Episode 181: Mythology of Brewing (with Katrina Pfeiffer)
/Sometimes we take advantage of the beers in our fridge and the booze on our shelves. Thanks to future brewmaster Katrina Pfieffer, we got to learn not only the science behind brewing, but also the history and mythology of the process!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of college/school, food waste/spoilage, gendered work, Christopher Columbus, war/battle, mobsters/tax evasion, and alcoholism (http://drughelpline.org/).
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends The Mermaid, The Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall. Amanda recommends Legends from the Pacific podcast. Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Multitude: Digital merch for all shows, including new Spirits posters and phone wallpapers, are available at http://multitude.productions/merch. Join the MultiCrew for just $5 at http://multicrew.club!
Guest
Katrina Pfeiffer is a future brewmaster and dicemaker. Learn more at starsinmydie.com or on Twitter @StarsinMyDie1
Sponsors
- Zombies, Run! is an app available for iPhone and Android that makes running a fun, hopeful, mission-driven activity.
- Skillshare is an online learning community where you can learn—and teach—just about anything. Visit skillshare.com/spirits2 to get two months of Skillshare Premium for free! This week Amanda recommends “Creativity and Beer: A Brewmaster's Guide to Flavor Emulation” by Garrett Oliver.
Find Us Online
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Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I’m Amanda.
Julia: And I’m Julia!
Amanda: And this is Episode 181: The Mythology of brewing with our friend Katrina
Julia: I gotta admit, this episode makes me miss being able to go to breweries a whole bunch. A whole bunch, but it does make me appreciate the local breweries that I have around that I can order from and support my local businesses.
Amanda: Absolutely. I have been enjoying some beers from Transmitter Brewing, which is a urban farmhouse brewing taproom here in the city that I can--I miss it at the moment, but I can enjoy their fabulous beers.
Julia: I’ve been really rocking the Dogfish Head, which is right by where Jake’s mom lives down in Delaware, and she's been sending up cases for me because oof I miss it. I miss it so much.
Amanda: Amazing. I’ve been like, rationing the gin that they also make that you gave us, I think at your bachelorette party.
Julia: I probably did, yeah.
Amanda: It’s so good. You know what’s also so good, Julia?
Julia: Is it our new patrons?
Amanda: Our new patrons! Thank you and welcome to Chelsea, Jen, Thea, Emily, Lisa, Ashleigh, and Brittany. We really, really appreciate you coming on board. Along with those of our Supporting Producer level patrons Tank-A-Roonie, Hannah, Alicia (Uh-Lee-See-Uh), Sarah, Landon, Niki, Megan, Debra, Molly, Skyla, Samantha, Sammie, Neal, Jessica, and Phil Fresh.
Julia: You all deserve a beer that you’ve been hoarding for a long time and you’re waiting for the right moment to drink it.
Amanda: Yeah!
Julia: Now’s the right moment to drink it.
Amanda: Now is the moment! Drink that beer in your fridge! Uncork that wine! Make that nice cocktail with the egg whites! Come on! I would absolutely go through a multi-step drink-making procedure for our Legend level patrons as well. Clara, Stephen, Frances, Brittany, Josie, Kylie, Morgan, Bea Me Up Scotty, Audra, Chris, Mark, Mr. Folk, Sarah, and Jack Marie.
Julia: I would, yup. Those cocktails. I’d break out the egg whites for them, for sure.
Amanda: And Julia, what have you been breaking out? What have you been enjoying along with a cocktail this week?
Julia: I marathoned through my new copy of a book that just came out, I guess, two weeks ago at this point? Which is “The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea” by Maggie Tokuda-Hall. I read it all in one sitting. I don’t know how.
Amanda: Wow.
Julia: My brain was just like “this is too good to stop. Don’t stop. Just don’t stop”
Amanda: I love that feeling!
Julia: I recommended the book back when it was still for pre-order when we did our mermaids and splash episode and it lived up to all of the hype that I made for it in my brain. Definitely pick it up, it’s extremely good.
Amana: Fabulous. I love that so much, and that sounds amazing, and if I could also add a double-barreled recommendation for the week…
Julia: Oooh.
Amanda: Someone asked us on Twitter if there are other mythology podcasts that we have really been enjoying, and I have been. I’ve been enjoying “Legends from the Pacific” which is an absolutely wonderful narrative mythology and folklore based show all about the myths and legends of the Pacfic and it’s fabulous and you should look it up on your podcast player.
Julia: Yes. Listen to it. I absolutely love the host, he is a wonderful, wonderful storyteller and I think that it’s really nice to have a perspective that isn’t just White European.
Amanda: Totally. Absolutely, and if we can ask just one thing of you, listeners, this week to support Spirits, it would be to recommend the show to your friends. It means so much to us that we can recommend stuff to you that you go and enjoy, whether it’s a podcast or a book or some new Netflix series that we’re really enjoying, and to see you recommend Spirits to your friends. Whether you're tagging us on social or just texting them saying, “hey this is a podcast that I think you would really enjoy.” It helps the show by helping our audience continue to grow and also just makes us feel really good, because you are sharing this--which is a very specific thing that very specific people like--with somebody who would really enjoy it.
Julia” Yeah, it means the world to us that you love our thing enough to tell other people about it. It really just blows our minds even almost four years later.
