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Hey, everyone. It's Dan here with another Sporkful Reheat for you.
Look, the weather's warming up, And I am certainly like reaching for a few more cold, bubbly seltzers.
I got seltzer on my brain.
And pretty much every time I open a can of seltzer, I think about this episode I'm about to share with you because I learned so much about the science of carbonation that has stuck with me from my buddy Dan Souza, who has like a home carbonation rig, which you'll hear about.
He's pretty hardcore.
We also have a lot of fun chatting with the host of the podcast Seltzer Deathmatch. That show is no longer publishing new episodes, but their back catalog is available.
And it was a great conversation.
conversation and dan souza of america's test kitchen he has a new podcast called in the test kitchen you can check it out wherever you like to listen or watch the video version on youtube or spotify definitely check out anything that involves dan souza and if you got an episode of the sporkful you want us to reheat let me know what's on your mind send me an email to hello at sporkful dot com tell me your name location what episode you want to hear and why thanks so much crack Crack open a can of seltzer and enjoy.
So, Rachel and Travis, I'll have you know that in the several hours leading up to our recording, I drank LaCroix, Spindrift, Polar, Vintage, and Topo Chico.
Was that on purpose?
Were you doing a taste test or is that just your lifestyle?
Yeah, I mean, journalism.
I did it for journalism, okay, you guys?
I can't say that it was the most hardcore.
I didn't control for all the variables.
And how much are you burping right now?
I know I was going to tell you that I may have to interrupt our taping several times to pee.
This is the Sporkful.
It's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
as if it's been shaken up before being opened seltzer has exploded sparkling water sales have more than doubled in the past 10 years that's why the blog grub street referred to the 2010s as the seltzer decade now look we still drink way more soda overall but soda sales have basically stayed flat as if the soda was shaken up a long long time ago that's why companies like coke and and Pepsi, they're getting into the seltzer game, all right?
Coke bought Topo Chico, the Mexican sparkling water company with a cult following in Texas, for $220 million.
Pepsi bought SodaStream for $3 .2 billion.
What's going on? Well, people want less sugar, fewer carbs, less artificial stuff, but they still want something bubbly and refreshing.
It is seltzer's moment.
Later in the show, we'll do a deep dive on the science of carbonation with our friend Dan Souza from Cooks Illustrated.
But first, there are all these sparkling waters out there, right?
And let's face it, in a blind taste test, could you even tell the difference?
I want to know, how do you judge seltzers when they all seem so similar?
Well, Rachel Ward and Travis Larchuk, they're audio producers by day.
They've worked for places like NPR and Gimlet.
But by night, they host the podcast Seltzer Deathmatch. They call their listeners CarboNation.
Hello, CarboNation.
This is Seltzer Deathmatch, the quest to find the best seltzer in America.
We're your judges. I'm seltzer skeptic, Travis Larchuk.
And I'm seltzer supporter, Rachel Ward. In each episode, they invite a guest judge, pit two seltzers against each other and pick a winner, analyzing every detail.
So it's definitely got that like stinging blanket bubble effect of like a very, very fine bubble.
But then in the glass, it's.
Travis didn't even really enjoy seltzer until they started the podcast. But as Rachel told me, her history with the bubbly stuff runs deep.
So when I was a kid, we weren't allowed to have anything fun.
If we wanted juice, it had to be cut with water or seltzer.
And so seltzer was preferential, obviously.
You say obviously, but I mean, I never liked seltzer until relatively recently.
When I was a kid, I hated that flavor, the CO2 flavor, whatever that flavor is.
Yeah, but Dan, think about it.
Seltzer plus grape juice, that almost is soda.
I guess if you're not allowed to have soda, right.
The thing that I called it when I was very little was, I called it ha, because when you drink it, you like take a sip and you go, ah.
Are you aware that Coke is launching its own flavored seltzer line and it's going to be called Aha?
I hope A -Ha sues them.
