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That's r-o-g-u-e.
So when you see a wrapped bar like this, do you think Dexter or grandma's house?
Dexter.
Really?!
Yeah.
Well, my grandmother was also a serial killer.
I had a lot of, uh
"pie"
growing up.
Mincemeat pie?
Mincemeat pie, yeah.
[Brian's voice echos in the distance] ♪ MODERN ROGUE! ♪
[robot voice] The Modern Rogue finally learns how to eat drinks.
♪ ["Palm Parallels" by Deeb] ♪ All right, we are back at the secret, undisclosed location in Austin, Texas with Trever!
How you doing?
Yeah, man.
Trever, we missed you, sir!
>> Brian: Not as much as the fans did. >> Jason: Oh, I know!
Fans have been barbarians at the gates! >> Yes.
I got a couple of personal messages, I just want to let everyone know we are fine.
Everything is okay.
I had to post a couple of Instagram photos every now and then when we were hanging out.
It's like I'm sending pictures to the people who I'm ransoming their families, like,
(deep menacing voice) "He's safe, look!"
All right, now I heard a rumor when I walked in and you told me... the rumor that we're
going to do jello shots?!
Yes, we are going to do jello shots.
But not just any jello shot, we are going to do
an old fashioned jello shot.
See, when you told me that, I thought, "Oh an old fashioned jello shot.
So it's got Everclear in it and it's jello."
No.
You mean, an old fashion, in a jello shot form.
It's not Throwback Thursday, it's an old fashioned jello shot, okay?
One thing that I've learned, in researching this episode, about jello shots, was that
the satirist Tom Lehrer actually takes credit for creating the jello shot from the 1950s
when he was working for the NSA.
They couldn't have alcohol on base, and so this was his little work-around.
What?!
Don't know if that's true or not, other alcoholic gelatin drinks date back to like 1862.
>> Brian: Wow.
Called, "punch jelly."
I like punch jelly, yeah.
The origins are apocryphal, but this one is a special mix.
Is this something you came up with?
No, I cannot take credit for this.
This is actually, I cannot even disclose who came up with this.
It is a-we will say an acquaintance in Houston, Texas.
We made the old fashioned as one of our first drinks long ago.
But this time we're going to put it into a jello shot, so tell us how we do it.
It does make quite a mess, that's why we're saran wrapping.
It does have an angostura bitters simple syrup in it;
you get that on anything, it's going to stain it.
We're looking at equal parts water, equal parts syrup, equal parts whiskey.
>> Brian: That sounds easy. I can do that! I can do all that!
And I assume some uh, non-name brand gelatin?
Yeah, yeah.
So, all you're going to need is a burner.
We have basically one that you find when you go camping.
>> Brian: Oh! That's wild, I was just like, "You're not camping, we're at a bar."
But then I was like, "Bars don't have grills."
You know, it just takes one butane cartridge.
You just hook it up, make sure it's good to go, and uh lock it in.
Then any stainless steel pot.
I would not suggest using anything--
Plastic.
Well plastic doesn't really work well with fire, so...
I know.
Yeah.
We did an episode about that.
[incoherent giggling]
I do not suggest you using a--
Wood.
>> Trever: nonstick pan.
Don't use a wooden pot on those burners, I'm telling you.
It's a safety problem.
They go right up!
They go right up.
Nobody tells you that, it's not on the-there's no label or anything.
I wouldn't suggest using a non-stick pan for this, I would use just a stainless steel pot.
The cheaper, the better.
It tends to stain it a little bit unless you really want to scrub it afterwards.
This one we primarily use just for these jello shots.
What kind of quantities should you aim to make?
What we're going to be doing is going off of two thirds cup.
So if you do two third cup water, two third cups simple, and boil that.
You will then add two third cups whiskey afterwards because you don't, obviously don't want to
boil the whiskey with it because
>>> Both: otherwise all the alcohol will go out of it.
>> Oh, sure.
And then the ratio on the jello is just simply one pack for every 10,
and the two thirds, two thirds, two thirds, makes about 10.
Great!
Oh, well let's get started.
Okay.
First, measure out the water, and we're going to aim to make about 20 jello shots today,
because I have to open the bar a couple times this week, so I want to get ahead.
Sure.
>> Brian: So four thirds?
Uh, well two thirds plus two thirds is, one and one third.
Also four thirds.
Thank you.
Math!
Next, we're going to be using our bitters simple syrup.
Now all it is, is angostura bitters and simple syrup, which is water and sugar.
The ratio on this is a half cup of angostura bitters, just straight out of the bottle here.
