Ep 108: Dan Aykroyd (Bonus Episode)

James, huge news from the world of off-menu and indeed the world of the world.

Yes.

Ever heard of the Royal Albert Hall?

I have.

We've done live shows there.

And guess what?

We're doing more live shows there next year.

Sure, a lot of them are sold out already.

But we thought, hey, throw these guys a bone.

Let's put on one final Royal Albert Hall show in that run.

The show will be on Monday, the 16th of March.

It's going to be a tasting menu, a returning guest coming back, receiving the menu of another previous guest.

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

You'll have to come along on the 16th of March to find out.

If I'm correct in thinking, presale tickets go on pre-sale on the 10th of September.

Pre-sale tickets are 10th of September at 10 a.m.

And then the general sale is 12th of September at 10 a.m.

So if you miss out on the pre-sale, don't forget general sale is only two days later.

The day in between is for reflecting.

Get your tickets from royalalberthall.com or offmenupodcast.co.uk.

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Welcome to the Off-Menu podcast, picking up the doughnut of chat and licking off the sugar of humor from your dirty little fingers.

Hello, James Acasta.

Hello, Ed Gamble.

How are you today?

Very well.

Thank you, James Acasta.

Bit of a bonus e, a B ep today.

And you know what that means?

No one can complain about it.

Because it's a bonus.

I think that's the rules, isn't it?

If it's a bonus ep.

I mean, really, and I'll say this now, no one can complain about it anyway because it's a free podcast.

Yes.

But especially today, as it's a bonus,

if you're expecting certain things from it,

you might not get them, and that's fine.

Yeah, and do you know what?

Anything that you expected that you didn't get, we expected to, and we didn't get them, and

we were doing the podcast.

So, we were doing it.

So, that doesn't matter.

Don't make it all about you.

It's you know, and sometimes not getting what you expect is actually quite a lot of fun.

If you just decide to go with it anyway,

you just sit back and relax, and you go, oh, I expected this to be a guest coming into the dream restaurant and saying what their favorite ever-starter starter main course dessert side dish and drink are.

And that's what every single episode of the Off-Menu podcast is.

And listen, it's not not that.

It's not not that.

So keep that in mind.

That's the bare minimum that we promise someone doing their dream meal.

We have a special guest come in and they describe their dream meal.

And our special guest today in this bonus episode is Dan Aykroyd.

Dan Aykroyd.

Dan Aykroyd.

Ghostbuster.

Blues Brother.

Dan Aykroyd.

Yeah.

My girl, driver Miss Daisy.

He's been been in all sorts of

Ghostbusters.

I mean, look, his legacy is completely that is secured.

Yes.

And also, not only that, he also has a vodka.

I don't know if he'll bring it up, so let's plug it now.

Yes.

Crystal Head Vodka.

They've just released a Crystal Head for Pride in a rainbow crystal head bottle.

Looks wonderful.

And, you know, we wanted to talk to Dan Aykroyd about food because of Crystal Head.

And

look, we've already recorded the episode, we know what happens,

and we're I'm looking forward to you hearing it.

It's you know, there's every now and again we release an episode, and I think not only would I like to be in the room when uh people that I know are listening to it, I would like to be in the room when everyone listens to this episode.

I would like to see everyone's reactions to it, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we genuinely enjoyed this.

We actually

had a brilliant time.

The thing is, there was no way I wasn't going to enjoy this.

It's actual Dan Aykroyd.

We were so buzzed to speak to him.

He really knows his food.

He obviously knows his vodka.

The other thing I will say at the top of this is this was not a paid branding opportunity from his vodka company.

It is very important that people know that.

Hashtag not an ad, hashtag just the just the chat.

But we often have people on promoing their wares, actors, comedians, that sort of stuff.

And at the beginning, we have to force a plug-in because they really don't want to talk about what they're doing.

They just want to chat about, just do the podcast.

We didn't have to do that with Dan.

This is not a sponsored episode.

No.

We haven't received any money from Crystal Head.

Not spawn.

Look, and also all this chat now, I really liked him and

it was really fun.

Yes.

So I hope you enjoy it, but it's not necessarily the traditional back and forth interview format that you're used to on off menu.

All we're doing is trying to impress upon you that it isn't what you're used to and that this isn't a branded episode.

We loved it, we had a great time.

I think he had a good time.

I hope so.

Uh, Dan, if you're listening, I hope you had a great time.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Enjoy it, treat it for what it is: a bonus episode with a genuine bona fide legend, secret ingredient.

Oh, ectoplasm.

It's ectoplasm.

Yeah, ghostbusters.

Note the date and the time.

Know where you were when you heard this episode.

Strap in because the menu's coming at you thick and fast.

It's the off-menu menu of Dan

Welcome, Dan Aykroyd, to the Dream Restaurant.

Hello, Ed.

Hello, James.

Wow.

Wow.

Welcome, Dan Aykroyd to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

The Dream Restaurant would be...

Let's think of it as Canada, my home in the summer, because we have a log cabin there, and I run luggage uh from the station and back i'm a luggage mule all all summer it's it's as if it's just a resort or a hotel so uh we've had some really great chefs in there david agi out of toronto ben deforest out of martha's vineyard and they have served up uh comp you know incomparable feasts and so i've prepared the the the evening i'll tell you about the evening and the meal that we would have at the at the dream restaurant let's call it uh loon lodge loon lodge dan i think this is the first time i think we've done maybe 107 episodes of this.

