Today we ask things like: how old are we really? who is more annoying to be married to? and who doesn't love us? This episode is decades in the making and before things get morbid we taste test while discussing lying babysitters, boxcar hijinks and the title 'Designated Milk Person'. After some voluptuous mouth feelings and creepy commercials we remember to never forget that Duckies Gotta Grub. To support our show go to: spilledmilkpodcast.com/donate !
SUPPORT SPILLED MILK at spilledmilkpodcast.com/donate!
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Matthew's Now but Wow! - Eternal Flame by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:00
Hi, I'm Molly, and I'm Matthew.
Molly 0:06
And this is spilled milk, the show where we cook something delicious, eat it all and you can't have any. And today we're
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:11
talking about chocolate milk. That's right.
Molly 0:14
It's also our pledge drive episode,
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:17
yay. It's my favorite time of year, and your favorite time of year listeners, because it's the time of year when you get to support your favorite podcast, which is us. That's right. And I should say too that, just like that popular TV show, which is us,
Molly 0:31
which is us, I should say also that it's our birthday season. It is our birthday season, yeah. And so you know when you pledge to the show allegiance. When you pledge allegiance to the show, the show, you are actually also helping us to celebrate our birthdays.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:49
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, we can't. We can't celebrate our birthdays without you. Like, if you don't pledge this year, I'm gonna be stuck at 49 forever.
Molly 0:57
That's right, that's right. I'm gonna be stuck at 47 June told me the other day that I was turning 46 and I was like, no, no, June, I'm already 46 and they were like, no, no, you're 45
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:07
i i love that when when a kid like is so sure that they know more about something than you and they're so wrong.
Molly 1:16
My spouse does that all the time, right? Yeah, it must be so annoying to be married to me.
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:23
Yeah? No, I It must be so annoying to be married to me, because often I will, I will, with great fervor, say, like, no, definitely this is correct, and then realize later, no, actually, that was completely wrong. Oh,
Molly 1:35
that's so fun. I love that's great, yeah. But hey, chocolate milk, who doesn't love chocolate milk? Who doesn't love this show?
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:41
Who doesn't love this chocolatey show? Let's get into this. No, no ads, except the ad from us today. Just a lot of slurping. That's
Molly 1:49
right. So chocolate milk. Wow. This is an episode that is close to my heart, because years in the making, decades, decades, decades, I've been drinking this stuff off and on for more than 40 years?
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:01
Yeah, no. Every time we go into a bar, you always like, sidle up to the up to the bar and ask for a cold, cold chocolate milk.
Molly 2:09
So my mom, as I'm sure I've discussed on the show before, my mom used to make me drink a glass of milk with dinner. Sure, I hated it. Sometimes she would let me have chocolate milk in our house. This never meant like, store bought, pre mixed chocolate milk. What this meant was Hershey syrup squeezed into a glass of milk. Oh, and guess what? We're gonna make that today. I specialized in putting a lot of chocolate into it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:35
I want to talk about this at great length. Like, how much do you think is the right amount? Like, what shade of brown, looking
Molly 2:41
exactly. It's very much like adding, adding cream to coffee, or, yeah, only, only reverse, in reverse. That's right. So growing up, my parents went out they had, like, a standing date on Thursday nights. Nice. I think I've talked about this before, it seems, but they family ties, it seems incredibly like, I guess, decadent to me, to have a babysitter one night every week. Wow.
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:06
I guess, I guess they missed family ties and cheers so they could go out and and, like, strengthen their own family ties and say cheers.
Molly 3:13
That's right. Nice one, Matthew, I could see that one like working its way
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:16
up percolating through the old noggin, the old noggin that can't get any older unless you pledge,
Molly 3:25
please help Matthew get older.
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:26
Help me. Help my noggin get older. This
Molly 3:29
is, this is what all those, you know, all those like wrinkle treatment creams, are saying, Please help me get older. Okay, no, anyway,
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:38
no, no. This is, this is the reverse of the wrinkle cream commercial in the same way that chocolate milk is the reverse of putting cream into coffee. Wow, wow. Did I just blow everyone's mind. I don't even Wow. I think your noggin just got a little older because of that very clever formulation. Well, speaking
Molly 3:54
of old, I had a couple of elderly babysitters. Okay? One being Julia Beal, Mrs. Beal. When she would come to the house, when it was raining or windy, she would have one of those plastic bonnets on tied under her chin. The other one was Virginia Hamilton, who, for some reason, I always called Virginia not Mrs.
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:14
Hamilton. Okay, this is what you put these names on the agenda. You put Mrs. Beale or Virginia Hamilton. I did not think these were babysitters. I assumed these were like writers of old timey 19th century cookbooks.
Molly 4:26
These were my childhood babies, especially Mrs. Beal. But one or the other of them, I can't remember which one used to watch me put the Hershey syrup in the milk with like, great disdain, because I would put so much right. And she would say, Listen, if you add too much chocolate syrup, you are going to turn into chocolate milk. Okay, I believed her. Matthew, like, this wasn't just, I was hypothetical. Like, I believed that she was telling me something that could really
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:56
so, like, like, medical advice. Okay, so did you? Did you ask your. Your father, the physicians about this?
Molly 5:02
No, I think I was, you know, it was, like a secret only between me and Mrs. Beal.
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:07
Okay, so I'm a little surprised, because when I, when you said that, I was, like, this, as far as, like, scary, like, urban legends go, this one is not very good. Because, like, what, what does it mean to turn into chocolate? Just turn into a glass of chocolate milk, just like, poof. Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty scary. How old are you? Like, 16.
Molly 5:28
I was old enough to mix up my own chocolate milk, but young enough to still need a babysitter. So let's call it somewhere between five and 10.
