Cheers 2 Ears!
Two dudes named Aaron toasting their way through the Disney resorts. New episodes drop every Monday morning
Cheers 2 Ears!
From Turkey Legs To Ronto Wraps: Smart Swaps And Epic Fails with a Gentlemen's Sour
What happens when you change just one ingredient in a beloved Disney snack? We poured a Gentleman’s Sour and put park favorites on the tasting table, pushing the limits of flavor, texture, and pure nostalgia. From the notorious turkey leg and Jack-Jack Cookie Num Num to Dole Whip, churros, Ronto wraps, and school bread, we tested how a single swap can either unlock something brilliant or turn a classic into a cautionary tale.
We start by owning the flops. Boiled turkey leg? Instant texture tragedy. Pickle Dole Whip and Vienna sausage corn dogs? They strip away the core joy that makes those bites iconic. That sharp contrast sets up the wins: a bourbon barbecue–glazed turkey leg that stays walkable but adds smoky caramel depth; a Num Num cookie with butterscotch chips or a sea-salt kiss to amplify richness; and a Dole Whip smoothed with coconut milk for a creamier, more tropical feel without losing pineapple’s sunny zip.
Savory fans get love too. We bend the Ronto wrap into a Cubano-inspired riff with a thin swipe of mustard and a few pickle coins, then try a chili-dog lane with a disciplined drizzle of chili to keep it tidy and satisfying. For snacking on the move, stuffed Mickey waffles deliver clean handheld comfort with sealed fillings like vanilla custard, chocolate, or apple—big flavor without the powdered sugar fallout. Even school bread gets a respectful plus-up with optional custard flavors, keeping its cardamom soul intact while giving fans a reason to sample across the case.
Along the way, we talk about what makes a park snack work: portability, heat-friendly textures, bright flavors, and memories that hit the moment you take a bite. The best tweaks honor that blueprint; the worst ignore it. Hear the hits, laugh at the misses, and tell us your dream one-ingredient swap.
If this made you hungry, tap follow, share it with your Disney foodie crew, and drop a review with your best or worst snack upgrade idea—we might feature it next time.
Hello and welcome to Cheers to Ears, where today we're sipping on a gentleman's sour from Enzo's Hideaway at Disney Springs. And it's made with gentleman's jack whiskey, lemon juice, bitters, and simple syrup. And it's$19 and all easy words to pronounce for once for me.
SPEAKER_00:Yay! Yay! So this one we followed to a tea. Two ounces of gentleman jack whiskey. We did three quarters of an ounce of simple syrup, three quarters of an ounce of lemon juice, and a dash of lemon bitters. I stuck with the lemon bitters. But yeah, shaken, poured over ice. And an old-fashioned glass. Yes. It's quite good. It's like a sour whiskey. It's a sipper. It's a sit on the porch and have a conversation sipper. The simple syrup mellows everything out, but it's got a good lemon flavor, not overpowering. You can taste the whiskey. I'm almost done. You are, and your ice claiked around there.
SPEAKER_02:Everyone that he's almost done already. Yeah. He's been over sipping because we were trying to start videotaping our podcast, and we're still trying to figure it out. So this one is not there yet. Someday. Someday the YouTube channel will be up, but it's not there yet. Someday.
SPEAKER_00:TBD. Okay. Okay, today we're talking about what? Ten changed meals and snacks. Ten to hopefully the better, or five to the better, and five that maybe worse, where we only changed one ingredient. Although one of them, I have to be clear, one of them, I didn't change the ingredient because it's only one ingredient. I changed the way it's prepared. Oh. And I did six, actually, because I kind of got carried away and I couldn't figure out what to leave on.
SPEAKER_02:See if you I have a guess for one you will would take away the ingredient I'll take away for one. And I'll see if you say it and I wonder. You did five the same five dishes for five of the most some of the most popular Disney snacks.
SPEAKER_00:And I did six. Although I did do one twice because I came up with a couple variations. So we'll see how this goes. Would you like me to start or yeah, go ahead?
SPEAKER_02:You have more.
SPEAKER_00:So well, I will start with the one that I changed the cooking method and not the actual ingredients. So is it good or bad? This is a bad. This is a bad. So my these will be all my bad ones. Okay, we'll go bad first, okay. Okay. A boiled turkey leg. Oh. Instead of a smoked turkey leg.
SPEAKER_02:That just doesn't sound good.
SPEAKER_00:No.
