will say, I have had okay Vespers. Leandro from the Educated Barfly came over to my place and made a Vesper for me that kind of blew my mind. But a stock standard Vesper stinks. Vesper is what? Lemon twist? A vesper is a split-based martini that splits the gin with vodka, which is basically like saying

I like to turn the volume down on my gin. I don't really get it, like why you would split it. It doesn't really make sense. Because gin is technically just a flavored vodka, right? It's vodka flavored with botanicals in essence. Some people on the internet would kill me for saying that, but yeah, that's essentially what it is. It's's way more it's a little more complicated than that but essentially it is a neutral at

one point in its life it comes out of the still as neutral grain spirit and then it goes back into another still for an infusion process um conversely like bourbon is never neutral grain spirit at any point in its process right so? So like, yeah, by that metric, gin is flavored vodka. And also vodka is incomplete gin. And then Kina Lillet. And then there's like this weird thing with the Vesper where Kina Lillet is like the old formulation for Lillet Blanc. They don't make it anymore. So you can't get it.

And how do you approximate it and stuff like that? Okay. Sorry. We're getting way too long. No, no, no. Sorry. I wanted to know because I just went. You stuff like that. Okay. Sorry. We're getting way too long. I wanted to know because I just sounded really exasperated. I just went through all

the James Bond movies like the ones with Daniel Craig other than the new one and I never like I just heard the word Vesper like 50 times. I'm like what does this mean? But I never wanted to actually Google it. The other day Julia was like I want to watch all the James Bond movies because she's never seen one. And I was like, there's like 45

or something. And she's like, what? I don't know, like they've been making them for 60 years. And she was like, what? Anyways. I have to share something. So before I knew who I was, when I was like 22 years old, I used to work as a food stylist. Oh, that's such a good job.

And it was a tough job. I was on my feet all the time. I was working at a boutique marketing agency. And I would just after like a really hard shoot, I would go to the bar with one of the graphic designers and we would both order martinis and chain smoke cigarettes and just sit there and smoke cigarettes and have like a few martinis because that's what I thought I was supposed to do. Like as an adult, like you're a working woman in the city. I'm like, I've had a hard day. You know, I've been around a bunch of people, been around a bunch of food. Let me just decompress. Yeah. So in my mind, a working woman that was there to decompress would always order a martini. And then that's what I would always do.

And then I realized, I'm like, do I really like these? Do I? This was Sex and the City days? I don't think, no. This would have been a little bit post that when people started rewatching Sex and the City on streaming platform. And they were like, oh, this didn't age well. Oh, man. This didn't age well.

Yeah. So that's what I always thought. I thought a martini was for the working girl. You know, that's what I always thought. I thought a martini was for the working girl. You know, that's what I always thought. Yeah. That's kind of similar with me in old fashions because that was the one whiskey I knew that, I mean, I think gender plays a huge role in this, right? 100%.

Like Sex and the City, obviously, with the Cosmos and the martinis. And then you grow up with this idea, especially like college, a lot of your drinking opinions are formed. It's like dudes are supposed to drink dark liquor. White liquor is for cat owners. You know, it has that kind of like Ron Swanson, except people didn't understand the irony sort of vibe to it. And so the old fashioned was like the only whiskey drink that I really knew. And so, you know, that's what I would go to, even though it's like, ah, sugar whiskey.

Nice. I mean, I still love a good, well-crafted old fashioned, whatever. I can appreciate it. But that was my version of that was, and also chain smoking cigarettes. We were confused. We didn't know. We didn't know the harms back then, Nicole. Data wasn't available. It wasn't available. I was just blind to it. I never got the smoking bug. I'm not going to lie. Good for you. It sucks. Greg, if I were to ask you right now, if you wanted to communicate to me the best version of yourself and I said, what is your favorite cocktail? Okay. What do you tell us?