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:36
All right, yeah, kids will believe anything at that age, yep. So stupid turn into chocolate milk. Yeah. Okay, so my chocolate milk Memory Lane revolves around Hershey's obviously, like, I remember Hershey's Syrup, but I remember we always had it in the can. Do you remember the Hershey's Syrup? Do you I ever and you had to use a church key? Yes. And it came with, like, a yellow plastic lid, like, I think this may remember this,
Molly 6:02
maybe in a later addition, oh, maybe then it wasn't a church key. Maybe, you know, take
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:07
the lid off. No, no. I think, like, at some point Society decided that you don't just leave an open can of something in the fridge, because it'll start to smell like the inside of a fridge. And so, like, included or, or it would like, you know, spill if you knocked it over. So they started including a plastic lid. I don't think they always included that, but I think even sometimes you'd buy one without the lids. No, I mean, they start. I think they started doing it at some point. But that even after they introduced the plastic lid, you still had to use a church key to open it. And the CANS came in a couple different sizes. There was one that would kind of nicely fit in your hand, I know exactly. And then there was, like, there was like, a big one. You'd have to hold two, two hands, right? And, of course, like, I wanted the big one. Of course. The other thing is, I remember that for a while, they haven't made it in a very long time. But I remember when they introduced it, when I was a kid, they had Hershey's brand chocolate milk sold in a dark brown, dark brown carton. And that was considered like, you know, if you could get your parents to get you that, that was way better than, like, the store brand chocolate milk. Was it actually, I don't know, but it seemed better because the packaging was better. They don't make it anymore. Don't make it anymore. I certainly would have gotten it Okay. Wow. We have six chocolate milks to try today.
Molly 7:16
So when, when would you drink chocolate milk as a kid?
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:19
So I don't think I had it at school. I went to private school from like first through eighth grade, and I don't remember chocolate milk being a part of the cafeteria, although it
Molly 7:30
probably was. Have little individual cartons of milk, though I
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:33
think so. But I think I usually manage to talk my way into getting pineapple juice
Molly 7:39
at my my school again. I we've been doing the show for so long. I know I've said these things, but okay, so milk would get delivered in milk crates, in those like little individual paper cartons, right, delivered to your classroom. No, it would get delivered to some central room.
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:56
Oh, like a depot.
Molly 8:00
The train would come through anyway,
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:06
tough kids would rob the train.
Molly 8:09
There was always a little box car child.
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:14
So, okay, my my niece is a big fan of the Boxcar Children mystery series for kids, and just went to the Boxcar Children Museum in Connecticut, where the author is from, and got to see the author's grave. The museum is in a boxcar. It sounded amazing.
Molly 8:33
That's so cool. Well, I remember that there was always somebody who was, like, the designated milk person, oh yeah, in the classroom. So, yeah, you would have to go, like, get the milk and bring it back to the classroom. And what I always hated about those little milk cartons is, number one, they never open cleanly. Everybody knows. Number two, when you have to put your mouth on the the paper, the little paper thought about
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:57
that in so long, yes, like, how? Like, it starts to sort of disintegrate at the edge. Oh, yeah. I can, like, in my mind's mouth, I've got that feeling right now, and I don't like it. So although I think, do I have a carton, maybe we should drink some that way today. Okay, it's not, it's like a big it's like a pint carton.
Molly 9:16
Because I think it's also, you know, I bet people are 5050, on, like, if you buy an individual sized carton of chocolate milk, do you get a straw for it, or do you drink it straight from the cart? A lot of people can't imagine doing anything but drinking it straight from
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:29
the carton. I don't know, because at the same time, like, I guess when it's an individual carton, short like, this is going to be like, like, a more than one serving. Like, I feel like, if you're, if you're like, a TV director, like, and you want to show that someone is a dirt bag drinking directly out of a milk carton and putting it back in the
Molly 9:44
fridge. That's right, right, right? And it has to be a 1980s comedy, yeah, of course, yep. Okay, so Matthew, let's talk about what this stuff is.
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:52
Okay. You're not gonna believe Okay, chocolate milk is cold milk with cocoa and sugar in it. Usually add. In the form of chocolate syrup or purchased as a commercial product.
Molly 10:03
Did you ever try to make chocolate milk using cocoa as a kid?
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:07
I think so. And like, it just, it forms a weird, powdery layer on the
Molly 10:11
top. It just so you can stir for the rest of your life. Yeah. So that's why.
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:15
So like, I have, I have in front of me, like the the Nesquik container, and that's why it contains other things, like anti caking agents, anti caking agents, lecithin, soluble, corn fiber, I assume is involved.
Molly 10:29
I think that's probably, isn't it like for the the texture, though,
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:32
yeah, I think there's that's, that's also part of it, and like the commercial ones, often contain carrageenan that is both to give it like a little more thick mouth feel, and also to prevent the cocoa from from precipitating, well, not precipitating from separating out, because it doesn't dissolve.
Molly 10:46
Okay. So is this why store bought maybe we're gonna get to this. Is this why store bought chocolate milk is often like, thicker and richer feeling in your mouth?
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:56
Oh, yeah, okay. Well, it's because, partly because people like it that way, and partly because they have to maintain that colloidal suspension, because
Molly 11:04
my mom used to always refuse to buy, like, pre made chocolate milk, because she said that it had all kinds of nasty extra stuff in it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:11
Yeah, or as, like, awesome extra stuff, depending on your perspective, we're gonna, we're gonna
Molly 11:17
drink some today, all right, so let's talk about this. So you gotta, like, keep the the emulsion. Is it an emulsion? It's, yeah, suspension.
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:26
It's a suspension. What's the image? Again, a suspension and an I think it is, I think it is a but lecithin is an emulsifier. So an emulsifier, something that prevents, prevents things from separating out when you mix them. So, yeah, it's an emulsion. Okay, yeah. It's like, you, you know that song, you got to keep them separated. This is the opposite of
Molly 11:45
this. This episode is full of so many useful opposites. It is, yeah, yeah. Okay, so, like, is it possible to talk about the history of chocolate
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:55
milk? Kind of, all right, let's, let's do our best to talk about the history of chocolate milk, and then, and then let's mix them up and drink it. Okay, because I really want some in my mouth. So when you start researching the history of chocolate milk, as I did yesterday, you quickly run into people blurring the lines between hot cocoa with milk in it and chocolate milk. If it's hot it's not chocolate milk. That's right, like chocolate milk. The principle of putting milk and chocolate together goes back to, like, early meso American Colonization. Chocolate milk in the form we know it today does not
Molly 12:31
because it requires a lot to keep the chocolate in suspension.