Amanda: And if you’re like, “hey, I’ve already recommended Spirits to every person in my life who could possibly enjoy it,” good work, and why don’t you consider joining the Mulicrew. This is Mulitude’s membership program where us--our community, our audience, our listeners, help to fund new work from Mulitude. Now more than ever it really, really means the world that we can count on your support, that we can share our weekly friendly debate show “Head, Heart, Gut” with you each week, that we can show you our plans and our drinks and our baking on the Finsta, and just have that core group of people where if we have a weird idea or want to test something out or wanna do a Jackbox night, you are our go-to. The Mulicrew are our core group of listeners who we send our strange ideas and kind of fun, you know, “us having a life and enjoying ourselves as people” type content too. So if you are able to join for just five bucks a month, you can go to Mulicrew.club to get access to that whole, brand new, weekly show from Mulitude, “Head, Heart, Gut,” and even our Finsta, our newsletter, voting rights, sparkly glitter pin that’s our “M” of our logo, even a signed poster, and a place on our wall of fame--our Founder’s Wall. That’s Mulicrew.club and without further ado, please enjoy episode 181: The Mythology of Brewing with Katrina.
[Theme music]
Amanda: We are welcoming a conspirator to the show today. Katrina is going back to school for a second degree in brewing and pub management, which I think might be the coolest major I’ve ever heard. Welcome, Katrina!
Katrina: Hi, thank you!
Julia: It is 100% the coolest thing. I wish my school had offered that because--oh man--I’d be there already.
Amanda: Oh yeah. Different life. 100%.
Julia: Mhmm.
Katrina: Yeah, it’s definitely different and I wish I had gotten into it much sooner, before I got my first degree, but it’s still fabulous and I’m excited.
Julia: So how different was your first degree compared to this one?
Katrina: Not superbly. My first degree is hospitality, tourism, and events management, so not big difference, but still not exactly where I was headed.
Julia: Same ecosystem, but very different species, I feel like, is a good way to describe it.
Amanda: Same galaxy, different planet.
Katrina: Oh, that’s beautiful! Yes.
Amanda: Totally! So why don’t you give us a little--I don’t know, overview of how you found out brewing was for you? I feel like a lot of us harbor a somewhat secret desire, like, “oh that would be a fun life,” but tell us kind of how you went from thinking about it to actually taking this leap, and then we’re going to get into some myths and legends about beer, wine, and liquor.
Katrina: Yeah. So, for me, I was at that point of... had just gotten my degree, I couldn’t find an actual job in that...place?....that I really wanted, so I just kind of loitered around from there. And then between all of that my friends and I are consistently going to breweries, beer gardens, places that serve local craft brews here in Colorado, and it’s just something that has a huge effect on our lives and I just wanted to get into that area because of how much I enjoy it.
Amanda: Good call.
Julia: Amanda, that story sounds very familiar, doesn’t it?
Amanda: I know! Instead of that, though, we were like, “we should make a podcast,” and here we are!
[Laughter]
Katrina: I mean...you should do what you love, right?
Julia: That is true. Whatever the universe is calling to you, I say follow it.
Katrina: Yeah, absolutely.
Amanda: I agree. So, I would love to hear some of your favorite origin stories, myths, and stories around brewing, wine-making, liquor distilling...distillery-ing, please just lay them on us. I am so ready for this tour.
Katrina: Yeah, absolutely! So where I thought we could start was the theories that re[s]olve around where the fermentation process was or may have been discovered, and this is one of my favorite things that I hear from historians that talk about this particular subject is that fermentation was kind of discovered as an oops…. So the first fermented beverages are believed to have begun to appear 12,000 to 13,000 years ago--depending on the source, I noticed--alongside the developments of cereal agriculture. Hunter-gatherers that had began to settle down into civilizations--agriculture at that time included wheat, ridce, barley, maize, those kind of “cereal” agriculture types--little did they know that they had been growing the ingredients that would later on become such an important aspect of the brewing process.
Julia: Oh gosh, I love when everything just comes together and it just becomes a domino effect later on into something so delicious.
Katrina: Yes, especially something as good as beer. Now, I want you guys to imagine--as a member of a settling society during this hunter-gatherer time period--you start making baked goods from these grains that your family, your community, have began to cultivate. You store those baked goods away in a damp room for later, but, oh dear! You’ve forgotten that you put those away and you’re like, “oh hey, guys, look I still have some bread in the back room,” you bring it out after it’s become damp, and unbeknownst to you, it’s fermented. All you and your family know is that when you eat it, it gives you a good, intoxicating feeling--and that is saying hello to beer as an introduction to the brewing process from that period.
Julia: What I think is really interesting about this, too, as a kind of origin is that it kind of implies that it comes out of a time of plenty where you’re storing things ahead of time, like you’ve made enough baked goods to feed your family for that day plus a little extra which is why you’re storing it in the first place, and I kind of like that idea of times aplenty lead to interesting discoveries.
Katrina: Yeah. Absolutely. During that time people began to realize this great thing that’s making them feel real good when they’re eating it is coming from this and they start making that process on purpose, and then they start refining the fermentation process and add things to it. So it starts to grow. They start adding honey, fruit, and those kind of things to that fermentation process of the beer, and today that creation of what they’re mashing together is legitimately called the “mash” or “wort.”
Julia: Ooh, I like wort too, though. Like, mash is great but also wort is fantastic.
