Welcome back to another episode of Drinking With Robots. I'm your host Rob Nester and I'm your host Ingrid Folkers. This week, just like everybody else, it's a holiday episode. Stick around to find out about an anti-consumerist made up holiday from a show about nothing. Don't call it a miracle. It's just a festivus for the rest of us. A little later, Cody Taylor from Raleigh's Own Killjoy will be joining us to talk about his holiday-inspired cocktail. We'll find out if his cocktail captures the holiday spirit or lands him on the naughty list. But first, a word from our sponsor. Upgrade your cocktail game with Remedy Cocktail Company's handcrafted bitters. Order online at RemedyCocktailCompany.com and choose from over 20 flavors. Elevate your drink experience, today. Hey Ingrid. Yeah? What do you know about Festivus? I know absolutely nothing about Festivus. Okay, well, you know about Yule. Mm-hmm. And you know about Hanukkah. Mm-hmm. And you know about Christmas. Yep. Well, Festivus is maybe the best winter holiday and it rose to popularity in 1997 thanks to the show Seinfeld. I never watched Seinfeld. So it was a show about nothing really, but Festivus may have been one of its most well-known contributions to pop culture. So what's the deal with Festivus? Are you sure you haven't seen it before? Regardless, for those of you out there listening and Ingrid, the show Seinfeld was on air from 1989 to 1998 and it was regularly among the most popular sitcoms of the 90s. It was loved by both critics and viewers. It was the linchpin of NBC's must-see TV Thursday night lineup. It was just a little bit before my time, I think. Probably so. But the show, it was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld and it starred Jerry Seinfeld as Jerry Seinfeld. It also had Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine Bennis. If you've ever seen the show Veep, she was in that as well more recently. Jason Alexander as George Costanza and Michael Richards as Kramer or more accurately Cosmo Kramer. But I don't think I ever even knew that when the show was on. The show was set primarily in Jerry's apartment in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and occasionally they'd have like other scenes like a local restaurant called Monk's Cafe. So what was the show about? So the show really kind of, you know, was about nothing because there were no major plot points. There wasn't like on a very special Seinfeld, you know, kind of vibe ever. The show really was just kind of about the minutiae of day-to-day life. It wasn't uncommon to have an entire episode around not being able to remember a date's name. Wow. So where does Festivus come in? So 27 years ago, today, December 18th, actually, the episode The Strike premiered. Part of the show's plot dealt with Kramer finally relenting on his 12 years long strike at his employer H&H Bagels because the minimum wage had just been increased. At some point during the show, Jerry, Elaine, and George are all having lunch while George is kind of going through his mail. And he opens this one envelope and kind of sadly says, it's a card from my dad, which prompts Elaine to kind of like reach across the table and snatch it like, oh, what's that? And she reads it and it's a card wishing George a happy Festivus from his father, Frank Costanza, who's portrayed by Jerry Stiller, Ben Stiller's dad. A little later in the episode and kind of much to the chagrin of George, Frank ends up explaining the holiday to the show's characters and into the world at large. It starts with him going, uh, many years ago at Christmas. I went to buy a doll for my son. I reach for the last one they had, but so did another man. As I rained blows upon him, I realized there had to be another way. What happened to the doll? It was destroyed. But out of that, a new holiday was born. A Festivus for the rest of us. You know, so it's just kind of that like frustration at like, you know, trying to get that gift for your kid at Christmas. Mm-hmm. And so it ends up, the whole gist of this is like, you very much get the sense that Frank just concocted this, uh, holiday as a way to get out of like the stress and commercialization of Christmas as it, as it was. Um, because like the holidays celebrated on December 23rd to get a leg up on Christmas. Um, and it has like three main components. So first of all, there's the Festivus pole, which literally is just like, I think in the episode, it was just this big aluminum pipe. Wow. It has no decorations. It's just the Festivus pole. Uh, then there's displays of feats of strength. So like, yeah, it's basically just like wrestling after dinner. Okay. Um, and then finally there's the airing of grievances. Ah, yeah. So classic holiday, uh, customs, right? You know, it's, it's, it's what brings the family together. Um, but it, with this, it's the idea of everyone can tell their family members and friends how they disappointed them in the past year. Yeah. So this is a, uh, very masculine driven, uh, holiday is what I'm