Excerpt from Cinematic Codes Review: Spring 2016 Issue: for visuals see: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/ccr/film-reviews-spring-2016/
Travel Channel's Booze Traveler seems to be the networks answer to losing Anthony Bourdain to CNN, and it's a pretty good deal. Initially, I was concerned that Jack Maxwell, the host and a career bartender from Boston, could pull off an entire series about booze, as opposed to Bourdain's focus on all foods. But before the end of the first episode on Turkey, I was hooked and curious to see what else Jack would have to say about alcohol. Each episode introduces a few curious drinks from the far ends of the earth that I have never heard of. I drink alcohol about once in two years, but I don't think this show is intent on selling these drinks to viewers. "I didn't know I could drink unfermented horse milk," Jack says in the Mongolian episode. He also ends up drinking alcohol made by chewing and spitting the components out, and other unappetizing exotic treats. I really liked goat's milk when I was a child and had some at a farm without any additives or purification: it was sweet and buttery, so I can imagine how these types of drinks might taste great, but watching them through the TV screen inspire awe rather than thirst. This is a show for people who enjoy learning about foreign cultures, customs and drinks, and not a show for alcoholics to find a new drink to get at their local bar.
Fig. 27. Rasheed Sali, left, and Jack Maxwell at a resurrected grape farm in Bozcaada, Turkey. Season 1, Episode 1.
Jack takes viewers through the various stages of alcohol production and preparation. In the still above, he is with Rasheed Sali on a grape farm in Turkey, smelling the ripening grapes to describe how they are preferential to regular grapes used in most modern wines.
Fig. 28. Jack Maxwell (right) with a boat operator in Peru. Season 1, Episode 2.
There are many shots of Jack traveling through dense jungle, roaring rivers and seas, and hiking up mountains, so that somebody who is only interested in finding places to visit will find plenty of sites to travel to. In Episode 2, Jack Maxwell narrates: "Peru is really magical." The camera pans to a shot of a scorpion. "And by that I mean, maybe a little witchy. You can't throw a rock without hitting a shaman here. And the landscape is hypnotic and extreme
" As he says this, goats are shown hopping down a rocky incline. Most of the narration pokes fun at the absurdities of international peculiarities, while also expressing a deep love for these charming oddities.
Fig. 29. Canelazo factory on the Amazon River in Peru, with the factory equipment and sugarcane in the background, the operators on the right, and Jack on the left.
The scenes of Jack picking sugarcane, and then helping to pull it through complex machinery at a Canelazo outdoorish factory on the Amazon River in Peru were stunning. Each of these epic projects to help with every step of an alcohol brewing process before partaking in the drink is inspiring, and Jack frequently says so.
Fig. 30. Yohanah, owner and barman (right), the Viking warrior-impersonator and hair dresser (middle), and Jack (left) with a giant traditional Icelandic meal, twice-smoked lamb's foot, outside of Reykjavik, Iceland. Season 1, Episode 5.
In the Iceland episode, Jack joins a group of Viking impersonators for a kind of battle in a parking garage. He gets hit across the nose with an actually sharp blade of one of the fighters, leaving a small scar. He says, bravely, that he is glad to have received a real-life battle scar. He is then taken by the leader of these "Vikings" to a neighboring restaurant where he eats a bit of a twice-smoked rubbery lamb's foot, the size of his arm. He complains and obviously looks like he doesn't want to try it, but braves through it for the show.
Fig. 31. Jack, with the help of Mongolian migratory herders of the Kimindorz clan in the Khangai Mountains, is trying to milk a horse to make the Mongolian warrior nomad-derived fermented horse milk, airag. Season 1, Episode 6.
In Episode 6, Jack narrates to images of him attempting to milk a horse, while its babe is standing nearby to fool the horse into thinking that the little one is the one getting the milk: "Harder than it looks. If the pressure isn't just right, the mare calls bullshit." At this point, the mare in the video makes a move as if to kick him, and makes him lose his balance, all because his "pressure" wasn't exact like the professionals'. This is a very dangerous stunt because migratory Mongols are ranked as the best horse riders on the planet, and they probably made the milking process look easy, while the mare probably could have easily killed Jack with a kick if he made the slightest mistake. It's this sort of bravery to do stunts that nobody sitting at home and watching it would want to actually attempt that makes for great television.
Title: Booze Traveler Star and Writer: Jack Maxwell Genre: Reality-TV Series Running Time: 43 min per episode Release: 2014-present
1 out of 1 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
