Cats, Cranberries, And Questionable Maps: A Very Tipsy Holiday Special

Holiday spirit tastes better when it comes with stories, experiments, and a little chaos. We kick off with a surprise: a red blend built from an AI “recipe.” The winemaker hated the idea, followed the constraints anyway, and ended up impressed by the result. That tale sets up a larger theme as we juggle innovation and tradition—how to honor craft while giving new ideas a seat at the bar.

From there we throw open the door to real-life hosting. We swap Rochester misadventures, bottle share finds, and Irish pub nostalgia while laying out a blueprint for stress-light entertaining: focus on meats, let guests bring sides and desserts, set early, and actually use the nice china. We talk seating 35 without losing your mind, why punch bowls deserve a comeback, and the etiquette of shipping gifts that shouldn’t be opened before the big morning.

Behind the bar, we get hands-on. A cranberry bourbon sour becomes a lesson in restraint—choose one tart driver and give cranberry room to paint the glass. A rum old fashioned with agave and orange bitters proves that sweetness should support, not smother. We debate maple syrup in an old fashioned, weigh a New York sour’s wine float, and rethink orphan liquor into party-ready punches with ginger and pineapple. Then we go deep on nog and milk punch: how to whisk yolks with sugar, fold in whites for lift, and grate nutmeg; why clarified milk punch looks like amber and drinks like silk; and how a few historic techniques can make your holiday table sing.

By the end, you’ll have a shortlist of crowd-pleasing winter cocktails, a smarter approach to hosting big family gatherings, and a fresh take on what tradition can mean when you let flavor lead. If this episode made you thirsty, share it with a friend who’s on drink duty, hit follow for more spirited conversations, and drop your favorite holiday cocktail in a review—we might mix it next time.

Transcript

Welcome, Banter, And Holiday Hangovers

Matt Fox 0:16

We're gonna drink a fine whiskey and smoke a really fine cigar.

Jamie Flanagan 0:24

It is time for Happy Hard is the man cave happy hour whiskey, cigars, spirits, the stories that go along with it. Next is Jamie Flanagan. Well, you jump in there real quick.

August Gitshlag 0:33

You want to make sure I couldn't say it yet. Mr. Matt Fox. Mr. August Kitchlag. There we go. Jamie doesn't have to introduce anybody. No. I don't. Well, you guys they can introduce our guests.

Jamie Flanagan 0:45

All right. Cats and berries. Cats and berries. Fairies and kitties.

unknown 0:51

Meow.

Matt Fox 0:52

What? Say that again.

Jamie Flanagan 0:54

Cats, berries, and prison.

August Gitshlag 0:55

Right up on the microphone.

Kat 0:56

I'm here for the sound effects. Yes. Just do that again. Meow. Thank you.

August Gitshlag 1:00

We're all still a little bit hung over from berries party on Saturday. Still. Thank you for having us. We had a great time. Yeah.

unknown 1:07

Yes.

Matt Fox 1:08

I gotta say, I've never been to your home. And for some reason, I always thought you lived in Ham Trammock.

Barry 1:14

I use that a lot. I spent a lot of time down there because I don't live there.

Matt Fox 1:20

But you're you're you're a Rochester guy.

Barry 1:22

Absolutely.

Matt Fox 1:23

And that's kind of like stomping ground for myself. Yeah. Because when we were like, oh, he's like, that's local for me. I know exactly where his house is. I can almost pinpoint on the map. And then there you were.

Barry 1:34

Yeah, I live two blocks from where I went in kindergarten. I haven't gone far.

Matt Fox 1:39

It was funny when we were we were getting there and I told Jamie because I was driving, I'm like, you know, if we get bored, we can just walk right over to Godfather's. It's close. Have a stick over there. He's like, yeah, we could. But we were not bored at all. It was a black one.

Jamie Flanagan 1:57

Yeah, that was fabulous. It was had food, food, food, food. I had eaten earlier, and then I had lamented that decision because there was a lot of food, and then I ate again. Right. Oh, oh, not like I wasn't going to eat again.

August Gitshlag 2:10

We had quite the adventure walking there from downtown Rochester. I'm still floored. Google Map took us through the park and it was these frozen trails and everything.

Barry 2:19

And you walked up the paint creek trail. And it's that's just an ice skating ring. That's all it was. That's all it was. Yep. So we're shuffling our feet. It's not even open for part of the distance. They're they're putting a new bridge in.

Kat 2:31

Right.

Barry 2:32

That might be the part that we crossed crossed.

Kat 2:34

So and that was after you did a whiskey tasting at Rochester Beastro.

August Gitshlag 2:39

Yes, and you enjoyed a half gallon of Sambuka. Tell me, tell me you stopped.

Matt Fox 2:43

Tell me you stopped at the Paint Creek Tavern. Oh we did. Whichever one is right there. It's the it's right. It's called the Paint Creek Tavern. Yeah, yeah.

August Gitshlag 2:51

There's yeah, we we stopped in there and had a had a quick morsel.

Matt Fox 2:53

There's a there's a coney place right next door to it. Yes, right. Right. And they're cash only. Yes. I know this because I had to use the ATM one time to get a hot dog to get a hot dog, yes.

Kat 3:04

Yeah, Rochester's adorable with all the lights this year, you know.

August Gitshlag 3:08

Yeah. That's why we walked. Yeah, yeah. Then we're like, all right, well, now do we get it? We wait 20 minutes for an Uber or do we walk and it gets us there in 18 minutes? Let's just walk. Oh, it's 18 minutes without a frozen tundra in between. Right.

Barry 3:21

I don't know why it sent you up the trail. You should have just gone straight up. I know. That's what I said.

August Gitshlag 3:25

Mike's like, we're turning here. I'm like, no, we just gotta go right up Main Street, make a left and a right. We're there. Oh, I don't know.

Kat 3:30

It was an adventure. We actually were Christmas caroling at one point.

August Gitshlag 3:33

We did carol through your neighborhood, yes. No one threw money at us or golf balls. To the window, to the wall.

unknown 3:39

Yes.

August Gitshlag 3:40

Yeah.

Matt Fox 3:43

How's that cocktail, Jamie? Oh, that's good. It is so good.

August Gitshlag 3:46

So we are we are a couple days before Christmas. Yes, we are. And so we have Christmas gifts on the table here. Look at this. This little penguin here. Yeah, isn't that kind of fun? It is fun. Is it gonna be Irish? Or is it gonna be Mexican? Is it gonna be Kentuckian? I gotta save the pen. Is it gonna be the pen wing? I'm saving the pen wing.

Matt Fox 4:04

I mean, I have a is it your bottle of wine, August? It is a bottle of wine.

Jamie Flanagan 4:11

It's it's uh yeah, we try to I'm sick of bourbon for fuck's sake.

Kat 4:15

Oh, cheers.

