Titanic Month has started off with a bang! I was so excited to make these videos and I love seeing how excited people are watching them. Tuesday, we tackle the 2nd Class.
I'm really happy you started with the lower classes. First class is always highlighted whenever anyone talks about the titanic so it nice to see how the other people were treated as well.
I Love all these kinds of stories Max, I'm 56 myself so a bit of living history myself living through the mid 60s to now some of the craziest years on Earth I believe. All these stupid wars and terrible things I never thought I would see in my lifetime, but alas as they say; fact can be stranger than fiction. Great video, I really appreciate your penchant for spinning a Yarn as they say. I would really like to hear your take on the Travels of Hannibal through the mountains (the Alps) and how he broke Large stone boulders using wine if I'm not mistaken. That should make for some interesting drinking history. 🍾🍷🥃
Honestly, I'm having trouble thinking of a situation more appropriate for getting absolutely shit-faced than watching the lifeboat you were supposed to be in lowered without you and knowing there weren't any more left.
I know it's impossible cause I doubt they'd allow liqour on a combat vessel, but I bet the crew of the Bismark would've appreciated a stiff drink or two seeing the British fleet arrive after the torpedo knocked out their rudder
My personal favorite Titanic story. Guy gets drunk, saves people's lives, drinks some more, rides the ship into the water, steps off it without even getting his hair wet, then endures two hours in the freezing water and comes away with just a pair of cold feet and a polar bear joke. What a legend.
Actually the alcohol combined with his calm demeanor actually were the likely reason he survived. In a cold water situation shock is actually the thing that kills you long before hypothermia. The sense of freezing cold water causes two things two happen almost immeadiately, the blood vesels in your limbs constrict and a torrent of flash cooled blood is then squeezed at high volume to the heart. what killed 90% of the people in the water was the cold blood effectively triggering cardiac arrest. However! our baker friend was calm and blitzed. the result? first his calmness meant he wasn't flailing and so his heart rate wasn't elevated much. second alchol causes the blood vessels to dialate and so his limbs were getting fresh blood which meant they still worked so that explains being able to tread water for hours. And the most important aspect was that his body couldn't experience shock. His paripheral neverous system was muted so he likely really didn't feel cold. True he was loosing body heat but that wasn't as big a deal as you would think. Humans can remain conscious and functioning with core body temps as low as 76 degrees, the thing that stops working at that tempurature is glucose metabolism. So he should have slipped into a coma and died your saying, cause his body couldn't metabolise sugar right. Nope because while it can't metabolize glucose it sure as hell can use alcohol sugars, namely because alcohol sugars function as antifreeze in the blood and cells can instantly burn them. Couple all of this with the fact that he was lucky enough to have a life vest and that the waters were dead calm most of the night with no wind to create a chill effect and the fact that his head remained dry, yes the alcohol and a calm additude were his saving grace. had he been sober hed have died within 10 minutes just like the rest.
Adendum. The feet at the end prove my point. the only reason his feet didn't die from freezing solid was because the alcohol acted as an anti freeze and his blood vessels were forced open because it acted as a vaso dialator. A sober person (had they even survived) would have lost their feet after that length of time in the water.
"I knew it was an iceberg because there was a polar bear on it, and it waved to me". That's a true Brit if there ever was one. Gets absolutely plastered, literally steps off the worlds largest ship as it sinks beneath him, and then jokes about it later.
I know he was probably drunk but the detail of the polar bear waving at him was simply adorable. I bet he would tell that to kids in order to ease the tragedy he had been on. He must have been a very interesting guy to talk to!
Imagine being that polar bear. You're sat on an iceberg minding your own business, and all of a sudden the Titanic looms up out of the mist. You lock eyes with the one person you see on deck... and it's the drunk cook. You frantically motion to him to signal that the ship is going to crash into the berg, but he just thinks you're a cute bear waving at him. So the drunk cook meekly waves back as the Titanic rams your home. What a night.
The alcohol didn't keep him warm but I've seen it said that it could have kept him calm and his heart rate down when in the freezing water so his body didn't go into shock as quickly or exhaust him and therefore kept him alive long enough to be pulled out.
There's definitely some negative effects to having that much alcohol in your system in that situation, but some positive ones may have cancelled them out. Not shivering, being calmer, not suffering shock; this may have more than made up for the negative of otherwise losing body heat faster.
That's a good point. I would have thought the vasodilation would have killed him, but not getting cold shock is probably even more positive than the negative effects of losing heat due to being hammered.
It's been theorized that the amount of alcohol in his blood could have thinned it so severely, that when his blood was being pumped it was moving much faster than normal and that may have caused enough heat to stave off hypothermia and frost bite and shock or the amount or the sheer volume of alcohol in his blood may have acted as an anti-freeze the way it does for frozen desserts.
@@Anesthesia069 I'd imagine the vasodilation allowed his muscles to have adequate blood flow the entire time - they'd definitely just seize up in the cold water otherwise. Probably why he didn't have any high degree frostbite on his feet too. But realistically I bet it was just the mental effects of being drunk that helped him.
That's very possible. We remember memories more clearly when we're in the same state as when those memories were formed. Like how when you're sad, it's difficult to remember when you were happy. When you're sober, it's more difficult to remember your drunk memories, so staying sober would help him avoid those traumatic memories.
In the movie all persons on the ship were hired because they were near doubles for them. I have seen photos of the original Captain and the movie Captain is near his identical twin.
@@user-cp9id1mj8b IMO "A Night To Remember" is the better portrayal of Smith as a character. In Cameron's version he's a bit too dazed and lost where during the sinking he was a lot more pro-active, giving orders, trying to do what he could.
Charles Joughin was my great uncle. My mother, his neice, died in June 2021. Uncle Charlie wrote a letter congratulating her on marrying my father, from his home in New Jersey in 1956. None of us have any idea where the 'he didn't drink' story comes from!
That's great. As a practicing alcoholic I now damn well it can do good when consumed correctly. I'll negotiate a multimillion dollar contract when properly sauced. I'm a cook in my sober life. I feel I'm in good company. I'm raising my glass to him now. To a gentleman and hero who did it his own way! Cheers!
Not an Alcoholic, but I too will raise a glass. That man was a damn legend. Waiting until after he saved as many as possible before drinking his ass off? Nice.
@@MariaMartinez-researcher thats a good thought! Depending on what was baked, rum would also be a commen addition, but I really got no clue in that regard so no way of making an educated guess what is actualy likely
one of my favorite titanic stories is how wallace hartley's violin somehow survived the sinking. a million dollars is dirt cheap for what it is but i'm glad it's in a museum instead of a private collection.
He strapped it to his body in its case. It was recovered on his body by the morgue ship and sent to his fiancé in England. It was gifted to one or two people and lived in an attic for decades. Popped up in the 2000s and the people authenticating it confirmed that it had spent time in salty ocean water. Unreal.
@@ravenel2 yes, that's right. there was also a paper trail and the container was initialed. i know it would be absolutely horrible-sounding and probably shatter if tuned, but i'd really love to hear it played. the whistles have been blown again, and it would be nice to hear the echo of one more song from the band. it would have to be nearer my god to thee, naturally. the hundred year anniversary would have been a good time to play it.
I knew Joughin threw deck chairs overboard but I had not heard how he threw women and children into boats. Seems like a fellow who didn't mess around much.
Hell, think of it like this: He was in a position to understand the gravity of the situation, even if the passengers did not. It was not time to screw around.
Its amazing that he survived the night and part of the next day in the water, then had enough strength to swim "50 yards" to the rescue boat. Kind of unbelievable.
@@LukaDonesnitchoh congrats surely you've encountered people in life that seem to just weather things even physical things? If you haven't, maybe you are one and just don't realize
As a fellow Titanic enthusiast, I'd love to share my personal (one of many) favorite stories: ''In the water Saloon Steward Harold Philimore was still lying on top of a piece of floating wreckage. The man hanging on alongside with him hard grown steadily weaker. Finally the man had sad, ''What a night'', rolled off into the water and died.'' (source: "On The Sea of Glass"). I know technically it's not funny, but a lethal sinking of a ship being called ''What a night'' and it being your last words is...truly something XD
What a story! I’m glad he got to live to tell it. I find it very interesting that James Cameron touched on some of the more minor real-life survivors in the event but wonder why he didn’t use more of the employees like Violet Jessop in particular. She deserves a movie of her own for surviving three sinkings!! Someone someday must make an Upstairs/Downstairs kind of movie that focuses on the lesser-known employees who were on board. Julian Fellowes, I’m looking at you dude!!
because he wanted to focus on the stupid love story between characters who were NEVER there!. Seriously, people; A Night to Remember is SO much better!