This is the first time someone's come straight in with a name for their dream restaurant.

Yes.

Well, it would be my home.

You see, my dream restaurant would be my home.

Of course, I love Kennon Beck's down there and where Ben DeForest works in Martha's Vineyard.

And there's so many restaurants.

A new one opening up, Vela here in Toronto, the Johnny Goodman's place.

Not John Goodman, the actor, but the entrepreneur John Goodman,

Johnny Goldman, I mean.

So, you know, that connection with fine chefs and purveyors of great food over the years has

served me well, and

I have thrown many a party.

So, the dream restaurant would be Bear's Head Cabin, Loon Lodge,

the Bear's Head Lounge, and then moving on to

the formal dining, outdoor dining porch.

We're talking outdoors, are we, Dan?

It's screened in, yes.

Take us through the scene in front of you.

Okay, so the scene would be, we're talking, probably serving about 20 good friends, and we would be, I would be sending the 1932 V12 Piercero 1604 limousine to pick them up.

They would pull up to the cabin.

They would be greeted with my bar staff serving a bar car martini.

That's the crystal head, two and a half ounces of it,

shaken in a, in a, with ice chips

and into a tumbler glass with ice, with a rind of lemon or pearl onion or olive.

Along with that would be a setting of pecorino and stilton with red pepper jelly.

Could I just say this is the normally we have to tease these things out of people and you are so ready to get into the food.

Normally we maybe ask some general questions about whether you know you've been a foodie for a long time.

Have you always loved food?

Did you grow up with food or anything?

Oh, we can sure.

Well,

I think if we go through the dream meal, you'll see and you can stop me anytime

or

ask me once we've gone through.

But they'd arrive in the V12.

They would have a bar car martini served to them, very very clean vodka that we serve.

Of course, no additives, Crystal Head is no additive product.

Then the pecorino and Stilton with red pepper jelly, cards, table water, crackers, olives,

little cocktail pickles, and

maybe some pearl onions again.

So then we would move into the screened-in porch, which overlooks the cliff on the lake, that the old family farm is on there.

And we would move on to a papardel pesto as a sort of

also a secondary appetizer.

I love a good pesto.

I search the world for pesto, and papardel noodles to me the best noodles to use with pesto.

Now, I don't cook at all.

I can barely take a piece of toast and put it in a coat hanger and get it to brown.

I don't cook at all.

But I do appreciate good food, and the skill of some of the people we've had working at the farm over the years is quite outstanding.

So we'd have the bar card martini, the pecorino, stilt, and red pepper jelly with the cards, table water, crackers, crackers, olives, pickles, and onions.

We'd move on to the papa del pesto.

And in the summer, there's nothing in Canada like a mixed grill.

So that would be baby lamb chops with mint jelly.

a T-bone steak with au jus

and fresh grated horseradish, lemon half chicken, skin on, and that would be on a fairly nice big gas or charcoal broiler.

And then to accompany that, of course, Yorkshire pudding with gravy and peas, Brussels sprouts with a maple glaze.

You know, we have Canadian maple syrup here, the best in the world.

And then we'd move on to garlic mash and rosemary roasted potatoes in there as part of the cooking.

And that would all be served together.

So I'm not eating fish these days because I think, you know, they're disappearing fast.

So it would be chicken, lamb chops, t-bone.

And then after that, we would have a chopped Caesar salad, not cheesy, more lemony than cheesy, you know, chopped up.

And all along the way, of course, we'd be serving the finest Chateau Margot, red for red, and the Palmire White.

It's a great vineyard there in California.

A lovely Chardonnay that they make, very kind of viscous and oaky and really neat to drink with food.

So, and by the way, I'm not paying for this meal.

I would get someone, I figure a promotion to get

the company in Toronto to pay for it.

This is, Dan, this is your dream meal.

You don't have to pay for it.

You know, we've got James as our genie waiter.

He can magic anything up you like.

So, you know, this is all on us.

All right, good.

The Caesar salad and then the Margot and the Palmer served along the way.

For dessert, we would have an espresso martini with the crystal head.

Again, no additives to make an award-winning dream.

We just won another award with our Onyx bottle right here.

Toy Soldiers.

This is our Onyx.

This is a Blue Weber Agave vodka.

This is a piano finished bottle, Blue Weber Avodka, of course, is what they make.

tequila out of.

We do a vodka distillation and filtration treatment on it.

And so we'd have that in an espresso martini, and that would be accompanied by a dessert of a mocha da croix,

lemon squares, a black velvet cake, a black forest cake.

And then to those who wanted an Arturo Fuente cigar with a Chateau y Chem, a beautiful Sautern, right?

Or brandy or whiskey, Mission Signal Hill Whiskey out of Canada is a lovely brand.

A nice whiskey, a brandy, you know, something as a digestif.

And then in Canada, where it's legal, I would offer a two-gram Chernobyl pre-roll sativa blunt with blue rhino bud and blue crush Keef for those who would want that.

And then

jugs of warm lemon water as everyone gets up from the porch.

Lots of lemon water, jugs.

