Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Mamajuana

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

One of the national drinks of the Dominican Republic, Mamajuana has a long history as an enjoyed alcoholic beverage . . . and a medicine. Dr. Sydnee and Justin go over the backstories of this beverage and the various medicinal properties it has reportedly held. For more about the history of Mamajuana and how to use it in cocktails, check out Neat: The Boozecast: https://on.soundcloud.com/71RxgMusic: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/

Saw bones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! Hello everybody and welcome to Sawbones, a marital tour of misguided medicine. for the mouth. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Saul Bones, a marital tour of Miscotted Medicine.

I'm your co-host, Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney McElroy. Justin, I just want to thank you in front of our entire audience for getting my car inspected and cleaned today. You're welcome, sweetheart. I really appreciate it. It's the least I can do

um, I will admit that I have an affinity for waiting in rooms Really while something is happening to like my car or whatever I like when someone's like just sit here for a while you know what I mean and it will be done eventually but I like that. There's like nothing you you can do and they have your cars. You can't leave. So it's pretty chill. I like that. I don't mind it. Well, I appreciated it. I got to have lunch with a friend. Yeah, lunch with a friend. Yeah. You're delightful. I know. So I just wanted to thank you publicly. I'm glad to have a pleasure. Yeah. Um. Do you know what we're talking about this week? I do, Sydney, but only because you shared the notes with me.

Oh, okay. We tried something new recently, a beverage. Oh, okay, sorry. I thought you were talking about our co-partnership, our cross branded commercial episode, which is also new. So in this episode, we're going to be talking about an alcoholic beverage, Mama Wana. Mama Wana.

Mama Wana. And because it is also a medicinal beverage. Oh. But because it is also, as I stated previously, an alcoholic beverage. Yeah. This is sort of a crossover of sorts with a neat The Booz cast, which is hosted by my brother Taylor and my dad, Tommy,

where my dad, dad, is I call him. Yes, you prefer he prefers that. Yes. And they are going to go over like the, what they usually do, they talk about the history of the drink itself and like drinks you can make with the drink and like what it tastes like.

It's fascinating. It's fascinating. If you never listen, you're in for a treat. Yeah, it's a really great show. It's a sub-units of booze. Exactly. And this was a perfect thing for us to sort of both cover because it's booze and obviously it has a long history because people like to drink it.

But it also was a medicine. Or is a medicine or is thought of as a medicine? Yeah, you know, medicine asterisk. So that's a hard word to say. We are going to focus largely on the medicinal, the supposed alleged, alleged, there we go, alleged medicinal properties and how we came to think of it as a medicinal beverage. It is known as, depending on what website you look at, the official drink of the Dominican Republic.

Now, I found that confusing because we were in the Dominican Republic not too awfully long ago. And I thought there was a different official drink that I accidentally ordered and then was informed I had ordered the official drink, the Santo Libre, which I was told by the bartender. Like, it's kind of like a key, Cuba Libre, which is Roman Coke. And this is rum and sprite.

Yes, yes, that's what it was. And it was very good. Yeah, I had several. Some number of more than one. I felt very like good when I ordered it because I was like, I thought it was the national, I thought this was like the national drink, but then like, then everything I'm reading about Mama Wanda is like, no, no, this is the national drink.

Well, maybe that's the national cocktail. Yeah, impossible. And this is like the national decor. Yeah. Or maybe the DR is just cool enough to have too. Yeah, who knows? You know, maybe it's just, it's just that simple. Um, either way, uh, and, and maybe, uh, Taylor and dad can sort that part out. Here's helping. There you go. Um, so we tried Mama Wana when we were in the Dominican Republic.

Yes. And we brought, so you can bring back to give you an idea. And I'm gonna talk about like what it's made of and that kind of stuff. But like when you, if you want to transport it, one option is like, I like to think of it as like a DIY booze kit that you can purchase. Don't you think that's a fair, you know what I'm talking about? The way that we transported it. Yeah, booze fixins.

