An Introduction To Sake, Our One-Minute Cooking Tip, Jukes Cordialities, Duck Eggs, Chestnuts & More!

Bruce: 00:00:00

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast

Bruce: 00:00:02

Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Mark: 00:00:03

And I'm Mark Scarborough.

Mark: 00:00:04

And together with Bruce, we have written 36 cookbooks, including the

Mark: 00:00:09

latest, the Instant Air Fryer Bible, which is written for instant brands,

Mark: 00:00:14

air Fryers like the Vortex and the Omni, but you can use it with.

Mark: 00:00:18

Any air fryer, it's a great step-by-step guide to getting the

Mark: 00:00:23

most out of what is becoming the world's most popular appliance.

Mark: 00:00:27

And I say worlds, it's wild, right?

Mark: 00:00:29

Because Oh it is.

Mark: 00:00:30

It's big in, it's jumping in UK and like, come on, in India,

Mark: 00:00:33

they use it a lot in India.

Mark: 00:00:35

Yeah, it's crazy.

Mark: 00:00:36

It's quickly becoming, uh, the world's most used.

Mark: 00:00:39

Passing pressure cookers, in fact.

Mark: 00:00:41

Mm-hmm.

Mark: 00:00:42

. But we're not talking about air frying or air frying much of anything.

Mark: 00:00:45

In fact, if you air fry anything in this podcast, you'd probably be in trouble.

Mark: 00:00:48

But anyway, um, , we're gonna talk about sake.

Mark: 00:00:51

We're gonna talk about, uh, one minute cooking tip about potatoes.

Mark: 00:00:55

Bruce has an interview with Jack Hollahan, who is an entrepreneur who

Mark: 00:00:58

has created a non-alcoholic drink.

Mark: 00:01:00

We seem to be on.

Mark: 00:01:01

these lately and, uh, this is one of the non-alcoholic drinks we've tried, and

Mark: 00:01:05

Jack Hollahan started a company that, uh, began one, and he's gonna interview him

Mark: 00:01:08

and we're gonna talk, of course, about what's making us happy in food this week.

Mark: 00:01:11

So let's get started.

Mark: 00:01:15

What.

Bruce: 00:01:16

What is sake.

Bruce: 00:01:18

It's like that's a huge question, right?

Bruce: 00:01:20

People go into Japanese restaurants.

Bruce: 00:01:22

It is.

Bruce: 00:01:22

They go into sushi bars.

Bruce: 00:01:23

It is, and most of us know sake as this warm drink.

Bruce: 00:01:27

That was my first introduction to, yeah,

Mark: 00:01:30

I think, I think you're showing your a, I'm sorry.

Mark: 00:01:32

You're showing my age.

Mark: 00:01:33

. I think you're showing up.

Mark: 00:01:33

You're the same age.

Mark: 00:01:34

I, I know.

Mark: 00:01:34

I think you're showing our age.

Mark: 00:01:36

I think a lot of people now who are younger than we are.

Mark: 00:01:40

Don't know it as a warm drink.

Mark: 00:01:41

When we were kids, when I was a kid, and we would go to this Japanese

Mark: 00:01:45

restaurant, Sakura in Dallas, Texas.

Mark: 00:01:48

Yes.

Mark: 00:01:48

In fact, I was just, he blossom a young kid going to Sakura in Dallas,

Mark: 00:01:52

Texas, and we had to take off our shoes to go inside their restaurant and

Mark: 00:01:57

they had kimonos to put in, which God

Bruce: 00:01:59

knows over your clothes or did you take your clothes off too?

Mark: 00:02:01

No, over your clothes, but God knows how lice ridden they were.

Mark: 00:02:04

But anyway, it's like bowling shoes.

Mark: 00:02:06

Ugh.

Mark: 00:02:06

So anyway, but we did, we thought we were so sophisticated.

Mark: 00:02:09

We sat on the floor, although we had said none of you used chopsticks.

Mark: 00:02:12

Uh, no.

Mark: 00:02:13

We actually didn't use chopsticks with we, but we did sit on the floor,

Mark: 00:02:15

but they had a hole under the table so you could put your legs down

Mark: 00:02:18

So we didn't have to actually sit on the te Tommy.

Mark: 00:02:21

Uh, but anyway, we'd go to this place and occasionally my dad would

Mark: 00:02:24

get a suck, and it was always, Warm.

Bruce: 00:02:26

Yeah.

Bruce: 00:02:27

It's always warm and people talk about it like warm rice wine and it's

Bruce: 00:02:31

not, it's not made like wine at all.

Bruce: 00:02:33

It's actually a brood beverage.

Bruce: 00:02:36

Yes.

Bruce: 00:02:36

And I find it really surprising that more people don't know about it, which

Bruce: 00:02:39

is why we're talking about it, because sake exports from Japan to the US have

Bruce: 00:02:44

doubled more than doubled last year.

