So many origin stories are both curious and unique, and today's tour doesn't deviate from that standard.
Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. After a long day, it's nice to pour oneself a stiff drink and kick back, each sip, peeling away the layers of stress and trouble brought on by the daily grind. Some people opt for a cold beer, while others pop the cork on a fresh bottle of wine. Me I'm a Scotch guy, but for those really tough days, the kinds that leave us drained and burned out, we might want something a little stronger, like a sling. A sling is a standard drink, usually made with an ounce of water, a teaspoon of sugar, nutmeg, and two ounces of a spirit of your choice. Slings can be made with whiskey, or gin or rum, and they got their start hundreds of years ago. But why are they called that because you sling them back? Of course, early on, drinks in America used to be served hot, which was a holdover from the British way of serving them. It was believed that even in the summer months, a hot drink would make a person sweat, thus cooling them off, but over time traditions changed. Frederick Tutor, also known as the Ice King, started shipping ice from Massachusetts to the Caribbean in eighteen o six. By the eighteen thirties, his ice was being used to refrigerate food and medicines in places as far away as India. But bars and wealthy homes saw another use for Tutors frozen product keeping their drinks cold, and among the kinds of beverages served with ice in them were slings. Bar patrons couldn't get enough of these concoctions, which only fueled the growing alcohol epidemic that eventually led to the prohibition in the nineteen twenties. Those who did overdo it at the local pub often felt terrible the next day. They suffered from upset stomachs, which required a bit of medicine to help ease their pain. So they would take their bottle of bidders and add a few dashes to a spoon or dribble them over a sugar cube, which they would then swallow to settle their stomachs. That's right, before bidders became a way to enhance an alcoholic beverage. They were advertised as medicinal cure alls. In fact, one of the hangover cures that developed out of all of this was to have a bit of the hair of the dog that bit you, meaning hangover sufferers would drink a little more. People started adding their bidders directly to their drinks, turning them into what they called bittered slings. But over time that name changed. Bittered sling wasn't a particularly attractive name for a beverage, so bartenders and patrons just started calling them something else, and for that they turned to horses asses. No, they didn't turn into horses asses, well not unless they'd had a little bit too much to drink at the bar. Now they looked to the race tracks for inspiration. You see, at the time, if someone wanted to purchase a horse, its owner would have the animal parade around so that the buyer could examine it. Aside from the color of the coats and the pep and its stepped though, one thing they looked for was how it carried its tail. If a horse's tail was cocked upward, that meant that it was healthy and in good spirits. But if it was hanging down, that would be a sign of ill health, old age, and maybe even poor breeding. So to trick potential buyers that a horse was in better shape and it actually might have been, owners would stick a piece of ginger up the horses well, you get the idea. This would irritate the horse and cause its tail to be cocked upright. The practice was atrocious and abusive, but bartenders started using it to help their patrons. And no, they didn't stick ginger up their butts. They would mix a few dashes of bitters in a glass with whiskey, ice and water and hand it to the patron, telling them that it would cock their tail or rejuvenate them. And so the phrase eventually became the name by which we call all mixed drinks today cocktails. All because somebody thought it was a good idea to put ginger in a horse's but no wonder they have such long faces. And African American Spiritual was published that quickly took the world by storm. It was recorded by countless artists over the years and has appeared in a number of movies and television shows ever since, especially those set up at a summer camp. It's so well known today it's probably a cliche, just picture of granola eating camp counselor sitting around a fire and acoustic guitar in his lap as he leads the campers in a rollicking rendition of He's Got the whole World in his hands. It's a song about God, and for those who believe it explains how he is in control of the lives that live in the world he's created. It's meant to convey the comforting image of an omnipotent being cradling the earth and the creatures that inhabit it. But one man thought that he could play God by creating his own world, and little did he know that his new invention would shake things up in a whole new way. His name was Irwin Persey, and he hailed from Austria at the turn of the twentieth century. In nineteen hundred, when Persey was just twenty four years old, he was in charge of designing and repairing medical tools used by doctors and surgeons. Occasionally, when a doctor was in need of something specific, they would go to Persey and request a new tool to be made. Irwin, like I said, was only twenty four years old at the time when doctors in town came to him with a desperate plea. They're dark operating rooms needed better lighting. Lightbulbs had been around for a number of years, but they were inefficient and the light that they produced was not enough for them to work by. They needed something better and brighter, so Perzy got to work. He started doing research, which brought him to shoemakers. You see, shoemakers often worked long hours in rooms with minimal lights, so they relied on a special kind of lamp to keep their workspace illuminated. It was comprised of four glass balls or flasks filled with liquid. Sometimes they would be filled with water, but schnops or absinthe worked as well. The flasks were of different sizes, with the master shoemaker seated in front of the largest, while his apprentices sat before the smaller ones. They hung by leather straps around their necks from a wooden stool while a candle burned in the center, and the lamps macab appearances what gave it its other name, the gallows lamp. A light from the flame would be amplified by the liquid in the glass balls in front of it, and if they had been filled within adult beverage like schnops, the apprentices would take SIPs while the master was away. Percy liked the idea of the shoemaker's lamp, but he felt that it needed something else to make it more suitable for surgeons. He had a bright idea pun intended by the way of adding metal flakes to the inside that would help the light reach farther instead, though it had a different effect. Shaking the semelina filled glass balls in his hand, Percy watched as the metal flakes drifted all throughout, the liquid, settling on the bottom like fresh fallen snow. And so he pivoted from making light sources for surgeons and opened a factory to produce his brand new product, the snow globe. His first snow globe had a tiny model of the Austrian Basilica inside. It became so popular as a gift that it wasn't until World War Two when his son, Irwin Persey the Second expanded the lineup. He had been working with the U. S. Military when he was told that the troops would buy his family snow globes if they were more recognizable figures inside, since the basilica held almost no meaning to them. So Persey the second returned to the factory with their feedback and designed three new models. One had a Christmas tree inside, another had a snowman, and the last held Santa Claus. Over the years, the product line has grown and different companies have come up with their own versions. Go into any souvenir shop today in any major tourist destination and you're sure to find a snow globe with Disneyland, or the Chicago Skyline or the Empire State Building inside. But nothing quite measures up to what the Perseys have been making for the last one d and twenty years. The snow inside an authentic Austrian snow globe is made from a top secret formula that blends plastic with other materials to provide a squall that can last up to two minutes. It's an experience not easily replicated, but perhaps the greatest lasting testament to Irwin Persey's original creation. Aren't the snow globes with Christmas trees or snowman inside. It was one specific snow globe, the only one of its kind, which was made around nineteen one. It held a small, long cabin and was owned by a tyrannical newspaper magnate. The globe was destroyed when it slipped from his fingers upon his untimely death, a final reminder of the only time in his life when he was truly happy, frolicking in the snow as a child and writing his beloved sled Rosebud. Though no records exist that Percy had created the snow globe for R. K O Pictures, it is widely believed that the object owned by Orson Wells character in Citizen Kane was made by the famous Viennese company Irwin Persey. Did not set out to make sentimental glass balls filled with water, but he did, and so much more. He gave every customer a chance to hold a small world in the palm of their hands. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partner ship with How Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore which is a podcast, book series, and television show and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,