Katrina: Yeah, it’s absolutely out of--some of the verbage in all this is just like, “ok cool!”
Julia: Like, “yeah, we haven’t changed this in 100s of years and I’m fine with that!”
Katrina: Yeah, you don’t really--
Amanda: It’s very witchy. It’s very medieval, like, “yes, eye of newt and wort of beer.” So when in brewing we have--like I hear that a beer has chocolate or made with passion fruit or made with whatever...milk--when is that added in the brewing process? Is that thrown in there with the wheat or the barley?
Katrina: I’d rather say as to when that happens during the fermentation process is--
Julia: Sure.
Amanda: Oh, sure!
Katrina: --when the mash is being created in that process of mixing the malts, the grains, the hot water that gets all steeped together. Which, as I said, is the mashing process, that’s when you just throw everything into a pot and start heating it and making that fermented liquid. The wort is the liquids that are--the liquids product of the mashing process. It’s sugary liquid that the hops are then added to for the fermentation process. And both of these terms, also, you can often see being used interchangeably in the fermentation process of beer and the distilling process of whiskey.
Amanda: Oh, cool. We went to Westward Whiskey in Portland when we were at a podcast conference--earlier this year, amazingly--and we were able to taste the wort. They gave us a kind of, like, beer that they ended up making using that by-product of the whiskey process, and it was so cool! You could totally taste some of those flavors that would end up becoming, you know, in the whiskey that you tasted at the end , but it was still really interesting as a beverage of its own.
Katrina: Yeah, absolutely. The wort is such an interesting aspect of the brewing process, too. Partly because you can do so much with it. You can taste it, as you guys did, and I’ve also seen other breweries who are trying to make their product process a little more eco friendly and move away from plastics and instead of using a plastic ring to hold their cans together, they’re using the by-product of the wort as like a cardboard to hold the cans together--
Amanda: Oh my gosh, that’s so cool!
Julia: That’s extremely cool.
Katrina: It is, and it is incredibly safe for animals--like turtles and fish actually eat--so it’s adding to their diet and it’s safe for them.
Amanda: That’s so cool!
Katrina: It is!
Julia: Yeah, it’s fascinating.
Katrina: Mhmm. Now, there are four basic ingredients to the beer brewing process: malted barley, yeast, water...hops, interestingly, weren’t added on until later in the fifteenth century.
Julia: Wow.
Katrina: Yeah., and--
Julia: That’s a long time!
Katrina: It is! It is a very long time., but in--from what I’ve noticed, beer before that age was a lot sweeter than it is now, and now it’s going towards that hoppy, bitter-y taste that people love.
Julia: Interesting.
Katrina: And hops are such an interesting flower, too. I’ve actually--I don’t know if you’ve ever held a hop flower, but they are very papery, they are delicate. They are this pale green that just crumbles in your hands.
Julia: I’ve never seen one, but Amanda’s apparently seen them growing.
Amanda: Oh, I have, yeah! As New York craft beer brewing has continued to expand over the last decade more and more hops farms have been growing in the state. So sometimes when you drive up I-90 in New York there are hop farms. The last time I saw them I thought I was dreaming or drunk. Because I was like, “why are those vines so tall? What’s happening?” They’re very cool to see grown.
Katrina: Mhmm. There’s a few breweries around here in Denver. Dry Dock Brewing actually has their own little hop vine barrels right outside of their brewery. They have just this line that goes up to their roof of their building, and the little vines just swirl on up! They’re so cool.
Amanda: Aww, so cute!
Julia: So pretty.
Katrina: It is. But that hop aspect, that’s what gives you that super bitter taste to a beer that those IPAs, those pale ales--that bitter component that you taste and smell--that’s where it’s coming from is the hops. And there’s actually a measuring unit for hoppiness. It’s called the International Bittering Units, IBUs. You’ve probably seen ‘IBU’ in a brewery where it’s saying ‘IBU of 14’ or ‘IBU of 100.’ That’s telling you how bitter it’s going to be.
Julia: That’s a fair warning.
Amanda: That’s very useful!
Katrina: Mhmm, oh yeah. If it’s an IBU of 100, it’s gonna be bitter and you probably should--if you like bitters that’s the drink for you, if you don’t it’s not.
Julia: Oh man. I love that.
Katrina: Yeah. The grains--the malt-y part of it--so the wheats, the barleys, the maize, the oats, and the rice--that’s what makes it that smooth--for darker beers, that’s what gives it that stout-y or porter-y taste.
Julia: Mmm. Amanda’s favorite.
Amanda: Mmm. I need a scale for that, yes.
Katrina: I’m a porter and a stout person. The darker, the chewier: the happier I am.
Julia: Ooh. Very nice.
Amanda: You know, for people who don’t like beer and are interested in trying, I think those are great beers for you to start with, because it’s often fairly sweet or at least not very bitter, not very hoppy, and there’s lots of ways that you can be like, “oh yes, I do like chocolate” or “I do like marshmallow” or “I do like chocolate milk,” and kind of choose those little flavor additives or flavor notes that really work for you and then it’s a way for you not to be like, “oh it’s a beer I am drinking,” but like, “oh there is flavors in here that I can kind of grab onto.”
