A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - What’s Up With White Claw?

Episode Date: February 24, 2021

Ain't no laws when you're drinkin Claws... but what about tax laws? 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. Ain't no laws when you drink in claws. But what about tax laws? 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 Scherer. And I'm your host, Nicole Hendizadeh. Today, Nicole, we are breaking down the Great Hard Seltzer scam. Oh, yes, we are.

It's a scam, and they are scamming their way into and out of so many things. Joanne the Scammer. Jo, who's Joanne the Scammer? Asterix Whiteclaw. All right, so the reason I'm saying the Scammer. Who is Joanne the Scammer? Asterix White Claw. Alright, so the reason I'm saying the Great Hard Seltzer scam here, it's not technically a scam because they find ways around it. But the reason I really

wanted to talk about this is because I don't think a lot of people know what exactly Hard Seltzer is, especially White Claw, which you're familiar with White Claw. I am, but I don't know what it is. I just know that it's an easy drink. That's all people know. it's an easy drink that's all people know it's an easy drink it's an easy drink yeah it tastes great you don't have to think about anything whenever you're drinking white claw nothing it's purely neutral which is a great segue into what it actually is uh it's plain flavored beer so okay

so there is one of my favorite jokes from the simpsons i bet bill oakley wrote this he is a friend of the podcast. Go listen to the Bill Oakley guest episode if you have a chance. But the Bible themed theme park that Ned Flanders creates. He goes, oh, we got all kinds of foods. We got gummies. And Bart goes, what flavor gummies? He goes, my favorite flavor, plain.

And like that is literally what White Claw is. It is a plain flavored beer. They brew it in the same exact method. And they do that because it's cheaper because of tax laws to brew something as a fermented malt beverage, as opposed to say, like hard alcohol inside seltzer. So when they say like spiked seltzer, what I imagine that as is like a bit of hard grain alcohol, like vodka, or even just something like Everclear, right? That's put into a seltzer water, which is something that people have been drinking at crappy concert venues for years. Yes, exactly. My question is, is then why doesn't it taste like beer? And don't say

because they remove it with science, unless it is how they do it. They remove it with science. No, actually, this is really fascinating. Something I didn't know before we started researching this podcast, they don't brew it with Marley. With Marley? With Bob Marley? With Bob Marley. They don't brew it with barley. So the flavor in beer, I mean, obviously they add hops and whatnot, but it comes from that fermented barley.

What they do with White Claw is they're just fermenting plain cane sugar that has almost no taste when you distill the alcohol. So rum? I mean, rum is made in barrels and that's where you get a lot of the flavor and i think it's made with the molasses from cane sugar but they're taking like okay literally the most base level way to make alcohol of fermenting plain white sugar and then turning that into essentially beer so it's just plain flavored beer and i know it's not actually a scam because you know it's following all the tax laws and everything but like i think people don't i don't there's this lack of self-awareness when

it comes to white claw drinking and i think it's like fascinating to break down all the facets about it but like you said it's a very easy drink and i have drank a lot i am very pro white claw i'm very pro always been pro pro white claw when's the first time you had a white claw? Do you remember your first claw? Oh, man. Yes. I went to, I think I went to go watch a football game. You watched a football game? Yeah, of course. When?

I watched them. Like in person? No. Oh, okay. I don't know. On the television. And then I was just hanging out with a bunch of dudes and I had a white claw and I was like, cool, this tastes like Jolly Rancher water.

And that's what it was. And that's pretty much it. Had you been exposed to White Claw discourse before that? Never. So you hadn't heard of it at all and you just drank it. You were like, this is a new product in the market. I'm going to try it. But I'm always the kind of girl and they go like, here, try this.

I say, okay. Like, I'm just a very open-minded person. So if someone's handing me a drink that's closed i had to specify this is veering in a strange territory if you hand me a drink that's closed and you know safe to drink and you say hey try this i'll probably try it because i'm a curious person i like to try new things yeah i agree with that i drink a lot of questionable stuff in college i will drink anything that is offered to me we used to make something simply called riot punch that was mostly blue hawaiian punch and green alcohol a little bit of lemon

juice in there for flavor is that the cousin of milk punch from yes it's always sunny yes yes actually no it riot punch uh is a joke from it's always sunny and we stole the recipe essentially but we put it in big gatorade uh container anyways the first time i had a white claw it was similar with a bunch of dudes uh watching college football we were like on vacation and we got this Airbnb at the beach up in Pismo Beach. It's really fantastic. And I'd like heard of White Claw and I was like, well, these things have existed for forever, right? And I'd like seen them in the like liquor case.

When you go to like, say a Ralph's grocery store, you go to like the cold beer section and there's always like one thirtieth of the rack is partitioned off for the like various Mike's Hard Lemonade adjacent beverages. Isn't Mike's Hard Lemonade hard seltzer? So Mike's Hard Lemonade is a fermented malt beverage. So it is like essentially the same thing. And the parent company of Mike's Hard Lemonade is the same one that makes White Claw. Oh, well, there you go.

