Oh What A Time... - #112 Liquids (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!Liquids, ay?! Where would we be without them!? This week we’re discussing coffee, drinks in Ancient Rome and.. drum roll please… custard. YES, CUSTARD. Get ready for the best custard facts you’ll ever hear.And what did we do before industrial production of clothing? Nothing at all? Is this why the loincloth was such a hit in the past? Well, if you know, do let us know: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. This is part two of Liquids. Let's get on with the show. So it's happening, boys. It's time to talk custard. Oh finally custard pod is here. The greatest drink ever made. It's not a drink. It's a bloody pudding. Stop trying to swing the tide of public opinion your way. It's not a drink and it will never

be a drink. If I've and it will never be a drink. If I've drunk it, it's a drink. That's my rule. Okay? So if it can be drunk, it is a drink. And I have drunk custard before and boy was it good. Would you say honey is a drink? I'd say honey.

I'd say a little bit of honey in custard is definitely a drink. No, you're right. Gravy? No, but I don't drink. Welcome to what a drinks with Tom Crane. Well I have tried at KFC you get a little pot of gravy. Oh my gosh. I've sifted that before. I've sifted it before. You've got a gravy chaser from KFC. No you use it to dip things but maybe if I haven't got a drink with it, I'll just have a little sip of the gravy.

What drink do you want with your meal, sir? Gravy? Once again, it's in the ballpark of drink. It's in the ballpark of drink. Ellis, thoughts? Do you know what? At any point up to yesterday, I would have said no. But then Izzy made some delicious gravy and she made too much and I just drank it.

Who am I podcasting with at this point? All right then Tom, you're at a chip shop. Yeah. Mushy peas is a food, that's safe, that's in the bank. That's definitely a food, yeah. That's a food. Absolutely. Curry sauce.

Well that's a sauce, isn't it? The clue is in the title. But you're drinking it in a mud way. No, but it's a drizzler. I drizzle the curry sauce or a dip. I'm not comfortable with this writing off mushy peas is not a drink that easily. It's you know, you take the lid off. It's in a cup. You knock in the back.

It's too thick. Custard is it's cheeky in the way that it you don't think is a drink, but it is a cup. You're not gonna buy it. It's too thick. Custard is, it's cheeky in the way that it, you don't think it's a drink, but it is a drink. It catches you out like that when you're halfway down the cup, you go, wait a second, this is a drink. It catches you out. And that's why I love it. Right. Let's talk about that cheeky drink. Hot Marmite. Hot Marmite.

Cream. Cream itself. Yeah. Double cream. I think. That's a great show. Like at my lowest ebbs creams been a drink right let's talk about custard okay everyone's favorite drink and something which incidentally I'm gonna have to cut back on a bit because we're doctors genuinely just told me I've got to look after my cholesterol my cholesterol is a bit higher than it should so I was the

lifestyle your custard days are over you sure you're comfortable doing this section? You gotta tell him this is my lifestyle. I'm a Custard guy. I'm a Custard podcaster, believe it or not. It's my whole personality, doc. Please. So, let's take you back, okay, because people way before me were into Custard. Some of the earliest references to custard

come in an Elizabethan, what's the next word gonna be L? We've discussed them earlier. How did people like to print things in the past? What was the form? It wasn't a book. Oh, pamphlets, yeah, yeah. A pamphlet, exactly. Elizabethan pamphlet called the Mirror of Madness.

Okay, this Elizabethan pamphlet is one of the early references to custards. And it says, first, I believe cuppy of wine is a wonderful good, then I believe a custard is to be regarded, which means, I'm not sure what that accent was, first I believe that a cup of wine is wonderfully good, then I believe that custard is to be regarded. Oh, you watched the Rue Tullet interview on me as well.