Jamie Flanagan 4:18

So, no, well, you know, I said we've done bourbon, bourbon, bourbon. And uh, so I went over to Keiko's. So we're gonna visit our friends over at Keiko's, and I'm like, I think I want to do a wine, I think I want to give the boys a bottle of wine, and and I I you know, I think this one's kind of nice. And he's like, No, no, he goes, That is nice. He goes, That is very nice. He goes, but I can get you something. Either it might be less, my it might be let me talk, and he gave me a couple things, and then we went to this one, and the guy who makes it, he's like, he doesn't like social media, he's the the the maker doesn't like social media, he's yeah, and he's got all these these bottles, and someone had challenged him and said, you know, I wonder if AI could make a wine, and he's like, No way, no F and way, it's not no, it's just it we can't do it, and so he sat down with a couple people, and they he he wrote directions to make it impossible for AI to do it, and then AI said and you know, I want four grapes, and I want them to be from this region, and I want you know, I want this, and I want the flavor profile to end up being like this, and I want this, and it'd like give here are the steps to do, and he did it, and he was like, Holy crap! And it's actually and and Joe, and he says it's really nice.

August Gitshlag 5:32

Followed that recipe to make this, huh?

Jamie Flanagan 5:34

Yeah, he did, and he said, I will never ever do it again. He goes, actually, I like the results. He goes, I I enjoyed the wine. He goes, but that's what I was thinking. I was like, I would have done these four grapes and I would have done it. Uh, maybe one or two of the steps might have been slightly different, but uh, you know, I followed what the directions had said, and you know, it it's kind of the profile I was looking for, and it's a nice wine. He goes, uh, but and there's a QR code on it that you have you bit, it takes you to a video of him talking about the process. I saw that QR code on there, okay. And doing it, so yeah, we'll do that before we do it. It it takes it takes you through the process of that, and then the the really wild thing, the label is an amalgamation of uh all his different labels from his other ones. Interesting from his the wines that he actually does, except for the one with the frog on it.

Matt Fox 6:16

So I I I look at this bottle and it's it's a black, you know, black label.

Jamie Flanagan 6:20

It's a red blend in there as well.

Matt Fox 6:22

And the lettering, the font, looks you know, and it's called sign of the times.

August Gitshlag 6:26

Yeah, it looks like computers like looks like the matrix war games. It reminds me of the uh the Macintosh computer commercial during the Super Bowl where the lady runs in and throws the big hammer at the right at the IBM screen.

Matt Fox 6:38

Yeah, but the lettering is black and you want to play a game, and it's and it's and it's like the matrix on here almost. Yeah, I love this.

Jamie Flanagan 6:45

This is great looking. So I forget it's something on not uh not on the bourbon.

August Gitshlag 6:50

Yeah, I apologize for giving you bourbon then. What a dick. No, I don't.

Jamie Flanagan 6:54

I'm ecstatic. I was I was hoping for exactly such a thing.

August Gitshlag 6:58

What did you get? What did you get them? I got you both a bottle of Elijah Craig. What did I get them?

Jamie Flanagan 7:02

A bottle of Elijah Craig. Did you really?

August Gitshlag 7:05

Yeah, a little small bottle. Yeah, that's funny.

Jamie Flanagan 7:07

It's like we know we were running, we were running low in the studio, so it's like I was like, I gotta pick up, I got a little grocery list in there. I'm like, I need burners, I need Canada drama.

Matt Fox 7:18

Had you opened your gift yet for me? Because I just spoiled the shit out of that.

August Gitshlag 7:21

I did, I did, I did. Thank you, Matthew. I uh walked into my office this morning, slightly hung over from my birthday yesterday. Happy birthday, and look at my desk, and right there is a nice big bottle of Jameson. And I went, don't want to look at that. The gift from my my admin.

Kat 7:36

Yeah, very good. All the freebies this time of year, too, with like the Christmas.

August Gitshlag 7:39

Yeah, there's no reason to buy a bottle that doesn't have a glass or a gimmick with it or an ornament or uh you know, right? That Elijah Craig has that great syrup in it.

Barry 7:47

I can tell you one reason.

August Gitshlag 7:49

You don't have you have enough glasses?

Barry 7:50

Holy smokes, I have so many glasses.

Matt Fox 7:52

Well, you you dropped a few of them when we were over there on Saturday. I did not, I dropped okay.

August Gitshlag 7:57

The phone was calling no, the phone was still and I just watched we were watching a game and it slid. It took out three uh shot glasses, but I managed to sort of hacky sack before they hit the ground and nothing broke. But they hit the ground. I broke one yesterday.

Matt Fox 8:11

Those shoes of yours, that's what cushioned right the Santa shoes.

August Gitshlag 8:15

The Santa shoes crazy Santa shoes on, yes. I have not now. I'm not putting my legs up on the table. Well, maybe if she asked nicely. Would you never mind?

Matt Fox 8:24

I don't want to see you stretch that way.

Gifts On The Table And The AI Wine Story

Kat 8:26

No, no, we ended up at the end of Barry's bar where everyone was sampling like everything under the sun.

Barry 8:32

That little mini bottle share popped up. Oh, yeah, with the mead meat.

Jamie Flanagan 8:37

Because uh we did at at Koon's, we did a broadcast with the guild. What's the guild again? KGB, the Kunan Guild of Brewers, yes, and so again it was a lot of the usual suspects from there, yep, sharing different bottles of uh things they purchased and things they created. So that was that was actually fun. I I got to taste a couple, and they were they were it's always it was the it was the red flesh of the apple that apple spider that it was very good.

Matt Fox 9:02

It was very, very good. Yeah, it was all red flesh apple. It was the gentleman with the red beard, yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 9:06

Bill Billy I like when it's a tasting because I don't know if I could do a full one, any of the you know, those are those are tasters for me to to do a full drink on on one of those.

Barry 9:17

You know, one of my best friends is he's not a beer drinker, he loves his whiskey. But but Greg was telling me one time that he's fascinated by the fact that he'll see you know eight or nine of us all huddling around a 12-ounce bottle, you know. Oh yeah, absolutely pouring a little dram in each glass, you know.

Jamie Flanagan 9:33

And yeah, well, it's it's 190 proof, so yeah, yeah. All right, not possible, but okay, but you get the idea. Yeah, but sometimes they're they're pretty they're pretty high octane, and and uh and sometimes they're so so flavorful. Uh you you really don't want to do too much. Yeah, so that was that was uh immensely enjoyable. And I have to compliment you on your basement before we get into doing our Christmas cocktails today, which is where we're heading for a a cranberry bourbon sour, I think. But your basement kind of an Irish pub, kinda it's uh I I kind of like it a lot.

Barry 10:06

That was definitely my inspiration.

Jamie Flanagan 10:08

I've done to a few.

unknown 10:10

I liked it.

Matt Fox 10:12

What was the what was the shirt that you were wearing that evening? The stag's head the stag because you told us a story. Yeah, absolutely.

Barry 10:18

My favorite pub in Ireland.

Matt Fox 10:20

So you had been there when you told us you were eight years old.

Barry 10:23

I was eight, 1970. I was there.

Matt Fox 10:25

I love this story, and then you you wanted to go back and visit, but you had an idea as to where it was, right?

Barry 10:31

We went, I was back there in 2000, right? And uh, I was there with a couple of friends, and I'm like, we gotta find this place, of course, before the web, before the the Google Maps and all that sort of stuff. I had this vague idea of where I needed to be on Dame Street. I'm like, we're gonna get so we got a bus, got into town, and followed my nose and found it within 10 minutes.