Booze fixins. Mm-hmm. It's a, it's the bottle is full of all of the, basically, like the herbal ingredients in it. I mean, it looks like a bottle full of wood chips. There's a lot of wood chips. There are other herbal ingredients. There are other dried spices and herbs in there. But basically, you take home this bottle of the dry ingredients and then you rehydrate

them with alcohol. And then you can, so it's like your own little DIY mama want to kit. The history, and I thought this was interesting, I started reading about the history of mama want to, and then I found somebody else saying like, well, that's probably not the history. That was probably like retrofitted on the drink. Right. When it was popularized in the 1950s, because that's like really where the story of the modern drink comes from.

But then there's this sort of, and I don't know, like, it's so hard sometimes to tease out, because the, especially when we're talking, I mean, this is something like a beverage, which I mean, It's not life and death. It's not that, right. Like you can create this sort of like mythical story behind it, and especially if it's meaningful

to a certain community or culture or country or something like to people like connect with it. Like this is part of our sort of national identity is like this is our thing. Kind of like West Virginians and pepperoni rolls. Of course. Like the, we know where pepperoni's come from, but there's also, it is also food steeped in mythology

because it's meaningful to us. Yeah. I don't know which of these two stories is absolutely accurate or if like the people who made it popular in the 1950s created this backstory for it. What a lot of, what a lot of the information around Momawana will say is that this actually dates back a very long time ago to the original inhabitants of the island of Hispaniola, which obviously would eventually become Haiti in the Dominican Republic.

That the Tano people who were the original inhabitants created an herbal tea. And so it was concoction made of the same dry ingredients basically, the herbal things that go into mama wana now, but it was an alcohol. It was a tea. You would steep it in water and drink it, like a lot of herbal teas. And so because it has this root as possibly as an herbal tea, you get it. This root is a root. Then it is natural that it would have this sort of like medicinal quality kind of tied to it, because you know, it probably initially was thought to be a

healthy beverage. Exactly. I have not been able to find an account of like, so if we really believe the story that the Teno people made the herbal tea that eventually would have alcohol added to it, become mamawana, what did they use it for? I'm not sure. It seems like it had this sort of vague identity as like a general healthy drink, you know?

Yeah. Something to replenish your venom vigor. Right. Like, there are things that we drink or eat and we're like, that's healthy. And like, what does it do for you? I don't know. It's just like good for you. Yeah. It's healthy. Well, it's kind and like that might or might not be true, right? Like we all think drinking water is healthy. And it water is healthy.

It's good for you. You have to drink water, right? If you don't drink any water, you're going to get sick. Yeah. It's got to drink. So like, that's true. But we also all tend to think granola is healthy. It's good for you. You have to drink water, right? If you don't drink any water, you're going to get sick. It's got to drink water. So like, that's true. But we also all tend to think granola is healthy. Right. And I don't know that that's nuts. I mean, what's the granola? You got to give me more information. Is it full of medicine that you need because if it's like oats and raisins and like does it have a lot of sugar? Because the thing is, if it has a lot of sugar, it's gonna be delicious and I'm gonna wanna eat it. Do I also, I mean, I don't know. There's a granola encompasses a lot of things. So, an herbal tea that was made of a lot of different substances,

it was probably more of just like a wellness, like drink this daily, it will maintain your, like you said, vigor, kind of like a tonic, general tonic kind of thing. Sometime in the 17th century, as rum was invented and making its way around the world, rum was probably added to a lot of things, right? Sure. Why not? Like, you've got it.

You have something there. You have something that didn't have rum in it before. Maybe it could have rum. It could have rum in it now. Think about it. And so it ended up in Mamawana. Initially, that was sort of like the alcoholic version we think was just the rum with all the herbal ingredients.

Eventually, it would evolve, and like its final sort of iteration would have rum and red wine and honey, as well as the herbal base to the liquid. And throughout these sort of like changes in the recipe, it maintained the idea that it had medicinal benefits. Like that didn't go away. Now, are you going to detail for me some of these herbal components that are in there because I feel like you're kind of home those cards close to your chest for the moment. Do you want me to go ahead and tell you them? No, I can tell you.