Exactly. It's paid off handsomely. So wine beats custard in this pamphlet, but early days they're talking about how lovely custard is. This person thinks custard is their second favourite drink. It once again comes back to my point. Wine first, then custard. This is the Elizabethan time they think is their second favourite drink. Or do they? No. Actually, they don't. Because the custard they're referring to there, in the Elizabethan time, was not actually the custard we have today, that's poured into puddings and stuff like that, or drunk from a mug when walking across set, in my case. But rather they're talking about custard tarts. So, similar to the pastel de nata, you had

a pastel de nata, the Portuguese thing. How do you feel about that as a custard drinker? Scooping out the custard element and trying to hawk it back like that guy who doesn't chew his food. I buy one, I take it home, I get the liquidiser out and I turn it back into the form it's supposed to be. Now I love a pastel Donata. Another type of custard pie that they enjoyed back then was English custard pies topped with nutmeg or maybe more savoury ones closer to a quiche. So this is what they were talking about then. They weren't actually talking about custard in the form that we see it today,

more as a pie because custard pies were huge business in Elizabethan times. In fact, those pies have been around since the 15th century. The Oxford English Dictionary makes reference to custard pies, which sounds like a lie, does it? In the 1450s. Even as far back as the 14th century, cookbooks are referencing custard pies, but in this case, it's in terms of the crust and not the filling. So, the custard pie was a description of the crust bit, but not the custard. So, they invented the custard pie before custard? Yes, exactly. It's bizarre, isn't it? Yeah. But there was a couple of hundred years, two or three hundred years, where custard pies were all the rage in Britain. You talk earlier, by the way, about coffee shops and how important they were to people.

I do find this quite interesting. It's like modern life, okay, we have distractions. You have your phone, movies, Netflix, restaurants, all this sort of stuff, whatever you want to do. But these little things must have been so important back in Elizabeth's time, this one, this custom pie distracting you from the misery. I think the problem is with that sentence, Craig, is you're seeing history through your

own lens. You're imagining yourself in the past thinking this is a waste of time without custard. You've absolutely skewed me right on there, Chris. Thank God for the custard. Walking down Cornhill in London, you're about to go to the first coffee shop thinking to yourself, no, I'm going to have something sweet actually. I'm going to enjoy coffee. So as time passed though, we started to see custard described in three different types. So it does start to evolve. You have the pie is discussed. So the custard pie was massive in Elizabethan times, especially in the circus. There's my favourite, the liquid, which started

to come in. And then this is a weird one. I've never heard of this. It's a new form of custard that even I wasn't aware of. And I thought I was across all the custards. It's a cool form of the liquid, which was hardened into a kind of sweet and eaten out of a glass or another container. So like a custard lollipop, basically. Really popular.

Was it frozen? Yes. Well, it was hardened. So it wouldn't be. Was it cold? Was it frozen? Yes. Well, it was hardened. So it wouldn't be frozen, because they wouldn't have had access to that. But it was hardened. It left it sort of solidified in the cold, I guess.

Like a sort of Everton mint or something. Yeah, exactly. Made of custard. But custard. Exactly. What a win. And custard even picked up some famous fans along the way. So some famous historical fans fans to back up my argument

it's the greatest liquid ever, have kind of joined my chorus along the way. None other than, you know, I'm a writer, so this man I feel a kinship with, William Shakespeare. Love the Custard. He references Custard in the Taming of the Shrew, describing someone's rubbish hat as a poultry cap, a Custard coffin, a bauble, a

silken pie. This is a way of saying the hat was cheap and flimsy like a coffin made of custard, which is not really cutting through at a roast battle is it there? No. It's also, I wouldn't say it's an endorsement. Yeah okay. Yeah, you can't go, what else has Shakespeare put in there? You can go, oh, he's a huge fan. There's lots of stabbings in Shakespeare. Oh, he loves stabbing. It proves that Shakespeare was aware of Custard,

but I would be very uncomfortable describing that as an endorsement. Certainly on this podcast. What it says, El, is he was a Custard boy just like me, and you have to, you have to, it's time to accept that. An ex-U.S. president was a custard boy just like me. And you have to, you have to accept that. An ex-US president was a massive custard fan. Would you like to guess who? Woodrow Wilson. Thomas Jefferson, president of the United States,

who in 1809 owned no fewer than 18 custard cups. What's a custard cup? Which I think is the last thing West Ham won, isn't it, the custard cup? Surely it's just a cup. I've never looked at a cup and thought, is that a custard cup? I've never not looked at a cup and thought, I wish that was a custard cup. So he had 18 custard cups in the White House and I guess he'd gather the great and the good together and they just, you know, knock back the great ideas over a cup of custard. Samuel Peeps, here he is again.

