'Cazique' Gregor MacGregor, the Man Who Fabricated a Country

cash crops such as sugar or tobacco without hardship. This, according to Scottish swindler Gregor McGregor, could all be yours if you considered investing in his property located in present day Honduras. He knew about Poiez, you see, because he was he claimed the Kazique of the nation, a figure similar to a native chief in other Spanish speaking nations nearby,

and for what it's Earth similarly spelled as well. In the early eighteen twenties, Gregor ran one of history's most successful and imaginative cons He invented his own country and then conned investors into buying the bonds of a country that did not exist. Welcome to Criminalia, I'm ranch marquis and I'm a holy fry. What Poyez lacked, McGregor stated, were willing investors and settlers to develop it and leverage

its resources to their fullest. British investments in South America, which by the way, at this point was this catch all term for what is now Latin America, everything that was not the United States, essentially South, these investments were gaining in popularity. Several countries that had gained independence from

Spain were looking for help financing their nascent governments. Chile and Columbia, for instance, sold bonds totaling roughly between one hundred million and two hundred million dollars that's in today's money values, promising six percent in annual returns through the profits from state m agriculture, and mineral industries. Without any current means of revenue such as a mineral industry. Gregor assured potential investors that funding would come from the country's

future inhabitants, and he recruited hard. He published interviews about Poiz in national newspapers and magazines, advertising the perks that would come from investing in or colonizing his land. He engaged publicists to write marketing materials, advertisements and brochures, and you heard some of their work in our opening segment.

While he engaged British investors for cash, he targeted his fellow Scots for would be colonists and wrote that quote the Scottish Highlanders were known for their heartiness and adventurous spirit, and he argued that Poiz would be the quote ultimate testing ground, a challenge and gift all in one for an adventurer. Poyers, the term Gregor used for those indigenous to the land, were described by him as friendly and hard working people, and he referred to them as quote

complimentary labor for the settlers. Now note that these people were real people who were not part of his imagination. They were not called Poyers, and they were most certainly not complimentary labor in reality. And indigenous population known as the Misquito, were native to the area, and they weren't really part of Gregor's plan. The capital of Poyaz a town named Saint Joseph. Gregor described as a European style settlement that was so sophisticated it even had an opera house.

Marketing materials claimed that the land was quote one of the most healthy and beautiful spots in the world, and to bring it all together, he had Poyaz ballads composed and sung along the streets of London, Edinburgh and Glasgow. But before we get too far into this con let's talk about who this guy, Gregor McGregor was. Gregor was a native of Glengale, Scotland, born on December twenty fourth, seventeen eighty six and raised in a privileged Scottish family.

He attended top schools. At sixteen, his family purchased him a commission in the British Army and he was very briefly deployed in the Peninsular War. Mostly His military accounts of being in the British Army, though, include a lot of waiting. Around. Around this time too, he married a woman named Maria Bootter, the daughter of a Navy admiral

whose family was among Britain's finest. The newly went settled in Edinburgh, and Gregor immediately began using his new wife's wealth and privilege to fast track his way through the ranks of the army. He paid nine hundred pounds to become a captain. Without that payoff, that promotion would have otherwise taken him several years to accomplish. He and his wife often toured the city fashionably dressed in their extravagant coach, and Gregor continued to focus on bettering his social status.

In eighteen eleven, the couple moved to London, where he began calling himself Sir Gregor McGregor, with the bart designation after it, so he could falsely identify himself as a baronet, and added false claims of dukes and barons in his family tream. But the thing was, he was starting to receive the level of respectability that he desired among London's high society. He routed it from any high society relief.

But then in December of that year, Maria passed away, and upon her death Gregor lost the financial support of her well healed family. His only real experience other than spending his in law's money was as an officer in the military, so after his wife's death, he turned his interest back to battle, this time though in the colonial revolts against Spanish rule in South America, particularly fighting in

and around Venezuela. Britain supported the independence of the South American colonies from Spain, knowing it would destabilize Spanish power and Venezuelan revolutionary general Francisco de Miranda had been celebrated during a recent visit to London. It was on the heels of those circumstances when McGregor imagined a new exotic

adventure for himself. Cut off from his former in laws in spirit and in finances, he sold the Scottish estate he'd inherited and sailed for Venezuela via Jamaica in early eighteen twelve. His plan was to offer himself as a fighter, a mercenary in the Venezuelan War of Independence against Spain, and he did. Upon arrival, he introduced himself as Sir

