The Blindboy Podcast - How Baileys Irish Cream is rooted in an 18th Century Satanic Sex Cult

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

Food History podcast. How Baileys Irish Cream is rooted in an 18th Century Satanic Sex Cult  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dribble the ointment on the pointless lightbulb, you trundling ultons. Welcome to the Blind Byte Podcast. If this is your first ever podcast, maybe consider going back to an earlier episode. Some cunts even listen to all of the episodes. They go right from the start. Mad bastards. But it is advisable to familiarise yourself with the lore of this podcast, rather than waddling straight in without wearing good quality rubber wellingtons.

I'm going to begin this week's episode with a piece of prose that was sent in by Hollywood actor Colin Farrell. This piece of prose is called Conversation with a Member of the Gardaí While Visiting Dublin for Christmas by Colin Farrell. I just don't understand why interfering with a heron's nest is illegal. Okay, yeah, yeah, I'm listening, Gard. Fair enough, but, but, but, am I really breaking the law, though?

Is the heron's nest private property? This is my fucking back garden. The heron built its nest in my back garden. Yeah? Yeah? Okay, you mentioned that. I think, I think, no, no, no, no, no. Garda?

No, no, no, I think, I think that what you should actually be doing is arresting the heron. You should evict the heron from my property. What law have I broken? Okay. Yeah. And that's a law. That's a law.

For herons. Yeah. A law. For a lanky bard. Wildlife Act 2010. Okay. Section 3. Okay Act 2010. Okay. Section 3. Okay yeah.

Yeah. Rights. Rights for herons. And you know there's a homeless crisis. You doing anything for the homeless people Gard. Don't touch me Gard. Don't. Don't.

Gard. Don't put your hands on me. Garda. That was. A short piece of prose. Called conversation with a member of the Gardaí while visiting Dublin for Christmas by the actor Colin Farrell and you can see his new film The Banshee of Inis Eireann which is in cinemas at the moment.

So as you've been aware if you've been listening to this podcast for the past five or six weeks you know that I've returned to seeing a therapist I now see a therapist once a week and the experience has been fantastic I'd say I've seen an improvement of about 70 percent in my overall emotional well-being and mostly what that looks like is I have a clear emotional dialogue with myself I have greater emotional literacy when I feel something I can label notice and name what I'm feeling and allow the emotion to process through me without using defense mechanisms and because of that I'm able to be emotionally regulated which means I'm kind of calm all the time I'm calm all the time and when I'm not calm it's for a good reason so when I'm not calm it's because I receive upsetting information or because something stressful happens or because I get a little fright or something

happens that angers me and then I react emotionally in that moment respond to the situation but then afterwards and this is the important bit I go back down to being calm so I'm spending much more of my day in the here and now in the present moment this then improves my confidence my self-esteem I've got much greater self-discipline which is something I was really looking for for the first time in two years I've really started to feel excited about the book that I'm writing. I'm not afraid of this. I'm not worried that it might be shit because when you think that way you get writer's block. Instead I'm just like I'm really excited about writing this book. I can't wait to see what stories are going to reveal themselves to me and when I think like that then I can achieve creative flow. That's the opposite of writer's block. If I have to do a piece of work now and I

feel a bit distracted, I feel like going online or looking at my phone, when that happens now I'm actually able to say to myself, no put your phone away you need to do work now and I put the phone away and I do it and then I feel a sense of achievement and this is happening because I believe my internal voice now because I have good dialogue with my emotional world and because I'm not emotionally reactive to things so when I say to myself you need to put one hour aside to do this piece of work I actually believe myself I believe myself when I say it and I do it and then that improves my self-esteem and it's it's a positive spiral whereas before I wouldn't really understand

why I'm feeling like shit I would just generally feel on edge and I wouldn't understand why I'm feeling like shit. I would just generally feel on edge and I wouldn't understand why I'm feeling on edge. I wouldn't really even be aware that I'm on edge and then what I'd do instead is I'd doom scroll on the internet and procrastinate and engage in self-soothing behaviors. My sleep has improved massively. I'm able to say to myself go to bed now it's 11 o'clock go to bed go to bed now because if you go to bed now you're going to feel good about that in the morning and then when I say to myself you're in bed now get your phone and put it on the other side of the room and don't look at it until you wake up the next morning and read a book instead and I do it and why do I do it because I believe my internal voice because my self-esteem is better because the way I speak

about myself to myself internally is better when I tell myself to do something I have confidence in my own internal voice I do what I tell myself to do and then I reap the rewards and the rewards of put your phone on the other side of the room read a book and actually go to sleep the reward of that is a full night's sleep and then waking up the next day with a sense of accomplishment now I don't know how much of this shit is regular mental health issues or is it my autism, executive dysfunction issues around autism but to be honest it doesn't really matter. Here's why something as simple as going to bed, telling myself not to look at my phone and not doing it, here's why that's important. Because six weeks ago, when my mental health wasn't in check,

here's what I would have done. 11 o'clock would have struck. I'd have noticed it and I'd have said to myself, it's 11 o'clock. You should probably go to bed now if you want a good night's sleep. But I'm anxious and I'm worried and my self-talk is very bad. My opinion of myself is quite low. I'm very self-critical. So when I say to myself, it's 11 o'clock, you should go to bed. I don't listen to myself. I make excuses.

I get distracted. I scroll the internet more. Now it's half twelve. And I feel like a failure. Because an hour and a half ago I said said you said you were going to go to bed at 11 o'clock now it's half 12 you fucking useless piece of shit you can't even go to bed on time now I'm going upstairs to bed at half 12 feeling like a piece of shit because I couldn't even make myself go to bed on time then I say to myself it's half 12 put your phone at the other

side of the room so you can sleep then I don't I go on to TikTok and I scroll and scroll now it's half twelve, put your phone at the other side of the room so you can sleep. Then I don't, I go onto TikTok and I scroll and scroll, now it's two in the morning and I come out of TikTok and I go, you fucking useless cunt, you said you were going to go to bed at eleven, you couldn't do that. You said you were going to put your phone on the other side of the room, instead you looked at TikTok and now it's two in the morning and you've failed at even trying to go to sleep. I'm overtired. I finally do go to sleep. I'm going to sleep with a bad attitude. I'm going to sleep without confidence in the process of sleeping.