He talked about taking his dinner guests out for a post-Prandial custard. So you go to his for food, he'd cook for you the main course and then afterwards you go on a walk and you try and buy some custard. Where? Around London I guess. The big Tescos. The big Tescos, yeah. Thoughts on that?

You go to a dinner party, yell, it gets to pudding, and they go, no, we're off on a walk, we're gonna buy some custard. Do you know what? Weather permitting, it could be quite nice. Yeah. You wouldn't want it too hot though. It'd be too hot.

No, but it's a bit like, I suppose, if you were, if you'd gone around someone's house for a meal and they'd cooked a really nice main course, and then it's summer's evenings, June, it's at my state at night and it's still light. You think I know for a fact that in the park the ice cream van is still there. Oh yeah. You could all walk to the ice cream van. Yeah. All walk to the shop and get a magnum. I mean I can sort of imagine that. It feels with Samuel Peeps like he hasn't planned pudding.

Yeah. And he's sort of blagging it a little bit. Should we go for a walk and try and find some custard? Mate, you haven't thought this through. No, this was my plan all along. No, it's a really different... No, no, no. We'll go down to the custard shop in the Custard Quarter. That's not where Peeps ends his custard chat either, Al. He also talks about going to a country fair where instead of the candy floss we buy today, people could, and I quote, partake of custard.

This is what Samuel Peeps wrote, at night I came to Abingdon where had been a fair of custard. So you could go to this fair. In Abingdon near Oxford. I assume so. You could go there and at this fair people were selling custard. What's quite nice about that, which is the point that our historian, our wonderful historian, Daryl has pointed out to me, is the fact that it shows how street food was so intertwined with entertainment at that point. There's always been street food.

My dream street food in the case of custard, but there's always been street food at these events. I mean, my dream street food in the case of custard, but there's always been street food at these events. Having actually drunk coffee made to a 16th century recipe and knowing that it was really unpleasant. And also I went to a beer festival a few, about five or six years ago, and there must've been a thousand beers for sale. And there was one section where they'd made a lot of beer

and a lot of stout to sort of 19th century recipes and they were often quite unpleasant. I wonder if the kind of custard Samuel Peeps was making for his for his mates, how it stood up to sort of birds custard. Yes, that is interesting. Was it sweet, was it nice, you know, is it even recognisable? Well, do you know what? When you were talking about that horrible old custard, I often think, oh, what a shame I'll never be able to try authentic 16th century custard. And equally, I'll sometimes think, what a shame I could never have seen the Colosseum and his pomp. But then you realise we've got much better things now. Bird's Custard is going to be

better than 16th century custard. And also the Home of Football London Stadium is infinitely better than the Roman Coliseum. So what, you know what I mean? Again, 1-0 to the future. Similar sort of vibe amongst the fans as well, isn't there? Sort of bloodthirsty anger. I find West Ham calling the London Stadium the home of football one of the most laughable things in sport. To be clear, it is just me.

Stick with it and I love it. Like the Emirates, if there's adverts for the Emirates tour on the Tube, and they will describe the Emirates as the home of football, it's only been there since 2006. Football's been wandering around aimlessly for almost a millennium. I think Notts County is the only club that should be allowed to claim it's the home of football. That's the only place. Yeah, or Sheffield FC. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's funny you should mention Birds because that is what I want to tell you about next because that is the most popular way to buy custard nowadays. Is it? It is. Custard powder remains the most popular way to buy custard nowadays. It is. Custard powder remains the

most popular way to buy it from the supermarket. And bird's custard has actually been around for ages. I don't know if you know that. So it seems like it's a relatively recent thing. I would have assumed maybe knocking on the door of World War Two, that sort of time possibly. Oh, my dearly late Victorian, I would say. Would you? Well, even that is wrong. OK? Byrds was invented by Alfred Byrd, a Birmingham chemist, in 1837. Wow.

