0:05 who are you and where are you going what do you [Music] want hello welcome to jigger's place I'm your host Kevin bemel and maybe you're looking at me and you say no you're not because you always wear a tie or a suit or a tie and a suit and yes that's that's true uh I I almost always do but
0:42 today since I'm taking you to the South Seas I thought I should kind of dress the part so I have my white linen pants on and my Hawaiian shirt and uh you know we're going a little we're going to go casual and uh and and get get a bit of the south sea VI going here on on jigger's place so thank you so much for joining me and uh I'm glad glad to be here it was a rush getting here so that's why I'm a little bit uh as we say in yish fished um but um today's on
1:17 today's show I'm gonna be talking about uh one of the uh great stories of Naval History the Mutiny on the Bounty and in it's been told in books and movies and um and yet it is a true story uh and so and I'm going to talk about that in a larger context as you'll see and so in honor of uh the Mutiny and the Bounty and and its uh major port call in Tahiti uh collaborating with chat GPT I
1:52 came up with a cocktail called a tahan breeze it's a rum based cocktail and in fact we're to use um light rum um this is my the regular you know the wrap rum that I have this is just good old bicardi um white rum um very good for for mixing not not something you would drink neat uh like you would a whiskey but it's great for mixing and then we're going to use dark rum as well so this is bardi Select uh and then we're going to use uh coconut cream so I've got Coco Lopez and
2:28 um it's it's nice and and liquid now um I keep a pretty cool home and so um uh so it was kind of solidified but it's easy you just put it in some warm water and and it liquifies right up and then some pineapple juice good old D pineapple juice and some lime juice and then we're going to put in a dash of vanilla this happens to be tahan pure vanilla extract and a dash of angostura bitters but I as I was I'm getting ready I was thinking instead of the regular angura bitters I'm going to use the
3:05 cocoa bitters now if if if you're not a you know chocolate fanatic like me so you may not know but cocoa without sugar is bitter um that's why they add sugar to it so I I think we'll give this a try um and then as a garnish we're going to gr grate some nutmeg on top these are actual nutmegs they're they're pretty cool I got some stuff on from some um they're they're actually pretty cool looking uh just show you one so they look like a nut so anyway um we're going
3:40 to use that for a garnish Okay so we've got our uh Shaker with ice and we're going to start out with h 2 oz of white rum and let's see okay yeah okay so we're going to fill this one up that'll be 2 oz no I don't think I've made a run cocktail um on on any of the any of the jiggers plac shows yet so um this will be kind of a new new thing okay and then
4:15 an ounce of dark ROM okay so let's see that's going to be yeah okay there we go oops oh okay well we're going to use a little bit more than an ounce overfed it you know doesn't have to be necessarily be that exact okay and now um going to you going to put in an ounce of uh coconut
4:56 cream maybe I should have mixed this up a little bit more oh okay well you know it is what it is okay so coconut cream and I think it's a half an ounce of lime juice now you know always better oh wait I'm sorry pineapple juice right yeah two ounces of pineapple juice I mean it's always better to use fresh juices um but you know look we're all busy and so uh you know I've been drinking do pineapple juice since I was a kid I love it it's
5:32 great stuff um and so you know why not so we're going to use some you know when I make blue Hawaiian this is the pineapple juice I use so it's it's it's good stuff okay and then a half an ounce of lime juice oop whoops okay well I guess that kind of does it for the coconut cream that's okay okay so lime
6:09 juice and a uh yeah a splash of um it's you know says um vanilla syrup but I think you know you can use just a vanilla extract um it won't be as sweet I don't know about you but I'm not you know super um big on super sweet things okay and then as we always do we're going to shake get it icy down let all the flavors mix let them dilute so that they bring the flavors out okay and there's lots of fancy ways
6:46 that bartenders shake these things but uh you know just as long as you shake it you can see the outside of the Shaker getting nice and frosty we're going to go for a few more seconds yeah okay oh you know what I forgot to uh I realized I forgot to put in oh no no that's right yeah we the the bits goes on so okay couple more seconds and I've got my cocktail glass
7:24 this is the large economy size because I knew I was going to be thirsty because I exer sized right before I started the show okay we're going to pour this in and it's got a nice sort of creamy looking appearance which is good okay and we're gonna just uh just shake a little a little bitters on top there we go
8:00 and last but not least we're going to grate a little nutmeg and I have my little my little miniature grater here smells so good okay let's give this a try here we go ah yes lots and lots of
8:37 layers okay well I'll meet you over on the couch e
9:31 ah here we go so we're getting toward the end of the week and nice time to relax I have to have another sip of this cocktail it really is good well done chat GPT with no help from me this week so um it's it's almost winter here in the northern hemisphere it'll be winter on Saturday that'll be the winter solstice the longest day of the year and of course in the southern