Bruce: 00:02:47

Under 4 million liters to over 9 million liters.

Bruce: 00:02:51

Yeah, that's a lot of sake.

Mark: 00:02:53

Yeah.

Mark: 00:02:53

And sake has become, uh, popular because it, sometimes, I know it

Mark: 00:02:58

has a reputation of being a head hammer, but actually sometimes it has

Mark: 00:03:03

a lower alcohol content than wine.

Mark: 00:03:05

Particularly now that wine has ramped up from American

Mark: 00:03:09

producers to 16 and 17% alcohol.

Mark: 00:03:12

It's sometimes not.

Mark: 00:03:13

Sometimes has a lower alcohol content than wine.

Mark: 00:03:16

I think it, people think of it as a headache hammer or a head hammer because

Mark: 00:03:20

they drink it so quickly and so much of it, which you actually shouldn't do.

Mark: 00:03:24

But as Bruce said, it's a brood beverage.

Mark: 00:03:26

It's, it's kind of like beer.

Mark: 00:03:28

It's definitely not a wine.

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Although in this.

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Country, it's sold as a wine.

Mark: 00:03:33

And I think that has to do with the PA packaging, right?

Mark: 00:03:35

The bottles, yeah.

Mark: 00:03:36

It always comes in bottles.

Mark: 00:03:38

Looks what it looks like on the shelf.

Mark: 00:03:40

I think that's why people think it's a rice wine.

Bruce: 00:03:42

Now, I've never seen it corked.

Bruce: 00:03:43

I've only ever seen screw tops.

Bruce: 00:03:45

Now it doesn't, doesn't mean there aren't some with corks.

Bruce: 00:03:47

There might be that I haven't seen, but it's usually screw top.

Bruce: 00:03:51

And whereas beer starts with grain, So des sake, but it starts with

Bruce: 00:03:56

rice and it starts with sake.

Bruce: 00:03:57

Rice, which is a very specific kind of rice that's not usually eaten.

Bruce: 00:04:02

It's plumper and starer.

Bruce: 00:04:04

When it's stripped of the brand to which it is, it's always stripped of

Bruce: 00:04:07

some of the brand because you want to expose that starchy core to be able to

Bruce: 00:04:12

then brew it out and make the alcohol.

Mark: 00:04:14

So I, I should tell you that I am still at my.

Mark: 00:04:18

Bit of a sake novice, but I do know that the more they mill the rice in

Mark: 00:04:23

Japan, the finer the sake is considered because it's considered more and more

Mark: 00:04:29

elegant as the rice has been refined.

Mark: 00:04:32

And I can tell you that this old western boy , this old Texas boy,

Mark: 00:04:38

actually prefers the rice less milked.

Mark: 00:04:40

I know that that is not as elegant as Japanese, but.

Mark: 00:04:44

Don't mill the rice quite as closely as he is done for

Mark: 00:04:48

extremely elegant sake in Japan.

Mark: 00:04:51

It leaves more flavor to it, to me than the clearer, pure, sweeter

Mark: 00:04:57

stuff that is the more refined rice.

Mark: 00:05:00

I know.

Mark: 00:05:00

It's really funny.

Mark: 00:05:01

So in other words, you can take me out and I'm a cheap date.

Mark: 00:05:03

When when comes to, okay, well

Bruce: 00:05:05

there's another thing that really affects the final

Bruce: 00:05:07

flavor of the sake and the body.

Bruce: 00:05:09

It's, yes, it's how much.

Bruce: 00:05:11

Milked rice versus un milled rice that they use, but also whether

Bruce: 00:05:14

they add a little bit of extra alcohol to the final product.

Bruce: 00:05:19

June May osa, which is actually my favorite, has no added alcohol.

Bruce: 00:05:24

It's a lighter, it's highly refined, right?

Bruce: 00:05:26

It's highly refined.

Bruce: 00:05:27

It has a higher acidic level.

Bruce: 00:05:29

It's compared to other types of sake, so I think it's a little more complex.

Bruce: 00:05:33

Although it's not heavy, the flavor is not terribly prominent.

Bruce: 00:05:36

This is the one often served hot to enhance the taste.

Bruce: 00:05:40

But I like it and I, there's something about Jemiah that I really, really like.

Mark: 00:05:43

Yeah.

Mark: 00:05:44

Basically what Bruce is saying is that there are three kind of, uh,

Mark: 00:05:47

categories of sake that you might find if you wanna start at now.

Mark: 00:05:50

There are many more than this , and then the categories get increasingly

Mark: 00:05:55

complicated, just like wine, right?

Mark: 00:05:57

There's junmai and there's then ginjo and then daiginjo.

Mark: 00:06:02

If you're gonna start a sake lifestyle, oh my God, what is it?

Mark: 00:06:05

Involve a lot of kimbos and sitting around your house on the floor

Mark: 00:06:08

anyway, if you're gonna start.

Bruce: 00:06:09

So you have to dig a hole under the table like your family did.