SPEAKER_02:It just it's not. Watching it cook would be oh, and that nasty frothy brown water. Yeah, how it would look afterwards, that pale brown color.
SPEAKER_00:That and with the slimy skin. Almost, yeah. That's not like boiled turkey skin. That's delicious. Oh. Everybody loves the skin on a turkey. That's gross. Yeah, so that's my that counts.
SPEAKER_02:That counts. I might have done something. I don't wonder if I did anything like that. I don't think so. I think that's all ingredients. Okay. That's crazy. My first one's Dole Whip. Okay. Okay. And my the bad is instead of the lemon or the pineapple, okay, pickle juice.
SPEAKER_00:Pickle dole whoop. That's better than the dole whip I came up with. I put it in the good category, but it might be a meh. But it's like the pickle milkshake.
SPEAKER_02:It's that's I hate pickles, so it's a bad idea. Anything pickle is bad for me. So dole whip I love, pickles I do not like, and so that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Your next one. The Vienna sausage corn dog. Mmm, tasty. Just yeah. That does, yeah. That's unappetizing. All it you change that from a hot dog to some Vienna sausage, and nobody wants to touch it. Yeah, I'm taking a Mickey pretzel next.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Taking off the salt. Okay. Putting sugar on it. Oh.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that would be weird.
SPEAKER_02:That would be weird.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Turning it into a dense sweet bread?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:No, that just does not work. Okay, mine. This one will deeply offend Asha. And yeah, it'll gross her out, but I'm sure she'll be laughing about it. So she is a big fan of the caramel apple.
SPEAKER_02:Right. We talked about that.
SPEAKER_00:She would rather have a caramel apple, I think, than anything at Disney World or Disneyland. And they also do, I believe they do a candied apple, which is just that a candy shell on it. Mine's neither of those. Mine's a butter apple. Ooh. Coat that sucker.
SPEAKER_02:Hard butter shell.
SPEAKER_00:Coat it in butter and let it sit out till the butter gets nice and hard.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, buttered apple.
SPEAKER_00:Buttery apple.
SPEAKER_02:That's funny.
SPEAKER_00:Of course, there's some people, there's probably somebody out there who's like, oh, that sounds really good. The people who love butter.
SPEAKER_02:My next one's one of my favorite snacks to have. A churro. A churro. Taking off the cinnamon, sprinkling with old bay seasoning. Oh, man. That sounds gross, doesn't it? It does sound gross. Unless it was being served with some seafood or something. Yeah. Right. Old bay was never a big thing in our kitchen. And I've used a lot more since our son Eli is in Annapolis now. Okay. Right, where old bay is one of the top ingredients. So I've actually learned to like old bay a lot.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Certain things. But not a churro. I have some friends who love it, and that introduced me to it, and I still don't think I have any old bay in the cupboard. Yeah, just because it's not something that I think about. Yeah. But old bay churro. Not on a churro. Ever. Ever. So mine, we're going to Cafe Orleans with my next one. Yeah. The the famed Monte Cristo sandwich. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Have you ever had the Monte Cristine?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love the Monte Cristo. I have two.
SPEAKER_02:It was one of the first, it was the first thing I had when I first ate there. It was very was very big. I remember it being a lot of food.
SPEAKER_00:Have I eaten there? I think I've eaten at Cafe Orleans now twice. Because I think I had the shrimp and grits once, which was eh it was okay. It wasn't great. And then I had the Monte Cristo, and it was like, why did I ever have anything besides that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Jazz Kitchen has the best shrimp and grits. Yeah, we all know that.
SPEAKER_00:So anyway, bagel unlocks Monte Cristo. Oh, a bagel with some smoked salmon and some cream cheese dipped in batter and fried. Yummy. Yeah, bagel unlocks Monte Cristo.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, my next one's a turkey leg. Okay. Okay. But mine, I'm I'm gonna cook it the same way.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02:But but first, I'm gonna inject it with banana puree.
SPEAKER_01:Then cook it.
SPEAKER_00:That's really disgusting. You know, I was trying to figure out how I could get banana flavor into something. Oh, really? But every funny. But every time I thought about adding banana to something, it actually helped it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh.
SPEAKER_00:Or it would have made it would have been a good version of. Because I was like, a banana dole whip. No. That sounds good. Actually, banana dole whip does sound good. But yeah, I tried and I couldn't think of anything that I wanted to inject banana into.
SPEAKER_02:You figured it out without even talking about it. We had no I had no idea you were thinking banana.