I did make some hardtack after that video, and yes, it really sounds like that, but I have to confess, I really liked it. You can´t bite it, sure, but you can slowly nibble away, it really is nutritous, I really liked the taste of toasted flour, and it looked as if it would stay good for almost forever. I ate all of it by now, though.
It's believed that most of the people who went into the water died of cold water shock rather than hypothermia. Basically the shock of being submerged into freezing water causes loss of motor control, hyperventilation, and even potentially even heart attacks. If he was liquored up, he wouldn't have felt the cold, and this could have helped him live longer than the others in the water.
The dude was pickled with "antifreeze"! And he might have been one of those rare individuals who actually went into a kind of suspended animation that sci-fi and scientists are trying to achieve for deep space exploration. Who knows
That actually makes sense, as I remember reading something about alcohol actually reducing your body's ability to keep warm, but prevents you from feeling cold. And if the water was cold enough to cause a lot of people to die from hypothermia as quickly as a lit of the them died, there's no way that guy could have lasted as long as he did, or even the partially submerged people clinging to wreckage. Shock makes a lot more sense, because there's a whole lot of variability in people's susceptibility to it. (As seen from the fact that some people died from shock as a result of pre-anesthesia amputations and surgeries, while others managed to avoid shock all together - though they didn't always survive either due to infections and such...)
@@Amy_the_Lizard its like when you swim for a while your body gets used to the temp and since he was drunk he didnt have a mental breakdown and give himself physical anxiety
This reason is why Rose in the movie wouldn’t have been able to blow the whistle to get the lifeboats attention. Her motor control would have been too little to be able to grip the whistle, let alone breathe in a big enough breath to blow it.
I watched "a night to remember" again recently with my mum. The portrayal of Charles joughin by George rose was really amazing... especially the bit when he looks over and sees people grabbing onto the deck chairs he threw into the Atlantic with a drunken "my work here is done" smile on his face.
My 91 year-old mum-in-law is from Birkenhead and quite a fan girl of Titanic, playing a survivor telling of her time aboard. She is part of a local public access channel in Great Barrington, MA. I'll have to put her onto your story about this.
As a deaf fan and an accessibility consultant, I just want to say how much I appreciate the way your captions are done. Accurate and thorough and with a little fun on the side? Excellent. Thank you so much.
@@TastingHistory Thank you, Jose!! You are setting an example for so many and it is so, so appreciated 💗I know firsthand how much work things like captions can be, or transcripts (which I do for all my podcasts), so please know your hard work is seen!!
@@TastingHistory Late to the thread but my boyfriend who is Chinese appreciates it also while he is continuing to learn English. So thanks a lot to you and Jose from one gay couple on the other side of the pond to the other! x
One explanation I heard about how Joughlin survived was that while he wasn't drunk enough that his capillaries we're opened and so waste body heat, he WAS just drunk ENOUGH that he wasn't wasting energy by flailing about, or having an elevated heartbeat. Though it's likely the timeline is skewed and he only had his legs in the water that full time and his torso was on Collapsible B most of the night.
Two hours of treading water in the middle of the night in the north Atlantic is _insane._ What an incredible feat of strength and will that must've been.
I believe it was implied he had on a life vest because he had on screen an old life vest when talking about the baker being on the stern, still very exhausting but without it there would have been no way *he could have survived* even Olympic athletes can't last more than 30 min to an hour while treading in freezing cold water
Looking it up, the water temperature around the _Titanic_ was probably about -3°C, which means you're hypothermic after 15 minutes and dead after 30, so yeah! ...I once flew from the UK to Iceland. Someone in the seat in front of me was watching _Titanic_. (a) I despise that movie with a passion; (b) the flight wasn't actually long enough for the entire film; and (c) what a movie to fly over the North Atlantic to...
@@hjalfi actually the part about dying after 30 min isn't true, if you have a life vest on you can be in waters that cold for up to 2 hours before getting to lethal hypothermia. The caveat is you *have* to have a life vest. Because the reason so many people die in cold water is they get sent into shock when they hit the water and pass out from the cold, which makes them drown. I worked in the North Pacific (bering sea) for 2.5 years and the thing they always hammered home was wearing a life vest for that exact reason, cause even in the summer the water didn't get above like 10 C
@@Nullsparta2 "the reason so many people die in cold water is they get sent into shock when they hit the water and pass out from the cold" Maybe here is where the alcohol might have helped him. He might have been so drunk, that he was mostly calm and collected, avoiding him to enter that state of shock. He might have also not moved a lot, letting the life vest do all the work in floating. Which allowed him to safe precious energy, energy that allowed him to survive.
@@Nullsparta2 I would imagine that the life vest also helped keep the body insulated to some extent from the water temp, which, along with the buoyancy, would help with survival.
I don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but the reason the liquor probably saved him wasn't because it kept him warm--it's for the same reason a drunk driver usually survives without injury in a crash. He would have been more relaxed and therefore expended a lot less energy in shivering and splashing frantically around, likely just treading water with a bit of confused flailing here and there but not enough to exaust him
All these stories are straight out of a nightmare. I couldn't even imagine going through something like that. And to see so many not survive and then continue to live life after that.
This is now my favorite TH-cam channels. I never really enjoyed learning about history but you make it so fun. You’ve also inspired me to start cooking seriously after many years of lacking the confidence to do so. Wish me luck! 😅 also thank you!!!
The baker's story was fascinating stuff. I hadn't realized he was only 33. Yes, the actor who portrayed him in the movie was well into his 50's. I read that alcohol acted as an antifreeze. Something certainly worked in his favour that terrible night. He was lucky to have survived.
Is it weird I enjoy watching Drinking History even though I don't drink often? Max's descriptions of the flavors are so much more appealing to me than how alcohol actually tastes.
It's not weird to me, at least. I don't drink _at all_ yet I enjoy drinking-adjacent content. Heck, I'm a frequent viewer of a weekly stream by Penny-Arcade where they collaboratively design a themed homebrew with chat, which then gets brewed during the next stream.
Yup, I'm here for the history. I can't even eat most of the food made in the main series because I'm allergic to dairy, but that doesn't stop me from being a fan.
Same. I don’t enjoy the taste or smell of alcohol, so anything stronger than wine simply isn’t enjoyable for me, but I do enjoy some mildly boozy desserts.
My great grandmother knew an Irish woman that survived the Titanic. She's long passed and I only met her a few times when I was really small. I REALLY wish I got to know her story. I believe my grandmother said the Irish woman lost hold of her husband in the panic, was tossed onto a lifeboat clutching their infant and with a few measly valuables in her coat (small heirlooms, I'm guessing), and after many years of searching for her husband, she learned that he had died. Now I wonder if the baker is the one that threw her into the lifeboat, possibly saving her life. She could have died if she kept searching for her husband in all that panicked insanity.
In that situation, the proper course of action is to go to the first class bar and take a few minutes to select the likely most expensive, the oldest, the best, and your own favourite. Then sample each slowly. And then just down them all like a big damned hero. Although making one's preferred cocktail under those conditions is pretty boss conduct also.
I wonder if this is why nobody knows exactly WHAT he was drinking that night? He wouldn’t admit to raiding the first class bar! (I definitely would’ve hit it up!)😂
I totally believe they put his feet in the oven! I’m 45 and in the early 80’s in Scotland, when we had a coal fire, my mum would put the oven on and I’d sit on my wee wooden chair in the kitchen, with my feet in the oven while she was in the living room preparing the coal fire.
This is my first time seeing a video of yours in your bar and I spotted that flor de caña bottle! Im from the city that makes it and my grandad sells sugar cane to the company that makes it. Man of great taste I see
I was hoping you'd be covering this boy's story! I had just forgot he was the baker. I heard that his blood alcohol was so high that it was effectively like anti-freeze
The only problem is not the blood freezing but alcohol makes your blood vessels expand which is why you get that warm fuzzy feeling. So in effect it does the opposite of what our bodies do to protect itself and constrict blood vessels in our extremities to conserve core body temperature so you will freeze to death a LOT fast when drinking... You'll just feel warm while doing it.