My favorite cocktail is a Mai Tai. Interesting. That's my standard response. Can you just go through the general Mai Tai recipe? If you got any notes on the history, please enlighten the crowd. So, um, Mai Tai was invented by trader Vic, um, Vic Bergeron in, I think 1944. I think it's a 1944 drink is what it dates to. Um, my spec is to do a split base of rums. I do one ounce of a funky Jamaican rum. I like Smith and cross and I do one ounce of a Demerara rum, like an Eldorado five-year or something like that. Um, one ounce of lime juice,

half an ounce of dry Curacao, um, half an ounce to an ounce of or Joe, which is a French almond syrup, and then a quarter ounce of simple syrup. But as I've gotten older, I've simplified things. I say, what do you need that simple syrup for? It's just sweet. Let's get it out, put, replace it with or Joe. Uh, I shake it over crushed ice, serve it on the ice it's served on. And then you take a, okay. So the visually present presentation, visual presentation obligates you to take an upturned lime husk and put it in there wrong side up so that it looks like a little Island. This does nothing for the flavor or like drinking the drink, but it's a visual, like,

you know, you're supposed to do it. And on the internet, if you do things wrong, people yell at you. Yes. But I will say a sprig of fresh mint is vital. I like,

I hate making a Mai Tai without the sprig of mint because you want to bury your face in that mint when you're drinking the drink and the whole thing works together at once. I freaking love a really perfect Mai Tai. It is to me like, God, it has so much going on in it. And yet there's nothing you can take away. Like it is the engineer's perfection. Like it's done because there's nothing left to remove.

It is all of the complexity that we lost in prohibition, you know, in the golden age of cocktails was actually like the mid 1800s. And we made it legal in the during prohibition and the bartenders went out of business or they went overseas and we lost a lot of that. And that's where you get like these two and three ingredient drinks from is a super simplified mixology. And then it's the post-war period and people are doing tiki now. And all of a sudden there's this explosion in super complicated drinks. period and people are doing tiki now and all of a sudden there's this explosion in super complicated drinks. Like I think the Mai Tai is really the apex of the form where it's just like everything is there doing a job and intention and imbalance and presenting a thing that's more than

the sum of its parts. But the drink I drink the most is an old fashioned because I'm very lazy. Fair. Honestly. Okay. So I, the, the Mai Tai thing is really fascinating to me because tiki drinks, we're on this huge resurgence of tiki drinks, right? I think, yeah. We all live in like large market areas where you can say crap like Mai Tais are back. Yeah. And we can. And espresso. What's espresso?

Espresso martinis are huge right now. No kidding. That's a big thing. I love getting that. Dude, yeah. You can't spit and not hit an espresso martini in the city right now. But the Mai Tai. I don't know what's up in LA, man.

There was a restaurant in Los Angeles that was serving a $40 Mai Tai. Where? And that was like a thing. That better be a good one. What's that Koreatown spot? The fancy one? I don't know. Whatever.

I don't know. But anyway, his point is that was like a thing. They sent around a press release. We have a $40 Mai Tai. It's crafted exactly from the Trader Vic's recipe except using this rum and this rum and whatever. And so they

made a whole big play of it. But it was kind of this ironic high-low thing, right? Because for a while people thought of tiki drinks as fun party drinks. Oh, they're just sweet. They have a bunch of fruit juice instead of nasty alcohol, etc. That was the thing thing but then now they're completely back it's like a chef making you know the 25 dollar poutine where they're just like stoner food baby it's in with apologies to the entire uh country of canada for calling your national dish stoner food but like

let's be real fries and gravy baby it is yeah that's right uh but anyway so like if you told me your favorite drink is a mai tai knowing you you and your credentials, I would be like, this is a man who is not afraid of what people's opinions would be about him. Like, you know what you want out of life, but also you're so sort of on the cutting edge that you know this is almost like the correct answer for the time period. If that makes sense. That's what I'm saying. You know? This is just a podcast about judging you're like a time traveler we're just judging each other you're like the

omniscient time traveler who's like my ties are back ergo yeah my favorite drink is a mai tai you know why because i can back it up with history and facts and drinks like tiki cocktails the ones that brought back nobility to the cocktail craft dead ass on us right here that's like that's what i think is that accurate at all uh i gotta i gotta parse what you just said about me and make sure i understand the statement here now because i i heard two conflicting points here you said i don't care about what people think about me but you also said that i've chosen this drink because no no you sorry you don't you you want people to think that you don't care what they think. It's meta.

That's true. I probably do care what people think. I think we all do. I want to believe that I don't care what people think about me. Which is why you drink Mai Tais. No, I drink them because they're delicious. I love them. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

All alcohol tastes like poison. We want to peel back here. What's your relationship like with your mother? Don't start. You know, it's straight. It's complicated. That happens. We've all been there. Your mom's nice. My mom's the best. My mom will be all your moms.