A -Ha, the Swedish 80s pop band?
Yeah. Why don't you sue them?
Yeah, Rachel, you've got prior art on Ha, our season finale.
It's on tape. That's true, that is true.
They probably listened to it and stole the idea from you.
Yes, that is almost certainly what happened.
First, a correction.
Aha, the band is Norwegian, not Swedish.
I apologize to both countries.
Now, before we go too far, I ask Rachel and Travis to define our terms here.
There's seltzer, sparkling water, mineral water, club soda.
What's the difference?
They explain that sparkling water is the big umbrella term.
Any water with bubbles, with or without flavor, is sparkling water.
Mineral water comes from a natural spring.
The bubbles may come from the spring, they can be added later, or it may be some of both.
Club soda has some type of salt added, which is why it's favored by bartenders.
That savory note brings out other flavors.
Seltzer is just water with CO2 added for carbonation.
But if these differences are keeping you up at night, I think there's a larger concern to attend to.
Well, now I'm really curious.
Hang on one second.
I'm going to go get the seltzers that I have upstairs and I want to look at the labels.
You guys stay here.
I'll bring them right back.
rack. As I said, I loaded up on seltzer at the store in preparation for this interview, but I couldn't find Topo Chico, the one with a cult following in Texas.
So I enlisted the help of my friend and neighbor, Rohit.
He's such a hardcore Texan that when his first child was born, he had his parents send dirt from Texas up here to New York, so his son's first steps would be on Texas soil.
Rohit came through.
I got back to my basement recording setup with the Topo Chico and everything else I had.
Wow, Dan just walked into the frame with his arms completely full.
Dan, first, do you think your family is worried about you that you just went upstairs, grabbed an armful of seltzer and then came back into the basement?
Back into my cave. What's he building in there?
Honestly, Rachel, they've seen a lot weirder.
Trust me. So Topo Chico, mineral water carbonated.
Ingredients, mineral water, carbon dioxide.
So they're adding the bubbles to Topo Chico.
Yep. Quick correction, Topo Chico does have natural carbonation, but then more carbonation is added in processing to make up for the bubbles lost during the purification process.
I have lime polar here.
That's the daddy on the East Coast. Contains carbonated water, natural flavors.
It says zero grams of sugar.
And then I get the spin drift. That's soda.
No, no, it's unsweetened, but it is made with real juice.
disqualified in terms of the spectrum between like coca -cola and plain seltzer it's a lot closer to plain seltzer i think spindrift is is great i just don't think it's a seltzer i don't think you can add juice which is sugar to something and then have it be in the same category as like the thing that you drink because it doesn't have anything in it you know but there's no added sugar sugar in Spindrift, it's just juice.
But they added the juice, Dan.
Juice is sugar, Dad.
After our conversation, I took a closer look at Spindrift's can and realized they don't actually call themselves seltzer.
They call themselves sparkling water with real squeezed fruit.
Trader Joe's sells essentially the same thing, and they call it seltzer with a splash.
So the line there is murky.
But generally speaking, straight -up seltzer does not contain calories.
It's either plain or made with what's labeled as natural flavors, extracts and things that add flavor without sugar or calories.
So we have defined our terms. Now that we know what we're talking about, let's get to brass tacks.
If seltzers have almost nothing in them besides water and CO2, what makes some better than others?
I asked Rachel and Travis, what are the key Key metrics for evaluating a seltzer.
Oh, we've built a rubric.
Yeah, so our rubric is based on three factors, which are aesthetics, bub, and flavor.
Aesthetics meaning the label on the can, the logo?
Yes. Yeah, the sort of presentation layer.
The whole non -drinking, you know, the sound that it makes when you open it up.
Let's talk audio aesthetics, which makes the best sound on average?
A can opening, a glass bottle opening with a pop -top, or a plastic bottle opening with a twist top?
Oh my God, what a great question.
Here's my political answer, which is I think that opening a can is always going to give you a great sound.