getting. I think it definitely, definitely was. Um, and, and so that was kind of the creation of Festivus, but it's not really the creation of Festivus as I've found out subsequently. Oh really? Yeah. So the weird part about this, so I knew this from this episode of Seinfeld. I watched it when it came out, you know, it's been a thing that's kind of been referenced throughout various, um, you know, friend groups and stuff like that over the years, just because it was a funny thing. It turns out the reason that it appeared in the show is because one of the writers, a guy named Dan O'Keefe, his father actually created this. And it wasn't meant to be funny. It was actually created to commemorate the first date between Dan's dad and mom. It sounds like a very negative holiday with the airing of grievances and then the displays of strength. So why is it meant to commemorate the meeting of those two people? Well, so what Daniel O'Keefe, Dan's dad created, didn't involve some of those things. Ah. So, you know, as you would imagine, you've got a good story, you can embellish it. So for example, the Festivus poll, the displays of feats of strength and the airing of grievances were not a part of the 1966 origination of Festivus. In fact, Dan went on to say in a later book that he wrote, I believe it was called The Real Festivus, that in lieu of a Festivus poll, his dad, and this is maybe weirder, would every year nail a clock inside of a bag to a wall. What? Yeah. And he said it was rarely ever the same clock or the same bag or the same wall, and it was done in private, which is just weird, right? Yeah. Like, it's an odd thing, but Daniel O'Keefe, his father, you know, he was a writer, so he

The Social Theory of Magic in like 1982, you know, according to like a LA Times book review of the era, you know, they called the book a spectacular synthesis of sociology, anthropology, and psychoanalysis, a tour de force of accessible scholarship. But basically the idea was that it was about kind of the idiosyncratic celebration of events, which kind of fits for this idea of Festivus. I mean, you know, like you said, it's not the, what we know in the show, but the origin of it was this very idiosyncratic, you know, commemoration of a life event. So it's kind of cool. Yeah. It seems like it's created in very stark contrast to Christmas, which Christmas is, everybody knows, kind of taken over the entire month of December. It's very maximalist, and this seems very minimalist and very kind of reserved. Yeah, and it's, it's interesting to, even with the, we'll call it the 1997 reboot of Festivus, it is very much a stark, you don't need much, you know, which I think is maybe kind of the attraction to it because to the point of, you know, not only is Christmas taken over the month of December, it's creeping on the end of November. It's like you barely get turkey in you. And all of a sudden it's, have you put the tree up or the lights up? Did we tell you about the holiday sale? Have you checked out the holiday sale yet? We have holiday sales. And so, yeah, this is definitely a very stark contrast. Yeah. And it's even the beginning part of November too, because Black Friday has creeped up, you know? And so now the entire month of November seems like it's all about Black Friday. Yeah. That was one thing this year I noticed that like, I think we barely came out of Halloween and everybody was already talking about Black Friday. And not only just Black Friday, Cyber Monday. Yeah. Travel Tuesday. Oh, I didn't know that one. Is that, that's a new one. That's when you, it's right after Cyber Monday, but you're supposed to book all of your travel that you have coming up because those are when the travel deals hit. Sure they do. Yeah. On the day where they're telling you to go buy the tickets. I know, right? I'm very skeptical as well. Right. I didn't do any of the Cyber Monday or Travel Tuesday or whatever. I will say the only one that I did do this year is Small Business Saturday. Yeah. I feel like that's a solid one because, you know, those are folks usually in like your local communities. You know, that money is actually going into the, rarely even long-term into the pockets of the people that you're buying from, but you're able to like, you know, allow them to do all the things they need and want to do. So that's, that's the only one I do out of that whole section of days. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a big supporter of Small Business Saturday. So for Festivus, are there any presents or anything exchanged? No, it's actually, you know, it's kind of interesting. It's an anti-consumerist holiday kind of at its heart. So there's nothing to buy. There's no gifts to give. The show makes mention of Festivus miracles. There's two of them, both of which were actually caused by the character of Kramer. One of them is he ends up inviting two off-track betting bookies to dinner with Elaine. Both of them were men that Elaine wanted to avoid. So it becomes a Festivus miracle that he found both of them. And then the other one was he ended up causing Jerry's girlfriend, Gwen, to believe that Jerry was cheating on her. Oh no. Yeah. But it was funny because I was like, are there any other Festivus miracles? Like, you know, what's happened? Apparently, according to our AI overlords, Festivus miracles are events that have a logical explanation, but are still celebrated with awe. Some examples of Festivus miracles include carrying all your groceries into the house in one trip, taking the subway for the first time without it smelling, running into a friend you've been meaning to call at a local coffee shop. You know, so just kind of silly things like that. Apparently, this has been parlayed into other things. I mean, you know, for something that was one episode of one TV show in the late 90s, it's kind of lived a long life. And I think part of it is the anti-consumerist aspect, like we've touched on. You know, people are so burnt out on another thing to buy for. But, ironically, you can now buy a book all about Festivus. Classic. But there's also the website Festivusweb.com, which can give you kind of a quick rundown like we've talked about here. Festivus, the book, is a humorous guide to like the wackiest holiday introduced in modern society. It's a complete reference for anyone that celebrates Festivus. So you can learn all about the traditions of a Seinfeld-based Festivus and witness the nuance of the original Festivus as celebrated by the O'Keefe family. You know, or you could just listen to this podcast and we'd save you the money. There you go. But, yeah, so it talks about like what foods should be prepared. Oh, cool. Because in the episode when they're having the Festivus dinner, George's mother is seen like serving like, you know, kind of the, we'll call it a run of the mill meatloaf. Not anything that looks particularly scrumptious. Yeah. Then, you know, we talked about like the display of feats of strength. Well, the peculiar thing about that one is what it actually calls for is for the head of the household to be pinned in wrestling. So, yeah. Yeah. You know, it's like, should you organize a wrestling match with your father? Are you too feeble for wrestling? Yeah. At what age do you stop wrestling your father? Right, right. You know? Do you back it off to arm wrestling or thumb wrestling, you know? I've seen viral videos of like whole families doing like leg wrestling matches, you know what I'm talking about? You look up different things than I do. Yeah. Yeah. No, it just comes across my For You page. I was going to say TikTok knows everything you want, so that says a lot, too. That's what I'm into. That's what you're into. Do not send leg wrestling videos. And then, you know, should you air all of your grievances? Now, this one, I got to say, this one could be cathartic, but it could start a lot of trouble, too. Yeah, I can see it going badly very easily. But if you're in a place where like, hey, we're going to talk about things that might hurt your feelings, maybe that's good to do once a year. Well, I was going to say, I mean, drawing from another faith, you know, Judaism has the concept of like Yom Kippur, which is like the Day of Atonement. And the idea is it's, you know, it's a day of forgiveness. You're supposed to forgive anybody who's wronged you. But part of that, too, is also asking for forgiveness from God for sins and then also asking for forgiveness from, you know, folks who've wronged you. So, you know, that's kind of in the same vein as that. So it's, I don't know, being able to get that out and maybe clear the air is a good thing. Yeah, absolutely. I could definitely see it being helpful in a relationship or in a family dynamic. I guess it depends on what you're airing. Yeah. I mean, if it's, hey, you should take out the trash more often, that's one thing. But yeah, it could definitely get pretty dicey. Yeah. Let me tell you something about you that you don't know. Exactly. You know what I hate about you? I think we spend holidays now just trying to avoid all the awkward conversations. So this one maybe is refreshing in the like, you know, that's going to happen. But then you got to wonder who's going to show up. Yeah. Do you fail at Festivus if you don't have any grievances? Oh, that's a good question. Is that like your bad Festivus haver? Will that be like not leaving cookies and milk out for Santa? So with all that discussion of Festivus, I really think you should watch this episode at some point because you may find that you really do like Seinfeld. I think there's a solid reason why it was considered like a critic's favorite and why it was one of the highest rated sitcoms of the 90s. And in fact, this particular episode, The Strike, is ranked number three of all time for TV Guide's holiday episodes. Wow. Yeah. So I thought that was kind of cool. It is definitely a thing that is kind of cemented in pop culture. It's crazy to me how it's grown from just like a family tradition to getting on the show and then blown up. And now it's a book and a website and people who are completely unrelated all celebrate this. Yeah. I mean, and it's a fun kind of tongue in cheek way of celebrating something at kind of the winter solstice time period. It's not like Christmas was the first thing for this time of year either. I mean, Christmas builds on other traditions. That idea of like a winter feast or a winter festival, you know, we get that in a lot of different cultures going back historically. And it's also one thing that I think is interesting is there's this idea of shifting from darkness to light. It's almost like you need that holiday cheer of whatever you celebrate to kind of get you through until we start getting longer days. And so the 23rd, the 25th, that seems to be like the sweet spot of having kind of a big celebration culturally. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm curious. Obviously, you don't celebrate Festivus, but maybe next year. Maybe. I mean, there's still time this year. You said it's on the 23rd. Oh, true, true. So maybe my household's tradition of this time of year is we're extra. And that takes on different forms every year. So the first year Michael and I did this, we did a massive sushi feast and we did miso soup and tempura vegetables. And we both had previously worked in sushi restaurants. So we hand rolled our own sushi and we just had a massive sushi feast. The next year we did a large charcuterie table. The year after that, we did dumplings from around the world. Last year we did a seafood boil. We just go all out and it's always the day before Christmas. It's always Christmas Eve where we just really celebrate just the two of us and we were extra. Well, being extra is kind of fitting for the holidays. And speaking of holiday consumption, stick around after the break when we sit down with Cody Taylor from Raleigh's own Killjoy. We'll find out if he's got what it takes to bring the holiday spirit against our AI competitor. Are you a full-time professional bartender who thinks they have what it takes to defeat our AI challenger? If so, we'd love to talk to you. Reach out to us by sliding into our DMs. We're drinkingwithrobots on Instagram or emailing us at bookingsatdrinkingwithrobots.com. You, yeah, you, listening right now. Do us a favor. Make sure you've subscribed wherever you're listening to this podcast at. And then while you're at it, hop over to Apple or Spotify or any of those kind of places and leave us a five-star review. If you leave us one, I'll make sure and read it on air. Hey, we just wanted to say thank you so much for listening so far. We'd love it if you connected with us on social media. You can find us at Drinking With Robots on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Threads. Also, check out DrinkingWithRobots.com while you're at it. Hey, thanks for sticking with us. Today, we've got Cody Taylor on the podcast. Cody's from, oh, this is a long list. All right, so in Raleigh, Killjoy, in Wilmington, Manor, and Ernest Money & Sons. Cody, thanks for being with us today. Thank you for having me. Cody, tell us a little bit about your time behind the bar. How long have you been bartending? Well, I've been bartending for the last six years, but I've been in the service industry since I was 16, so I was coming up on 11 years just being in restaurants and around bars. And what got you into the service industry? When I was young, it was the quick cash. It was walking out, even working at a little pizza joint in Boone, walking out with 50 bucks in my pocket every night back in the old days with that money. And then just being around service workers and kind of understanding the vibe, how everyone kind of meshed well together. Yeah, I think that's one of the things. Anytime you're part of a group of, you know, part of a team, you know, in hospitality or in food and bev, when you feel like everybody meshes well, it really is an amazing example of what you can pull off. Yeah, it's almost like a trauma bonding experience, getting through a hard rush that really bonds people together. Absolutely. I love my service families. How would you describe your style of bartending? Do you have a specific type of ingredient you lean to or do you prefer to make more dry cocktails or more effervescent cocktails? Is there a way you lean one way or another? I think I'm pretty adaptive. I feel like my style would be, I like to get to know the customer based on what they previously drink, what they're super interested into. And I'll try to go off that. If I'm just making a drink for someone who's like, you know, dealer's choice, go crazy. I like to lean towards more of maybe like a tiki or even like a Caribbean rum style. I like heavy citrus, grassy notes, stuff like that. Was there any bar book or cocktail book that had a big influence on your bartending? I'd say probably the biggest one was Liquid Intelligence. Oh, good old Dave Arnold. Yeah. The owner of Killjoy, when I first started working there, he was really cool about giving us material to go over because back in the days, Killjoy opened when COVID started. So it was a very, very slow start. So we had some time to kill outside of prepping and cleaning. And he was like, check this book out. I think you'll love it. And then I absolutely fell in love with it. I based everything out of that book until I can spread my wings and fly. I love that book on one hand. On the other hand, I read it in like small doses when I do, because no matter, for some reason, I just always read it. Like, I feel like it's written in such a way that it's like your friend who's had like three cocktails and is really excited to tell you about like something, you know, whatever that thing is. I feel like by the time I reach the end of a chapter, I'm just like, okay, okay, cool, man. It's cool. It's cool. I get it. I get it. We can make ice and coolers. It's cool. It's cool. I feel like I'm that friend. Which I mean, I am totally that friend on the right topic too. So, but that's, it just hits me like that. Yeah. Whenever I read that book, I read it in his voice. And so I'm like, I, I a hundred percent agree with you. So now I'm curious. So let's, let's back up just a second. So you mentioned you've been in the service industry since you were 16. Absolutely. Well, in 16, I was still in high school. So I was working at a few pizza joints. And then when I turned 18, unfortunately I was in big pizza for a while. I was like working at Domino's. I was working at Papa John's. It's okay. It's okay. And then when I moved to Boone to go to Appalachian State University, there was a little pizza joint there called Capone's. And it was the best pizza for that little college town. And I worked there for almost a solid two years and I was serving. Luckily I wasn't dishing out food. I couldn't handle that. The kitchen was hot back there. I get you. Where was the first place that you pulled a shift behind the bar? So I left Capone's to work at the Timberlakes restaurant, which was in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, about 15 minutes up the road from the college. It was in a resort called Chitola, which was a pretty nice resort. I mean, they had acres of land and a bunch of housing. And their restaurant was open 365 days a year. My first bartending shift was really not even a bartending shift. I was serving that night and I was kind of waiting on some drinks. And my bar manager, who was the only bartender working that night, Vinny, he was like, hey, I'm going to step out and have a cigarette. So I need you to hold it down behind the bar. Luckily, there was no one in the bar. The only drinks that were being made were for the customers who were dining. And then, of course, the second he walks out and I'm standing back there, five people walk in. Oh, that's the way it always goes. Luckily, it was just it was a few vodka Red Bulls. And then there were a few we had some seasonal drinks. It was during Christmas. So I was able to find the spec sheet and decode it as just my server self and make a decent cocktail. So that was your first shift. Did that turn into a regular thing there or? Oh, absolutely. After that, he was like, well, you handled that pretty well. I'll put you on for maybe one or one or two shifts to see how you do. And then by then a month passed. And then I was on there just about four nights a week, more than I was serving. Was there anything in particular that kind of drew you to it? I mean, or is it just a, hey, this is quick cash? Or was there any kind of passion from the beginning? I'd always kind of had an interest around like, you know, 1920. I was like, being a bartender could be pretty cool. I don't know anything about it, but I think I'd like to learn a little bit. And then after being given that opportunity, I was like, I think I can. I think I can do this. I'm having fun with this. That's awesome. Are you a big cook or a big foodie? I hate that term, but I'm going to use it. Do you have a big presence in the kitchen as well? Not as a cook. I think about like when me and my fiance are making dinner, I'm pouring wine and I'm playing music and I'm cleaning up when she's done. That's kind of my presence. I'm the cleanup crew. I kind of arrange the vibes. Gotcha. Everybody needs a good cleanup crew. Oh, like I need like four of them if I cook. So it's so funny because I enjoy cooking. Not bad at it, but it's one of those things where unless I am just constantly reminding myself, I'll turn around and I'll be like, well, I don't know where this atrocity came from, but someone needs to clean up in here. I mean, it's like every bowl in the house, 14 spoons, you know, I don't even know what we use the rice cooker for. Yeah, I'm the same. I destroyed my kitchen every time I cook. Okay. So you're originally from Raleigh. You were in Boone for school. You come back to Raleigh. What were you doing? Well, I just finished out my degree and I wasn't super, I wasn't exactly ready to jump into that field just yet. So I was having so much fun bartending and was really