@@SilvaDreams no arguments on that. I just heard that it was the physical amount of alcohol in the blood that acted as a make-shift antifreeze. I mean, that and he was in the water for two hours top. I confess, my knowledge of bio-physics is not great enough to determine if blood alcohol can reach such a level that would grant that property without a person falling unconscious or dying first.
@@samovarsa2640 Oh you can hit that point.. Well some heavy drinkers can. I've seen people hit .25 (25%) easily despite .08 (8%) is legally drunk in most places. But I think the highest known recorded BAC was a Polish man with a 1.48 which is truly insane.
That could have possibly helped him avoid frostbite (though probably only a tiny bit if at all), but wouldn’t have done anything to change the heat transfer from his body to the water.
I remember when I was younger I went to a museum with an exhibition about exactly how fucking freezing the water was when the Titanic went down. They had my put my hand on the glass and told me that was close to how cold the water was supposed to be. Now, being like 8, I didnt know numbers. But oh my god, it was so cold I thought my hand would freeze off. How anybody could survive _two hours_ in that is a mystery.
I was a living history actress at a Titanic museum and we had a water pool at the temperature the water was. I always had my audience stick their hands in the water and try to keep them there as long as I told the story (it lasted about 90 seconds) for that section.
Regarding putting him in an oven- I know they would use the unheated side of an oven to warm up an abandoned lamb or calf, so I would believe it if someone lit up one of their bakeries' ovens and rotated survivors through the unlit ones.
For all those whose knowledge of the Titanic comes from the 1997 movie, please check out "A Night To Remember," a black-and-white film made in 1958, and considered to be the most historically accurate depiction of the tragedy of the Titanic; although this movie was made decades before they discovered the Titanic had broken in half as it sank. The 1997 is probably more "physically" accurate in its depiction of the sinking ship, but the characters and events in the 1958 film are believed to be as accurate as possible. (It's still a fictional movie, not a documentary, and not absolutely 100% accurate -- but pretty accurate nonetheless.)
"A Night To Remember" is a great film based on the1955 non-fiction book "A Night To Remember" by Walter Lord. Lord did as exhaustive research as anyone could do at the time and wrote the most accurate account of the events surrounding the Titanic disaster (with, of course, the exception of the ship breaking apart). If you don't have time to read, the audiobook of "A Night To Remember" is available for free on TH-cam and is well worth a listen!
This story reminds me of Guðlaugur Friðþórsson an Icelandic fisherman who in 1984 survived for 6 hours in 5 °C (41 °F) water and managed to swim to land on a island and walked over the lava rock 3 km (1.9 mi) into town
I absolutely love history, and I love cooking historical recipes...please don't ever stop this channel. It's the best channel ever. Plus, the Titanic has always fascinated me... Can you imagine having to figure out how to survive in that position? Just the idea is terrifying.
A fun Titanic related story. This took place back when the movie came out. My sister and I went to Border's Books and there were Titanic displays all over the store. At the checkout counter, they had a huge display. While I was being cheked out, I said to my sister, "I don't know what the big deal is. Everyone knows the boat sinks." The clerk stopped scanning my books and looked at me in disbelef, "Whaat?" "Yeah, the Titanic sunk." She looks over to another clerk and asks, "Is that true?" The girl confirmed it. She slammed the register shut. "Thanks a lot for ruining the movie for me!"
Idk how you've continued to make great content this whole time without getting sloppy like so many other youtubers, but I'm here for it! Keep it up bro
It’s a remarkable story - even if you discount some for embellishments. The man had nerves of steel, a clear head, and a strong constitution. One of my favourite stories from the Titanic.
An interesting story! I have heard of many stories of people who survived the Titanic but this one I haven’t heard before. Thank you! Can’t wait for Tuesday 😊
I have just discovered your channel and I am now attempting to binge watch (and make) everything you have produced here. You have managed to take my two favourite subjects, history and eating/drinking and combine them into an entertaining, educational, informative and all-around fun channel. Staring into those baby blues don't hurt, either. Thank you for this and I look forward to seeing the rest of what I have missed as well as all that you have yet to offer. Bu you andetst.
The alcohol definitely didn't help him survive by keeping him warm, alcohol makes you lose bodyheat quicker by dilating veins, the reason this gives the feeling of being warmer is all the warm blood now flowing to your skin (where it'll then lose heat faster..). It might have played a part in his survival in the water for so long though, but not through keeping him warm. It might have played another part contributing to his survival. It could also just be happenstance that he happened to be a survivor and happened to have drank a lot (was he girthy perhaps?, being obese is literally having more insulation...) Alcohol does a lot however, dilates veins, lowers bp, might decrease chances of cramping up threading water so long, might decrease cardiac arrest risk doing this. All just speculation ofc. All I can say for sure is it didn't help him retain heat in the water.
it might have been that he didn't waste energy shivering because his nervous system wasn't reacting to the cold. So he may have had more damage to his cells long term, but short term, he had enough energy to stay afloat
@@sarahwatts7152 I think that is a valid point. Panic is what usually kills people BEFORE their other extenuating circumstances. Avoiding panic is best in all circumstances.
@@averagedemographic8933 Especially since he was in the group with the worst survival rate: crew/White Star employees, who had a worse survival rate than 3rd class passengers. Worth noting gender played a bigger disparity than class, due to the "women and children first" policy. First class: 62%; 3rd class: 25%: vs. Women and children: 75%, Adult Men: 20%. Crew overall were even worse than third class; only about 24% survived. Also worth noting: 3rd class women (46%) had a better survival rate than first class men (33%). Being adult male hurt your chances more than being 3rd class did. Last note: All 24 2nd class children survived; the only group of people with perfect survival. There were only 6 first class children, and 5 of them survived. Sadly only 27 of the 79 3rd class children survived.
Only thing we need is max now going to countries and making food there, old Italian dishes in the Tuscan countryside would be a lovely series of videos, maybe by 2 million subs lol.
Max - you MUST watch the classic 1958 "A Night To Remember" - it gives our hero a LOT more screen time throughout the movie. He's played for a bit of comic relief, but it's fascinating. You might get a kick out of it! Thanks for a great video!
@@johnr797 Drinking doesn't lower your body temperature, it causes your blood vessels to expand which is why you feel warm when drinking because well more blood is flowing.... And that is what kills you faster. Normally our bodies constrict the blood vessels to protect the core body temperature, so you just feel warm and fuzzy as you freeze to death twice as fast while drinking.
Copying my comment about this from another threat: "It seems impossible to achieve an anti-freeze effect through ethanol intake without dying from alcohol poisoning first. Blood has a similar freezing point to water (being composed mostly of if). To lower the freezing point of water from 0 °C to even just -4 °C (25 °F) you need an ethanol concentration of 10%. Having a blood-alcohol-level of 0,8% is pretty much a guaranteed death sentence. The myth of alcohol helping in the cold probably stems from the fact that it widens your blood vessels, making you feel warmer. At the same time, the temperature regulation of your body works less effectively while being intoxicated, which ironically makes you die even faster of hypothermia."
alcohol WONT keep you warm, quite the contrary in fact. alcohol will dillute the walls of blood vessels, increasing surface area, enabling more heat exchange and cooling which will lead to quicker frostbite or death. however alcohol might desensitize you to the cold, and aching feet after hours of pushing water
From the tale you tell it sounds like to me the treading water is what kept him alive. If he didn't have a life vest on then the active movement of keeping above water would have warmed his body. The alcohol probably helped him from feeling cold and made him more comfortable prevented him from panicking and therefore exerting too much energy and causing him to tire out quicker.
The foresight to throw chairs into the water is really something. Not many survived the water but maybe a few that did were because of one of those chairs.
I'm not sure what the medical procedure for frostbite/hypothermia was back then so I can't tell if that part of the story was true, but the oven thing did strike me as plausible at first blush because I've read plenty of accounts of people warming up semi-stillborn livestock or "dead" kittens and puppies in their kitchen ovens (generally wrapped in a blanket and stuffed into a box or washbasin or dishpan) up through the late 1800s and the animals making a full recovery since heat is so vital in those moments. If they had mild ovens that were kept at a lower temperature it's entirely possible that they might have been using them to warm people up if that was the accepted procedure for those medical conditions during the time, since they were definitely popping animals into them to provide (often effective!) veterinary care.