Mark: 00:06:12

We didn't dig the hole.

Mark: 00:06:14

The restaurant had the hole under the table.

Bruce: 00:06:16

How much old rice was down in that hole?

Bruce: 00:06:19

That's, I want to know, oh, did they back in that hole out every night?

Mark: 00:06:22

I don't know.

Bruce: 00:06:22

And the, and did it get sticky down in there?

Bruce: 00:06:24

Cuz people spilled their sake.

Mark: 00:06:26

Oh no, but the waiters did.

Mark: 00:06:28

wear kimonos.

Mark: 00:06:30

The women all were in kimonos and wooden shoes.

Mark: 00:06:32

Of course.

Mark: 00:06:32

Those wooden flat shoes, right?

Mark: 00:06:35

Oh yeah.

Mark: 00:06:35

This is, and they would so offensive down at the table.

Mark: 00:06:38

It was a whole thing.

Mark: 00:06:40

Listen, we thought we were so sophisticated.

Mark: 00:06:42

Okay, it's 1971 and I'm eating Sukiyaki, so gimme a break.

Mark: 00:06:48

It is sophisticated and out there for Dallas.

Mark: 00:06:51

That is way out there.

Mark: 00:06:52

Anyway, Bruce is set talking to . Um, Uh, Genjo is made from 40% mild rice,

Mark: 00:06:58

and it is very delicate and light bodied.

Mark: 00:07:02

Uh, but I have to tell you, it's not necessarily as refined as sun genise.

Mark: 00:07:07

And actually, I, I like it better.

Mark: 00:07:10

It, it has a, it has more of a rice flavor to it, to me, which I like.

Mark: 00:07:16

Again, I'm a cheap date.

Bruce: 00:07:17

If you've never had sake, we think going for a ginjo.

Bruce: 00:07:21

Perfect first time sake.

Bruce: 00:07:22

for you And then there's daiginjo.

Bruce: 00:07:25

It's much fuller bodied, much fuller flavored, and often it's

Bruce: 00:07:28

made with some added alcohol, so that's gonna be your full bodied

Mark: 00:07:32

sake.

Mark: 00:07:32

Listen, honestly, it's like wine.

Mark: 00:07:34

If you don't know anything about wine, and you'll kind of want to experience

Mark: 00:07:38

sake like wine, like as if you were when, then go in a supermarket at an Asian

Mark: 00:07:43

supermarket that sold in most Asian super.

Mark: 00:07:46

And look at the shelf and just pick a couple bottles.

Mark: 00:07:49

It can't hurt you.

Mark: 00:07:50

You can't make a mistake.

Mark: 00:07:52

Don't kill the bank, but just pick a couple, I don't know, bottles

Mark: 00:07:55

in the teens and see, you know, the, you know, so many dollars.

Mark: 00:07:59

What would they be?

Mark: 00:08:01

14, 15, $16 long.

Mark: 00:08:02

Sure.

Bruce: 00:08:03

I mean, a good sake is gonna run you maybe even 30, but you

Mark: 00:08:05

Yeah, but not have to break the bank.

Mark: 00:08:07

It's like you don't have to break the bank.

Mark: 00:08:08

Okay.

Mark: 00:08:09

Back in the day, you know, if you listen to the podcast, you know, I

Mark: 00:08:12

was raised in a very conservative Christian home and we did not drink.

Mark: 00:08:15

So back in the day when I first started drinking red wine, I

Mark: 00:08:19

started drinking Ravenswood.

Mark: 00:08:20

Don't make fun of me.

Mark: 00:08:21

It's like, it's like the, uh, what am I saying?

Mark: 00:08:24

It's like, uh, sukiyaki in Dallas.

Mark: 00:08:26

In 1971, I started drinking Ravenswood, and it may not be the finest red

Mark: 00:08:30

wine in the history of the world.

Mark: 00:08:33

Opened up to me the possibilities of Zindel and Pinot Numar and Cab Franc,

Mark: 00:08:38

and I started to understand it because of, and why, what Ravens would do.

Mark: 00:08:43

I've made a trip out to California to go to Ravenswood at one point, so I know

Mark: 00:08:47

it sounds funny, but you don't have to start at that $90 bottle of Bordeaux.

Mark: 00:08:53

You couldn't, you don't.

Mark: 00:08:54

You go down

Bruce: 00:08:55

said the said the man.

Bruce: 00:08:56

Drank a bottle of New York sparkling wine to get over his breakup.

Mark: 00:09:00

Oh, remember that?

Mark: 00:09:01

I told you that was a podcast When?

Mark: 00:09:02

When?

Mark: 00:09:03

When I was dating before Bruce.

Mark: 00:09:04

Oh my God.

Mark: 00:09:05

I would drink Taylor, New York State's sparkling.

Mark: 00:09:08

Yeah, you lose all credentials, right?

Mark: 00:09:10

Have a bubble bath.

