The WAY to WOW Shows
Cocktails & Lewis Carroll
April 23, 2026
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[0:01] Who are you? And where [music] are you going? What do you want? Hello and welcome to Jigger's Place. We're back after a few weeks off for the Passover holiday. So it's nice to be back and uh you can see the this side of the technology worked a little bit better

[0:36] than the last couple of shows. Uh still got still got a little bit of work to do there, but uh today I'm today's show is called Cocktails and Lewis Carroll. And for those of you who uh know the book his his best known book Alice in Wonderland, so you'll recognize uh the author's name. And uh like I said I'm a big fan of Lewis Carroll. I've read all of his works. You can I'll show you in a minute the complete works of Lewis Carroll. I um I had read his novels previously, but I

[1:11] read through all of his his poems and his puzzles and uh he is just uh his work is an absolute delight. And so in honor of And and by the way, for those of you who are not maybe familiar with his books, but you know the the Walt Disney animated film Alice in Wonderland, it's it's an absolutely wonderful movie, uh so creative uh uh my friend Rick and I it's one of our favorite movies. Uh we watch it any any chance we get. And uh um so you'll you're familiar with

[1:46] the character known as the Cheshire Cat. And so today's cocktail is called the Cheshire Brew. And um in honor of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party um I asked my drink co-creator uh Chat GPT to make a gin cocktail with tea. And that turned out to be the Cheshire Brew. So the gin I'm going to be using is Tanqueray Rangpur. And this is a gin uh that uh features Rangpur limes, which

[2:23] it sounds sounds a little bit weird. So Rangpur limes are actually kind of a hybrid of mandarin oranges and uh lemons, I believe it is. Um they're they're quite tart. Um but they do have a little bit of an orange flavor to them. And uh uh I I you know, I thought, "Well, you know this this sounds like something fun." And so uh I I I like Tanqueray gin just in general, and so I'm going to use that. Got some honey syrup here, which is of course just one to one honey and

[2:59] hot water.

[3:00] >> [snorts]

[3:00] >> I have green tea. I'm using uh Twinings uh green tea. Uh if you look closely, you can see it's decaffeinated cuz I only uh drink decaffeinated beverages. And I've got my highball glass with ice in it. It's got to be on it. This was my uh grand my paternal grandmother and grandfather's. Okay, so we're going to start out with 2 oz of of gin. Uh where where are we? Okay, there we go. That's that's a lot of gin. Um

[3:36] Uh this smells really good, by the way. One of the nice things about gin is because it's a it's generally speaking a botanical liquor, it has it has a nice uh scent to it. Okay, and then we want uh half an ounce, I believe it is. Yeah, half an ounce of honey syrup. Okay. And that in Okay, and we're going to pour in the tea, 3 oz of tea.

[4:21] The glass is just big enough. We're going to stir it up here. I've got my bar spoon. This kind of seems like it would be a nice uh summer cocktail. Although it's not actually summer time yet. Um but seems like uh it would be. And here we go. Ah. As Eliza Doolittle would say, "Loverly."

[4:56] Okay, I'll see you on the couch.

[4:59] >> [snorts]

[5:20] >> Okay, here we are. Mhm. This is nice, really nice. Melange of flavors. It's very light. Um yeah, nice.

[5:37] >> [snorts]

[5:37] >> Got my spear. Okay, so the complete works of Lewis Carroll. You can see how big it is. It's uh over a thousand pages, as I recall. Yeah, actually it's over 1,100 pages, 1,100 and uh 65 pages. So um this is this is a a photograph of Lewis Carroll himself.

[6:05] >> [snorts]

[6:05] >> And on the back of the book is uh this is an image from uh Alice in Wonderland. And uh you know, this was a really inexpensive edition that I got from Barnes & Noble. It's something, you know, they published. I think at this point his works are probably out of copyright, so you know, they could they could do they don't have to pay any copyrights. This one was printed in 1994. And while it's it's fun to have, you know, first editions or you know, very lovely books, sometimes I show you the

[6:42] um the leather bound books I have. It's also just wonderful to get a relatively inexpensive version of books. And and because there's so much to read here, you know, this is this is months of reading um for I you know, probably I paid, you know, 10, 12 dollars for this when I got it, you know, many years ago. I'm probably Yo, here it is. 12.98 is is is the price. So um and and uh um this one has it has drawings in it. So you can get an

[7:19] idea. I think these are some of the original drawings um that were done uh for Alice in Wonderland. Here, I'll show you another one. They're just they're very fanciful and a lot of fun. Um so okay, so first of all, let's talk a little bit about um Lewis Carroll's biography. So he was born in 1832 and he died in 1898. So he was definitely a man of the 19th century. Uh his real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