You're, hey, listen, you're weaving this tail. You're the tail spinner. I know, but I try to take cues from you as I would like to know as a vessel for our audience. I think it's distract. Yes, I encompass all of them. That's right. I am Legion and we would like to know.

So let me give you some ingredients. A lot of these are herbal things that you may or may not have heard of. One that you probably have is star knees. You know what that is. It's like, I mean, it looks like a star. It's a little, I don't see. Like a pot.

I think, but it imparts that sort of like licorice flavor. So you're using a lot of baked goods. Another one you probably know are clove. You've probably heard of that. There's a kind of basil in it, one species of basil. There's a agave leaf in it. Species, there's something called princess fine. And then there are some other things

that I wasn't as familiar with. A lot of these things would have been, would be native plants to the area. We also have to assume this is not like a fully hard and fast locked-in recipe. No. And this is really important. So a lot of these ingredients that I'm naming, very depending on where it was made. Because as we're getting into like production of mama-wanna, the beverage, so there was the herbal tea, people started adding alcohol to it, and then

it became its own thing, and people started making that. Everyone had their own recipe for that. And they didn't even, they enjoyed the rum version so much that they're like, they did like, they should have done with wild berry fruit loops, where wild berry fruit loops are so superior to regular fruit loops, I made a push that they should just call that fruit loops, and then call original fruit loops worse fruit loops. So this seems like that where like, we're not even gonna mess with the teen anymore.

This is now Mama Wanda. We're wild about this stuff. The problem. The problem. We're crazy for it. Well, and I mean, that sort of did take over. I didn't find a separate name. I kept searching for that. What was the name of the tea prior to it being the beverage, Mama Wanda?

I can't find a specific name for the tea, which adds a little credence to the idea that maybe this backstory was retrofit onto this bottle of stuff. Maybe like the people who sold it later were like, yeah, it dates back to a long time ago. I mean, you know, but I mean, maybe it did. I don't know. I can't tell you for sure. But the also, I should say, like, you can add stuff to it. And this has been from the cinnamon has been commonly added to it. That's not necessarily part of the original recipe.

That's the extra crispy. But other things like raisins get thrown in there, strawberry, molasses. And then, like I said, there's some other herbal ingredients that I don't know. You probably haven't necessarily heard of, but would have been known to or thought to have various medicinal properties. A lot of these were thought to be like antioxidant anti-inflammatory. I'm hoping. I'm hoping. It really, it looks like a popery.

Yeah. Like if you look at the bottle, like the bottle of stuff, it's a big pile of stuff that smells, that's popery, right? Right. It looks, it is popery. That's what it looks like. When you give the gift to someone, which is what we did, we brought it home as a gift for Taylor. It looked like a bottle,

like we got you a liquor bottle full of popery. And then you have to kind of explain why it's not just that, because then like if someone thinks it's popery, they're probably not gonna add alcohol and drink it, maybe, but probably not. They might also think you're not the best gift giver. Why did you bring this? I got you a liquor bottle. It's full of hope.

Hopefully. Merry Christmas. It's February. We really missed that one up. So, okay, so that's kind of an idea of the different herbal stuff that's in it. And then like I said, it became the beverage, mama wanna, when rum, it can be white or dark rum,

either way works, red wine and honey are added to it. And that's because a lot of those herbal components have a very bitter flavor. And so you've got a lot of sweet stuff that you're tossing in there to sort of offset some of the bitterness of the herbal background. Does that make sense? And then people throw spicy stuff in there,

I think because it tastes nice. So people thought that it had these medicinal benefits and a lot of people like to consume it. I would say that the alcohol probably made people like to consume it even more. And it started to be used as like I said, like a general tonic. It was thought to be good for digestion.

It was a common usage. It was thought to be good for like colds and flus to come back congestion and that kind of thing. And then like the sort of stuff that's like vague that a lot of health tonics are like they detoxify your liver and kidneys and you know stuff like that. Energy. Yeah, it gives you energy.

So non-specific wellness claims, I would say. So it was pretty popular, but not, I would say we have still not even approached, even close to like national drink status at this point. A common thing that different families made in different ways at home, that was about it. What really changed it, I think this is like a lot of things in life, was when people couldn't get a hold of it so easily. When all of a sudden there were restrictions placed on the sale of Mamawana, is really

when we start to see it take off as something that's really desirable and it starts to have other medicinal properties attributed to it. Oh, like what? Well, I'm going to tell you, Justin, the first we get to go to the Billion Department. One of these days, I want to see one coming. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines, the askin' if my car's before the mouth.

The first time we've ever seen a baby genius is a baby genius. The first time we've ever seen a baby genius is a baby genius. I'm Emily Heller, and I'm Lisa Hannah Walt, and we're the hosts of Baby Geniuses. We've been doing our podcast for over 10 years. When we started, it was about trying to learn something new every episode.

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We know everything! Baby geniuses! Tell us something we don't know! The following pro wrestling contest is scheduled for one fall, making the weight of the ring from the Tikes and Fights podcast or the baddest trio of audio, the hair to be wear, Daniel Radford! It really is! Great hair! The Brit with a permit to hit Lindsey Cal!

The Queen is dead, long live the Queen! And the fast-talking, fist-clocking, how up, Lynn! See I can wrestle and be an announcer. Get ready for types and fights! Listen, every Saturday or face the pain. Find us a maximum fun. Knowing the bell. So it's important to know that in the background of this next like chapter, the Dominican Republic had come under a rule of a new dictatorial leader, Rafael Trujillo was in

charge and there were a lot of restrictions placed on like what people could do and where they could go. And it was a much, this was not the only restriction. The idea that alcohol sales were going to suddenly be restricted. This was just like the tip of the iceberg. That's a whole other, which is, I mean, listen to historians about the history of the Dominican Republic. There's probably only history podcasts.

I'm not going gonna get into the, this is outside my every expertise. But you need to know this because similar to when prohibition happened in the United States and alcohol was banned, but then you see this rise of medicines that conveniently contain large amounts of alcohol

or you see the rise of something like bitters Which bitters were originally a medicinal beverage Which I you know we're so sorry it has to have so much alcohol in it But it's the only way the medicine works and that's only out of necessity not because we're trying to slip Boos into things because we all desperately want our booze back. Right. And the government banned and we're all miserable. So similarly, at this in this time period, you see that Mama Wana goes from being this sort of like folk medicine that different people make in their own way.

Do something very codified by a man named Hazus Rodriguez, who in the 1950s started really marketing Mama Wana as a distinct beverage beverage as an entity. And it was an herbal medicine that contained a lot of alcohol. And again, all of those properties. That sound like you were giving like a mistress there, like a footnote, like it's a medicine. And then you looked down the bottom, like in the high print, like, well, I mean, there were a

lot of, and again, I would like in this to prohibition our US. There were lots of things that people did that with. I mean, if you think about it, this persists, right? Like, nightquills still exists, right? Yeah. And like, it's a medicine. That has a lot of. There's more Z-quill these days.

It's just they're just saying, like, yeah, this is a snockey out. Yeah, I mean, so like, there's so much moralizing around alcohol that we do weird things when alcohols and stuff. That's just, that's part of the history of this. So medicine and alcohol gets tied up together a lot, I think for this reason.

So anyway, he started marketing this herbal medicine that could, again, it could treat your flu, help your digestion, your circulation, clean out your blood, your liver, your kidneys, it was a cure all. It was absolutely pitched as a cure all. And all of that came from the herbal component, like it was very clear, like we're not saying alcohol fixes you, we're saying that it's all this other stuff that it's in and that fixes you, clear, like we're not saying alcohol fixes you. We're saying that it's all this other stuff that it's in and that fixes you. But it was, it was very common to use alcohol as a solvent for different substances. So like that wasn't wild to say. Yeah. I know this bottle is really

full of a lot of booze, but it's just because that's the best way to, you know, extract all of the medicinal properties from these herbs and barks and whatnot. Okay. And he also added a new angle, which was in addition to all the stuff that you already knew, because everybody was familiar. There was a cultural understanding of my want to. In addition to that, it's also an effradiagiac. And this was kind of a new sales pitch that had not really necessarily other

than tonics always were associated with sort of vigor. The idea that it specifically was helpful in the bedroom had not really been put forward until then. And so he started telling people like not only are you going to get all these benefits, but I use something special in there. And that would be turtle meat. Oh, my. I did not expect you to say that. Yes, that that was the ingredient that would make it an afrodigiac turtle meat. Yes, turtle meat.

Now, later, and you'll find this mentioned in some articles, some people would rumor it to specifically be sea turtle penis, and that that is why would it be, why would turtles be tied to Afro-DGiac? Well, it's because it's the penis. It's a penis of the turtle. But I didn't, it really depends on what you read, is to like, did he market it with the penis, or did he market it with just turtle meat or did he Did he even say that or was that a rumor that developed and then he probably like ran with it because it was good for marketing You know what I mean all this stuff sort of evolves organically that makes shredder makes so much more sense

The ones after those turtles so bad those poor guys He just wants their penises His thing I read somebody was ready like why would a penis? those poor guys. He just wants their painstances for his thing. I read somebody was writing like, why would a penis, why would a turtle penis be associated with, why would it be an affidija, specifically why turtle? Like I understand like a genitalia, but like why a turtle? And I guess sea turtle penises are very long. I can neither confirm nor deny the relative length of sea turtle penis. I read on one article that they're like 12 inches long.

I mean, honey, that's a number that I don't know how to react to necessarily. That seems like a five length for a sea turtles penis. I, um, I don't know why, you know what? Honestly, Sid, all the respect if I had seen 12 inches long in one article, I think I would have searched out another few articles just to see where everybody else was at on that I'm not sure I'm comfortable single sourcing the length of sea turtle penis personally, but I know Maybe I need to read should I Google sea turtle penis or not? Let's not I can't have you on on a bunch of government list

This show puts me in a lot of uncomfortable googling positions. I have ruined my TikTok algorithm with wellness crap. And I Google things that then put me on lists. I still get ads for cold plunge tubs like every day on Facebook because of all the stuff I lovingly research for you are. So anyway, so that supposedly it had some sort of turtle in it, some kind of turtle all the way down.

Turtle substance. And I don't think that's what that's about. I do not think that's what that's about. I'm pretty sure that's not what that's about. And there were stories like a lot of these sort of medicinal things. Like there was a whole story about how he would travel to certain provinces in the DR, specifically to get the very specific stems that you have to get to make this very, you know, sort of boutique traditional medicinal drink and then this Afro-DGiac property.

And anyway, this made it much more popular than it was before. It grew from like, it was kind of like, you know how here in Appalachia, a lot of people have been making moonshine for a long time. And like the concept of moonshine was popular. It would be like, if you know how they make those like brand name moonshine. Sure, yeah, they're all over the place now.

They're all over the place now. They're all over the place. And I don't know, maybe somebody out there buys them. Listen, number around here buys them, because we don't need to. So make our own. We make our own. That's just between you and me.

But imagine if one of those really took off and like all of a sudden, instead of it being this sort of cultural idea of like moonshine, that everybody has their own. It's all of a sudden Pepsi moonshine. Yes. Okay. This is kind of what happened. So this mama wana became like a big deal and everybody wanted it. And then of course people continue to make their own knockoffs,

but now they were based on this new version of it. And it would make you horny. What's the thought? Does it make you horny, baby? I mean, you drank some Justin. So you tell me it just seemed like regular. Now because everybody. I'm not a trial here. I refuse. It just sounds like regular. Uh, because everybody started drinking it and then making their own versions of it because, you know, it could help you in that department and that made it very popular.

It also became restricted pretty quickly. That the sale of it became something that could only be done by a doctor. So basically you had to either get it from a doctor or have a prescription for it from a doctor and then take your prescription for Mama Wana to the spensary. I mean, like really, we're talking about like a marijuana kind of situation here in the US right now.