Katrina: Yeh, absolutely. That’s actually how I started enjoying beers. I’m not super into the hoppier beers, but the more that I’ve been exploring beers, the more that I’ve been tasting different ones, it’s a process of finding which ones you like for sure.
Amanda: Yeah.
Julia: Mhmm.
Katrina: So, evidence of beer production can be dated back about five--very, very far’s to the ancient Sumerians and I’m sorry if I mispronounce anything, I’m not that great at it myself.
Julia: Welcome to the show.
Amanda: Ancient Sumerian is fair game. That one’s okay.
Katrina: Yeah. Archeologists have found beer residue in ceramics that can date back from 3400 BC era and it’s just so amazing to me how they can scientifically say, “yes, we found beer.”
Julia: It’s so cool and didn’t someone recently--I can’t remember if it was a sourdough starter...yeah--
Amanda: Yeah! Sourdough!
Julia: --or they also might’ve brewed some beer with some remnants that they found in pottery, and I’m like...I would try it but also I’m ready to be cursed by the mummy that was made out of this beer or something like that.
Katrina: Yeah--
Amanda: So cool.
Katrina: --there’s...they’ve done some crazy experiments. Like, “oh we found this and we’re gonna remake it!”
Julia: I love that. That’s one of my favorite--historically, that is one of my favorite things to do.
Katrina: Mhmm. Yeah, and especially since beer was so essential to these ancient society’s diets--they couldn’t drink water because it wasn’t clean, it wasn’t safe for them to drink--so in lieu of that, people drank beer because it didn’t make them sick. What they didn’t realize is that during the fermentation process where they boiled the water and boiled the ingredients, that’s what made it safe to drink, so they just drank beer, which I’m all for.
[Theme music]
Julia: Amanda, I’ve been trying to figure out ways of keeping fit with, you know, everything going on right now, and I have really, really turned the corner on being able to run. I used to hate running, but I downloaded Zombies, Run! and it is turning my run into an adventure instead of just a drag.
Amanda: Hell yeah! Is this the app that gives you a story in your earbuds as you are running?
Julia: Yeah, so, it combines thrilling audio storytelling with compelling gameplay. It’s like this hopeful story about people coming together in adversity. It’s not depressing, it’s not grim-dark. It’s written by Naomi Alderman who is a award-winning author of “The Power” and also “Disobedience.” So you’re playing Runner 5 in this, you’re helping rebuild humanity's last bastion, it’s your job to rescue survivors, you collect supplies, and you’re trying to find a cure to the zombies. It’s free to download, it has over 500 missions, and you unlock a new mission every week for free. It works at any speed, it works indoors, it works outdoors, and it’s perfect for complete beginners and more veteran runners, so wherever you’re at in the spectrum--if you love running or hate running it is a great, great app for you, and if you just need a little bit of extra excitement or motivation to run, the app is there for you. So you can download, on your iPhone or on Android you just have to search “Zombies, Run!”
Amanda: Absolutely, that’s “Zombies, Run!” in the app store of iPhone or Android. We are also sponsored, Julia, by Skillshare. Now, every time that I get to recommend Skillshare to you here on the show, I also take a new course and just pick out something that I think the conspirators would enjoy. You know, of course, that Skillshare is an online learning community offering our listeners here on Spirits two free months of Skillshare premium, but before we get to that I need to tell you about the course I took this week, which is Creativity and Beer: A Brewmaster’s Guide to Flavor Emulation by Garrett Oliver who is the brewmaster here at Brooklyn Brewery.
Julia: Did Garrett just make this specific class for us? That’s incredible.
Amanda: It certainly feels like it. It was so fantastic and it takes you through the process of creating a unique beer recipe inspired by a favorite food. It’s only 40 minutes long, I wished it was hours and hours long, but that is the thing that I love most about Skillshare. It let’s you either learn a new hobby or deepen an existing passion or skill in a way that is really digestible and doable. The videos are broken up into short lessons, there are ways to interact with other classmates and even the instructor depending on the course right there on the platform, and the courses cover just so many things that kind of get me out of my head a little bit and teach me to do something new with my hands or with my creativity or even skills to further your career. And at skillshare.com/spirits2, that’s spirits with the number 2, you can get two free months of Skillshare premium. And what that unlocks is unlimited access to their full catalog of classes. So get two free months of Skillshare premium at skillshare.com/spirits2. And now, let’s get back to the show.
Katrina: Let’s get into my favorite part of this historical information about the brewing process, and that is going back to Ancient Sumerian and the goddess Ninkasi. You guys have in the past talked about Inanna who is another Sumerian goddess and you also explained how that god not only embodies what they represent, but they are what they represent.
Amanda: Yes.
Katrina: Ninkasi was both the brewer of beer and beer itself. Her name literally means “the lady who fills the mouth.”
Julia: Ooooooh.
Amanda: Oh dang.
Katrina: Mhmm.
Julia: That is such a great name. Sorry, it’s just incredible.
Katrina: Yes, it is, and she was also said to have been born of “sparkling, fresh water.”
Julia: Awwww. That’s very sweet! What imagery!
Katrina: Yes. I absolutely love how she is described and how early on that it’s a woman who is the goddess of beer, and not only that but it’s believed that the priestesses of Ninkasi were some of the first brewers and that women had brewed beer in the home until the commercialization of beer production began.
Amanda: Man. Homebrewing...that’s where it’s at.