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:35
Keep the chocolate in suspension, you have to have, like, a source of cold milk, which was not a thing back then, that's a good point, right? So, so it's a thing. It's a thing that is that goes along with, like, modern, pasteurized dairy production and the cold chain and stuff. Okay, I love saying the cold chain, yeah. So we're talking about, like, ice cold milk that is lightly flavored with chocolate, or heavily flavored, if Molly is making it, made with a commercial syrup andor poured from a carton. This dates to like the 1920s and especially the 1930s when food companies, including Borden and Sheffield farms, started experimenting with flavored milks as a way to get kids to drink more milk. And in Japan, I've noticed strawberry milk is fairly popular. I don't think there really any. You do see other flavored milks in North America, but chocolate is obviously far and away the winner, right?
Molly 13:26
There are little like juice box thingies of strawberry milk that I think maybe even like Starbucks sells and strawberry milk. I mean, you can get it out there, but chocolate milk is far more popular.
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:38
Yeah. So the first commercial chocolate syrup, as far as I can tell, was Fox's, you bet, which is really associated with egg creams rather than chocolate milk. I
Molly 13:48
remember this from our fountain drinks episode.
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:52
Yeah, I tried. I thought we did an egg cream episode, and then I couldn't find it. I don't think, no, but then I couldn't find it when I searched for it. But I know we made egg creams, but the chocolate syrups of like the age of the birth of chocolate milk were Hershey's and Bosco. Hershey's was introduced for soda fountain use in 1926 and home use around 1930 and Bosco appeared around the same time. Bosco, I don't even know if they make it anymore. It is a brand name I know only from a Seinfeld episode. Oh, yeah, I've never heard of I believe, I believe George's ATM pin was Bosco and like, he told, I think the plot is something like, he told his girlfriend because he wanted to, like, confide in her and, like, show her, show her that he trusted her. Then they broke up and he had to change it. But he liked it so much that he was mad that he had to change it. It's a good story. Good story, right? Yeah. And probably I got every detail of that slightly wrong. So Seinfeld fans get in touch.
Molly 14:45
So what about milk in cartons? I mean, presumably milk first came in bottles, bottles. Well, first came in cows. Oh, first it came in cows, right? Then it probably came in buckets. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:55
you know what I've always said, Why buy the cow when you can get the bucket?
Molly 14:59
That's. Is what I always say, too. Yeah, then it came in bottles, and then it came in cartons. Okay, so where along here did chocolate milk come in?
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:08
Chocolate milk came in right around when cartons came in, which was the 1950s so carton started started a little earlier than that, but became very common in the 50s, and chocolate milk was in those cartons, pretty much from day one, and became a standard offering in school cafeterias also in the 1950s
Molly 15:25
it's interesting to me to think of like ready made chocolate milk dating back that far, because it does require a lot of, like, processing, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:34
but that was, that was kind of the era of of, like processed foods becoming mainstream. And that's true, probably, probably probably that's where, where we got many of our favorite emulsifiers.
Molly 15:43
Yeah, I got, I where to begin with my favorite emulsifier?
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:47
I mean, soy lecithin has got to be right up there. I can't think of a single other emulsifier off the top of my head, mustard. Mustard. Oh, you're, you're going natural emulsifiers, yeah. Okay, so soy lecithin and mustard. So yeah, so like
Molly 16:06
there's any mustard in that, that Nesquik?
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:08
No, not anymore. Oh, you can enjoy Nesquik your way, hot or cold as a snack or with a meal in dairy or plant based milk. Thanks. I could. I couldn't have figured these things out myself.
Molly 16:18
Okay, well, let's God, I don't know how to taste this. I feel like, given that we both started out,
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:24
I don't know how to taste you like a song from Miss Saigon or something.
Molly 16:32
I think we should start with her. She's mixed up ourselves because, yeah, that is the baseline of both of our childhoods. And I think
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:39
my only concern with that is, if we like, mix up to our taste and make it as chocolatey as we want, everything else might taste like nothing. I think we should start with we got like, I got like, Alpen rose, like store brand, like, you know, mass market, just your basic what they would serve at a school lunch. I think we should start with that and then, and then mix up,
Molly 16:59
okay. I think that the mouth feel then of homemade chocolate milk may seem thin after
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:07
what do we do? Let's pause the episode and ask for listeners right in we'll pick this up like eight weeks from now, the first half of the episode, we'll wait for your emails, and then we'll the pledge drive will happen like sometime in 2026
Molly 17:26
Okay, well, hey, actually, you know, while we think about this, let's go ahead and do the pledge drive.
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:36
Guess what time of year it is? Oh, it's pledge drive time. My favorite time of year, the time when you when you open your hearts and your wallets to us, and the love and money floweth for
Molly 17:50
Wow, I feel, I feel the openness and the warmth,
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:55
yeah, like a, like a warm breeze.
Molly 17:59
It was sort of like, I don't know. I imagine if I bathed in my own blood, like
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:08
the warmth. Yeah. Okay, so quiz for listeners, which one of us is a horror movie fan and which of us is too scared to watch horror movies? No, this is, this is the pledge drive. We can't. We got on this horse and we can't get off,
Molly 18:21
that's right? Because Matthew doesn't know how to dismount, but I do. I'm off this horse. Carry on, Matthew.
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:27
Two people are riding a horse at the same time. Is that called a tandem horse? Or is that it's a tandem horse? Okay, good. All right, here's how this works. You listen to spilled milk. You've made it all the way through the episode to this pledge drive message. So you probably like the show. Maybe you've been listening for a while. It's time to get serious, to like, define the relationship.
Molly 18:47
Okay, okay, so there are a couple ways to do this. Like, number one, you can become a subscriber. More on that in just a second. Number two, if you already are a subscriber and you want to, like, redefine the relationship, you can upgrade. So this message is for everybody, whether everybody, whether you're already a subscriber, or whether we're already doing it, however, whether you're already a subscriber, or whether you want to do it with us.
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:09
That's right, if you're already doing it with us at the highest level, just keep doing what you're doing. You're doing great.
Molly 19:15
Okay, so, Matthew, let's talk about what we mean by levels. Okay,
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:19
what do we mean by levels? This is when you take, like, parts of your living room and you, I don't know, oh, a split level when? Yeah, it's like, when you have a split level, you go in the house, you either go up or you go down. Okay,
Molly 19:32
well, so we want you to go up. We ask our listeners to choose a level. When you become a paying subscriber to the show, there are three levels. So there's the $5 a month level. That is the little limber twig level. We named this after the apple episode, like a million years ago. Little limber twig is a type of Apple. It's
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:52
a type of Apple. I don't think we've ever tried it, but we will, but at the little
Molly 19:55
limber twig level. So you pledge five bucks a month and what you get. Get is you get a handwritten thank you postcard from one of the two of us.
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:04
Yep, can you guess which one we don't even know yet? We switch off. Yeah, we switch off. Matthew, what else do they get? They get our three times a year newsletter. What would you call that?
Molly 20:13
Thirdly? It's a thirdly newsletter. Funny. We take turns writing that too. We work really hard on this newsletter. We do. We do. We even like, send it around, like, between the two of us and get feedback from producer Abby. We pump up our
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:25
jokes, we out, we pump up the volume. Most of all, you get bonus episodes. Okay, so what do you mean? Three times a year you get an episode that is for subscribers only. These are not, like, regular episodes that didn't make the cut. These are weird episodes that were that we don't put on the main feed because they don't quite fit the
Molly 20:43
formula, like we have an episode on French kissing, uh huh.
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:47
We did one recently called Matthew takes a hike and drinks a cocktail. I still don't even remember what that was about, but I
Molly 20:53
think it was fun. We did one once on teen slang. Yes,
Matthew Amster-Burton 20:57
like teen slang that was given us to us by adult child of the show, December, yep, no cap. Man, no cap. No cap. We learned what no cap meant. We did a drugstore sense, where we got a lot of smelly, smelly fluids from the drugstore. That's right, including Molly's own blood.
Molly 21:14
Okay, so you get all this for just five bucks a month. And I should say you get three of those bonus episodes a year. Yeah, three newsletters.
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:21
And to be clear, you don't just get, like, the bonus episodes that come out. After you subscribe, you get access to the full archive going back years and years, we are up to 34 bonus episodes, hours and hours of audio, and some of it's even funny, okay, so most of it is dead
Molly 21:37
serious. So let's say that you want to give 10 bucks a month. You're just that kind of person, yeah. So at that level, we're gonna call you a Magnum bonum sustaining member.
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:47
That's right, yeah, also a type of Apple, which, again, we haven't tried. It's probably a big apple,
Molly 21:52
yeah, yeah, probably. And at that level, 10 bucks a month, you get all the things we just described, plus you get a piece of merch that should be a
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:00
mug. It could be a t shirt. It could be a tote bag, one of those three things, yep. What if they wanna give 20 bucks a month? Okay? If you wanna go all out, if you wanna really do it the way it was meant to be done, you can become a glycine Max, super member. Glycine Max being the name for soybean. That's right. I think that's right, okay? And we just thought it sounded
Molly 22:22
metal. Yeah, I seen mad.
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:26
You get all of the above, the postcard, the newsletter, the bonus episodes, the merch, and you get a five minute personalized, custom episode that we make and send just to you. You can do whatever you want with it after that. We don't care if you publish it, and it could be on basically any topic you want, as long as it's legal. That's
Molly 22:45
right. And we, we've done a couple of these, and we had a lot of fun. We did
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:49
one on like, how do they get the lactose out of milk? We didn't know the answer. It was pretty interesting. Yeah, I've forgotten already. And I think our next bonus episode, if you subscribe now, we're doing. I mean, this is the chocolate milk episode. As we teased wife of the show, Lori Watson, agreed to come on for chocolate milk two and talk about her chocolate milk opinions. Oh, this is gonna be great. Yeah. Okay, if you want to upgrade, every time you make a payment each month, you get an email from our subscription software, and at the bottom of the email is a link to manage your subscription. You can upgrade there by just changing the monthly amount, or you can just drop me an email contact at spielbuck podcast.com and let me know that you want to upgrade. I also
Molly 23:29
just want to add that, you know, we know that there are a lot of people and organizations in the world who you could subscribe to or give your money to, and we just wanted to tell you that when you become a subscriber to spilled milk, what you are doing is you are supporting directly us, making this independent comedy show. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:49
we are not part of a network. We are not part of any sort of corporate infrastructure. Almost 100% of your contribution goes to us and producer Abby, that's
Molly 23:59
right. So yeah, producer Abby, who's worked with us now for over 10 years, yeah, so, so your contributions, your subscription pays her salary. Yes,
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:08
she put on the agenda for the pledge drive message, employee retention, and then, and then put a comment on it. They just said, I'm still here.
Molly 24:18
You also pay for our hosting ingredients. Yes, we really, really appreciate it. Yeah, oh yes, you're paying for some of my childcare, so thank you. Otherwise, I'm not sure how we would do this. We love making this show. We hope you love listening to it, and we hope to keep doing it for a long
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:38
time. Yeah, I think at this point, nobody could accuse us of not being in it for the long
Molly 24:43
haul. Yeah, we are. Yeah, we're going on 16 years. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:47
we're, like, we're over 700 episodes in I wonder if we're gonna
Molly 24:50
lose our virginity this year, like we're 16. Oh yeah. I mean, that's like four years before I actually lost my
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:57
virgin. I've been collecting some candles. Oh. Oh yeah, if I could bring some rose petals. Okay, yeah, okay. 16 Candles. Oh, 16 Candles. Okay, this sounds pretty fun. I know this is what you need to lose your virginity, right? Candles, rose petals, like, some sort of, like, classical music, oh, or like, or like, no, like, very white, like, like, Soul amuse
Molly 25:17
were you listening to any music when you lost your virginity? We're not gonna talk about this on the plush drive message, oh, man, well, then what is this show about?