Which is, to me, a very fascinating part of this whole thing. I think this whole hard seltzer charade, I don't think it's a scam. It's a charade. But charade doesn't sound as good in a title. No, it's the great hard seltzer smart decisions from a business standpoint. That's what it is. It honestly is. It is a genius business proposition because the real scam is that we've been scamming ourselves into convincing ourselves that we love light beer, right?

I don't like light beer. I don't like light beer either. Who likes, who's going to drink a Michelob Ultra just to drink it? Nobody. No, and I agree. I mean, there are a lot of people out there who will just like drink light beer because they enjoy it. But I mean, ever since I was 21, you know, I've been,

I felt like I was pressured to think that I enjoyed light beer right like you're interesting it's a very I mean maybe this is a kind of like male thing where you have to like prove your masculinity by how much light beer you can crush which to me is wild because light beer is literally just like lower calorie beer it's the Virginia Slims oh nice of beer products you know yeah okay and so like I've had to you know go up to go to football tailgates parties whatever it's like oh man this this bud Light that's been sitting out at room temp for the last 48 minutes is delicious. I love it. I could drink 30 of these.

And you would drink 30 of them. I would drink 30. I mean, not quite 30. That's Wade Boggs level, but. Who's Wade Boggs? Wade Boggs is a baseball player. This is another It's All Sunny reference. Oh, my gosh.

And, oh, I remember that one. When they go into the airplane. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they all drink and they're just really, really drunk on the plane and then they get to the field. Totally great episode. Why are we talking about It's Always Sunny? I don't know. I must have watched an episode recently.

People were convinced that they should like the taste of light beer and I mean, I generally like the taste of the heavy equivalents of light beers yeah what's uh what's uh is heineken a heavy beer i don't know i know i think heineken has a light i'm not a big fan of heineken but i i love like coors banquet i think is a really fantastic never had it never had course but what i'm just like budweiser straight bud heavy no nope you never had but didn't you make something for gmm called Bud Heavy? Yes, I did. And I feel like I brought up the fact that I grew up.

My hair was in it. You put your hair in it? No, no, I just shed a lot and my hair was in it accidentally. But like Miller Genuine Draft, like these, you know, somewhat fuller flavored beers and then they're light beer equivalent to me just tastes like, I mean, it tastes like a beer flavored hard seltzer. Oh, okay. They make hard seltzer without the beer flavor, thus exposing the great charade that people ever liked the taste of light beer because they didn't. Yeah, it tastes like pee-pee. It tastes like pee-pee, right?

It tastes like pee-pee. I don't like it. No. I don't like it at all. I don't like it either. I had a gag reflex. I could not smell. Literally, I could not smell a light beer because of an unfortunate incident.

But I couldn't smell light beer without gagging. Yeah, I'm sure. For years. Yeah, you want the dumb and dumber thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. But no, and now people just realize that they don't like it. And the sales of hard seltzer have like completely exploded over the last three years especially. You know what I'm a big fan of?

Hard kombucha. Hard kombucha, yes. I love hard kombucha. I had some recently and it was delicious. You know what I'm a big fan of? Huh? Hard kombucha. Hard kombucha. Yes. I love hard kombucha. I had some recently and it was delicious and it had like a mushroom on it and I was like, wow, this is crazy. What brand? I don't remember.

It had a mushroom on it. There's a brand of hard kombucha that I've been drinking called Giant but with a J. So maybe it's Giant. Yeah, I've seen that one before. Giant. Very, very pretty cans. Yeah. You know, and it tastes delicious. But like speaking of scamming ourselves into

thinking things taste good because i think that's a phenomenon that happens a lot are you talking about light beer you're talking about white claw i'm talking about light beer because white claw it doesn't taste great but you make the trade-off yeah of like this thing is providing me with alcohol which is a thing that makes me happy uh it tastes a little bit worse than just the thing without alcohol. Yeah. So that's why I'm going to drink it. Yeah. But like White Claw is significantly less offensive

than Lightbeard to get you to that goal. Yes. What's your favorite White Claw flavor? Black Cherry. Ew! I know, no one likes Black Cherry, which is perfect for me because then I get all the Black Cherries.

Yeah, yeah. I really love mango, but I prefer groovy grapefruit. The grapefruit's good because it, I feel like grapefruit is the most, it's like the most commonly known seltzer flavor. Like, I think when people think of La Croix, they think of Pamplemousse. Pamplemousse. Well, that's because it's Pamplemousse.

It's Pamplemousse. Because it's named Pamplemousse. I don't know why I like saying it like Pamplemousse. But I think like grapefruit is such a seltzer watery, soda watery thing. I guess, yeah. Which is really interesting. Yeah, one time I played flip cup with White Claw. Great idea.

Oh, don't play flip cup outside with wine on a hot day. Wine? Yeah, I played flip cup with red wine once. I would have a headache. Yeah, uh-huh. No, that happened pretty quick. That happened pretty quick. Yeah.

Are there other foods out there that you think people have sort of scammed themselves into thinking tastes good? Because you mentioned kombucha. I feel like I naturally love the flavor of kombucha. It's sour. It's fizzy. It's a little bit sweet. It's vinegar. But I like vinegar.