So it's an old, old powdered drink. Do you want to care to guess why? I'll give you a clue. It's a story of love. Why do you think powdered custard was first invented? Fell in love with an ancestor of yours, Tom, who was obsessed with custard but lived far away. So the custard was never fresh by the time it got there.

To be honest, you're on the outskirts of something there. Do you want to go, El? Did he have a son who was fighting in a war who loved custard? So. Sending it to the front. He did indeed fall in love with a lady called Elizabeth, who then became his wife and became Elizabeth Byrd. And she was allergic to eggs and yeast. So Alfred used cornflour as a thickening

agent instead so that she could have custard. OK, he came up with this idea, he liked this flavour and he created it so she could have it. But it wasn't the only egg-free custard powder present in early Victorian England. There was bright vegetable custard powder, which claimed to be a new luxury for the table, that was the advert, and was made from potato starch. There was oranges custard powder as well, which advertised itself doing away with sugar and eggs. And by the mid-1840s, there were at least half a dozen different custard powder retailers, all vying for consumer attention, billed as Custards Without the Trouble. However, there was one major issue with this, and it was a big one, and that was – I do not know if this is hilarious – that these new powders

were, and still are, who knew, extremely flammable and produced incredible explosions when set alight. This is an amazing fact. This famously occurred at the Bird's Custard Factory in Banbury in Oxfordshire in November 1981 and the explosion was so powerful it literally blew the roof off the building. So there was a custard explosion and it blew the roof off the Bird's factory in 1981. I was wondering whether birds had changed their recipe since it was invented in 1837, so I just googled it to see if this was being discussed online on the custard forums. Okay, yeah.

And one of the top results is the explosive potential of custard powder. Yeah. From a BBC article in March 2025, it makes a delicious dessert, but also has a rather less savoury potential. In certain conditions it can be a powerful explosive. So what have they done? Taken the gunpowder out of custard powder? That's insane.

I have a genuine question. Do you think when the bird custard factory blew up it smelled amazing? That's a genuine question. Was it like creme brulee? Just lovely. Oh yeah. There's been an explosion down at the custard factory. Great! Yay!

Ever-inhaling. I would say Byrd's has got as big a monopoly on custard as Guinness has on stout. Yes. I think that's quite right. Nah. Do you know what my favourite custard is? Pre-made. Maybe if I'm doing a roast, I might go big, go like M&S, get the pre-made custard.

Or like the Ambrosia one. Yeah, or Ambrosia. From a tin. Well, there is a reason, you talk about Monopoly, there's a reason that powdered custard kept its popularity more than pre-made. All these options was largely because it kept for such a long time. This is the reason. And it only had to be mixed with milk or hot water, which meant that it worked out well

when it was carried on expeditions, including the Nansen expedition to the Arctic in the 1890s. They carried custard. Captain Scott went off with tins of bourb custard powder too, on his fateful voyage to the South Pole. As did Ernest Shackleton. They all carried custard. These are the sort of people that I'm in with, El and Chris, you have to understand.

These are my guys, the great adventurers. You mock me for being the Custard, but these are the people I'm with, Shackleton, Scott, all the great adventurers. And of course, it was a feature of military diets as well during both World Wars and beyond, so you can lump in heroes into my custard group. Custard-powered heroes.

Exactly, and it doesn't end there. And this is to my doctor, in case he's listening, who wants me to cut back on the custard. The novelist Thomas Hardy, also part of my gang, had egg custard tarts every day after lunch, and he lived until he was 87. So there you go. This is what custard can do for your body. It's the secret to a long life. Exactly. That's what it is. I'm surprised we never mentioned bottomless custard at the local carvery. Is that a thing?