Mark: 00:09:10

Hey, sukiyaki, 1971 Dallas.

Mark: 00:09:13

Leave me alone.

Mark: 00:09:14

I was, I was coming up through the world.

Mark: 00:09:16

. Bruce: One of the things you'll find

Mark: 00:09:18

of sake, that there are two different kinds, filtered and unfiltered, right?

Mark: 00:09:23

The unfiltered will have a little layer.

Mark: 00:09:26

White on the bottom, and that's just sort of rice residue.

Mark: 00:09:30

Mm-hmm.

Mark: 00:09:30

, I find the unfiltered is my personal belief that they're a little

Mark: 00:09:34

sweeter and that's because of all the rice particles in the mix.

Mark: 00:09:36

I wonder if that's really true.

Mark: 00:09:37

Yeah.

Mark: 00:09:38

I don't, I don't know that that is across the board.

Mark: 00:09:40

True.

Mark: 00:09:40

But it's what I have experienced.

Mark: 00:09:42

That's an anecdotal note that I think that the unfiltered a little sweeter.

Mark: 00:09:45

And it's a matter of personal preference cuz you shake it up and

Mark: 00:09:47

then you're drinking cloudy beverage.

Mark: 00:09:49

And do you like that?

Mark: 00:09:50

We, in the last episode of this podcast, or several episodes ago, I

Mark: 00:09:53

guess, we talked about bubbling wine and sparkling wine, and we talked

Mark: 00:09:57

about pet Nats and we've been serving a lot of pet nats around our house

Mark: 00:10:01

at dinner parties and friends lately.

Mark: 00:10:04

And I have to say that sometimes I pour Pet Nat and people

Mark: 00:10:07

look a little strange at me.

Mark: 00:10:09

And I've watched this happen over the last, oh, two months, let's say.

Mark: 00:10:12

They look at strange at me because pet Nats tend to be cloudy.

Bruce: 00:10:15

Yeah.

Bruce: 00:10:15

In the glass.

Bruce: 00:10:16

Especially the last glass from the bottle cuz it settles.

Mark: 00:10:19

Yeah.

Mark: 00:10:19

Yeah.

Mark: 00:10:19

And it's very cloudy and people, wine drinkers who like white wine,

Mark: 00:10:24

look at it very scan cuz it's not that pure crystal champagne look,

Mark: 00:10:29

that beautiful white wine look.

Mark: 00:10:31

It's cloudy.

Mark: 00:10:32

So it's funny, you might actually do better if you wanna

Mark: 00:10:37

experience sake to start with.

Mark: 00:10:39

Filtered sakes because you won't then be fighting your eyes for

Mark: 00:10:44

what you might think about what something is that's cloudy.

Bruce: 00:10:47

Yeah, you'll go in with a biased attitude.

Bruce: 00:10:49

Now, there is another category of sake, age sake, called koshu, and

Bruce: 00:10:54

it could be aged up to 12 years.

Bruce: 00:10:56

It depends on the brewer and who does it really wild.

Bruce: 00:10:58

It can even be brown like a whiskey.

Bruce: 00:11:00

Not necessarily, it can still be clear because there is no

Bruce: 00:11:04

single one way to age sake.

Bruce: 00:11:06

So if they age it at higher temperatures, just, you know, in, not in a cold,

Bruce: 00:11:12

you know, environment, and they use larger vessels like they age it in

Bruce: 00:11:15

big tanks versus bottles, you get more dramatic changes in color, right?

Bruce: 00:11:19

You get the heaviness of flavor.

Bruce: 00:11:21

But there are brewers who age the bottles in cold temperatures, and

Bruce: 00:11:26

they get a much more subtle change to it, and it still looks clear,

Bruce: 00:11:30

but the, the change is a little more complex, but it doesn't get brown.

Mark: 00:11:33

And I, I would tell you that if you want to discover sake and

Mark: 00:11:37

discover drinking a little sake, Koshu is not the place to start.

Mark: 00:11:41

. It's too hard.

Bruce: 00:11:42

Go for junmai.

Bruce: 00:11:43

. It

Bruce: 00:11:43

or ginjo.

Mark: 00:11:43

It, yeah.

Mark: 00:11:44

It's too hard.

Mark: 00:11:44

It's too far out there.

Mark: 00:11:46

You have to kinda work toward it as something.

Mark: 00:11:49

And don't forget that sake can be opened and you needn't

Mark: 00:11:53

drink the whole bottle now.

Mark: 00:11:55

It is true.

Mark: 00:11:57

That just like wine, it will start to slowly oxidize just like beer.

Mark: 00:12:02

It will slowly start to lose.

Mark: 00:12:04

I don't wanna say it's effervescence, but some of it's flavor profile.

Bruce: 00:12:08

Yeah.

Bruce: 00:12:08

Cause it's not a carbonated, usually you can buy bubbling sakes, but they're, no.

