'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house...

Possibly one of the most famous Christmas verses yet itself the subject of a pervading mystery. Submitted anonymously to a New York newspaper in 1823, any potential author didn't come to light until over 20 years later. But then, an ownership contest began...

Join us for the first of this year's Christmas Specials as we get merry for the festive season and Sooz introduces us to an unhinged rendition of Jingle Bells and tries to get Masud to climax to pictures of her boyfriend dressed in various costumes.

Have a great Christmas and we'll be back with our second Christmas Special on 2nd January (it's still the Christmas season OK)...

Hosted by Masud Milas, Chris Stokes, and Sooz Kempner Mystery on the Rocks is a high concept comedy and true crime/unexplained phenomena podcast set in a fictional mystery-solving bar with real cocktails!. The focus of the show is to attempt to crack a real, unsolved mystery from history – true crime and bizarre occurrences, all with a whodunnit or WTF happened question hanging over them.

You can follow us on Bluesky, X and Instagram too!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joining Sooz Kempner's One Hit Wonders as another occasional new series, our favourite game returns!

Discovered during the recording of our Gentleman of Heligoland episode, VHGuess sees Chris and Masud have to guess which particular VHSes are in a bundle Sooz finds at random on eBay.

With new rules, structure and lifelines added, join us as we play Mystery on the Rocks panel game VHGuess!

Hosted by Masud Milas, Chris Stokes, and Sooz Kempner Mystery on the Rocks is a high concept comedy and true crime/unexplained phenomena podcast set in a fictional mystery-solving bar with real cocktails!. The focus of the show is to attempt to crack a real, unsolved mystery from history – true crime and bizarre occurrences, all with a whodunnit or WTF happened question hanging over them.

You can follow us on Bluesky, X and Instagram too!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Duggan becomes the first ever returning guest on Mystery on the Rocks as he joins us while we go through the bizarre story of the mysterious Kaspar Hauser.

Found wandering the streets of Nuremberg in 1828, Kaspar was apparently sixteen years old and had about his person two letters which offered little in the way of identification beyond his name and age. He claimed to have grown up in captivity and, as he was moved about under the guardianships of different people and endured several attempts on his life, some began to wonder if Kaspar was in fact an illegitimate royal heir who had been swept away out of sight...

Ultimately, in 1833, one of the attempts on his life was successful and Kaspar was murdered, aged 21. Nobody knows who did it, or why, or even what the truth behind Kaspar himself was...

Hosted by Masud Milas, Chris Stokes, and Sooz Kempner Mystery on the Rocks is a high concept comedy and true crime/unexplained phenomena podcast set in a fictional mystery-solving bar with real cocktails!. The focus of the show is to attempt to crack a real, unsolved mystery from history – true crime and bizarre occurrences, all with a whodunnit or WTF happened question hanging over them.

You can follow us on Bluesky, X and Instagram too!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1996, Gary Triano is murdered - a pipe bomb explodes his car.

It takes a decade for justice to be served. So what on Earth took so long?

Hosted by Masud Milas, Chris Stokes, and Sooz Kempner Mystery on the Rocks is a high concept comedy and true crime/unexplained phenomena podcast set in a fictional mystery-solving bar with real cocktails!. The focus of the show is to attempt to crack a real, unsolved mystery from history – true crime and bizarre occurrences, all with a whodunnit or WTF happened question hanging over them.

You can follow us on Bluesky, X and Instagram too!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Something a little different this week as we begin a new occasional series called Sooz Kempner's One Hit Wonders where Sooz takes us through the story of some of the very best (and worst) one hit wonders.

Where are they now? Why did their one hit hit so hard and then other songs fail to replicate the success?

For the first episode, Sooz tells us the story of John Parr and his almighty anthem 'St Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion)'...

Hosted by Masud Milas, Chris Stokes, and Sooz Kempner Mystery on the Rocks is a high concept comedy and true crime/unexplained phenomena podcast set in a fictional mystery-solving bar with real cocktails!. The focus of the show is to attempt to crack a real, unsolved mystery from history – true crime and bizarre occurrences, all with a whodunnit or WTF happened question hanging over them.

You can follow us on Bluesky, X and Instagram too!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we take a look at the brutal murder of Japanese businessman and high stakes gambler Akio Kashiwagi, stabbed (potentially up to 150 times) in his home in January 1992. One of the world's greatest gamblers, he rinsed several casinos enough to give them cause for concern that, for once, the house might not win...

As well as delving into which enemies he may have made enough to kill him, we also ask the burning question... Why was Peter Lorre a prominent cartoon character years after he passed away?