Okay, Josh, tell us. You love shallot, Greg. She's the best. What does your favorite cocktail say about you, Josh? What do you think? Oh, crap Okay, so Greg and I have already talked about this a little bit So I think he knows the answer We talked about the bar in New York that invented it

And it's a relatively new drink It is the penicillin Oh, you talk about this all the time It is the penicillin It is blended scotch I'll typically use monkey shoulder Why? Because liquor.com probably said that that's a good one It is the penicillin. It is blended scotch. I'll typically use monkey shoulder. Why?

Because liquor.com probably said that that's a good one. And I was like, it's only $40. As far as a blended scotch goes, I couldn't tell you what better thing to do. I've tried using some Japanese whiskeys because I want people to think I'm more cultured than I actually am. But really, I just went to BevMo and didn't care how much money I spent. Nice. And then I'll use some Lafroig quarter cask with a little floaty on top. I add a little bit of fresh ginger juice because I own cheesecloth and I can do

that. And I make my own little honey syrup once every two weeks because sometimes I don't even put the honey syrup in the fridge, even though I should, but I want it on the bar cart. And then you know what? It gets moldy. And then I gotta throw it away. Flies do jump in there

yeah uh but that's my favorite drink that's my all-time number one answer what does that drink say about you that's interesting i think that drink says you want to be very interesting you want people more than anything in the world greg that's a very cutting edge drink you want people to know oh what is that what is drink? That's not something most people have heard of. I've heard of that. And you obviously have heard of that. But I think that, you know, if we're going to be a little scathing here, I think that's what that drink says.

Yeah. Oh, you're not scathing at all. No, you hit it on the head. My God. We have a podcast. Like all we want is for people to talk to us and think we're interesting. True that. My favorite comment I get on YouTube is, you're just doing stuff that people want to see. He's like, yes. I didn't fall on the upload button.

Like, I made a trick. Exactly. Thank you. True. That is when people talk about the idea of clickbait. It's just like, I think we make funny good things and I want more people to see that funny good thing. A chef doesn't make food that he thinks people

want to throw on the ground. That's true. Of course. Josh, I think the penicillin says, well, number one, I have an allergy to penicillin. Did you know that? You're so interesting for having an allergy to penicillin, Nicole. As my emergency contact, you should just know that. No, I'm not. I'm not your emergency contact. Of course you're not my emergency contact. I was trying to be cute. I shouldn't be anyone's emergency contact. you should just know that. No, I'm not. I'm not your emergency contact.

Of course you're not my emergency contact. I don't know. I was trying to be cute. I shouldn't be anyone's emergency contact. Josh, that was a bit. You stomped all over it. Yeah, do you see what I deal with? I just, I think that just means, yeah, I kind of just to piggyback on what you said.

I think you want to be interesting. I think you are interesting. So. Thank you. So, yeah, I mean, it's a unique drink. Not everyone knows what a penicillin is. The first, I mean, it's a unique drink. Not everyone knows what a penicillin is. The first time I had it

was at a speakeasy in Tel Aviv. Wow, sounds accurate. How interesting is that? That's interesting. They have speakeasies in Tel Aviv. Yeah. Yeah, at least one, yeah. Ten or a bin.

The other thing it says, too, is you have to like scotch. I mean, it's like a smoky scotch. To me, that Laphroaig ginger combo, I respect it. It's not my thing, though, honestly. No, that's always been a combo that I really love. Even, like, my favorite cookie is just a very heavy spiced ginger snap.

I got some Tate's ginger snaps the other day. What a delight. All about it. Paired it with a white claw black cherry. Wow, you're a man of taste. Now that's a cocktail, folks. You are a man of taste. of taste.

Nicole, same question applies to you. Okay. Where are you at? I'm a simple girl. I just love Negronis a lot. I just, first of all, I think they're delicious. And people are like, I like to taste my alcohol. I actually do like the taste of all three of those alcohols together. It's gin, vermouth, Campari. I do like the way that they taste. I like the way that it makes my tummy

feel because I believe it's an aperitif or a digestive. I don't know. Whatever it is, I just like the way it makes me feel. Also, there's just like this feeling of holding that cup when everyone around me is drinking a skinny, spicy margarita and it's just it's again it's that uniqueness it's like no one else is going to be drinking this so i'm going to be drinking it so i think it also feeds to my like desire to be unique the desire to be the one girl that does this yeah so it definitely i like that you're sort of like almost unique in its sparseness right because it's it's a one one one cocktail i don't need mixers yeah you don't it's just three liquors thrown in a glass but that said it's also like

it's a visually striking drink you see in a grony it's the bright red from the campari you know and you just see someone holding that it's almost like a beacon it's like you're attracting attention to yourself but then when people go what is that you're like oh it's really just three liquors in a glass and you can kind of drink this in an old-fashioned glass or in a stemware on the rocks or neat or up rather uh i i like it in a in a whiskey glass yeah big ice cube damn right clear clear ice that's the clear ice but fun fact about me i i so i lived with my parents up until like a few months ago because i just got married so i've never been able to make my own cocktails. I've never had the freedom or the ability to just go into my kitchen and mix up a drink.