SPEAKER_00:And yeah, I think that wins like the banana ruining gold medal. Oh. Turkey and bananas. That's that's a Thanksgiving treat. It's we're almost there, folks. So fried chicken dinner at Plaza.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But instead, I mean, that's a lot of food. It's a lot of chicken. A lot of chicken. Leg, thigh, chicken breast, and I think the wings even attached to the chicken. It's a lot of chicken. It's a lot of chicken. It's easily split by two people.
SPEAKER_02:Not a good solo trip meal, I found out.
SPEAKER_00:No. So you don't serve those pieces of chicken. You use other parts of the chicken. So it's served with the neck and fried livers and fried hearts and fried gizzards. Instead of the actual meat.
SPEAKER_02:I think I had that in China.
SPEAKER_00:Probably.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's some other top things at Shanghai Disney.
SPEAKER_00:You have to you have to eat the whole bird.
SPEAKER_02:Because we ate the whole duck.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I thought about adding maybe on special occasions that it could do the back. Chicken back. Yeah. Chicken back.
SPEAKER_02:Plaza and chicken back.
SPEAKER_00:With the little pudgy tail thing still on it. Tasty. But you know, if you deep fried it, would you really notice that it was anything different?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. I think you would. Okay. Okay, my fifth iconic snack is the one we did not have when we went. We both plan on getting it, and I haven't had it for years and years, and it's the Jack Jack Cookie Num Num. Yes. But this one, chocolate chips are gone from it. Instead, we're gonna put olives. Oh gosh, that's gross.
SPEAKER_00:Olives. Nothing like an olive cookie.
SPEAKER_02:And that's the last of my horrible ideas. So I said six. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So you have two. My other one? Oh, you have one more. I have one more, yes, because I started it. Right. So I went to the Polynesian. Okay. And the Ohana pumper nickel bread pudding.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. What are you gonna do to this?
SPEAKER_00:No, no, the bread pudding, but made with pumpernickel. Oh, pump, you it just said so that like a little dense pumpernickel in your bread pudding. Nice strong flavor. Nice loaf. Yeah. I thought about doing rye. Yeah. Well nice rye bread pudding. Rye bread pudding. It was tempting, but I thought pumpernickel. Yeah, that would hit home. You could have done olive bread. I could have done, I could have done a little pimento. Yeah. Pimento.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so now we're going to good ones. So those are all our bad ideas, which are funnier than these great ideas we have that Disney will probably listen to, and we'll see these in the parks these next five and six. We'll see them in the parks soon.
SPEAKER_00:Make you forget that you what you've just heard. And and maybe help heal that that slight turn of your stomach.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you're so you're doing sorry. You're doing different ones where I'm doing the same exact five, but I'm adding a good ingredient to these five. Okay, so you go ahead again since the rhythm works right.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so mine starts with a jackjack cookie numnum. But you pull out the chocolate chips and put in butterscotch chips.
SPEAKER_02:Ooh, I like that. Yeah. I tried to think of that for cookie. I didn't couldn't figure out a different cookie numnum. I want to do that. A different chip. Yeah. I almost did a whole different cookie, but I like that. Yeah. That's a great idea.
SPEAKER_00:That was my idea. I was trying to think of how I could ruin it. And then we chatted, and you were going with five good, five bad. And I was having a fun time with doing the bad ones. So you can this changed course for that. So that caused me to think of, oh, how could I make that better or different? Might be different. It might be better.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think it'd be better. I mean, I like a butterscotch more than a chocolate chip cookie myself. Butterscotch is one of my favorite flavors. I think I would like it better. I would like it more, yeah. On a hot park day, it might be too sweet. I don't know. But the chocolate might be. But even the chocolate's not good on a hot right.
SPEAKER_00:Sometimes it is. Like that kept me. I'm just dropping stuff over here. So that kept me from getting one when we were down there. Is because it was so hot.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm like, I don't really want to eat something really hot. Anyway, how did you improve something? So the dole whip.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. And we're going back to the top of the list. Dole whip. I'm just adding coconut milk to the dole to make it creamier and more tropical. Oh. I think it'd be pretty good. So it'd be a pineapple. Yeah, so sometimes it has a water base to the pineapple, I think, when they make the yeah.