The most common theory according to science Alcohol constricted the blood vessel sufficiently so he did not radiate all his body heat out of his thrashing limbs essentially keeping most of his warm blood pumping between the head and torso. furthermore the calming effect of being drunk must have helped staved off the shock and the instill of panic so thats definitively another factor that helped him conserve energy and even body heat. (Thrashing and moving a lot helps generate heat in you but in cold water its negligable (how is that word spelled again?)) Many types of alcohol are also packed with sugar and calories plain and simple. We have a few similar stories of fishermen who went through the same thing here in Iceland Thing to remember If you're staring death in the face it cannot hurt your chances to down a few stiff ones, Or As the old irish proverb goes "Alcohol never solves any problem.... but then again... neither does milk"
NO!! Please, people, alcohol dilates the blood vessels at the surface of the skin. This may make you feel warmer, but actually draws blood away from your vital organs AND causes you to lose heat to the environment faster making you even more prone to hypothermia. It's a funny anecdote, but alcohol is NOT a way to survive the cold. He was a very lucky man.
I don't know about alcohol keeping you warm... But ethanol does have a lower freezing temperature than water. Maybe the ethanol in his blood was acting as a kind of anti-freeze? I'm definitely not a doctor, so I can't say for certain, but it seems plausible.
when we're drunk we 'feel' warm even though we're not warmer, but this feeling might suppress things like shivers which will cause you to lose body heat more rapidly if you are submersed in cold water. kind of analogous to going limp when falling or rolling is much safer, despite your instincts to stiffen up and catch yourself.
This reminds me of an account I read about one Commodore Colin Maud RN. Who is probably best remember for his depiction in the 1962 film "The Longest Day" starring John Wayne and Sean Connery. Maud being the principal beach master of Juno beach during the Normandy landings. Going back to September 25 1942 Maud is Commander of HMS Somalia which sinks in bad weather due to damage from being torpedoed. Maud is finally pulled from the Arctic water after about an hour. He credits his survival to having drunk a good amount of whiskey after having gone into the water.
I am so glad that I discovered your channel. Food and drink are the true defining symbols of different time periods across the world, and you do such an excellent job of portraying history in such a light and fun way. I can’t wait to watch more of your videos!
What a great story! I think the "hardtack tap" should be in every video. My layman's guess regarding the alcohol's "assistance" is that the main benefit might have been that of relaxation. Panic (understandable in this situation) could have made things worse, as happens in auto crashes. In DUIs, the drunk is often unhurt, as we've all heard.
Quality content delivered as per the usual, Max. I suppose the moral of the story is that when things goes icy, the answer may be found at the bottom of the bottle.
After a 113 hour week at work, I FINALLY get to watch Tasting History as much as I please, without having to try to fall asleep as fast as I possibly can, to rest before my next shift. 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🙌🏻
Such an interesting tale from such a tragic night. Him actually helping folks and not rushing for space on a life-boat was truly admirable. I very much doubt things would be the same today.
twist ending: there really was a polar bear, it crawled across the hull of the ship and used its claws to carve deep gouges in the hull that caused the sinking. the iceberg story was just made up to cover up the existence of angry bears that sink any ship that comes their way so they can eat the passengers and crew
Me on a sinking cruise ship... No one panic!!! I have the perfect cocktail recipe! I just need to consult my saved Max video. He truly has something for every occasion, especially if it involves hardtack
Great episode, Max! I love this theme and I'm happy that you started with third class and are including drinks, as well! This is an excellent way to integrate the two prongs of your channel and I love it!
I still have a strange fascination with Titanic. Its so strange the when my fascination began one of the Titanic survivors was still alive. What a guy Charles was getting all thise Children into the boats.
Titanic Month has started off with a bang! I was so excited to make these videos and I love seeing how excited people are watching them. Tuesday, we tackle the 2nd Class.
You are one of youtube's treasures!
I'm really happy you started with the lower classes. First class is always highlighted whenever anyone talks about the titanic so it nice to see how the other people were treated as well.
This world never knew it needed Hardtack memes. I thank you sir for that.
Gosh, I love drinking history.
I Love all these kinds of stories Max, I'm 56 myself so a bit of living history myself living through the mid 60s to now some of the craziest years on Earth I believe. All these stupid wars and terrible things I never thought I would see in my lifetime, but alas as they say; fact can be stranger than fiction. Great video, I really appreciate your penchant for spinning a Yarn as they say. I would really like to hear your take on the Travels of Hannibal through the mountains (the Alps) and how he broke Large stone boulders using wine if I'm not mistaken. That should make for some interesting drinking history. 🍾🍷🥃
Honestly, I'm having trouble thinking of a situation more appropriate for getting absolutely shit-faced than watching the lifeboat you were supposed to be in lowered without you and knowing there weren't any more left.
RIGHT!?
Can't argue, and I don't even drink.
I know it's impossible cause I doubt they'd allow liqour on a combat vessel, but I bet the crew of the Bismark would've appreciated a stiff drink or two seeing the British fleet arrive after the torpedo knocked out their rudder
@@isaacgraff8288 same
@@isaacgraff8288 same, I mightve started under just such a circumstance though.
My personal favorite Titanic story. Guy gets drunk, saves people's lives, drinks some more, rides the ship into the water, steps off it without even getting his hair wet, then endures two hours in the freezing water and comes away with just a pair of cold feet and a polar bear joke. What a legend.
He was a true English hero, chucking women and children to safety and then getting completely drunk out of his mind. Salute!
Tbh!!! 🥂💯💯
Salute!
And he was also an pastry chef😋
Mad dogs and Englishmen....
Sounds like a reasonable thing to do. Save women and children. Realize death is near. Get wasted, and hope for the best.
He was drunk out of his mind, but he remembered every duty to the core, saved others before himself and kept his honour composed... truly a hero!
You gotta liquor before you sticker!
Agree!!
I've actually met a lot of really great men that can do that❤
"I heard a cracking sound. Not like an explosion, more like Max hitting his hard tack together."
😂
Hahahaha 😆🤣
*clack clack*
I don't think even an iceberg could crack that hardtack.
Ahahahaha! This is the chosen comment
Actually the alcohol combined with his calm demeanor actually were the likely reason he survived. In a cold water situation shock is actually the thing that kills you long before hypothermia. The sense of freezing cold water causes two things two happen almost immeadiately, the blood vesels in your limbs constrict and a torrent of flash cooled blood is then squeezed at high volume to the heart. what killed 90% of the people in the water was the cold blood effectively triggering cardiac arrest. However! our baker friend was calm and blitzed. the result? first his calmness meant he wasn't flailing and so his heart rate wasn't elevated much. second alchol causes the blood vessels to dialate and so his limbs were getting fresh blood which meant they still worked so that explains being able to tread water for hours. And the most important aspect was that his body couldn't experience shock. His paripheral neverous system was muted so he likely really didn't feel cold. True he was loosing body heat but that wasn't as big a deal as you would think. Humans can remain conscious and functioning with core body temps as low as 76 degrees, the thing that stops working at that tempurature is glucose metabolism. So he should have slipped into a coma and died your saying, cause his body couldn't metabolise sugar right. Nope because while it can't metabolize glucose it sure as hell can use alcohol sugars, namely because alcohol sugars function as antifreeze in the blood and cells can instantly burn them. Couple all of this with the fact that he was lucky enough to have a life vest and that the waters were dead calm most of the night with no wind to create a chill effect and the fact that his head remained dry, yes the alcohol and a calm additude were his saving grace. had he been sober hed have died within 10 minutes just like the rest.
Adendum. The feet at the end prove my point. the only reason his feet didn't die from freezing solid was because the alcohol acted as an anti freeze and his blood vessels were forced open because it acted as a vaso dialator. A sober person (had they even survived) would have lost their feet after that length of time in the water.
Wow, that is very interesting! Thank you for the explanation :)
Sources please
@@Brzeczyszczykiewicz1 Libraries. Serving the hopes of mans intellectual progress since 2000BC
The man took alcohol being called "Liquid courage" quite literal.
"I saw a polar bear, and he waved to me."
I want what he's having.
No way a man who waves to polar bears doesn’t drink like some of his family claimed lol
You can't have it, because he already drank it all.
Do you want one or two sips Laudanum in your coca cocktail ?
Patent medicines full of all kinds of drugs would do that.
Clearly it thought he was drinking too much and wanted to offer him a Coka-Cola
"I knew it was an iceberg because there was a polar bear on it, and it waved to me". That's a true Brit if there ever was one. Gets absolutely plastered, literally steps off the worlds largest ship as it sinks beneath him, and then jokes about it later.