Matt Fox 10:55

You literally did. Was that the picture of you like strutting into the that was that was the more recent one? That was that was last year.

Barry 11:03

You were a man on a mission in that picture on my way to my because you knew where you were going and how to get absolutely, and there was nobody was gonna stop me. But yeah, after 30 years finding it, like that was pretty slick, you know.

Matt Fox 11:16

And yeah, that's then it was as I recalled. Yeah, thank you for sharing that story. But yeah, you're sure Jamie's like that. Well, that was a great place. He's like, Well, hold on a second, listen to this, right?

Jamie Flanagan 11:26

So, yeah, but there were some interesting pictures up on the wall, too. Were those some relatives? You have some pictures of I know there's like uh there's some Irish historical people, but were there some family members up there?

Barry 11:37

Yeah, most most of those photos on the wall there are from my dad's side of the family. That's where that's where the Irish side comes from. And so, yeah, my great-grandparents are up there, and Thomas and Bridget, and they look like a fun couple, don't they? Yeah, they did.

Matt Fox 11:51

Actually, was that was that just uh like a beard, just no, no, no mustache, just straight on a beard?

Barry 11:57

Absolutely. He was going for that Amish.

Speaker 6 11:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Barry 12:00

Yeah, they you know, I saw those photos, and I'm thinking they're probably 30. It looks like they're 90. Those are your great grandparents. Probably 30 years old. Yeah, that's that's the that's some that's some rough mileage.

August Gitshlag 12:14

Paul Rudd and how old he is, and like how old other people were at that age, like how old Fred Sanford was in Sanford and Sunday. I was like 52, yeah, two years older than me.

Barry 12:23

So he's 70.

Matt Fox 12:24

What was the movie? Cocoon, Wilfred Brimley, and they were supposed to be in their 50s. And I'm like, dude, you look like you're 75.

Barry 12:30

Diabetes.

Jamie Flanagan 12:32

Still.

Barry 12:35

Yeah, so I thought that was just appropriate. My mom and my sister gathered up a bunch of photos for me, you know, and they're like, here, here's the put these on the wall.

Jamie Flanagan 12:42

That's great. I I I admire your space. I'm I'm in I'm in negotiations for an Irish bar in half of my uh in half of my garage. Nice. Not with a contractor or anything, but in negotiations with my wife. Right. How's that going for you? It's it's coming along. It's coming along. She's she's for it, actually. She's uh she's she's in. She's in.

August Gitshlag 13:03

So you gotta give her a space. Your neighborhood is gonna turn into like the garage pubs of uh New Jersey. Yeah, that neighborhood has all the garage pubs and they visit each night, and everyone brings 25 bucks and throws it in to Kitty, and we're going to Jimmy's garage pub this week. So fun. Just kind of go around the neighborhood.

Jamie Flanagan 13:18

Oh, that's great.

August Gitshlag 13:19

Yeah. Fun.

Jamie Flanagan 13:21

Um, what did I want to do?

August Gitshlag 13:22

So you're over there mixing up stuff. So I wanted to bring something up that I thought was interesting this time of year. My family always hosted Christmas Day. We always had the big, huge party, so we always had orphan bottles of liquor. The only time I ever saw Kahua in our house, Bacardi rum or Amaretto. Because I always had an aunt if someone would do that. And a one, my mom's one cousin always brought a bottle of peppermint schnaps, and he got sick on it, and he always made a joke about how he can't drink peppermint schnaps anymore. But those are the things that were like always orphaned at our house at Christmas. You ever remember anything that you only saw at the house?

Kat 13:54

Disrano in my house. And then it would sit De Serrano, and then it would sit in the cupboard just through till next Christmas.

August Gitshlag 14:02

And turn into sugar. Yeah.

Kat 14:03

Yeah.

August Gitshlag 14:03

It's like Samarano. Yeah.

unknown 14:05

Yeah.

August Gitshlag 14:07

I always remember that big square top on it, too. That's why.

Matt Fox 14:10

Yeah. I've got to predict that the bottle of rumpel mints that I got at our golf outing this past summer. Oh, from the putt your putting across the putting across. Yeah, that's gonna sit there for really.

Barry 14:22

At least annihilate that stuff.

Bottle Shares, Mead, And Irish Pub Memories

August Gitshlag 14:24

You know what? Rumplints, if you stick it in a snowbank for a couple hours, then it's quite breath. And they're it's also great for a shot loose. You mean you don't have a shot loose at your family Christmas parties?

Matt Fox 14:35

You know, the kids might have too much fun with that. Yeah, right. My mic went up. Oh, there I am. I'm back. Yeah, the kids might have too much fun with the with the with the uh shot luge. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, well, your kids are all in like their 30s. So what do you worry about? I'm talking the teenagers that are still in the house.

August Gitshlag 14:52

Okay, that's right.

Matt Fox 14:53

Yeah, my team, my my girls, they'd be like, You have an ice luge? I'm there.

Kat 14:58

My drunk uncle made one out of a gutter one year.

Matt Fox 15:01

Your drunk uncle?

Kat 15:02

Yes.

Matt Fox 15:05

One of my favorite SML characters, man.

August Gitshlag 15:07

We stole the big uh carved Jaegermeister bottle from the Jaegermeister party one year, and me and Tony Raucho brought it back to the whiskey that night and carved through it and made a shot luge at the bar. Yeah, me, Regan watched it, and Tony Raucho did that. Yeah, we stole it. They're like, You guys gonna do with anything with this? Like, no, we're just gonna throw it out in the snow. Like, we're taking it. Yeah, put it in the back of my escape and drove it from uh St. Andrews Hall over to whiskey in the jar on a Saturday night or Sunday night, it was a Sunday night. Nice, and and chipped away to make a shot luge out of the big Jaegermeister. Fun, yeah, yeah, yeah. I chose the tray because the tray was the expensive part, but I don't know those trays with a little drainage on them.

Matt Fox 15:40

So, what was your favorite orphan bottle that was left over?

August Gitshlag 15:43

Well, I my favorite was uh I had my aunt that drank the Kahlua would do Kahlua and cream. Oh, Bailey's was the other thing that would always be around at the holidays. We never bought any your any other time of the year. Yeah, okay.

Barry 15:52

It's not a great and I mean Bailey's.

August Gitshlag 15:54

Yeah, Bailey's is fine, and none of those bottles really made it the whole to the next year. Like dad found a way, uh you know, found a way. But we always looked forward to having real milk because we were always like half percent milk kids, right? Uh-huh. We had like watery milk, and at Christmas, someone always had to have cream for the cooling cream. Uh-huh. So we'd have milk that was actually white. We thought it was so cool the day after Christmas to have white milk with our fruit, wherever our cornflakes and raisin bran.

Matt Fox 16:20

Uh-huh. Whole milk, maybe. Yeah, whole milk.

August Gitshlag 16:23

Like, what is this stuff? It's you didn't have any blue milk, did you? No, I don't remember. Star Wars reference. No, I've had that. I've had that though. I've had it at the uh pub in uh in Disney.

Matt Fox 16:33

And it can come on over here and have yourself some blue milk.

Jamie Flanagan 16:38

All right, so what do we use over there, buddy? So this is there's a on fun little list. There's uh 10 bourbon cocktails for Christmas, and one of them is uh cranberry bourbon sour. So it's uh it's it's a it's a twist on uh uh a New York sour. I was about to add it, was it?

Matt Fox 16:55

It's like a twist on the New York sour, yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 16:57

So two ounces of bourbon, one ounce of cranberry juice, fresh lemon juice, half ounce of simple syrup, ice cubes, and cranberries for garnish. We don't have cranberries for a garnish, so I went a little light on the simple syrup, and I went a little light on the lemon juice.

August Gitshlag 17:14

Okay, so we're we are gonna lemon juice dominant, though. It's gonna I suspect that's what we're gonna get.

Matt Fox 17:22

We we all tend to be a little bourbon forward here as it is.

Kat 17:25

This is like grapefruit juice.

August Gitshlag 17:26

We can always put another shot in there, which I've been known to do. You don't say no, you don't do a little Saints episode about non-alcoholic beverages. Where's the airline bottles of aviation gin and uh Tito's vodka? It's one of my favorite memories.

Matt Fox 17:40

All the mock tail episode that we did, and you're like, but wait, we need to add vodka. Pull an airline bottle out of my butt.

unknown 17:48

There we go.

August Gitshlag 17:51

All right, are we all here? One more for the road there. Thank you to our glassware sponsor for the tavern.

Jamie Flanagan 17:57

Yeah, I doubled it. Yeah, Firebird uh tavern. Thank you to our glassware sponsor. We like the firebird. All right. I think more cranberry, actually. It was very lemon-forward, and I went light on the lemon.

Matt Fox 18:15

Yeah, it's very lemon-forward.

Jamie Flanagan 18:16

How much booze is it is supposed to be in there? Two ounces, yeah. A two ounce, like a two-ounce. I mean, they're not, I did four ounces, right?

August Gitshlag 18:23

Yeah, it has the four ounces. You should have done the cranberry's really there on the well.

Jamie Flanagan 18:28

I did four ounces and I did uh you know a little over two ounces on the cranberry because it was only one ounce of cranberry. And then lemon juice should have been an ounce and a half, and I did like an ounce.

Barry 18:38

There's a fair amount of cranberry around the finish. Okay.

Jamie Flanagan 18:41

It's not the color. I wish it was more in the color. The color is more of a uh sour.

August Gitshlag 18:46

It does not have a Christmas color to it, which I think we would expected with the that was like physics. Did you see that warmed up? The lid off the shaker. Under pressure! Uh sazerac rye over here, please. I'm gonna do I'm gonna argue this up a little bit.

Matt Fox 19:04

So do you think this is the rye? Yeah, the sazerec. That's the sazzerac. So do you think it's made it with rye instead of a bourbon? Right. So do you think the the Sazerac rye has a is like susceptible or not as strong as the bourbon would be with the lemon?

Barry 19:18

He hands it to me like I want this.

Matt Fox 19:21

No, you do. I do. Okay, you're handing it to me next, but well, and I did.

Jamie Flanagan 19:26

I figured we're doing two cocktails, so I'd do a short one.

Kat 19:29

Yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 19:29

Because we were gonna do your rum old-fashioned, we're right. And that I think that'd be delicious. Yeah, that that sounds like a fun one. Do you want to mix that one up? Sure, I'll do that. All right, so we're gonna take one down, pass it around. That thing's got you shook.

Barry 19:43

Uh, the shakers.

Jamie Flanagan 19:44

There's uh that he needs the he needs the agave. What else do we need? Just the agave and the oh bitters, right? Do you need bitters?

August Gitshlag 19:52

Yes, give me the uh the orange, please.

Barry 19:56

That helped uh put a little extra just some just enough.

August Gitshlag 19:59

I think I put Another ounce in there, it made it a different kind of sale.

Matt Fox 20:02

I think a little more cranberry with what I just added would spice that up just a little bit more. So, what is one of the traditions, August, Barry, Catherine, that you guys like to do on Christmas morning for yourself? What is one of your traditions?

Orphan Liquors And Holiday Nostalgia

August Gitshlag 20:18

We uh my family doesn't have any Christmas morning traditions. Not your family, I'm talking about it. Yeah, but we we sleep in because we do so much partying on Christmas Eve. Both of our families are big Christmas Eve parties. Christmas morning is just another day. You get up and you go to some parties in the afternoon.

Kat 20:33

We used to go to we have a ton of traditions on Christmas Eve. Like she does, yes. It's like the Polish, yeah.

Matt Fox 20:41

So you got you got Yajniwka or not Yajnovka, that's Yeznov. I'm talking uh dinner.

Kat 20:46

Yeah, so we do a meatlet dinner. Yeah, that's uh that I brought Kobasa.

August Gitshlag 20:52

Yeah, that's what I was trying to do. I brought I brought Kobasa too.

Kat 20:54

Yeah, he's trying to get the mama home.

August Gitshlag 20:57

Oh yeah, just tweaking Eileen is just too much.

Kat 21:04

You put like hay under the table for the manger.

Matt Fox 21:07

There's like a million different and then you have to set a odd number of play or a play setting for who's not there.

Kat 21:14

You add one for like a random visitor shows up that one of those homeless guys from a 90210 episode. So you always set an extra seat for someone to just come and have dinner with you. And then we used to always go to church at midnight mass. Sure. And I don't know how my parents did that with like drinking all night, going to church at midnight, and then having to like wake up and somehow still function Santa. Yeah, it's like insane, but I don't have a we should start a tradition though for Christmas morning.

Barry 21:50

Maybe like this could involve lingerie. Like the sleeping in is good.

Kat 21:55

I know, I know, I'm like sleeping in is is nice.

Matt Fox 21:58

So yeah, as a father, having teenage you know kids as they grew up, you know, Christmas was always a lot of fun Christmas morning, but as they got into their teenage years, it was one of the more it was one of the things like okay, it's going on one o'clock and I haven't opened my gifts yet. Yeah, let's go because they'd sleep in because they're teenagers. Okay, it's now going on two o'clock. It's like, come on, we let's get this thing. I I want to I want you to open your gifts from Santa. Let's go. They didn't care too much, but one of my traditions every Christmas morning is Irish hazelnut coffee. Oh, so it's coffee with Jameson and hazelnut creamer, but it's just it's a nice way to get through your day. Yeah.

August Gitshlag 22:40

I I got this rum in a gift basket I won at a Florida warehouse party. Yes, what is that again? It's Zia Alta. Yeah, and it's like 16 years, 8, 16 years.

Jamie Flanagan 22:51

It's and since then it's come up in like recipes and things, and it's like it's uh I like this brand of rum a lot.

Matt Fox 22:57

Yes. Is that one that you'd have before?

August Gitshlag 23:00

No, I'd never heard of it. I thought it was a dump bottle because it was in a in a basket from a rev from a reverend. Yeah, yeah. And a couple of the other bottles were kind of cheesy and they're they were in there, but this was a good bottle.

Jamie Flanagan 23:09

It was like that applet's I brought in. Uh I was very surprised and very happy with that appletons. It's on a I put it on my grocery list to replenish the appletons. Okay, which appletons is it?

August Gitshlag 23:20

This is the regular estate. The 12-year-old I don't know if it was 12-year. Yeah, it's in there.

Jamie Flanagan 23:24

It was a green bottle. Is it gone? Green bottle in there, it's in there still.

Matt Fox 23:27

That's definitely rum.

Jamie Flanagan 23:30

Rum old fashion. So uh instead of simple syrup, the agave. Yeah, that is boozy.

August Gitshlag 23:37

I gotta give that two thumbs up.

Barry 23:39

Yeah, boozy.

Mixing A Cranberry Bourbon Sour

August Gitshlag 23:39

That's how I like my cocktails. That is boozier than the mine. And you'll notice I didn't measure a goddamn. Oh, that's nice. That is nice. That it's that rum. You get the rum is nice. The little bit of the the agave is uh just enough sweet. It's not like a juice sweet or a citrus. Yeah, yeah. Rum's got a serious vanilla note to it. I like it. It's spicy. Is it a spiced rum? No. Oh, it tastes like that.

Jamie Flanagan 24:04

Is it the blue agave adding spice, or what is it?

August Gitshlag 24:06

It could be. We gotta run the sucker other hot water, it's getting sticky. So this is what how 16 years? Yeah, it could just be from the barrel.

Matt Fox 24:14

Yeah, that's uh something I've never had before.

August Gitshlag 24:18

So I've been kind of they put this on the menu at Tokororo with a different style of rum, but the same color to it. Okay, and I'd it's it's been my go-to there now.

Matt Fox 24:25

Yeah, do they add any garnishes to it?

August Gitshlag 24:28

Like a pineapple, they put some goofy stuff in there, and I just you know, they like a little nutmeg on the top or something like that. Yeah, but I used to it's the first one I take, and I go in the back and start playing pinball, you know. Yeah, it came out really nice. That's a nice, it's a nice drink. I'm a fan. It's fun stuff. I gotta grab some of this blue agave syrup for home. It's the right right way to go.

Matt Fox 24:51

I'm glad it's here. So, Jamie, do you have a tradition that you do for yourself on Christmas morning?

Jamie Flanagan 24:58

Not really. I mean, we get up, do coffee, and just kind of just sit quietly, open some presents, and you know. And then what time does the family show up? Oh, so we host the thing is we yeah, we host Christmas Day for and Colleen is uh one of eight kids. Oh boy, and I have I had four siblings, but everybody's out of state, right? So I had my mom and four siblings, everybody was here, and then now now they're gone. But when we hit our at our peak pre-COVID, uh we had as many as like 45 people.

August Gitshlag 25:29

Yeah, that was my in my 20s and 30s. We had 40 people.

Jamie Flanagan 25:33

There were five five of them were like for dessert only, but there were 40 people seated. There were 40 people seated. We got 35. We had a big after dinner crowd about here. It's all those years. Yeah, we got uh 30, we got 35 seated for dinner this year, so yeah, and it's China and Silverware, and for all, yep. So we got uh because I got my that'll be uh you know, I got my mom's China, she got her mom's China, her grandma's China, so we have we have we have enough, we got enough China and silverware to actually have real stuff. And then people are like, Oh, don't put it in with the kids. We're like whatever, you know, it breaks, it breaks, whatever. You know, your kids are gonna sell it and melt it down. We're trying to, we're trying to get rid of this stuff, you know. It's like nobody wants it. I mean, when we go, nobody's gonna want this, so what the hell? It's nervous. Some breaks the shit collecting shelf clean, yeah. Use it, use it, you know. I mean, I mean, don't be gold all you know, Chris Chelios and throwing the shit in the fire. And you can't he was if she was a Colleen, they were out drinking app for something, and he's like, You they were at some restaurant, and he like took a plate and like whipped it into the faux fireplace, and the waitress comes up and she's like, You can't do that. He's like, I'll pay for them. Smash! He does another one, and they're like, No, no, seriously, you can't really get that.

August Gitshlag 26:42

He was watching an old episode of Three's Company and the Regal Beagle throwing the plates in the Regal Beagle, throwing the plates around at the Greek wedding, you know. So this time of year, when through the best season, like Tubi and and those when Pluto TV, they'll have a channel that just plays Christmas episodes of 70s and 80s sitcoms. Oh my god, that's great. And some of these sitcoms just they had two seasons and they're gone. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're just real I'm like, oh my god, I forgot this show existed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 27:12

Sigma and the Sea Monster Christmas episode. Oh, one of my favorite shows of all time.

Barry 27:16

I don't think Siddhartie dropped it. Yeah, like Sigma the Sea Monster Christmas.

Jamie Flanagan 27:20

I was trying to get up here. I was trying to get a good one. Yeah.

Matt Fox 27:24

Alyssa, Alyssa Cartwright, uh Cartwright uh popped in. It's at 33:30 p.m.

Jamie Flanagan 27:30

That's it. Oh, when people come over, yeah. Uh coming over. Yeah, so we're gonna have a ton of people and family and extend new extended family coming over. So yeah, it's do you guys do all the cooking? We'll do all the meats, and then everybody brings the side turkey and the appetizers and desserts. So nice.

August Gitshlag 27:46

So yeah, so we'll do the meats. I couldn't remember it. There was the other John Ritter show. It's called Remember Hearts of Fire, where John Ritter was a P they were a Democrat and a Republican public relations people. I don't kind of like based on the matter. It sounds terrible vaguely. It was John Ritter, and someone who's actually really well known. Man, he was an aide to a U.S. senator and was dating one of the press corps people.

Jamie Flanagan 28:08

Yeah, John Ritter, man.

August Gitshlag 28:10

That's another one gone too.

Matt Fox 28:11

I was a big fan of John Ritter. Still am actually.

August Gitshlag 28:13

Stay tuned. One of his best movies ever. Hooperman was another one. I forget about that one.

Jamie Flanagan 28:17

Oh, yeah.

August Gitshlag 28:18

Yeah, Hearts of Fire. So that's good. I gotta find that on too.

Jamie Flanagan 28:21

I gotta find that on the Tubi. That'll be our we gotta turn this into a TV show and put it on Tubi. Yeah, we could put it on Netflix.

August Gitshlag 28:28

Oh, Marky Post was his wife in Hearts of Fire. Marky Post.

Jamie Flanagan 28:32

She's good for a pulling.

August Gitshlag 28:33

Lily Bob Ford was a regular on that series. Oh my god. Really? Yeah. God, it's old school.

Matt Fox 28:38

Now we could put this uh show on Netflix. You know that, right? We need to do that. Did you know that? I was not aware of this. Netflix is starting to do that.

Kat 28:46

Stranger things. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

August Gitshlag 28:49

Well, let's tighten this ship up a little bit, get it a script in a production. It's already tight.

Matt Fox 28:52

What are you talking about?

Barry 28:55

A couple more of these, you'll be good in tight. I know.

Rum Old Fashioned And Agave Tweaks

Kat 28:59

It's like baby. So many.

Matt Fox 29:06

I vote. We got rubin. We got rubber. We're drinking Rubens, that's what we're doing.

Kat 29:12

I like the rum. That's good.

August Gitshlag 29:14

I think I think the only problem, the only issue I had with Jamie's cocktail was it just had one ingredient too many. I feel like it either needed the lemon juice or the cranberry. With the cranberry alone, I think it would have been a different drink. It would have been a little more colorful.

Barry 29:25

It doesn't need the tartness.

August Gitshlag 29:26

Yeah, yeah. I agree.

Jamie Flanagan 29:27

Yeah, yeah. So replace replace the lemon portion with more cranberry. Yeah, I agree.

August Gitshlag 29:34

And because you want to keep the even get the nice little burger, that's it. That's it. There we go. And of course, it's a little more maroon.

unknown 29:45

Who's your Santa?

Matt Fox 29:46

Who's your Santa?

August Gitshlag 29:47

This is technically like a Christmas shirt, too. That is mashed potatoes. That's fine.

Kat 29:54

Mine says doubled eggs.

August Gitshlag 29:56

Yes, you have a doubled eggs. You have a doubled eggs too.

Kat 30:00

My mom says goodbye, and my dad just says Thanksgiving.

Jamie Flanagan 30:05

We all warm at Thanksgiving. I love it. Cheers, Michael. Thanks. Mike Davis saying hello. He was invited, Mike.

Matt Fox 30:12

Hi, gang.

Jamie Flanagan 30:14

Back at you, brother. So uh Barry, eggnog, right? So people sometimes they get a gag reflex when somebody says eggnog. Yeah. And you had, oh, let's just call it a vat.

Matt Fox 30:28

A vat or a trough?

Jamie Flanagan 30:30

You had a large, you had a large punch bowl with an extensive amount of nog.

Barry 30:35

Doesn't make sense to make a small batch. No, man.

Matt Fox 30:38

It's but isn't it sauce more if it's a small batch?

Jamie Flanagan 30:41

That's uh uh I'm just playing. That's fine. All right, so you made but you made that. That wasn't like that. Was no pouring jugs out that you picked up at the K Roger or nothing.

Barry 30:51

Did not do that.

Jamie Flanagan 30:51

So how how do you make your your nog? How do you make the eggs? Real simple.

Barry 30:55

I mean, there's only a few ingredients to it. It's like uh three pints of whipping cream, a fifth of rum, pint of app apricot brandy, cup of sugar, a couple tablespoons of vanilla, dozen eggs.

Jamie Flanagan 31:07

A dozen eggs. So the eggs are raw and you just beat them up.

Barry 31:09

Yeah, you separate the eggs and you take the yolk out, right? You take the yolks and you you whisk that up with the sugar until it gets pale and that helps dissolve the sugar.

Matt Fox 31:18

Okay.

Barry 31:18

Then you pour in your cream, then you pour in your booze. You gotta pour it in nice and slow, otherwise it'll curdle the eggs.

Matt Fox 31:23

So that was not marshmallows on top of it. That was that was whipped egg white.

Barry 31:26

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So you whipped the egg white separately, you fold those in, and then I just create a whole nutmeg over the top of it. Wow.

Kat 31:35

No, I just literally a whisket.

Matt Fox 31:38

That was uh that was that was a tasty beverage, we'll say you know the best part about it is friends of mine are like I hate eggnogs.

Barry 31:47

No, you don't like eggnog that you buy in the carton from the grocery store, right? Right, yeah. The piss yellow stuff, and for like curagena to make them thick and stuff, and they get that gag thing going on with that. And then they go, they taste, they go, Oh, I love eggnog all of a sudden. Yeah, stick with me. I gotcha.

Kat 32:03

Do they sell apricot brandy every like normal?

August Gitshlag 32:07

My mom, that used to be my mom's thing, was bowls apricot brandy. She had a little stemmed glass. B O L S Bowl's apricot apricot brandy was my mom's thing until they stopped carrying it. Then remember, my dad got someone to buy a cake that had a case of it, he bought the whole case. This isn't like in 1989, but a whole case of the bowls products were huge.

Jamie Flanagan 32:29

All right, yes, sir. Yes or no on this uh list of 10 bourbon Christmas cocktails. Yes or no? Go for it. Yes or no on number one here, and it is it's chocolatey. Where'd it go? It's yeah, it's uh it's uh the hot toddy sprinkled with hot chocolate. Yes or no?

Matt Fox 32:47

I'm gonna say no. No, hot toddy's are fine.

Jamie Flanagan 32:53

And then the next one was a cranberry bourbon cocktail, which we just did.

August Gitshlag 32:58

No, no, I'm not I wouldn't say no. I'd say no, I'm a I'm a five on it.

Jamie Flanagan 33:05

All right, so here's here here's a take on it. The cranberry orange bourbon sour. So instead of lemon, an orange juice and cranberry based.

Matt Fox 33:14

I could go, I could probably go for that. I usually like I do like orange forward, you know, the old-fashioned way to be.

August Gitshlag 33:20

I don't like orange juice will give me acid reflux. I'm gonna have to go now. So the way that memosas will.

Christmas Traditions, Hosting, And Big Family Dinners

Jamie Flanagan 33:26

So the punch, the punch bowl. Do you guys do a punch bowl? Do you ever do a punch bowl? I have. Yeah, yeah. This is a bourbon punch bowl with cranberry, pineapple juice, ginger ale, and bourbon. Okay.

Kat 33:37

I like ginger in a punch bowl format.

Jamie Flanagan 33:39

I think we can see the big I could ladle some of that down my gullet. Yep, yep. For your winter bridal shower. Right. So bright.

unknown 33:47

Yes. Yes.

Jamie Flanagan 33:48

So my my elf themed bridal shower.

Matt Fox 33:50

All right.

Jamie Flanagan 33:51

Here's one.

Matt Fox 33:51

I like smiling. It's my favorite.

Jamie Flanagan 33:53

August's gag reflex, apple cider, bourbon, sweet vermouth, and lemon juice.

Matt Fox 33:59

How do you feel about that shit?

Jamie Flanagan 34:00

I can't do anything with apple cider. I know, I didn't believe you. I won't.

Matt Fox 34:04

Apple cider and scotch, man. That's a whole new all the way off.

Jamie Flanagan 34:07

I had to hold his hair in the parking lot while he uh literally projectile vomit.

August Gitshlag 34:12

I can't, I can drink cider, I can drink booze. You put booze in cider and I projectile vomit. It's crazy.

Kat 34:18

Yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 34:18

I actually, because that was a thing high school. We'd go to the Yates cider mill and get some Jack Daniels and little apple jacks. I get furious like stabbing pains in my gut from it. And then I just go uh the rum, the uh Captain Morgan's spicy rum, and and it yeah, it's apple cider. It makes no sense.

Kat 34:36

Isn't it one of your friends that sneezes every time he drinks something?

Matt Fox 34:39

Oh, yeah, don't don't say don't say that because James is gonna start that happened to me.

Kat 34:43

Yeah, oh it's you the James, my buddy James.

August Gitshlag 34:45

My buddy Tom, he only drinks telemardew. Jameson, he starts to sneeze violently. Yeah, yeah, stack pool. And we would do it every couple years. Mikey and I would slip him one just to see if it was still true. And then we pay his tape worked. We bang me by him a step, we pay a step.

Barry 34:58

So that's all right.

Jamie Flanagan 35:00

So yeah, I mentioned the bourbon hot chocolate, and then we got the uh spiked apple cider. So I bourbon apple cider and clove with cinnamon sticks. I wish I could be into it because it sounds goddamn lovely. So that's fair. Yeah, I I'll do this one just because a maple old fashioned. So instead of using simple syrup, use maple syrup.

Matt Fox 35:20

Yes, see, you you tried to talk this talk us into that last episode. You want me to the the simple syrup or the maple syrup? And you you you guys have to be.

Jamie Flanagan 35:34

I'm a yes on that one.

Barry 35:36

I tell you what, you know, I've got some friends we do we do uh we do sap in the springs, and we'll we'll do our own uh our own maple syrup. When we're sitting we're sitting out in uh we're sitting out in the sugar shack out in the woods, you know. Uh one of the guys has a really nice setup, and then we do it with a wood fire and everything like that. And so as we're drinking our i pouring a glass, and we just reach into the stuff that's cooking down and pour a little bit of that in there. I'm here to tell you it's it's it's real. Fresh from the fresh from the tree, too. Delicious.

Jamie Flanagan 36:06

My friend Elizabeth were lives on the west side, like way on the west side. And yeah, she she she taps trees, uh, she's got a large property, and she taps and does trees, and she does like small, a small badge. She's got none up to to to sell or anything, but she she shares with friends. Yep, that's fun. That's uh tapping the trees and doing that.

Barry 36:26

It's a lot of fun, yeah. And then the net result is remarkably good. Yeah, yeah. If you do it right, it it it's almost like butterscotch. It's so good.

Kat 36:37

Don't you make some sort of liqueur out of it too, or something alcoholic?

Barry 36:42

I think I just described that. Is it a meat on the phone? No, there was another thing of meat on the side.

Jamie Flanagan 36:46

There's people that actually just ferment is what it looks like.

Kat 36:49

Like fermented.

August Gitshlag 36:50

We're no, we're watching a CBS Sunday morning. We talked about fermenting their syrup. Yeah, that was a I thought I sent I shared that with you. There's a guy in like Vermont, and all he does is Oh, I remember that. Yeah, you yeah, he just ferments it, he gets it to a certain level. There was a guy in Vermont. That looked like a lot of people. No, no, no, it was upstate New York. It was upstate New York. Mr. Butterworth gets upstate New York, yeah. Yeah, Vermont. I'm thinking of all the Riverdale, you know it.

Jamie Flanagan 37:13

All right, so this here's the one that was catching my eye. Is the what is it a yes or no for you? Whole milk, nope, bourbon, bourbon, simple syrup and vanilla extract. Do you have a lack? Do you have a lactose thing?

August Gitshlag 37:27

Now there's an entire like a whole region of Scotland that drinks scotch and milk. It's a thing. It's a real thing.

Matt Fox 37:33

It's it got to be warm milk or just cold milk. What are you la burned and Shirley?

August Gitshlag 37:37

Milk and Pepsi. My dad would pick a guy up for work, and his alcoholic mom would be drinking scotch and milk every morning.

Barry 37:42

Oh my god. It is a thing. And and I I have a friend uh where I've seen it quite a while now, but she drinks whiskey and and milk all the time. She just loved it. Just wild to me. It tastes fine.

Matt Fox 37:55

I guess ramchata-ish. Yeah, I can see the ramchata side of it. Yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 37:59

So, and then the last one is a New York sour. It's bourbon whiskey and and and and lemon and simple syrup. And then you do a wine float? A wine float on top of it.

Barry 38:09

Oh, yeah. I like that.

Jamie Flanagan 38:11

I do that.

Barry 38:12

Stab somebody in a parking lot. I don't, I don't know.

Jamie Flanagan 38:14

That's more I do that in the summer. I no, I do that in the summertime.

Matt Fox 38:18

But you've never done the uh the egg white.

Jamie Flanagan 38:20

No, I don't do the egg white on it. It freaks me out. Does it? Yeah. The whipped up egg white, the frothy egg white stuff. Yeah, it's all I think. It could have been a chick one day, and I just feel bad.

August Gitshlag 38:30

Yeah, think about the good barbecue. That's what you think about when you have scrambled eggs, aborted chickens. Yes. It's how turning point of you. Oh my god.

Barry 38:44

All right. No, I'm interested. That's it. It doesn't scramble eggs either. That list doesn't have a milk punch on it, does it?

August Gitshlag 38:51

No, I've only had that a couple times in my life.

Barry 38:53

I it was only recently.

Jamie Flanagan 38:56

Well, they call this one the bourbon milk punch with whole milk, bourbon, table syrup, and vanilla.

Barry 39:01

Because milk punches, you know, the milk curdles when you when you when you put the booze in it, and then that that the milk fats drop out, and you get what's left, and you you know, you pour off the clear part off the top, and it's really interesting.

August Gitshlag 39:15

It's delicious. Yeah, I've had really good milk punches. I had it. What's that place in in Gross Point? Red Red Coat Tavern, Red Ox Tavern, Red, the old gas station. Telling us Red Star. Red Star? Is that even it? Yeah, I don't know. They had they made their own milk punch there.

Barry 39:30

It's a it's a very cool old colonial drink. No donkeys were hurt, no in the making of in the production of that drink, but you know, in in the world. I see a future episode here.

August Gitshlag 39:40

We're gonna make some milk punch and we're I will watch you drink it. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't look like milk, it looks like rum. It also doesn't taste like rum. You don't know you wouldn't have if I told you it was milk punch, you wouldn't know. All right, James. Just close your eyes and drink the punch. You can do anything for 30 minutes.

Matt Fox 39:55

It's it's it's remarkably interesting.

TV Deep Cuts And Turning The Show Into TV

Barry 39:57

Is it like fat washing? I haven't. I have a Benjamin Franklin recipe.

August Gitshlag 40:04

All right. It has to sit for a while, though.

Barry 40:07

It does take a little while. Yeah. We could do part of that ahead of time.

August Gitshlag 40:10

Let's stop and get a half gallon on the way home. Whip some up.

Jamie Flanagan 40:13

All right. So that that list came from uh a couple's a couplecooks.com. And that was uh Alex and Sonia. All right. Uh a couplecooks.com. Bring them into the show. Alex Sonia for sharing your little list of madness there. So anyway, you gotta give credit where credit's due. I'll tell you where I steal the shit from. You always do. I always do.

Matt Fox 40:35

I try to. I try to remember. I try to remember.

unknown 40:38

Yeah.

Matt Fox 40:38

So Merry Christmas, everybody. Merry Christmas.

August Gitshlag 40:41

Merry Christmas, dude. Merry Christmas. Are we gonna give uh a pre-New Year's episode in that in-between week? Or are you in Florida or something?

Matt Fox 40:46

No, no, I'm here. Yeah, I'm I'm I'm around. I think I'm in it to win it. All right, I think. I I I'll get back to you on that. I've got kids across the state, so I gotta I gotta figure shit out.

Jamie Flanagan 40:58

So he's gotta he's gotta go do the rope rowing dad.

August Gitshlag 41:02

Well, he's gotta do it when you lay your seed in so many corners. He's gotta holy.

Jamie Flanagan 41:09

I just got called the fuck out. Wow.

Barry 41:12

Makes me want to drink.

Jamie Flanagan 41:14

Yeah, you'd avoid that by finger banging.

Matt Fox 41:16

There you go. He got it in. He got it in the avoid that. That's all we had to do. That's all I that's all I need is. Hey, I'm your kid. Happy father's day. You're 18. Well, okay. You're nice to meet you. All right. You're off payroll already. So that's great.

Kat 41:35

Glad you made it this way.

Jamie Flanagan 41:38

That's all I need right now. All right. That's all I got. We got the uh, but we got the fresh victor. I just threw up uh unboxing of the fresh victor cocktail mixers, the fresh cold. Oh, is that the next episode? No, well, that's gonna happen in January sometime, so I gotta keep that stuff on ice till January. Okay, you didn't bring it with you.

August Gitshlag 41:56

We're gonna bring in my uh my buddy from uh the one charity wants to come talk.

Kat 41:59

So we gotta get him in from uh and then one big happy birthday for Augie.

Matt Fox 42:04

Oh, yes. Uh yes, they're okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna call you out, dude. Welcome to 51. Yeah, yeah.

Barry 42:12

Now that you're elderly, what are your plans?

August Gitshlag 42:14

Uh Metamusful. Uh in the cupboard already. Welcome, welcome, rogue, compression socks, compression socks, knee braces.

Kat 42:23

We got the AARP thing in the mail yesterday.

Matt Fox 42:29

Those AARP letters, those started happening two years ago.

August Gitshlag 42:33

They started happening a lot longer than that. Yeah, right before that. Right before I turned 35, 36 a second trying to get you signed up for that stuff.

Matt Fox 42:41

You know what? Age is just a number. That's it. Until it gets you a discount. Hell yeah. It's still a number. My stepdad is aging backwards.

Barry 42:53

Well, everybody does eventually you end up in diapers. Yeah, I knew that was coming in.

Matt Fox 42:57

I didn't want to tell him what's your niece's line about me.

Kat 43:00

My my niece wrote on his card, you're the youngest old you're the youngest oldest person I know.

August Gitshlag 43:06

Yeah, okay.

Kat 43:09

Wow, you're the youngest old person.

August Gitshlag 43:12

Youngest old guy, yeah.

Matt Fox 43:14

So you're 12. Is that what they're saying?

Kat 43:16

Yeah, she's like, old people complain all the time, and they are always complaining that they're hurting. And August doesn't do that.

Jamie Flanagan 43:24

She'll have her day. I just drink my way through it. Yeah, it's very so.

Matt Fox 43:30

Let me ask you before before let me ask you a question. Did any of you send a relative a gift in the mail this year? No, no, yes, yes, no, did they get it yet? Oh, yeah, yes. Have they opened it?

Kat 43:42

No, I don't think so.

Matt Fox 43:44

All right, so I've sent gifts, we've sent gifts to folks this year, and they responded with thank you so much for the blah blah blah blah. They opened it right away. It's for Christmas morning, right? Yeah, and they opened it right away. I'm like, what are you doing? That's for Christmas morning.

Barry 44:04

I think you should have stipulated Christmas morning.

Matt Fox 44:06

You gotta put a sign on that shit now. Don't open it until Christmas. That's not all right. That's on me. That's like that's on me.

Jamie Flanagan 44:15

I got two great nephews, Roka and Radix. These kids these days cartoon characters. I know, I know Marvel heroes. Radix is out of the Bible, supposedly. Okay, and Roka is uh uh part of a wave as is crossing her so I don't know whatever.

Matt Fox 44:33

But uh is that like the two lane house or two lane with the wave cobra? I was like, is that two lane's wave or some shit?

August Gitshlag 44:42

That's anaconda. It's the wave cobra cobra kai or no, that's still cobra cycles. Get them a box, yeah. Yeah, no, don't uh dude. You're thinking of the dodgeball anyway.

Cocktail List Run-Through: Hits And Misses

Jamie Flanagan 44:58

But so what we said, we got we did, and Colleen is like the the best because she gets it and she buys all the presents and then she wraps them all individually, and then she then she packages them up and then takes them in this massive box to UPS that costs three times the amount of any of the gift inside you're paying more for the packaging for than what the insurance is. But they're all they're all but they're it's not like we send them down, like here, wrap this crap for your kids, you know. And it's like so they're all wrapped and good to go. So they're under the tree, they send us pictures of them and they're under the tree, and they won't open them until Christmas morning. Oh see, so yeah, that's the way it should be. So yeah, yeah, yeah. And then so uh uh Roka is uh just uh one one and a half, something like that.

August Gitshlag 45:37

So I wouldn't worry about Roka opening the present too early. Yeah. Radix is uh it's gonna take them three days to open it already.

Matt Fox 45:46

Yeah, okay. They're both little freeloaders, cellophane and popcorn and you know, bubble wrap, you know.

Jamie Flanagan 45:53

So yeah, so that's uh don't open till Xmas, unless it's gonna spoil.

Kat 45:59

Even my niece, my nieces were just in town from Oregon, and they were like, no, we want to wait till Christmas.

Jamie Flanagan 46:04

Do you open do you open Christmas Christmas Eve? Well, only if it's a spoiler if it spoils, or it's gonna die. Yeah.

August Gitshlag 46:12

Well, why is this box meowing?

Speaker 6 46:15

Yeah, it was well, it got kind of quiet about a day ago.

August Gitshlag 46:20

Wrapped up her damn cat. Aunt Bethany, does your cat like jello? Time to marathon that movie. It's time to say great. It's a year-rounder for me, though. I love that movie.

Speaker 46:33

The blessing you couldn't hear a dump truck going through a nitroclith ring, please. You hear it? It's a funny squeaky sound.

Jamie Flanagan 46:44

Oh my god. All right, all right. Like, subscribe, do a do a comment, do uh all the podcast things in all the podcast paces. That's August Kitchleg.

August Gitshlag 46:53

That the dulcet tones of the one and only Jamie Flanagan.

Matt Fox 46:57

Oh my god.

August Gitshlag 46:58

And you're Matt Fox, you're sexy though.

Matt Fox 47:00

I was gonna say that's August Kitchlag. Oh, okay. Well, and this is Jamie Flanagan, and and that's Catherine Cat Berry's cat and cat and Barry. Thank you for being our uh Barry gallery today. Thank you for hosting on Saturday.

Barry 47:12

Yes, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. It was a great party. Folks have a good time at my house. It was a good time. Yeah, we'll do it again. I love your Irish pub. I love your Irish. You're in jealous. Sweet pencil in June. I'm sure something's gonna come down then.

Matt Fox 47:24

Oh, you mark that down, June. You heard it. Summer solstice party. Here first on the man cave. Exactly.

August Gitshlag 47:31

Party of berries party.

Matt Fox 47:34

Cheers, everybody.

August Gitshlag 47:36

Cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers. Have a great Christmas, everyone. Cheers in between Christmas.

Matt Fox 47:42

You got the mouse. I do. Did you rap in there?

August Gitshlag 47:45

I'm rapping right now.