And then the evening's not over because then we go to the fire because it's Canada.

We have a massive fire there.

a big bonfire and we will do plain doughnuts, just plain donuts, but rolled in butter and then grilled

with coffee and then Patron XO, the beautiful beverage out of Patron XO for all-night dancing, all-night partying.

This is obviously a dream meal to be accompanied with a party that goes to 4-5 to dawn, really.

This is the kind of entertainment we used to do

at Loon Lodge.

And so, when you told me to come up with my dream meal, it wasn't hard.

I've had it there, and I wanted to share it with the world through you.

We'd have

music.

The music we would have would be, you know, Sam Moore jamming by the fire with Keith and ronnie yeah so dan i mean wow there's a lot to talk about there especially uh do bear in mind that our producer it's his job during these to write down everything our guest has ordered so james can read their order back to them later and i'd imagine his hands falling off uh because there is so much in there but it sounds absolutely incredible well i've got a few questions because you talked about the heydays of loon lodge and i was wondering like your 20 guests who you've got for this yeah are there particular 20 guests you have in mind mind?

Who are the kind of people you'd love to come along?

Absolutely.

Bill Murray, Paul Schaefer, Chevy, Chase, Lorraine Newman, Jane Curtin, my colleagues from SNL, Lauren Michaels and his family, and then just local friends.

And then my family, which is, you know, can run from 7 to 12 at any given time.

And they've been to, all these people have been to your Loon Lodge parties in the past.

Yes, they have.

They have been and

have enjoyed it.

They would love this meal.

I know my friends well.

And now there's no duck in here, no fish or anything, but it's a pretty basic dream meal.

And the T-bones, you do them right on the grill.

You cross-sear them, and then there's a no juice that comes with them that you gather.

And not too thick of a T-bone now, about a half inch, not on a big thick.

Don't impress me there.

I want the half inch cut because it's so much easier to manipulate and it's moist

and very tasty.

And the way they do beef up here around Canada is pretty impressive.

If you're a meat eater, I'm imagining being a local friend invited to this party and then walking through the door and seeing who else was at the party and being absolutely terrified and turning around.

Uh, well, I don't know.

Most of my friends here have met

my well-known group, uh, from show business and that, the well-known group of friends.

Uh, and and you know, the people that I that I live with up here and and that uh are around are

pretty basic.

Nothing nothing impresses uh somebody from the country up here uh too much other than you know a good rainfall a good hay crop uh

a fine a drink around the fire you know we take people as they come qual the qualification for friendship in my mind is uh is a good heart and uh not so much fame or accomplishment but a good heart and spirit so those are the only people that walk through my my doors so you've talked about one in the t-bone.

Now let's delve into that a bit more.

I'd like to know when you realized that was your favorite kind of steak, that was the cut for you.

We've had people on this podcast before, Dan.

Once we had a guest on this podcast, and they chose a steak as their main, but they chose a well-done rump steak, and it upset them.

Charge up the chainsaw.

Whoa, boy.

Well, the T-bone, because of the bone, the bone, the bone, there's just, if it's cooked right, the flavor comes through out of that bone.

You get a no juice out of it.

And, you know, the tender loin, the tender part of it there that you cut away easily is just, it morselizes as if it were chocolate.

And then if the other side of it, the longer side, is done right,

it's very easy to cut and dissolves in the mouth beautifully at a medium, well cooked temperature.

Yeah, so I love the tea bone.

I fell in love at the farm before Loon Lodge was built.

We just had a couple of shacks there by the lake.

We used to throw those t-bones on the grill.

We had a McGreer grocer.

He would just, you'd come in and he'd you walk in the back and you'd select the slab from where you want them, you know, would cut right off and they'd be right, you know, from the, from the yard to the butcher to the table in a half day.

And then, you know, we'd have these long harvest dinners where we'd have a table for 30 people with picnic tables all lined up.

And it was the T-bones then and nothing as elaborate as what I've gone through here, but always

peas and good garlic, mashed potato, lots of garlic.

You know, well, like, I'll just as a snack, I'll take a pan and I'll take some garlic buds.

I'll peel them, I'll put them in there with a little oil, just and do them up like nuts and just eat them.

Oh, delicious.

Yeah, they're delicious and great for the blood and a healing, very, very healing plant.

Oh, how often do you do that?

How often do you get some garlic cloves and cook them up as a snack?

I haven't done it in a while.

I really should.

I did it,

well, I threw a lot of garlic into a pasta the other day that my friend was making.

So I chopped some up then, but I need the little pan.

I got to get that little pan for doing the garlic nuts.

Ben DeForest's restaurant, Kennon Beck's, is a world-renowned restaurant because people go to the vineyard as a tourist destination from all over the planet.

And Ben does the beautiful garlic buds in the little pan there.

And his specialty is pan cooking.

And it's just

really exciting to eat there.

Anybody headed to Massachusetts this summer?

Make sure you get on the ferry early.

They just hacked at the ferry to Martha's Vineyard and from Woods Hole.

They hacked into it and the boats weren't running there for a while.

You know, some ransomware outfit.

What, they hacked into them and they started controlling them?

How do you hack a boat?

They hacked them so that their electronic systems weren't working.

They couldn't depart from the dock.

Oh, wow.

And reservation also were shut down.