Yes!!!
He was a Northern man! We are built different.
I know he was probably drunk but the detail of the polar bear waving at him was simply adorable. I bet he would tell that to kids in order to ease the tragedy he had been on. He must have been a very interesting guy to talk to!
Oh come on, he obviously saw a polar bear waving at him...... a pink polar bear, possibly on parade.
The Polar Bear detail speaks of a wonderful sense of humor!
Clearly this is definitive proof that the Angel of Death, who let him past, is canonically a polar bear.
I believe that he thought he saw a polar bear. You know, 'cause he was drunk.
Sponsored by Coca Cola!
Imagine being that polar bear. You're sat on an iceberg minding your own business, and all of a sudden the Titanic looms up out of the mist. You lock eyes with the one person you see on deck... and it's the drunk cook. You frantically motion to him to signal that the ship is going to crash into the berg, but he just thinks you're a cute bear waving at him. So the drunk cook meekly waves back as the Titanic rams your home. What a night.
OMG this comment is so amazing (I'm a year late lol but still)!!
A comedian did a joke of that.
The alcohol didn't keep him warm but I've seen it said that it could have kept him calm and his heart rate down when in the freezing water so his body didn't go into shock as quickly or exhaust him and therefore kept him alive long enough to be pulled out.
There's definitely some negative effects to having that much alcohol in your system in that situation, but some positive ones may have cancelled them out. Not shivering, being calmer, not suffering shock; this may have more than made up for the negative of otherwise losing body heat faster.
That's a good point. I would have thought the vasodilation would have killed him, but not getting cold shock is probably even more positive than the negative effects of losing heat due to being hammered.
It's been theorized that the amount of alcohol in his blood could have thinned it so severely, that when his blood was being pumped it was moving much faster than normal and that may have caused enough heat to stave off hypothermia and frost bite and shock or the amount or the sheer volume of alcohol in his blood may have acted as an anti-freeze the way it does for frozen desserts.
I can't think of a more appropriate time to start hammering the booze down and I'm a 14 year recovering alcoholic.
@@Anesthesia069 I'd imagine the vasodilation allowed his muscles to have adequate blood flow the entire time - they'd definitely just seize up in the cold water otherwise. Probably why he didn't have any high degree frostbite on his feet too. But realistically I bet it was just the mental effects of being drunk that helped him.
Regarding Joughin not drinking, it's entirely possible that he stopped drinking after the sinking to avoid unpleasant memories resurfacing.
Ding ding ding
That's very possible. We remember memories more clearly when we're in the same state as when those memories were formed. Like how when you're sad, it's difficult to remember when you were happy. When you're sober, it's more difficult to remember your drunk memories, so staying sober would help him avoid those traumatic memories.
Admittedly, the guy they cast as Joughin in the movie did bear a striking resemblance despite the age difference.
In the movie all persons on the ship were hired because they were near doubles for them. I have seen photos of the original Captain and the movie Captain is near his identical twin.
@@yfelwulf Good old perfectionist Cameron
@@user-cp9id1mj8b IMO "A Night To Remember" is the better portrayal of Smith as a character. In Cameron's version he's a bit too dazed and lost where during the sinking he was a lot more pro-active, giving orders, trying to do what he could.
@@yfelwulf the 1997 movie actor is Bernard Hill, King Theoden in LotR.
@@fawful94 👌
Charles Joughin was my great uncle. My mother, his neice, died in June 2021. Uncle Charlie wrote a letter congratulating her on marrying my father, from his home in New Jersey in 1956. None of us have any idea where the 'he didn't drink' story comes from!
That's great. As a practicing alcoholic I now damn well it can do good when consumed correctly. I'll negotiate a multimillion dollar contract when properly sauced. I'm a cook in my sober life. I feel I'm in good company. I'm raising my glass to him now. To a gentleman and hero who did it his own way! Cheers!
Not an Alcoholic, but I too will raise a glass. That man was a damn legend. Waiting until after he saved as many as possible before drinking his ass off? Nice.
@@charlotteshenkenberger345 I don't think he waited...
"Some family members said he was drinking schnaps."
Me as a German: "Gee... that narrows it down... what kind of Schnaps?"
Exactly. It can mean so many things.
"All the Schnaps" possibly
@@TastingHistory If he was in charge of making pastries too, it could have been kirschwasser, or another fruit flavored schnapps used in baking.
@@MariaMartinez-researcher not a bad theory
@@MariaMartinez-researcher thats a good thought!
Depending on what was baked, rum would also be a commen addition, but I really got no clue in that regard so no way of making an educated guess what is actualy likely
one of my favorite titanic stories is how wallace hartley's violin somehow survived the sinking. a million dollars is dirt cheap for what it is but i'm glad it's in a museum instead of a private collection.
He strapped it to his body in its case. It was recovered on his body by the morgue ship and sent to his fiancé in England. It was gifted to one or two people and lived in an attic for decades. Popped up in the 2000s and the people authenticating it confirmed that it had spent time in salty ocean water. Unreal.
@@ravenel2 yes, that's right. there was also a paper trail and the container was initialed. i know it would be absolutely horrible-sounding and probably shatter if tuned, but i'd really love to hear it played. the whistles have been blown again, and it would be nice to hear the echo of one more song from the band. it would have to be nearer my god to thee, naturally. the hundred year anniversary would have been a good time to play it.
I knew Joughin threw deck chairs overboard but I had not heard how he threw women and children into boats. Seems like a fellow who didn't mess around much.
Hell, think of it like this: He was in a position to understand the gravity of the situation, even if the passengers did not. It was not time to screw around.
Its amazing that he survived the night and part of the next day in the water, then had enough strength to swim "50 yards" to the rescue boat. Kind of unbelievable.
Absolutely fascinating
Dude was simply built different
No shit, right. And even more unbelievable is all the people in the comment section who believe this shit. Kind of makes you wonder about human kind.1
@@LukaDonesnitchoh congrats surely you've encountered people in life that seem to just weather things even physical things? If you haven't, maybe you are one and just don't realize
Lol I said oh cmon, love my phone
As a fellow Titanic enthusiast, I'd love to share my personal (one of many) favorite stories: ''In the water Saloon Steward Harold Philimore was still lying on top of a piece of floating wreckage. The man hanging on alongside with him hard grown steadily weaker. Finally the man had sad, ''What a night'', rolled off into the water and died.'' (source: "On The Sea of Glass"). I know technically it's not funny, but a lethal sinking of a ship being called ''What a night'' and it being your last words is...truly something XD
I get it, but man, that’s a really really sad story actually. Ha
Honestly, those are some fine last words. I'll drink to him, it was indeed quite a night. Historical one might say 😅
It was just too much for him. He just got tired.
I think those are worthy last words. Leave them on a joke or a one liner. You’ll in turn live forever.
A night to remember
What a story! I’m glad he got to live to tell it. I find it very interesting that James Cameron touched on some of the more minor real-life survivors in the event but wonder why he didn’t use more of the employees like Violet Jessop in particular. She deserves a movie of her own for surviving three sinkings!! Someone someday must make an Upstairs/Downstairs kind of movie that focuses on the lesser-known employees who were on board. Julian Fellowes, I’m looking at you dude!!
because he wanted to focus on the stupid love story between characters who were NEVER there!. Seriously, people; A Night to Remember is SO much better!
@@DDlambchop43 Yeah, 97 is straight trash. Even that horrid animated film is better than Cameron's atrocity.
The hard tack is always a laugh. Thanks not only for the drink, but the history lesson. Truly great stuff.
*CLACK-CLACK*
I did make some hardtack after that video, and yes, it really sounds like that, but I have to confess, I really liked it. You can´t bite it, sure, but you can slowly nibble away, it really is nutritous, I really liked the taste of toasted flour, and it looked as if it would stay good for almost forever. I ate all of it by now, though.
How did I go my entire life without knowing about this legend? 😂😂😂 His quotes killed me.
It's believed that most of the people who went into the water died of cold water shock rather than hypothermia. Basically the shock of being submerged into freezing water causes loss of motor control, hyperventilation, and even potentially even heart attacks. If he was liquored up, he wouldn't have felt the cold, and this could have helped him live longer than the others in the water.
That's a good theory. It probably helps that he stepped into the water instead of being thrown in.