Yeah, I like vinegar. But do you think like a lot of people out there are drinking it for the benefit that they think it gives them where like White Claw or light beer, the benefit that people thought they were getting was that, you know, like we're happy because we drink alcohol. Yeah. No, I think kombucha is one of those things that people are just like, was that, you know, like we're happy because we drank alcohol. Yeah. No, I think kombucha is one of those things that people are just like, well, just drink it because it's good for me. Do you think in 10 years we're going to see like this huge kombucha relapse where everyone's like, yo, that time when we were drinking straight vinegar was gross? I wonder if there's going to be studies that say actually kombucha hasn't done diddly squat for you.

I always think about that. That's what I'm curious about. Because like, have you noticed any change in your body since you started drinking kombucha? No, because I don't care. Yeah, I kind of, I think about that a lot. I don't care. Where I kind of feel like I'm so unaware of my own body and what it's doing. I think we need to do yoga, Josh.

No, I tried doing yoga, but I like tore my rotator cuff and hurt my Achilles. We need to do something to like center us so that we're more aware of our bodies. Yeah. This podcast is a cry for help. Can someone please come to the studio and just like center our chi. Center our chi. Center my chi please. Make us feel good.

You know, like, I don't know if it's Reiki healing, if it's yoga. If we just need a therapist to come in, maybe that could help. The white claws are masking the true issues. Give me three white claws and an acupuncturist, and I feel like I'll be centered for years to come. Cupping. A little bit of wet cupping. Fire cupping. Fire cupping.

Fire cupping. Fire cupping's awesome. Don't do alcohol near fire cupping, though, because that's a recipe for disaster. Nicole, there was another canned beverage that was popular with our generation. What was it? There was a canned beverage. We could call this the white claw of popular with our generation. What was it? There was a canned beverage. We could call this the White Claw of our early drinking years. What is it?

I'm talking about the Locos. Oh, I can't. I can't talk about Four Locos. Why can't you talk? I have PTSD. PTSD. One time I had half of a Four Loco and all I remember was burping and nothing else. That was what Four Lokos were designed to do, which I think speaks to like the moment of the time.

What were people doing back in, what was this, like 2010, 2012 or something? Maybe around that time, yeah. Yeah, like what were people doing? Okay, so Four Lokos for context were in 23 and a half ounce cans. Let's say 24. Let's round up. And they were 12% alcohol. You asked about vodka Red Bulls.

Yeah, how many vodka Red Bulls are in a can of Four Locos? Six. No way. Yeah, straight up. Same amount of caffeine in everything? I'm not sure about the amount of caffeine. Hold on. I want to Google this.

I'm going to be sick from the thought of that. How was that legal? Well, very quickly, it was not legal. My God. How did they get past that? Okay, so people say about 155 milligrams of caffeine per can, which is the equivalent of about two Red Bulls. That's a lot of Red Bulls.

Ish. It's not like a ton, a ton of caffeine, but if you're drinking multiple of them, that's where the danger comes in. But like the main danger was that this is, it's an entire bottle of wine is what it is that you're drinking if you drink a can of Four Loko. And so that's equivalent of, I mean, six White Claws or six standard light beers, which is 12 ounces at 4%, which is absolutely incredible. But like seeing how people's tastes have changed, hopefully a bit better.

And again, Four Loko, there were, I believe a couple of underage drinking deaths because if kids are drinking six drinks and they don't know it, I remember seeing a post on Yahoo answers like years ago where some teen said like, Hey, I'm 16 years old. I'm going to a concert. And my friends tasked me to bring the beer.

And I was thinking of bringing Four Loko brand beer. Does anyone know if this beer is? I was like, no, like if you're thinking that Four Loko is like a Bud Light, I mean, you totally understand why like all those terrible things happened. And again, that was our generation's White Claw. White Claw is also our generation's White Claw. Yeah.

I mean, no, White Claw is a little bit more compact. It's, you know, single serving. There's no caffeine in it. Thank God for that. No, no, no. I think it's much more of a well-adjusted product it is i think well-adjusted is a good way to put it because i think that's part of the sell yeah exactly right like i think you can kind of follow the way that

beer sales have fallen they haven't fallen but beer sales in the last year jumped one percent which is like nothing for market growth and then hard seltzer sales jumped something like 225%. It's incredible. Which is unreal. And so that's why all these beer companies are now coming out with their own hard seltzers. Natty Light. Natty Light peach flavored hard seltzer. Fan-freaking-tastic.

Interesting. And as a diehard Natty Light stan, I absolutely respect that. What is the full name of Natty Light? Natural. Natural Light. Never have I ever had a natural light. I absolutely respect that. What is the full name of Natty Light? Natural. Natural Light. Never have I ever had a Natural Light. What about Bush Light? What?

Bush Light. Keystone Light? I don't drink these alcohols. You gotta drink the third tier light beers. No. Because they all taste the same. No. I like to drink Modellos and Pacificos.

I like Modellos and Pacificos. They don't sell those in what we would have called racks or bricks, which is a 30-pack. Uh-huh. Or cubes, people call them. Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. So you need to get the ones that fit in cubes. Why?