Gregor McGregor, a former British Army officer. He was given the rank of colonel and given command of a cavalry battalion, a command he held between the years eighteen twelve and eighteen sixteen. The same year he arrived in Venezuela, Gregor married again and again to a wealthy family. His bride, Donia Josepha Antonia Andrea Aristagietta Ilovea, was the daughter of a prominent Caracas family, and she was a cousin of

the revolutionary Venezuelan military and political leader Simon Bolivard. Gregor quickly rose to the rank of General General of Division in the Army of Venezuela under Bolivard and led a series of independent military campaigns in the Caribbean. One of his most notorious actions came in eighteen seventeen, when he raised a small army and briefly captured Florida's Amelia Island

from the Spanish. He proclaimed it to be, albeit very short lived, the Republic of the Florida's In eighteen nineteen, he oversaw two operations in New Grenada, now part of Venezuela, each one its own calamity. It was there where he made a name for himself, not as a revolutionary or a legendary fighter. Rather, he made a name as a coward when he not once but twice abandoned his troops, leaving them to be killed in battle or executed while

he fled to safety. In eighteen twenty, Michael Rafter, the brother of William Rafter, who was one of the soldiers who served under McGregor's command in Venezuela, published a tell all book that told all of the details of McGregor's

military ineptitude. Basically, if you wanted to write a book that would make McGregor look like a bad leader, this book did just that, stated Michael quote that any person could be induced again to join him in his desperate projects would be to conceive a degree of madness and folly,

of which human nature, however fallen, is incapable. Despite his rapid climb in ranks in the Venezuelan Army, there is no record that McGregor was a particularly good military leader, but there's plenty on record that he was good at deception. Going to take a break for a word from our sponsor, and when we return, we'll talk about how he scammed enough people to fill multiple ships with potential Poiez settlers.

Welcome back to Criminalia. Okay, let's talk land. In talking about the imaginary country of Poiez, it's really easy to forget that there was real land involved here. So where and when and how did McGregor come upon the land he called Poiez. Some sources suggest he purchased acreage from the Mosquito or from other unnamed interested parties. There's not

a lot of detail in those accounts. Most accounts, though, explain how he came to find Poiez as so while fighting in Venezuela, Gregor did a man named George Augustus, who also happened to be known as George Frederick Augustus, the first king of the Mosqatoo people. The king gifted to Gregor acre upon acre of land and his Mosquito Coast territory. According to most reports, the Moskatoo people knew the land was crap. It was very pretty, but it

was inhospitable. Gregor officially looked on as King. George Frederick Augustus, the first of the Mosquito Coast, at Cape Gracia Sadios, in April of eighteen twenty, signed a document granting McGregor and his heirs a swath of territory in exchange for not money, no, in exchange for rum and jewels. But there's a catch here. The land didn't belong to him, not really. It fell under the dominion of the British aligned Mosquito government. George couldn't give it to him, and

Gregor didn't own what he got. But on that day in April, no one cared, and McGregor named the land poiez Upon returned to a civilian life in England in eighteen twenty one. Gregor continued to build his reputation among London's high society based on a lot of fabricated stories, stories like he was the head of Plan McGregor or. He was also known as His Serene Highness Gregor, the first Sovereign Prince of the State of Poiez and its Dependencies,

and Kazique of the Poyer Nation. Gregor's wife began using the self styled title Princess of Poiez to the London elite. Poiz sounded just far away enough to be a plausible place and one that absolutely needed colonizing. Gregor and his wife quickly became honored dinner guests. At one point they were in such demand that they were invited to attend an official reception at the Guildhall, hosted by the Lord Mayor of London. While in London, though McGregor did not slack,

I mean, it wasn't all meats and sweets. There, he opened for business, and he worked hard to make his story credible. He organized a parliament for his invented country, as well as a banking system. He reportedly got British newspapers to detail bond prices for Poiz as they did for real countries, and he even orchestrated the issue of

a Poiesian government loan on the London Stock Exchange. Gregor could produce documents very convincing documents about Poys, including a handwritten land grant, an illustration of its national flag which featured two unicorns, charts and maps showing the country's borders, and a copy of the proclamation he had made to those native to the region before he left for Europe. These faked documents worked particularly well on getting investors to invest.

Gregor began selling land titles to Britain's who were hoping to find fortune in a new colony, while he pedaled bonds to the wealthy across the salons of London. As we mentioned earlier, he sought and found his potential settlers in Scotland, where he sold land at a shilling and acre to interested parties, although as excitement about Poyez spread, he increased the price of land from one shilling per

acre to four shillings per acre. By autumn, investors had claimed two hundred thousand pounds worth of bonds at a six percent rate of return. That is not adjusted for today's equivalent, but if we tried to, it'd be more than two million pounds. In addition to land for sale, Gregor had jobs also for sale. For instance, a cobbler from Edinburgh bought himself the title of Official Shoemaker of Poiez. Commissions in the Poyez military were also for sale for

those who were among the wealthier settlers. Others were lured with good jobs, such as bankers, merchants and government employees. What they all had in common was that most of them had invested their life savings into this venture. Some had converted all of their cash into Poia's currency, which McGregor had started printing in Scotland from eighteen twenty one to eighteen thirty seven. McGregor attempted to draw British and French, but we're going to get to that in a minute.

Investors and settlers to his imaginary little corner of the world. The economist noted that McGregor quote had some very dangerous personality traits. He was a dreamer, convinced that he was descended from an Inca princess. This made his plan to lead a country feel quite normal, even a birthright. He was narcissistic, He was grand use, and he was fond of bestowing grand titles, medals, and other decorations on himself.

His biographer David Sinclair, in the book The Land That Never Was, describes McGregor as a man who quote never led a good idea with her away because of a few technical difficulties. Because this was white a con Let's take a look at Gregor's skill in con artistry techniques. He used reciprocity, which basically means he convinced people that if they invested with him, he would give them in return the opportunity of a lifetime. He also used a

technique that experts call social validation. In this instance, he's selling his victims on the fact that we're paraphrasing him here, they will be the most Scottish of Scottish and the most respected among Scottish. He also used scarcity, a technique that often sounds like act now before you miss out on this great deal. No one wants to miss out

on the deal of a lifetime. And if you, the victim, don't secure your land, someone else is going to get it first, and then there goes your chance at greatness. And finally, he brought in an authority, a captain Thomas Strange Ways, who should be trusted because well just trust him. Listen,

We're going to talk about Thomas in just a minute. Additionally, writing for the BBC, author Maria Kannakova has discussed McGregor's use of two specific techniques common among Khan artists, and describes them as so the first, make whatever your selling look really appealing. So for McGregor that meant selling palm trees and white sandy beaches to people living among the damp, heather covered moors of Scotland. The second overcome any resistance

by taking action. According to Khnakova quote, McGregor published interviews in national papers, for instance, touting the perks that would come from investing or settling in Poyez. He highlighted the bravery and fortitude that such a gesture would demonstrate you

would be a real man. Potential investors with lingering doubts were pointed in the direction of a three hundred plus page guidebook called Sketch of the Mosquito Shore, which told the story of English settlers establishing the of Saint Joseph and prospering on the territory of Poiez in the seventeen thirties. Its author concluded the new country would quote rapidly advance

and prosperity and civilization. It was written by Captain Thomas Strange Ways, who was described as quote Captain first Poyer Regiment and aide de camp to his Highness Gregor Kazik of Poiz. But there was no Captain strange Ways. He was actually just Gregor using a pseudonym. He contacted everyone he could think of in London who had the means to invest in the phony Poyez territory. In June of eighteen twenty one, Gregor penna note to a mister Nathan

Mayer Rothschild. And before we read this letter, you're going to see that it has some problematic language dating from its time period. But you're also going to see Gregory using some very classic fraudster tricks like the ones we just discussed, including appealing to known interests of his target while remaining deliberately vague about the details of his request. Quote from Gregor McGregor of Poyez to N. M. Rothschild Esquire,

written from Donnahee, Ireland. I have the honor to equate you that I arrived here with my family from South America about three weeks ago, my letter book being on board of another vessel with my papers, I am unable to refer to the date of my letter to you from Santa Martha enclosing the little deed for the grant of land upon the Zacossilian River in the territory of Poiz,

the proposed situation of the projected Hebrew colony. I shall not at present enter into any details upon this subject until I learn from yourself you approve of the plan. In the meantime, I propose, from procuring in Germany and Poland, some twenty or thirty industrious agricultural Hebrew families to send out to Poiz, supplying them in the same time with provisions and everything else they may want. For the first

twelve months. It is proper to observe that the state of Poiez is disposed to remain perfectly neutral during the existing contest between Spain and her colonies. I propose making the harbor of port royal of Freeport, which will immediately give it a considerable trade, as there is no port to Leeward of Jamaica for reception of American produce. So Rothschild, The recipient of this letter was a top tier financier, and there is no evidence he ever invested in, or promoted,

or was even interested in McGregor's scam. But that can't be said for hundreds of others who did probably get missives like this and invested their savings in fake Poiesian government bonds and land certificates. Altogether, Gregor sold enough land to fill multiple ships with settlers, and every scent that

people put into Poiez lined his pockets. We are going to take a break for a word from our spots are right now, and when we return, we will talk about when Gregor decided to take the Kazika Poiez scam to France. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about the destiny of the vessels chartered to take settlers to their new home in Poyez and the destiny of the settlers themselves. Through his legation of Poyez, Gregor chartered vessels to take

settlers to their new colony. But let's back up just a quick minute though, because con games are typically financially ruinous for the victim, but they don't usually play at a level like this one did, where deaths are involved. Gregor McGregor's swindle led to the deaths of nearly two hundred people. If you want to know why he would take his scam as far as actually moving real people to a place that he knew was not a place they could live, we want to know that too, But

experts in such matters only have speculation for assault. After his death, some have theorized that perhaps he came to believe the fabrications of his cons as real. Another theory out there is that he saw his colonists as pawns and not as people. But we just don't and we

just can't know. So those ships, there were fourign total that Gregor readied four poiz On September tenth, eighteen twenty two, a ship called the Hondura's Packet was the first vessel to depart, and it sailed from London carrying seventy settlers on board. Among those passengers included doctors, lawyers, and one banker. Just a few months later, on January twenty second, eighteen twenty three, the Kennersley Castle left Leith Harbor in Scotland,

carrying almost two hundred settlers. According to some passenger reports, McGregor greeted the passengers aboard the Kennersley Castle and allegedly gave free passage to the women and children making the voyage. A passenger named James Hasty, who was moving to Poiez with his wife and two children, recalled at his memoir quote, we gave him a salute of six guns and three cheers. Little did we anticipate the misfortunes which were afterwards to

befallow us. The third ship, the Albion, never made it to Poiz. It diverted to Belize upon discovering that the settlers from the first two ships had abandoned their encampment. The Skein, the fourth ship, was loaded with arms and supplies, and it also diverted to Belize for the same reason. The Honduras Packet and the Kennersley Castle made it directly to Poiz Two months after sailing across the Atlantic Ocean.

Passengers gathered on the deck of the Kennersley Castle for their first view of their new home, and it appeared to be immaculate. The sun was glistening in the shallow blue waters. Mahogany trees drooped themselves over sandy beaches, wrote Hasty quote, it had a very beautiful appearance from the sea. As had many of his fellow passengers, Hasty had signed a contract with the Poisian government to work as a laborer.

Other passengers had cashed in their belongings in Europe for the opportunity to establish themselves as wealthy colonists in the Caribbean Sea. But as Hasty and his fellow colonists very quickly discovered, Poiz was not a paradise. Imagine the overwhelming disappointment that must have hit them when they saw the reality that was their new home. They were expecting Eden, but this promised land was a waste land. It was desolate.

It was nearly impossible, maybe totally impossible, to cultivate. There were no roads or ports or infrastructure. There was no town, There were no development. Where was Saint Joseph's Where were the promised banks and schools and the opera house. The land's actual name, they learned, wasn't even Poiz, but rather

they had been brought to the Mosquito Coast territory. At first, the colonists assumed that they had perhaps been accidentally brought to the wrong location, but no remaining passengers from the Honduras packet were seen surviving in makeshift huts. Instead of what Gregor had promised, they found only dense, insect infested jungle. They also discovered that the land titles that were sold

to them by Gregor were completely fraudulent. Remember that part we talked about earlier, about how the land was under the dominion of the British aligned Mosquito government when it was gifted by the king to Gregor. Yeah, that's a little problem. Gregor did not have permission to sell this land, and that meant that those colonists were actually there illegally.

Some of the settlers survived for a short time on the provisions that were remaining on the ships, but when rainy season brought with it even more insects, they knew they were in serious trouble. Yellow fever, malaria, and other tropical diseases really destroyed the community. Colonist Hasty shared quote, sickness and despondency was so general that few were able or willing to make any exertion. Roughly two thirds of

the original colonists died before help came. That finally arrived in May of eighteen twenty three, when a British ship arrived from a nearby colony in Belize. By the end of August eighteen twenty three, newspapers across Britain began to publish reports that Poiez may not be what everyone had thought, and that the ballby Paradise looked like it was actually an investment scam. Though some survivors resettled in local, more livable areas, most were returned to England by the Royal Navy.

Hasty and his wife's survived that their children did not of the settlers, reported one Scottish newspaper quote, they had evidently undergone extreme suffering and illness, as their appearance was ghastly and cadaverous. When the survivors of the Poyaz Khan returned to Britain, though they didn't blame the guy who had swindled them. In fact, when passengers from the Kennersley Castle read news coverage about Poias, they became angered about

the story that was being told. They reportedly marched into Mansion House, a seat of the London government, and signed an affidavit stating they believed Gregor McGregor had done nothing wrong and had in no way deceived them. They believed, according to their document, that he too was a victim. McGregor and his wife left London in October of eighteen twenty three, saying that they planned to winter in Italy for Josepha's health. Their actual destination was Paris, where Gregor

intended to continue running his fake country. He immediately got back to work on the Kazique of Poyez scam. He published a new constitution and he secured a new bank loan as his initial investment had evaporated, and just as before, he began recruiting investors and settlers. But when the French government saw a flood of applications requesting travel to a country that no one in the government had ever heard of, a commission was formed to look into it. Gregor's fictional

country did not pass scrutiny, and he was arrested. He was tried for fraud and conspiracy, but was acquitted due to lack of evidence. McGregor continued using his Poiez swindle and continued getting away with it for years. In eighteen twenty seven, so four years after he sent those people on ships to nowhere, he resurfaced in London issued a new bond and started selling bogus Poyez land certificates again. This time he was arrested, but he was not jailed.

After a brief return to Edinburgh, he fled once more, pursued not by authorities but by the wrath of the original Poyas surviving bondholders see in the middle of Gregor's Khan. South American bonds faltered. Countries were spending their money financing military conflicts rather than paying back their debts, and Poia's investors grew skeptical of their promised financial return. In fact, many declined to pay the new installments they owed for

their bond purchases. The overall big picture here, though, is that this wasn't just something that impacted Gregor. This was a contributing factor to what became known as the Financial Panic of eighteen twenty five. Just two years later, nearly every Central and South American bond issued had fallen into default. South American countries stabilized and started making interest payments again by the eighteen forties, but of course that doesn't include

Poias since it wasn't a real place. McGregor, though, had spent enormous amounts of money on marketing Poyez on voyages to the Mosquito coast and on his own extravagant lifestyle in general, and if his investors stopped payments, his cash flow was cut off. By eighteen twenty eight, McGregor, selling certificates entitled the holders to quote land in Poyez proper, suddenly found himself with competition. Other con artists had jumped into his game, and some had even set up their

own Poisian offices offering land devonshires in Poyes. That's right, they didn't even bother to make up their own countries. They'd just piggy packed off of McGregor's lie. He couldn't exactly call him on it. Six years later, in eighteen thirty four, McGregor was living in Edinburgh and he was still selling fake land titles. His wife, Josefa, died on May fourth, eighteen thirty eight, and that seems to be around the same time that Gregor finally abandoned his fake

country story and left it as that land was. When he found it desolate and undeveloped. He returned to Venezuela, where he applied for citizenship as well as for restoration to his former rank in the Venezuelan Army, including back pay and a pension. Simon Bolivar had died years earlier. In eighteen thirty, the Venezuelan State ruled in his favor, and he was confirmed as a Venezuelan citizen with a military pension for his participation in the country's wars of independence.

When McGregor died in eighteen forty five, he had never been found guilty of a single crime. Not one. Please tell me that you named his drink desolate and undeveloped. No, I thought of many names for it. I bet there's a lot of good naming stuff in here. So I'm curious what comes with our scam sauce this week. I almost called it the self delusion. I almost wanted to call it ghastly and cadaverous. Yes, good turn of Braith. But what I ended up calling it was Poiesian nectar.

This one is one of those things that is intended to be a little bit unexpected, as you'll see by one ingredient the sand. Sorry, No, the trick is you want to keep it delicious, right right, not crunchy. I thought about how funny it would be to make just an awful tasting drink, but that's no fun, and that's wasteful. Poiesian nectar is pretty easy to throw together, and there's a version of it you don't have to include the ingredient that makes it go and pertinent to our story.

So it starts with an ounce of rum. You can use spiced rum if you want, but if you just have regular rum, that's fine, an ounce of vamoretto, four ounces of pineapple juice, and just like a splash of a gave nectar or a simple syrup. Because basically we're making a delicious tropical drink. You can drink it just like that if you want. You can throw some club sold or ginger ale on top, if you want to

make like more of a long sipper than a tighter cocktail. However, what I really wanted to do was take this drink that tasted very much like what you would imagine a delicious drink in some sort of Caribbean wonderland to taste like, and then make it go in a slightly strange direction that was still yummy, but you're like, something doesn't fit here, Like it still taste good, but this is not a tropical, delicious drink. It's just a it's an odd, difficult to

play drink. So to that list that I just gave you, you're gonna add a half ounce and you want to be careful. Don't go any farther than that of espresso. Wow, huh okay. My first reaction to that isn't yuck or you or what am I gonna do? No, it's it's not yucky. It's delicious. But if you're expecting a yummy pineapple beverage, it becomes something completely different. And you really, really really want to give this a very aggressive shake.

Sometimes when you're shaking pineapple anyway, it gets a little bit bubbly, like it froths up a little bit, and you want to get it to that point for sure, because that helps. It's so weird. You can't really pluck out the taste of espresso in there. So let's go through this. So we've got spiced from pineapple juice, amaretto, and a little sweetener espresso, as I often do, and lately I've been taking a different tack when I test things on my beloved because I don't give him any

clue what's in there. I did mention there's a thing in here that you normally would not drink, so he's not a coffee drinker. He tasted it and he was like, I can't figure out what's in this drink at all, And I was like, great, perfect. I was like, is it yucky or is it just strange? He's like, it's odd to my palette, But I it's not bad. I just I can't figure out what it is, which is exactly what I wanted standing on the deck of a ship and looking at your new home and being confused,

what the hell is going on over there? This is beautiful and tropical weight. Something's hut that is Poisian nectar. You can't quite place it, but it's still pretty tasty. Also, if you make this version and then put a little club soota on top or a little light ginger ale, delicious. Here's the easy way to make the mocktail in lieu of rum. One of the things that people often substitute for rum. I've noticed is white grape juice, which is great. Really.

That seems so strange to me, But I've never tried substituting for rum, so what do I know. My thing is that if you substitute that, it just ups the sweetness so much that like, I feel like it needs a cut. So here's what I do instead, and play around because you might want something slightly different, or this may give you a different idea I would do in lieu of the four ounces of I would mix it at a four ounce amount. And the reason is you're not going to need all that save it for you know,

make multiple drinks. But I find if you go too much lower, it's really easy to screw up, you know what I mean, As you make your proportions smaller, one little overpour will really like make it weird. So you're going to do two ounces of white grape juice two ounces of flat tonic water like we've done before, yea, because it gives it a little bit more of that bite that alcohol would have, and it undercuts that that

sweetness of white grape juice. And then you're just going to add like a couple drops of vanilla extracts and it just makes it a more complex fluid. It has a more complex flavor. And that's why when you're getting down to adding things in drops, if you have this even you would be in it would be difficult to pull up off. That's what I would use in lieu of your rum, in lieu of the amoretto. And another reason that I would say, let's not go a straight

white grape juice there. I would use an almond syrup, but I would use either half the amount or I would maybe do like a three quarters and dilute it with like water and maybe even a little lemon juice, and then the rest of it is the same. You're still going to do your four ounces of pineapple juice, your splash of You could probably leave the simple syrup or gava, and then you're half ounce of espresso. If you're scared of the espresso because it does significantly change it,

you could drop that down to a quarter ounce. Taste it see if you like it, and then you can always add more if you want. If you add more to go too far, just pour some more pineapple juice in there. It'll pour it out. I feel like I just did a lot of fancy footwork explaining that mocktail. It was a little bit more complicated to turn this one into a mocktail than some of them. Just like Gregor McGregor. Yeah, but it is quite a yummy sip.

It was another one of those cases where often when I make them, like, I'll make them in the morning the day we're recording, and so I don't drink the whole thing because I got work to do. But this time I realized I had had almost the whole thing done, like as I was writing it up, and I was like, that's a good drink, A good drink right there. Yeah. So we hope that if you try Poiasia nectar you enjoy it. I mostly just want to encourage everybody to experiment.

But things that you know are maybe a little unusual in a drink. The worst that happens is that it's bad and you pour it out. This is very little shame in that game. Somebody else might like it and drink it for you, right you know, you never know. We are definitely so thankful that you spend this time

with us learning about this interesting Scottish scam artists. We hope we'll see you right back here next week because there's going to be more scam artists and more scam Sauce Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.