But it's something that I'm starting to experiment with now. And I'm very happy about it. What have you been experimenting with? Do you see your taste changing now? Well, I've only opened two bottles of whiskey. One of them was a Japanese whiskey. and I've opened one bottle of gin. So I've kind of just been playing around. I still don't know what I—

Was it the botanist gin? Yeah, I stole it from work. We steal a lot of liquor from work. Workplace theft is a big hobby of ours. It's part of the research budget. You guys have a culinary-oriented operation. You have to take those things home and work with them. I mean, I don't understand the problem there. You guys have a culinary oriented operation. You have to take those things home and work with them. I mean, I don't understand the problem there.

It seems fine. That's actually what it is. It's all from the show, fancy fast food that we do where we try and make like baconator or whatever, as expensive as we can. I had a version of that. I wanted to do that for one episode. I wanted to do the most expensive old fashioned because I got this bottle of

Pappy Van Winkle and I thought that would really, really annoy people to mix with it. Yeah, exactly. Half our content strategy is just pissing people off. I've been trying to get my hands on that for a minute. It's very hard to get your hands on. Don't worry about it. You don't.

OK, fine. Yeah. OK, fine. Very overpriced. It's for the show. Oh, well, you can get anything you want with money. But it's overpriced. You're like, oh, boy, get anything you want with money uh but but it's overpriced you're like oh boy where'd you find it i was like i with a lot of money you know and i was like but how do i make an old-fashioned more expensive and i was like maybe we get like vintage aged bitters or something

they don't exist there's nothing i could do the only thing i could do is like have there's no that's it like there's nothing you go harvest sugar yourself oh man yeah it's no, that's it. Like there's nothing. You go harvest sugar yourself. Oh man. What a process. What a time for that. You know, go ahead. It's like, make it yourself. Just like take the sugar cane juice, you know, dehydrate it in an oven. Really do that.

I'm curious. Okay. So we've talked about our current favorite drinks, but like, where did we all start? Because you, you mentioned the martini at a wedding. Sure. And for me, that sort of moment was, especially at college parties, because I mean, I could not to brag and jump back into that toxic masculine mindset of 21 year old me, but I could really crush some light beer.

That is the thing that I'm very, Milwaukee's best light. They really go down easy. But that said, I, especially as I got a little bit older, I was like, I want to present to people that I am a foodie and I know cocktails so I'm going to make a dark and stormy and I would muddle fresh mint with lime and I don't even think you're supposed to do that for a dark and stormy

and then I would add it you certainly not but hey it made me look really cool because I got a little cocktail shaker for $10 and then I would put the rum in it and then I would decant that out and pour ginger beer and squeeze some lime in it into a red solo cup and say do you want a dark and stormy and someone go what's that and i go it's a cocktail that's great yeah and so that and so that was my kind of like first foray into like this is people assume something about you because of what you're drinking and i would

do that and boy were people impressed at a party and it was just flat and gross and watered down and i'm fine with it were they impressed i you know i And it was just flat and gross and watered down. And I'm fine with it. Were they impressed? I, you know, I always, I think that my, my dum-dum martinis, I wanted them to impress people, but I think that people like, it didn't really work for me. I think that the ladies at those parties were like, what a stiff, what a square. Who is that guy? Yeah. Don't make me have a more accurate view of my past self because i think there's a lot

of things i'd look back on and really cringe uh i would make it with crack and rum also oh yeah upsetting you know you know we sorry go ahead i'll just say crack and rum people always on me about my dislike of um spiced rum i'm working on an episode about spiced rum and and why i hate it you know crackken rum always reminds me of? A similar timeframe in your young twenties. You ever get dragged to a hookah bar? Oh, I'm doing the dragon, baby. I love me a hookah bar. You know the vanilla goop hookah tobacco? That's what Kraken tastes like. Smells like a strip club. I love it.