And so I don't know if they paid or not, but this is a world, this is World War III, what's happening here in the cyber world.

And that's why it's comforting food and drink in this world.

Very comforting.

You know, uh, after uh, I recommend to your MI6 and to all of your people in intelligence over there in Britain, and uh, they all listen, they all listen to it.

Yeah, I know that, of course, they do, they're gourmas, and they listen to everything, Turn.

They're gourmets, and gourmet, you know, this is the community that loves fine living because of government expense chips that they can turn in.

Uh, so uh, I speak to the intelligence community, I say, hang in there, but no, this is the third world war happening, and so eat and drink well.

Here's my uh MI6 Cosmo, uh, it It would be three ounces of the head,

egg white, and white cranberry juice shaken and put up in a glass, in a martini glass.

So that's the hardworking intelligence and counter-terrorist community

in England.

That's the drink.

Do you have a cocktail for every sort of industry?

If we gave you an industry, would you be able to name a cocktail that we could make for them?

Oh, sure.

Tell me, what do you think?

Chimney sweeps.

Oh, wow.

For chimney sweeps, you'd want a nice kind of a almost like a milky uh cocktail, something really sweet and milky and clean.

I would say, uh,

you know, the crystal had corn, the original one over here.

Well, it's in our pride bottle.

Pride month, happy pride month.

Uh, this is our pride bottle.

Oh, wow, look at that.

That's amazing.

Our corn is in here.

So, I would say you take the corn and you would take a little

like drambuilly and nutmeg and

some

good good good milk, just 2% milk, not too thick, and shake that up and that would kind of almost be like a cold head shake, you know.

That's the chimney sweep drink.

Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah, but fine, you know, fine food and wine are, of course, you know, such traditions in all the spy novels that have been written and the movies, you know, and England, the UK, your community does that stuff great.

And as you see, yeah, they're listening to us now.

You're right.

They're listening.

They're going to have a black cocktail.

But you say it's like in the spy novels in, you know, James Bond films as well, of course.

He has a vodka martini shaken, not stirred.

But a shaken martini is a nightmare, surely.

This is what I've heard: that no, no one who knows their martinis would order a shaken martini die.

I disagree.

I believe that a shaken martini with the right with an espresso, certainly, if you want, you want to shake that up.

You want to get a nice foam going.

You want to get that cocoa,

that coffee in there.

You want to blend that up

because it just comes out the other end like a soft cone from Dairy Queen.

It's such a treat.

Yeah.

The shaker is a beautiful sound, first of all.

And if you're going into a bar, it's one of my, well, first of all, next to the Harley-Davidson motorcycle or train wheels or the laughter of my children,

the sound of a shaky, of a cocktail shaker means fun, it means entertainment.

And it means, and the, and bar chefs can do so much now with shaken martinis that I wouldn't worry about that proviso.

But some people are going to skew to that line, and I will make you with with either of my beverages a martini uh with or without with with just the vodka and maybe lemon or nothing or little ice chips certainly i like it with ice and uh it will be delicious i think i think cocktails are important in our community as we congregate as we get back to bars bar chefs cocktails that world uh will serve mankind well if one can consume beverage alcohol moderately you know, food and the drink that goes with, and the food that goes with the drink will be so exciting to share a in a congregant community once we get the world back to normal and did you get vaccinated yet you guys I did I had my second one today good good I've had both of mine as well we're both double jabbed I got all of them I said give me give me all three I got them in the States give me all three

and they said well it wouldn't really hurt you and I didn't get sick another question that I've got to ask yes because you've been we've had so much great stuff about the crystal head vodka and like you clearly you're working on it very hard there's loads of stuff you do you're thinking about every single element of it every element of it element of the drink the ingredients the design how they work in cocktails it's on your mind a lot if i may ask you a ghostbusters question sure

and bring in crystal head

at the end

of the ghostbusters the first film ghostbusters the first yeah

you've got to not think of anything because if you think of anything it will materialize i don't want now what do you do do you think these days you would think of crystal head and then you would look down and through the streets is coming a giant skull glass and how A Do you think that's what you would think of and that is what would then attack the city and B how would the Ghostbusters defeat it?

Oh man, if I had to go back and be that character right there, I probably would go blank.

I wouldn't think of anything because you got to be careful what you wish for.

Do you think Crystal Head would just win?

Do you think it'd be a very different film?

It would be unbeatable.

But the head is very benevolent, you see.

The head has a nice little smile.

The head, I mean, it could appear in the sky as sort of of a and rain down good vodka on the crowd in the movie, I suppose.

But

no, it's not a, you know, well, some operators.

Now, the Aztec

were able to operate it for causes of doom and destruction, apparently.

But they were mostly known as crystal balls in North America and Central America.

The indigenous tribes, the Anasaze, the Zuni, the Navajo, the Aztec, the Mayans, they all had a crystal head.

So it's a benevolent skull.

It's a smiling skull.

But in its history,

I'm sure it was used by operators to call down doom upon enemies and rivals.

So the lore goes of the 13 crystal heads, which is what we based our design on.

In history, the Stave Puff Fast Mellon Man is very nice and friendly.

He is part of history.

But then at the end, turned up and was extremely, you know, because when we all thought of it.