Mark: 00:12:12

Especially you can buy them in the, but they're just carbonated, you know?

Mark: 00:12:14

Right.

Mark: 00:12:15

But.

Mark: 00:12:16

You know, you can then put the top back on that bottle and

Mark: 00:12:20

put it back in your fridge.

Mark: 00:12:21

Will it be as great three or four days later?

Mark: 00:12:24

No, it won't, but it still will be perfectly passable.

Mark: 00:12:28

So again, I know you look at sake, you see these giant bottles, you think, oh

Mark: 00:12:31

my gosh, who's ever gonna drink all this?

Mark: 00:12:33

Well, You can portion it out over several nights.

Mark: 00:12:37

Yep.

Mark: 00:12:37

You can.

Mark: 00:12:40

Before we get to know the next segment of our podcast, let me

Mark: 00:12:43

remind you that we have a newsletter.

Mark: 00:12:45

You can find this newsletter by going to our website, bruce and mark.com,

Mark: 00:12:50

and you'll see on the splash page, the landing page where you hit when you

Mark: 00:12:54

go to Bruce and mark.com, m a r k.com.

Mark: 00:12:57

When you go there, you will see a form to get.

Mark: 00:13:01

Newsletter, you can sign up there.

Mark: 00:13:03

We won't ever sell your email, and you can always get back off

Mark: 00:13:07

the newsletter at any time by clicking a link at the bottom of it.

Mark: 00:13:11

So let me say that if you would like to see what's up in the

Mark: 00:13:14

newsletter, you can certainly do that.

Mark: 00:13:16

Just recently have been all kinds of.

Mark: 00:13:17

Things.

Mark: 00:13:18

There's been these, uh, eggs that I've been making these hard cooked

Mark: 00:13:21

eggs with, uh, ramen center that I've been soaking in sake and jalapenos and

Mark: 00:13:27

ginger, and I know they're delicious.

Mark: 00:13:29

Uh, lately we've been doing all kinds of things.

Mark: 00:13:31

I had a thing about, uh, Bruce's hand warm, knitted hand warmer gloves recently.

Mark: 00:13:36

So all of these things come up in the newsletter.

Mark: 00:13:38

We've been talking a little bit about non-alcoholic cordials,

Mark: 00:13:41

unless we have on the podcast.

Mark: 00:13:43

They're, so if you wanna.

Mark: 00:13:44

Do so.

Mark: 00:13:48

Okay, up next, our traditional second segment, our one minute cooking tip.

Bruce: 00:13:55

Store potatoes in the dark, even if you keep them in the fridge, place

Bruce: 00:13:59

'em in a dark bag that blocks light.

Bruce: 00:14:01

Light causes chlorophyl to grow in the skin and just under the skin of the

Bruce: 00:14:06

potato and turns it chlorophyl green.

Bruce: 00:14:08

The green bit.

Bruce: 00:14:08

That's right.

Bruce: 00:14:09

So if you notice supermarkets, when they close, they throw tarps over the

Bruce: 00:14:13

potatoes to keep the light off them cuz they keep their lights on all night.

Bruce: 00:14:16

And you don't wanna buy green potatoes, you don't want to

Bruce: 00:14:18

eat green potatoes, you know.

Bruce: 00:14:19

No, no, no, no.

Bruce: 00:14:20

They won't kill you.

Bruce: 00:14:20

But you get a stomach ache,

Mark: 00:14:21

the.

Mark: 00:14:21

US potato board, even they say to cut the green spots out of potatoes.

Mark: 00:14:26

Uh, because again, too much of that will give you a stomach ache.

Mark: 00:14:31

So they advise you to cut potatoes in halves or in quarters

Mark: 00:14:34

and cut out the green parts.

Mark: 00:14:35

Even the US potato board Yeah, you selling potatoes, says that.

Mark: 00:14:39

So store them in the dark for the best results and store them away.

Mark: 00:14:44

From onions and bananas, which cause potatoes to sprout

Bruce: 00:14:49

because they put off ethylene gas and the ethylene causes everything

Bruce: 00:14:53

to start ripening and sprouting.

Bruce: 00:14:55

Right now you get really fancy.

Bruce: 00:14:56

We got a new refrigerator this year and it has actually an ethylene

Bruce: 00:14:59

filter in the vegetable drill.

Bruce: 00:15:00

Oh wow.

Bruce: 00:15:01

How fancy.

Bruce: 00:15:01

And it absorbs ethylene to keep that from happening.

Mark: 00:15:06

Before we get to Bruce's interview in this podcast, let me say, it

Mark: 00:15:09

would be great if you could rate it, if you subscribe to it, that would.

Mark: 00:15:12

Tacular, it would be a fabulous thing if you could drop a rating on any

Mark: 00:15:15

of the platforms you're on, whether in the US or any other country

Mark: 00:15:18

across the world, particularly on Google or on Apple Podcasts.