Pretty much. For a little bit. We should do best hookah flavor. Smells like a strip club. I love it. Pretty much. For a little bit. We should do Best Hookah Flavor. That's a good podcast. Oh, yeah. It's Apple, it's Starbucks Apple and Al Fokker Mint. Oh, yeah, you got it. I'm a menthol honeydew guy. Yeah, give me

the mint and the melon. Actually, mint melon's really good. It's a good one. Actually, it's really good. Okay, what are other cocktails that you think, like, if you had any advice for, you know, a person, say they don't know a ton about, you know, cocktails, if they're to go to a bar, because I remember going to a bar and feeling a bit intimidated, right? I was like, I'm not going to know the right words. I remember the first time I went to a bar, I was nervous I was going to say the wrong

thing. And so I said, gin and tonic, please. And they said, what kind of gin? And I was like, oh, I remember gin commercials? And I was like, oh, remember gin commercials. And I was like, uh, Tanqueray. Tanqueray is great. And so that was like my sort of, you know, first go-to drink at a bar. But what do you think a good go-to is?

It's not going to make a bartender hate you and it's going to make people around you love you and finally make you love yourself. Bartenders hate making mojitos. Sticky. They hate making them. They hate muddling. Don't make them muddle. It's not going to come up accidentally, but it goes without saying, don't order a Ramos Gin Fizz. They don't like that.

You ask if you're allowed to order that, but you're also not going to accidentally find yourself in a place where you could order that. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's, I think about it, but also I don't work in, I've never worked in a bar, as you pointed out. Oh, yeah, that came up. I don't even know. What's a good first go-to drink? I think that you've got to read the room. I mean, this is kind of a cop-out answer, but you've got to know if they want to be doing cocktails here, if this is a beer and shot place.

Well, sometimes it's not clear. I went to this bar a while ago, and it was very much a crowded, crowded party bar at the time. Like they had a DJ on set and it's just people sweating, rave raining from the roof. That said, it's like a supper club earlier in the day. It's a, what do they call it? It's a clubstaurant, if you will. And so they had this craft cocktail. They had this like craft cocktail list up where it says like old fashioned,

but there's like 19 ingredients that are not in an old fashioned. And they're like burnt orange, demerara syrup, whatever. And then there are people ordering, you know, with 50 people in line, like give me the old fashioned. And these bartenders are just like furiously muddling. And in that situation, you just, you just get a tequila soda and you just crush it. Always a tequila soda. Always tequila soda.

My first, I'll order, I'll look at the cocktail menu. That's my first thing. You know, I don't want to order a cocktail from a bar that doesn't want to make cocktails. And the first thing to do is like, do they have a cocktail menu? I'll look at that. I'll try to pick out one. Because generally I think, I think this should be their best foot forward, right? This is what they want you to order.

So I'll try that. And if that drink isn't good, my next drink's probably a Dark and Stormy because that's really hard to mess up. That's my go-to for, oh, you don't really like to do cocktails. And, you know, I do like some beers, but none of the ones I like are on the menu here or that look appealing to me are on the menu here. I will have a Dark and Stormy. Thank you. My sort of handshake to the bar is because the penicillin is something that if you're at like a craft cocktail bar it's dedicated to craft cocktails if it's not on the menu they can definitely make it but sometimes there's that little you know where you're like two drinks deep

and you you've drank whatever's on the menu and then you pull someone aside and go can you do a penicillin yep and then sometimes they take that as like a challenge i went to a bar once i was like can you do a penicillin the guy was like uh yeah i might have to make like a substitution but yeah i was like all right and then he brings meillin? The guy was like, yeah, I might have to make like a substitution. But yeah, I was like, all right. And then he brings me like a highball glass with like soda in it. And I was like, what's going on here? He's like, so we didn't have ginger syrup and we didn't have any like scotch. And so what this is, it's like passion fruit soda with whiskey in it.

And I was like, that's not even close. That's okay. But I didn't read the room. They were also like a coffee bar also. And this is at 11 a.m. I was catching a flight in Austin. It was a whole thing. Interesting. And so that was one of those things where it was like you played yourself, Josh. You played yourself on this one. That was not going to work. I wanted him to think I was interesting and now he just hates me. Greg, you got any closing remarks here? We're about that time where we finish things up.

I think we've really gone down the Freudian and Jungian rabbit hole. People always forget to throw Jung in there. Do you have any closing remarks about like, you know, do you think that cocktails should carry this sort of weight? Do you think they should say things about you or should people just drink what the hell they want? I think that both of those statements are absolutely true. And you took the words out of my mouth.