Listen to him. Have you ever heard? Yeah, Toby carverys. So why am I not at the local carvery right now? Is that true? You get like a jam roly poly. It always says on the menu, bottomless custard. I'd love to see you put that to the absolute limit test.

Absolutely. See what you can do. Do you know what we should do? I've got a phone call with my agent about live shows immediately after this podcast recording ends. At the live show, we should close, not by doing any history. We should bring out some bottomless custard. Tom Crane, give him a spoon.

Just sit back and watch, see how much he can take. I will do the second half in a bath of custard if you want. Let's make some music. £4.99 a month. If you come and know what I time full timer, get first dibs on tickets. Cause it is happening. Watch me live in a bath of custard. Tim Key did an Edinburgh show in a bath about

10 or 12 years ago. But that was a bath of hot water and sands and bubbles. The problem is Ellis, is that we'd start the second half with me in a bath of custard. I love custard so much that it would be an empty bath of custard by the end of the show as I lap away at it for the final hour and a quarter. I will be stuck in your chest, Aaron. Not chipping in at any point. Tom, are you going to say such as anything? Are you going to say anything about the history? Or are you going to hear me lapping?

Come on, mate. We've got Jeremy Bentham's corpse here. Looking on enviously. Exactly. So there you go. That is a little bit about the history of Custard and the great people that share the love that I do. Email me if you're a Custard fan. We can be friends. Alright, who's ready to go back to ancient Rome to try a few hot drinks? Now today I've had tea, I've had coffee, I haven't had hot chocolate, I haven't had

any herbal teas, I haven't had any matcha, I haven't had any turmeric lattes and in the ancient world... You should have four cans of Stella. And some custard powder. In the classical world, ancient Rome, Greece and their neighbours, this is what blows my mind, right? When you go back to the ancient world, you do not have tea, coffee, hot chocolate, herbal teas, matcha, turmeric lattes.

None of those stables exist. Isn't that weird to think about? Like the Anglo-Saxon, no Anglo-Saxon ever had a cup of tea. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That feels so intrinsically English.

It's odd to me. Yeah. I know what you mean. To think of people in the past. You'd think Eiffel read the Unready, he's knocking back through a four T's a day. He's never heard of the stuff. Also, if you were given like bad news, what, you have a sort of settling cup of mead? What do you do when people come over, pop in? Nothing.

Yeah, yeah. Just water. Yeah, it's mind blind to me. Coffee and cocoa, native to the Americas and Africa, tea to East Asia. So none made their way into European cups until the Renaissance. It's shocking to me. So what did people drink when they wanted something hot and comforting, or just socially acceptable to sip while sitting in a tavern? And the answer lies in a small but surprisingly varied menu of alternatives, and these were Calder, Conditum and Posca, drinks that span from spice wines to vinegar based brews.

Yeah, vinegar based. A vinegar based brew. Gee whiz. We'll get into it. Wow. Let's begin with the one that I think sounds the best of the lot. Calda or Colida, which is the Roman mulled wine. Calda is Latin for warm and essentially, yeah, the Roman equivalent of mulled wine.

It was a mixture of warm water and wine. Calda is Latin for warm and essentially yeah the Roman equivalent of mulled wine it was a mixture of warm water and wine. Colder is Latin for warm. Yeah yeah. So cold is a mixture of warm water and wine often sweetened and spiced and kept in a kind of like tea urn basically. Unlike modern mulled wine which we associate with cold wooden ters and Christmas markets, Calder was drunk year round. The Romans didn't make strict seasonal distinction. Warm drink was whenever. Which is like, can you imagine? Have you ever been to Rome or Italy in the summer when it's baking hot? The last thing you want is a hot drink.