Then I have a shit sleep because I'm going to sleep anxious. And then I wake up the next morning early with a jump scare having just had five hours sleep and then wake up feeling like a failure because I failed at sleeping and checking my Fitbit to use data to confirm what a shit sleep I had and looking at the Fitbit and it says poor sleep. Now I've just woken up feeling shit about myself and the wonderful beautiful day is ahead of me and instead of embracing the day I've started off feeling like a piece of shit but I don't really have the conscious emotional awareness to know why I feel like a piece of shit I've just woken up feeling that way but because I don't have emotional literacy or a good dialogue with my

interior world I've woken up feeling like a piece of shit. So now I look for the reason why I'm a piece of shit. I go straight onto fucking Twitter before I've had my breakfast and find some people who are saying mean things about me, believe that, and then spend the rest of the day feeling like a piece of shit and repeating the same cycle over and over again.

Continual excessive stress and everything that goes along with that in between all the middle of that day feeling bad about myself so viewing the entire world negatively then viewing everything throughout my day with that lens of negativity searching for the reasons why I'm a bad person or why I'm useless or why I'm a failure the simple act of saying to myself it's 11 go to bed put your phone on the other side of the room actually do it the act of doing that then going to bed reading a book not fucking my eyes up with a bright blue light, and then falling asleep at like 12, then waking up the next day at 8, with this beautiful feeling of accomplishment,

because I just told myself to do something last night, I listened to myself, and now I'm rested. What do you think that does to my day? I feel positive, I feel like I can accomplish things. I woke up this morning, having gone to bed last night at a reasonable hour, and reading a book instead of looking at my phone. Then I woke up after eight hours of sleep, and what did I say to myself the second I woke up? Don't check your phone.

Don't check your phone, don't check your emails, don't check your Instagram, don't check anything until you eat your breakfast, meditate and go into the office. And I did it. And then what happens? My journey into the office was fucking magnificent because I'm not thinking about emails. Something hasn't upset me before I've eaten my breakfast. I was able to mindfully enjoy my cycle into fucking work. There's wonderful cold weather here at the moment. It's fucking freezing but because my mental health has improved I've got a better dialogue with myself. So when it's fucking freezing what do I do? I put on the right shoes, double pants, gloves, the right jacket, a hat. Now I'm prepared for the weather and I'm having a lovely mindful cycle into work then I get down at my desk I open up my laptop I open up social media

and shit that would bother me on a bad mental health day doesn't I still see the negative comment on twitter what happens oh that's someone else's problem that has nothing to do with me this person doesn't like me that's has nothing to do with me. This person doesn't like me. That's got nothing to do with me. And I leave it at that and I forget about it. The email comes in from my agent or something going, you have six of these gigs that you have to do. Can you respond to all these emails from the promoters? I need it done in the next two hours. Yeah, I can. I just do it. Boom. Out of the way. I don't get so stressed out that I don't do it and I procrastinate and now I feel like a failure for the rest of the day. So that's what

mental health recovery looks like. For me, I'm becoming a much more effective human being and I'm viewing the inevitable stress of life through a calm, rational lens where I can think critically. If emails come in asking me to do a shitload of work in the next two hours, I look at it critically. I acknowledge that the work is stressful, I'd rather do something else, but I also acknowledge that it has to get done. And I do it, and it's done. I don't view it with an emotional lens. I don't catastrophize. I don't personalize when someone, when a stranger on the internet thinks that I'm shit.

It's not pleasant, but it's also not really my problem. I haven't done anything to the person. I haven't hurt them. I haven't said anything mean to them. Their dislike of me is none of my business. It's their problem. This is all happening because I have a a clearer emotional dialogue with my internal world.

And like I said two weeks ago, what that is for me is I'm allowing myself to sit with sadness. When I see something sad, I experience the sadness of it and I have a little cry if that's what I need to do. I experience the sadness of it and I have a little cry if that's what I need to do. And I'm becoming aware that sometimes I use anger as a way to protect myself from experiencing sadness. And what that looks like really is, it's just mindfully saying to myself when an emotion pops up, what's this? What am I feeling here? Let's stop what I'm doing right now. Whatever I'm doing, let's stop what I'm doing right now. And let's investigate this emotion that's coming up for me. What's this?

Am I angry? Am I sad? Let's notice this and feel it. And I'm able to do that because I'm attending therapy. Once a week, I get an hour to speak with somebody about whatever's bothering me, just to speak. And emotionally what that is, is it's like I'm unclogging a drain. It's like I'm unclogging the drain of my emotions once a week by speaking with a professional. And once I unclog that drain for that one hour once a week, I'm leaving the therapy session with unblocked pipes.

So when an emotion comes up for me later on that night or the next day, there's no backlog. The emotion comes through by itself and I can see it and notice it and sit with it and process it healthily. My tools are returning. I did the hard work. I did the hard work. I did the hard work years ago through three or four years of therapy. And my tools are returning. I'm learning how to cycle the bike again.

How to drive the car again. But one big thing I am noticing is since I went to therapy, I haven't drank any alcohol. Now, I haven't really consciously been avoiding it. I don't really, I don't have a hugely problematic relationship with alcohol. Since the pandemic I drink maybe twice a month or once a month, a couple of cans. Since I've gone back to therapy I haven't wanted it at all. Like when it comes to a Friday or a Saturday night,

for the past five weeks or whatever it is, the thought has come into my head, fuck it, will I get a couple of cans? It's a Saturday, it's a Friday. This is what you do on a Saturday or Friday. Will I get a couple of cans, listen to some music? And when I ask myself, my feeling is, what's the point?

