Batter Up: Brookfield Buddies Try for Waffle-Stacking Record

BROOKFIELD, CT — What is the allure of "The Guinness Book of World Records" that drives otherwise clear-headed young men and women to push themselves to be the very best in some category, no matter how insane that category might be? That was the fair question we asked Brookfield's Alex Halloran who, along with six friends, is currently hard at work figuring out how to build the world's largest stack of waffles.

"We just enjoy having fun, and doing different things," he told Patch. Emphasis, here, on "different."

Officially just "Guinness World Records" since 2000, the publisher has been singing its siren's song to overachievers since 1995. It is itself a record-holder, being the bestselling copyrighted book of all time. The 2019 edition marks its 64th year in publication, and it's now distributed in 100 countries and in 23 languages, and has branched out into TV shows and museums.

But you don't have to sell Halloran, 23, on its appeal. He's been an avid fan all his life.

"All of us as kids growing up, we would read 'The Guinness Book of World Records' all the time. It's a kid's dream to be in that book, and we said, 'Why not? Nothing's stopping us!'"

So they kept their eyes peeled for a record that was breakable. "Most consecutive one-finger push-ups" (124 by the UK's Paul Lynch in 1992) was out, surely, as likely was "highest flame blown by a fire breather" (26 ft. 5 in. by Antonio Restivo, in Las Vegas). But when the waffle-stacking record was broken last year, Halloran said he remembers thinking "this doesn't seem too, too crazy. We could do this."

The new record-holders, Spencer McCullough and Cory Trim of Denver, had built their tower of breakfast squares to an intimidating 67 cm., or 26.38 inches, in May 2018. The record had stood unbroken for a year when Halloran and his spoilers sent in their application to Guinness earlier this year. They finally got their application approved this week. (Halloran says they could have paid an "absolutely exorbitant" fee to have the approval paperwork expedited, but didn't. If you ever wondered how the Guinness World Records company made money, wonder no more.)

Along with the formal acceptance of their bid for glory came a 30-page packet of rules. Apparently Guinness won't just take your word, along with a selfie on Instagram, that you've busted one of their records, even one as ridiculous as waffle-stacking. Third-party adjudicators in the form of a professional surveyor, to measure the waffles and ensure the table they're placed upon is level, and a certified health inspector, to examine the batter and presumably ensure it's not made with magnets or Elmer's® glue, must be "on hand at all times," according to the rules.

Where do you hire a health inspector? Halloran, who is a grad student at Berklee School of Music, didn't know before, but he does now. He also now knows that health inspectors don't run cheap.

The rules stipulate that all the waffles in the stack have to be the same size (no pyramids, wiseguy!), and no smaller than 5" by 5". There is no maximum size, interestingly enough, but no waffle may be thicker than 3.5 cm., or about 1.37 inches. Guinness places no restriction on the shape of the waffles, but after crunching the geometry Halloran concluded that a square, though dull, was likely their best bet.

Halloran and his doughboys are currently elbows-deep in their trial and error phase. One concern is the weather: because Guinness requires the tower be built outside, the wind may be a factor.

"We're practicing with smaller waffles," Halloran said, "to see if they tilt in a certain direction. If we cook them a little longer, will they stack straighter because they are harder? Or if they're under-cooked, a little soggier, will they make the stack more stable? That's the process we're going through right now."

Halloran says he and his crew — Brookfield residents Alex and Mark Prochorenko, Alex and Andrew Collins, and Antonio Assante; and Conor Langan from West Hartford, all in their early 20s — still need a couple of more weeks to dope out their secret formula and erect some test towers before they can officially stack their waffles and claim the new record. But that delay has done nothing to dampen the smack talk. It is Brookfield, after all.