Hosted by Masud Milas, Chris Stokes, and Sooz Kempner Mystery on the Rocks is a high concept comedy and true crime/unexplained phenomena podcast set in a fictional mystery-solving bar with real cocktails!. The focus of the show is to attempt to crack a real, unsolved mystery from history – true crime and bizarre occurrences, all with a whodunnit or WTF happened question hanging over them.

You can follow us on X and Instagram too!

Produced by Chris Stokes, Masud Milas and Sooz Kempner.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We know we spent last week's catch-up episode wanking on about the US election so you may wonder why we don't mention the outcome here. Recorded before the projections trickled in, this is our first case in well over a year.

And with a twist! While recording the episode The Murder of Kyllikkii Saari Chris noticed it was the second most notorious homicide case in Finland. So what was the first? Rather than research ahead of time, Chris decides to find out about this one alongside Sooz and Masud...

Hilkka Saarinen vanishes in 1960 and only through dogged determination from her son does the truth of what happened to her come to light. Except as the facts unravel, it seems pretty damn obvious what happened and who did it to her. Which begs the question...

Just why was this case unsolved?

Hosted by Masud Milas, Chris Stokes, and Sooz Kempner Mystery on the Rocks is a high concept comedy and true crime/unexplained phenomena podcast set in a fictional mystery-solving bar with real cocktails!. The focus of the show is to attempt to crack a real, unsolved mystery from history – true crime and bizarre occurrences, all with a whodunnit or WTF happened question hanging over them.

You can follow us on X and Instagram too!

Produced by Chris Stokes, Masud Milas and Sooz Kempner.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're back! The bar is back open and, easing back into the swing of things, we have a loose catch up and a discussion about the upcoming US election.

But don't worry, it's not all serious, we're Mystery on the Rocks - there's enough pee and poop here to get the bar closed back down again for good on hygiene grounds.

So join us for the usual disgusting silliness laced with an occasionally insightful good point and get ready for more mysteries and cocktails coming your way soon!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unable to record an episode this week due to sudden diarrhea, we dig into the archives and dust off one of our earliest episodes.

Bookended by some new chat from Chris and Sooz, we take a relisten to when fantastic comedian Nish Kumar joined us for the crazy tale of Clairvius Narcisse, who somehow LEGIT RETURNED FROM THE DEAD.

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We're doing a live show! On November 3rd at 7pm we will be at The Princess Victoria pub in London's Shepherds Bush as part of the Cheerful Earful podcast festival. If you're in or around the area we'd love to see you there, simply head to https://www.cheerfulearful.co.uk/events/mystery-on-the-rocks for details!

PLUS get early, ad-free access to episodes as well as cocktail recipes and outtakes plus whole bonus episodes over on our Patreon! Just head to www.patreon.com/mysteryontherocks where we've got a huge back catalogue of really cool stuff which we keep adding to all the time!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's 1992 and former (and unpopular) Polish Prime Minister lives in an almost paranoid level of security - his house is fortified by an 11 foot barbed-wire-topped wall and patrolled by a vicious Rottweiler, a dog which Jaroszewicz would walk while armed with a handgun.

Nevertheless, he and his second wife Alicja are found tortured and murdered in their home, the motivation for the crime unclear. The perpetrators equally unclear.

Until almost 30 years later...

Also in this episode Sooz makes the decision to pivot into directing porn. Hear her plans!

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We're doing a live show! On November 3rd at 7pm we will be at The Princess Victoria pub in London's Shepherds Bush as part of the Cheerful Earful podcast festival. If you're in or around the area we'd love to see you there, simply head to https://www.cheerfulearful.co.uk/events/mystery-on-the-rocks for details!

PLUS get early, ad-free access to episodes as well as cocktail recipes and outtakes plus whole bonus episodes over on our Patreon! Just head to www.patreon.com/mysteryontherocks where we've got a huge back catalogue of really cool stuff which we keep adding to all the time!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The final (fingers crossed) in our trilogy (still keep em crossed) of duo episodes as Chris and Sooz tackle a mass poisoning of a French village in 1951, which led to 250 cases and 7 deaths, including a man who thought he was a plane and jumped from a second storey window.

And want to hear about the government's policies on the distribution of flour in post-war France? Sooz didn't, so decided to counter each bread fact with a fact about dressage.

Will that be enough to convert Chris to the sport?

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We're doing a live show! On November 3rd at 7pm we will be at The Princess Victoria pub in London's Shepherds Bush as part of the Cheerful Earful podcast festival. If you're in or around the area we'd love to see you there, simply head to https://www.cheerfulearful.co.uk/events/mystery-on-the-rocks for details!

PLUS get early, ad-free access to episodes as well as cocktail recipes and outtakes plus whole bonus episodes over on our Patreon! Just head to www.patreon.com/mysteryontherocks where we've got a huge back catalogue of really cool stuff which we keep adding to all the time!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.