Bad News For People Who Want to Mainline Alcohol (w/Brian Ashcraft)
Kotaku journalist and author Brian (!!!!!!) Ashcraft, joins Ollie to break the disappointing news to our mostly alcoholic expat audience that Strong Zero could be going off the market.
Kotaku journalist and author of "The Japanese Sake Bible," among other Japan-focused books, BRIAN (!!!) Ashcraft, joins Ollie to break the disappointing news that Strong Zero is going off the market to our mostly alcoholic expat listenership. Plus, Ollie recommends a River Cruise that will give you an English menu and ask you to make your boat selection while you're still at the back of the line, and Bobby barely conceals his resentment for the actor who beat him out for the part of "Guy riding motorcycle on long bridge" in some Karaoke stock footage.
Topics discussed on this episode range from:
Topics discussed on this episode range from:
- How Brian is not as addicted to alcohol as we expected him to be
- That's Brian, THE GUEST, not you reading this. You are just as awful as we expect you to be.
- What makes good Sake
- What level of complexity makes for good flavors/podcasting
- The difference between distilling and brewing and other super basic shit Ollie doesn't know
- What you're ACTUALLY drinking when you drink alcohol
- How Japanese Sake gets made
- How to select nihon-shu throughout whatever number of seasons it is that Japan has
- Serving styles for Sake
- Pairing with Sake, and common misconceptions about pairing Japanese whisky
- How it's fine to drink the cheapest Japanese whisky if you're drinking highballs, which COMPLETELY validates the last ten years of Bobby's life
- What is IN chuu-hai, and how many times during the episode will Ollie call it hi-chu
- Why it's distressing to drink lots of Chuu-hai
- How we are open to receiving wedding invitations from listeners (even though we won't accept them)
- Why Chuu-hai is so addictive
- How drinking Chuu-hai is closer to drinking hand sanitizer
- How Japanese alcohol companies market and sell Chuu-hai
- What the labeled percentage on the can actually indicates
- What share of Chuu-hai sales, especially strong Chuu-hai sales constitute for alcohol
- Why one might choose to drink strong chuu-hai
- But you already know the answer to that
- Profit Margins for Chuu-hai
- How Japan has funded its foreign aggression
- Some unexpected things that have spurred Japanese alcohol innovation
- What you should drink INSTEAD of Chuu-hai and why
- The western equivalent of drinking Chuu-hai
Topics covered in the Extras include:
- How the tradition of comparing sake to whisky got started (long time ago!)
- Magic-based young-adult literature, for some reason
- What it felt like to have been too old for the whole Harry Potter thing
- An INCREDIBLE WAY THAT OLLIE MANAGES TO LEVEL UP HIS OXFORD BRAGGING
- You'll have to infer from context what "papped" means
- What college Brian went (That's Brian, THE GUEST (noone wants to hear about your community college)).
- Ollie explains how Harry Potter is actually related to Whisky
- How whisky became a Japanese thing
- Tons of Brian's insight into Japanese alcohol that don't make it into the podcast
- More of Ollie's ignorance of basic alcohol terminology
- Why a leaky wood is somehow used to store Japanese whisky
- Why it takes so long to make a good whisky, and where most Japanese whisky goes
- Ollie's terrible idea to rebrand whisky
- Ollie's terrible idea for an illegal nightclub
- How you account for the price of eggs worldwide
- Why Yamazaki may not be able to sell you alcohol even if visit sober and have money
- How the success of Japanese whisky abroad took Japanese whisky makers by surprise
- Brian's three recommendations for the best Japanese whisky you should buy
- Ollie's experience of drinking alcohol frankly too nice for him
- How Ollie spent $500USD of someone else's money wisely
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Content links
Pre-order Brian's Latest Book "The Japanese Sake Bible"
DONATE TO:
Black Lives Matter
Official George Floyd Memorial Fund
NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Runnymede Trust
Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust
or Tweet to us at @jbrcpod
Content links
Pre-order Brian's Latest Book "The Japanese Sake Bible"
DONATE TO:
Black Lives Matter
Official George Floyd Memorial Fund
NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Runnymede Trust
Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust
Social Media Links:
Other things to click on
Some are affiliate links because we're sell-outs
- We record remotely using Squadcast and the podcast is hosted on Transistor.
- Bobby uses the Samson Go Mic and Ollie uses the AT2005USB mic