No, would you not prefer to go to bed on time and just have a lovely day tomorrow and not have a hangover what do you actually want to drink a couple of cans do you really want that and because I've got a clearer emotional dialogue my answer is no and especially since the pandemic since 2020 when I would have my little cans or when I'd want my cans once a week or once a fortnight or whatever, I was using alcohol as a way to feel, as a way to feel something, to feel emotions that I wasn't accessing while I was sober because I was so stressed. So I was drinking cans to get a rest from the experience of being

stressed out. It wasn't unbelievably joyful to get drunk. I wasn't experiencing huge happiness. I was just giving myself a rest. I was able to listen to music and enjoy it a bit more and then getting a horrendous hangover the next day and then the next day getting all the anxiety and sadness that just comes with a fucking hangover. So I haven't drank in six weeks because I don't need to. I don't really want to. Now, this weekend,

if I ask myself the question, do you want a few cans tonight? And if my legitimate answer is, fuck yeah, I wouldn't mind that, then I'll do it. But if the actual answer is, no, I'd rather have a good night's sleep, then that's what I'll do. But I will definitely be having a drink over Christmas. And that's what I want to speak about this week.

I want to do like a food history podcast. Because you know I love doing a food history podcast. Now I do want to do a little warning. If you are struggling with alcohol or you're trying to stay off drink or if you're an alcoholic the next 15 minutes might be difficult for you because I'll be speaking about the aesthetics of alcohol in quite a positive way so maybe skip that if this is something you're struggling with. And also if you're concerned that I'm going to be speaking about alcohol in a way that glorifies it. I'm not speaking about alcohol today as a drug.

I'm speaking about alcoholic drinks as a foodstuff. Their taste only. The responsible consumption of a drink for its taste, for its aesthetic pleasure. And the drink just happens to have alcohol in it. Because I was thinking about, you know, what drink am I looking forward to most over Christmas? And I was flicking around in my head going, bit of red wine. Will it be a drop of whiskey? What will it be?

And what kept popping up for me was Baileys. Do you know what? I can't wait to have a fucking Baileys at Christmas. Because Baileys is an interesting one. Irish cream liqueur. Now it's fair to say it's known the world over. Like everybody knows Baileys. And I associate it as being a Christmas drink.

Now some people like Baileys all year round but those people are rare. Now I grew up in a house where I didn't see much drinking when I was growing up. My dad didn't drink at all. And my ma would drink once a year at Christmas. She wouldn't even drink. She'd have one glass of Baileys at Christmas. That was it. And the only reason the Baileys was in our house

is because someone would have given it to us as a gift. Because Baileys is quite a common Christmas gift. It's not expensive. And who doesn't like Baileys? It's very strange that you'll get someone who says, I fucking hate Baileys. Most people will take a glass of Baileys. It's very strange that you'll get someone who says I fucking hate Baileys. Most people will take a glass of Baileys and here's another cultural thing that's important about Baileys and this is how you know this podcast isn't sponsored by Baileys. I think

Baileys is a very important alcoholic drink for children. A lot of us growing up in Ireland, our first taste of alcohol was Baileys. Now I know most of us. Okay, this is a universal experience. When you're like fucking five and you're at a wedding, there's always an uncle who lets you have a sip of his pint. That's a given. An irresponsible uncle who goes around the wedding with a glass of fucking harp looking for a five-year-old to give them a little sip at the top of the beer

to laugh at their face. So we all had that. And it tasted like rusty nails. And that was actually a good experience. Being five years old at a wedding and an unshaved rickety uncle with cow shit on the tails of his blazer comes up to you and makes you sip fizzy rust with the promise that it'll grow hairs on your chest I think that was a good experience because I always remember that as going what the

fuck are the adults doing drinking this shit for that's rotten give me some club orange but when you're like 12 or maybe 11 the first alcoholic drink that your parents tend to let you have like your own little drink tends to be baileys usually baileys and milk or a bowl of vanilla ice cream with a little bit of baileys on top and this is how most Irish children have their first supervised bit of alcohol that they can call their own like I remember my first small glass of Baileys and milk and really feeling

it was more important than my fucking confirmation to be honest now I'm not saying Baileys is necessarily nice it's a bit too much I don't want to drink Baileys outside of Christmas I don't want Baileys in fucking June. I rarely go to the shop and say, you know, but I need now a bottle of fucking Baileys. It's just something I want to have at Christmas and no more than one glass. That's it. Baileys is like training wheels for alcohol. First off, when you're a little child and you're looking at

pints of Guinness, now you know that it tastes like rusty nails so you don't want it, but the look of a pint of Guinness being poured and seeing the the white clouds engulfing into the black and it looks so creamy. the black and it looked so creamy. Baileys taste like what Guinness looks like when you're a child. That's what Baileys taste like. If you were to imagine if you're 12 what the top of that pint of Guinness tastes like, it's Baileys. And Baileys is, it's Irish cream liqueur it's fucking whiskey and cream that's it it's whiskey and cream and the cream mixes so beautifully with the whiskey it takes the harshness out of the whiskey and it just exposes the the vanilla notes like Irish whiskey not scotch from scotland but irish whiskey something like jameson it has those little notes of like burnt sugar and caramel and vanilla and they're there almost in the smell

of it well when you have fucking baileys it takes it takes all the harshness and the heat out of the whiskey and it reduces them down just to those sweet little caramelly notes and it mellows out with the cream. And when I, as an adult, have a shot of Jameson, what I'm chasing is the memory of Baileys. And what I find interesting with Baileys, and this is what had me going down a little rabbit hole of research this week, it's so present

in the Irish home. It's such a part of Christmas in particular. It's so ubiquitous that you'd assume Baileys is a traditional heritage drink. Like, what have we got? Guinness. That's like 300 years old.