I think not only do your cocktails say something about you, but the way that you walk says something about you and the clothing you wear says something about you. And if you really want to go down this path, you'll drive yourself crazy. And at the end of the day, what you should do is forget what those people, what, what people are hearing you say, unless you're saying something, unless you're, unless you're getting heard, say something you really don't want to say and and do what you actually enjoy um but yeah but also at the same time like of course people are judging your drink i mean they probably shouldn't in the world of course they are yeah right like that's what's happening uh amen man i've been told that i walk like a mother about to scorn a child and i don't

know what that means that's with. You got someplace to go. All right, Nicole and Greg, we've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the Twitterverse. It's time for a segment we call Opinions are like casseroles. Time for a segment we call Opinions Are Like Casserole.

We got at D Landry 63. Fish markets don't actually stink. They smell great. Anyone that disagrees doesn't actually like fish. I have been to both kinds. I have been. I hate to have the I'm'm gonna walk the middle line here but i've i've yeah a fish market that's working properly smells fine i have no problem with the smell of a fish market that is in sound operation but there's a fish market down the road for me that has had

some refrigerant problems yeah that's tough and i mean no, that ain't good. That's a bad smell. I know exactly where this person's coming from, though. And I like really 85% of the way I agree with them. Because I think when people talk about fish, right? I heard Food Network chefs growing up all the time being like, your fish shouldn't smell fishy. If it smells fishy, it went bad. No, it's a fish. It's a fish. It should smell like a damn fish.

And also the quote unquote fishier tasting fish, like things like things like mackerel right they're like the most delicious it's more fish per fish yeah that you get don't water down my fish i want my fish to smell like fish i want it to taste like fish i got to go to the market that smells like fish and i don't mind it because it reminds me i'm eating fish the other thing about fish market too is like the fish are not yet cleaned so they still have their scales and all the brine and stuff from the ocean. Like, there's a lot of other smells happening at the fish market than the fish. Yeah, that's fair. You know, you guys are too nice.

I think fish markets smell really bad. Even the clean ones. They're not pleasant. They're gross. I don't like them. Sorry. Like a cheese cave. But do you like a lot of fish?

I love fish. I'm a sushi fan. No, I don't. I love fish. I'm a sushi fiend. Oh, okay. No, I don't. I can't. I can't. Like, I can recognize a cheese cave or a cheese store or whatever smells bad, but I enjoy Yeah, but that smells good.

What? No. Cheese caves smell good. What the heck, Annie? It smells like my feet. Fish markets smell bad. Either my feet smell good and cheese stores smell good or they smell bad. You got to pick them.

You can't think my feet smell bad in the office and that cheese store smell good. I've never not once been that close to your feet. No time like the bro. All right. Nicole, you go. You go. You go. Dump the segment.

This is getting weird. Yeah. Greg, you're invited. Come down and smell my feet. Sarah. No. Sarah Chow 96. His sweet pickles are better than dill pickles.

What say you? No. That person's wrong. They are. 996, his sweet pickles are better than dill pickles. What say you? No. That person's wrong. They are. I like dill pickles more than sweet pickles. I don't mean to always play devil's advocate here, but you ever eat a sweet pickle? And if you don't think of it as a pickle, if you think of it as a candy cucumber, it's pretty nice.

It's a nice, yeah, well-refrigerated candy cucumber, but as far as serving, the needs of a pickle, nah. I love a sweet pickle, but I would never rank it above a proper dill pickle. My God. That's tough. That's tough. Alright, here we go. At Thomas Fowl 223. Okay, hear me out. That's how you know it's going to be a good opinion. American cheese

on PB&J. It's amazing. Yeah, I'll hear that out. I'd give that a try. I don't think I'm going to like it, but I would try it. Yeah. I'm willing to be convinced. I'm willing. It's about 60 cents worth of ingredients. So you're not, the opportunity cost isn't crazy. I'll do it. I don't care. Should we all pledge to do it? YOLO. I think we should all pledge to do it. And then, oh, this would be a great little, we're also going to diversify across platforms. We all try it we'll post on the social media on the day this comes out no yeah i got a lot of stuff too that sounds difficult i'll do it i'll do it greg will do it fine okay fine we're all in okay fine we're all in someone's right we're gonna start the pbj and the pb p pbj

and pb pbjc challenge pbjc chow how do you abbreviate pasteurized processed cheese products? P-P-C-P. I don't like P-P-C-P. P-P-C-P and PB sandwich. Can I reveal an embarrassing food fact about my own life right now? Absolutely. This is for me. I was left to my own devices a lot after school when I got home. And I would peruse the house looking for snacks.