Mark: 00:15:23

I know you can only rate it with stars on Spotify, but if you could do that,

Mark: 00:15:28

Sometime that would be spectacular for us because again, we're doing this for the

Mark: 00:15:32

love of doing it and doing it with you and are unsupported, so it would be great

Mark: 00:15:36

to have some of your support behind us.

Mark: 00:15:38

Up next, Bruce's interview with Jack Hollihan, an entrepreneur,

Mark: 00:15:42

I don't know, an entrepreneur of entrepreneurial passions.

Mark: 00:15:47

Anyway, Jack.

Mark: 00:15:48

is Up with his latest adventure, Jukes cordialities.

Mark: 00:15:54

Today

Bruce: 00:15:54

I'm speaking with Jack Hollahan, whose company produces Jukes Cordial,

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which is an amazingly delicious alcohol free wine alternative.

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Welcome, Jack.

Bruce: 00:16:06

Thank you.

Bruce: 00:16:08

So I wanna start by asking what is the difference between a non-alcoholic

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wine and a wine alternative?

Jack: 00:16:16

Uh, a non-alcoholic wine is, is a wine that has had its alcohol

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removed after it's been built.

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A wine alternative is generally non-G based, which wine is, but it's fulfilling

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the function that wine fulfills either, you know, at the bar or in meals.

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In other words, it's generally designed to be paired with food or to

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be a, a social occasion type drink.

Bruce: 00:16:43

What's the story behind Jukes?

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Why did you want to create a wine alternative to begin with?

Jack: 00:16:49

Uh, Matthew Jukes, who is a very, very well noted, uh, English

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wine expert, is an old friend of mine.

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As, as you know, Bruce, we've lived over in.

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for 20 years.

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Mm-hmm.

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. And in 2019, Matthew and I were having lunch together at some posh restaurant.

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We both didn't wanna drink and we were both complaining to each

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other about how the fact that there was, you know, what's your choice?

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Sparkling water.

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Meh doesn't do much for the food.

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Fruit-based juices, a lot of calories, a lot of sweetness.

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What's the point.

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So one thing led to another and uh, we decided to figure out whether

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we could work up an alternative and Matthew went backwards on it.

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In other words, even back then, there were a fewd ized wines.

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Mm-hmm.

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. And the issues with them is if you take out the alcohol, , you lose

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the ladder that holds the flavor back and over your pallet and gives

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you the length and the mouth feel.

Jack: 00:17:49

Mm-hmm.

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. So what You end up with something that's sort of flat and sour.

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And so rather than doing that, he actually went back to 18th century.

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Recipes using apple cider vinegar with fruit and veg, et cetera,

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macerated in them, and used that to construct the wine alternative in the

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form of an apple cider vinegar base.

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We actually using a organic apple cider vinegar from the foothills of the Alps

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in, uh, Italy, and then mascerating in it, typically around 20 different fruits,

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veg, herbs, flowers, spices, et cetera.

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so as to construct the same flavors that you think you recognize when you

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drink like a Sancerre or a Pinot Mar.

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or, or whatever.

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It's a completely different novel construct, actually.

Bruce: 00:18:42

So let's talk about that a second.

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I mean, some wine alternatives start with tea as a base or kombucha, but

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all three of your varietals start with the same apple cider vinegar.

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How does that translate from one product, from the vinegar into three

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beautifully distinct beverages?

Jack: 00:18:59

It's the mix of the fruit and veg, and herbs and spices and flowers

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that are designed in effect to be a form of a white or a form of a red.

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or a form of a rose, now Matthew is a guy who's written 15 books about wines.

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People pay him a lot of money for his recommendations, et cetera.

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He is a real expert, so he is working off of a 30 year pallet of probably

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25,000, 30,000 tastings over the years.

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And what he's doing is, or what he's done is he's selecting.

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The flavor nuance is in timing and in proportion.

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In other words, if he as if he were constructing a perfect wine and then

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putting them in the apple cider vinegar to macerate together and then seeing

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what the effect is, we went through 250 odd trials just for the red alone,

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to get that exact perfect profile.

Bruce: 00:19:56

The perfect profile, not only in flavor.

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When you pour the red, it is amazing the.

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The body.

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I mean, it just has the, the appearance of a red wine in ways that I've

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never seen done before in in wine alternatives, which is really nice if

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you're having a drink somewhere where you don't want to drink, but you don't

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want people to know you're not drinking for whatever reason, and it just

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looks like you're drinking a red wine.

Jack: 00:20:20

That is correct.

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The other thing too is we're using the apple cider vinegar for dryness

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because what you often get with wine alternative, , or for that matter

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with ized wines, is you have to do something to get the flavor profile over.

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So if you don't have alcohol to bring the flavor profile over, you

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have to do something to attract the pate, and so you end up using sugar.

Bruce: 00:20:46

Well, let's talk about that nutritionally.

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How do Jukes compare to wine?

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When it comes to calories and

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carbs?