The dude was pickled with "antifreeze"! And he might have been one of those rare individuals who actually went into a kind of suspended animation that sci-fi and scientists are trying to achieve for deep space exploration. Who knows
That actually makes sense, as I remember reading something about alcohol actually reducing your body's ability to keep warm, but prevents you from feeling cold. And if the water was cold enough to cause a lot of people to die from hypothermia as quickly as a lit of the them died, there's no way that guy could have lasted as long as he did, or even the partially submerged people clinging to wreckage. Shock makes a lot more sense, because there's a whole lot of variability in people's susceptibility to it. (As seen from the fact that some people died from shock as a result of pre-anesthesia amputations and surgeries, while others managed to avoid shock all together - though they didn't always survive either due to infections and such...)
@@Amy_the_Lizard its like when you swim for a while your body gets used to the temp and since he was drunk he didnt have a mental breakdown and give himself physical anxiety
This reason is why Rose in the movie wouldn’t have been able to blow the whistle to get the lifeboats attention. Her motor control would have been too little to be able to grip the whistle, let alone breathe in a big enough breath to blow it.
This whole story has always just pleased me to no end. I'm glad he made it.
Man. You improve all of humanity simply by being a part of it.
☺️ that makes my day better
Seconded! We love you Max🥰
What a hero. I'm glad he survived. His humor is a treat.
I watched "a night to remember" again recently with my mum. The portrayal of Charles joughin by George rose was really amazing... especially the bit when he looks over and sees people grabbing onto the deck chairs he threw into the Atlantic with a drunken "my work here is done" smile on his face.
A Night to Remember is definitely the best Titanic film
That is a *great* film. (And only slightly shorter than the actual sinking.)
@@battra92 ITA.
@@battra92 beats the lifeboats off the '96, that's for the sure.
I watched the movie because of this comment. Watching that scene made me laugh even despite the chaos. Thank you.
My 91 year-old mum-in-law is from Birkenhead and quite a fan girl of Titanic, playing a survivor telling of her time aboard. She is part of a local public access channel in Great Barrington, MA. I'll have to put her onto your story about this.
As a deaf fan and an accessibility consultant, I just want to say how much I appreciate the way your captions are done. Accurate and thorough and with a little fun on the side? Excellent. Thank you so much.
All Jose, 3-4 hours each week one each :x
@@TastingHistory Thank you, Jose!! You are setting an example for so many and it is so, so appreciated 💗I know firsthand how much work things like captions can be, or transcripts (which I do for all my podcasts), so please know your hard work is seen!!
@@TastingHistory Late to the thread but my boyfriend who is Chinese appreciates it also while he is continuing to learn English. So thanks a lot to you and Jose from one gay couple on the other side of the pond to the other! x
One explanation I heard about how Joughlin survived was that while he wasn't drunk enough that his capillaries we're opened and so waste body heat, he WAS just drunk ENOUGH that he wasn't wasting energy by flailing about, or having an elevated heartbeat.
Though it's likely the timeline is skewed and he only had his legs in the water that full time and his torso was on Collapsible B most of the night.
Two hours of treading water in the middle of the night in the north Atlantic is _insane._ What an incredible feat of strength and will that must've been.
I believe it was implied he had on a life vest because he had on screen an old life vest when talking about the baker being on the stern, still very exhausting but without it there would have been no way *he could have survived* even Olympic athletes can't last more than 30 min to an hour while treading in freezing cold water
Looking it up, the water temperature around the _Titanic_ was probably about -3°C, which means you're hypothermic after 15 minutes and dead after 30, so yeah! ...I once flew from the UK to Iceland. Someone in the seat in front of me was watching _Titanic_. (a) I despise that movie with a passion; (b) the flight wasn't actually long enough for the entire film; and (c) what a movie to fly over the North Atlantic to...
@@hjalfi actually the part about dying after 30 min isn't true, if you have a life vest on you can be in waters that cold for up to 2 hours before getting to lethal hypothermia. The caveat is you *have* to have a life vest. Because the reason so many people die in cold water is they get sent into shock when they hit the water and pass out from the cold, which makes them drown.
I worked in the North Pacific (bering sea) for 2.5 years and the thing they always hammered home was wearing a life vest for that exact reason, cause even in the summer the water didn't get above like 10 C
@@Nullsparta2 "the reason so many people die in cold water is they get sent into shock when they hit the water and pass out from the cold"
Maybe here is where the alcohol might have helped him. He might have been so drunk, that he was mostly calm and collected, avoiding him to enter that state of shock. He might have also not moved a lot, letting the life vest do all the work in floating. Which allowed him to safe precious energy, energy that allowed him to survive.
@@Nullsparta2 I would imagine that the life vest also helped keep the body insulated to some extent from the water temp, which, along with the buoyancy, would help with survival.
I don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but the reason the liquor probably saved him wasn't because it kept him warm--it's for the same reason a drunk driver usually survives without injury in a crash. He would have been more relaxed and therefore expended a lot less energy in shivering and splashing frantically around, likely just treading water with a bit of confused flailing here and there but not enough to exaust him
Bugger me looks like that boats sinking. Man it’s abit chilly in er’e…. Could use a bloody pie right now should ask that bear if he’s got one
It also kept the bloke on the ship longer as he went to fetch more drink!
the hard tack cut never fails to make me laugh. love it :D
It's so true it's funny everytime!!!
Always gets a wince from me having had hardtack. lol.
Every time
*clack clack!*
Nice to know I'm not the only one! ✌😸
#if it shoots send it 🇺🇦🇺🇸
All these stories are straight out of a nightmare. I couldn't even imagine going through something like that. And to see so many not survive and then continue to live life after that.
What a fantastic story, you've a way with telling them!
Thank you 😊
Yes he does, doesn't he?
Agreed really enjoyed this one.
This is now my favorite TH-cam channels. I never really enjoyed learning about history but you make it so fun. You’ve also inspired me to start cooking seriously after many years of lacking the confidence to do so. Wish me luck! 😅 also thank you!!!
You got this!
@@TastingHistory Sweet answer.
The hard tack cuts get me everytime 😂🍞 Thanks for the recipe this week Max always an experience and entertainment 🍹
The hard tack cut keeps on giving, just like hard tack itself!
It lives rent-free in my brain... And now every time anyone says hard tack I get the click clack.
Yesss, thank you Max, there it was again🤣😅😭. I was kind of wondering where you could possibly put that cut in, even on Drinking History🥃Prost!
The baker's story was fascinating stuff. I hadn't realized he was only 33. Yes, the actor who portrayed him in the movie was well into his 50's. I read that alcohol acted as an antifreeze. Something certainly worked in his favour that terrible night. He was lucky to have survived.
Is it weird I enjoy watching Drinking History even though I don't drink often? Max's descriptions of the flavors are so much more appealing to me than how alcohol actually tastes.
It's not weird to me, at least. I don't drink _at all_ yet I enjoy drinking-adjacent content. Heck, I'm a frequent viewer of a weekly stream by Penny-Arcade where they collaboratively design a themed homebrew with chat, which then gets brewed during the next stream.
I don't drink and absolutely love the series.
Yup, I'm here for the history. I can't even eat most of the food made in the main series because I'm allergic to dairy, but that doesn't stop me from being a fan.
Same. I don’t enjoy the taste or smell of alcohol, so anything stronger than wine simply isn’t enjoyable for me, but I do enjoy some mildly boozy desserts.
I like the stories, despite the fact that I find alcohol, well, yucky.
My great grandmother knew an Irish woman that survived the Titanic. She's long passed and I only met her a few times when I was really small. I REALLY wish I got to know her story. I believe my grandmother said the Irish woman lost hold of her husband in the panic, was tossed onto a lifeboat clutching their infant and with a few measly valuables in her coat (small heirlooms, I'm guessing), and after many years of searching for her husband, she learned that he had died.
Now I wonder if the baker is the one that threw her into the lifeboat, possibly saving her life. She could have died if she kept searching for her husband in all that panicked insanity.
In that situation, the proper course of action is to go to the first class bar and take a few minutes to select the likely most expensive, the oldest, the best, and your own favourite. Then sample each slowly. And then just down them all like a big damned hero. Although making one's preferred cocktail under those conditions is pretty boss conduct also.
I wonder if this is why nobody knows exactly WHAT he was drinking that night? He wouldn’t admit to raiding the first class bar! (I definitely would’ve hit it up!)😂
Yep. I'd have a giant screwdriver and a bhong the size of Alaska.