Yeah,

he was, you know, on all the bags in stores for kids at Campfire and

was thought of as benevolent and that's why stance thought of the most benevolent thing but you've got to be careful what you wish for got to be careful now that we used to have something in canada called the angeles uh marshmallow man he was a cop to say uh the staypuff marshmallow man was a sailor if you'll recall yeah a little different but it was i i based that on the on the angelus man and the pillsbury doughboy or the michelin tire man all cute pudgy little creatures wow sure but watch out they have a bad side what do you think is the best profession for someone made entirely of marshmallow?

Good question.

Would it be a cop or a sailor or maybe another job?

Unemployed.

A psychiatrist.

Because you could just keep peppering them, they'd absorb.

Keep peppering them, and they'd absorb.

And they wouldn't need a couch.

You could just lie on their stomach and talk about your problems.

Indeed, indeed.

Well,

I hope I've helped you here for your project.

Is someone actually going to try to cook this meal?

Yeah, Bonito's going to try and cook it.

The thing is, I think

it sounds absolutely delicious.

I'm concerned that we won't be able to find the right pesto because you said that you travel the world trying to find the best pestos.

Well, tell me, find a restaurant in London, find somebody there, run a contest.

You know, we run a star tender contest with the skull.

You make a recipe and they join our star tender club and we have prizes and awards for bar chefs everywhere.

And let's do a pesto.

Let's do a...

you know, off-the-menu pesto contest.

That'd be great.

Look, I'd absolutely love that.

Were you aware, Dan, when you came up with the skull idea to put the vodka in the the skull?

I'm a big heavy metal fan.

Were you aware quite how much you were going to capture the drinking habits of the heavy metal fans?

Because it's the only vodka you see in any of these heavy metal places now.

Well, that's cool.

Wow,

I'm glad that that community's embraced it.

I think we were more looking at just the...

the aspect of it as a vessel that conveyed

not so much negative death connotations as positive, life-giving, enlightening connotations.

But we are in biker bars.

It's true.

We're in heavy metal bars.

We work hard to bring the consumer a good experience.

I think that's why it's in all communities.

But looks good in a heavy metal bar, looks good in a steakhouse, you know, right there.

Dan, you know how quite often a celebrity will put their name to a spirit and then they won't really know much about it.

They'll just put their name to it.

I'm getting the sense that's not what's going on here.

I feel like you've invested quite a lot of time in this.

Well,

I started in the tequila tequila business.

I was the agent for Patron Tequila in Canada.

So I learned about the business then and about making tequila then.

And then I was looking for other categories.

Now that's been sold to Bacardi.

I'm no longer involved.

And then decided

let's try to clean up vodka.

I didn't like the over-viscosity.

I didn't like the fact that you opened a bottle of vodka and it smelled like Chanel number 10 or it didn't smell like anything.

I didn't like the cat's tongue taste on some of them.

They were rough.

You know, know, if you don't have quality, you don't have a business.

Nobody's going to come back and drink it.

They're going to say, oh, that's nice.

We'll put that on my shelf.

I'm not going to crack another one.

Thank you.

But that's not what's happening.

We're in 78 countries with multiple awards and medals.

And I'm proud to go around the world and say, hey, it's Canadian.

Papadums or bread.

What's that?

Papadums or bread.

Dan?

Oh, Papa Dumb.

Oh, yeah.

Papa Dums for sure.

Actually, you know, I would eschew a just cast kiss goodbye to all Western cooking, even this meal I've showed you if I could eat Indian every night.

Well, we can change it if you want.

Well, well, wow, okay, so that would be papadum.

That would be

sagaloo and sagosht, and a great mild vegetarian curry, and lots of basmati rice.

And let's see,

the

that beautiful chicken that they do, the marsala chicken.

I would do lots of tandoori, have the oven just cooking like three or four birds, tandoori style.

Butter chicken, uh the doll the right uh

a few uh chipakis maybe uh

a lassi to cool it all off at the end and uh some ice cream yeah that's that's a dream indian meal right there yeah now that's easier for you to do in london maybe than the uh the monster i've uh created here for for our show would you still have a blunt at the end of your indian meal would there still be a blunt oh yes the blunt we're illegal We're illegal, yeah.

Yeah, I'd offer that to my guests.

We're illegal.

I have trouble smoking it because I get,

it makes makes me sneeze and I have something going on with the terpenes that does something to my nasal eustachian system.

I don't know.

Was that the next step for Crystal?

Maybe remove the terpenes and have like a pure, a pure weed brand?

Well, Jimmy Belushi is launching the Blues Brothers Working Man's Weed brand.

And

yeah, and so I've granted him, Judy and I, Judy Belushi, and I've granted him a license to go out and purvey to the market a product that people, that's affordable, that high quality, affordable.

Just think if

football leagues like the NFL or the, you know, allow their players, instead of going home and popping a pill for a knee injury, to smoke something or take some CBD or THC CBD.

I believe it's in its healing properties.

I really do.

My dad was on it at the end of his life for anxiety and for sleeping.

And we'd give him a few drops there and he'd sleep like a baby.

And he lived till he was 98.

And we gave him some THC too.

And he, you know, to help with hallucinations, to enhance them.

You said sativa.

That's quite a mild strain.

Is that correct?

Well, I don't know.

Maybe after the Indian meal, we'd move to an indica.