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:26
Fine, it was REM murmur,
Molly 25:28
oh yes, I don't think I knew that. That is, like, one of my all time favorite albums, all right? Oh, I'm never gonna give it this
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:37
game, okay? And I'm never gonna look at you without imagining you bathed in your own blood. Sorry, even Okay, once again. So how do you do this? We didn't even give the Oh no, the URL, the link, the place where it all happened, the deets. Yeah, the deets Are you go to spilled milk? Podcast.com/donate,
Molly 25:54
and that's spilled milk. Podcast.com/donate,
Matthew Amster-Burton 25:57
thank you so much.
Molly 26:01
Hey, we're back. All right.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:03
So I have here Alpen rose dairy. This is, this is a dairy that I grew up with because it used to be located near my house in Southwest Portland. It
Molly 26:10
has such, like a lyrical name, or I feel, I feel like I'm going to be whisked away into Heidi.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:16
Yeah, you're going to be whisked away into Heidi, which was also so sick of this. Sick 60s.
Molly 26:27
Complete a sentence. This is 2%
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:30
Yeah, I think, I think that's pretty typical for store bought chocolate milk. God, that's good. Yeah, it is. It is very nostalgic, like, is it very chocolatey? No, but it does have that thickness,
Molly 26:42
but it tastes like, it tastes like chocolate milk. Yeah, okay, what's in it? Tell me what's in it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 26:47
All right, I can't, if I drink too much of this, I'm gonna be like, crying by the time we get to the end, why it's so good, because, because I'm gonna drink five more chocolate milks. Oh, I thought we only had four total. We have six. We have six. Yeah, okay, reduced fat, milk sugar, chocolate, dairy, powder, salt, carrageenan, natural flavor, vitamin A, palmitate and d3
Molly 27:07
Okay, so that's not, that's not gross. No, it's just carrageenan, which I always thought was carrageenan. I think it,
Matthew Amster-Burton 27:14
yeah, I don't know. I think it's carrageenan. It's a seaweed extract. That's a, that's a gelling agent. How
Molly 27:20
are we going to find out how to pronounce it? Oh, boy, let's, let's call it up on YouTube and have one of those, like, little pronunciation videos. Can we trust? I never know whether or not I can trust that. I don't think so.
Speaker 1 27:33
Carrageenan pronunciation, karenge in Oh, I really, definitely not going to click on another one, because that one said I was right. I really thought it was Cara Jean in all right. Are we ready to mix up some Hershey's and milk? Oh, is that the next one? Or should we should be the next one? Oh, I think we should start with those two as kind of the best. So
Molly 27:53
I'm going to put a little bit of milk in here. Hit me. You know, I almost continued on to sing the Red Hot Chili Peppers song, suck my kiss. Do you remember that one? Hit me? You can't hurt me. Suck my kiss. You
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:07
can't hurt me. What a weird song, yeah, but, but it was one of those songs that, like, the first time I heard it, I was like, Oh, this is cool. Yeah, that's a small amount to start with. I feel like, Oh yeah, I guess, I guess it's a small amount of milk too. I'm getting my own spoon.
Molly 28:22
Oh, the color, whoa. No. This is a lot of chocolate I've added. I'm happy with this. Okay? And this is with whole milk. Yeah, bless you, Matthew, it
Matthew Amster-Burton 28:32
feels weird when someone says, Bless you and you didn't sneeze. Okay, okay, I'm still mixing. What do you what do you think
Molly 28:41
that it's extremely nostalgic and extremely chocolatey? It looks like ours are roughly the same color. Yeah, it's good. It tastes like Hershey syrup. It tastes like Hershey syrup. Yeah, I like it. I like it too. I have to say, the mouth feels a bit lacking, even though this is whole milk and the Alpine Rose was 2% this feels a little thinner. Doesn't feel thin.
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:05
Yeah, it's good, but, yeah, it does. It doesn't have that, that carrageenan
Molly 29:11
mouth filling quality, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:13
I was like, but like the carrageenan flow, the carrageenan,
Molly 29:17
the carrageenan fullness, the carrageenan voluptuous. Yes, I do makes things
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:23
voluptuous. That's right, all right, let's get some more of that. Are you gonna get some chocolate milk going? Or what do we do next? We do Nestle quick. Next, yeah, because we got this milk out so
Molly 29:35
as a kid, my parents didn't buy Nestle quick. It like just wasn't the way we made chocolate milk. But I remember being on vacation a couple times and my parents buying Nestle quick, because maybe it was, like, more readily available. Yeah, so this was 100%
Matthew Amster-Burton 29:53
a thing I would get in another kid's house. I never thought it was really good.
Molly 29:58
I don't really know how much. To use, so I'm just hanging it, but
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:02
I figure we have to try it. And I did some research on the history of Nestle quick. And it's classic commercials.
Molly 30:08
Okay, here we go. Oh, I like that. It's got a little bit of malt in it. Oh, man,
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:15
one of the ingredients is spice, which, I think that's the stuff from Dune, right?
Molly 30:19
Yeah, careful, though it's a hallucinogen. Okay, I definitely didn't put enough in. Oh, this is fabulous. I love this, really, okay. Oh, I love this.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:31
Okay, that looks the colors looking better. It does dissolve nicely, yeah,
Molly 30:37
thanks food engineering.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:39
Yeah, that's kind of good. Isn't that so good? Interesting? Oh, I
Molly 30:42
like that. For me, this might be a perfectly engineered food product. I don't say that often.
Matthew Amster-Burton 30:49
Oh, that's that I expected to not like this at all. I love this. Would I pick this over one of the other ones?
Molly 30:57
Oh, I love the flavor of this. It's got a malt flavor. It's
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:01
got a malt flavor. This might be my favorite one so far. This is so weird. I freaking love that. Okay, so let me, let me see if I can I drink the whole glass. All right, let me see if I can make you hate it again by playing this awful commercial from the 50s. Or maybe you'll love this commercial. I want to take that home. Okay, yeah, please do. Maybe I'll save a little bit so, so Watson can taste some Okay, man, that's so good. Molly's not just sitting sitting there with a gallon jug of an open gallon jug of milk sitting in front of her like, like, that's her lunch.
Molly 31:32
No, to be clear, we just had homemade lasagna. Yes, nothing goes down quite so nicely as chocolate milk after homemade lasagna, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 31:42
seem like a nostalgic a nostalgic lunch. Okay, so this was quick spelling. I cannot type, Q, U, I, K, quick 50s, commercial ventriloquist,
Molly 31:55
oh, dear. These are not the words. Are You Ready? Ready? You
Unknown Speaker 32:00
I
Speaker 2 32:02
never heard of him. How do you spell it, C, A, S, S, A, R,
Speaker 3 32:13
Daddy, you're no explorer masters at curl school.
Speaker 4 32:21
Well, Dr, Nestle's I presume Nestle gets to the dogs and they quick give you his milk, that delicious, chocolatey flavor. Nestle's quick.
Unknown Speaker 32:37
You're shouting. I'm shouting
Unknown Speaker 32:41
quick. It's something to shout about, kid gloves.
Speaker 3 32:43
My, oh, my, make some form will, you know, all right, I will Danny, because nothing could be easier. All you do is take fresh whole milk. Yeah, check. Add two spoonfuls up quick, just like this. Not enough. Stir and it's all
Speaker 2 33:00
made. How about that? You know, kids will drink up lots more nourishing milk when you add quick and turn it into a real chocolate treat,
Molly 33:07
stir it more, dude, it
Unknown Speaker 33:10
makes milk taste like a little onion.
Unknown Speaker 33:14
Oh, he means it good. Yes, he does.
Unknown Speaker 33:20
No and he has Nestle.
Matthew Amster-Burton 33:31
Oh, terrifying. So like, wow, we'll link to this. It's a terrifying 50s commercial with a ventriloquist, ventriloquist, Jimmy Nelson with his dummy Danny O'Day and his dog puppet farful. As soon as I mentioned this to Mom of the show, actually, both of my parents, like, broke into that song about the N, E, S, D, L, E, chocolate, like they remembered this from earlier kids. Yeah,
Molly 33:53
I have a hard time believing that this was ever not frightening, right? I mean, that ventriloquist dummy
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:00
and the dog is so ugly, the dog is so
Molly 34:04
ugly, like, you can do better, I'm sure. I mean, they could have done better back then. I don't know. Maybe that was the best they could do. But is it impossible to make a ventriloquist dummy that isn't scary looking like why do they make them look like that, like Howdy Doody, or whatever they
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:19
all I mean, it's partly that the mouth is Howdy doody. I think Howdy Doody is a dummy, okay, I think it's partly just because, like, the mouth has to move in that weird way that is entirely unlike a human mouth, is part of it. But
Molly 34:31
Muppets mouths move in a way that's entirely unlike a human mouth, and they look really cute.
Matthew Amster-Burton 34:38
That's a good point, but that came later. You're right, okay, like they didn't, they didn't have Muppet mouth technology in the 50s, technology is a hand, yeah, okay, so I guess that guy did have a couple of hands, but, but he was not using them wisely. No, I just said that word, wisely. She. Chocolate. So okay, so Nestle quick was released in 1948 in the US as quick, and in 1950 in Europe as Nesquik. And I liked it better than I thought I would. So they also used the slogan, you can't drink it slow if it's quick, that's good, right? That's good. Yeah, there is an important controversy about quick that I was absolutely unable to get to the bottom of and so I listeners, if you, if you have any information on this, like I have a tentative conclusion, but get in touch, contact at building up podcast.com the quick mascot is, of course, this rabbit, okay. And Wikipedia claims that the act the name of the rabbit mascot is Quickie, hmm. And there's a whole Wikipedia article devoted to Quickie, Q, U, I, C, K, y, the bunny. I could not find any evidence that Nestle actually used
Molly 35:50
the name quickie. Do you think that Wikipedia is punking us again?
Matthew Amster-Burton 35:54
Maybe. So. Also that Wikipedia page has disambiguation link, which includes links to things such as quickie convenience stores and Ottawa based grocery chain. Do
Molly 36:03
you think that this is something that that listener of the show, Ken Alba would know anything about, maybe the history of the history of the Quickie, the history of the Quickie, the history of the Quickie bunny, Nesquik mascot.
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:18
So the product name was changed to Nesquik in the US in 1999 and to this day, no one is quite sure what the rabbit's name is, but the initial on his necklace, which there isn't even a necklace on this box, was apparently changed from q to n when they changed the product name, which I feel like, like all the Quickie the buddy conspiracy theorists probably had a lot of opinions on what that meant. Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna put these things back in the fridge, and I'm gonna get us some more chocolate milk. Taste great.
Molly 36:48
Okay, we've got dairy gold, old fashioned twin Brook and TJ is midnight moon. Let's
Matthew Amster-Burton 36:54
do the dairy gold, old fashioned next. This is Watson's favorite because she said it has the best texture.
Molly 37:00
Oh, I would have said that this was the kind of baseline instead of the Alpen rose. So I guess it's because you grew up with the Alpen rose, right?
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:08
It's not because they dairy. Gold has two they have their regular chocolate milk and the old fashioned chocolate. And the old fashioned one is supposed to be, like, thicker and richer. Do you need to shake it? Yeah, I think so. But such a delicate little shake. I love to give a delicate little shake.
Molly 37:25
Oh, that does pour nicely. It's got a good sheen. Wow. Look how shiny it
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:30
is. Hang on. We have to, we have to do our traditional thing of talking about our favorite sheens.
Molly 37:36
Well, I used to have a big crush on Charlie Sheen. I mean, when I was, like, quite young, and he was quite young,
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:42
yeah, I think maybe, maybe Emilio Estevez is still my favorite sheen.
Molly 37:48
Martin Sheen, I would love president. Martin Sheen, for President. Is he dead?
Matthew Amster-Burton 37:53
I don't think yet, but at the time we're recording this, I don't think this one has much chocolate flavor. The texture is good. Oh, I
Molly 38:01
think this has a lot of some sort of flavor that is designed to taste like chocolate, but I'm not. I'm trying to decide if it tastes like chocolate or not.
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:09
This is my least favorite of the one so far, which is, which is weird. Chocolate is any of the other ones? No, not to me. I'm gonna have to disagree with you there,
Molly 38:17
buddy. This tastes like melted chocolate ice cream. You know what? Like cheap chocolate ice that's right, right? Like, cheap chocolate ice cream, yeah? I mean, that's it's fine. I am getting a little bit more of a dairy flavor at the end.
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:30
Yeah, I get that. Would you consider replacing me with a ventriloquist dummy? And so, how would that work?
Molly 38:43
Would I list my co host as the ventriloquist or the dummy?
Matthew Amster-Burton 38:47
Oh, I was thinking you would be the ventriloquist. No, but, but no. Okay, I guess now you're, you're like, sitting across from a ventriloquist with a dummy. Even though it's an audio podcast, this is a good idea. No, this is great. You know, you know, you know, we're gonna look at it. Look this up. It's gonna drive. There's, like, a lot of ventriloquism podcast. It's like all category on iTunes.
Molly 39:12
I love the thought of this, hmm. Oh, wow. Okay, so this is, like, the, this is an expensive product,
Matthew Amster-Burton 39:20
yes, this is Twinbrook 100% Jersey milk from Linden, Washington. Like $10 for a pint of it. No, although the bought there was like a $2 deposit on this little glass bottle. I know it was probably like $4
Molly 39:32
this is really good, but it's really good, like a different thing from Nestle quick, like, okay, so I'm comparing my two favorites so far. This has a great texture. This has a really nice texture, far more than the it has. It has a it has a voluptuosity. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 39:47
I'm going to be so curious to hear wattles opinions on these later that we we may have to, like, record a follow up episode. Oh,
Molly 39:54
yeah, the twin Brook one is far and away the best second to that in terms of the. Store bought comes Alpen rose third, dairy
Matthew Amster-Burton 40:02
gold, yeah, I agree. And then like, like, Nesquik is, like, right? Maybe, like, maybe better than everything. But the twin Brook, I
Molly 40:11
agree. I agree. And the thing for me with the twin Brook is it sort of, if you're somebody who likes the flavor of milk, I think you'll also like it because the aftertaste is like, actual, like, farm milk. You don't totally lose it to the the chocolate.
Matthew Amster-Burton 40:29
Okay, so we got one final competitor here, and this was a last minute addition that Molly was like, Do we even need to do that? And the answer is yes, because this is Trader Joe's organic midnight Moo chocolate syrup. Okay? And the reason I got this because, first of all, it's a, it's like a limited time item at Trader Joe's. And it's a limited time item, it's a thing that, like, appears and disappears. And I saw someone saying, like, this summer midnight, Moo is back. So, like, on, that was too much.
Molly 40:57
That's a lot of milk. Wow. We have wasted we're
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:01
gonna taste the dump bucket, like some some website did a tasting, and it was like number one among all the chocolate syrups they tasted. And people on Reddit go crazy for this. Okay,
Molly 41:13
then you're right. We have to taste it right, right. Okay. Oh, wow. Okay. You know, looks a lot like Hershey's Syrup coming out
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:23
of the bottle, coming out the bottle right there.
Molly 41:26
Don't, don't say anything until I've tasted mine. I'm not, not ready yet. This is a nice stir stick you've got for me here.
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:33
It's like one of those, like Bark, bark, tender cocktail spoon. Ew. I don't like this one at all. I hate that. Huh, interesting.
Molly 41:42
Ooh, that tastes like weird candy. It tastes like weird candy. So weird. Yeah, that's not good. That's weird candy flavored.
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:51
Okay, now let's see what happens if you mix them all together. Oh,
Molly 41:55
Matthew, you should have stirred it before you did that.
Matthew Amster-Burton 41:59
That's fine. I just, I just tasted the dump bucket, which is, which is like it is full to the brand. Speaking of 80s commercials, oh my
Molly 42:07
gosh, yeah, we have discarded almost three cups of chocolate milk in in service of this show.
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:12
But listeners, if you, if you pledge right now, build milk podcast.com/donate, you can come over and stick a bagel. I got some big fat milkshake straws. You could stick one in the dump bucket and slur up three cups of deliciously freshly made chocolate milk get here as soon as possible.
Molly 42:32
Okay, gosh, okay. What have we learned? So here's what we've learned that you know you're like, local, organic dairy. Chocolate milk is probably going to be delicious, probably,
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:45
yeah, we have one data point to support. That's trick. We haven't been over to your dairy. No, we haven't been over to my dairy, to your neck of the woods.
Molly 42:53
But if you're going for like, the shelf stable way of making chocolate milk,
Matthew Amster-Burton 42:59
like, do I like to do things the shelf stable way.
Molly 43:03
Actually, Hershey syrup isn't shelf stable. What am I talking about? If you're going for the chocolate milk made at home, the cost effective way. Nesquik all the way,
Matthew Amster-Burton 43:13
kind of great. I love that. Yeah, when you get like, a IKEA bookcase, do you do? You do the little like, earthquake proof, or thing to, like, stick it to the
Molly 43:22
wall. You know, we did do it with these kitchen shelves we have, but otherwise I haven't have you. Did you with this?