[7:55] Okay? So Lewis Carroll it is is a pseudonym for him and and you'll see why in in just a moment. So in addition to being a writer, he was a mathematician and a logistitian. I'm sorry, a logician, not a logistitian. That's something else. A logician and a photographer. In fact, he was um uh quite inventive uh in his photography. Just going to adjust my thing here. Okay, there we go. And [snorts] um he was also a deacon deacon in the Anglican Church. He was born in the village of I believe it's pronounced

[8:31] Daresbury uh into a large ecclesiastical family. His father was a respected church rector, and he grew up in a disciplined, but certainly intellectually rich household. Uh early in his academic career, he excelled in uh mathematics and classical studies. Uh and he eventually attended Christ Church uh College at Oxford, where he pretty much stayed for the rest of his life. So he he served as a mathematics lecturer

[9:08] uh teaching undergraduates while publishing books under his real name, uh Charles Dodgson uh

[9:16] >> [snorts]

[9:16] >> in in mathematics and logic, geometry specifically. Um and then when he turned to writing uh fiction, that's when he created the name of Lewis Carroll to separate his more sort of uh fantastical writing from his more uh from his from his his his more sort of academic writing, if you will. So um and and today I I I mean, I until I did some research on Lewis Carroll, I didn't know he had this whole other

[9:52] life. Um so uh Lewis Carroll is der the the pseudonym Lewis Carroll is derived from a Latinized version of his first two names. So, his first two names are Charles Lutwidge and in in Latin that would be uh Carola Carolus Ludovicus, I guess. And then from that he came up with Lewis Carroll. So, um uh he he I'll talk about his his writing in a moment, but in in addition to being

[10:28] a writer and a teacher, he was also quite a an accomplished photographer. Um he did portraiture during the Victorian era. Um he he photographed both adults and children. Um and in particular, uh he photographed um the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church College, Alice Liddell. And he was evidently uh quite good at at uh you know, photographic composition.

[11:03] He was very creative and his and his photographs were were quite highly admired. Mhm. Very good. Um and he used to tell Alice Liddell and her sisters stories. They they loved his stories. Um he knew them from a very young age until they were young women. And uh he also created puzzles for them, which I'll I'll show you in this book

[11:39] in a moment. Um but you know, contrary to some of the things that are said about Lewis Carroll that for example, he was on you know, LSD when he wrote some of the aspects of Alice in Wonderland. There's there's no evidence to support uh that that kind of you know, bohemian behavior on Lewis Carroll's part. Quite to the contrary, he led a very kind of quiet um fairly ordinary life for an academic in the 19th century. Um but indeed, he was enormously

[12:14] productive as is demonstrated by this book as well as his academic writings, which candidly I I have not read because I'm neither a mathematician no nor a logician. Um and uh he he he has left behind work that you know, has long outlived him. He As I mentioned a moment ago, he died in 1898 and his books, especially Alice in Wonderland and its sequel

[12:50] known as Through the Looking-Glass and What She Found There uh remain among the most popular books. I know my daughter absolutely loves both books. I've read them to her a number of times and in fact, I had I had a little cased set of those two books that that I had gotten quite some time ago and I ended up giving them to her because she enjoyed Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass you know, so much. She read them numerous times to herself after she learned how to

[13:25] read. So um his books are are charming, thought-provoking, clever um they just they just run the gamut of of good good literature. So, um

[13:42] >> [clears throat]

[13:42] >> his So, just to show you um a little bit of So, here's by the way, this is the this is the Mad the Mad Hatter. That's kind of an one of the early drawings of him. Uh John Tenniel, by the way, did the illustrations in this book. So um he did I believe it's four major works. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass and What She Found There, Sylvie and Bruno, and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded. So, those are his four novel-length works. And then he did a

[14:19] number of short works. Um they're kind of verse works. Probably his best known is called The Hunting of the Snark. Um but he did lots of other verses. And then he did a number of puzzles and what what he called Phantasmagoria. They're just sort of um you know, creative stories really. And he did acrostics and rhymes and poems and stories and then just sort of miscellaneous. So uh you know, having read all 1,160 plus pages of this books, I

[14:56] can I can say from personal experience that uh as much as I love Alice in Wonderland and like my daughter, it's it's it's a book that I I love. I I read it a number of times before I was reading it to her. His verses and such are also quite charming. His puzzles are fascinating. His acrostics, I mean, it's just there is hours and hours and days and weeks and months of of enjoyment in the works of