But the Chernobyl pre-roll is a beautiful product.

It's a sativa that's rolling this beautiful kief sauce.

And my guests who do indulge enjoy that.

And of course, there's no operation of boats or jet skis or motor vehicles after this.

We're sitting by the fire while this is going on, and everybody can then go off to the various cabins on the property and go to sleep.

So we put everybody up, everybody that would come that day would be put up at the place.

Your dessert sounded delicious.

Would you ever consider swapping out the dessert down and replacing it with a cheeseboard?

Well, I had the cheeseboard at the top with the pepper jelly and the pecorino and the stilton.

What would I add to that cheeseboard?

Not

much.

No, I enjoy a good cheeseboard at the end, but you've got to have your brandy, you've got to have your whiskey out of your brown spirit there, or a chateau yquem.

But sure.

I mean, you know,

I love the pecorino and I love the stilt.

And we have some great Canadian cheddars here, both yellow and white, that are wonderful.

So maybe

as the fire progresses and people get a little hungry, that's a good idea.

I'll bring out an ample cheese board.

Bring the cheese back out.

Yeah, and then

we're going to be starting.

We'll start swilling red wine again.

It'll be three in the morning and we'll be packing another bottle of Margot or a Stag's Leap or anything with a Saint or an X in it.

Yeah.

We enjoyed a Stag's Leap together once, Ed, didn't we?

We did.

And I'm literally looking.

I can see from where I'm sat, a bottle of Stag's Leap and a bottle of Crystal Head.

Oh.

So I think we'd have a good night.

Oh, no, no doubt.

We would have a great night.

Yeah, we should recreate this at the farm.

We're counting that as an invitation, Dan.

We're just going to show up on your doorstep.

We're ready.

We're opening up.

Ontario's ready.

Ontario's ready.

Fantastic.

Will you show up?

Smoke a blunt with Bill Murray?

Yes, please.

Sure.

Sure.

I want him to come anytime.

He's welcome.

He can hide out permanently at my house as far as I'm concerned, but he's a busy man.

Thank you so much, Dan.

This has been such a delicious menu.

It's been fantastic.

Thank you, man.

Have you eaten today?

Are you now going to go off and eat something?

Well,

I think I'm going to go to Shea Piggy's and I'm going to order the spring rolls and the Chiao Jiao salad, the Vietnamese-style salad with the spring rolls chopped up in it, and

also some pita and hummus.

And I will have a bar car martini.

And then I don't know what he's doing for a chicken today, but there are magnificent restaurants in this town.

Diane's Fish Bar, we've got Atomica Pizza Cafe, Woodenhead's Pizza Cafe.

There's a beautiful Tapas bar, Tuera Nevo.

And Kingston's quite for the size of the town, 200,000.

It's quite sophisticated with food and drink.

That's very helpful because we have a website for this podcast.

There's a page on the website that is all the bars and all the restaurants that have been mentioned on the podcast and there's links to them um so the more that you mention from kingston the more that are going to i think we're kind of like you know that page hasn't got much canadian uh places at the minute we're underrepresented there so if you want to mention any other great canadian restaurants and on well of course il latini in montreal and canoe in toronto and oh yeah there's a quite a variety quite a variety of good good spots here and all of them serve the head well i was going to say if any of our listeners do go to canada and they want to go and get a a head somewhere a lovely cocktail of the head where's the best place in Canada where you've personally sat and drank your own product um well I would say uh

where would I go in Toronto to sit down and have it um oh surprisingly

the Hilton Hotel the bar at the Hilton Hotel wow the guys in there are fantastic they love the product they know how to use it make it all different kinds of ways I would go there that's I know I could get a good reliable service on the cocktail there Yeah, because they've done the research.

So the Hilton in Toronto.

Have you ever been anywhere, Dan, where you've had your own products at a bar and you've had to take them aside and go, you're treating this all wrong?

Well, first of all, if my product is seen on the bar, I applaud and I immediately deplete the bottle by buying the entire room all rounds.

So I'll buy them right out of the product and then I will say, aren't we having fun?

Here's the story.

Here's why it's so good.

Why people enjoy it?

I think if I was in a bar and

someone came in and they bought the whole room drinks, that would be a big deal for me.

I've never had that happen before.

I'd be quite excited.

Huge.

If it then turned out that the person who has bought everyone drinks owns the company that make the drink, that would blow my mind.

And if that person on top of that was Dan Aykroyd, who then told me about the history of the drink and everything, I think that would be quite a memorable evening.

I mean, these people who have experienced this must have afterwards been like, hold on, did that just happen?

Well, if you were a bar operator, I would hope for a placement, permanent placement on the bar.

So,

yeah,

we're honest about it and we like people have a good time.

And it's about laughs and fun.

And,

you know,

it's the only, you know, for bar chefs, it's the only head that can talk, you know, they can talk to.

You throw it up in the ground, I'm in the air,

like a basketball.

It doesn't break.

It's all right.

I've only broken one.

Well, thank you so much for coming on off, menu.

That's a wonderful menu.

Thank you, man.

Take care.

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Well,

that was that.

Look, I loved it.

We're slightly shell-shocked still, I'd say.

Well, I didn't even read out the menu back to him.