10:06 hemisphere it's summertime so uh on sun on I'm sorry Saturday will be the summer Soul I'm sorry uh the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year pardon me um but in the southern hemisphere Saturday will be the summer solstice which is the longest day of the year and although I can't claim that it's cold here in Los Angeles yesterday it was 80 degrees um in in you know where I live uh nonetheless uh the mornings have been
10:41 you know chilly and and as we progress through December into January um hopefully it's going to be colder and on cold nights especially and and in particular on cold Friday nights um one of my favorite things to do is is to turn on my fireplace which is right over there uh uh I I can't burn wood in my fireplace because the chimney is messed up but I have an electric fireplace that gives off heat and sit back with either a detective novel uh like one of the Charlie Chan novels that I talked about
11:18 I think two weeks ago and in fact uh that's what I was reading uh last Friday night or an adventure novel and it the colder is the more enjoyable an adventure novel can be so whether it's Robert Lewis Stevenson whether it's Rudyard Kipling uh whether it's Norman and Hall who we'll talk about uh in in a in a few minutes you know reading about or um um
11:53 another one is uh oh Heart of Darkness um um con um and uh one I read a couple weeks ago John McNab um from the it was a novel from the 1920s so it's you know it it takes us away from where we are puts us into another environment allows us to forget our you know work a day um troubles our our work a day cares even if they're not particularly travels and and sort of
12:28 immerse our elves in in another world and and and that's that's why ever since I could read pretty much um i' i' I've loved to read adventure stories um the the people I've mentioned so far are all English writers um of course there's um what's his name White Fang uh and uh oh shoot I'm going up there he's an American writer who wrote about life in Alaska and places like that um but in any event you know no matter where you read about these these books take us away but Far
13:05 and Away my favorite adventure novel is Mutiny on the Bounty um and I've I've had this copy of mutiny on the Bounty since I was a boy um I probably read it for the first time when I was maybe I don't know 11 or 12 something like that um this uh this is is a Scholastic book service Edition um and this particular book was printed in 1962 although the original Mutiny on the
13:40 Bounty was was published in 1932 and it's so for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story of mutiny on the Bounty I will tell you about it in a few minutes um but before I I talk about the story I also what one of thing what I didn't know when I first read it was the M Mutiny on the Bounty was part of a Trilogy called The Bounty Trilogy and uh the the three books are Mutiny on the Bounty men against the sea and it's the story of uh what happens after
14:15 captain blly and those who go with him are set a drift in one of the ships boat and the third is pit Karen's Island which tells about what happens to Christian and the other mutineers who go with him so you can see it's it's it's a in this Edition it's a long book it's I think almost 700 Pages uh yeah 691 Pages um but it's it's it's wonderful and I've read the trilogy many times as well although I've read Mutiny on the Bounty more time now these are these are a fictionalized account of the historical
14:53 event pardon me while I have more cocktail so the actual historical Mutiny on the Bounty The Voyage took place in 1789 and um William Blye who was actually a lieutenant okay so that's you know pretty pretty low rank that's a junior officer in the in the British Navy in the Royal Navy so he was
15:29 um he was given the task of sailing his Majesty's ship Bounty from England to Tahiti to get bread fruit trees that he was then supposed to transport to the Caribbean and the purpose of that was bread fruit was um a nutritious food but it was a very inexpensive food and the idea was it would be fed to to Slaves so um interestingly enough although slavery
16:07 was um a factor in the United States um most of the slaves transported from Africa um actually went to the Caribbean and and South America so the plantation owners there were looking for a cheap way to feed them and so uh lieutenant why was given this Mission and he was given the ship HMS Bounty in which to fulfill it it was a it was a small ship it was not wasn't even I don't think it was even a frig I believe it was a Brig um which is a two
16:42 two masted ship and the void started in 1787 and he left with his crew and uh his um um uh number two on the on the boat was a man named Fletcher Christian who was who was a very good friend of blies or so chist or so blly thought and um what happened was the the the the the Bounty
17:17 sailed to Tahiti now life on an English ship especially at this time was very harsh the discipline was extremely strict and and if you can think about it you have a captain who's surrounded by a crew a very strong tough men and the only way he has of controlling them at least in in his at least in the in the in the way the Navy looked at it then was through very strict discipline
17:52 and harsh punishment for infractions that violated the discipline and so indeed uh um uh William Blye um Meed out punishment but the interesting thing was in some ways he was a he was a somewhat forward-looking uh officer as well so um for example he uh believed in maintaining the welfare of his crew and and being on a on a small ship for months on end um you know they're off