Because they fit into your fridge better? Yeah. You know, they stack better. I'm learning so much about beer culture today. It's great. Thank you so much. So interesting. But I think the rise and fall of the diet soda industry mimics that with the beer industry as it relates to seltzers.

Because LaCroix exploded, I mean, maybe what, like six, seven years ago? I'd say so, yeah. LaCroix absolutely exploded. They got into Costco. And now, I mean, how many? There's like Waterloo. There's what are the other ones? Yes.

Oh, love me some Spindrift. But there's all these big non-hard seltzer, soft seltzer brands of sparkling water. I think it's just seltzer. I think it's just seltzer. I don't think it's soft seltzer. Well, it's hard seltzer, soft seltzer. No. Soft seltzer is my name in high school.

No, just because one exists does not mean in this universe the other one has to exist. You could have like a soft drink, right? Oh. That's literally where it comes from. It's the opposite of a hard drink, which means it has alcohol in it. Oh, well, now my whole theory has just gone to poo-poo. And then in the Book of Mormon, they use the term hot drink to describe anything. Yes, you told me about this.

Not the musical. The actual Book of Mormon? Yeah, it started as a book and then got turned into a musical. Oh. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Oh, I see. Kind of like the Rugrats story of Passover.

Yeah, yeah. Originally, that was in like a book. Although the Rugrats did a really good job of summarizing it. And that's still where I know most about Passover. Wait, so is the Book of Mormon actually the Book of Mormon? Yeah, like the Mormon Bible is called the Book of Mormon. Yeah, yeah, but the play that we watch on Sit Down. No, that's not like a theatrical version

of the events in the actual book. But it's funny. Yeah, it's like a comedy from Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I don't know anything about anything. I drank too many

hard seltzers before I came on. Welcome to the podcast. Josh explains religion to Nicole. It's a comedy play. Josh Gad was the original lead. Anyways,

it's talking about the rise and fall of hard sodas. Is that freaking the snowman? What? The snowman. Josh Gad, yeah, Olaf. Bro, I just watched Frozen two days ago for the first time.

I drank a bunch of cocktails and watched Frozen. It was a great time. Really engaging character. I really liked him. You can go back to the podcast now. Sorry. Diet soda. They've seen the same lack lack of growth in sales.

And that's because of stuff like LaCroix and Spindrift and all that. And I think it's like because people think they're healthier by not drinking artificial sweeteners. So like there's been a lot of negative PR about aspartame and all these things and links to cancer, which I've read the research. I don't actually believe it's linked to cancer. But like it can't be good for you to cheat God that way. You know, with artificial sweeteners, that's something I think about a lot. You simply can't cheat God. But anyways, I think people think that with hard seltzer.

It seems, like, virtuous, right? It seems like it's healthier than beer. But they're, like, the same amount of calories. Oh, they are? A lot of people think that hard seltzer has less calories than beer. But the whole point of light beer is to do a beer with fewer calories. Oh, they are? A lot of people think that hard seltzer has less calories than beer, but the whole point of light beer is to do a beer with fewer calories. And so like some light beers, I mean, Miller introduced one called Miller 64 that has 64 calories per 12 ounces and White Claw is at around 100. And almost every standard light beer is between 90 and 100 calories. I never

knew that. I believe there's like fewer carbs technically. And I think like one of the first times I heard about White Claw, I believe was from like someone who self-identified as keto. Interesting. God, how did keto become like a lifestyle identifier now? I don't know.

But it kind of did. And so there might be something to do with net carbs because it's just from sugar and not barley. And I don't really know all about that. But like there's this sort of like virtue of of health idea that i think white claw imparts and like the white cans you know implying purity for the water implying purity exactly what about smear off ice josh oh my god i'm so glad you brought up i've never had a smear off ice before uh smear if you want something that tastes like a jolly rancher smearing off ice tastes like a jolly rancher really is maggie mad that you've never had a smear off ice yeah sorry

maggie i've never been iced before now's your chance i see because if i just pulled one out from under the table uh no smear off ice is really good but the thing is it has a ton of sugar in it uh-huh and so white claws technically they have like i believe a tiny bit of sugar that just comes from the artificial flavoring they're adding they're adding they put a little bit of sugar in there sort of round it but all the sugar that they use to ferment it into this weird like beer seltzer proto alcohol thing uh ferments into alcohol and so it's not digestive sugar or whatever the only sugar you're consuming you're getting drunk off of which is the point and so smear off ice i think you know smear off ice didn't have the opportunity to get into this hard seltzer game because there's so much sugar in it.

And even if they made diet Smirnoff Ice, people are so against artificial sweeteners these days. Yeah, they're turned off of it. Yeah, that this beer, like White Claw is beer. Soylent Green is people. Is Smirnoff Ice beer? Yeah, it's the same thing. It's a fermented malt beverage. But it's beer, but it's like, you know, equivalent to like a soda just because it's like very heavily sweetened.

