SEASON 2 FINALE! Tackling our Broken Healthcare System with Christy Snodgrass (& the Christy PRN Cocktail)

America’s healthcare system is not only broken – it's exploitative. This reality became incredibly clear to Christy Snodgrass during her time as a nurse, leading her to leave nursing and throw herself into reforming the field of medicine to better serve struggling patients and healthcare workers. In the season 2 finale of Cocktails & Capitalism, Christy and I discuss the experiences that led her to become a patient advocate who has devoted her life to helping others navigate this expensive, convoluted, heartless system. Her story was so powerful that it made me cry, and that’s saying a lot on this often dark and heavy podcast. I came across Christy’s work when bartender Jesse sent me one of her many fantastic TikTok videos – one that offers clear steps for negotiating down your hospital bills. Her other videos show you how to save money in this expensive, fucked up medical system, how to apply for charity care, and how to find patient advocacy services. GO FOLLOW CHRISTY ON TIKTOK AND INSTAGRAM for more clear, practical advice on how to navigate our healthcare system.Christy is the founder of Healthcare Reformed – a company that provides patients and healthcare workers with the resources necessary to support their physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing. As stated on their website, Healthcare Reformed “strives to bring transparency to our complicated and often exploitative healthcare system.”Big thanks to Jesse Torres for crafting the perfect cocktail! The Christy PRN CocktailThis is a riff on the classic Whiskey Smash, a class of mixed beverage from the late 1800s. It is a direct descendant of the famous Julep category of drinks, of which, the Mint Julep reigns supreme. The Smash, while similar to the Julep, has the addition of some ornamental fruits (in our case, blackberries) for garnish and is always shaken so that the mint is “smashed”—hence the name.One of the earliest examples of a smash appears in the form of a Julep recipe in Jerry Thomas’ 1862 How to Mix Drinks, or, The Bon Vivant’s Companion. Though Thomas doesn’t mention the Smash by name, his definition of the Julep clearly lays the foundation for the future of the category. Fast-forward to 1888 and turn to barman Harry Johnson, who, unlike Thomas, addresses the Smash directly as a separate cocktail from a Julep. Though he’s not especially wordy on the topic, Johnson does include four distinct Smash recipes. His Old Style Whiskey Smash is a casual concoction of sugar, water, mint, “small pieces” of ice and one “wineglass” of whiskey (about 60ml). He added that to a glass with “fruits in season,”, gave it a mix and served it with a Julep strainer.Blackberry Whiskey Smash60    ml    Bourbon or Rye Whiskey22    ml    Simple Syrup (2:1)            Half a medium lemon cut into four equal pieces            About ten mint leaves            Four BlackberriesAdd simple syrup, lemons, mint, and blackberries to a shaker tin and muddle well to smash the blackberries and to press all the juice out of the lemon pieces. Fill the shaker with cubed ice and shake vigorously until properly chilled and diluted. Fine strain into a rocks glass filled with cubed ice. Garnish with a bouquet of mint, a thinly-sliced lemon wheel, and a couple of blackberries.Glassware:      Rocks or old fashioned glassSupport the showCocktails & Capitalism is an anticapitalist labor of love, but we could use your help to make this project sustainable. If you can support with even a dollar a month, that would really help us continue to educate, agitate, and amplify the voices of those who are working to dismantle capitalism and create a better world.https://www.patreon.com/cocktailsandcapitalismFollow us on Instagram and TwitterSome episodes on YouTube. Subscribe & enjoy! Cheers!