It's 100 % reliable.
You mean this? Yes.
So good. It's such a good sound.
Now, your bottles, those are a riskier proposition.
I think it could be great.
It could be terrible.
you know we've opened some bottles and it hasn't made any sound and it's a real bummer I I personally would vote for the can because to me it's not just about the fizz it's about the sound of the actual opening of the vessel no I I totally agree with you but the sound of the fizz escaping when you unscrew the top of a like a plastic bottle like if it's really if it's carbonated well and like that That sound, did I make it?
Well, that's really good too.
I mean, there's just, you know, the world of seltzer ASMR is, there's a lot out there.
So there's aesthetics, which is audio and visual aesthetics of the presentation of the seltzer.
Then what are the other major metrics for evaluating a seltzer?
Bub, which is what it sounds like.
Carbonation. Bub is about a visual experience and a taste experience.
experience so it's like how do the bubbles look in the glass are they big are they small are they erratic do they climb do they cluster like what's going on with the bubble and then when you drink it what is the physical experience of drinking it so like does it carpet your tongue with fine bubbles does it climb up the sides of your tongue because it's got flavor in it and so you notice it on the parts of your tongue that have taste receptors that are related to that flavor does Does it sting your cheeks a little bit?
Do you get a little bit of bubble up in your sinus cavity because it's so strong?
Those are all sort of the elements of bub.
I think bub is my favorite category and it's what often makes the decision for me because that's the unique selling proposition of seltzer.
It doesn't have any flavor going for it.
What it has is this physical sensation that most drinks don't have or that we don't notice.
if they're like highly sweetened.
So I think that paying attention to how seltzer feels actually gives you a new vocabulary or a new catalog of sensations that you can talk about when you're eating or drinking something.
I like this idea that part of seltzer's appeal is that it forces you to notice small details that get covered up in drinks with stronger flavors.
But let's face it, sometimes you just gulp it down and you don't notice much of anything that distinguishes it.
And yet, despite the fact that seltzers don't taste that different from each other Some brands become huge hits, and others don't And in the mid -2010s, no seltzer brand was exploding more than LaCroix It had a hardcore following that inspired multiple music videos I'll be your LaCroix boy Crack me open, won't drink me down L -A -C -R -O -I -X The Croy was started in 1981 by a beer company in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
It took its name from the St. Croix River.
It was a popular drink in the Midwest. Then it got a brand makeover in the early 2000s after being acquired by National Beverage Company of Fort Lauderdale.
In 2014, it became the it drink in Hollywood and Brooklyn.
From 2015 to 2016, sales of LaCroix jumped 73%, so it probably wasn't all just hipster appeal.
So what was LaCroix's secret?
I mean, it wasn't the taste, right?
I mean, at the same time that it was blowing up, there was this running joke on Twitter to the effect of drinking a LaCroix is like drinking carbonated water and hearing someone shout a flavor from the other room.
So what made LaCroix stand out?
Their nostalgia factor has been a really powerful engine for them.
Like, I think a lot of people whose moms wore leg warmers in the 80s and like had the big shoulder pads would drink LaCroix or Tab.
And like, you know, you're growing up in the Midwest, so it's like a regional thing.
and it's got this like very like LA gear aesthetics.
And then when you become an adult and you realize you just can't mainline Coca -Cola anymore, you have to make the switch. I think another part of it is, you know, in the case of LaCroix, there was this sort of weird authenticity, like an ironic sort of situation where this can is so ugly, Like, it's ugly, it's garish, but it also stands out.
And when you're walking down the street or when you're on Instagram, people immediately know that that's what you're drinking because it's just so vivid.
But then just a few years later, LaCroix took a nosedive.
The CEO was sued for sexual harassment.
That suit was settled out of court.
A different lawsuit alleged that the drink contained dangerous chemicals.
That suit was dismissed.
But the drink's reputation took a big hit.