Jameson whiskey. the late 1700s Hennessy which is that's brandy from France but the Hennessy the Hennessy family were Irish Catholics who had to flee to France because of the penal laws and I think they were whiskey distillers and then they started making brandy in France I'm gonna do a whole separate podcast on Hennessy because it's quite interesting then we've got Bushmills Irish Whiskey which is fucking single malt I think that's the oldest running distillery in the world

that's from the 1750s I believe so we have all these spirits and drinks in Ireland that are hundreds of years old and they're part of our culture and I always assumed Bailey's was just like them that Bailey's was hundreds of years old it's fucking not it's from the 1970s it's very recent and how Bailey's was invented is one of the most untraditional stories you could possibly imagine. There's zero tradition in it whatsoever.

It's 100% marketing. It wasn't even invented by a distiller. It was invented by an ad man by the name of David Gluckman, who was a Jewish South African man who worked for an advertising agency in the 70s. But he's the same advertising man who pretty much invented Kerrygold Butter. Now I spoke about Kerrygold Butter before.

We take Kerrygold Butter for granted but this is a heavily fetishised product all around the world in particular in America. Internationally, Kerrygold Butter is Ireland's champagne and this South African fucking ad man in the 1960s was part of the team that came up with Kerrygold. He was hired as part of an ad agency to package Irishness and sell it internationally.

Ireland would have been a very poor country. It would have been before we joined the EU. We would have been quite very poor country. It would have been before we joined the EU. We would have been quite an inward looking country. And in 1961, before Ireland became what it is now, which is a place for multinational corporations to launder money. But before that, in 1961, Ireland was like, what can we export? We're a small little island. We don't have a huge amount of natural resources. What can we export to We're a small little island, we don't have a huge amount of natural resources.

What can we export to other countries to make money? Well we sure have a lot of fucking cows and we have a lot of pasture land and we certainly have lots and lots of rain. How do we turn rain into something that we export? And the answer was dairy products specifically butter that's what butter is it's a way for the Irish to export our rain that's why Irish butter is so high quality it's grass-fed cows and that grass is fed by absolutely silly amounts of rain so the Irish dairy board went to an advertising agency in London I don't know the name but one of the people who worked on this advertising team was this fella David Gluckman right who was a Jewish man from South Africa and his job was to take Irish butter and create a brand that would

sell outside of Ireland so he invented the name Kerry Gold. You've got Kerry, obviously, which is fucking Kerry in Ireland. Then you had gold. With gold, you get this idea of rainbows and leprechauns and the pot of gold. It brings up images of sunlight. And then you had the distinctive gold wrapping on the butter. Then you open up the gold wrapping and the butter is very distinctively yellow. Now this is what separates Irish fucking butter from other butters. If you've ever looked at American butter it's white. American butter is white and it tastes like shit because

all those American cows are fed on corn. Irish cows eat grass and Irish grass contains a lot of the naturally occurring pigment carotene which is the thing that makes carrots orange but it's in grass as well so Irish grass-fed butter like Kerrygold is yellow so you have this Kerrygold it looks like a lump of gold it looks like something that you find at the end of the rainbow and the leprechaun's pot of gold you open it up and it's fucking golden butter and it worked it was a huge success and Kerrygold is still a massive export for Ireland and it's heavily fetishized all around the world so that started in 1961 so then in 1973 the Irish distillers and Vintners Association were like fuck it, how can we do the same thing with drink? There's Guinness, there's all that whiskey can we invent a new drink in the 1970s

purely for the export market? Can we do that? So naturally they went to David Gluckman who was the Kerrygold fella and said to him invent a new drink that's Irish Irish that we can sell all over the world but not in Ireland and David Gluckman he's not a drinks maker he was an

advertising man but because he'd had that experience with Kerrygold he was thinking the fuck can I do here the Irish are already known for alcohol what the fuck can I do here? The Irish are already known for alcohol. What new thing can I do? And he thought of his Kerrygold experience. And he thought of, well Ireland is also very, very famous for dairy now. Ireland is synonymous with dairy because of Kerrygold. What if I do something fucking mad? What if I get Jameson Irish whiskey and mix it

with cream? What would happen? So he did. And he was like, this isn't half bad. I wonder, could we sell this whiskey and cream? Now I looked up interviews with Gluckman where he spoke about the creation of Baileys. Now I reckon he was influenced inadvertently by the Irish coffee which was invented in Limerick in the 1940s in Fines where they just got whiskey coffee and cream and I reckon he was inadvertently influenced by that even though he doesn't stay at it but he mixed cream and Jameson and was like this is delicious but it needs something more it's still a bit harsh so then he mixed in a spoon of instant hot chocolate and invented baileys in like a half an hour whiskey cream hot chocolate powder and then he was thinking okay this this tastes nice i reckon this can work

what about a name for this drink now now i gotta go back to the Irish fucking distillers association. With a name. Now one thing the admin found. And this is interesting. Irish drinks that have Irish sounding names. They tend not to work. If you think of all our famous drinks. They're all Anglo-Irish names.

Guinness. Jameson. Bushmills. Hennessy, Powers. Like Irish alcoholic drinks tend not to have Irish sounding names bizarrely. They have Anglo-Irish names. Like there's even a drink that they sell in Aldi called O'Hara's. And the thing that's always put me off buying O'Hara's is the fucking name it sounds fake it sounds made up also the name O'Hara O'Hara is a weird name there's not a lot

of O'Hara's in Ireland I think all the O'Hara's went to America after the famine because you associate the name O'Hara with Irish Americans rather than Ireland so David Gluckman said to himself I have to come up with a name that doesn't sound Irish, but sounds kind of posh Irish. So he thought back to his childhood in South Africa and remembered a dairy that was called Bailey's. So he went back to the Irish Distillers Association and said, here you go, here's the drink. And because it used Irish cream, there was a tax benefit to export it because they were using an Irish dairy product. Baileys went on the market and became hugely successful all over the world