No, Mama Wana. There's a Mama Wana situation. You take your prescription to someone who produced Mama Wana and then you would purchase some prescription strength beverage and then you know, you could have it. It was still popular. I mean, even with like you can imagine how hard it made it to get. Oh okay, yeah. Alright, that makes more sense.

I was confused for a second and now I'm right back with you. No, not that, not that. It made it very difficult to obtain. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Because you had to get it from starting the medical license. And I imagine I try to put myself in the shoes of like... The doctor? The doctor?

Yeah. Because it's not hard. It's not a hard stretch because, oh my gosh. It's not difficult. I know, doctor, that's why I'm here. It's not hard, okay? Just give me the turtle penis booze, please. Stop holding out. It must have been similar to the way I feel now that our state,

West Virginia, has legalized medicinal marijuana, but not recreational marijuana. And so the only way you can get it is through a doctor. Now I am not one of the doctors. Let me say this is very clear before I have a line outside of Harmony House next week. I am not a doctor who is licensed to prescribe marijuana, so I am not someone who can do it. But in part that's because I just think it should be legalized. And so when someone sits down in front of me and says like, can I have a prescription for this? It's hard. I don't know what criteria for me to use because a lot of the data isn't really great one where the other, but I also just think you should be able to get it if you want it. I don't think we should have these legal restrictions on it anyway.

And so it puts me in a really weird position as a physician to be like the gatekeeper for something that I don't feel should be gate kept. And so I don't, it's hard for me to cope with. I imagine a lot of the doctors at the time feel the same way. Like, they probably liked momoana too. And they probably thought everybody should be able to get it if they want it. And I'm sure you couldn't do that.

So who should get a prescription for momoana and who do you have to turn away and what on earth criteria do you use to make that decision? But when things are restricted, that usually does nothing to stop people from making them, buying them, using them. And wanting them more in many cases, which is what happened. It became this kind of,

it sort of became bigger than itself. I think probably through its restriction, like well, it must be very powerful if the government doesn't want us to have it. It's too, you're right. This is what are they hiding? What are they hiding? And so it also, through this period,

it began to be known as the Baby Maker. You could also ask for that. Could I have a shot of the Baby Maker? Or El Perra Palo, which means lift the stick. Nowadays, I saw many articles refer to it as liquid Viagra. So if that's not clear enough, I don't know if I've made it. Now it is a hard-to-per-speaker. What this is supposed to do for you.

Got it. That is what it's supposed to do. So obviously it was not illegal for very long. And then it was legalized again and people sell it and we were able to buy some to drink there and then also buy a bottle of the herbal ingredients. And this is pretty common. Like you can get it that way a lot of places where you buy just the bottle of the wood, the barks and the herbs and the dried things and then add your own rum wine and honey. And then I guess at

that point you could add raisins or strawberries or you know citrus juices, whatever other people like to add to them would be fine. I, I think it's interesting. Like, and people still do, by the way, make a lot of this outside of the ones that are sold. You can buy it in the DR. I also found several places throughout the US where you can purchase it. Not here in West Virginia. I couldn't find anywhere where you can buy it. I know.

Our liquor stores are pretty good, but we don't have this. And there are obviously ones you can buy that come pre-mixed where you don't have to DIY it. It's not just the hard ingredient. But it's fun. It's more fun the other way, isn't everybody loves a project. It was fun, we didn't do it right, but it was, the idea was fun.

What do you mean you didn't do it right? It did not taste the same as the one we drank. Yes. You should have elected the professionals upon further reflection. I will say in case you're interested, I was trying to figure out where did the term mama wanna come from.

It comes from, like this, this sort of the French origins of the English word demigion into dom-majon. It references the fact that the bottle it's usually served in is a large squat bottle with a short narrow neck. And the top is usually covered in wicker. And that's the kind of bottle. You find a lot of mama-wanna-solden bottles that look like that.

And so, Damazone, eventually Mama-Juan, mama-wanna, mother-jane. Anyway, all of this is sort of how you get to this kind of iteration of what the beverage is called, or you could call it the baby maker, or I guess the stick lifter, if that is your thing, or if you want to call it sea turtle penis booze, I'm betting people would know what you're talking about, because there can't be too many. But Sydney, the question on everyone's mind doesn't work. So there are a lot of ingredients in it, And when people say that it does stuff for health, they're probably pointing to specific ingredients. Like a lot of concoctions have cinnamon. That's

not part of the original recipe, but a lot of them these days do. And there've been a ton of studies to say like to cinnamon, reduce your blood pressure. And it's like a lot of herbal or supplement kind of things. Even if it does, you would have to take so much of it to treat a condition that it's not really useful. You know, it's not useful as a medicine. It doesn't like, it's so, you soak some with rum for a while and then drink the rum and then it's antioxidant. Well, I mean, that's the other part of it, too.

Like you're drinking it in rum. So like, I don't know, if we're talking about the effect on your blood pressure, your heart, that's kind of a catch point too. But that is where the like heart health and circulation claims come from. People have always said red wine has antioxidants. There's a lot of mythology around red wine, right? Like that was what we were all advised to do,

drink a glass of red wine every night, and then they were like, no, don't do that. And then they're like, maybe do. And then some drinking is good, and then no drinking is good. And we go back and forth on alcohol and red wine every night and then they're like, no, don't do that. And then they're like, maybe do. And then some drinking is good. And then no drinking is good. And we go back and forth on alcohol and red wine all the time. We all thought that since Italians are so much healthier than us, Americans, it must be the wine.

So I think that's where that came from. Oh, okay. That's actually kind of true, the Mediterranean diet. I mean, but I don't know that again, there's nobody out there recommending to drink red wine for antioxidant effects like drinking- There's probably somebody out there.

You can't say nobody. Okay, we are not saying that you should drink red wine all day as a way to antioxidize your body. Honey has always, right? Like honey is in there. We've always said that it- It's all bones episodes, but. Exactly, that it fights infection and that it treats inflammation And we've always said that it- Also, it's all bones episodes, but honey. Exactly.

That it fights infection and that it treats inflammation and all this different stuff that it can kill bacteria. And again, like, yeah, you in certain applications, this is actually true about honey, right? So there's some grain of truth there. But again, when you're dumping it in rum and wine and drinking it, it's not really doing much of that. And in a lot of these other ingredients,

are sort of the same things you get with a lot of kind of herbal mixtures that have lots of different things in them. It's like the vague anti-inflammatory antioxidant kind of claims. They'll detoxify you. Nothing that there's any studies to support. There's no hard science behind any of it. It's all like we did a study in a lab on two mice and we think it went well. And, you know, I mean, I'm not trying to say, I'm not trying to do great. Why is this research or so sad? They're like just asked about their day and it's like, I don't know. It didn't experiment some mice.

It didn't go well. It's hard to say with some of this stuff because either it's never been tested or the tests that have done are so small and they're not done in humans, or they're done in humans who are already taking something because they believe it works for them and so then it's not blinded. So I have no hard science to say it does absolutely anything for you. It's got alcohol in it, so too much of it is bad. We know that about alcohol, right?

There is no evidence that it will help you in the bedroom. There is nothing that I can point to that helps you with erectile dysfunction, specifically or with general libido. I don't, there are no ingredients that I have any science that says we'll do that. And I do not have any evidence that eating any part of a sea turtle will help you have an erection. So please, please, sea turtles are protected in the Dominican Republic. You're not supposed to kill them and eat them.

Please don't eat sea turtles. And don't think you can just take the penis because that's immoral. So there's, but I will say with all that being said, you know, try mom and one. I've never tasted anything like it. Yeah, it is incredibly unique. Yeah, and I thought the one we tasted there, I thought was really good. It was very sweet and spicy and floral and herbie and I thought it tasted really good. The one we made almost not that, but who actually did the making though?

I think my dad. Okay, maybe a little bit of corner cut and might have been there. A little ram rotting over there. Yeah. Thank you so much for listening this episode of our podcast. Thanks the taxpayers for the use of their song medicines as the intro and outro our program. And thanks to you for listening. We really appreciate you. Thank you so much. That's going to do it for us. Until next time, my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always don't drill a hole.

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