Katrina: Yup. It was a big part of the household where the woman--the wife--would be brewing the beer for the home.
Amanda: That’s so interesting how different professions and parts of a household and a family get differently gendered over time, and I think it’s just great evidence that there is no such thing as a gendered task. It’s just tasks that society tells us should be done by one of “the two genders.”
Julia: Yup.
Katrina: Yup. In the story of Ninkasi, there is a hymn to Ninkasi and the hymn was written by a Sumerian poet that was found on a clay tablet. I’m not gonna read the whole thing because it’s pretty long, but basically, it’s the story of Ninkasi and a recipe for beer.
Amanda: Aaah, yes, thank you!
Julia: Poetry and recipes, the best of all worlds!
Katrina: Yeah, and because I’m not gonna read the whole thing--it is fairly long--I can send it to you guys…
Amanda: Please.
Katrina: ...but it tells about how she was born: “Born of the flowing water, tenderly cared for by the Ninhursag”--and I’m sorry, again, if I pronounce that wrong, it is very possible--
Julia: No one is speaking ancient Sumerian in real life anyway, so.
Katrina: Fair...but, Ninhursag was a Sumerian mother goddess and her parents were, as described in this poem, “Ninkasi, your father is Enki, Lord Nidimmud, your mother is Ninti, the queen of the sacred lake.” Then it starts to talk about the ingredients of honey, grains, malts...and it talks about how the beer is prepared and what it is made in, which is described as a “collector vat” and it goes on to say, “Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat. It is the onrush of Tigris and Euryphrates.” and Tigris and Euphrates, they are the rivers in the middle east that run roughly parallel, the courses, and the way that I interpret that is that this beer was so important that it was as important as these rivers that are essential to life.
Julia: Yeah. Gotta love the Mesopotamian twin rivers.
Amanda: I know.
Julia: What babes.
Amanda: That cradle of civilization, y’all.
Julia: Cradle.
Katrina: Mhmm. Now there are a few other references to other goddesses of beer around the world. However, I tried really hard to find more information about them, but I found more information about Ninkasi than I did these other ones that I am going to touch on just very slightly. Aclla is from the Incan culture and said to be the keeper of fires who also brewed beer. There is some debate on whether or not Aclla was a goddess or just a general title that was given to virgins that served the sun god.
Julia: A good title--
Katrina: It is!
Julia: A good title, even if it isn’t the actual goddess’ name.
Katrina: Mhmm. There is another goddess associated with beer, Albina, white barley goddess of Argos, and I could find super much for this one other than breweries with this name.
Julia: Sounds very specific which I also appreciate for deities and spirits. Like the more specific a spirit is or a deity is to a specific thing, the more I love them.
Katrina: Yeah, and I’d love to look more into it, it’s just at that time I couldn’t find very much, which was interesting to me. Now, I could certainly keep going about beer all day long, but I promised other topics, too, so I’m gonna talk a little bit about wine now.
Amanda: Very good.
Katrina: The oldest evidence of, for the use of grapes as a part of the wine fermentation process, which is also fermented with rice and honey, in China about 9000 years ago. Researchers have been able to identify the presence of tartar acid and remnants in ceramic remains. So, kind of seeing a trend…
Amanda: Science is so cool!
Katrina: Yeah, seeing that trend in that ceramic was really good for keeping these things preserved. Viticulture is the cultivation of grapes and vitis vinifera is the species of grapes that is most commonly used in wine-making.
Amanda: Thank you for defining that.
Julia: Oooh. Just break out all the Latin. I could sit here and listen to Latin plant names forever.
Katrina: Oh yeah. They’re very pretty. By 4000 BC in the Middle East they were cultivating vinus vinfera though some believe it was most likely earlier than that. Records from Egypt date back from 2500 BC and depict the use of grapes in wine-making as well.
Amanda: That’s so long ago! That is so wild!
Julia: That is so long.
Katrina: Yup. It’s been around for a very long time. The Greeks were also active in the wine trade and making. Not surprising, considering their lore of Dionysus.
Julia: There’s the boy.
Katrina: Yup. Bacchus, to the Romans, was the god of wine, wine-making, grape cultivation, fertility, ritual madness, theater, and religious ecstasy--and you guys have touched on his origin story in past episodes as well. Before viticulture started in ancient Greece they drank fermented mead, actually, which is a fermented honey drink.
Amanda: Delicious.
Katrina: Very typically sweet.
Julia: We’re big fans of mead here on this show.
Katrina: That’s good.
Amanda: In this household we stan mead.
Katrina: There’s one particular great geek lounge that we visit quite often that strictly serves mead.
Julia: Oof, yes, love it.
Amanda: God, Julia, we’ve got to get out to Colorado.
Julia: We really do.
Katrina: Yes. Definitely. Now we’re gonna go a little forward in time and we’re gonna go to the voyages of Columbus. After--
Amanda: Boo, Columbus! Go home!
Julia: Boo, Columbus!
Katrina: Yeah...I’m not gonna touch too much on Columbus himself, but after his voyages grape cultivation and wine-making had made its way to the New World. Spanish missionaries in the mid-16th century took viticulture to Chile and Argentina, and by the 19th and 20th centuries the modern wine-making industries were rapidly developing. Prominent wine-growing regions can now be found all over from the foothills of the Andes Mountains to Napa, California.