And I would come up with unusual combinations. And one of the things I settled on as one of my favorite afterschool snacks as a, as a wee middle schooler was an Entenmann's chocolate eclair paired with a large deli style dill pickle. Hmm. Eaten together or separately in alternating bites. Like alternating bites. And because of the, the really extreme contrasting flavors between the salty and the sweet of them. And also I liked that they were roughly the same form factor.

So like they were the same volumetric amount of food. That's just like some weird OCD thing that was going on in my brain. But very tasty in your mouth. Made me sick many times. Kept going back for more. That's your rosebud, man. That's your rosebud, man. That's your rosebud. That's how you, because when you're talking about the Mai Tai, you're talking about like

the perfect balance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that's the chocolate eclair and the pickle. That could be it. It's it. We found it. Yeah. People, so when people tell me that American cheese goes good with peanut butter and jelly,

I won't judge. I'm willing to try that. I'm going to try it. Yeah, we've all done stuff, man. We've all done deep, dark stuff. BCSimmons04 says, double the amount of garlic in every recipe. All these recipes calling for one or two cloves ain't cutting it. It's tough.

I think that if you want it more garlicky, yeah, maybe it needs more garlic. But I also think that if you're not getting enough flavor expression from your food, you have actually undersalted. Yeah. Salt is the baseline from which all flavor harmonies are written. You're smart. You need a little more salt in there before you commit to going, because if you put too much garlic in something, you're going to feel it.

One hour after dinner, you're going to have some monstrous heartburn. True. Maybe bring up the gain on your microphone just a little bit before you start putting in a bunch of, you know, distortion pedals and stuff like that. I'm trying to think of a really stupid analogy. I listen to a lot of Korn. And so distortion pedals are kind of my thing. Oh, OK.

Korn's like your favorite band. Oh, what do you think that says about me? You are 12. Yeah, fair enough. No, I. OK, I'm just saying they were kind of revolutionary for the new metal genre. They were. What I would say about, thank you.

What I would say about the garlic thing is, I agree with this in the sense that I think you should either have zero cloves of garlic or 30. Here's the thing, I'm a big evangelist on the idea of people are cramming too many ingredients together in the same recipes and then being mad that they're not tasting the garlic. It's like, well, if you want to taste more garlic, you can A, add more garlic.

B, take other things out of there. Make it about the garlic. If you're into garlic, make, I mean, piccata, right? Piccata got, what, five ingredients in it? Make one of those ingredients, 30 cloves of garlic. Have a fun time. If you're making a giant bolognese, I know garlic seems important to that. Not really.

You omit the one clove of garlic in that bolognese, you're not going to know the difference. You might be right. You know what I mean? It's like black pepper and bay leaves. Like, let them be the star. Black pepper and bay leaves? Bay leaves. Bay leaves.

I was like, what you got going on? The cocktail portion's done now. Yeah, I like garlic. I mean, I don't understand why. Like, I see all the memes, like, recipe calls for two cloves garlic, and it's like a mountain, my recipe, mountain of garlic. I love garlic, but I'm not, like, obsessed with it in a way that I need to put it in all my food, like, times two. We fetishized garlic as a society. We have.

We have. It's very strange. Yeah, I totally. Fetishize shallots. I'm down. Let's do it. Yeah. Change the narrative.

Yeah, I totally. Fetishize shallots. I'm down. Let's do it. Yeah. Change the narrative. Yeah, I'm down. I think a lot of recipes should leave themselves room for like to taste. Because like, you know, what kind of garlic did you buy? Did you buy that weird purple elephant garlic that's huge? Those are big cloves, but they're not very powerful tasting. Did you get like, you know what I mean? Like maybe you live someplace where garlic comes out really strong and you need to adjust that. I have basically been trying to work that into my own show too.

It's like, you know, well, you know, the simple syrup is always to taste. It's always to taste. Yeah. Yeah. Everything in food is to taste. Don't make it if you don't taste it and it tastes good. Yeah. Taste your food.

Always. This next one, it's kind of cocktail adjacent. I'm proud that we got one. Yeah. At Hating Since 87, lemons are superior to limes in every way. Yeah, you jump in, Greg.

They're more versatile. They are more useful. You can definitely do more with a lemon than a lime. I can't say that they're superior. I'm not a lemon supremacist. I can't get on board with that kind of a reasoning. I think that like for one, it's edited out of every episode of How to Drink that you hear me squeeze a lime. But there's footage in every single lime squeeze of me on camera saying it doesn't go to air.