No, because I'd imagine we don't have half the menu written down because Benito's fingers have been worn down to a nub trying to type it, as Dan said it.

He definitely tried.

Water, jugs of warm lemon water.

But that comes at the end of the meal.

The water comes at the end of the meal.

Don't forget that.

yes but we didn't really that was the only water that was mentioned so i guess we can put that in the water course a warm jug of lemon water and a vodka martini with crystal head that was at the top yeah dumbs or bread he said poppa dumbs yeah at the end but that's when he changed it to an indian meal so yes that was my fault i hold my hands up making him change it to an indian meal was my fault yeah well we but we got We got a whole Indian meal in there as well.

That's nice.

Starter, pecorino, stilt in red pepper jelly with papa del pesto.

Does sound nice.

Main, mixed grill, baby lamb chops with mint jelly, t-bone steak, half inch, horseradish, roasted chicken with lemon, Yorkshire pudding, gravy peas.

Uh James, at what point did you realise he was gonna do the whole meal?

Um, I think was it when I tried to interrupt him?

When you tried, yeah, when you when you tried to interrupt during the pecorino and um it was made very clear to you that that that won't be necessary and and he carried on and I I thought to myself, this is great.

I absolutely love it.

I'm going to see how long I can go without talking.

And if I make it to the end of the podcast, and all I've said is

walking to the dream restaurant, we've been expecting you for some time.

That would be really funny.

I mean, definitely during this bit, when it was Yorkshire puddings, gravy, peas, Brussels sprouts, garlic mash, rosemary, roast potatoes, I was like, this is the whole main.

We're in the whole main already.

Side, chopped season salad, drink Chardonnay, dessert, mocha de croise.

De croise?

espresso martini with crystal head a cigar mission hill whiskey or brandy afterwards this is afterwards with a two gram chernoby pre-roll blunt and then to the fire

doughnuts

in butter

that sounded so good we didn't even ask about the donuts or the doughnuts in butter sounded amazing oh man james can i tell you about a donut i had the other night yeah i went to a restaurant called casimir in bristol and They finished off the meal with sourdough doughnuts rolled in lamb fat and then char grilled and then rolled in salt and sugar.

Absolutely phenomenal.

I would like to try those very much.

I had an absolute nightmare during that interview.

I mean, I didn't have a lot to do, but

an Amazon man came knocking and he knocked twice.

So you probably heard that in the background.

And now someone's texting me.

And at one point, I was going to literally lean out the window and go, I am interviewing Dan Aykroyd.

And then for some reason, my eyes started weeping.

I've got no idea why.

It just went bright red, seized up and started weeping.

That's what happens if I don't don't talk for an extended period of time: my brain starts trying to escape through my face.

Yeah, oh, absolute nightmare.

All while I was interviewing Dan Aykroyd, I feel this is the kind of episode that warrants repeat listens.

I think that

it will be funny for listeners to listen to it again and know what they're going into the second time round and just really enjoy that.

It is quite funny when two podcast hosts just completely lose control of their own podcast podcast and

have to just deal with the fact that their whole entire world has changed.

And,

you know,

I think that's fun, especially while, you know,

a Hollywood A-lister

sells vodka also during it as well.

Very high-quality vodka.

This opportunity, you're not helping by saying things like that, James.

I'm going to take this opportunity to say this was not a sponsored podcast.

It was not spawn.

We expected expected Dan to mention his vodka, sure.

We know he puts a lot of time and effort into it.

And he's sort of known for it now.

But we were not paid for it.

We didn't get paid for it.

No.

No.

I've not even plugged my tour.

I should have plugged my tour.

I didn't get one opportunity to plug my tour.

And now everyone's going to go and buy a bottle of Crystal Head.

The Pride bottle is out now.

This beautiful bottle.

Yeah.

Happy Pride Month.

I loved it, though.

Look, when I was a little kid.

Watching Ghostbusters and obsessed with Ghostbusters.

If you had told me that I would grow up one day, day, I'd have a conversation.

First of all, you'd have to explain the concept of Zoom and Zoom calls.

Podcasts.

Yeah, and podcasts.

Yeah, and podcasts and everything.

Let's face it, I'm still not really

completely across that.

But he said, this man, that man there on the TV, the Ghostbuster, he will talk to you for nearly an hour.

Or basically, he'll talk to you until he's decided it's time to stop.

Yes.

And

he'll wish you good luck with your project.

Or he might say, I hope I helped you with your project.

Yeah, he said that half an hour in i hope i helped you with your project yes and that made me feel eight yes it really it really put into perspective what we're doing here yeah yeah the man who has conquered hollywood and now has a vodka empire and he talks to us goes i hope i've helped you with your your project because

whatever it is you two are doing here oh i mean i just loved it i'll be thinking about that for a long time um yeah edgamble.co.uk for tickets to my tour yes please yeah what's the what's the what's the show show called?

Electric.

Electric.

Well, he didn't say ectoplasm either.

I tell you what as well.

When I asked him who was going to be at the meal, I thought about saying for a joke, is it Bill Murray?

Yeah.

But it is.

They're popping friends.

Bill Murray, Lorne Michaels.

I'd be absolutely terrified at that.

It was nice to see the whole

these buddies with all those people.

That was nice.

Man,

I don't know.

I feel I'm going to spend quite a few days reflecting on this.

