The Science Behind Dry January’s Zero-Alcohol Hooch

And that’s the thing that I would think anybody who was trying to make an interesting food or drink for people, either in your house, or if you do that professionally, would be interested in. I would say separately, I always think that about the alternative proteins too, that people should be making new and different, weird stuff, not fake burgers and fake chicken nuggets. And I’m constantly told that there’s no market, nobody wants those and it can’t be done. So I maybe don’t trust me. I don’t know.

MC: Yeah. It’s hard when it costs millions and millions of dollars to develop something, and then nobody buys it.

AR: It does suck, yes.

MC: So what we’re talking about is taking flavors of the earth and putting them in water, and then putting them in bubbles and ice, and presenting it with a flower.

LG: Maybe a little umbrella.

MC: Just a little umbrella, a little slice of lime, slice of pineapple, and a cricket for the crunch. I’m serious, bugs and drinks, it’s the new thing. This is 2022 right here, bugs and drinks.

LG: Maybe, actually, there could be a little umbrella, a cricket, and then one of those COVID swabs. So you can just kind of pluck it out of your drink, run it through your nose.

AR: Right, before you go in for the straw, you just stick it up into your nose-

LG: That’s right.

AR: First, hand that back to your server.

LG: What a time to be alive.

MC: This conversation has had both the intellectual and psychoactive components that I was looking for, so thank you both. Let’s take another break, and when we come back, we’ll do our recommendations.

[Break]

MC: Welcome back. So if we’re being honest, this whole conversation about Dry January and booze, and yada, yada, science, science, it was just a thinly veiled excuse to get Adam on the show one last time.

AR: What?

MC: This is Adam’s last week at WIRED, after 18 years of covering just about every bit of science and nerdy pop culture news and topic you can think of. So Adam, we’re going to miss you and thank you for coming back on the show one last time. We appreciate it, and hopefully we’ll have you back after you go off to your new thing somewhere that I don’t care about because it’s not WIRED.

AR: I’m forever at your service for this. I think you both know how much I not only enjoy doing the podcast with you, but how much I value you as colleagues, all three of you as colleagues and as friends. I’ve been privileged to be the part of many, many teams at WIRED over the years, and I feel in a small way, I’ve been part of this one, because I’ve been on a few times.

So Boone, and Mike, and Lauren, this is always a delight for me. And I’ll just say that it’s not just because you are all super cool and super smart, but that you do your jobs with a level of integrity and honesty, and transparency, and skill, that not many people in our field broadly and in the ones you focus on, especially really do ever get to, could hope to aspire to. So it really has been an honor. I mean that. To sit with you virtually and really to see you work, to learn from you, it’s just been great.

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