18:29 times um led to poor morale so he would he he had he had engaged a piper who would pipe songs you know Piper like a like a f and drum player kind of Piper um and the men would dance and these kind of things and so um they get to Tahiti and then once they're in Tahiti they they has to negotiate with um the tahan king uh in order to get the bread fruit trees and they have to be dug up and they have to be packed with Earth in such a way that they'll survive The Voyage from Tahiti to the Caribbean and
19:05 the sailors on the ship really for the first time in their lives experienced not just freedom because when they were on Shore they certainly were as free as any other English men but uh a sort of um almost libertine lifestyle that was quite common in the south Southeast but was not at all like life back in England and so um you know they they were involved with women and they had all the food they could want
19:40 and and water from the springs and uh they they they lived a life that none of them really had ever experienced before and and so once all the bread fruit trees were collected it was time now to get the men back on board the ship and to continue on to Jamaica and the sailors did because they had lived this very easy undisciplined life uh for for so long um they they did not take well to the
20:18 re-imposition of discipline by uh Lieutenant Blye and there was grumbling and and dissatisfaction and uh finally on uh I think it was April I've got my notes from yeah April 28th of 1789 led by Fletcher Christian a large part of the crew mutinied against William Blye and they they you know uh CHR Fletcher Christian didn't want him killed um but he but they set William
20:54 blly a drift in one of the small boats that were on the ship and they took the they took the HMS Bounty back to Tahiti and you're they were they left Blye in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in this really tiny boat and with with a number of um other people and um I think there was a total of 18 people um with Blye and and they sailed off and
21:29 amazingly and it shows the the um the the the quality of of of seamanship that that Lieutenant Blye possessed um they made it back to shore they made it to I believe uh Jakarta um in what is now Indonesia and uh and and eventually got back to England and blly was given another ship to go after the mutineers now I'm sure you can appreciate the British
22:04 admiralty um sided with with h Captain Blye uh I I should mention by the way that the in this context Captain just means the uh the most senior officer on board the ship as opposed to rank he was a lieutenant but he was the most senior officer on the ship and so he was called captain and that's why you hear him called Captain Blye um um and uh blly with on his new boat on his new ship sailed back to Tahiti they caught um a number of the mutineers in the
22:39 meantime Christian had sailed the Bounty back to Tahiti and when the tesan king found out what he had done he basically told him to get out of here because he didn't want the British coming and holding him responsible for Sheltering a mutineer and so Christian and many of the mutineers though not all of them some of the mutineers uh chose to stay in Tahiti but uh uh the rest of them along with Fletcher Christians sailed off they eventually uh landed at pit Karen Island
23:14 um where quite some time later uh Christians uh descendants were found they they did take some of the tahan women with them and that's why you know they had children etc etc um the mutineers that were found in Tahiti were brought back to England for trial um three were executed um several others were pardoned and uh Lieutenant blae resumed his Naval career and and so that's the actual history of what
23:49 happens now in the book Mutiny on the bound the story is is told Through The Eyes of a young midshipman by the name of Bam um and Bam is the son of a friend of uh captain of Lieutenant blee and uh his father has the Bam's father has died and so uh blly offers to
24:25 take bam on as a midshipman and help them develop develop a career in the Navy and and that was a a somewhat common thing for uh especially middle class uh uh Sons to do when they had no other prospects and uh and and this is of course what entranced me as as a as a young a young man you know 12 13 years old so Bam gets to Tahiti and he meets a beautiful tahan girl who
25:03 turns out to be the daughter of I think the king and they fall in love and get married um and and as a side note uh ever since I read Mutiny on the Bounty the first time I wanted to go to Tahiti and when I uh got out of college and um after I worked for the law firm for a while I went to work for a real estate State uh company and finally was able to save enough money to go to Club Med in Tahiti and I went there wanting to meet
25:40 my tahan princess and the funny thing was uh as the as this turned out um While most of the people who worked at Club Med were Americans and Europeans there was one young woman there who was native tahan and we hit it off um I spoke a little bit of French she spoke a little bit of English and so we would sit and help each other learn the other language and the um tahan man uh would come around
26:15 and they were really jealous that she wanted her spend her time with me and so they were always trying to get her attention and she was telling them go away um and you know at the end of my trip I had a say goodbye I came back to Los Angeles and the next day I got a call from her of all things and she wanted to come to the United States um so that was my big chance to you know marry my tesan princess but unfortunately I could could not afford to uh bring her to the United States so that was the end of that but it was always my fantasy to to meet my