excited to come back to Raleigh just to be with the people I grew up with and to also explore because before I left for Boone, I was only 18 years old. So I came back and I was a full adult. I was really excited to kind of learn about downtown and meet a bunch of new people in the city that I absolutely loved. And when was that? That was like 2021, I think. Oh, that's a great time to get out and mingle with people and see new places. But I came back knowing that I still wanted to bartend and work at a really fun bar. So where'd you end up? I ended up at Killjoy. It was actually perfect too. They were having some weird turnover, a lot of management change up. And I slid in right at the perfect time just to kind of get my foot in the door. And I got a few training shifts. They ended up loving me. And it was a space that I just couldn't get enough of. Like even on my days off, I would swing by just to say what's up to my people, maybe have a drink, then go fool around downtown. That's awesome. All right. So you are in Raleigh working at Killjoy. What brought you to your Wilmington bars and restaurant that you work at currently? I know you're at Mana and Ernest Money in Wilmington right now as well. Yes. I feel like a lot of bartenders. I have multiple jobs. For the month of December, I'm in Raleigh just for the Miracle Pop-Up event at Killjoy. So what is that? It's kind of a nationwide Christmas pop-up that they do at a bunch of different bars around the nation. It's got a bunch of fun glassware and kind of their own classic cocktails that they bring to each bar. We do a bunch of really fun things like Christmas karaoke. There's a lot of parties and it's a great space just to have your holiday like greetings. A lot of company parties come in. A lot of families come in. And how long does that run like through the holiday season? Is it just like for a limited time, I'm assuming? Typically, you'll start on Black Friday. So the end of November and then you go all the way until New Year's Eve. Oh, that's awesome. So there's still time if you're if you're listening to this and you're in the local area, you can still get out to Killjoy and check out Miracle. Absolutely. We've got insane decorations. We spent, I think, maybe five or six days just with the bar closed just to get everything up. And it's I mean, it's a winter wonderland in there. It's really fun. Well, it's awesome. So you're back doing that. But in the meantime, you're I guess your normal gig now. Yes. Is my normal gig would be working in Wilmington at Mana and Ernest Money and Sons. I didn't exactly want to leave Raleigh, but me and my fiance had the great opportunity. She got into UNCW to finish out her master's. Go Seahawks. Go Seahawks. And she was like, you know, we lived in the mountains for a little bit. We lived in the city. Let's move down to the beach for a few years. And I was like, twist my arm. Why not? And I was a little nervous because I'd never really been to Wilmington. Never had any experience in Wilmington. Really ever. I went to Wrightsville Beach maybe a few times in my life. So I didn't know anyone down there. I was it was a brand new city to me. And I just kind of started throwing darts at places and I hit a bullseye with Mana. It's a kind of staple restaurant in Wilmington. It's been there for 15 years now. The owner knows everyone and everyone knows the owner. It's it's it's kind of like a local's paradise. I'd say it's top three food spots in Wilmington. It's phenomenal for me. My wife and I actually met when we lived in Wilmington and my go Seahawks was I'm an alum. My wife is an alum. That's awesome. My experience in Wilmington was an interesting time. I fully believe no matter where you live, you'll be tired of it in three years. Whether it's Wilmington, North Carolina, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Manhattan. It just you fall in your groove. But I will say that Wrightsville Beach Super Fun Spot, if the Palm Room is still open over by Johnny Mercer, that's a great offseason dive. OK. Do recommend that one. And then I will also say if anyone ever tells you I think I'm considering moving into the Campus Edge apartments, even if you have to let them sleep on your couch, you say no. That bad, huh? Let's just say I signed to Lease Sight Unseen and I would never do that again. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. After you wake up to the third mattress on fire. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And I only lived there a year. Three mattresses in one year is a high number of mattresses to be on fire. Yeah. And then the slash tires. And there was one event where apparently drunken college co-eds tried to hop the fence at the pool and left a little bit of themselves behind. Yeah, it was all kinds of excitement going on there. Yeah, it was pretty gnarly. So your experience with Wilmington. It's a hard segue out of that. Yeah. Where do we go from here? Let's just pretend like we didn't have that conversation. I'll probably end up cutting most of that. Yeah, that's fair. I'm really curious. What was the degree in? My degree? Yeah. Was music education. Oh, that's awesome. Yes. So is the intention to one day like, are you going to be like a band teacher or? I wanted to specifically go for a choir or choral. Yeah. So I'd like to teach a choir. Oh, that's awesome. They said typically you start out with a very young children and I didn't have very much patience when I was 21, 22. So I waited a while before really sticking my foot in the door. Have you started that at all yet? Not quite. We're still kind of dabbling. The way me and my fiance, since we're only spending two years in Wilmington, we're not entirely sure where we're going to go after that. So once we can get settled somewhere, I'll look into schools and see maybe what programs I can get into or where I can at least help a little bit. Where you're at, at Mana and Ernest Money, do you have the ability to put cocktails on the menu or create custom cocktails for guests? Absolutely. When I first started at Mana and E-Money, I kind of was a little more reserved because these guys are like super professionals and everything. Like their hospitality is through the roof. They're incredibly inviting and endearing just for serving tables and making drinks. Like these guys are some of the most professional people I've ever worked with. So I came in a little reserved. I didn't want to like make any waves. But then I kind of had one really fun night where I was kind of just doing my own thing. And now they ask me if I want to put a drink on the menu. And I definitely have suggestions, but it's a team building thing. So like I don't necessarily just want to put like my drink on the menu, but I want to talk with these people and see what we can work out together. Like I love a teamwork cocktail. So at Mana, we do that a lot, but at Ernest Money, it's a little different. It's total speakeasy vibes, all custom cocktails. The goal is to never give the same customer the same drink twice unless they ask for it specifically. But we try to avoid that and give them multiple experiences in one go. That's awesome. Do you have a menu that you reference there or is it all the bartender is the menu? It's so we do have a little menu, but it's two pages of just all your classics. Like it has your Sazerac, your old-fashioned Manhattan Gimlet. And then typically if people are still unsure and don't want to put all their trust in your hands, they can typically build off that. They'll say, maybe I like this Gimlet build and you can work around that. We also at Ernest Money & Son, we spend a lot of time on just syrups. It kind of gives people like a good prompt, like we'll have a full chalkboard and it'll have like maybe five or six syrups on it. Just really fun things. We do Thai tea a lot, blood orange agave, something that you wouldn't necessarily find at like a dive or maybe even a cocktail lounge. Something outside a little bit. That's awesome. Very cool. Now, as you're crafting different cocktails, how do you see yourself as a bartender? Do you call yourself a mixologist? Do you prefer the term bartender? What are your thoughts on that very divisive difference? I've always called myself a bartender. Back when I was a younger bartender, I'd heard the word mixologist and I thought it was really pretentious. I thought it was a really weird thing. But I don't hate on it as much as I did when I was younger. For me, when I'm serving and I'm getting to know customers, that feels like a very big bartender trait. But when I think of mixologist, I think of someone who's going to go out of their way to create kind of the best product from start to finish. Starting like this person wants a specific fruit, like persimmons are in season right now. You can't exactly find those everywhere, but they're going to go maybe 15 miles out of the way to go pick up some fresh persimmons, put it in their batch and make a fantastic cocktail with it. I think the distinction for me would be a bartender is more forward on your hospitality, while a mixologist is probably a little more interested in the craft and the production. I think you've said previously that mixology is one of many facets that a good bartender does. But the bartender also encompasses the hospitality element and creating an overall experience while also doing the act of mixology. Sort of, yeah. I think the breakdown I usually make is the bartender is there for the customer and the mixologist is there for the art of the cocktail. And I think that's usually kind of the delineation that I see most of the time in the usage of those terms. A good bartender can make you a great cocktail and you'll enjoy your time. A good mixologist will make you a great cocktail and not care if you like it. Now, speaking of you creating cocktails, we gave you a prompt for this episode to create a cocktail that embodies the holiday spirit. The rules were simple. No eggnog or cream, but you do have to use at least one festive ingredient. But, of course, that's open to interpretation. Will you be so kind as to tell us about your cocktail? Of course. I didn't want to do anything too crazy. One thing that I always lean on when I want to make a really good drink, I always take something close to like a daiquiri speck and build off that. So I took three quarters lime juice. I did one ounce of a spiced rum. I typically lean on Muddy Rivers. They've got a really good spiced rum that I like. I did one ounce of a cognac. I typically go for Hennessey VS. Cavassier is also really good for this cocktail. Three quarters lime juice. I made a spiced cranberry simple syrup. One stick of cinnamon. I did about a tablespoon of allspice, cardamom pods, some clove, a little anise, not too much, and some sage. Three quarters of that on a smoked rosemary glass into a double rocks glass on a big cube. Awesome. Well, that cocktail sounds delicious. I'm curious. Does it have a name? I've thought of a few names. Okay. Anytime I have a bad habit of this. Anytime I create a cocktail, I'll name it after a song. Okay. What would this one be? This one is Please Come Home from Christmas. I love it. All right. Well, the AI always names its cocktails. This one it calls the Winter Solstice Spritz. Now, before we go into this, I am just going to say, every once in a while, I'm intrigued by how closely the human cocktail and the AI cocktail parallel one another. With that said, this is an ounce and a half of apple brandy, half an ounce of Cointreau, three quarters of an ounce of cranberry rosemary syrup, half an ounce of fresh lemon juice, two ounces of sparkling water, and two dashes of Angostura bitters. The part that I found really interesting here is you both, for your festive ingredient, you know, it was cranberry and rosemary. The idea here was, you know, apple brandy Cointreau, your syrup, the lemon juice, Angostura, all go into a shaker. You know, you shake that double strain into a highball filled with ice and then top with sparkling water. Their cranberry rosemary syrup was a cup of cranberries, a cup of sugar, a cup of water, two sprigs fresh rosemary. Basically simmer that for about 10 minutes until all of the cranberries pop and then strain and you've got it. So with our specs out of the way, let's talk about our scoring. As always, we have three kind of big buckets of points. The first bucket is a potential 50 points and that's for taste because, you know, ultimately we enjoy drinking these. The next bucket is for presentation and that's a potential 30 points. And the last bucket is for originality and that's a potential of 20 points. And that's, you know, how often do we make a truly brand new cocktail? But, you know, like seeing new stuff, new approaches. Cody, for taste for this cocktail, you scored 42 out of 50 points. For presentation, you scored a 23 out of 30. And for originality, a 17 out of 20. That brings you up to 82 points total. And for the AI, 43 points for taste, 23 points on presentation and 17 points on originality. So in one of the closest scores, I think we had one in season one that was similar. So a one point difference in the AI has snatched victory from you. I always like sharing the judge's notes because I feel like it's really kind of useful to see where their head was at. For your cocktail, the judge thought the smoke was a great addition. It made it slightly more complex than the AI cocktail. However, the balance was a little on the sweet, acidic side of the world. They appreciated the split base, which makes this more of a sipper cocktail. And it made them think of the holidays, definitely, with all the booze. Ultimately, it was a very hard one to score because the cocktails were so similar. Yeah. And on the AI side, they said, you know, the bubbles were a great addition to this lighter cocktail. They said they would have liked to have seen it presented with a straw because it did take a little bit to get through that topper of the sparkling water into the more complex notes of the cocktail when sipping. With how easy the cocktail was to go down, they could see it being a dangerous proposition for holiday get togethers, but perhaps easy to prepare in batch form. You know, so something that could be served almost like a skilled punch kind of thing. So I will say I tried them both. And even though we had, you know, different spirit bases, the they were surprisingly similar. Like it was, oh, oh, well, we want to say thank you so much, Cody, for being with us today. We really appreciate that. If people want to keep up with you, how can they do that? You can follow me on Instagram, OK Cody, OK C-O-D-Y. And where can they find you behind the bars? Behind the bars for the rest of December, you can find me at Killjoy over there on West Street, downtown Raleigh. For the entire year of 2025, you can find me behind the bar at Mana on 123 Princess Street or Ernest Money & Sons. All right. Well, with that, this is us signing off saying drink well, be well. And if you're going to be on the naughty list, make it worth it.