[15:33] Lewis Carroll. So, Alice in Wonderland was really a groundbreaking novel. Um and it begins when Alice, a young woman, falls down a rabbit hole or she Well, she actually follows a white rabbit down his hole and she comes into this sort of fantastic underground world. If you've seen the movie, so you know she meets various characters, the the Cheshire Cat, the the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Queen of Hearts and has all these

[16:08] adventures. And the the book is it's a series of sort of loosely connected stories that sort of create an overall plot, but there's it's it's as much sort of slice of life as it is uh you know, a coherent story. I think that's one of its charms is these various adventures that Alice experiences. Um and uh some of the innovative aspects are the of the book are the creative use of language, how

[16:46] words shift shift meanings um how the sort of metaphors for um a young girl growing up. She gets big and feels all gangly. She gets small and feels very inferior. Um and I you know, a lot of it is is is very uh meaningful from a child's from a child's standpoint, from a teenager's standpoint, from an adult's standpoint in in evoking

[17:21] what it is to to grow up and the and the awkwardness and and all of those different aspects of living through life. Mhm. In Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There so [snorts] Alice uh goes through a mirror um [snorts] into a reversed world that's kind of structured like a chess game. And um and she she sort of moves across the board, eventually becoming a queen.

[17:57] Um the characters there include Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Now, I know they're in the the Disney movie, but that the Disney movie is actually both of those books, even though it's called Alice in Wonderland. She meets the White Knight and she meets the Red Queen rather than the Queen of Hearts. Um and the the major themes in Through the Looking-Glass are are sort of the the inversion. Everything is sort of reversed and mirrored and it's it's it's a sort of time and motion of of how things work in life.

[18:34] Um and then there's the sort of rules-based system and how how we need to navigate that, right? And and again, it there's you know, one can read these books purely for the the the delight in reading them, but but but like like much of 19th century literature as opposed to 19th century fiction there are aspects that are reflecting, if not actually commenting on society and and what it what it is to be

[19:11] a member of that society. For example, Charles Dickens does the same thing. Dickens is uh essentially contemporary to to Lewis Carroll. Okay, um the the Through the Looking-Glass is is more sort of overtly philosophical than Alice in Wonderland, but but it it it has the same kind of creativity, the same kind of charm. And and the I think it's because the books complement each other so well that Walt Disney uh

[19:48] made Alice in the Alice in Wonderland movie. Really, it's it's set it it's based on both books together. Um So then another one of his great novels is uh Sylvie and Bruno and Sylvie and Bruno concluded their written in the sort of the latter part of his life around the 1893. So this work is it's it's sort of combines a fairy tale narrative with the sort of

[20:23] Victorian kind of social novel. It's two worlds, one fantastic, one realistic and they intersect throughout the story. It's it's it's not frankly as readable as Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, but it is quite fascinating and I think it's it is even more philosophical than Through the Looking-Glass. It deals a lot with morals and ethics. It deals with social reform in in sort of the best tradition of other authors

[20:59] like Charles Dickens like um oh um trying to remember the author of of Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy and and you know these questions are as relevant today as they were you know what is now you know almost you know easily 130 140 150 years ago.

[21:30] >> [snorts]

[21:30] >> So the the the development of society is is a never-ending um process and [snorts] in order to know where we want to go we need to know from where we have come. And so Sylvie and Bruno is you know if you're not so big on reading history Sylvie and Bruno will give you a very good sense of of what society was like 100 to 150 years ago

[22:07] and and and how things have progressed since that time. And so

[22:14] >> [clears throat and cough]

[22:15] >> though again those are his novels um his major verse composition is is The Hunting of the Snark. It's it's a nonsense poem. And and and um uh Lewis Carroll's writing it remind if you've ever seen the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with with Gene Wilder the great great Gene Wilder. So um Gene Wilder

[22:51] he's responding to one of the parents of the children who have been who have gotten a golden ticket and they come to the factory and um and one of the parents said oh this is nonsense and and Gene Wilder sings almost to himself a little nonsense now and then is cherished by the wisest men. Right? Um there is I think there's a great deal of benefit in encountering literary nonsense. Um it's it's much more

[23:28] palatable than the nonsense we deal with in in in everyday life. And if we if we appreciate literary nonsense perhaps [snorts] we won't take the nonsense of everyday life quite so seriously. And so the the Hunting of the Snark it starts it starts out quite playful

[23:58] >> [snorts]

[23:58] >> but it kind of gets darker as the the story progresses and Lewis Carroll he uses you know invented vocabulary which is kind of that that's that that's an aspect of his right of his fictional writing that's always present and he he he parodies a lot of sort of scientific exploration. This was a very popular thing to do among Victorian writers. There was a certain pomposity