Julia: I just...I love how things have spread. I love that we’ve brought certain things to certain areas that aren’t going to ruin the environment that they’re in.
Amanda: Yeah, or can contribute something instead of decimating everything.
Julia: That’d be nice right?
Katrina: That would be very nice. Now...a fun fact that I found...that a chemist from the mid 19the century, Louis Pasteur, explained the fermentation process and then identified the yeast that caused fermentation. He also identified a bacteria that can cause wine to spoil and created a heating method to kill the bacteria.
Amanda: Pasteurizing!
Julia: Pasteurization!
Katrina: Exactly. I didn’t actually know that before I randomly found it and was like, “oh that is fascinating and cool.”
Julia: Makes sense. Not just for milk, for other things, too!
Katrina: Yeah, absolutely. There are several types of wine within five classifications. You’ve got white, red, rose, a dessert wine or sweet, and then sparkling. Wines are classified by the grape variety used and the region where the grapes are grown. Now, Julia, I think you’re gonna like this next section a little bit more--
Julia: Oh. Well, thank you.
Katrina: --because we’re gonna go into Japanese rice wine known as sake--
Amanda: Oooooh.
Julia: Sake!
Katrina: --which is the fermenting of rice during which starches are converted into sugar and this alcohol. Sake is served either hot or cold. I don’t know, myself, super a lot about sake ‘cause it’s not my personally preferred drink, but what I learned going through the research that I found was that there are several different types of sake, of course, and there is so much gorgeous, beautiful etiquette that goes into serving that drink and the partaking of that beverage. It was really fascinating to read, I can shoot you some links to where I found that also.
Julia: We would love that. Yeah, I’m a big fan of the traditions around sake. There’s definitely a lot of traditional, ceremonial nature to it when it comes to actual Japanese cultural heritage, very similar to like, tea services across different cultures.
Katrina: Yeah, and some of the things that I found in that etiquette regard is just so pretty and my favorite part is those adorable cups that they get served in. They’re so cute.
Julia: There is a subpar sushi place around the corner from the Mulitude studio that its real redeeming factor is the fact that if you spend more than $15 they give you unlimited free sake and it is the best.
Katrina: That’s a fair trade-off, I think.
Julia: I feel like it is.
Katrina: So I wanted to share a quick story that just really made me smile when I read it, and this is quoted directly from the article I found and I can share that as well--the story is called “Bull’s Blood: Terrifying Wine.”
Julia: Yes, yes, yes, yes! Give it to me.
Katrina: So…”During the1550s, the Turkish ruler, Suleiman the Magnificent, prepared his siege of Eger Castle in the Beech Mountains of northern Hungary. The fortress was defended by 2,000 soldiers and civilians led by Captain István Dobó against far more Turks. Miraculously, the Hungarians held their stations despite several weeks of repeated attacks on their walls. It was during this onslaught that Dobo authorized rations of red wine to maintain the strength and morale of his defenders. The story goes that wine streamed down the thirsty soldiers’ beards and armor, creating the notion among the enemy that the Hungarians were drinking bull’s blood to give them superhuman strength…”
Julia: Heck. Yes. Love that.
Amanda: We love an intimidation tactic, we really do.
Katrina: Oh yeah, this is fantastic.”...as a result, the Turks withdrew from the Eger Fortress. It was another 200 years or so before the Eger wine-growers commercialized their red wine legend into bottles, which now is famous”--they have a wine called Egri Bikavér. Bull’s Blood of Eger.
Julia: Someone please send me a bottle of this. I beg of you. I beg of you.
Katrina: I would drink that so quick.
Julia: It sounds delicious.
Katrina: It does.
Amanda: That is one of my favorite parts of getting deeper into different kinds of traditions and naming conventions of different alcohols and finding a beer or wine or sake or spirit that is named after some obscure but totally right on reference makes me want to make those things. In the same way that you wanna own a bar or brewery to name it, I want to do that specifically to be able to name liquors and alcohols that I make.
Katrina: There is a brewery right around the corner from us called Fiction Brewing…
Julia: That sounds really cute.
Katrina: If you come to Denver you’ve gotta go to this place. All of their beers are based on books and fictions
Julia: Amanda!
Katrina: ...and they name them accordingly. It is so cute. Their bar is made out of books and it’s just so adorable. I love this place.
Amanda: I’m sobbing.
Julia: My dream is one day I will own a farm and make cheese and have, like a cheese business and I will name every cheese after like...an SAT prep word.
[Laughter]
Julia: That’s my dream.
Katrina: That’s very good.
Amanda: Mom, I have to go! I have to study the cheese!
Katrina: Oh that is brilliant. I would eat that cheese.
Julia: Oh man, it’d be so good.
Katrina: I would eat that cheese with my Bull’s Blood wine.
Julia: Heck yes.
Katrina: Now I wanna get into liquor. It’s not my biggest knowledge-based subject, as I’m a beer girl, but I certainly wanna bring it into this discussion. So I wanna get some definitions out of the way because there is a difference between liquor and liqueur. I really loved how an article described it, that I came across, and I’m gonna quote this. “Both are distilled spirits that contain alcohol and are crucial ingredients when mixing cocktails. The liquids are not the same and the terms are not interchangeable.” And to me this is just so perfect ‘cause it’s so true. Liquor in general is not sweet and there are six types of liquor. Would you guys like to take a stab at trying to name those six?
Julia: Gin.
Amanda: Vodka.
Julia: Whiskey.
Amanda: Rum.
Julia: Gin, vodka, whiskey, rum...I’m thinking of what all is in my cocktails.
Amanda: Brandy?
Katrina: Aah! Very good!
Julia: I think--oh, yeah, okay. Cool. And then...um…
Katrina: You got one more.
Julia: I know. Ooh, this is gonna be hard.
Amanda: Tequila!
Katrina: Tequila!
Julia: Tequila, yeah. Thank you, Amanda. God, I couldn’t think of my margaritas for a second there I guess.
Katrina: Yup! Those are the six types of liquors that you will come across in any bar or anybody’s wet bar. Think of liqueurs as a wide range of flavors. So, coffee flavors, nutty and fruity flavors. You’ve got cream liqueurs like Baileys Irish Cream that are typically things that you mix into cocktails.
Julia: Right.
Katrina: It is believed that people first began distilling alcohols around the 13th century, though it might have been earlier--it probably was. Now, I’ve got a great folk tale that I absolutely love for you guys.
Amanda: Yes, please!
Katrina: So this is a Scottish folk tale about a highlander and the Devil.
Julia: Yes, yes, yes, yes, excellent.
Amanda: What an even match-up.
Julia: That is an even match-up, correct.
Katrina: So, Tom Campbell--Camp-bell--a highlander from Wigtown, who was a sailor then settled down back at home as a blacksmith with his wife and three kids. As any good highlander does, Tom loved his uisge-beatha, also known as whiskey.
Julia: Ha ha.
Katrina: His town was hit by a very bad plague and naturally he was afraid he’d soon be spending more time at home so he stopped after a long day of work to get a bottle of the finest whiskey. As he checked the quality of his purchase, he held up a small toast and announced, “the plague is the Devil’s work, right enough, but he won’t get the better of me.”
Julia: Oh. You can’t just challenge the Devil like that dude. Come on!
Katrina: Oh, of course not! Because, of course, what happens? On his way home he runs into none other than the Devil himself.
Julia: Obviously.
Amanda: Ugh, of course.
Katrina: Of course, Tom--as if expecting the Devil’s company--he invited the Devil to drink with him.
Julia: Hmmm. Excellent.
Katrina: The Devil apparently hadn’t had much to drink in the past, promptly got drunk after drinking half the bottle before Tom took it away saying, “Hey! Save some for me!”
Julia: I like the idea of the Devil having a low tolerance.
Katrina: Mhmm.
Amanda: I also love that this is actually the first word that they teach you in Irish Duolingo is uisce which is water, but yeah. Uisce beatha is just whiskey. Like that’s just what it’s called and it translates to water of life, and that’s absolutely wonderful.
Julia: Incredible.
Katrina: I’m sorry if I pronounce it wrong, again, I’m just not--
Julia: Listen...
Amanda: That is, again, the one Irish where I know how to pronounce it, because it’s how you begin Irish Duolingo.
Katrina: So after promptly getting drunk, the Devil announced that they would fight for Tom’s soul. Of course, Tom won against the drunken Devil, the Devil left Tom to sleep off his own drunkenness on the beach and the next morning Tom was found by the town’s priest who had been sent out to look for Tom by Tom’s wife. The priest told Tom this was the second luckiest thing to happen that day. And when Tom asked what the first lucky thing was, the priest told him the plague was gone!
Amanda: Yay!
Julia: Good job, Tom!
Katrina: That’s when Tom knew he had used whiskey to beat the Devil and save the people of Wigtown.
Julia: Incredible!
Amanda: Beautiful. Icon.
Julia: So good!
Amanda: So good.
Katrina: It’s so good. I absolutely loved this story.
Julia: It is extremely good.
Amanda: When I get drunk all I wanna do is read poems. I don’t wanna fight! I just wanna read!
Julia: That is fair. That is very you.
Katrina: Just don’t egg on the Devil then!
Julia: Or, egg on the Devil and be like, “hey, by the way, I’m gonna get you drunk and then there’s no plague anymore? Cool. Cool, cool, cool.
Amanda: Yeah, what if I’m like, “Devil, facism. It’s your fault.” And he’s like, “no, it’s not.” And then I beat him and then facism’s gone? That would be great.
Julia: The dream!
Katrina: That is a perfect game plan that I am so in on.
Amanda: Thank you.
Julia: We’ll make it work.
Katrina: Fantastic. So, a couple more things that I wanna touch on is that in the 1920s and 30s the United States had the ratification of the 18th amendment, which banned the manufacture, the transportation, and the sale of intoxicating beverages.
Julia: Damn you prohibition!
Katrina: Yeah. Yup. You couldn’t legally drink. We clearly agree that this was not the most popular law. It ultimately failed, and in 1933 the 21st amendment repealed the 18th, and as you said, that time period was called the prohibition. During this time though, we see the rise of speakeasies, also known as--I love this--they were also known as Blind Pigs or Gin Joints.
Julia: Oh, I hadn’t heard blind pigs before, that’s very good.
Amanda: That’s wild! Yeah! There’s a pub called The Blind Pig in New York and that must be why!
Julia: There you go!
Katrina: I giggled so hard when I read that. I was like, that’s fantastic. I would so call my speakeasy The Blind Pig.
Julia: Very, very good.