SPEAKER_00:When they make it. It's kind of a water gelato, not even gelato, but yeah, I know what you mean. Sure bit. That's what I was thinking.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I think that's my thickening up just a little bit and a little sweeter.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Okay. That's a good one. I'd I'd give that a whirl. Okay. So this one. Give it a whip. Whip. So this one, it's actually my next two are both Ronto wraps. So improving the Ronto wrap. Improving the rolling wrap. I'm the edge of my seat for this. So it's a cubano Ronto wrap.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So pickle mustard. And you could do like some pulled pork on it or something. More than one ingredient, but it's kind of changing it to a cubano ronto wrap. Everything else stays the same. It's just you got some pickle and some mustard there. Even if it were just that. Yeah. A cubano Ronto wrap. Okay. I would at least try that. Yeah. I like a good cubano.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. Good. That's a good one. Mickey Pretzel is my next one. Okay. And I'm just going simple here. I've just taken the cheese dip they serve with it, and I'm going to serve it with a beer cheese dip. Oh, okay. That sounds a lot better. Yeah. A little more flavor. Yeah. That cheese dip's just like that cheese sauce.
SPEAKER_00:You know what would make that funduda? The funduda sauce they had there, that would be good too. That cheese sauce was really good. That would be a good one. But yeah, beer cheese, that would case.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't think of that. I was trying to think of a different sauce. That's what I came up with. Instead of the plastic cheese.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Because don't really want to have velvet.
SPEAKER_02:No, I pretty much would toss that and just eat the present.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So my second Ronto wrap that I did, a Ronto chili wrap.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00:A chili Ronto wrap.
SPEAKER_01:A chili Ronto.
SPEAKER_00:So basically like a chili dog.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or a coney dog, but do that with the Ronto wrap. And I don't know if you'd just add the chili and throw on with the coleslaw that's on there or the slaw. So just add a small amount of chili. Yeah. No, I wouldn't want to make it messy. No, you don't want a big old chili blob. No. But just don't want the run around. So just a little chili line. Maybe some cone sauce or something. Yeah, dab of chili.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I think that might help, but just yeah, if it wasn't too much. If it wasn't too much. Yeah, you can go overboard where it's a sit-down knife and fork type thing.
SPEAKER_00:And that's what I was trying to avoid right there. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Good. I like that. I like that. I'd try that. I'd try that. So now we're going with the turkey leg. Okay. Okay. Turkey leg I don't like. We both don't. I don't think we love a turkey leg. Do you love a turkey leg? I don't love it. You don't mind it?
SPEAKER_00:I've had one or two. It's just it's the hardest thing to eat in the park. It's greasy, sticky, greasy. It tastes good to me. It tastes more like ham than actual because of the brining that they do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's more like a novelty item.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The allure of it doesn't. I don't get it.
SPEAKER_00:The idea I ever heard about a turkey leg is a friend who, and I've mentioned this before, she grabbed a turkey leg on her way out the gate, took it home, and then she made turkey soup out of it the next day. And she said it was really good. But anyway, your idea for the turkey leg.
SPEAKER_02:I'm going to glaze it with a bourbon barbecue sauce. Ooh. That would be good. Just a light glaze. Yeah. Still walkable. You still walk around with it. It's not going to be like we talked just about the chili dog. You can still walk around with it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That would be real good. I might have to try another one if it had that glaze. Yeah, we'll see.
SPEAKER_02:I think we're going to see these soon.
SPEAKER_00:I believe so. I think Disney Food Blog is going to be on there.
SPEAKER_02:The new things at Disney. It's weird. They were just on this podcast.
SPEAKER_00:So at one point, I actually Googled, and I think it was after we came up with this idea of bad foods that they've served at Disneyland or Disney World. And I can't remember where they served this at, but it was peanut butter and jelly mac and cheese.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, geez. Yeah. That sounds like a festival kind of thing. It just festival booths. They have some of the weirdest things at those.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was pretty nasty. Yeah. It was quick lived, and I can't remember where they did that. The American Pavilion. No, it wasn't. That sounds like something they'd have their. I think it was at DCA. Oh, really?
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I can't really remember. Anyway, so that beat us big time. That's horrible. Yeah. So my next one, yeah. School bread. Because we got to talk about school bread. Plus up school bread. So you're going with good stuff, you're adding stuff too. It's yeah, I know. This was a tricky one because it's got the vanilla custard. I thought, what if it had choices? Where you could get one that's caramel custard or butterscotch, I guess, a berry custard, okay, or a chocolate custard instead of just the vanilla.
