Austrian Wine Poisoning: Q&A Question Collection

Hi Fredrik! Brand new Patron! I don't have a specific Glycol-related question, but I'd like to ask if you'd ever be interested in doing straight history; I can imagine your voice being wonderful for diving into the life-story of Cicero or even just reading the speeches of Caesar. Or even things that aren't Rome, though none are coming to mind right now.

LiterallyJudas

A question for Vex: How did you enjoy doing the research for a DtRH episode? Did you find the topic interesting, or was it more of a chore, going through all that source material?

Viniter

Hello Fredrik, First of all, I just wanna say that I recently discovered your channel and I was hooked quite immediately. I really dove into the rabbit hole that is your channel (pun intended) and I have been stuck ever since! Now to my question, I live in Sweden and it got me thinking, do you know much of these poisioned wines reached the rest of Europe? Or was that particular type of sweet white wines just a thing for Germany and Austria?

Is it too late to drop my question? I just patroned

Do you usually drop a lot of hints to your videos' topics? I remember in one of your streams with Jabroni Mike a few months back, you said you were trying some Austrian wine, and when Mike asked you immediately after if you'd revealed this video's topic, you said no real coy-like—absolutely blew my mind when I re-watched that stream later. It has me wondering now if that was a one-time thing, or if I've just been missing hint after hint for years. Either way, I love how the video turned out, big kudos to you and Vex! <3

Are there any other facts or anecdotes from the Fritz Hallgarten book that you found interesting but that didn't relate enough to fit into the episode? The portion you read as your Patreon audiobook was fascinating (as was the episode. Keep up the great work!) Minor secondary question if you're okay with it: Is there any word on when we can expect another episode of The Warrens? You and Mike play off of each other so well and it's fun seeing you two cover topics that aren't DTRH-able more casually.

What historical topics are you considering for a future DTRH?Love your stuff, man keep up the good work, and can't wait for the next video.

Were you given the opportunity to (and if you partake in alcoholic beverages), do you think you would feel comfortable drinking Prädikatswein? Although you discussed the improved quality testing and labeling that has come out of the scandal, I could see how someone might still feel a bit suspicious of Austrian and German wines considering its history. The same question extends to Vex and how they feel about it if they partake, if there are any brands they avoid, etc. (Finally able to become a patron! Thank you so much for all of the hard work and dedication you’ve put into your videos thus far. Also to make your life easier: my name is pronounced LAH-goas, not like the city! I can’t wait to see what you have in store for DTRH next!!)

How was it working with an assistant for this video? Did you find it made things easier? Moreover, is this a possibility in the future to have a more permanent assistant for the sake of research? Thank you for this positively fantastic video this time around, Fred. I was able to show this to my father, who lived in Germany during this time, and his family was actually pretty knee-deep in the alcohol industry there at the time, so he found it as fascinating as I had, and it was my pleasure to share this with him :)

Bee Ran

Were there any really out there conpiracy theories (similar to type swirling around regarding our current pandemic predicament) that you or Vex found regarding this topic? If so, what were they and how easy/hard were they to debunk in order to not let it cloud the episode?

Christopher Flagg

Thank you for the excellent video and topic. I really enjoyed this one. Question: I found the topic of the video quite surprising and I've been more used to seeing you cover either more recent events or people instead of events further in the past. Do you have a preference and what's your selection process for the type of topic you decide to cover in this regard?

I was quite interested to see you cover this topic from a non-anglophone country. Do you plan in the future to make more videos about less anglophone-centric incidents such as this, or would that maybe make the research load too much for certain topics?

Please do a down the rabbit hole on mundanematt

Rocky

Considering it can be quite a difficult endeavor, do you plan on researching other topics that require translation?

Vex: Aside from the "Anti-Freeze" misnomer, what was the biggest misconception about the wine scandal? And for Fred: You have before you an urn filled with whatever you desire. What's in it? Any new music recommendations?

Sandman Eyes, Beyond Madness

Was there a shift away from sweet wine production post scandal? If so what kind of wines are Austria best known for nowadays?

How did Australia react when their wine exports were mistakenly banned in China and Japan? And how long did it take for the two countries to realise their mistake?

Fred: What was about the Austrian Wine Poisoning that initially drove you to start researching the topic as a Down the Rabbit Hole video? Vex: Is this event discussed much by the current generation of Austrians or is it something of a taboo topic?

Irvin

Is there any information on where or what supplier the winemakers were buying the diethylene glycol from? Or whether there was any question from the seller as to why winemakers were buying such quantities of a chemical with little to no use in their industry?

Sirbill17

This is like the constant methanol poisoning problem, except it's wine (as opposed to moonshine, windshield washer fluid and bootleg liqours) and a grand conspiracy. I guess people don't realize that you shouldn't drink things that you put into your car. But for my question, have you ever wanted to make a video about a super obscure topic like this one, but have had to give up due to a lack of available information?