[24:34] about among scientists during the Victorian era Victorian period and they I think this is somewhat true today. I think too often scientists take themselves too seriously and um you know they need to be sent up by the likes of of Lewis Carroll and and and others of his talent who can help us keep in perspective the fact that you know science is look is supposed to

[25:12] be looking ever more thoroughly into how to explain and understand things that are happening in the world natural phenomena etc. And the idea of sort of settled science is it's it's it is a bigger oxymoron than military intelligence to you know sort of coin coin a phrase. And and and The Hunting of the Snark again I I keep using this word it is it is charming while at the same time

[25:48] like I said it it it is I I think it's probably the darkest of Lewis Carroll's works if if you like that that sort of that that that you know that sort of tone I would recommend maybe starting with The Hunting of the Snark as opposed to Alice in Wonderland and and I think once you read Hunting of the Snark if you go on to other pieces you'll you'll see all of his works have a little bit of grit underlying them it's just how he how he how he not

[26:24] produces it how he presents it is is different in each of his works. Right? The Victorian age was a somewhat gritty age. And the best writers from that period recognized that made it a part of their work. But they you know they didn't shove it into our faces. And so and I think because of that it's easier to absorb and easier to comprehend what the writers the messages the

[27:00] writers are looking to convey to us.

[27:03] >> [snorts]

[27:03] >> So okay so aside from that why should you bother? Right? This is the question this is always the question when I talk about great books. Why should you bother with these books? It's it's 2026 Lewis Carroll wrote his works like I said roughly 120 to 150 years no more than 100 130 to 150 years ago. So here are my thoughts on that. So first

[27:39] of all Carroll is brilliant at using the power of language to convey meaning. So he exposes how language can be ambiguous and manipulated. He [snorts] highlights how how misunderstandings affect communication and he really anticipates modern debates about interpretation and semantics.

[28:15] And these these are absolutely timeless timeless issues with which we should all learn to wrestle. If if we want solid relationships we need to wrestle with the ambiguity of language the difficulty in communicating clearly. If you're watching this show you probably do care about relationships since that

[28:50] undergirds every all of the Way to Wow shows. And so we we we need to be engaging ever more deeply in how to communicate more effectively because although communication is not the most important aspect of a relationship the relationship itself is communication how we do it is such a crucial component to building those relationships. So that's that's one reason to read

[29:28] Lewis Carroll's works. Another is is that uh you know much not much but at least some of what he writes about is questioning authority and social norms. And while I if you watch the show you know I am not a revolutionary or anything like that. Uh I I think that it's important that we understand uh the questioning of authority and social norms uh to understand

[30:03] how when we may need to do it, how we should do it and if so, how we can do it effectively, right? So, uh the the whole uh uh uh sequence of of Alice um in Alice in Wonderland where where she when she confronts the Queen of Hearts and and and and the Queen of Hearts puts her on trial and and the the ludicrousness of that whole situation, right? Uh how Alice uh behaves in that situation is I think

[30:39] somewhat of an object lesson for us and we we can learn from it and I I I do think we learn much better when we're we're engaged in something that's entertaining than we do, you know, sitting through some kind of, you know, boring lecture with a lot of harsh words. So, um um you know, I think we we need to have a skepticism toward authority but which which is reflected in Lewis Carroll's works but at the same time an

[31:14] outright rejection, which which would lead to chaos, I don't think that that uh furthers the development of our society. Uh and and okay, so that's number two. Number three, um much of his works deal with with logic, with with dealing with paradoxes, with critical thinking. If if these are crucial crucial skills to navigating life and while you know, none of us is perfectly logical like, you know, like like Spock

[31:50] in Star Trek. That that I I don't believe that um it's desirable to seek to emulate uh Spock. On the other hand, I think it's important that we develop our skills to think logically, especially in our professional lives but also in our personal lives and just because but but just because we develop skill in logical thinking, in in critically

[32:25] being able to examine a situation, that doesn't mean that therefore the the conclusions that we draw are ipso facto the right conclusions and that's that's a a situation uh that that you see throughout Lewis Carroll's works. So, I think there's a kind of um mm egotism uh that comes that that that is projected by people who think if if I

[33:00] have logically thought it through and I have reached my conclusion, therefore that negates any other conclusion that anybody else could draw, I am right. No, that's not how it works in human endeavor. Okay? Because often times emotion is not logical. Uh you know, and and so human life is about navigating human behavior

[33:35] through a combination of logic and illogic. But for people who think that there is no value in understanding the logic of situations, they are as arrogant as people who think logic is the only basis for examining situations and drawing conclusions about rectitude. So, it is in the marrying of the logic and the illogic that we are able to successfully

[34:10] navigate life. And for look, for anyone who's married, hopefully you have figured this out. If you haven't, I encourage you to think about it because if you find yourself in a situation with your spouse where you just you cannot figure out why your spouse is behaving the way he is, the way she is, why they're demanding this thing or that thing, it's because logic is not the only path in human life. It's not the only path in human existence.

