{"id":32317,"date":"2014-11-20T16:40:55","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T08:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=32317"},"modified":"2014-11-20T14:55:24","modified_gmt":"2014-11-20T06:55:24","slug":"booze-traveler-tv-host-explores-the-world-1-exotic-adult-beverage-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/11\/20\/booze-traveler-tv-host-explores-the-world-1-exotic-adult-beverage-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Booze Traveler\u2019 TV host explores the world, 1 exotic adult beverage at a time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"travelchannel.com\"<\/a>
travelchannel.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BOSTON\u2014Jack Maxwell drinks for a living.<\/p>\n

From moss schnapps in Iceland to gut-busting raki in Turkey and homebrew in the Himalayas, he\u2019s learned the hard way that tippler\u2019s truism: \u201cIt\u2019s always 5 o\u2019clock somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maxwell says shining shoes as a kid in the barrooms of South Boston helped prepare him to host \u201cBooze Traveler,\u201d which debuts this month on the Travel Channel. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, the Los Angeles-based actor said his early years in the neighbourhood known as Southie\u2014where convicted gangster James \u201cWhitey\u201d Bulger once reigned\u2014showed him what cocktails can teach about a culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where I learned about alcohol\u2019s magic socializing effect,\u201d said Maxwell, who has appeared in \u201c24,\u201d \u201cLost\u201d and \u201cBeverly Hills 90210.\u201d \u201cPeople would regale me with tales. Everyone was so social and nice to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part travelogue, part drinking diary, \u201cBooze Traveler\u201d takes viewers with Maxwell as he travels to Louisiana, Tennessee and 13 foreign countries, including Armenia, Belize, Lithuania, Mongolia and Nepal. Each hour-long episode is a quest to distill the essence of a place through its beers, wines and spirits\u2014a lighthearted look at the world through the lens of a glass.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery society in history has come up with some form of alcohol to celebrate, to mourn, to take the edge off a long day,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The series premiere, which airs Nov. 24, puts Maxwell in mostly Muslim Turkey. As the 4 p.m. call to prayer rings out in Istanbul, he jokes: \u201cIf I were back home in Boston, I\u2019d be sitting down at the bar for happy hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many Turks are teetotallers, but Maxwell takes it as a challenge to uncover the local libations. He samples raki, a powerful drink made of twice-distilled grapes flavoured with anise, and harvests poppies with women who use them in a potent drink.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought we\u2019d have to find a secret speakeasy and a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it was hiding in plain sight.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he drinks his way around the world, Maxwell comes off as something of a daredevil\u2014comparisons to bad-boy TV gourmand Anthony Bourdain are inevitable. He\u2019d have to be fearless to stomach the more bizarre beverages he samples: vodka distilled from camel\u2019s milk in Mongolia, and \u201cspit beer\u201d brewed with saliva by a tribe in the Amazon jungle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chief himself put his hat on me\u2014his crown\u2014and he taught me how to spit poison darts. They cooked piranha for me,\u201d Maxwell said. \u201cWho am I to say no? I\u2019m just a kid from the Southie projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaw-dropping scenery served as a backdrop for many of Maxwell\u2019s adventures. In South Africa, he awoke to zebra, impala and giraffes grazing on the sun-dappled savannah, and he says it was the perfect hangover cure.<\/p>\n

\u201cSitting down and drinking with someone, I realized it\u2019s a much smaller world than what I thought,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have much more in common than we do differences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOSTON\u2014Jack Maxwell drinks for a living. From moss schnapps in Iceland to gut-busting raki in Turkey and homebrew in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":32318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-food","mauthors-william-j-kole","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}