Also, no fad lasts forever, and a lot of competitors moved into the space.
In 2019, the stock price of National Beverage Company, which owns LaCroix, sank 24%.
Now, it seems Spindrift is the new darling.
Their sales went up 127 % in 2019.
I kind of feel like in the Instagram age, it's like there can be only one hot brand in a category at any time.
But being a hit on social media or having the coolest bottle or can, And none of that matters in a blind taste test, which is the method Seltzer Deathmatch used to crown a winner in their season one.
When we find out what Seltzer B is, we'll know who the winner of Seltzer Deathmatch is.
That's true. What is Seltzer B?
Seltzer B is vintage.
In season one of Seltzer Deathmatch, the winning seltzer was vintage.
That was a controversial outcome.
That was an upset. So it was going up against Saratoga, which presents itself in a completely opposite way.
It comes in a blue glass bottle with a very like upscale looking logo.
Like it's almost trying to look like a like a wine, maybe, you know, we had people vote and that was the one that won the vote.
and it was the one that we both thought that we were drinking when we did the blind taste test. And then it turned out that the one that we liked when we stripped away everything else was the vintage.
So without its fancy cobalt blue glass bottle, Saratoga fell apart.
Vintage prevailed. Before I said goodbye to Travis and Rachel, there was one more thing to do.
Are you ready for the lightning round?
Sure. Ooh, fancy. Fancy.
What is the best overall flavor of flavored seltzer?
Forget brands. Yeah.
If you're going to, but if you have to pick a flavor.
Okay. Black cherry.
The elusive strawberry.
Don't see it very often.
Okay. Bleh. Is sparkling water actually water?
What? Oh. It's water.
Is this a trick? Well, water is just H2O, man.
Well, but if you add CO2 to that H2O, why does it then no longer become water?
You'll need to ask a chemist about that.
All I would say is that if I asked for water and someone brought me a seltzer, I would be like, close enough, I guess.
All right, last question of the lightning round.
What's the next trend in seltzer?
Next big thing. Yeah, I have a few pitches here.
One would be for people who have easily upset stomachs, a decarbonated seltzer.
So they take a seltzer and then they remove the bubbles from it.
I think that a lot of people would like that product.
Another one that I would be curious about is a savory seltzer.
You know, something along the lines of, you know, like a rosemary or thyme situation.
I would love that though.
Something I would like to try.
I love those flavors I think that's a great idea maybe a spicy seltzer basically what you're saying Travis is some of the same trendy flavors we're seeing in cocktails yeah cardamom, clove, star anise give me that anise well you guys I really have to pee now so I gotta go but this has been a lovely conversation thank you thank you for talking to us It was a real dream.
CO2 you later. I'm parched.
Open the fridge, grab a can or two.
Come snuggle, bae, and bring that water juice.
So thirsty I'll be your Lacroix boy That's Rachel Ward and Travis Larchuck.
Their podcast is called Seltzer Deathmatch. It's a lot of fun.
Check it out. And if you're looking for some more seltzer recommendations, Rachel's personal favorite is Mountain Valley Spring.
Travis, he's a big fan of black cherry Schweppes.
As Rachel said, because seltzers don't have a ton of flavor, a huge part of the experience is the carbonation, right?
But I still want to know, what exactly is carbonation?
What makes the carbonation in different seltzers different?
And how can you get the best results from a home carbonation device?
Coming up, we get answers.
We'll nerd out on the science of carbonation with our friend Dan Sousa from America's Test Kitchen and Cooks Illustrated.
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welcome back to another sporkful reheat i'm dan pashman hey check out my instagram when you get a chance i share what i'm up to what i'm eating all of my hot takes that don't always make the cut here on the sporkful although i don't know why anybody would want to cut out my rants about the best way to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches but the point is that that stuff is on my instagram and we have a lot of fun there also sometimes i'm like debating what should we do for this episode and i'll put up a poll so it gives you a chance to actually have input into the show so you can do it right
now while you're listening follow me on instagram at the sporkful again that's at the sporkful thanks now back to seltzer i wanted to really nerd out on carbonation so i called up my friend dan souza editor -in -chief of cooks illustrated he does a video series about the science of cooking called what's eating dan and he even did one specifically about carbonation we've fallen down a bit of a rabbit hole here on the the spork full.
And when I fall down a scientific rabbit hole, you're always one of the first people that I think I need to talk to.
That's great. I'm happy to pull you out of the rabbit hole or send you further down.
Or send us deeper, exactly.
Depending on what you're looking for.
Dan, knowing you as I do, I suspect that beyond SodaStream and whatever commercially available carbonation devices there are for home use, you may have some Rube Goldberg type situation in your house.
Yeah, I wish I could call it Julie Rube Goldberg, but I do have kind of a carbonation rig set up at the house.
I basically have a 20 pound CO2 tank and this is like maybe the size of an industrial fire extinguisher, like a really big fire extinguisher.
It can sit like on the ground.
It's like a toddler basically.
And then there's a hose that runs to this pretty cool connector that you can attach to to soda bottle tops you fill it up with whatever liquid you want you squeeze out any air at the top and then you lock it in place and then as you pump CO2 into it you shake it and you can carbonate basically anything.
Dan got this gear at a homebrew store he says this ability to carbonate anything is what sets his rig apart the typical home carbonation systems?
They are definitely just for carbonating water which I think they warn you pretty strongly about that so if you are trying trying to do like a cocktail or something like fruit juice that has a lot of foaming potential it can back up into the system and really screw it up but dan's rig like let's say you like an americano right which is campari and sweet vermouth and seltzer you could just combine water sweet vermouth and campari so it's not bubbly at all and then force carbonate the whole thing so you actually get something that's more carbonated because you're not diluting that that carbonation with still
booze. Is that actually better though?
Because I feel like this is one of the situations where I at least I'm so accustomed to the ratios that you would get in any bar or any home cocktail where like the only carbonation comes from the thing that was pre -carbonated.
If you carbonated the whole thing, it might be kind of weird for me.
I don't know if it would be what I wanted.
And it may not be. So I think, I'm not sure I got this point across, but like I'm a, I really like carbonation.
I like, you know, if it doesn't work, like hurt and it's not really, really carbonated, I feel like it's just like disappointing.
What is carbonation?
Yeah, so it's actually pretty simple.
It's basically you've saturated water with carbon dioxide.
That's really all it takes to meet the requirement of a bubbly beverage.
bridge. So Dan, when you buy seltzer in the store, if it's in a clear container, you're holding it in your hand, it looks like water.
It's only when you crack it open and break that seal that this magical thing happens.
All of these bubbles appear out of nowhere.
What's happening there?
So basically you've destroyed equilibrium.
Inside that bottle, you have that little headspace at the top, and then you have that liquid.
And it's all the same pressure throughout.
out. And because it's all at the same pressure and it's in equilibrium, there's just no reason for that gas to come out of the water, right?
So it's just stuck in there.
So it's only when you change the pressure at the top and actually cause an imbalance.
So you've got the water that's supersaturated, and then the atmosphere has nowhere near as much CO2 in it as that little headspace in the bottle did before.
The atmosphere inside the bottle is full of CO2.
It's highly highly pressurized.
The atmosphere outside the bottle isn't.
So when you open the bottle, the CO2 rushes toward the area that's less pressurized.
Nature loves to get back to equilibrium, so it will do just that.
The gas will come out of solution, leave the bottle until it reaches a new equilibrium, which is flat.
But even when seltzer goes flat, it still has a flavor, right?
You know, like if you leave a glass of it on the counter overnight, and then you take a sip the next day, you can still tell hell, it's seltzer, even without the bubbles.
That's because carbonation produces a chemical reaction in your mouth that creates carbonic acid, which has a sour taste, the taste of seltzer.
