The Lemon Problem.
A pub where every ingredient is British, and the hour-long argument about a gin and tonic that has no lemon in it.
What it is about.
All-British sourcing sounds like a marketing position until somebody has to write a menu with it. No lemons, no pepper, no olive oil, no citrus of any kind, and a bar that cannot make about half of the drinks people ask for.
The episode goes through the substitutions one by one — what replaced the lemon, what replaced the pepper, what nothing adequately replaced — and is candid that a couple of them are worse than the original.
It ends on the commercial question nobody asks out loud: whether the constraint sells more than it costs. The answer, on the numbers given, is yes, but not by as much as anybody assumes.
Where things are in it.
Timestamps are in the feed as chapter marks, so an app that supports them will let you skip straight to the bit you came for.
The rule
Every ingredient from these islands. No exceptions and no fudging.
The lemon
What replaced it and whether it is any good.
The things nothing replaces
Pepper, mostly.
Does the constraint pay?
On the numbers, yes. Modestly.
The details.
Episode 06
- Title
- The Lemon Problem
- Published
- 21 July 2026Fortnightly, on a Tuesday.
- Length
- 58 min
- Guest
- The head chefThe Farmer’s Dog
- Listens
- 38,660To 30 August 2026.
Access
- Transcript
- Published with the episodeSearchable.
- Download
- YesIt is an audio file.
- Cost
- NothingNo tier, no early access.
- Chapter marks
- YesThe four above, in the feed.
Every broadcast and every episode described here is illustrative. This is an unofficial demonstration build: no recording exists, nothing streams, and no guest named on this site has agreed to anything.
Who is on it.
The head chef
The Farmer’s Dog
Wittering
Fortnightly, Tuesdays, no sponsors, and the transcript published with every episode.
Where this goes next.
Almost every episode has a written counterpart, because an argument that only exists in audio is an argument nobody can quote.
The rest of the series.
One Hundred and Forty-Four Pounds
The first year’s profit, where the number came from, and why nobody who understood the arithmetic was remotely surprised by…
The Sixteen-Mile Radius
The planning condition that decides what the farm shop is allowed to sell, read out loud and then argued with…
Lagering Takes Six Weeks
Why the beer costs what it costs, told by somebody who has thrown a batch away and would like to…
We Completely Cocked Up
The cider recall, the statement that said exactly that, and why the shortest crisis statement in the file was also…
There Is No Telephone
Why a business with three million followers has no telephone number, and what happens to the people who wanted one.
What the Drought Cost
A dry year, priced. What it took off the yield, what it added to the input bill, and what it…
Get it in an app.
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