Yeah. The Romans loved it. Unless you are any one of my old Welsh relatives who will drink tea in 50 degree heat. I could send them to Doha and it will be tea morning, noon and night. Right, I think it's not, like my uncle Barry in Spain, 40 degree heat, he is racking up brew after brew. Yeah, with fish and chips. Maniacs. Let's move on to Conditum. This is a wine of spice and surprise.

It's slightly fancier than Calder. Conditum and it's short for Conditum Paradoxum or Spiced Wine of Surprise. Oh, OK. I guess it's kind of like the... Sounds like it's gone through Google Translate, doesn't it? Spiced Wine. I suppose it has in a way, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. You know how you get fancy named IPAs, the Badger's Trotter It's kind of like the sounds like he's gone through Google Translate You get fancy named IPA's the badgers trotter or whatever I guess it's like that is it spiced wine a surprise Yeah, so to make this version they removed the water. It's just wine

Heated and infused with spices. I'll tell you what the spiced wine a surprise sounds like skull. It sounds like three in the morning at a house party where you're trying to make something out of whatever's left. Your mind's sweeping. And you're like, there is alcohol in mouth wine. Exactly. Should we drink that? Anyone as big of my Spiced Wine of Surprise? We actually have a surviving recipe for Conditum thanks to the Roman cookbook,

which is attributed to Apicius, a collection titled Deericonchinaria on the art of cooking. The recipe calls for ingredients like honey, date, black pepper, there it is again, saffron and mastic, although that is a resinous spice still used in Mediterranean cooking today. It's got a promising start, doesn't it? What was it? Dates? What was the other thing? Dates, honey, black pepper, saffron. Yeah, black pepper. But no, but then I disagree, Al, because a lot of wines have a sort of peppery finish, that's the thing. It's definitely a flavour, especially more full-bodied wines.

But they tend not to taste like honey in the first place. Yeah, that's true. But I can still imagine that could be quite nice. I think it would require a certain complex palette, but I believe I can handle it. It also says the man who describes custard is his favourite tree. Complex palettes can deal with all flavours, the whole gamut, from peppery wine to custard. That's who I am. So Calder is like mulled wine, but it's no water and it's just hot wine with spices. And we actually know, we've got some archaeological evidence as to where they were making this.

So it wasn't just exclusively made in kitchens. We know from ancient ruins of Roman taverns, known as Thermopylae, that spices were often ground fresh on site, suggesting that serving wine might have offered like customized blends. So you could walk in there like a modern day star, but maybe say, I want this, this, this, they do it all for you Like there and then that's usual, please So it's all like cocktails in a way so wine cocktails That sounds alright

You've also got posca which may sound like a trendy soda brand Maybe like Lilt or Pepsi, but it's actually much more simpler and sharper. It is diluted vinegar. Posca. This sounds like the worst one. Posca was made by mixing vinegar or sour wine with water, and sometimes with herbs or spices to improve the taste. It was a common drink for Roman soldiers and the poor because it was cheap, easy to make and it also had some antiseptic properties. In terms of flavour, it probably resembled something like watered down apple cider vinegar. And like today's apple cider vinegar devotees, the Romans believed Posca had health benefits. It was used to treat everything from indigestion to toothache.

It's one of those things that was probably good for your gut health. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Because apple cider vinegar is often described as being very good for your gut microbiome and all that kind of stuff. My dad used to water down our ketchup with vinegar. That was the thing that used to happen. So our ketchup was always really vinegary. Well, you would do that at the end of the bottle to get the last bit out. Yeah, yeah. My dad sort of, the vinegar came in quite early. It would be one sort of splodge.