I totally believe they put his feet in the oven! I’m 45 and in the early 80’s in Scotland, when we had a coal fire, my mum would put the oven on and I’d sit on my wee wooden chair in the kitchen, with my feet in the oven while she was in the living room preparing the coal fire.
This is my first time seeing a video of yours in your bar and I spotted that flor de caña bottle! Im from the city that makes it and my grandad sells sugar cane to the company that makes it. Man of great taste I see
I was hoping you'd be covering this boy's story! I had just forgot he was the baker.
I heard that his blood alcohol was so high that it was effectively like anti-freeze
That is hilarious 😂
The only problem is not the blood freezing but alcohol makes your blood vessels expand which is why you get that warm fuzzy feeling. So in effect it does the opposite of what our bodies do to protect itself and constrict blood vessels in our extremities to conserve core body temperature so you will freeze to death a LOT fast when drinking... You'll just feel warm while doing it.
@@SilvaDreams no arguments on that. I just heard that it was the physical amount of alcohol in the blood that acted as a make-shift antifreeze. I mean, that and he was in the water for two hours top. I confess, my knowledge of bio-physics is not great enough to determine if blood alcohol can reach such a level that would grant that property without a person falling unconscious or dying first.
@@samovarsa2640 Oh you can hit that point.. Well some heavy drinkers can. I've seen people hit .25 (25%) easily despite .08 (8%) is legally drunk in most places.
But I think the highest known recorded BAC was a Polish man with a 1.48 which is truly insane.
That could have possibly helped him avoid frostbite (though probably only a tiny bit if at all), but wouldn’t have done anything to change the heat transfer from his body to the water.
I’m loving Titanic month. This has easily been my favorite series. I’d love to see more videos in a series like this!
I remember when I was younger I went to a museum with an exhibition about exactly how fucking freezing the water was when the Titanic went down. They had my put my hand on the glass and told me that was close to how cold the water was supposed to be.
Now, being like 8, I didnt know numbers. But oh my god, it was so cold I thought my hand would freeze off.
How anybody could survive _two hours_ in that is a mystery.
I was a living history actress at a Titanic museum and we had a water pool at the temperature the water was. I always had my audience stick their hands in the water and try to keep them there as long as I told the story (it lasted about 90 seconds) for that section.
@@healinggrounds19 that's even worse! i would've noped out after half a second.
Get drunk and try it again. See if it felt as cold as it did sober lol
Regarding putting him in an oven- I know they would use the unheated side of an oven to warm up an abandoned lamb or calf, so I would believe it if someone lit up one of their bakeries' ovens and rotated survivors through the unlit ones.
For all those whose knowledge of the Titanic comes from the 1997 movie, please check out "A Night To Remember," a black-and-white film made in 1958, and considered to be the most historically accurate depiction of the tragedy of the Titanic; although this movie was made decades before they discovered the Titanic had broken in half as it sank. The 1997 is probably more "physically" accurate in its depiction of the sinking ship, but the characters and events in the 1958 film are believed to be as accurate as possible. (It's still a fictional movie, not a documentary, and not absolutely 100% accurate -- but pretty accurate nonetheless.)
"A Night To Remember" is a great film based on the1955 non-fiction book "A Night To Remember" by Walter Lord. Lord did as exhaustive research as anyone could do at the time and wrote the most accurate account of the events surrounding the Titanic disaster (with, of course, the exception of the ship breaking apart). If you don't have time to read, the audiobook of "A Night To Remember" is available for free on TH-cam and is well worth a listen!
In grade 10 we read this book and watched the movie, a year or so later the Titanic was discovered and I was a fan ever since!
This series was so much fun. Entertaining, informing and of course: fabulous recipes. A new fan, a new subscriber, so happy for finding you!
This story reminds me of Guðlaugur Friðþórsson an Icelandic fisherman who in 1984 survived for 6 hours in 5 °C (41 °F) water and managed to swim to land on a island and walked over the lava rock 3 km (1.9 mi) into town
That's some Minecraft level survival, it's insane! I can't even imagine what that must be like.
After five hours at 41F, I bet he loved walking over that lava ...
@@jcortese3300 Don't quote me on it, but I think he was barefoot when he did that
@@jcortese3300 Unfortunately, lava rock is just rock, it's no longer hot ^^
@@krankarvolund7771 I forgot to add rock after lava, that's my bad
I absolutely love history, and I love cooking historical recipes...please don't ever stop this channel. It's the best channel ever.
Plus, the Titanic has always fascinated me... Can you imagine having to figure out how to survive in that position? Just the idea is terrifying.
I love having a day off and Max posts!! You make my day so much better and I'm def loving this titanic month!!
1:48 can we please appreciate the [Maxwell shakes well] in the captions lmao
Man imagine if max was actually the barman in your local village pub, telling historic tales of times forgotten....you'd never want to leave
A fun Titanic related story. This took place back when the movie came out. My sister and I went to Border's Books and there were Titanic displays all over the store. At the checkout counter, they had a huge display. While I was being cheked out, I said to my sister, "I don't know what the big deal is. Everyone knows the boat sinks." The clerk stopped scanning my books and looked at me in disbelef, "Whaat?" "Yeah, the Titanic sunk." She looks over to another clerk and asks, "Is that true?" The girl confirmed it. She slammed the register shut. "Thanks a lot for ruining the movie for me!"
Idk how you've continued to make great content this whole time without getting sloppy like so many other youtubers, but I'm here for it! Keep it up bro
It’s a remarkable story - even if you discount some for embellishments. The man had nerves of steel, a clear head, and a strong constitution. One of my favourite stories from the Titanic.
An interesting story! I have heard of many stories of people who survived the Titanic but this one I haven’t heard before. Thank you! Can’t wait for Tuesday 😊
I have just discovered your channel and I am now attempting to binge watch (and make) everything you have produced here. You have managed to take my two favourite subjects, history and eating/drinking and combine them into an entertaining, educational, informative and all-around fun channel. Staring into those baby blues don't hurt, either. Thank you for this and I look forward to seeing the rest of what I have missed as well as all that you have yet to offer. Bu you andetst.
The alcohol definitely didn't help him survive by keeping him warm, alcohol makes you lose bodyheat quicker by dilating veins, the reason this gives the feeling of being warmer is all the warm blood now flowing to your skin (where it'll then lose heat faster..).
It might have played a part in his survival in the water for so long though, but not through keeping him warm. It might have played another part contributing to his survival. It could also just be happenstance that he happened to be a survivor and happened to have drank a lot (was he girthy perhaps?, being obese is literally having more insulation...) Alcohol does a lot however, dilates veins, lowers bp, might decrease chances of cramping up threading water so long, might decrease cardiac arrest risk doing this. All just speculation ofc. All I can say for sure is it didn't help him retain heat in the water.
it might have been that he didn't waste energy shivering because his nervous system wasn't reacting to the cold. So he may have had more damage to his cells long term, but short term, he had enough energy to stay afloat
So he felt warm
@@bellasmith7283 Makes sense! Plus he might not have been freaking out as much as the other (sober) people were
@@sarahwatts7152 I think that is a valid point. Panic is what usually kills people BEFORE their other extenuating circumstances. Avoiding panic is best in all circumstances.
Definitely don't try this. Alcohol generally raises your chances of drowning, as hundreds of deaths of drunk swimmers each year can attest.
Bro your story telling is top notch amazing Content ❤
How to become one of history's most famous drunks:
>drink a lot
>somehow survive the sinking of the titanic
Harder to do than it sounds, I’m sure.
Getting drunk is the easy part. Sinking the RMS Titanic will need some work.
@@TastingHistory Well, being drunk has saved many people throughout history
@@averagedemographic8933 Especially since he was in the group with the worst survival rate: crew/White Star employees, who had a worse survival rate than 3rd class passengers.
Worth noting gender played a bigger disparity than class, due to the "women and children first" policy.
First class: 62%; 3rd class: 25%: vs. Women and children: 75%, Adult Men: 20%. Crew overall were even worse than third class; only about 24% survived.
Also worth noting: 3rd class women (46%) had a better survival rate than first class men (33%). Being adult male hurt your chances more than being 3rd class did.
Last note: All 24 2nd class children survived; the only group of people with perfect survival. There were only 6 first class children, and 5 of them survived. Sadly only 27 of the 79 3rd class children survived.