Okay, so you're trying to tell me that all these things that I've known my whole entire life were beer. Yeah, I would call them beer. I mean, I know beer purists would come in and say they're not beer. But for all intents and purposes, I would consider these fermented malt beverages to just be beer. If I go to this store. You like to do this to me, so I'm going to do it to you. If I go to this store and go, hey, to me so i'm gonna do too if i go to start go hey josh thanks for coming over can you bring a six pack of beer and then you're like hey i brought some bon and viv

i'd be like go back to the store that's not beer i do i do agree with you and i'm using beer in like a very loose term just to kind of like prove a point that everything that is new was once old so who's the real scammer you're the the scammer? I'm the real scammer. White Claw and Hard Seltzer, it's not a scam, but to me, it's just like, it's very strange, and it almost kind of like exposed this decades-long light beer scam where we all pretended to like it, but

we don't. I was never a part of that universe, though. I think it must be, I think it's a somewhat, like, masculine experience. I guess. You know, and I think a lot of people dealt with that. Yeah. They were pressured. I didn't.

I'm sorry. I don't share the experience that you did. But now, are 21-year-olds getting pressured into drinking White Claws? Now, like, are you going to be the odd man out if you, like, don't prefer a White Claw? Like, are there drinking games being played with White Claws? Is it going to become the same light beer culture around White Claw? I don't prefer a White Claw? Like, are there drinking games being played with White Claws? Is it going to become the same light beer culture around White Claw? I don't think so.

Do you think light beer is going to, like, stay king in that regard? I think, yeah. I think there's an attractiveness to light beer. I don't see it.

But I think it's there for, like, the college kids. Yeah. Like, you know, the just-turned-21 kids. Like, they want to try and do things that have already been set in place for them, you know, continue the legacy of light beer.

It makes sense. And I have a lot of fond memories associated with light beer. Sure. Like in college and, you know, drinking with friends. And it's something that you can like sip on and drink a fair amount of without feeling too bad because there is so little alcohol and calories in it. But I remember when I had these White Claws for the first time with like, with like my best friends when we went up to Pismo Beach, someone brought like a 12 pack of White Claw. And then of course we had like 90 light beers with us. We had a lot of friends. It's not like three of us. There were like 15 of us.

Remember back when people could like gather in a place? Oh my God, the best. We used to do that. We had like 15 of us and a bunch of beer. And we all like drank this 12 pack of White Claw. And we're like, oh, now it's time to crack into the light beer. And then everyone's kind of stared at it and we're like, hey, someone went to the liquor store and get more White Claw.

Yeah. And we did. And then we only drank White Claws and well, and Natty laid hard peach seltzer throughout this entire weekend. Cause we were like, after drinking White Claws, we're like, there's no reason to go back to light beer. And we're not trying to like impress anyone, you know? Like, and we have a, we have disposable income because none of us have like kids or any real lives uh and white claws are a little bit more expensive less cost prohibitive

and so we just drank white claws and so like i understand the appeal and it is god it's better than light beer they made a fantastic product at the exact right time of cultural moments that all came together and now it's crazy watching all these companies try and like reap that round up what they can yeah because they all are all the big beer manufacturers are making hard seltzers and like more power to them what's your favorite hard seltzer other than uh white claw truly you like truly i've never okay what's your favorite like uh soda water like you have like oh i love perrier it's right next to me i love perrier uh it's really funny that you have the tall Perrier can because that's like a pretty, that's like a pretty, Perrier's got the bougie can.

You mean, you mean the style of can is higher. Yeah, it's the taller, thinner, sexier can. Sleeker, yeah, it's sleek. It's a sleeker can. So I was talking about the diet soda industry and how it's kind of trying to mimic the seltzer water industry. Right. So Diet Coke back in 2018. Do you remember the new Diet Coke flavors they introduced?

I don't even look at Diet Coke when I walk past it. I don't drink Diet Coke. I like regular Coke. I am a huge fan of Diet Coke because you can drink 80 of them and it only makes you stronger. The chemicals in them preserve your blood from the inside out. The taste of aspartame makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, that's why you got to keep drinking it until it doesn't. No, no.

No, no, no, that's how Diet Coke works. No, it's not how life works, no. So Diet Coke introduced these new flavors, and they introduced them in new cans that look like the Perrier can, or look like, you know the Bougie La Croix? Oh, yeah, the mixed flavor ones? The mixed flavors, and they're all in French? Yeah, I don't like them.

I, give me pomme bia any day, I don't even know what it means. Paya but they're in the sexy you they're in the sexy tall cans so diet coke introduced these new flavors in sexy tall cans and they had flavors that very strongly mimicked these fancy flavors of la croix so it was like blood orange black cherry uh one had some sort of like spice in it yeah dude there was black cherry and blood orange Diet Coke and they all tasted really bad. The craziest thing, like Diet Coke was obviously trying to mimic seltzer water, whatever.

But then the director of Diet Coke, which is a great title that I would like to have one day for the Coca-Cola Corporation, referred to it as America's top no calorie sparkling beverage. Oh, wow. Didn't even consider it soda.

Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah. And I'm wondering if like, you know, talking about is hard seltzer technically beer. I'm wondering if beer eventually is just going to start calling itself hard seltzer because that's what it is. It's barley flavored hard seltzer. You think it's going to start to go in that direction? I mean, the way it's going. Just do by the sales? I think so. I mean, I think beer is still king and I don't think it's ever actually going to be surpassed. But, I mean, it is like absolute exponential growth.

And I think once you tear down this charade that anyone ever liked like beer. Why are you saying it's charade? It's charade. No, it's charade. Since when? Charade sounds fancy, and I'm a fancy young man. Charade is a name. Who drinks my witte claw.

So what you're trying to say is you want to create a drink that is basically beer. Yeah. And just title it hops flavored hard seltzer. Yeah, yeah, indeed. We'll get like a cool graphic designer who used to work for Vice. Yeah, let's give it a cool name. Let's give it like a cool, like approachable name. Yeah, yeah, like a...

Sherrod. Sherrod. We'll call it Sherrod. Like a- Sherrod. Sherrod. We'll call it Sherrod. Oh, we'll call it Sherrod. We'll get comedian Sherrod Brown to a- Yes. Is Sherrod Brown a comedian? I don't know.

Who is that? How do you Google Sherrod Brown? I don't know. Oh, Sherrod Brown's a senator and he's- Yeah, yeah. Sherrod Brown is a senator. We'll get Senator Sherrod Brown who is- Where is he from?

Ohio. Sounds good to me. He's going to market- Sounds good to me. Our new hard to market. Sounds good to me. Our new hard seltzer. Also, we're going to have hops flavor, but also I have this idea where I want to ferment bananas into seltzer. Okay.

Because I really like banana flavor. Can bananas get you drunk? Oh, bananas can definitely get you drunk. I've never gotten drunk on bananas, but bananas have a ton of sugar and starch in it. You can absolutely ferment bananas. I think we need to make banana and hops. Banana call.

Banana call. Banana call. Did you ever drink 99 bananas the bananas hard liquor? Yeah, I did. Do you remember those buzz balls? Buzz balls?

Ew. We could go to an in conclusion. You've heard what we have to say. I want to take this moment, Nicole, to do an in memoriam.

Go for it. Of all of the beverages that should have surpassed White Claw as the heir apparent to the beer throne i'm talking mike's hard lemonade all right absolutely delicious i'm talking about the bud light clamato michelada oh my god it is a can of beer with clam juice and hot sauce it's a can

of beer with the side of acid reflux is what it is and i love it it's absolutely delicious i'm talking red's apple ale i'm talking about buzz balls oh well i'm talking about smearing off ice all lost to the sands of time because there ain't no laws when you're drinking claws all right nicole 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 it's time for a segment we call Opinions Are Like Casseroles! That was good, Jeff. That was maybe the best one we've done. A month.

We're growing as podcast hosts and as friends. Okay, first up we got A. Wright 311. Ruffles cheddar and sour cream chips with honey on them Honey, cheddar, sour cream Yeah, that's a win for me All I've learned is that ruffles cheddar and sour cream is a dessert chip This is what I've learned from other people's opinions Have other people said this?

Yeah, people have said that they've had ruffles cheddar with sour cream with sweet things I personally had it with whipped cream ones And I was like, holy cannoli. My life has changed. So, yeah, it's the world's first and only dessert chip. One thing I'd like to bring up, and if I may grandstand for a moment. Okay. I'd like to advocate here for wet chips.

I am okay with wet chips. Well, yesterday we were on set. We had a large family-sized bag of nacho cheese Doritos, which I enjoy, but I prefer a spicy chip. So, what I did is I took about a half a cup of secret aardvark hot sauce, and I dumped that into the bag, and I shook it, and then I ate them with my hands, and then I proceeded to get hot sauce

all over every piece of media. Oh, I have a story like that. So there was this girl in culinary school that had a big-time crush on me, so we would sit in the back and just hang out. And then one time she took a, she's like, hey, I brought us lunch, and I'm like, oh my God, dope.

And then she brought out a bag of Ruffles cheddar and sour cream and a bottle of Cholula. And she said, here you go. So during the whole class, we were just like dipping our hands in the bag and then taking the bottle and just putting it on the chip and eating it. That's like my ideal. Romantic, right? You gotta, you don't like let it soak like cereal where it gets soggy. No just you literally just dab and go yeah any wet chips are great joe the funky homo sapien says white chocolate reeses are better than milk chocolate reeses fight me first of all i'm a pacifist second of all i love white chocolate third of all i don't like white chocolate with peanut butter

i'm a pacifist i'll pass a fist across your face. No, I agree. I love white chocolate. I love white chocolate. But to me, the whole point of Reese's is to get the flavor combination of milk chocolate and peanut butter, which is a great combination. If you're eating white chocolate Reese's, you just want peanut butter. You should just be eating peanut butter. Yeah. What you should do is take peanut butter, melt it down, add some chocolate chips to it, mix it so it's fully combined, and then you have what you want.

Yeah, just eat your sweet peanut paste. All right, we got atralon. Condensed milk is the sweet equivalent of ranch. Yes. In the same sense that you should drizzle ranch on everything you eat, you should drizzle condensed milk on any dessert you eat. That's a good idea.