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A glass of wine will be, 125 calories.

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Mm-hmm.

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, uh, a glass of jus will be, depending upon which one it is.

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Mm-hmm.

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, uh, will be somewhere between 12 and 18 calories.

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So we're like, we're basically.

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Choice a have a stalk of celery choice b a jukes.

Bruce: 00:21:16

I like that you've packaged juice in these little bottles

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and you mix them on your own.

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Combining the contents of the bottle with sparkling or still

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water, you even suggest tonic.

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What's great about these bottles is that you could bring them with you.

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To a party or even a restaurant.

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And was that opportunity something you considered when you designed these small

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bottles or was that just sort of happened?

Jack: 00:21:39

It was absolutely purposeful for, for two reasons.

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One was, especially with the new brand, you know, you were not in all the

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places you want to be instantaneously.

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. So you wanted to give people the ability to bring it along with them.

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Mm-hmm.

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, and then order, you know, their to water or their, or their sparkling

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water or whatever, and mix it in.

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And the second thing is that it allows people the flexibility to do exactly

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what they want with their drink.

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Some people prefer a six to one ratio, some people prefer a 10 to one.

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Some people prefer more fr soda.

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Some people like Pellegrino as opposed.

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You know, something else.

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So it allows people to play.

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Now that having been said both from the trade side coming out of Covid,

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meaning restaurants, bars, et cetera, and also from a consumer point of

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view, a lot of people asked us to create a ready to drink product.

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So we in effect created in little two 50 ML pan.

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A premixed version, which you basically just throw into the refrigerator

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and pull it out and let her rip.

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But if the concentration, the can is not to your liking, it's perfectly

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okay to dilute it a little more.

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Oh yeah.

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Yeah.

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Because the flexibility of the little bottles are So, what's so amazing, so

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we started this whole thing talking about how important it was for you and

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Matthew to come up with something that paired well with food Cuz wine has.

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And a great relationship with food.

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So how does Jukes Fair when it comes to food pairings?

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We're in 18 Michelin starred restaurants, including

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a number of three stars,

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and people are drinking these there not as a cocktail before

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dinner, but throughout dinner.

Jack: 00:23:20

Yeah, with a meal.

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So that probably says that from a chef Sawn point of view, they're not gonna

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let anything in their restaurant which could impair or impeach their position.

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For many of them, Jukes is their only.

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Non-alcoholic alternative.

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On their list, they have the issue where, uh, in, in the uk

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for example, it's upwards of 25% of customers in restaurants.

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Aren't drinking anything alcoholic, and they're basically asking their,

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their restaurants, what do I do?

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What can I have?

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Or is it back to the, you know, the dreaded sparkling

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water with, with a blind in it.

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Jukes has been the response for, for many of 'em, this was designed to,

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to pair with, in effect a European stroke, American western stack of foods.

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But what it actually goes terrific with which wines don't do.

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Asian cuisine, particularly hot and barbecue.

Jack: 00:24:18

I'm not much of a beer drinker, which is the normal, you know, recourse.

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I've just never been that parcel to it.

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Right.

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But this, this is like my go-to.

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I'm, I'm very happy on that end.

Bruce: 00:24:28

So, Jack, are there plans to expand the brand into more

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varietals of flavor options?

Jack: 00:24:32

In the uk, which is where we began, uh, now we're all throughout the world,

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but in the UK we do actually two white.

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two different types of whites.

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Mm-hmm.

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, two different types of red.

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One is sort of fall smoky or pinot noir orientated.

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Mm-hmm.

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. Uh, the second being the, the classic red and the rose.

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We'll bring those other two out into the rest of the world over time.

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We also do a sparkling penal nir, which is the same.

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Construction technology except there what we're doing is we're taking grapes, taking

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out the stems, taking out the seeds, et cetera, and we're using that remainder

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to Macerate with apple cider vinegar and making a sparkling pinot noir wow.

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Which is, yeah, which is really lovely.

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Right.

Bruce: 00:25:27

Give you even closer to that, you know.

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great wine essence.

Jack: 00:25:32

Yeah, exactly.

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Exactly.

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It's, it's a more single note, but it is, it is gorgeous and we're only

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doing it in the UK right now simply because we did limited amount of, of

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getting ahold of the grapes last fall.

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But I think, I think we'll widen that out.

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But it's Matthew, right?

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Matthew has got, I know Matthew's got a cuvee in mind.

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Um, so, so stay, stay tuned on that too.

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That would be amazing.

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I love the fact that there is something to have with dinner.

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With food, not just as a cocktail before, as an alternative to wine.

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Jukes really captures the essence of all of that.

Bruce: 00:26:11

Hey, thanks for this amazing product, and thank you for

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spending some time Jack Hollahan talking about Jukes cordial today.

Bruce: 00:26:18

Thank you.

Mark: 00:26:19

I have to say that we've been drinking quite a bit of jukes

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lately and we actually drank it and got to, uh, that's why you thought

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about having jacka on the podcast.