Well, there are a LOT of famous drunks in history.
How do you only have 1M subs?! You should easily be 10M. Best mix of history and culinary content period.
Only thing we need is max now going to countries and making food there, old Italian dishes in the Tuscan countryside would be a lovely series of videos, maybe by 2 million subs lol.
I’d love that 😁
@@TastingHistory That would be “Drinking Geography.”
I love history, but I am a geographer, I’d like to see my field get its due.
Max - you MUST watch the classic 1958 "A Night To Remember" - it gives our hero a LOT more screen time throughout the movie. He's played for a bit of comic relief, but it's fascinating. You might get a kick out of it! Thanks for a great video!
Ethanol does freeze at a very low temperature, maybe it acts like antifreeze. worth a shot anyway of I'm ever on a sinking ship
Worth multiple shots lol
Drinking alcohol lowers your body temperature, the warmth is temporary and more a feeling than what's actually happening in the body
@@johnr797 Drinking doesn't lower your body temperature, it causes your blood vessels to expand which is why you feel warm when drinking because well more blood is flowing.... And that is what kills you faster. Normally our bodies constrict the blood vessels to protect the core body temperature, so you just feel warm and fuzzy as you freeze to death twice as fast while drinking.
@@SilvaDreams having the expanded blood vessels means heat leaves your body more quickly, thus lowering your body temperature. You can look it up.
Copying my comment about this from another threat:
"It seems impossible to achieve an anti-freeze effect through ethanol intake without dying from alcohol poisoning first.
Blood has a similar freezing point to water (being composed mostly of if). To lower the freezing point of water from 0 °C to even just -4 °C (25 °F) you need an ethanol concentration of 10%.
Having a blood-alcohol-level of 0,8% is pretty much a guaranteed death sentence.
The myth of alcohol helping in the cold probably stems from the fact that it widens your blood vessels, making you feel warmer.
At the same time, the temperature regulation of your body works less effectively while being intoxicated, which ironically makes you die even faster of hypothermia."
alcohol WONT keep you warm, quite the contrary in fact. alcohol will dillute the walls of blood vessels, increasing surface area, enabling more heat exchange and cooling which will lead to quicker frostbite or death.
however alcohol might desensitize you to the cold, and aching feet after hours of pushing water
From the tale you tell it sounds like to me the treading water is what kept him alive. If he didn't have a life vest on then the active movement of keeping above water would have warmed his body. The alcohol probably helped him from feeling cold and made him more comfortable prevented him from panicking and therefore exerting too much energy and causing him to tire out quicker.
Im also geussing that his drunkness kept him from getting cold shock which is how most people drown in cold water.
The foresight to throw chairs into the water is really something. Not many survived the water but maybe a few that did were because of one of those chairs.
5:03 I was not expecting hardtack in this episode, so that was an absolutely welcome surprise 😹😹😹😻😻😻
My favorite video yet! I like it how you lean in to the "funky character" histories. Cheers!
This is a crazy story. Man chose the right time to get drunk.
I don't even drink but I probably would have done the same. May as well.
I'm not sure what the medical procedure for frostbite/hypothermia was back then so I can't tell if that part of the story was true, but the oven thing did strike me as plausible at first blush because I've read plenty of accounts of people warming up semi-stillborn livestock or "dead" kittens and puppies in their kitchen ovens (generally wrapped in a blanket and stuffed into a box or washbasin or dishpan) up through the late 1800s and the animals making a full recovery since heat is so vital in those moments. If they had mild ovens that were kept at a lower temperature it's entirely possible that they might have been using them to warm people up if that was the accepted procedure for those medical conditions during the time, since they were definitely popping animals into them to provide (often effective!) veterinary care.
The most common theory according to science
Alcohol constricted the blood vessel sufficiently so he did not radiate all his body heat out of his thrashing limbs essentially keeping most of his warm blood pumping between the head and torso.
furthermore the calming effect of being drunk must have helped staved off the shock and the instill of panic so thats definitively another factor that helped him conserve energy and even body heat.
(Thrashing and moving a lot helps generate heat in you but in cold water its negligable (how is that word spelled again?))
Many types of alcohol are also packed with sugar and calories plain and simple.
We have a few similar stories of fishermen who went through the same thing here in Iceland
Thing to remember
If you're staring death in the face it cannot hurt your chances to down a few stiff ones,
Or
As the old irish proverb goes
"Alcohol never solves any problem.... but then again... neither does milk"
NO!!
Please, people, alcohol dilates the blood vessels at the surface of the skin. This may make you feel warmer, but actually draws blood away from your vital organs AND causes you to lose heat to the environment faster making you even more prone to hypothermia. It's a funny anecdote, but alcohol is NOT a way to survive the cold. He was a very lucky man.
Negligible. "The effect on Bullwinkle was negligible!" "Didn't bother me much, either!"
I don't know about alcohol keeping you warm... But ethanol does have a lower freezing temperature than water. Maybe the ethanol in his blood was acting as a kind of anti-freeze? I'm definitely not a doctor, so I can't say for certain, but it seems plausible.
when we're drunk we 'feel' warm even though we're not warmer, but this feeling might suppress things like shivers which will cause you to lose body heat more rapidly if you are submersed in cold water. kind of analogous to going limp when falling or rolling is much safer, despite your instincts to stiffen up and catch yourself.
The polar bear was shaking it's paw at the reckless driver who sideswiped his glacier.
I loved this one! Titanic month is my favorite so far!!
Thank you, Jacque!
It was brandy according to A Night To Remember, which is one of the best books on the topic I've read, published in the '50s.
I already knew this story, but your telling of it was excellent. This guy was a legend.
This reminds me of an account I read about one Commodore Colin Maud RN. Who is probably best remember for his depiction in the 1962 film "The Longest Day" starring John Wayne and Sean Connery. Maud being the principal beach master of Juno beach during the Normandy landings. Going back to September 25 1942 Maud is Commander of HMS Somalia which sinks in bad weather due to damage from being torpedoed. Maud is finally pulled from the Arctic water after about an hour. He credits his survival to having drunk a good amount of whiskey after having gone into the water.
I had JUST finished the rice soup video Max!! Your timing is always spot-on, as is your content! 🤩💜
I am so glad that I discovered your channel. Food and drink are the true defining symbols of different time periods across the world, and you do such an excellent job of portraying history in such a light and fun way. I can’t wait to watch more of your videos!
"...and Hardtack."
"Say the line, Max!"
**clack, clack**
**Cheers, applause**
What a great story! I think the "hardtack tap" should be in every video. My layman's guess regarding the alcohol's "assistance" is that the main benefit might have been that of relaxation. Panic (understandable in this situation) could have made things worse, as happens in auto crashes. In DUIs, the drunk is often unhurt, as we've all heard.
Quality content delivered as per the usual, Max.
I suppose the moral of the story is that when things goes icy, the answer may be found at the bottom of the bottle.
After a 113 hour week at work, I FINALLY get to watch Tasting History as much as I please, without having to try to fall asleep as fast as I possibly can, to rest before my next shift. 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🙌🏻
Mr. Joughlin! Still my favorite thing about the film.
The Ice Pokemon in each of these vids are a chilling but funny touch lol
The themed episodes are great. Keep it up.
Thank you 😊
Such an interesting tale from such a tragic night. Him actually helping folks and not rushing for space on a life-boat was truly admirable. I very much doubt things would be the same today.
He'll always have a way to segway a hardtack
These things write themselves 🤣
twist ending: there really was a polar bear, it crawled across the hull of the ship and used its claws to carve deep gouges in the hull that caused the sinking. the iceberg story was just made up to cover up the existence of angry bears that sink any ship that comes their way so they can eat the passengers and crew
Me on a sinking cruise ship...
No one panic!!! I have the perfect cocktail recipe!
I just need to consult my saved Max video. He truly has something for every occasion, especially if it involves hardtack
Hopefully you have WiFi
I love how serious the background is with all the bar stuff and then there is just a little plush
Great episode, Max! I love this theme and I'm happy that you started with third class and are including drinks, as well! This is an excellent way to integrate the two prongs of your channel and I love it!
A really awesome guy. Thanks for telling his story.
[Maxwell shakes well] put a smile on my face. Thank you for the wonderful subtitles every time!
I still have a strange fascination with Titanic. Its so strange the when my fascination began one of the Titanic survivors was still alive. What a guy Charles was getting all thise Children into the boats.