Yeah.

Sitting around and just every now and again, my mind will drift to it and I'll think about it.

I think I'll remember.

Look, shout out to Dan Aykroyd.

He'd done his prep.

Yeah.

Sometimes people show up on this podcast and they just go like a chocolate thing.

Dan, absolutely not.

He'd done his prep and he was ready to deliver everything that he'd he worked on.

This is the longest intro and outro we've ever done and quite rightly.

Gotta be.

I mean, you know,

I think that people tune into our podcast to hear the guests, but I think also, you know, we play a role in it.

And I think we've got to make up for that now.

People got to hear our voices enough at the end.

And, you know, also

just be assured as the listener that we are aware of what just happened.

Do you want to ask me any questions that you wanted to ask Dan Aykroyd or tell any anecdotes that relate to Dan Aykroyd now?

Well, something I was going to ask Dan Ayroyd was, you know, ask her to pick up on the Yorkshire puddings and say Ed doesn't like Yorkshire puddings.

It's an ongoing thing on the podcast.

Can you convert Ed to like Yorkshire puddings?

And it would have been quite impressive to see how the answer to that question ended up being about crystal head vodka.

I mean, do you know what?

That's the thing as well.

I'm not even, I mean, I really don't want this, these intros and outros, to sound like we're making fun of

anybody in a way.

I genuinely, every time he kept bringing up the stuff about the crystal head, I was like, I am weirdly invested into this.

Like, he's very passionate about it, really knows his stuff.

I was hanging on every word.

I went to Disney and Universal when I was a kid.

Yes.

With my friend and his mum.

And his mum really fancied the man playing Dan Aykroyd's Ghostbusters character at Universal.

And like we had to follow around the Ghostbusters all day.

And she asked him to marry her as a joke.

And he looked very uncomfortable.

So I thought maybe we could play around with that.

Yeah, we could have told him that.

That would have been funny.

Oh, wow.

That would have been good.

That didn't happen.

I went on a walk with my sister and uh my nephews recently and uh one of the nephews he's little boy ran really far ahead waited for us for ages for probably 20 minutes just waiting for us but looking at us the whole time we're walking down the footpath and then waiting for 20 minutes just staring at us and then when we got to him he went who you gonna call and then ran away

Great.

So, you know, he's constantly that at Croyd, inspiring every single generation, every new generation.

Ghostbusters is a thing for them, becomes a thing.

Also, a huge shout-out to you, James, for deliberately creating more work for the great Bonito in putting all those Canadian restaurants on the website.

I loved that you did that.

Yes, I was really pleased with that and thinking, like, because it's like an episode where really

you would think that no work needed to be done at all.

But we got away with hardly doing anything.

And Benito's going to be up all night typing all of those up, finding the links to them.

He's got so much work to do.

I think we should clock off this

bonus episode.

I hope I've helped you with your project.

Let's call it a day.

I've had an absolute ball.

What a weird afternoon.

And

yeah.

I've had a great time.

For context also for the listener, it's an absolutely boiling hot day today.

And

we were waiting, we were thinking, surely this is just going to be cancelled because we often have many high-profile guests lined up and they always cancel on us a lot of the time.

And we we always go, oh, well, okay.

And Dan Aykrod was like, well, surely not.

Surely Dan Aykrod isn't going to do this podcast.

And

it was so hot.

And I was like, my brain's not even working.

And what I needed, really, was someone who just took charge, got the job done.

And then we talked about it.

Oh, I thought you were talking about Piggy.

I thought you were talking about me.

No, it wasn't me.

It wasn't me.

Possibly.

Didn't need to talk about it.

You were sitting there with your eyes weeping at some point out of nowhere.

Half my head was on fire.

The Amazon man knocked on the door.

Awful performance from me, but luckily Dan was there to take the reins.

Ironically, I'm going to go and have a crystal head vodka now, and it is 4.30.

It's 4pm.

It's 4.30pm.

Series 6 is going to start soon.

Series 6 will start soon.

And you better bet your bottom dollar that we're going to go right back to the normal format.

All your favourites.

Nothing's going to throw you.

Normal structure.

I mean, let's try and get everyone from Ghostbusters on one by one.

I wouldn't change a thing though.

I wouldn't change a thing about what just happened.

I can't hammer this home enough.

We would not change anything about what just happened.

And listen, we've had many great experiences on this podcast.

Loads of weird things.

Once we ran a competition where members of the public could come on and have their dream menu and a very nice man bought the experience for his sister and it turned out she'd never seen the podcast before but fancied Ed and myself.

And it was a very weird experience.

Well, actually, she fancied you.

She knew she fancied you and she'd had a drink as well.

Let's add that in.

She fancied you and then during the call also decided she fancied me.

So it was

she liked what she saw.

Yes.

And she had as much respect for the format as Dan Aykroyd.

Yes.

She did, but without the

pack catalogue and the career to pack it up.

Yes.

Let's clock off now.

But what fun it's been, James.

What fun it's been.

I'll see you for series six.

Can't wait to get Dan Ackward on a redemption episode one day.

Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club podcast.

We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival.

The date is Thursday, 11th of September.

The time is 7pm.

And our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies is coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

The rumours are true.

Saturday, the 13th of September.

At King's Place.

Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet.