Deep Dive Episode 26 ( Drinking Holidays ) St. Patricks Day

Americans have a long tradition of turning just about any excuse into a celebration, and a lot of those celebrations happen to involve raising a glass.

From the green beer of St. Patrick’s Day to the champagne toasts of New Year's Eve, the beads and parties of Mardi Gras, the margaritas of Cinco de Mayo, backyard coolers on Independence Day, watch parties for Super Bowl Sunday, and the steins raised during Oktoberfest, Americans love getting together with friends and family and tipping one back. In this podcast, we’ll talk about some of these beloved drinking holidays and the traditions, stories, and celebrations that surround them.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Shout out to Jamie who won't hear this, who who took it upon him.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Still in search of his diploma.

SPEAKER_07 0:04

Brad, you and I knew each other, but not as well as we do now. During COVID, I shot John the listing for a bowling alley in Pella, Iowa. Okay. And it had the most amazing bar. Okay. I mean, the pictures of the bowling that were fine. The bar was amazing. So I like sent this to John and I was like, I don't know if I could live in Pella, but this would be an amazing. So I reached out to the people and I was like, so what's going on? Why is this selling? And I because you would think by the pictures, this bar would, you know, you wouldn't have to bowl a single frame of the bar. It was just the opposite. The bar would not support the bowling alley. And that was the end of it.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

In Pella, they just there's just not enough people to who wants to keep up with wooden bowling shoes.

SPEAKER_06 0:54

Had to put like old English instead of Lysol.

SPEAKER_07 1:00

Hey, here we are, boys. How's the go going? Mickey, Donley, back together again. All right. It's good to see you. A little bit hazardous weather tonight, but we'll get through that. Luckily we're inside. John and I had a nice discussion on whether or not society's gone weak on tornado sirens. Like, do they use them too liberally? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Did you hear the siren go off a minute ago? I don't think I did. It did. It went off. And like I told Ray, I feel like animals were flying through the sky when they went off when they were kids. And now it'll go off, and I don't know. I don't even know if it's raining right now. Right. Yeah, I walked up.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

I I wasn't what?

SPEAKER_07 1:37

In my town, the it was to the discretion of the mayor. The mayor's like, nah, not yet. Yeah. Not yet. I'll let you know. So all right, we're back together. It's been a little bit. We had a clip show last week. You guys have been out and about. The both of you were out in California a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

What was going on out there? Yeah, so we had a work event out in San Diego. Um, we have an annual sales meeting that we get a good group together, and one of the traditions that's kind of emerged from that is there's a block of time that's dedicated to you know some kind of a recreation. Most of the company golfs, that's usually the primary activity. Brad and I several years ago spun off, made arrangements to rent bicycles, and have offered the opportunity for people to join us on a bike ride. Um, and it's kind of gotten a little bit of an urban legend status. You know, we've ironically had some inclement weather in Arizona and some things like that that have kind of added to the legend of it. Right. So the cycling crew's kind of come and go, but we were in San Diego this year. Weather was perfect. There's no hill to be found along the waterfront. Right. We rented some bikes. We had a good crew, 10.

SPEAKER_03 2:38

I think there were 10 of us.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

That was a good crew. Um, so we got you know, not as many miles of stops, but nonetheless, we had some super quality stops. The first one of which was the famous Kansas City BBQ from Top Gun. Great balls of fire and the piano and all that. So uh I think just the appeal of that stop lured some extra riders in. Um we went up and down the uh boulevard on the beach and then took the uh ferry across to Coronado Island and hit some really cool solid dive bars. Dive bars in Coronado. Yeah, got maybe the largest shot at tequila, I think we've ever been served.

SPEAKER_03 3:09

Yeah, it would it would probably compete with what you can get at the job site, I would say. Well what kind of quality was it?

SPEAKER_07 3:15

Was it terrible or was it?

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Yeah, no, no. It was it was it was good, bad tequila. It was definitely bottom shelf glass bottle, but um I can't remember if it was Warez. It was Toro. Oh, Toro Toro. Yeah, and the bull brought the horse. Right, yeah. Well poured.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

It was a six-ounce type. Yeah, it was fantastic. It was a double goal. The the look on some of our coworkers' eyes who weren't totally, I think people had heard of bottom shelf tequila when they saw us ordering it. It was one thing, and then when they saw it poured, right? There were some eyeballs as big as saucers.

SPEAKER_07 3:48

So are some of these people listeners? They are, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

And yeah, we should probably give a quick shout-out to the crew. Yeah, um, so we started Ryan, Alexis, Jess, Jessica, Adam, Matt, you, me, and am I is that all 10? Did I get 10?

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Yeah, Schneider.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was our crew. Good ride. And so we went from there to uh the bartender. Uh the first bar we went to was called the Little Club. The Little Club. Yep. And she was super awesome and recommended that we go to. We gotta remember the name. It was Dave's Dave's Palm. Dave's Palm, yeah. And it was it's a famous dive bar that the Navy SEALs that train there. Right. And so we went in that place, did not disappoint. It was uh, I don't know how to maybe kind of almost a the back of it kind of had a hamburg in vibe, vinyl booze, a wood arched ceiling, and then of course, yeah, the decor was many people who had you know patronized the place, seals, you know, some lost in line of duty. So there's some cool components there. Uh the bartender there insisted or recommended that we have a shot of Jameson, but yeah, with a pickleback, because that is a traditional drink of the Navy crew that goes in. So we figured, all right, we'll do what the locals do. So we had any good uh shot of Jameson with the pickleback, and then we were up against a time crunch because there's you know, we're dependent on a ferry to get us back. There wasn't really a way to transport our bicycles across that bike. 20 miles to the bridge. So that would have killed everyone on our crew, probably. Uh so we made it to the ferry with just minutes probably to say Brad fashionably was the last one to the ferry as we were navigating our way back. I assume John you'd have him hold it for me. Yeah, right. That always works. So we'll throw a couple picks of that. I put a couple already if you follow our Facebook page, but we'll put a couple more with the episode in the comments. And so it was fun. It was you know, beautiful weather, flat ride, great one had fun. I think we'll have all ten of them back again, and maybe next time it'll be more punishing. But yeah, this is a good thing.

SPEAKER_07 5:48

No, the photos are great, man. The to see the the places for the the seals were at the top gun uh bar, that was really cool.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

So yeah, it was a nice stop.

SPEAKER_07 5:57

Uh John, you uh went to Germany and had a little bit of time there.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

I did, yeah. So work took me over there. Um, and fortunately my wife's schedule allowed her to travel with me, so I had a running mate in the evenings, and so we did have a chance to hit a couple. Uh I was in Munich. Um, not a ton of free time, but I did visit the Lowenbrow beer hall. Really? Uh lived up to its name. It's definitely a little fancier than Hofbrow House and some of the others, so it's a special occasion type place. I felt out of place. I didn't have a three-piece suit. Right.

SPEAKER_07 6:26

You always have to have a three-piece suit in order to be in place.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

But yeah, and you know, I was gonna I was inclined to get the biggest steak they had. The famous thing at the Lowenbrow beer hall is the Curry Curry Wurst. Okay, yeah. Yeah. So we we smelled the Curry Wurst, it was solid, but you know, not a big steak. Um, and then obviously we logged a little quality time after work was done at the Hofbroth house, which uh obviously I'd never been, but lived up to every expectation. Large beers, cold beers, a lot of sausages and all the sizes. Souvenir signs. One disappointing thing, they had a great uh great band, Hugin uh Kenosha, but they were playing, they allegedly claim not to know in heaven there is no beer. So interesting. Yeah, and even and you know, Becky, she's persistent. She got talked a text out, she was giving it to them in German, and uh they were they played something that kind of sounded like they were on the right uh medley, but it was not that. So we had to live without a good video of in heaven there is no beer. Right. But you won't be surprised, no, Becky logged some time on the dance floor with you know some 80-year-old German guys in Lederhosen, you know, which was fantastic. Uh she was as happy as they were, I think. So yeah. Oh, I got a couple of those up too.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Yeah, nice. Brad, you did a little trip down to Indy? Yeah, just uh driving trip down for the women's Big Ten tournament. Um I think I've done a few of these now, and I was saying before I was just lucky that this time I entered the Game Bridge Arena or whatever they call it, um by my own on my own two feet because last time I had had just this crazy bulging disc situation where I could I could not walk. It was it was it was brutal. So this year got in, got in, arrived unscathed, attended the games, the first two games went great, and then I would beat uh Illinois and then in you know pretty good fashion. We took care of Michigan, which was which was good. Um the the the final was was rough, right? But um aside from that, didn't have a lot of dive bar experiences in Indy, despite I had uh a friend of ours, T Mac, who's who's a listener, had sent me a list. Um hit some good restaurants and some some nice bars and and so forth.

SPEAKER_07 8:38

Tell us about that restaurant you went to. That I mean that looked really good, but uh Bluebeard.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Yeah. So the Bluebeard was recommended. I have a mutual friend. Well, my wife and I um study with both these folks at Central College, Jeff Olsen, Dr. Dr. Olson, and his wife Carlin. And they live just outside Indianapolis, and they had set up, and so they came in and they had set up a dinner at a place called Bluebeard, which has some association with uh Kurt Vonnegut, who spent some time in India from India. Former Foxhead Tavern, yeah. Exactly. So there you go, link links up. And it was just a great um fantastic menu. We ate we did it all family style, just had a bunch of different great dishes. They had uh you know, a steak and a pork chop and some great fish dishes and charcuterie board, and we just kind of like laid it out like we were doing tapas and had some great cocktails and highly recommend Bluebird.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

So I didn't get the biggest steak in Munich, but I assume you got a fair steak at St. Almo's while you were there. I did. I did. Really quick steak. Did you do the cocktail sauce? And then what was the drink program?

SPEAKER_03 9:42

I got uh I went with old fashions. Yeah, solid moves. I went with old fashions there. Same, same at Bluebird. Um but what I was gonna say, yeah, I I think I kind of grossed out, freaked out the other guests. So my my wife and then David and Robin Therm and and uh they ate the cocktail, but or they ate the shrimp cocktail, but they were a little um timid around how much of the horseradish sauce they put on it. So we had we had two orders of it, and I was not gonna let any of this go to waste. So I was smearing it on crackers, I was smearing it on strong uh bread. I was just eating it like I was letting no ounce of that go back.

SPEAKER_07 10:18

So let's talk a little bit about the the St. Omo's um horseradish cocktail sauce. For those that don't know, is uh it's a cock uh seafood cocktail sauce. It's shrimp cocktail. You know, basically ketchup and horseradish, except this stuff is off the charts, horseradish hot. Yeah, and there's no getting away from it. I mean, when you eat it, it's hot, but when you exhale out the end of your nose, it's absolutely so at the halftime of the women's tournament game, yeah, they had a cocktail eating. Oh, did they? Yeah. Okay. So they had like four dudes lined up with shrimp and then St. Elmo's fire cocktail sauce, and it was the first person done, and the dude that did it just yeah, yeah chugged it because that's the only way you're gonna survive that so hot.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

It's so good. It's so good. I wasn't gonna waste it. People worried about me, but uh I I managed fine.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

We normally only promote local businesses, but pro tip, only at Christmas time your Costco will have St. Elmo's cocktail sauce. It's like for like a three-week window, and that's it.

SPEAKER_07 11:23

So it's so hot, it is so hot that I have taken like a couple tablespoons and added ketchup to it and lime lime juice, and it's still insanely hot. There's just no diluting it, it's the horseradish thing.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

That's wild. Um eighties trivia question since we kind of go into classics from the eighties. Is the establishment in Indiana in any way related to a film that we know of the same name? St. Elmo's Fire, right? Like I definitely saw that. I'm trying to it's been a minute. Yeah, kind of the brat pack group.

SPEAKER_07 11:58

I'm not aware of a connection in it was it was a bar. I don't know if it's a bar in Indianapolis, but it was a St. Elmo's Fire was a bar. And I think St. Elmo's Fire is a uh some sort of meteorological type of thing, sort of like an aura or something like that. It might be. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

If only we had a trained weather spotter at the table that can confirm something like this.

SPEAKER_03 12:17

Once again, disappointing. God damn, I'm I'm looking forward to getting back and checking my rain gauge.

SPEAKER_07 12:23

Yeah. So uh the other thing is we Dave Zolo was our last person. A lot of good feedback there.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Had a lot of great feedback. Dave was such a great, interesting l uh you know, guest to have, and uh I heard from a lot of folks who really enjoyed it. And it was also great to shortly after that to go see him. I think it was his next available show potentially when uh he was playing at the Walker Homestead, put on a nice little low-key show. Right. But uh throughout. Did you get some Dead Flowers for that? Oh, the Dead Flowers was thrown out. Okay. Washington County was within the first couple. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Did he do an ass for Freebird?

SPEAKER_03 12:58

I don't think so. But thanks, Dave, for being on if you're listening to the game. Yeah, Dave is an awesome guest.

SPEAKER_07 13:03

It was a great interview. John, uh, you spent some time uh on a major bar crawl with our P1 listener, John Langlin.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

I did, yeah. He celebrated a birthday, and uh his birthday entailed a dive bar crawl, so it was fun to catch up with him. Um, he led me to Gabe's, which I had been in Gabes for music events. Yeah, I don't know the last time I'd been in the little bar downstairs at Gabes, like in a time where there was no concert or anything, but I mean it it's worth visiting. Sometimes checks all the mandatory boxes and the urinals filled with ice, you know, so it's just a unique setting. And so it was a good time. We got a couple tang bombs for his birthday, and uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

So shout out to John for his birthday. The photos that came through, just I yeah, same same as you. I've been to Gabes for sure, but mainly up upstairs for you know concerts and so forth. Must get there. I would I'm sorry to have missed it, John. Happy birthday, and uh we're gonna have to get John. You also did the club car, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:58

We hit the club car, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yeah, so club car in there and yeah, finished a foxhead and all the things. That was good. Good bower call for John's birthday.

SPEAKER_07 14:05

We'll have to get him a chair for it because I forgot he was a DJ in the 80s, 90s of Iowa City. Fieldhouse.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

He was uh you know bouncers to the dance floor. That was John Langland making those calls.

SPEAKER_07 14:16

Right. All right, boys, let's get to the uh meat of the matter here. Americans have a long tradition of turning just about any excuse into a celebration, and a lot of those celebrations happen to involve the raising of a glass. From the green beer of St. Patrick's Day to the champagne toast of New Year's Eve to beads and parties during Mardi Gras, the margaritas of Cinco de Mayo and the Backyard Coolers of Independence Day, the watch parties of Super Bowl Sunday and the Steins raised of Oktoberfest. Americans love getting together with their friends and family and getting blotto. In this podcast, we're gonna talk about these beloved drinking holidays and the traditions, the stories, and the celebrations that surround them. All right. I haven't told you guys this, but we're going to have a little format switch-o change. All right. Surprise. This is going to be a surprise to you guys. Let's do it. All right. We're going to gamify today's show. Okay. We're going to play a game called Wait, so hear me out. I've put the names of 10 holidays into this hat. I'm going to randomly draw them out one at a time. As each holiday is revealed, you're going to use the paper and pen in front of you and place the holiday somewhere between one and five, with number one being the best drinking holiday, and number five being the fifth best drinking holiday. After you place where you say you put it, then you have to defend that spot. And you can defend it, or you could tell a brief story that you have from your past about that drinking holiday. At the end of the fifth round, we're going to look back at our lists and see whether or not we got them right.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

I just want to make sure I understand this. You're going to hypothetically say 4th of July. Right. And we're going to slot it without knowing the rest of the holidays into a position.

SPEAKER_07 16:11

And you don't know what the holidays are. And these are all real holidays you're going to make.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

How many of them will there be in total?

SPEAKER_07 16:17

There's going to be 10, but you're going to judge five. So there's going to be five in the hat when we're done. Okay, good. And I don't know what they're going to be either. It's just going to be Okay. All right, here's the exercise. The game the nation is going to love. So wait, hear me out. So your first drinking are we going to pay royalties to NPR for this? No. This is they're going to have to pay royalties to me. Wait, wait, hear me out. Yes. Right. The first holiday, ironically enough, is the 4th of July. So is that the number one in your head? There's nothing else that could be above that for drinking holidays, or is that a lousy holiday? Okay. And we're ranking one through five right now. So you can only have it once. Okay. So of all the drinking holidays that could be in that hat.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 17:02

This is interesting. Yeah. John, where'd you have it? I put number two. Number two. Yeah, that's not a bad that's not a bad play. Brad, what'd you have? I I put it in third place. Yeah. You know, I love the Fourth of July, especially in this area. I think Coralville has an amazing parade. If you've ever been a scout or a scout leader, you've probably been at. Yeah. If you've owned a small business, you've probably been in it. Absolutely. But man, it's a it's great. And it's um it always culminates on a really nice Fourth of July show. What are the drinks you enjoy at the Fourth of July?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

I'll tell you for me, it's all about cold American yellow beer. Right. I think as a kid growing up, we would always Fourth of July at my grandparents' house, they lived in proximity to City Park. It was the A position. Yeah they were on the river. I had a swimming pool in the backyard. And so it would all day long. Back in the day, people used to tube and there was actually pontoon boats on the river. So we'd sit out there with the kids. We'd be at the pool. There's a flotilla all day. And then they used to do uh parachuters. Oh, cool. And when you saw the parachuters, then you knew it was time to migrate to city park because that's where the fireworks were. That was the lead-in, right? So all day long it was Miller Light and Budweiser, the parents, grandpa, grandpa, grandma, aunts, uncles, friends, everyone they gathered, and that was it was cold beer, hot dogs off the grill. And so that's what I've always associated with Fourth of July. And lukewarm potato salad. Yeah, right. Yeah. At the end of the afternoon, it's still. But yeah, that's not to me. It's cold beer, stuff off the grill. Yeah. And uh pyrotechnics.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

I mean, what can go wrong? Agree. Agree. We didn't, I don't remember Fourth of July with a lot of detail like parades, I guess, and stuff. Yeah. Um, but of late, it's become like the second year we had moved back to the Iowa City area. We wanted to have a little event with the neighbors, and so now we've probably done it at least 10 or 12 years in a row. For the girls, I got uh an inflatable little water slide, right? And so the neighborhood kids come over and I get the Weber grill out, and it's hot dogs and and beers and an extensive spread of salads. It's it's a it's a big it's uh it's a you know, lots of crock pots, usually blow a fuse or two between the generator that inflates the uh slide and then uh all the crock pots hooked up to it. So yeah, that's very much, as John said, it's a it's a beer thing. But then I don't know how or why, but early on I got known for making my mules. So we all we often do Moscow mules on the 4th of July.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Well, I was also gonna say the gin bucket. The gin bucket is somewhat associated with your garage party.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

Yeah. So I think of the 4th of July as a fun drinking day. I'm I'm also in host mode and trying to not burn the place down and all those things. Some years better than others. Yeah, I mean there have been some there have been some mishaps, including this past summer. But um, I don't think of it as a going out to the bars or special drinks or like you know, July 4th activities in the taverns. So that's why I didn't think it necessarily would deserve for me like a number one or two position. I think there are others there are other holidays that that are known for going out. Right. July 4th is more of a hang with friends, like you're saying, your family down the river, hang at the you know, open up the garage and and and do that. But I I don't ever I don't really associate the fourth with hitting pubs necessarily. I'm trying to think of from here on out.

SPEAKER_07 20:22

I would put your mind frame in uh it could be backyard stuff. Yeah, yeah. From here on out, yeah. So we we uh share a mutual friend with the name of Brian, who about uh 10 to 12 years ago went and got his certification to to buy and shoot off fireworks. Yeah. Um and about 10 or 12 years ago he asked me if I would come over and help him, and I thought what I was going to be doing was just kind of kind of running behind the scenes and kind of go for jobs. Yeah, I show up at the 4th of July, you know, I've got like Birken stocks on, and all of a sudden a white linen shirt. Right, right. And then he like hold he hands me a uh lighter, you know, that has it's one of the long lighters, but you know, he goes, All right, and I said, What am I gonna do with this? He goes, You're gonna be responsible for these 15 fireworks. I was like, okay, not small enough for this. Yeah, I mean, you're looking at these things that are like coffee cans, you know. So I said, How do you do it? And he goes, Yeah, I've kind of got these poking out here. Once you light it, you stand back here and like, all right. So I did a crash course. He went for like nine weeks and got on the ATF registry, and I like took a 10-minute lesson on how to not blow my head off. But it's kind of fun. But that's uh, but unfortunately, it's not a drinking holiday because if you shoot fireworks off for me, I can't drink. So afterwards, we get we all tip one back. All right, here we go. Here's our second one Oktoberfest. So, interestingly enough, Oktoberfest is one of those holidays that um we have taken with us some people. From the old country. Now the Germans go all out in Oktoberfest. Even more than we do. I mean, it's a month-long deal for them. But have either of the two of you been in Germany for Oktoberfest?

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Nope. I've not. Not in Munich during Oktoberfest. I've been there like in October. Oktoberfest, you know, it's a long period of time. I think there's a few particular days, but I've been in the proximity, yes. But I have not been to the Hofbrot House.

SPEAKER_07 22:24

So, you know, a lot of times in the United States, it is uh every once in a while you'll find a a real German place that goes all out. I think Milwaukee is kind of known for their Octoberfest. Lacrosse Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

The Amana Colonies go for it a little bit. Yeah, they're around. But yeah.

SPEAKER_07 22:41

I'm sorry, Amana that I should have thought of immediately. The Amana Colonies, for those that are not in this area, is a small um cooperative community that is a couple hundred years old. Well, a hundred years old. They uh are kind of have all German heritage and they've held on to a lot of their traditions. And brewing beer is one of them.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Hey, not the least, which is Hawk Octoberfest that takes place on Melrose. Exactly. At the Rose Club every year.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 23:09

You ready for your next one? Anybody that's got anything else? All right, here the next one is coming up here next week. Next Tuesday, St. Patrick's Day. So St. Patrick's Day is obviously a one-day focused drinking holiday. Well, interestingly enough, it is something that the Americas have really uh made very different than Ireland. So I think I heard at one point there are like 50 million Irish Americans and like five million Irish you know, there's yeah, and over in Ireland um it started out as a religious holiday, you know, a a day of it started off in service in a church and um it was uh a religious holiday in the United States is the one that you know started dying the rivers green and the first St. Patrick's Day parade was in the United States. So where where do you have that?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

You know, I put it number one for straight up drinking holiday. Yeah, yeah. To me, it it is the one holiday, it is a one-day deal, everybody participates, and it has just become largely about the drinking. Whether you're in green beer or you think you're more traditional, you're doing Guinness or Black and Tans, or you're into Jameson, but it's to me like I said, the participation is so high, everyone does no matter what day week it is, people carve out the time for it. And uh, so if you're looking to me just a straight up drinking holiday, yeah, I put it number one.

SPEAKER_03 24:27

Brad, how do you observe same? I mean, I I had it in the first place as well, like John did for similar reasons. Um, how do I celebrate St. Patrick's Day? Yeah, it's been mixed. Um I lived in Chicagoland for a while, so I took part in the revelry that is the dying of the river and hitting all the ir Irish pubs in Chicago. I've been um out and about. It was it was a little different because I was on a work trip, but I I was in New York City for the New York City St. Patrick's Day parade. That was super memorable. I remember um introducing St. Patrick's Day, even though people knew about it, but like when we lived in Belgium for a little bit, that there was a there was a couple pubs. Right. Uh Irish pubs, uh, as you have in any city. Uh and so I drug out some of the local Belgians to uh to St. Patrick's Day, just you know, traditional drinking Guinness, drinking green beers, you know, Irish stew and and whatnot. Uh but when I was a kid, because my uh grandfather played the pipes and had immigrated from Northern Ireland, uh he used to march in the Cedar Rapids St. Patrick's Day parade. I think that's still a pretty decent. Oh Cedar Rapids does a huge St. Patrick's So I've I've had a little taste of you know St. Pat's uh around the world and um yeah usually involves you know sometimes a parade and definitely green beers and a bar.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

One of my favorite way back St. Patrick's stories, I've alluded to this on the podcast before, but it spent some time in law enforcement and maybe like circa 1996 or so, um, our good friend Dennis Mahoney owns an Irish pub or did own an Irish pub at that time on the northeast side of Cedar Rapids. He obtained a street permit to like partition off the street in front of his bar and have a street party for St. Patrick's Day. And it was super controversial at the time, and it like barely passed the city council to approve this, but they did. And so he was gonna open at like seven in the morning on St. Patrick's Day and have this street party. And everyone in the city was all fired up about it. At that time, uh, we were working the midnight shift that was scheduled to get off at eight in the morning, and like two-thirds of us all took off an hour early, so we could go to the St. Patrick's party. So we go up there, we go inside, and we're getting our Giddesses and stuff, and we come out, and the mayor, the chief of police, the fire marshal, a couple city council are all there to see if this is gonna be just a disastrous mayhem. And who comes out to fill the first half the midnight police shifting? They just looked at us the chief of the finest of the city. This is we expect nothing less.

SPEAKER_07 26:51

That's awesome. I will tell you one of the best kept secrets in the Midwest is Glena, Illinois. Okay. Huge Irish population. So it was a mining community. A lot of the Irish and Scott got kind of pulled into it because it was hard work and there was always another person to come along in the family. Um, so I want to say maybe 10,000 people show up in Galena from outside of Glena. Yeah. And they have a huge parade. Yep. And the parade is families, right? Yes. And so they have a contest. Like, who has the biggest family marching in the parade? Who has the person that came from the furthest distance? And you'll be sitting in a bar, and somebody will come up and say, like, what's your last name? Do you or any of your siblings married to a Fitzpatrick? Yeah. No. And then they'll just go on, they'll just leave you. They're looking, they will drag any Fitzpatrick they can into their clan to march down uh that's amazing. Yeah, and it's not like fire trucks and uh roto rooter. I mean, it's a legitimate parade where there's interesting things to see. So if you live within two hours of Gleena, I will tell you you will not be let down at the spectacle when they do the parade down the the main street. So St.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Patrick's Day also used to be a really solid beer advertisement holiday. Yeah. You get a lot of that, and I it's there, it's clearly still there. But I don't think I would submit to you that green beer isn't as nearly as popular as it was in the 70s and early 80s. It was it was almost mandatory, right? Like every beer you had that day was green, but I it's still you can still grab a green, I'm sure Bud Light, but you know who hated St.

SPEAKER_07 28:32

Patrick's Day? The dudes that had to clean lines at the bars the day after, yeah, when you had to go in and clean all the lines out because yeah, because of the green bear.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Oh I wonder what the fire sale would have if there had to be leftover kegs that you could have got so cheap, you know, yeah two or three days after.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

But yeah, I don't know if they still do it, but talking about advertising, I know it was always a kind of a thing to get the uh what was the name of the McDonald's? Shamrock shake. The shamrock shake. Do they still do shamrock shakes? Oh yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 28:58

They've not only do shamrock shake, they've expanded it out to like Oreo Shamrock Shake.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Oh, and see, it's been I've said this before, but like eternal salvation, things like that are great. But the absolute best part of Catholicism was filet of fish and shamrock shake on Fridays at Lit.

SPEAKER_07 29:12

This is the only time of the year where I will guarantee their ice cream machines will work. Like there's like there's like 40 days of the year that their ice cream machines will work. Shamrock shake season. They know where their bread is buttered. 100%. So all right. So on to the next. Well, how many was that? We got two. Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

Well, I don't have a lot more.

SPEAKER_07 29:39

So Fat Tuesday. We're actually in the Lent season right now. Mm-hmm. So it's kind of um, I don't know if it's gotten any bigger, but I will tell you, my personal experience is not New Orleans. It's Soulard, St. Louis. Okay. So it's Soulard's a neighborhood within St. Louis. They have a huge Mardi Gras parade and they have amazing food, and that whole Soulard area just kind of basically is one huge party. It's maybe uh 12 block by 12 block. And it's just like a tailgate in Iowa. Everything, the air smells great, you know, because people are making jambalaya. But um, that's where I've celebrated many of uh Mardi Gras. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

So anything to contribute? anybody else? Well, I would say so. I put this number five on our list here. Uh, and the reason I did it was just participative of participation, is what I would say. To me, Fat Tuesday is probably undeniably the biggest drinking, debauchery, all the things day, but I don't think nearly the percentage of people participate in it. So around here, yeah, you know, no one's going down to the bars downtown Iowa City and it's like crazy like St. Patrick's. On a Tuesday, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:46

But interestingly, I I agree with that, especially from a US perspective. But there are parts of the like uh Carnival in Brazil. And so when I think of Fat Tuesday and and and Mardi Gras, I also think about like because we did do I've never celebrated I've I've been to New Orleans and but not during during Mardi Gras. But one observance we did was this I I was looking it up on my phone because I couldn't remember the name of it, but um the Carnival in Banche, which is a place in Belgium, they have this crazy ass kind of like guys dressed up in these like jester outfits up on giant stilts and they throw oranges. I don't know why, but they throw oranges at you. I'm sure I'll read it. I've been to a few Fat Tuesday-esque or Carnival events and other places in Iowa, but I've never done it, I've never really done a Fat Tuesday, like to your point. No, no one really has a Fat Tuesday shaking.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

I've not been to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but it's amazing when you go to New Orleans almost any time of year. Yeah. The beads are constant, the tree, you can tell they're old from Mardi Gras like months before, but yeah, it's just constantly there. And you know, Bourbon Street or French Quarter is what it is, 24-7. But so yeah, I think it's an amazing drinking holiday. Would probably rate higher if I felt like everybody participated all the time locally anyway. Bad Tuesday.

SPEAKER_07 32:01

I'm gonna reach into my hat here and pull out the last one. All right. Last one is Groundhog's Day. All right. Where'd you have that at, Jen?

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Yeah, well, the only spot I had left was three.

SPEAKER_07 32:11

So can you defend that? What did you have, Brad? What were you where did you have it at?

SPEAKER_03 32:15

Uh that line lines up in uh number five position for me. All right. I think that's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

John, defend why didn't Groundhog's Day is your number three? Yeah, well, I maybe I'm the only one that did. You don't get up and put Bill Murray on, right? And you crack a beer, yeah, and you watch, and then when it ends, you go back to the fridge, you reload, and it's all day long, and it just happens over and over again. I like it, John. Yeah. Who doesn't bring it up?

SPEAKER_07 32:38

Brad, can you tell me why you're so disappointed in Groundhog's Day as a drinking holiday?

SPEAKER_03 32:42

There's no groundhog, there's no groundhog drink. Oh. What would be in a groundhog, what would be a groundhog drink for you? I think we should think of a groundhog. What would be in a groundhog? Does it have cinnamon in it? Um I'm thinking of something earthy. Earthy? It's kind of musky. Yeah. Sounds like a malort-based drink. All right. So there's a malorty through it. Malort. The groundhog. With maybe like a with maybe like a uh wiener wink in it. Yeah. Um is there is there something mushroomy in it? Yeah, maybe. Maybe. So yeah, if there was a better traditional groundhog beverage, then I think it it might deserve a better spot.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

But yeah. So John, let's go through your list. One through five. Well, I'm happy with most of it. At one St. Patrick's Day, I feel like no matter what else you pulled out of that hat, I would have kept that there. Uh 4th of July at number two, which I'm fine with. Yeah. I would have, there's probably a couple you have in that hat if you pull them out that we would maybe put up there. Groundhog Day, I got stuck in number three. Uh obviously it wouldn't merit there, but it is. Yeah, that's the fun of this game. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

And I and I like Oktoberfest above fat Tuesday, so I'm happy with this sequence. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:45

Pretty well played. Brad, what's yours? I'm happy with mine too. I had St. Pat's in number one. I had Oktoberfest in number two, both heavily all you know, about basically about the drinking. It it is the reason for the holiday. So I think that that makes sense. One and two. July 4th is not that. It's Independence Day, but there's a lot of tradition around it that involves drinking beers. Fat Tuesday. Yes. It's globally celebrated with different traditions in the U.S. definitely drinking, but it's probably less participated in and then uh Groundhog's Day.

SPEAKER_07 34:17

You guys want to run through what we didn't read? Yeah. Do you have any thoughts about that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

So uh New Year's Eve.

SPEAKER_07 34:21

Yeah, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

It's not my favorite holiday per se. Again, I spent enough time in law enforcement that it was became the bane of my existence for many years, but it's undeniably. Yeah. Uh probably a lot of people would say it is the number one drinking occasion of the year. Yeah. I'd put it top three for sure. I'd put it above July 4th.

SPEAKER_07 34:38

Really? Yeah. I wouldn't. So I'll tell you why. I would put number one, I was a bartender and I hated, I didn't, I wasn't a big fan of New Year's U. But it's you you're basically going somewhere to pay overpriced booze to stand in line because everybody else is there. By the end of the night, you're only drinking like three or four drinks if you go out because the crowds are so absolutely packed. Well, the 4th of July, you know, you're at you're drinking your first beer at nine o'clock in the morning or Bloody Mary or you know, vodka lemonade or whatever. It is, of course, the amateur hour for but it is a drinking holiday, but it's not my it would be really low on so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

I wouldn't put that on my personal favorites, but I think it it if it were to be drawn from the hat, I'd put it above July 4th. Yeah, right. All right, Super Bowl Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Yeah, so that's a again, I think a lot of people would say maybe that is a top. I and I was expecting that to come out of the hat, and I would have left it a couple notches down because it's a Sunday. And I, you know, no matter how late the game goes, I it just doesn't carry the festivist through the whole night like some of the other holidays. And um, you know, I I would say I associate that means a bigger pizza holiday than a drinking holiday, but no.

SPEAKER_03 35:44

And I mean it's technically, although a lot of people talk about it, it's not actually a recognized. No one gets that. I mean, it it is on a Sunday, so the day's off, but it's not like you get Monday off. Yes. Right? It's as participated in, more participated in than other things on this list. Yeah. But it is not actually a holiday by the strict sense of.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Yeah, some of these other things, it is more fun. The beer, the drinking is just simultaneous with the holiday. There's a lot of other components of Super Bowl Sunday. Drinking, clearly that, but the game, the ads, the food, the party, you know. So now I've heard that there's a emerging subculture around because they do the game now like on Nickelodeon with like SpongeBob animation. Right. And I've said that there's some people that will tell you it's becoming a cannabis holiday because watching the game on that channel with that presentation interesting plays hand in hand with you know other libations.

SPEAKER_07 36:36

I think we did that at your one of your Super Bowl parties one time. I think we switched over to watch it. Oh, no. Yeah, we switched over and watched it. I thought you you were talking about the cannabis. No, no, no, not the cannabis, but we watched the SpongeBob. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. So the next one is Halloween. Yeah. Okay. I can't think it was with you guys, um, where we talked about the fact that some people that don't have kids anymore are sitting out in their driveways with a cooler of beer or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

So for the parents that are going through. I was gonna say, so to me, an emerging drinking holiday, relatively, because that has become like when we were kids, our parents, one, they didn't accompany us trick-or-treating, right? And two, there was no, and now maybe they all gathered at the house and did fondue and drank while we trick-or-treated. They probably did. We didn't, right now. But that being said, nowadays it's almost as common to have fireball shooters as it is, you know, mini Snickers, right? Because you're serving the adults and the kids. Yeah, and it's become a drinking holiday. But I will say, going back to a previous era, um, it was one of the holidays where you really would see the emergence of the Elvira in the bars.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Yeah, really, yeah, you really that's when the cardboard cutouts. I don't know if you'd see it all the time. Sometimes they, yeah, sometimes they just don't.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

Arguably the best of all beer advertisement holidays. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 37:52

We had my freshman year in college. We had, I was on a fraternity, and we uh had a party called Around the World, and where you did your dorm room as a theme, and then people kind of went from room to room. It was right around Halloween. That's how this was getting. So everybody was supposed to dress up as your theme, and then everybody that was touring the rooms would dress up as a group. And yeah, and so we had a jungle juice theme. And at that time, Purple Passion was still very in vogue, right? And so that was part of our thing. We kind of went short on cups. So the cups stayed in the purple passion, and you just like came in and got it out of there.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

And then when you left the room, germs can live in that, though. That'd be fine.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

So like the coffee pot in a hotel room, right? Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 38:45

Exactly, stewardess. So Monday rolls around, and you're we're standing in line, and we all have purple all over our mouths that has inset. I mean, it's part of our pigment now. Yeah. And we're standing in line at the for breakfast on Monday morning, and there must have been 150 people that all had dyed purple. Beautiful. Yeah. And fingertips from pulling the cup out. Right. And that's all I could think of was like, you all drank out of the same 25 cups that we had. So it had never cleared.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Who other than Brad could forget Spuds McKinsey as Dracula? Right. Exactly. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:23

I mean, you're you're talking about uh college uh holidays, and this is one that obviously didn't make it into the hat or on the final list. Uh well, just kidding. That that was one. But uh as a proud graduate of the Central College Dutch, right? Tulip time. Oh, yeah. Tulip time. I I've only been in Pella during college time, so the students would take that. I mean, and and Pella's a dry town, right? Right. And the campus is dry and there's really not that many pubs. Right. I just remember a particular evening, and I haven't I don't know that I've even had one since then, but um this friend of mine named Jameson Bender got all kinds of sideways at Dirk Helder, which was this the Straw Town Inn had this little bar below it, and we got into Long Island Ice Tw on tool of time, and it turned into he got expelled from school uh based based on kind of his behavior after that. So shout out to Jamie Bender who won't hear this, who who took it upon him.

SPEAKER_07 40:19

Still in search of his diploma? Brad, you and I knew each other, but not as well as we do now. During COVID, I shot John a listing for a bowling alley in Pella, Iowa. Okay. And it had the most amazing bar. Okay. I mean, the pictures of the bowling that were fine. The bar was amazing. Yeah. So I like sent this to John and I was like, I don't know if I could live in Pella, but this would be an amazing. So I reached out to the people and I was like, so what's going on? Why is this selling? You know, because you would think by the pictures, this bar would yeah, you know, you wouldn't have to bowl a single frame of the bar. It was just the opposite. The bar would not support the bowling alley, and that was the end of it.

SPEAKER_02 41:00

In Pella, they just there's not enough people to who wants to keep up with wooden bowling shoes.

SPEAKER_06 41:12

Clunky. Right. You had to put like uh old English instead of Lysol. That's good.

SPEAKER_07 41:21

All right, so the last one is Cinco de Mayo, another holiday that the gringos have absconded from another culture. Yeah. Um the the Cinco de Mayo, I think, is not the the uh Mexican army winning a war. They just won a single battle against the French on the 5th of May, but it's something that uh in the American culture we have taken from them and uh we've made it a mar reason to drink margaritas in May.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

Yeah, yeah. I can't think of a single Cinco de Mayo event. I've I don't know that I've ever I've been places where on you know Cinco de Mayo, and I guess maybe had a margarita, but I've never made plans.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

Yeah, I would call it newer school around here as well, right in the US. It's last 20 years or so it's gotten more popular, maybe, and places lean into it a little bit, but I would have rated it lower on my list for participation alone.

SPEAKER_07 42:13

We uh I will say I have celebrated Cinco de Mayo. Um we have a Mexican restaurant that's close to our house, and I cannot recall its name right now. It's fiesta. Anyway, it's like with kind of stumbling distance within our house. Uh my wife's friends have made it a point to go there and celebrate, and they have these huge vessels that they fill with margaritas, and I can't remember how much it is, but it's definitely a deal. Yeah. And you're basically opening up the bottle of a or the bottom of a funnel, yeah, and it just and they keep on filling it. And it's a lot of this group's a lot of fun. It is funny because my wife and these women go there all the time, and I don't know. I think they're good tippers. The the men always seem to be very anxious, very eager to see them come in the front door. Yeah, I am. But anyway, one time we convinced them that it was uh Cinco day March. Yeah. They kind of looked at each other and didn't didn't necessarily argue with this, and out came the big vessels that are reserved for the 5th of May, and we had uh the 5th of March.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Well, one of the things that Fiesta did, and I think they've kept it since COVID, was they would send you out the door with these huge things of margarita during COVID, all the rules changed. Okay, right. Rodies. And I would dare say, I think that we, you know, COVID time there was a garage party that included these things. But I think to this day you can still go up there and just walk away with this big plastic jug of their margarita. You clearly couldn't do pre. Um, but to your story, just it reminded me of this isn't Cinco de Mayo, but in college we went out to a bowl game in California. Big group of us road tripped out and went down to Tijuana.

SPEAKER_08 43:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

And so you got half guys, half girls. We go into Tijuana, we sit out at a cantina, right? And I'll order our what we thought were the same margaritas, and the green goes all. Out little plastic cups, these margaritas that came out for the girls. Huge glass cactus, all this stuff. And we're all paid the same amount.

SPEAKER_07 44:11

All right, boys, you got it all on your systems? I think so. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Yeah. So thank you everybody for uh liking us, subscribing, and referring us to your friends. We really appreciate that. Get the good word out. We will see you next time.

SPEAKER_04 44:26

Oh boy.