26:51 tahan princess and and so the part of and so the pain of the of the uh Bounty crewman leaving You See It Through The Eyes of bam who um has to give up his wife basically um that that he loves dearly in order to sail back with the boat and so it's really told through his the first book Mutiny on the Bounty is told through his eyes um and especially for a young man it it is incredibly romantic while at the same time the adventure is is you know so
27:26 stirring and uh so there have been um at least two movie versions made of of mutiny the Mutiny on the Bounty um the first one starred Charles lton as uh Blye and um uh shoot uh Claudette colar and and It Happened One Night uh uh Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian uh classic class classic version of mutiny on the Bounty uh still
28:02 holds up today so if you're at if you're if I Peak your interest at all I encourage you to to watch that movie it's a 1930s black and white movie if you want something more up to date so in the I believe 1980s uh there was a a newer version made just called The Bounty starring um Anthony Hof Hopkins as blly and uh shoot the Le Lethal Weapon guy
28:39 um shoot I can think of all the movies he's done but I can't come up with his name uh ve very famous actor of the day um playing Fletcher Christian and and I had it in my head and now it's gone away see this is this is what drinking a tesan breeze will do for you makes it makes your mind go away um Mel Gibson Mel Gibson plays Fletcher Christian and the first time I saw it I didn't like it because it was very different than the book and the original
29:14 movie but the more times I watched it the more I liked it because it really brought out more of the actual history of the Mutiny on the Bounty because it it really was it was not the one-sided uh situation that it's been uh the way that it's you know been painted through history where blly was this horrible Tyrant he was viciously cruel and Fletcher was this you know good man
29:51 who uh you know basically inide of the Mutiny for the good of the crew it it was not that black and white a situation at all um there there's certainly an argument to be made that uh Fletcher Christian's Behavior was was very selfish and that Lieutenant bl's Behavior was no more harsh than was typical for the the Royal Navy at that time uh and and and over the years i' i' I've really come to um enjoy the movie The Bounty uh with with
30:28 Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins uh a lot and uh there's other there's other great actors in the movie as well so you know as we here in North America uh head into winter and you know longer nights colder nights um I think it's a it's a nice idea to sit back with uh maybe some kind of you know South cocktail and an adventure tale maybe with the fire on and take ourselves away
31:07 from the work a day world and and uh relax in another time and another place so uh whether it's um uh kidnapped you know by uh uh uh Stevenson or um Treasure Island or or whether it's the Call of the Wild whether it's the Heart of Darkness whether it's John McNab oh I hope you'll consider Mutiny on the Bounty um I I think it's the greatest well the book here says the
31:43 greatest sea story of all time I think that's true I think it's the greatest Adventure novel of all time and uh it will really give you a I think a great deal of enjoyment um and and uh relaxation and recharge you to go back into real life uh you know after the weekend is over so that that's my journey to the South Seas maybe you can feel some trees swaying you can sense some white sand or even some black volcanic sand pushing through your toes
32:19 as you walk Barefoot on the beach maybe there's some coconut palms and you can think about uh drinking some coconut milk straight from a a coconut and splitting it open and eating the the Luscious coconut meat inside and maybe just relaxing on the beach and watching the sunset these are all wonderful activities memories I have of being in in Tahiti uh riding horses on the beach I remember doing that with a a fellow I met there and uh uh it was it was it's really a a magical magical place
32:54 so uh wishing you on behalf of jigger's place all the joy of the Season especially to my Christian friends I'm wishing you a very very happy Christmas since we're in an English mode um and uh and a a new year of of good health and and uh success and uh next week we I I have an abbreviated schedule I'll have a uh trust and Estates weekly on Monday at 10: a.m. Pacific that'll be our our last show for the year on trust and Estates
33:31 weekly and then on Tuesday which is Christmas Eve I'll have a special edition and I'm going to be doing um like I do in all the special editions in this case a special show for for Christmas and you may think it's a little bit strange that a rabbi is uh doing a Christmas special but uh W to it's it's it's it's my way of of um communing with with all uh my Christian friends out there and and all the the people who who celebrate Christmas and bring the feelings of the Season uh to all the rest of us I particularly enjoy
34:06 this time of year so thank you so much for joining me especially those of you who are live uh always great to to know that that we're together and wish you a wonderful evening it's evening everywhere now even here on the West Coast and look forward I wish you a wonderful rest of the week a wonderful weekend look for forward to seeing you next week and signing off as I always do Marie darling you are my bell courage at all times my friends