Speaker 1 43:32
Oh, yeah, there it is. Look, you can see it from here, like it looks very flimsy. Is it in a stud or just in the drywall? I think it's probably in a stud because I, like, bought myself a nice stud finder, did you? I mean, I'd like to say yes, but I used an electronic stud finder. Yeah,
Molly 43:48
I want to buy one, but I insist on doing the tap test.
Matthew Amster-Burton 43:52
Yeah. I mean, they're not expensive. The stud finder, it's very satisfying to, like, run this thing along the wall, and then it goes,
Molly 43:59
Oh, it does. It does Okay. I should, maybe I should get one. I just hung a bunch of things in my kids room and just did the tapping method and then elected to not even hang things in the studs
Matthew Amster-Burton 44:10
because they were in the wrong place. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. I mean, there's, like, unless you're hanging something really heavy, there's a lot of options. Yeah,
Molly 44:17
wow. Okay. Well, thanks for tuning into our home improvement episode, you can improve your home with a container of Nestle. Quick. I am Tim. Tim the tool person. Wait, we haven't done our segments. Oh, wait, should we save them for another episode?
Matthew Amster-Burton 44:30
We should? We should do the segments. I just like, while you said home improvement, I had to say something about, like, what do I remember from the show home improvement? Like, he was always like, putting more power into things, elbow grease. It was putting elbow grease. It was greasing his elbow there was like, a guy next door. You couldn't see his face, right? I've never seen the show. I watched that like this. I was that also was this on Thursday night. So I was gonna say, like, like, maybe you didn't watch it because like, like, you, you went out with your
Molly 44:59
parents. Busy like flipping channels and accidentally stumbling upon terrifying horror movies that would leave me scarred for years, but you
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:07
still love horror movies. I do, yeah, I do, yeah.
Molly 45:10
Okay, no, let's do segments. Okay, so Matthew, we've got some spilled mail. Let's hear it.
Molly 45:21
This one is from listener Rachel Hi, Matthew Molly and producer Abby. I really enjoyed the tap water episode, and wanted to share some personal memory lane related to tap water taste. I grew up in a rural area with a well, and I didn't realize it tasted like sulfur until my boyfriend, now husband, pointed it out. I Meanwhile, thought the water at his house and others who lived in the nearby town reeked of chlorine. Fun, fact, all the tap water in Iceland also smells like sulfur. Sort of related, but you implied in the episode that all springs are hot springs. We
Matthew Amster-Burton 45:55
did. Yeah, I think I said that which is not corrected by more than one person, which
Molly 45:58
is not correct, the Wikipedia page for springs explains it better than I can but springs can be caused by other forces that bring groundwater to the surface. I remember my grandparents having a spring house on their farm. Well, thanks for the weekly delights. Listener, Rachel,
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:15
question, what do you think a spring house is? I think it's probably like a pump house, okay, and a pump house is, but if it's a spring, you don't have to pump it because it just shoots out. Right? Let's, let's dig ourselves in deeper, in terms in terms of hydrology misinformation. That's what people come to our
Molly 46:34
show for. You'll notice, I also don't know what a pump house is, although some friends of mine built a pump house. Of course they did land but, but
Matthew Amster-Burton 46:42
I guess I think we all know what a pump house is. I was just thinking about the Aerosmith album pump, and that it was funny to call an album pump.
Molly 46:54
You know, it's funny that shoes are called pumps, like there's a type of shoe called pumps, you know why? No, I know we don't know much of anything. No, we don't. But you know what? We do know we have a now, but wow, and we know about that. I
Matthew Amster-Burton 47:14
think I'll be finishing this book today. It's really good. It's, it's called Eternal Flame by Jennifer otter bickerdyke. It is an official biography of the bangles. Three of three of the band members participated in the creation of the book Molly. Molly. Luckily, it was empty chocolate milk. It's biography of the bangles, and it is a well told story of one of the greatest rock bands that was really systematically mistreated by the music industry. It's for me, at least, I don't think this is hard for everybody, but for me as like a dude, it is hard to remember how unbelievably stupidly sexist the music industry and everything else was in the 80s. Which is not to say that those things are not sexist now by any means, but for years and years the bangles had to deal with every single thing written about them had the tone of the go, Go's already exist. And that's a band with girls. Why do we need another one? Whether, like, this was endless, like, literally everything
Molly 48:16
that I had no idea it was that. But
Matthew Amster-Burton 48:19
it is also a book about the joy of making music with your friends, and that comes across really nicely. The great thing about the bangles is they have five albums. All of them are at least good, and some of them are great. So you can, like, Listen straight through while you read this delightful book. And I want to put in a plug for the opening track of their final album, Sweetheart of the sun from 2011 which is probably not a very well known album or very well known song, but I think the song Annaliese sweetheart of the Sun is one of the most perfect songs ever written. Whoa, they are brilliant performers, brilliant songwriters, and just got, like routinely fucked over by producers, record company, people, the press, everything.
Molly 49:00
So the book is eternal flame, and it's by Jennifer otter bickerdyke, yes, great. Okay, all right. Well, our producer is Abby
Matthew Amster-Burton 49:07
circuitella, and you can rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. You
Molly 49:11
can chat with other spilled milk listeners, or maybe you want to talk about how wrong we are about about springs or spring houses or pump houses, or why shoes. Some shoes are called
Matthew Amster-Burton 49:20
pumps. Yeah. So, so all that can be found on our slash hydrology or our slash everything, spilled milk. Take your pick. Don't forget to support the show, spilled milk podcast.com/donate, we can't do it without you. And until next time, thank you for listening to spilled milk. I'm quickie and I'm quacky, the duck mascot.
Matthew Amster-Burton 49:53
What product? Just whoever's. Paying top dollar ducky. Ducky's gotta put, gotta put. What do ducks eat? Duckies gotta put Mike plankton on the table. Grubs. Duckies gotta grub. That's we've been saying that since episode one, and now it's episode 727, or whatever, duckies gotta grub. Oh.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai