23: NOAH - HOW TO ENGINEER, MOUNT RUSHMORE, AND THE WORST TRAFFIC IN GR

**Josh Harmon** (0:02)
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to What's The Sip, a podcast by friends for friends. Today, we have one of my longest standing friends on the podcast, but before we get into who he is, what he's brought us to sip on tonight, I will shout out our sipper of the week. And it's our very own, who you know and love, if you've listened, is Mrs. Maria Phillips.
And she has been sipping on a blueberry cream cold brew. So a cold brew with blueberry cold foam, homemade cold brew too. So if you're ever near Maria or Austin, maybe ask them if you can try it. So Maria, thanks for being the sipper of the week. And without further ado, we have Mr. Noah Usiak on the pod. Noah, say hey to the people.

**Noah Usiak** (0:54)
Hello, people.

**Josh Harmon** (0:56)
And what have you brought us to sip on?

**Noah Usiak** (0:58)
Okay, so Elias and I have been big into the SodaStream game. So this is a sparkling water with a homemade simple syrup in it. So it's strawberry rhubarb simple syrup.

**Josh Harmon** (1:10)
Strawberry rhubarb is kind of having its moment right now.

**Noah Usiak** (1:12)
Really?

**Josh Harmon** (1:13)
Yeah, I'm seeing it a lot of places. And by a lot, I mean, like, I've seen it two places.

**Noah Usiak** (1:17)
Okay.

**Josh Harmon** (1:21)
Oh, that is very refreshing.

**Noah Usiak** (1:23)
Yeah.

**Josh Harmon** (1:24)
I want this all summer.

**Noah Usiak** (1:26)
Yeah. No, it's so nice because, like you said, very refreshing and it's so easy.

**Josh Harmon** (1:30)
And okay, wait, so how do you, how did you made the strawberry rhubarb?

**Noah Usiak** (1:35)
Yeah. So at the family farm up north of rhubarb and grandpa gives us pounds of rhubarb that we don't know what to do with us. Yeah. So typically we'll freeze it all for like cobbler's and stuff.

**Josh Harmon** (1:47)
Oh, yeah.

**Noah Usiak** (1:47)
But Eliza and my mom were talking, they were like, oh, I bet you could make a really good simple syrup for gin and tonics.

**Josh Harmon** (1:53)
Okay.

**Noah Usiak** (1:53)
Obviously.

**Josh Harmon** (1:54)
A go to.

**Noah Usiak** (1:55)
Yeah. So we made the simple syrup delicious in the gin and tonic. I will admit that as well.

**Josh Harmon** (2:00)
Was it easy to make?

**Noah Usiak** (2:01)
Yeah. Literally, we just put strawberries, rhubarb, sugar and honey, and then you just like let it boil down.

**Josh Harmon** (2:06)
On a pan or in a pot or whatever.

**Noah Usiak** (2:08)
In a pan and boil it down and then basically there. Yeah.

**Josh Harmon** (2:11)
Great. Okay. And so then what's the process of, do you make just sparkling water in the soda strip and then you pour the simple syrup in there?

**Noah Usiak** (2:20)
Yeah. And I still don't fully understand why this is, but they tell you to not put anything in the water before you like carbonate it.

**Josh Harmon** (2:28)
Oh, okay.

**Noah Usiak** (2:29)
And I don't know if that's because they don't want it to like clog the nozzle or something.

**Josh Harmon** (2:32)
So they want it just to be water and then you add whatever later.

**Noah Usiak** (2:35)
Yeah. Cause I watched some YouTube videos on it when we got it and I was like, how do I actually do this? And everyone's like, do not put the stuff in until after.

**Josh Harmon** (2:42)
Very picky. And you listened.

**Noah Usiak** (2:44)
Yeah. And I said, sure. It doesn't change my life that much.

**Josh Harmon** (2:47)
And okay. Have you guys made any other things with your soda stream that you guys enjoy?

**Noah Usiak** (2:54)
We don't buy tonic anymore for gin and tonic.

**Josh Harmon** (2:57)
Okay.

**Noah Usiak** (2:58)
Eliza doesn't like how much sugar in it, which is fair. I didn't realize how much sugar is in tonic.

**Josh Harmon** (3:03)
Yes, I didn't either until, honestly, probably like until the past year. And I was like, whoa. But does club soda have sugar in it?

**Noah Usiak** (3:12)
Club soda doesn't. You need something else.

**Josh Harmon** (3:15)
It's different.

**Noah Usiak** (3:16)
Like a club soda to me doesn't do enough. Yeah, I need a little bit of something else. So that's where this is nice, because then if we put honey into, it's not as much as the actual sugar.

**Josh Harmon** (3:26)
It's just like a sweetener.

**Noah Usiak** (3:28)
But yeah, more natural.

**Josh Harmon** (3:29)
Okay. And I mean, you said this earlier, and I was fearful of what your sip was going to be. But you really you're not a coffee drinker. You're not really a tea drinker. You're not really a soda drinker.