It's one in one out, vinegar for tomato sauce. Yeah, exactly. It was mainly, mainly vinegar. And he'd thicken up our vinegar with ketchup as well. That was a weird one. I don't know why he did that. It was our choice. vinegar with ketchup as well that was a weird one, I don't know. Interestingly, although Posca was for the poor and for the soldiers, many of Rome's most powerful figures also drank it. We know that Hadrian and Trajan, two of the so-called

good emperors, were known to drink Posca on military campaigns, partly as a show of solidarity with their troops. Julius Caesar, who wasn't a big fan of wine, supposedly preferred a version of Posca mixed with lemon juice. That actually sounds all right. Well, that would take the edge off it. Yeah. Lemon juice. There is a Greek version of Posca called Oxos and it features in one of the most famous moments of the New Testament. According to the Gospels, a sponge soaked in Oxos was offered to Jesus on the cross. After drinking he said it is finished and died. He was the, yeah, according to the gospel was the last drink. Oh so the vinegar that was offered to Christ in that story is, so it actually was a drink. Yeah it was a Greek version of posca

called oxos. I always assumed it was sort of like, you know, taunting from the... Yes that's what I thought. I thought they were taking the piss. Yeah, wow. Fancy a drink, mate? Yeah. Do you want some vinegar? Come on, man. I'm on a fucking cross. It's got antiseptic properties. A bit late for that. That's a very good fact. I did not know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's go beyond Rome now. While Rome had its core set of drinks, parts of the empire had access to regional variations. In Egypt, for example, people brewed Carchaday hibiscus tea made by infusing dried roselle petals in hot water. It produced a tart crimson-coloured drink with a flavour not unlike cranberry juice.

You're nodding along there, Crane. Have you tried this? I've tried hibiscus drink. I've tried it at Oaxaca. They have a hibiscus drink. Nice. I very much enjoyed it. Yeah, absolutely. It's lovely. Fizzy hibiscus, can't go wrong. Great. Karkaday had strong associations with the Egyptian elite and may have spread through the empire, though with some social restrictions. It was reportedly seen as inappropriate for women

who were thought to become overly passionate if they drank it. This hibiscus drink? Yeah, this karkaday, yeah, yeah, yeah. That wasn't my experience in Oaxaca My wife and I had a very nice meal, but it wasn't He wasn't crawling over the table across the tacos Elsewhere in the Empire particularly by the medieval period herbal infusions what we might call now tisans Became more common. These were often made with ingredients like barley, rose petals, lemon slices or cucumber. Many were served cold but could be warm

especially for medicinal use. Yeah that's nice isn't it? Like when you maybe when you got a water cooler there's a few lemon slices in it that's basically what they're doing by the middle ages. I'm a big fan of a cucumber in a water cooler. Love it. Those glass ones you'll go to like a nice spa or something and everyone knows them aside. Yeah yeah. With a tiny cup and a weird little aperture it comes at, it takes about four minutes to fill up your tiny cup, but it's still a nice idea. Although when you go to the spa, of course, you walk past the cucumber water urn and go straight for the custard. Post massage. I tell you what is ridiculous as part of the

water cooler scene. The cups you get on some water coolers with a spiked bottom. Yeah, the cone hat one. Little tiny cone. Like a miniature ice cream cone. They're too small, the paper's too thin, and you can't balance them on anything. So you can't reuse them. You're like, who choices this? They just slot into each other. That's basically the one bit of designing that works. But then all cups do that, don't they really? You see them in gyms sometimes. You're like, come on man.

You just got to immediately bin them. They are rubbish. Claire, one thing she hates about me, I'm sure there's many things, is that I drink straight from the tap often if I'm rushing. And I've seen you do that. Often when I'm not rushing as well. I just basically, I don't know why I felt I need to chuck in if I'm rushing. It's because people are listening to this, but yeah, I just do it. I don't love it. Personally. It's a bit dog-like, isn't it? It is a bit. Or hamster-like. Yeah, it is a bit, isn't it? Either way, you're a domesticated animal. At least a hamster's got no choice. That's his one option. It's not like the hamster. Either way you're a domesticated animal. At least a hamster's got no choice. That's his one