and then ended up becoming successful in Ireland to the point that we don't question it now. It feels like, it feels like an indigenous drink. When I went looking up the history of Baileys, I was genuinely expecting some big long story about it being made by some monks in a fucking monastery that's 300 years old who happen to have a few cows. No, it's a bullshit made up drink where the alcohol industry were trying to replicate Kerrygold and figure out how can we export alcohol and dairy at the same time and it shouldn't have succeeded it shouldn't have worked it shouldn't have worked but it did whiskey and cream shouldn't mix but it worked

but then i went a bit deeper into my research and adding dairy products and whiskey bailey's didn't fucking invent it. It's not the first time it happened. Now David Gluckman, the ad man, he wasn't aware of this, but I went deep into the history and there's a different fucking drink that's a lot older with a darker, stranger, weirder history. And I've decided this Christmas, this is the drink I'm going to fucking make myself. It's a 300 year old version of Bailey's that was made by devil worshippers. And I'll do the ocarina pause first. Before I tell you about this other drink. So I'm in my office.

I don't have my ocarina. What have I got? I've got a can of pomegranate and lime CBD infused sparkling water. Which I bought in, I bought it in fucking Dunn's. I didn't know they were selling CBD drinks in Dunn's, but here you go. I'm going to flick the side of this can and you're going to hear an advert for something. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health,

to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six.

It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. Who said that? The first omen.

Only in theaters April 5th. that was the CBD infused can flicking pause support for this podcast comes from you the listener via the patreon page patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast if you enjoy listening to this podcast if it brings you solace, distraction, comfort, escapism, whatever this podcast does for you, please consider paying me for the work that I put into it because this is my full-time job. This podcast is how I earn a living. It's how I pay my bills. It's how I rent out my office. Only because this podcast is my full-time job am I able to do the podcast each week as it is and put in the necessary time that's required to make this podcast and have the time to fail. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it. But if

you can't afford that don't worry about it you can listen to the podcast for free. And the people who are paying are paying for you to listen. So everybody gets a podcast, I get to earn a living. Patreon.com forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. Also, by having this podcast listener funded, it keeps it independent. I can speak about whatever the fuck I want each week. Like this episode, for instance, I genuinely want to talk about fucking Baileys. I want to talk about the history and cultural significance of Baileys and Irish cream, but I don't want to do, I don't want to chase Baileys

for a fucking sponsorship to do it because as soon as that happens, then I'm not putting out the podcast that I want. then I can't talk about the cultural reality that a lot of us were given baileys as children as part of Irish culture I wouldn't be able to say that if this was an advert because then I'd be breaking the rules of fucking alcohol advertising this isn't an alcohol advert it's an independent cultural analysis of alcohol as a food stuff like I did another podcast before about Guinness, about the history of Guinness. Because Guinness, Guinness was fucking started during the Irish penal laws by Arthur Guinness who fucking hated Catholics.

And I find it strange that in Ireland you had these penal laws which were about 200 years of systemic oppression on the Irish Catholic population. You had these fucking laws that meant Catholic people couldn't receive educations, couldn't vote, couldn't own a fucking horse, couldn't own property. All of these horrendous laws against Irish Catholics at the same time that the Irish Catholic community

was being completely disenfranchised over 200 years and being made into a traumatised, impoverished people, at the same time that was happening, Arthur Guinness, who hated fucking Catholics and who didn't let Catholics work in the Guinness Brewery up until the 1930s I believe he marketed alcohol to a community that were fucking traumatized and it was a community that he hated and he did it by inventing a drink that looks like a fucking priest I loved doing that

podcast which was both a celebration of Guinness and also a huge critique of its history. I couldn't have fucking done that if it was sponsored by Guinness. Not a fucking hope. So that's why it's important to keep the podcast independent. For the content. Okay let's plug a few little gigs. I'm not doing any gigs in December. My gigs will be in 2023 but I want to plug them now in case anyone wants to buy someone a little ticket for Christmas. What have we got here? In February the 3rd I'm in Killarney in the Eyeneck. There's only a few tickets left for that. There's only like 70 tickets left for that.

On Wednesday the 15th of February I'm in the Cork Opera House. Can't wait to come back to Cork. Saturday the 4th of March I'm in Belfast in the waterfront. That's nearly sold out but there's tickets left for Belfast the waterfront. Then on the 22nd and 24th of March I'm in Vicar Street. My wonderful Vicar Street gigs. I fucking love doing Vicar Street and that's a Wednesday and a Friday. Now I know you'd be tempted to come to the Friday one on the 24th. It'll be great crack.

But don't turn your nose up at the Wednesday. So the Friday gig I'd say will be a little bit rowdier. Because it's a Friday night. Might be a little bit rowdier. But the Wednesday night gig in Vicar Street on the 22nd of March. That'll be more chilled out. A bit quieter. You can go to that podcast,

be home in bed, and be up for work or college the next morning. April 1st, I'm in Drogheda in the TLT Theatre. And then April... I'm in fucking Toronto and Vancouver at the end of April. I don't know the exact dates. Toronto's nearly sold out now. I don't think Vancouver's

on sale yet. If you're interested in coming to see me in Toronto and Vancouver, then it's happening in April. Look it up on the internet. So I started this podcast by saying that I'm looking forward to having a little drink at Christmas. And the drink that I'm looking forward to having is Baileys. I've changed my mind. This is the drink that I'm looking forward to having is Baileys. I've changed my mind. This is the drink that I want to have. It's called Scalthine. Which means little scald. And it's basically Baileys that was popularised by horrendous devil worshipping bollocks.

And I managed to find a recipe for it. And I'm going to tell you about this drink scolthine what it represents why I want to fucking make it and then at the end I'll give you the recipe so in the 1700s in Britain and remember Ireland would have been a colony of Britain at the time. In the 1700s, secret societies became a thing amongst very, very wealthy pricks. Britain would have been benefiting from the slave trade, cotton, sugar, the empire.