Katrina: Now these speakeasies were usually hidden in back rooms or basements. Some were in fancier clubs with jazz bands and dance floors. Of course, prohibition caused the rise of illegal activities surrounding the production and sales of alcohol. Al Capone was said to have made an estimated $60 million a year supplying beer and hard liquor to the speakeasies that he controlled.
Julia: That’s so much money. Is that in 1920s money or in modern day money?
Katrina: You know, in the article that I read, I don’t think it said but that’s a great question.
Julia: If that’s in 1920s money, that is so much money!
Katrina: Yeah.
Julia: That’s way too much!
Amanda: I see now how tax evasion was the thing that got him.
Julia: It makes sense, doesn’t it?
Katrina: Now I don’t wanna spend all this time talking with you guys about how great beer and wine and alcohol is. Yes, it’s a huge deal especially for me who is--I’m trying to make a career in this trade and historically it’s had such an impact on cultures across the world--but I also do feel like it is something that is important to talk about the not-so-great side of it.
Julia: Alcoholism is a very prominent subject and for some it’s a thing that they deal with every single day. Either themselves or through a family member or a friend, and I do really feel like it’s important to point out that there is help for those who need it. I did some research, I found the national drug helpline, drughelpline.org, which has a lot of resources for anyone who needs help with substance abuse of any kind. I just feel like that is something, too, that is super important to point out because everybody needs help if that is something that they need help with.
Julia: That’s very thoughtful/
Amanda: Yeah, it’s something that’s definitely affected my family and people that I know, and if you’re looking for someone to support you in your decision to seek treatment or just to kind of reassess your relationship with any kind of behavior or substance, you have your support in us.
Julia: Mhmm.
Katrina: And the last part that I have that I really wanna talk about is that it’s not all bad. I don’t wanna end on a sad note. Our history is so ripe with stories about beer, wine, liquor from Greece to America to Japan. Alcohol has been around for a very, very long time--oops or not--and it’s not going anywhere. It’s involved in so many cultures and religions--you’ve got wine communion in Catholic churches and many cultures use alcohol in rituals or prayer--and today brewing industries are growing so much across the United States and throughout the world, beer gardens are becoming more and more popular, we see local craft breweries popping up everywhere. It is part of the culture and it is thriving.
Amanda: Totally, and whether you are bonding with friends and family, or visiting a new city and taking in new sights with a glass of beer, glass of wine, a cup of the liquor or liqueur of your choice, or water or tea or coffee, we hope that it’s an opportunity for you to just take a notice of the world around you and share a story with someone you love.
Katrina: Yeah, and that’s a great segue into something that I wanna point out. You don’t have to be a drinker to enjoy the culture or have a negative outlook on it. There are some people who don’t drink but will go to a brewery with friends, just because you enjoy that environment, you enjoy that culture, and it’s not something that has to force distance between people. My best friend--she’s married, she is married to a guy who does not drink any alcohol at all and she does. And it has absolutely no negative effect on their relationship. He respects her choices, she respects his, and they have such a good relationship in that aspect. So it can work!
Julia: Absolutely. That is absolutely true, and I think it’s also really important to be like...if you’re hanging out with people who don’t drink, don’t ask them why they don’t drink. It’s really none of your business.
Katrina: Oh yeah.
Amanda: Yeah!
Katrina: It’s not your business! It’s fine, let it go!
Julia: Don’t be that John Mulaney bit where they offer him a turnip because they don’t know what to do with him ‘cause he doesn’t drink.
[Laughter]
Amanda: Yeah. Focus your attention, instead, on the wonderful history of the beverage of your choice.
Katrina: Yeah, and breweries will actually touch on that. They don’t just--there’s a lot of breweries around here that don’t just brew beer. They brew--they create their own root beer or orange cream soda and they’ll give it to you for free and often in cases if you’re not drinking and you’re the designated driver. So there’s something there for everyone.
Julia: Absolutely. Well we are so glad that breweries can be such a great central hub for communities and friendships and just people to hang out and have a good time.
Katrina: Yeah, absolutely. I find the culture so fascinating and enjoyable.
Amanda: Well, good luck in your studies. I would love to give you the double thumbs up and when you do find employment at a brewery or start one of your own, I definitely do want to visit.
Julia: We would love to patron it.
Katrina: Absolutely. You guys would be welcome any time.
Julia: ‘Preciate it.
Amanda: Katrina, thank you so much.
Katrina: Thank you for having me.
Amanda: Yeah! Any projects that you wanna let our conspirators know about?
Katrina: Yeah, absolutely! So, my best friends and I, we are working on a future podcast and we are creating our own tabletop roleplay game book. So, our roleplay game book is going to be called “Alloria” and our podcast “Don’t Botch” which you can find at starsinmydie.com.
Amanda: Very good domain name.
Julia: That’s a really good URL.
Katrina: So starsinmydie.com is held on by my friend Katie and she makes handmade custom dice collections.
Julia: Very cool.
Katrina: Very cool, cronchable dice.
Amanda: Absolutely cool.
Julia: Oooh. So cronchable!
Amanda: I love that so much.
Katrina: Thanks for having me!
Julia: It was delightful to have you here.
Katrina: Oh it was delightful to be.
Amanda: Yay! And, listeners, remember…
Julia: Stay creepy…
Amanda: ...stay cool.