Yeah? Yeah. It's settled. Condensed milk is sweet ranch. Congratulations. You will get your medal in the mail in approximately four to six months. We have really bad shipping times here. Yeah, no international.

Eatery says chocolate cookies with chocolate filling dipped in crunchy peanut butter is the ultimate snack. I don't think it's the ultimate snack. I think it's a good snack and I would eat that, but it's definitely not the ultimate snack. I do like to take a big spoonful of crunchy peanut butter and then dip it in some chocolate chips and then eat it that way. That's good. My favorite, I just take a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter and then I spread it on a whole nanner and then I eat the whole nanner.

Whole nanner. I just, I hoist the nanner in my hands and I squeeze it a little bit and then I smear the crunchy peanut butter on it. And then I get to eat a nice chunky covered nanner. Hand nanner. You know what I don't like though? I don't like, you know my thoughts on cookies. I'm not. I love chocolate chip cookies. I don't know your thoughts on cookies. We did a whole podcast about our cookie thoughts. I don't remember anything we do, man. I think I remember what I did yesterday. You think I remember what you did

three months ago? Get out of here. Anyways, I like chocolate chip cookies, but they're like not my favorite. Don't super love chocolate chips. I'm there for the crunchy cookie, you know? But I especially do not like chocolate based cookies with chocolate chips like not my favorite don't super love chocolate chips i'm there for the crunchy cookie you know uh but i especially do not like chocolate based cookies with chocolate chips or any chocolate filling in it to me it's too much chocolate okay i need the chocolate to be countered so not a big fan of this in the peanut butter i'm sorry but i still love and respect you as a person eat a reet at bryce is cursed sorry bryce that you got cursed by an old bog witch spam baked with mustard sugar, and pineapple is delicious.

Okay. Sounds good. It does sound, mustard, brown sugar, and pineapple on ham is delicious. We're not talking ham. We're talking about spam. And also we're talking about spam being baked. What's the issue with that? Because spam to me, the way to get it good is to crisp it.

You got to like crisp it with direct heat content. So like fried spamam, unreal. Heavily griddled Spam is great. But I'm imagining they're baking a whole Spam loaf. You know when you grip the Spam can and you're... Yeah, yeah, yeah. You shake it out? Many times.

Yes. I don't know if I want a whole baked Spam loaf, if that's what they're talking about. If you're talking about slices, abs of freaking Lutely, that sounds delicious. Yeah, that sounds great. It reminds... So whenever you were talking about Big Brick Spam,

there's like mukbangers that take big bricks of spam. Oh, no. What? They just go on. I was just anticipating. They take big bricks of spam and they air fry it and then they eat it and it's like. And it's really enjoyable for me. Okay.

We should probably. Let's use that. Let's see how many comments we get from listeners on this. Would you watch Nicole host a mukbang video? Because we've been trying to float this idea out here of Nicole loves mukbang culture. Is that correct? It's so beautiful to me. Yeah, and I feel like you feel like you could do it. Oh, sure.

I sure can. I basically mukbang in my mirror when I'm home by myself. I basically practice. Nicole, turn your alone time into content. Welcome to the digital media economy. Fine, I guess. Yeah, just let us know if you want to see a show of me doing that, because I think it would be great.

Yeah, sound off on the Twitter. Jake underscore vote underscore says, marinara is the best chip dip. False. Have you ever had onion dip? There is a chip dip that is very similar to marinara, except it's spicy. It's called salsa

this person wants spiceless salsa that's what they're doing oh no marinara is a very specifically cooked sauce like it no it's not it is literally the opposite of a specifically cooked sauce marinara like doesn't exist outside of like the american context right marinara is not like an italian sauce what are you talking about marinara exists what are the ingredients for marinara tomato tomato paste and not all marinara is basil onion like marinara is the american term that we use to call any red sauce right we put any sort of tomato sauce and things you say like oh there's marinara on it okay sure but it's like literally just a very specific dish and term that comes from Naples and then in the American context

it got sort of bastardized. Like in Australia, for instance, they call any red sauce passata. Okay. That's not Australian at all. My God, what was that? Never heard of passata before. It's really interesting. And so, but like the marinara that we get in a jar,

if you were to add chopped pickled jalapenos and a little bit of vinegar to marinara, you'd probably get something close to like a paste picante sauce. You would know, you know what you would get? You would get El Pato. You'd get El Pato. Which I love.

That stuff's good. At Sabrina Starnes 965, Tabasco on pancakes is yummy. I don't care how many side looks I get from the fam. You're getting two side looks here. The acceptable way to put Tabasco on pancakes is if it is in the splash radius for your hash browns. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Tabasco got the hard stopper and it's really liquidy.

Yeah. So you get some splash sometimes. Because I've had Tabasco with a little bit of maple syrup on pancakes because I splash it heavily on the hash browns. Heavily on your hash browns. Heavily on my hash browns. It's not bad on pancakes. It's not my ideal. I'd prefer. It's okay. Prefer syrup. Yeah syrup yeah it's all right i made the other day so um i have like this great new home bar setup yeah you talk about it hold on hold on so much

i don't know if i wear that often but anyways my great new home bar setup i've been making my favorite cocktail which is a penicillin yes it requires honey ginger syrup which they don't really sell in stores so i made my own honey ginger syrup to the cocktail but one morning Julia and I were making waffles and I was like you know what I want something to spice this up

I put that honey ginger syrup on my waffles was it amazing? oh my god amazing but then I ran out of it for cocktails oh well it's always the hand what is it?

don't bite the hand that feeds you is that that metaphor makes no sense to this context yeah it does listen to a Nine Inch Nails song why don't you? Okay.

Real Stevie underscore wonder. Wow, this is a really good opinion. Cake in a bowl of milk is great. Oh, my God. The milk hydrates the cake and it's so satisfying to slurp up the moist cake. Okay, so whenever I first started working in a chocolate store, my friend Yvonne and I used to do this all the time. And literally, it was the best thing in the world. So, this is the best opinion

I've ever seen on this darn show. So, way to go realstevie underscore wonder. I love you. This is just uno leche cake. No, it's not! It's just uno leche. They make trace leche cake. No, it's not. You don't know what to talk about with this.

Yes, thank you. Si, gracias. No, I agree. I mean, it is delicious. As a lover of wet foods myself, one of the funniest tweets I've ever seen said, Tres Leches? In this economy? I remember you told me that one.

Josh, imagine right now you had a shallow bowl. Okay, shallow bowl. Yeah, yeah, I'm listening, I'm listening. Hit me, hit me, hit me. Stop making me laugh. And Okay, shallow bowl. Shallow bowl. Yeah, yeah. I'm listening. I'm listening. Hit me. Hit me. Hit me. Stop making me laugh. And then it's a slice of cake. Uh-huh. Chocolate cake.

Chocolate cake. Three layers. Three layers. Also has chocolate frosting. Ooh. Okay, okay. And then listen to this. Chocolate frosting on the outside and on the inside.

Ooh, go on. And then there's rainbow sprinkles. Oh, I like the sprinkles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Come on. What are you talking about? And then you pour the cold milk over it. Oh, go on. And then there's rainbow sprinkles. Oh, I like the sprinkles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Come on. What are you talking about? And then you pour the cold milk over it.

Oh, yeah. That's so good. Yeah, just like the opinion that we just read. Yeah, that does sound good. Basically what I'm saying is I'm so obsessed with this opinion. It's the best opinion I've ever seen, and I'm in love with you. I'm in love with you. Okay, go.

I agree. You are an absolutely beautiful person. This is a fantastic opinion. Uno Leche cake is here today. Stop saying uno leche cake. It's uno leche. No, it's not. Leche natural.

All right, at Jeff Rocky, all food can be divided into three categories. This is interesting. Soup, salad, or sandwich. Okay. What is a, what is ropa vieja? Oh, salad. What do you mean? Of course, ropa vieja is a salad. It's of course ropa vieja is a salad it's a dish it's not soupy enough to be a soup there's no starch on it to be a sandwich it's a salad

okay okay uh oh my god like uh like a um a cake piece of cake piece of cake sandwich it's literally you just described a cake as having three layers obviously that's bread with fillings a sandwich just because it's layered it's a club sandwich a three-layer cake is a club sandwich enchilada is also a sandwich because it's got it's it's a starch with filling okay a stew what's a stew soup it's liquidy food like why is that difficult to understand for people a bag of chips a salad depends on a bag of veggie straws what oh that's soup because you straws to slurp liquid uh no i i think the soup salad or sandwich thing does i think it does hint at something like kind of very real in the sense that these food categories that we all talk about like hot dogs being sandwiches etc yeah it's all like very made up but this person made it up it's

how i feel about continents continents don't exist europe and asia one landmass not separated yeah so but when people say like well there's this many continents and that's a fact in europe and asia and australia you don't believe in content are you no i don't believe you're a flatter no but if we go by the definition there are ice walls around the government guards them um no but if we go by like the definition of continent as like you know a large landmass that is surrounded by water. And then it's like, well, Europe and Asia, why are there two? There's a dividing range of mountains. Yeah.

So it just, it never made sense to me. Exactly. It's arbitrary. There's a dividing range of mountains. People got to cross them obvi. Yeah, with planes. No, people cross them. Do you think people did not go from Europe to Asia before planes?

Yeah, no, no. It's called the Sokro. Yes, actually. Boats, boats. And the Sokro. Anyways, anyways. They did not climb the mountain. All soups.

Yeah, they figured out... What are they, Urals? Are they the Ural Mountains? I think the Caucasus. Isn't it the Caucasus Mountains? We need to play more Nat Geo quiz. Big time. 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. If you want to be featured on Opinions or Like Casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter

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We're rebranding. We're Mythical Chicken now. And of course, if you want to share pictures of your dishes, hit us up. You said Mythical Chicken. We're rebranding. We're Mythical Chicken now. And of course, if you want to share pictures of your dishes, hit us up on Instagram at Mythical Kitchen. We're a new Nashville hot chicken pop-up competing with the other 9,000 in Los Angeles called Mythical Chicken. you