Britain became very, very wealthy in the 1700s from colonialism, from the terror, from the terrorism of colonising other countries and extracting resources. Britain became very, very wealthy. And the families in Britain that benefited from this became very, very wealthy.

So you all of a sudden had incredibly wealthy young men, usually. And these incredibly wealthy young men, who were above the law because they were so wealthy, started secret societies. And in these secret societies, they would just do whatever the fuck they wanted. Mad shit. Now, I'll give you one example of a secret society from the 1730s amongst quite wealthy young men in Scotland. This was a secret society called the Beggars' Benison. And it was a gentleman's club.

So it was only men, young men, who would get absolutely shit-faced. And this particular club was based around sexuality. and this particular club was based around sexuality so what these fellas used to do in the Benison Club in the 1730s to become a member of this club in the 1730s to become a new member they would get

a new member, so a wealthy young man they'd have two sex workers who would get him to full erection then he'd put a handkerchief on his dick and then all the other members of the club who also had erections would

all of them touch their dicks off his dick and then he'd try and drink a glass of port with his dick so that's one example of one of these gentlemen's clubs of the 1730s or the 1700s. Incredibly wealthy young men who were above the law, who would just have these private clubs where they could do whatever the fuck they wanted.

And that beggars' benison one, that's quite mild. They would have killed people. They would have killed people in these societies. They would have murdered sex workers. They would have beaten people to death. They did whatever they wanted because they were above the law. And more and more of these gentlemen's clubs started to kind of pop up around Britain and in Ireland. And they became known collectively as Hellfire Clubs. Now you still have this shit today. Like, in England you have the fucking...

the Bullingdon Club. Remember David Cameron fucked a dead pig's mouth? All these weird little secret societies that incredibly wealthy men attend and do odd shit. The Bullingdon Club, David Cameron was in it, Boris Johnson was in it. Like this was the 1960s. Boris Johnson and all those posh English politicians, when they were in college, they were all in secret societies. And what the Bullingdon Club does is, and it's still going,

they'll like go to a restaurant, and they're all from extreme generational wealth. They'll go to a restaurant, eat and drink everything, and then absolutely trash the restaurant, tear the curtains off the wall, fuck the place up, and then write a giant check and leave.

In America they had the skull and bones society. Same shit. Deeply wealthy, privileged men who will go on to become incredibly powerful people doing horrendous shit in front of each other. Now my theory now is that this shit exists to season politicians for corruption. I think it's a way for all of them to have dirt on each other at the earliest stages. Why would David Cameron put his dick in a dead pig's mouth? Because everybody saw it

and they all had to do it. And they're like 19, 20 when this is happening and then they become proper politicians in the houses of parliament and they all have dirt on each other and then they can be corrupt because everyone has dirt on each other. I think that's why they do it. In America there's the Skull and Bones Association which is in Yale University. They have to climb into a coffin and wank in front of everyone. George Bush did it. John Kerry did it.

This isn't conspiracy theory. Genuinely, very, very wealthy people who go on to become politicians and be people of power are often in secret societies in college. And they do fucked up shit in front of each other. A milder form of this is hazing. Like, I'm not sure, but I think even Trinity College in Dublin has one of these societies. But a lot of this shit started in the 1700s with what was called Hellfire Clubs. And there was a few of these in Ireland. Young, incredibly wealthy, powerful men doing fucking mad shit.

And in Ireland in the 1700s, they were big into satanic worship. Now before I start sounding conspiracy theory-ish or sounding like QAnon I'll offer some cultural context for why they were engaged in Satan worship. In the 1700s this was a time known as the Enlightenment which is the birth of what we'd call modern science and the Enlightenment came about which is the birth of what we'd call modern science.

And the Enlightenment came about mainly out of coffee houses. Coffee became this new drink that young wealthy men would drink and meet in a coffee house and sit around and chat about ideas. They would have chatted about the discoveries of Isaac Newton, Galileo. They would have been discussing social, philosophical and moral ideas that were beyond Christianity. They would have been actively questioning the truth of the Bible. It would have been fashionable amongst the wealthy elite of London to say things like,

we have science now. the bible is bullshit maybe god is bullshit maybe not there's this thing called natural law and it's completely atheistic and from these ideas they would have started to embrace concepts of hedonism the idea that what if there's no fucking God? What if there's no such thing as sin? What if there's no afterlife? What if we look at science and nature and what if we're only animals and the only time we have on this earth

is here and now? Why should we not indulge? We're fucking wealthy. Why should we not drink what we want to drink? Fuck what we want to fuck? Kill who we not indulge? We're fucking wealthy. Why should we not drink what we want to drink, fuck what we want to fuck, kill who we want to kill? Why can't we do whatever the fuck we want? Because sin mightn't even exist. God mightn't exist. Fuck religion. I've got 600 slaves. I'm a multi-multi-millionaire. I'm going to do whatever I want. And in the 1700s, this type of wealthy man became known as a rake.

A really wealthy young lad who just drank and fucked and did whatever he wants. A libertine. And these type of men formed secret societies where they'd gather around in a clubhouse and do whatever they wanted. They're wealthy shitheads. They're pricks. And in these secret societies, in these clubs, they would engage in devil worship.

They'd do it for the laugh. They'd do it for the crack. Not out of a belief in Satan, but a type of hipsterism, a type of contrarianism, a type of getting drunk on power. Who's gonna stop us? I can do what I want, who cares? Yeah let's fucking worship Satan. And also as a type of elitism because these young men would have had access to education so they used to enjoy how terrified peasants would be at their Satan worship. The poor people would have been more religious. They didn't know about fucking Isaac Newton.

They didn't know about philosophy or atheism. They couldn't read. These were religious people. So the wealthy people in these clubs would flaunt their Satanism because they found the way that the clergy and the peasantry, they thought it was funny that they found it frightening. Now in Ireland there were two main Hellfire clubs, one up in Dublin and one in Limerick in Askeeton. Now you have to remember as I mentioned earlier with the Guinness during the Ocarina pause. This was during the time of the penal laws.