God dang, I just love the smell of limes. It just smells like vacation. Every single time. It's just like such a transportive – like the combination of limes. It just smells like vacation. Every single time. It's just such a transportive. The combination of limes and rum to me are so powerful in some part way back in my brain stem that I can't go with that. But I will recognize that lemons are more versatile. One more thought. I'm going to keep talking.

I'm going to keep talking. You're not going to get to stop me. Lemons are way more versatile. You can do so much more with them, but all of my personal favorite things demand limes. I want some Cuban black beans and rice. I need limes and I want a daiquiri or something like that. I need limes. I want to, you know, a Mai Tai, I need limes. Lemons is going to be a very poor substitution in any of those things. I feel that lemons are like, I'd say their limes have a bit of more bitterness and character to them, right? Lemons are a bit sweeter, have less

pure citric acid flavor, a little bit more fruitiness to it. And also there's more juice, which I understand. There's more juice per lemon. I get where they're coming from. That said, that bitterness in a lime, that's the beauty. That's where the money's made, baby. You squeeze that. I mean, one in cocktails, lemon and lime, they go way

different directions, right? But then even on food, like I'm thinking there was a lime shortage at Taco Chucks in California for a minute. Really? And so they were serving lemons and it just it didn't work like the the the lime, the bitterness cutting through that like sweet cinnamon on the al pastor. You know, the lemon just didn't cut it. Yeah. And so I know where he's coming from. Like when I'm squeezing fresh juice for cocktails, which is something that I do very often because I'm very cool and interesting. You got like four times the juice out of lemon than you do a lime. Oh, absolutely.

I wonder what would happen if we had lime juice and lemon juice with a little bit of extra citric acid in it, if people could tell the difference. I think you could. I think they're really different in character. Dave Arnold, I think, does that he yeah if you get um liquid intelligence he's got like a whole bunch of like future ingredients that he developed and stuff like and i'm pretty sure it's in that book and maybe i'm misquoting if i am i apologize but i think it's in there he has a thing called um lime acid and acid, which are basically like the isolate,

how to make the isolated acids from both of those things and concentrate them. Jeez. That's awesome. Yeah. There's a lot of wild stuff in there that's like, okay, that takes a, I need a rotary evaporation machine. Like I'm not going to do that. Yeah.

We tried to buy a hundred thousand dollar rotovap and no one would. We did? Well, we made a really half-hearted effort. No, no. This is like two weeks ago. Me and Ben got really into it for a minute. I don't know. I would have totally. And on that note, thank you for listening to a really half-hearted effort. No, no, this is like two weeks ago. Me and Ben got really into it for a minute. I don't know. I would have totally changed.

And on that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. If you want to hear more from us here in the Mythical Kitchen, we got new episodes for you every Wednesday. Don't you want to thank him for being here? Nicole, we do it at the end of this. Oh, we do? Yeah, that's how it always works. Oh my gosh.

We find Megan's rap on the sign, and then I say something controversial that you try to respond to, and I cut you off by ending it. Darn it. And then we say, talk to Greg at the end it I cut you off by ending it And then we say Talk to Greg again I'm sorry That sounded abrupt I was unprepared

I was like whoa Me too And he just ends the show Wow I was like whoa I'm done Kinda Okay now I say my part

Sorry If you want to be featured On Opinions Are Like Casseroles You can hit us up on Twitter At MythicalChef Or And HandyZada With the hashtag

OpinionCasserole And for more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube where we launch new videos every week. And of course, if you wanna share pictures of your dishes, hit us up on Instagram at Mythical Kitchen. Greg, thanks so much for joining us, man. I realize how messed it up it is

that we put our own plugs before we let you plug what you should plug. That's what I was saying. That's terrible. I don't wanna do that anymore. I wish I could turn back the wheels of time. No! Truly, I mean, this is a really enlightening conversation. I feel like we broke down a lot of bridges, found out that Nicole is the healthiest relationship

with her mother out of all of us. Mazel tov. That's pretty exciting. I could have told you. But yeah, man, where can people find you? You can find me on YouTube. If you do a search for How to Drink, you'll find me. I'm there.

You can find me on Instagram and also on Twitter at How to Drink. But there, it's got a number in it because I couldn't get my actual handle. And that's – you'll find me if you look for me. I'm not that hard. Yeah. All right. I'll see you all next time.