But let's face it, the part of the seltzer that has the biggest impact on the drinking experience is the bubbles themselves, that physical sensation in your mouth.
Dan says our brain's response to carbonation is actually a pain response.
It's like with spicy foods, a receptor in the brain Jane registers irritation and pain, but it's a sensation we've grown to love.
How do those bubbles affect the way a drink tastes?
When those bubbles rise, they rise to the surface and some of them, you know, pop when they get up there.
And that popping action, if you have plain seltzer water, it's not going to release a whole lot of aroma.
But if you've got something with some flavoring in it or a soda or something like that, it kind of pops and releases that aroma into the air.
So you're smelling that through your nose as you're going in for your sip.
It smells really nice, and that's kind of enticing.
The other way is when you actually take a sip and bubbles form all over your mouth.
There's tons of surface in there where the bubbles form.
And then you swallow.
It actually goes through this back channel in your nose, which I know we've talked about before, this kind of retronasal olfaction.
So it's going into your nose from the other way and that actually allows you to taste it more.
Right, it's sort of the back of the throat pathway to your nose as opposed to going through your nostrils.
Exactly, yeah. So it hits you in both ways.
It hits you in the front when you're kind of going in for the sip and then when you get the liquid in your mouth and it goes through the back.
And so it actually helps you taste it more.
So if you had, say, a white wine that was flat and you tasted that and you had that exact same wine that was carbonated, you would taste a lot more of the carbonated one.
So what you're saying is that white wine spritzer is superior to regular white wine.
Wow, that might be a tough position to take.
But yeah, I could go for a spritzer right now, so I'll say that.
But yeah, no, absolutely.
Absolutely. It is. It's like a flavor amplifier to have carbonation in your drink.
My next question for Dan, why do some seltzers seem to have bigger bubbles while others have smaller bubbles?
What are they doing differently?
Well, Dan actually says that's mostly an illusion.
The bubbles are really all about the same size.
When a drink has more bubbles, we perceive it in our mouths as having bigger bubbles, but it's really just that it's more.
Less carbonated drinks feel like smaller bubbles.
That being said, there may be one way to get bigger bubbles.
So there is one really interesting thing, and I've never tested this out.
So the bubbles form in the glass on what we call little nucleation sites.
So there are little microscopic gas bubbles already in there.
Usually they're on little fibers from the cloth you clean to clean the glass or a little crack in the glass.
So there's a little tiny bubble and CO2 enters that, fills it up, and once it gets enough CO2 in that bubble that it's buoyant, it rises up through the glass.
And as it's rising up, it's picking up more CO2 along the way.
So the bubble grows and grows and grows.
So the bubble, if you look like on like macro photography, when it first forms versus when it comes to the top, the bubble's bigger.
So I always wondered if you had a glass that was like a quarter of a mile tall.
This is why we have you on to answer this question, Dan, because you have already wondered the things that I just started wondering.
I have. Like how big would the bubble get by the time you get to the top?
Wait, wait. Oh, that follow -up question.
How much time have you spent on micro photography websites looking at pictures of bubbles?
I've spent a little bit of time on there.
Yeah, I definitely have. It's been probably a couple of years.
But you never forget your first experiences on a microphotography website looking at close -up pictures of bubbles.
It's so true. Now, in case you're not as hardcore as Dan, you haven't been on those bubble websites, you don't have a toddler -sized tank of CO2, A home carbonator, like a SodaStream or a SodaSense, that's going to be your best bet.
And Dan's got some tips for getting the best results from those machines.
So you want your liquid to be as cold as possible.
So your best bet for making seltzer in a SodaStream is to make ice water.
So stir together, you know, plenty of ice in your water, get it down so it's nice and cold.
Dan, Dan, all right, look, I appreciate that you're good at explaining things.
You don't need to give us the recipe for ice water.
No, but you know what?
I actually think it's important because ice water can mean really different things to different people.
So like two ice cubes in a quart of water, that's not necessarily gonna get down to 32 degrees, right?
So you want a good amount of ice in there.
Give it a couple stirs and then you're gonna strain it off the ice.
Oh, geez, wow. So strain that into - This is some Cook's Illustrated level recipe for ice water right now.
Yeah, so if you basically get your water down to 32 degrees, Strain it into your SodaStream and carbonate.
And you will get a much bubblier product than, you know, if it was at 40 degrees, 45, 60, you name it.
Dan, before we wrap up, I want to talk to you about the cocktail that I'm kind of getting into.
And I want to get your tips.
So I went through a phase where I was drinking.
I don't even know how or why I got into this.
The mood just struck me one day.
But I've been drinking whiskey on the rocks with water.
Like three parts water to one part whiskey.
Okay, that's a fair amount of water, yeah.
Yeah. I'm sure it's considered an abomination to anyone who appreciates good whiskey, but it's been working for me.
I have a friend from Kentucky.
Her name is Meredith, and she introduced me to whiskey and water.
Not quite in the same ratio that you're talking about, maybe a little bit less water, but I also think that's an amazing drink.
And now I'm in this—I'm kind of on a seltzer kick, and then I'm reading about the highball.
You know, highball's been around for a long time, but I didn't realize—I'm getting competing definitions from the Internet, first of all.
Some people say a highball is any combination of any liquor and any soda, serves in a tall glass.
Other people say a highball is whiskey with club soda or ginger ale or club soda or half and half ginger ale club soda.
Other people say it's just whiskey and club soda.
So what is a highball?
And I'm pretty sure this is my new favorite drink in the world, so how do I make a good one?
My understanding was always whiskey and club soda and most often, and I don't know if this is just because that's where it really took off, but Japanese whiskey, So kind of the single malt style that they do there, that's like Suntory, and they even have machines in some bars that make a very, very nice highball with just the perfect ratio of water to whiskey.
What is the perfect ratio?
Well, see, that's the thing.
I don't know. It's not a drink that I make at home very much, but I don't really know why, because I also love whiskey and I clearly love carbonated drinks.
I would do it to taste.
I actually think your ratio for that kind of drink with some bubbles might actually be really nice.
Like, I think you want the caramel kind of slightly sweet notes of the whiskey, but it's not supposed to hit you over the head.
But I think you'd want, you know, at least twice as much water as whiskey and maybe three times as much. Right.
I think this is going to be my quarantine drink.
Well, yeah, and now you've sent me on this, so I'm going to have to do a ton of experimenting with this.
Oh, well, I want you to— You really set me up here, Dan.
Well, I got a great recipe for ice water if you need it.
I might take you up on that.
well dan suza editor in chief of cooks illustrated it's always fun to catch up continue your good work in the field of carbonation and other food science folks of course can check out your work and recipes and techniques and tips and articles at cooks illustrated .com there we go thanks dan be well take care thanks dan good to talk to you This show is produced by me along with senior producer Emma Morgenstern and producer Andre Sohero Our editor is Tracy Samuelson Our engineer is Jared O 'Connell Music help from Black Label Music Additional production by Sam Lee Special thanks to Kevin Liu owner of The Jasper
in Richmond, Virginia and to Professor Roberto Zenit at Brown University This Porkful is a production of of Stitcher.
Our executive producers are Chris Bannon and Daisy Rosario.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
And I'm Susan Moorville from Ann Arbor, Michigan, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
We'll be right back.
stanley and hey did you know you can listen to the sporkful and the sirius xm app yes the sirius xm app it has all your favorite podcasts plus over 200 ad -free music channels curated by genre and era plus live sports coverage does your podcasting app have that and there's interviews with a list stars and so much more it's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one and right now sporkful listeners can get three months free of the sirius xm app by going Welcome to SiriusXM .com slash sporkful.
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