And the members of these Hellfire Clubs, they would have been the Protestant descendancy. So these are incredibly wealthy Protestants in Ireland who were at the very top of a rigged, unfair system. A system where the majority of the Irish population who were Catholics were completely disenfranchised and had their land taken off them. And then most of the wealth was concentrated into a small amount of Protestants who would have been British. So the members of these clubs in Dublin and Limerick in the 1700s, they would have been the only people who could have voted, the only people who could own land.

A lot of them were in government themselves so they would actively engage in blasphemy specifically against anything to do with Catholicism they would hire sex workers to trample on crucifixes but what I want to speak about is the Hellfire Club that still exists in Dublin today now the club doesn't exist but the clubhouse does exist.

And it's on a place called Montpellier Hill, which is in County Dublin. And most of my Dublin listeners will know about this place because this is where people go for a nice walk. You go up to the Hellfire Club. But if you go there, you'll know that it's also reportedly unbelievably haunted. At the very top of Mont Pellier Hill in Dublin,

you have the old Hellfire Club. It's this old building that's completely abandoned. Now, this building was built in 1725 as a hunting lodge by a fella called William Connolly. Now, do you remember my podcast about pineapples and the history of pineapples? And I spoke about a building called Connolly's Folly which is in Kildare

but this is the same Connolly so this building, this hunting lodge from 1725 this was the site of the Hellfire Club in Ireland, in Dublin this is where all these young Protestants would meet and do fucking mad shit but the rocks that were used

to build this building in 1725 there had been a passage tomb there an ancient Irish passage tomb that could be a thousand years old this old passage tomb was there but they took apart the passage tomb took all the fucking rocks down this ancient Irish structure and then built their hellfire club out of that on that site so all of a sudden now you have indigenous Irish mythology and superstition getting involved now these wealthy protestant planters in 1725 to the locals now they're fucking with the other world the other world of Irish, indigenous, pagan mythology. The passage tomb was a passage to the parallel universe of the other world.

And they've defiled it. And they've built their fucking Hellfire Club out of these same stones. But to this day, people in Dublin say that don't go up to the Hellfire Club. Don't go to the top of Mount Pelly or Hill. To that abandoned clubhouse on your own because it's haunted by the ghost of a giant black cat that guards the gates of hell. Now the gates of hell

would come from the fact that it was built on an old passage tomb so that's all superstition about it being a gate to the other world but where the cat comes in is there was actually a real cat so the members of this Hellfire Club in the 1700s, really wealthy Protestant aristocracy,

they used to have their mad fucking RGs and drinking parties and doing everything and anything you could imagine and engaging full on in devil worship. There's stories that they had black masses, that they were sacrificing animals. There's a stories that they had black masses, that they were sacrificing animals. There's a report that they sacrificed a human, someone who was a little person. So what the members of the Dublin Hellfire Club used to do, and this happened in 1735, so they'd have their dinners and they'd all drink and they'd go mad and they'd have sex workers and they'd have an orgy.

And they'd engage in Satanism, blasphemy. But sometimes they might invite a guest. They'd invite a guest, maybe a priest or someone from the clergy or a Catholic. Someone who isn't in their circle. And they would invite guests to their dinner just to freak them the fuck out to scare the shit out of a common person who thinks that they're in the presence of the devil and how they used to do this is they used to have a black cat now there would have been a lot of superstition about black cats black cats in ireland would have represented satan so the lads in the hellfire club

used to let the black cat that they had as a pet sit on his own seat at the top of the table and the guest would come in could be a catholic priest could be just a local catholic farmer and he'd go what's going on here with this cat you can't have a cat sitting at a table and they'd go that's the devil

that cat is satan and he sits at the top of our table and whenever they'd have any food the cat got the first slice of meat and they'd treat the cat like a human and the cat was a well-trained cat so he would play the part of Satan and then at the end of the meal one of the members would come out with like a cow's skull on his head and horns and flames and scared the living fuck out of the guest so he'd run out thinking he just had a supernatural experience and then all the wealthy protestant pricks would just laugh that they freaked someone out well one night this is what they did with the cat because they were evil cunts

so this is where the drink comes in the helfer club in dublin and in Limerick used to drink a drink called Scaltine and this Scaltine I doubt they invented it I'd say it's an indigenous Irish drink because the name is Irish Scaltine means a little bit of scald it's a little bit hot it's an Irish word. And this drink was whiskey, cream, butter, sugar. Then they'd get a hot poker from the fire to represent Satan, the devil's poker. And they'd stick this into the cup and make it hot. And this drink was called Scaltine, a 17th century, satanic, Protestant descendancy, sex ritual drink, which is basically just baileys so one night

what they did because they were cruel fuckers obviously when when these rich fellas were having their big mad parties in their clubhouse at the top of Montpelier Hill it's the 1700s

the local poor Irish Catholics they're not watching fucking, there's not a lot going on. So when one of these mad satanic parties was happening, all the locals would come outside and hide in the bushes to watch, to see if they could see something. This was the only bit of excitement they had. excitement they had so the lads inside the hellfire club knew whenever they're having crack there's a bunch of catholics outside who are all thick and they don't know about anything and they think we are the devil ha ha ha so one night they got their poor cat the poor black cat that they had as satan and they knew as well that all the cath Catholics outside the clubhouse would have been of the opinion that this cat was Satan as well. So the Hellfire Club got the poor cat

and they had a huge punch bowl full of this scaldine. So it's whiskey and butter and cream, right? And they got the cat and they dipped the cat in the scaldine. So covered him head to toe in alcohol and fat and then they set him on fire and alcohol and fat is gonna burn heavily so the cat was completely on fire they opened the door and the cat ran out this this ball of screaming flames and the poor Catholic locals they just think

oh my god it's fucking Satan Satan the cat has come out and taken his true fucking form these are very superstitious people like this is the 1700s and these are poor Catholics who truly believe that the clubhouse is built on a fucking mouth