option. It's not like the hamster's got a mug in there and it's choosing not to use it. Exactly. So you're worse than a hamster. But I would say you don't have to wash up a cup. You're rushing around, you're living a busy life, glug, glug, glug, on with your day. Give it a go. Oh dear. Well, there we go. there's many different drinks from antiquity and why were they all different? Well it's partly economics, partly military necessity, wine was expensive and precious, vinegar which is what wine eventually turns into cheaper, more shelf stable, especially in military settings so soldiers needed something safe to drink that wouldn't spoil easily. Plain water was often unsafe, so mixing it with vinegar or wine made it more palatable

and disinfected it to some degree. Posca then became a drink of practicality and solidarity. It allowed emperors to project modesty and shed hardship while on campaign. And for tavern owners, the ancient Roman equivalent of publicans, Posca was a cost-effective way to serve large quantities of drink to poor customers, including slaves and laborers. Interesting, Chris, but not as interesting as the thing Tom has just told us.

Now I've got one question. Bearing in mind, we've got to finish in a few minutes because I'm talking to my agent about live shows for this podcast that are definitely going to happen. We're just trying to sort it all out. Initially when you start going out with someone you are on your best behaviour, everyone is. That's just, you know, you make such an effort when you see them in terms of the clothes you're wearing and all that kind of stuff. Bit of splash on showbiz. At what point did you feel able to drink directly from the tap in front of Claire?

That's a really good question. What stage of the relationship do you think, fuck it, I can't bother drinking from a cup? I imagine worryingly early. So she knew what she was getting into. I'm going to give you what I think genuinely, I think I would have been, I would have been caught out initially. So I wasn't flaunting my technique. Like a naughty dog. Exactly.

So I was first caught lapping around about sort of four months, I think probably. But the thing is, once they've caught you out and they're still there, you might as well keep going. At the time, four months is interesting because you feel like you know a person after four months, but you don't. Yeah, exactly. There's still so much more to come.

She's yet to see me drink a cup of custard though. So we're ten years in and that's yet to happen. You've got to have some boundaries in a relationship. Exactly. I have one serious question before we end, which is, we've talked a lot today about stuff that sounds disgusting. The coffee made up of eggshells and that sort of stuff, the vinegar wine. Is this simply the fact of changing palates? Do you think they are objectively disgusting things or is it just that I'm interested to know whether someone from ancient Rome would try something that we have today and would have exactly the same reaction? If someone from, let's say,

your 15th century coffee shop, if they tried your favourite coffee from wherever it is, are they going to go, what the hell is this? Are they going to have exactly the same reaction? Well, a Coca-Cola would blow their head off. An original Lucas aid, they'd think you're some sort of god. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fun to, people would like, what the hell is this? With your coffee, let's say, El, your perfect coffee, if you give that to someone from the 15th century where they're used to their eggshell coffee, what do you think their reaction is?

I find that genuinely interesting. Must be filtered so there wouldn't be the eggshell bits in it, which was disgusting. I mean, palates have changed. Also, expectations are different, aren't they? Yeah. But it's a bit like, do you remember the first piss up you had when you drank lager?

Yes. I vividly remember it and I remember buying a pint of lager, being full of disbelief that they'd served me because I looked so young, taking a sip from it, thinking, and then you're like, oh God, I've got to drink this until I'm an old man. Is this what, is this what being an adult is? I wish this was Ribena. This is horrible. And then you sort of grit your teeth and carry on because everyone else is doing it. And that is why, Al, for the first year and a half of drinking, I was a Smirnoff Ice guy. Because I knew what I could take.

Because I knew what I could take. I love that, great episode that. That was fascinating. What a good one that was. I absolutely love that. Thank you for listening everyone to all our nonsense. If you want to follow the show become a know-what-a-time-out you can. Either way, thank you for your support it means a lot and keep emailing us keep sending us your stuff and we will have more history for you in the coming days. Is that all? Bye! That was nice, very tender. Are you happy with that? Happy with that, El? That's like a nice end? Yeah it just it felt like your butt trees were dry.

It's been too long since your last custard. I haven't dropped custard in an hour. More history for you now. Thanks guys. See you next week. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Follow Oh What A Time on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. And before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry.com slash survey.