[34:45] Okay? And so, we need to marry those two in order to successfully navigate our lives. All right. Um the next reason for reading Lewis Carroll's work is identity and personal growth. Now, this is best dealt with in Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Uh but all all of Lewis Carroll's works,

[35:23] even his photography for that matter, is looking at how we develop as human beings from being a child to being an adult. And if you read his his more sort of verse and poems and miscellany, you'll find in them clues to that maturation process. Okay? That was something I I didn't understand until last year when I read that that portion of his work. Uh and and in many ways, it's why I

[36:00] decided to talk about uh Lewis Carroll's work on at you know, at Jigger's his place. While Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and Sylvie and Bruno are are wonderful wonderful books and they're absolutely worth reading. It it is when I had read the entire corpus of Lewis Carroll that I realized that this was a man who understood very deeply, cogently the life cycle of a human being.

[36:37] And at a time when it is so easy to live a life of avoiding maturation, Lewis Carroll presents to us so much nourishing food for thought that will help us become uh better people, better friends, better husbands, wives, parents, children, adult children. This is why Lewis Carroll I I I you

[37:15] know, I mean I I I don't think Lewis Carroll is part of what's uh assigned reading in junior high and high school anymore. I know for me, I I had to read Alice in Wonderland, I believe it was in junior high. That's going back a long long way. Uh but it's it's a shame that it's not required reading because to have that as part of a foundation of a life to be coursing even through our our our minds subconsciously,

[37:50] I I think what will help us to become better people and and people who are more effective in building the lives and the kind of society that we want to have. Okay. And finally, uh reading Lewis Carroll will give us an appreciation for what true imagination can bring to to innovation, to enriching of lives.

[38:28] The point of innovation is to make our lives better. We tend to think of innovation these days in terms of technology. But prior to a time of rapid technological development and change, there was a great deal of innovation going on in things like literature, in philosophy, in even in religion. We we tend to think of religion as being high-bound. I don't think that that's

[39:03] the case. While the the values undergirding religion are timeless, how we interact with other people, how we put those values into practice, that is a a a a a developing and evolutionary process and to do it well takes some innovation because the processes, the communication media

[39:39] of 100, 200, 300 years ago is different than it is now. And so as we head into the artificial intelligence age every institution of human endeavor is going to need to innovate in order to stay relevant to people's lives. And to read Lewis Carroll is to get virtually a college education in how to pursue that process. So

[40:18] uh you know, you you hear me rave all the time, not rave, uh yeah, I guess rave uh as opposed to rant, all the time about the benefits of literature. And uh look, I'll be the first one to admit that uh you know, Livy's History of Rome is not the most accessible work in the Western Canon. It is as I uh endeavored to convince you on my show

[40:54] well worth the reading. It is engaging. But not anywhere near as engaging as Lewis Carroll. He he everything in his life I think was done to try and draw us into what amounts to a conversation with his ideas. And the sole purpose of that conversation

[41:29] is to enrich our lives. And so I I I hope you will you will pick up You don't have to get the You don't have to get his complete works, although if you're going to spend some money, you might might as well, you know buy the entire works. But even if you're just going to start out with one of his books because this is too thick and daunting,

[41:51] >> [laughter]

[41:52] >> you know, to uh to take on. I cannot encourage you enough to to read Lewis Carroll, to delight in it, to if you have children, to read to your children Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Yes, there are some scary parts of it. Uh but but you know, if you're there with your children, life is scary. And there's I can't think of a better way of helping your children learn to deal with the scary aspects of life than

[42:29] being with them in a quiet room at the end of the day uh reading reading to them from Lewis Carroll. And and helping them delight and maybe even be a little bit afraid, but work through how life can be. So I thank you very much for joining me here at Jigger's Place. As I started out the episode, it's great to be back. Um I don't think there's any breaks in the schedule coming up for the next several months, so we'll be here every

[43:04] other Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. And of all the shows I do this this is the one that uh is is frankly nearest and dearest to my heart uh because it's it's a time for us to just be people together. So I wish you a wonderful evening and a wonderful rest of the week and weekend and look forward to seeing you again next week and the week after. And that just leaves me to sign off and say

[43:40] Mary darling you are my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.