to the other world so they just see this fucking cat on fire and they think the devil is cat on fire and they think the devil is coming for me and they all run off the poor cat dies and to this day that's why the hellfire club is haunted by the ghost of this cat it's a folk memory from these people who had seen this happen but really all it was a bunch of horrible rich bastards engaging in some animal cruelty for fun because they were beyond the law they were the law they were they were fucking enforcing and

writing and enacting the penal laws but having said that that's the drink i want to drink this christmas and i want to do it in a decolonial fashion i want to decolonize the drink I want to drink this Christmas and I want to do it in a decolonial fashion I want to decolonise the drink of Skalthine I want to reclaim it from the horrible Protestant descendancy pricks who were being arseholes I want to reclaim it on behalf of that poor little cat

and I want an Irish whiskey cream based drink that wasn't. That has a bit of fucking history and a story to it. And some authenticity to it. Rather than the. Sterile corporate cynicism. Of Bailey's. Which was just made in half an hour by some lad who was getting paid.

So I'm going to fucking drink Scalteen this Christmas. That's what I'm going to do. And also as an autistic person it's perfect because if I'm at a party now I don't have to do fucking small talk because someone's going to ask me what are you drinking? And then I can say

well you're not going to get a word in edgeways here waiting to tell you about this drink. So here's how you make it. Get yourself a little frying pan or a small pot. Put some butter in there as much as you like i could only find a like an old recipe so there's not any exact stuff get a bit of butter in a in a pot and gently melt the butter no need to be

burning it just bring the butter up so that it's it's melted then get brown sugar to taste put the sugar in with the butter and again melt it up you don't have to burn anything you're not cooking anything put that into your glass or your cup or whatever top it up with your whiskey I'm going to use Jameson to taste and then top that off with a bit of cream and then if you want to be really authentic get a hot poker and stick it into it maybe not that bit maybe do that bit outside i've never stuck a hot poker into a drink so yeah i'd hate that i'd hate if i give a fucking recipe for this satanic 17th century drink and then someone sticks a hot poker into it and And then it explodes into flames. And you become the poor cat then. But that's how you make Scalthine. Butter, brown sugar.

Whiskey, a bit of cream. And what I'm going to do to truly decolonize the drink. Before I put the whiskey in. And it's just butter with a bit of sugar and cream. I'm going to put that into a bowl nice and warm and I'm going to feed that to my two cats. My two white cats who are called Silk and Thomas and Nappertandy who are both named after figures from the 15th and 17th century who fought for Ireland's freedom. So I'm going to decolonise Skelthene by feeding a little bit of the non-alcoholic

version to my two cats and also in honour of that poor black cat who was set on fire. All right, that's all I have time for this week. That was a rambling podcast, man. That podcast made me so mentally ill. Just to point out, everything I've mentioned in this podcast, I've researched and sourced from historical sources. And when I'm talking about secret societies and wanking in coffins and fucking devil worship and the pagan underworld, I'm speaking about it from a human perspective that exists in lived reality rather than anything mad or supernatural. Human beings did a bunch of weird shit. Human beings did

a bunch of weird shit and human beings do a lot of weird shit. And often the more wealthier a person is and the less accountable they are to power the more fucking weird shit they try and do. Alright, rub a dog kiss a goldfish.

Oh, this isn't... Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th, when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game, and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.

Advertisement for Now, which is a streaming service. And it's an advertisement for Now's wonderful selection of television shows and movies that are available over the festive season. Lads, I'm talking about Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I'm talking about Fantastic Beastsedgehog 2 I'm talking about

Fantastic Beasts The Secrets of Dumbledore I'm talking about Downtown Abbey A New Era Those are just some of the blockbusters available on the cinema membership And then you start moving over to the entertainment

membership. You've got House of the Dragon. You've got House of the Dragon. You've got Gangs of London Series 2. What does all this stuff have in common? I wouldn't normally watch it. I wouldn't normally watch the aforementioned list of entertainment. But because it's Christmas, I will. And that's the beautiful thing about Christmas.

Sometimes I just want to rub farts into my eyes. I want to have a large tin of sweets. I want to wear extra large indoor socks that make my feet look like depressed rats. I want to step on a bauble. I want, I want a man to crawl down my chimney and give things to me. I want to get a loaf of bread and I want a man to crawl down my chimney and give things to me. I want to get a loaf of bread. And I want to tear it all to bits. And mix it with onions and bits of herbs. And make it into a ball. And then put that inside the carryman's end of a turkey.

I want to pretend to care about pudding. I don't care about pudding. It's just barn brack with a drink problem. And there's no ring. And I want to watch things that I wouldn't normally watch. Like Elf. Or the Polar Express. Let's be honest here.

Do you think I want to watch the Polar Express? Do you think I want to watch that? Well I do when it's Christmas. Santa Claus. The movie. Santa Claus. the movie. Santa Claus the movie. Blind Boy's on his podcast saying he wants to watch Santa Claus the movie. Last week he did a podcast about abstract expressionist art and now he's trying to pretend that he wants to see Santa Claus the movie. He does. Yes I do. Yes I do. Because it's Christmas. That's what I do. I want to sit down all cozy

and watch Santa Claus the movie while my living room smells like a forest for a couple of weeks. I want to put an elf on the shelf. I don't even know what that is. I don't even know why we're doing it. I don't know when it started. I don't know where it came from. But I'm putting an elf on a shelf lads. It's happening, it's happening. I'm doing it. I want the elf to watch me. And I'm also gonna watch a film called A Boy Called Christmas which is available on the Now Cinema membership. You get my point, it's Christmas, it's Christmas.

Watch loads of stuff on Now with a NOW cinema or a NOW entertainment membership or watch a lot of stuff you want to watch as well because there's plenty of that on NOW also. All the good HBO stuff and all the good Sky Atlantic stuff, it's on NOW.