Right.
With one cup water, to one and a half cups of sugar.
It's ultra-sweet, because it, I mean ango' by itself is that bitter, so you really need
♪ ["Kakuna" by Glue70] ♪ to add that much sugar and water to really even it out, so that the jello shot doesn't
taste at all bitter.
Got it.
I nicknamed our angostura bitters the "GOP Simple," because they're very bitter.
That's a lot!
Yeah, just one and one third, just like the water.
Four thirds.
And you do want to be careful.
Ango', it will stain everything it touches.
We've dealt with ango' a lot in our various episodes, and this is the first time you've
warned us about the ango' safety hazard.
I don't want to look like I've got a port stain on my face or something.
Will it stain my face?
You get the juice of sapho lips, uh from Dune.
You look like a mentat.
So now we're going to add in two jello packs since we're making 20.
Like I said, it's about one pack per 10 jello shots.
>> Brian: You don't have to bring it to a boil first?
You can just throw it straight in? >> Trever: No, no.
You just want to let it sit, because you want it to really get in there.
Once it hits all that sugar, it'll tend to clump up.
Got it.
So you want to mix this in.
Now, you want to whisk this, but not too hard because you'll put a lot of air in it and
you'll have bubbly-looking jello.
Yeah.
Like, you can remember dishes where there were a lot of bubbles on the corner.
That's actually something when I make the fake tongues that I use on my stage show,
I use a hard bloom gelatin and that's like the bane, is if you get that frothy stuff,
because it hardens with those bubbles in there.
I prefer to use, like a smaller whisk.
So just kind of get in there and just look at it,
as long as you don't see any chunks, you're good, and it doesn't take much to get it in there.
>> Jason: You haven't even turned the heat on yet though, right?
>> Trever: No, not at all.
Now the cook time can vary, and it's going to depend on your burner, whether you're on
a gas stove or whether you're on electric.
It's about five minutes for every 10 shots, when we first started doing these, we tended
to over-cook them.
They turned out okay, but they were kind of hard to chew and they were a little bit more
solid than you want.
It was like a Now and Later?
[laughter]
It's like Laffy Taffy!
And we realized, one, we were putting in just a little bit too much of the jello packets.
Yeah.
And two, we were cooking it just a little too long.
We're doing 20, so here's what I suggest, five minutes for the first 10, one minute
for every 10 after that.
Since we're doing 20, we're going to do five minutes and one, so six minutes.
>> Jason:Okay. >> Brian: Perfect.
Always keep this uncovered, on medium heat.
Uncovered, medium heat.
Yep.
You got it.
Good luck, guys!
He's like uh, "We open at four, the tip jar is over there. Enjoy!"
All right, moments like this, where you're literally waiting for a pot to boil?
That's what Audible was made for.
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All right, enough history of booze, let's get back to the making of booze, and then
the consuming of it.
>> Jason (omnipresent): Meanwhile, at an undisclosed bar in downtown Austin.
All right, well now that it's done, we're just going to turn our burner off here.
And is there anything in particular you're looking for in there?
Whether you cook it too long or too little, it's really going to look the same.
Okay.
The only thing that can happen is, based on the temperature is, more water could have
evaporated than it should.
Your jello shot will still turn out right,
you just may not have the count that you were looking for.
You might aim for 20, got 24.
There's other times I got 18.
Got it.
Because I maybe cooked it too long, or it was a little bit high, or you know, there's
humidity factors based on where you're cooking it.
The one thing I do suggest, though, is this can become kind of a mess pouring them into
those little two ounce cups.
I have just another measuring cup with a longer spout to kind of funnel it in.
We need to add our whiskey now, which again, it's all equal parts so we're going to go
one and one...
One and one third.
Four thirds, Trever!
No, I'm on team one and one third now.
What?!
I've left you in the dust, sorry.
>> Brian: Oh, it looks like you're going a little...
Well, I said one and one third but this is the Modern Rogue, so we're going to go a little over.
>> Brian: Oh!
♪ ["Sleepin" by Jhfly] ♪ Today we're using Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond.
This is 100 proof whiskey, so that stuff is no joke.
Now that it's cooled off a little bit, you can dump this in.
No alcohol's going to cook out of it at this point.
Empty that, and then I always have an extra container,
just anything you can pour it into.
>> Brian: So you don't have to stir it, or whatever?
Like it blends almost instantly.
Yeah, it blends as soon as you put it in there.
So we're going to just pour that in.
>> Jason: Looks like an old fashioned.
Looks like my kind of old fashion.