SPEAKER_02:That's interesting.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know if it's I wouldn't call it better yet, though, because I had to try that. I mean, I like the idea of it. The schoolbread in itself is so good, though.
SPEAKER_00:It is. And I was in my mind, I thought, okay, this doesn't really make it better, but it gives you more options.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I like the idea of it. Which means you might have to eat four of schoolbreads in a day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack. All covered with your school breads.
SPEAKER_02:The schoolbread diet by Aaron.
SPEAKER_00:That's your new video series. Exactly. The schoolbread diet. Yeah. How I lost 20 pounds eating nothing but schoolbread.
SPEAKER_02:Eating nothing but schoolbread.
SPEAKER_00:And walking 28,000 steps a day.
SPEAKER_02:That's hilarious. Now we're to the numnum cookie. Okay. So what I did, I like I think I like your idea better as I'm reading it again. But I'm going to sprinkle it with sea salt just before baking it. Oh. That's a good idea. Just to add a little sweetness. Yeah. It enhances the chocolate flavor.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Pulls out any little bit of bitterness. Yeah. That might be pretty good. I would try that. I would be all over that. That's a good one. I think these are gonna, I'm serious. I think these are gonna be in the parks. I think so. I think they're listening to this. So kind of stole this next idea from one of the foods that we didn't get to try. So it was the Mickey Waffles filled with the Ube custard at Schmoozy's at DCA. And I thought, and that's the thing, I don't really want to eat. I want on-the-go waffles, Mickey waffles. And that seemed a little more on the go because I don't want to sit down and put butter and syrup and all that type of stuff, or even dip it in syrup. So I thought stuffed Mickey waffles. Chocolate, vanilla custard, strawberries, maybe like an apple pie filling, but just make them where they're stuffed, and you can buy a bag of like maybe three of them, and you can just be walking and eating.
SPEAKER_02:I like that.
SPEAKER_00:Not stuffed so that they make a big mess, but something you could a snack on the go. I like this a lot. Sweet snack. That's better than a bag of beignets to me. I think that could rival a bag of beignets. It does. I like this a lot. And what I like about it is holding on to a waffle, your hand's not really getting dirty. Like a beignet. You're powdered sugar gets everywhere. It gets on your shirt, your pants, all over the ground, yeah, everywhere. This, you're not getting anything everywhere. So that's that's why it just seemed like a good way to go.
SPEAKER_02:Wow. We came up with some ideas they're gonna have in the parks eventually. Don't you have one more? No, that's it. You have one more? I have one more. You should have two, three, Mickey pretzel, churro, turkey leg, number cookie. Two, four, five.
SPEAKER_00:Oh. I set them all. Did I did you start? Okay, I got one more. You got one more. This is an extra bonus one, but I wasn't sure if this was a good idea or a bad idea. Okay. The peanut butter and jelly dole whip. That's a oh it's a good, it's it might be a good idea. Because it's peanut butter and jelly together and nothing else. It's just those two flavors. So it's a swirl of peanut butter dole whip and a swirl of some jelly, whether it's strawberry or grape jelly or whichever. And I thought that could be really good. But I think a lot of people would be like, that's disgusting. Because a dole whip is pineapple and maybe mango. It has to be a tropical fruit. And here I am coming with your good old American five-year-old sandwich with the PBJ. I think some people really love it, and some people just really hate it.
SPEAKER_02:They can serve that one outside the Abe Lincoln Walt Disney show. Oh. Yeah. I have a little cart there. You have a little cart. PBJ Dolop cart. Yeah. Very Americana. America. America. Okay. Those are all good. So what we did, we came up with five and six, each of us. We came up with some good ideas. I think, I think here's what's going to happen. After this, the five ones we added stuff to are going to be in the parks. And I think the other ones are going to be in the parks too, just during festivals.
SPEAKER_00:I think so. I could see some sort of well, I know that they've done Bale and Locks at one of the Epcot festivals.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, these are all festival foods, like the banana injected turkey leg.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The turkey leg injected. That's going to be at a festival.
SPEAKER_00:Just call it fusion. Like the Germany pavilion does the Vienna sausage corndog.
SPEAKER_02:Right. The pickle juice dole whip will be at the food and wine festival.
SPEAKER_00:That'll be served where they do the pickle milkshake.
SPEAKER_02:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Which why? I don't know. Don't know.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah. We'll be in the parks. Try some. Have fun.
SPEAKER_00:Cheers. Cheers.
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