Bruce: 00:26:29

Yeah.

Bruce: 00:26:29

Yeah.

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We first tasted it.

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At Jack's house, we were there when he was just in the production

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development part of this.

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And uh, his wife loves them and so we tried them and now they're

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out and they're selling and yeah, I think they're really fabulous.

Mark: 00:26:41

I think that's kind of crazy cuz you can slip a little bottle in

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your bag or in your purse mm-hmm.

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and you can just make your own drink at a party As long

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as they have sparkling water.

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I mean, I guess you could do it with still, I've never done it.

Mark: 00:26:53

Yeah, they could do.

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Sparkling water and you know, you don't have to make a

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big deal about not drinking.

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There it is.

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Seriously.

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So I, I, it's a nice idea and a nice, beautifully delicious drink for a

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summer or maybe even a winter night.

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Our last segment, uh, the podcast Cooking Brucei Mark is traditionally what's

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making us happy in food this week.

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So I'm gonna start, and I'm gonna say what's making me happy

Mark: 00:27:21

in food this week is duck eggs.

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Hmm.

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I love duck eggs.

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And I have, we have a local source that we can get duck eggs out here in New England.

Mark: 00:27:30

And I love them because here's why, and I'm gonna tell you

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why I love Duck Egg so much.

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In fact, I've had them for dinner twice in the last two weeks

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for dinner, not for breakfast.

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I've had a fried duck egg, and here's why, because I don't, I, I, I like

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my yolk super runny, and so I can crack a duck egg into a skillet.

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And let it go and go, and go, and go and go until the whites are set.

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But the, the yoke will . It's too big.

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The yoke will never be set, but the bottom of the white is

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super crunchy by that point.

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And it's del I love duck eggs so much.

Mark: 00:28:04

Fried duck eggs are just, they're, they're like a passion.,

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they're very rich.

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The yolks are really thick, even when they're not cooked.

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They're so good.

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I love them.

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What's making me happy?

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Packaged, ready to eat, cooked, peeled chestnut, , because I love chestnut.

Bruce: 00:28:20

That's an obscure thing.

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I guess.

Bruce: 00:28:21

Duck eggs is pretty obscure too.

Bruce: 00:28:23

I mean, I love to eat them, but I love to cook with them.

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I throw them into everything.

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I put them into salads.

Bruce: 00:28:28

Um, last night I made a Chinese pork belly dish, uh, with a preserved mustard greens

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and it would never have, uh, chestnuts in it and a traditional Chinese dress, but

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I threw them in because I wanted to add that little bit of sweetness to balance

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against the sourness of the cabbage.

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You could put.

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everything, and I love them.

Mark: 00:28:46

Yeah, they, they, it was really good last night in the pork valley and the

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preserved greens, it, they tasted good.

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I was surprised to see them.

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But you do, we go to Asian markets and they sell packaged, uh,

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peeled, ready to eat chestnuts.

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Sometimes right at the register.

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They'll always buy six or seven packages and bring them home just so that

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they're always in the pa in the pantry.

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It's nice to just add.

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Packaged chestnuts to the rice cooker.

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When rice is cooking, it is, they just add a lot of flavor to beef stews, pork stews,

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chicken stews, all that kind of stuff.

Bruce: 00:29:17

Now you can find jars, you know, like French jars of roasted

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chestnuts, expensive in the super market, but they're very expensive.

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Expensive.

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You'll spend like 16 to $20 for a large jar.

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These packets are like two or $3, right?

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And these are from, usually they're from Taiwan or China.

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They're smaller.

Bruce: 00:29:32

They tend to be the chest.

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Cells tend to be a little smaller than the ones you get in the jar, but I

Bruce: 00:29:38

actually find that's good and then I don't even need to chop 'em up as much.

Mark: 00:29:40

Yeah, they're really delicious.

Mark: 00:29:42

Okay.

Mark: 00:29:42

That's our podcast.

Mark: 00:29:43

So we have talked all about sake.

Mark: 00:29:45

We've talked about Jukes Cordials, we've talked to Jack Hollahan, we've

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talked about potatoes and how to.

Mark: 00:29:52

Store them.

Mark: 00:29:52

And we've talked about duck eggs and chestnut chestnuts.

Mark: 00:29:55

Well, mortgage one in a podcast.

Mark: 00:29:57

Thanks for being with us on this journey.

Mark: 00:29:58

Thanks for being a part of it with us.

Mark: 00:30:00

We appreciate your walking with us down this road.

Mark: 00:30:04

We can't thank you enough.

Mark: 00:30:05

Connect with us on Facebook, under the group cooking with Pers and Mark

Mark: 00:30:09

or on Instagram under our own names.

Bruce: 00:30:11

And download another episode next week and the week

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after and the week after that.

Bruce: 00:30:15

And you won't miss a single episode of cooking with Bruce and Mark.