It's one giant jello shot.
I'm going to do this.
♪
And like I said, you want to be careful here, because jello in the mix in here, will start
to solidify once it dries out, essentially.
So once it bonds to something, you will start to see little clumps, so that's why, another
reason I saran wrap.
>> Jason: So you immediately have to start pouring it into the little cups?
Yeah, you don't want to wait too long.
You've got a small window, but yeah, you might as well get it done, because you want to get
them cooled down so you can eat them.
>> Brian: Now when it comes to cooling them down, do you put them in the fridge, or?
>> Trever: You can put them in freezer or you can put them in the fridge.
I feel like the freezer sometimes makes them a little harder than normal, so I like to
refrigerate them.
Takes about two hours for them to really fully solidify.
Now what is this missing from an actual old fashion?
If you remember our old fashion episode, old fashions typically get a cherry.
>> Jason: Ah, yeah!
>> And an orange swath, so that's the one thing that is missing from here.
So once you're done with the pot, you do want to get water in it, and a little bit of soap immediately.
♪ ["fallback" by emune] ♪ Otherwise that gelatin will cake on there!
♪ ["fallback" by emune] ♪ It's tough to get off.
It's a sticky mess, so.
Uh, so how much booze is in each of one of these shots?
Well, if you do the ratios, it's going to be two third, two third, two thirds, which is...
three two thirds.
Okay, okay.
So one shot?
Now, mine are a little bit boozier so we're looking, you know, anywhere from a half ounce
to I try to get closer to an ounce.
On this ratio, it doesn't quite work just for let's say cost-effective sake.
Sure, sure.
But, uh anytime I can try to make a little bit extra, I will.
And the great thing about this is, it doesn't stop with just the old fashion.
If you use this ratio, you can use a lot of different spirits, and a lot of different
flavors to make it kind of however you want, but the old fashion always gets people talking.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, so we just got to wait what, like a couple hours for these to harden?
Yeah, so we're going to throw the lids on them, and we're going to throw them in the
cooler behind me, and like I said, it takes about roughly two hours at about 41 degrees.
[Brian and Jason riffing sound effects]
And through the magic of time travel!
Here we are!
So essentially, this is what you end up with.
>> Trever: A jello shot.
Before you take that, though, he was asking what it was missing.
Yeah.
I do believe it is missing a garnish, and since it's a jello shot, you are going to
need a uh.
>> Jason: A Tic Tac?
>> Trever: A cherry and an orange. >> Brian: We are some very high class sons of --- right here.
>> Jason: Cherry and orange?
All right, so do you have to do the whole thing at once?
Can you go, can you sip?
Can you sip your jello shot?
What are--did you learn nothing at Kappa Alpha Theta?
No--okay, all right.
As long as you put your pinky up.
Eh!
Let's do it.
>> Jason: Now there are different techniques to get all of the jello...
It's not coming out!
>> Jason: Oh, Brian.
I just got a Tic Tac.
>> Jason: All you got was the Tic Tac?
Yeah, I'm good.
This is worse than shotgunning.
You gotta run your tongue around the inside to dislodge the jello.
Don't say that when I'm eating.
That's actually good.
The Tic Tac was a bad idea.
Those bitters really pop, um, it really, I've only had maybe a half dozen jello shots in
[mouthing silently] my entire life and they've always felt like, I don't know medicine.
Yep.
But the bitters gives it a weird kind of classiness that I wouldn't have expected.
These are the classiest jello shots on the planet.
I think they might be.
[a particularly "classy" gurgling sound without anything to actually gurgle]
>> Jason: Okay, so we take our bitters and we mix it with simple syrup.
And we mix in the gelatin.
>> Trever: Along with the water.
>> Jason: Along with the water, and that cooks for five minutes for every 10, and then one minute for--
>> Brian: Every 10 more.
>> Jason: for every 10 more. Okay.
After we heat it up, then we put in the whiskey, and then we let it cool for about two hours.
>> Trever: Yeah, that's all it takes.
>> Jason: That's super easy!
Yeah. And as long as you keep the ratio, I mean you can make 70, 80, 90, doesn't matter.
But they're not like, neon green.
Exactly.
Those are the classiest jello shots on the planet.
Cannot thank you enough, Trever!
Absolutely.
Your wizardry continues!
Appreciate it.
We'll see you again in, like a year or so.
Don't do-don't do-don't do that.
They're going to be very--they're going to riot.
-- CC BY BIZARRE MAGIC -- [branding furnace hissing]
[light static, wind, and whisking]