----------    facts

*-- Boozy Britons spend year of life hungover --*

LONDON (UPI) - The average alcohol-consuming Briton spends nearly a year of their life -- 315 days -- with a hangover, a charity's survey indicates. Macmillan Cancer Support said the Onepoll survey of 2,000 people, conducted July 24-Aug. 6, suggests the average Briton spends at least seven hours each month with a hangover, while 7 percent of those polled are projected to have approximately 3,024 hangovers in their lifetimes. The charity said it took the average number of hours respondents spent hung over each month and multiplied it by the average lifespan -- starting at 18, the legal drinking age in Britain -- to calculate that an average Briton spends 315 days of their life, nearly a year, feeling the ill after-effects of a drunken night. The survey also found 10 percent of respondents had missed a job interview and 8 percent had missed a wedding because they were too hungover to properly function. "This research shows hangovers are a waste of time and are causing people to miss out on everything from romance to their dream job. That's why we're asking people to sign up for Macmillan's Go Sober fundraising event, abstain from drinking alcohol for the month of October and ask family and friends to sponsor them. The money raised will provide vital funds to support people affected by cancer so they don't have to face it alone," said Hannah Redmond, head of national events marketing for Macmillan Cancer Support.


--------------- random  facts

For a product to be labeled "Made in the USA" the Federal Trace Commission requires that at least 70 % of the parts and labor come from the United States.

The FBI's fingerprint database is the largest in the world. It receives 34,000 new fingerprint cards a day.

On its first night of operation in 1982, the UPS Worldport facility processed 2,000 packages. It now handles that number in 30 seconds.

On June 19th, 1885, the French frigate "Isere" delivered the Statue of Liberty to the United States. For transit, it was broken down into 350 pieces and packed into 214 crates.

In the 1960 Olympic Winter Games in Squaw Valley, California, officials were unsure if a skier had missed a gate in the men's slalom. They asked a broadcaster if they could review the videotape and the "instant replay" was born.

The tuna's ultra efficient swimming ability has inspired the U.S. Navy to commission construction of a robotic tuna for surveillance missions.

------- superstition

Wishing on eyelashes was common folklore in the mid-19th century. A fallen eyelash is placed on the back of the hand before the wisher throws it over their shoulder. If the eyelash gets stuck, the wish does not come true. A Cornish schoolgirl version dictates that the eyelash should be placed on the tip of the nose; if she blows it off, she'll get her wish.

Ptolemy, Greco-Egyptian writer and astronomer, believed that shooting stars were a sign that the gods were looking down and listening to wishes.

The origin of society's fascination with the number sequence 11:11 is murky at best, but it's safe to say it has to do with its satisfying symmetry. Numerologists like Uri Geller believe that the number follows people and occurs too frequently to be coincidence.

In the mid-19th century, many British children believed that if you crossed paths with a white horse, you could make a wish. Others would count the white horses they saw and would make a wish after reaching a hundred.

Young girls commonly used dandelions in the 1800s for romantic and oracular purposes. It was believed that if you blew on a dandelion and all the seeds flew away, your loved one returned the feelings; if any seeds remained, they might have reservations or no feelings at all.

According to European folklore, wishing wells were homes for deities, or gifts from gods. Water is a valuable commodity; many early European tribes treated wells as shrines and often placed small statues of gods nearby. People would come to the wells to pray and ask for assistance from the gods.

(www.mentalfloss.com)

Breaking A Mirror Causes Seven Years Bad Luck: The Romans were the first people to create glass mirrors. They also believed that their invention had the potential to steal part of the soul of the person using it. If a person's reflection were distorted while using a mirror, then their soul would be corrupted and trapped as a result. Fortunately, the Romans believed your soul could be renewed - after seven years time. Until that point though, the person would suffer from bad luck since they did not have a whole, healthy soul to fight off evil.

Knock On Wood: This expression comes from Pagans, who believed that all living materials were imbued with spiritual properties, including trees. When they were cut down though, the spirit inside the tree would die and become hollow. It was at this point that evil spirits, like sprites, could take over the item and concoct ways to ruin the plans and hopes of people in the area. Fortunately, if someone knocked on the wood, it would drive away the malevolent spirits and prevent any potential misfortunes from occurring.

Black Cats: While most Western cultures consider black cats to be bad luck, many areas of the UK consider them to be a good omen. In fact, it's likely because the Pagan groups from these areas considered them to be good luck for so long that early Christians started spreading stories of the cats being evil. Specifically, these stories often tied black cats to witches, which makes a lot of sense given that they also accused Pagans of being witches.

Walking Under A Ladder: Early Christians felt the triangle was a sacred sign that represented the Holy Trinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When a ladder was pushed against a building, it would form the shape of a triangle, and thus, by walking under it, you were breaking the triangle. This was such a bad thing to do that early Christians would often label anyone who walked under a ladder to be a witch in league with Satan.

Throwing Salt Behind Your Shoulder: In olden times, it was frequently said that the devil was always sitting just behind your left shoulder. When you wasted something as valuable as salt, it was important to keep the devil at bay by either blinding him by throwing salt in his eyes or by placating him by giving him an offering of salt.

Lucky Rabbit's Foot: Rabbits feet have been a symbol of good luck since at least 600 BC when Celtic people in England would kill rabbits possessing certain attributes that were seen as beneficial to the bearer of the lucky charm. Some folklorists believe it was started by the pre-Celtic hunter clans who introduced young males to hunting by sending them out to catch a rabbit. On their first successful attempt, one of the rabbit's hind feet would be removed and awarded to the boy in a ceremony that celebrated his journey into manhood.

(www.neatorama.com)


----------------------- elements

Europium (Eu)

Euro paper banknotes contain tiny amounts of this hard, silvery metal as an anti-counterfeiting measure. It is also used to produce a strong, rich red color in television and computer screens.

Scandium (Sc)

In the 1970s, metallurgists found that aluminum-scandium alloys are strong and lightweight, making it useful in aerospace components. It wasn't long before sporting-equipment manufacturers started using the alloys in everything from baseball bats to lacrosse sticks.

Beryllium (Be)

Beryllium is recognized as a carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. In another form, however, beryllium is highly desirable, even priceless. When combined with trace amounts of chromium, beryllium takes on a beautiful green hue as the gemstone commonly known as the emerald.


Gallium (Ga)

Few elements are weirder than gallium: A relatively soft, glittering metal, it's widely used today in semiconductors and other electronics, as well as in the pharmaceutical industry. But in years past, gallium (atomic number 31) was a key part of a favorite parlor trick for magicians because it melts when it's just slightly warmer than room temperature. Thus, spoons that are made of gallium look normal, but when dipped into a cup of hot tea will instantly dissolve.


Tellurium (Te)

Tellurium, a silvery-white metal first discovered in Transylvania, is often used in solar panels, computer memory chips and rewritable optical discs. Its name comes from the Latin word for earth (tellus).


Dysprosium (Dy)

Dysprosium (atomic number 66), is named after the ancient Greek dysprositos, meaning "hard to get," appropriately enough. The soft, metallic substance is in big demand for electric motors, especially those in electric vehicles and wind turbines, which has earned dysprosium a place on the U.S. Department of Energy's list of critical materials for the green economy.

 ---------- inverntions

Stilts were invented by French shepherds who herded sheep in marshes near the Bay of Biscay.

In about 250 B.C., Ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes invented the screw.

Leonardo da Vinci figured out that the rings of a tree reveal its age.

The filaments for the first electric lamp were made of bamboo.

The first person to use an elevator: King Louis XV, whose "flying chair" went between floors at Versailles in 1743.

Mark Twain invented a Trivial Pursuit-like game called Mark Twain's Memory-Builder.


----------------------- mistakes

In 1966, Time Magazine predicted, "By 2000, the machines will be producing so much that everyone in the U.S. will, in effect, be independently wealthy." In that year too CoCo Chanel said about miniskirts: "It's a bad joke that won't last. Not with winter coming."

In 1954, a concert manager fired Elvis Presley, saying, "You ought to go back to driving a truck." In 1962, Decca Records rejected the Beatles, "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."

In 1894, A.A. Michelson, who with E.W. Morley seven years earlier experimentally demonstrated the constancy of the speed of light, said that the future of science would consist of "adding a few decimal places to the results already obtained."

After the invention of the transistor in 1947, several US electronics companies rejected the idea of a portable radio. Apparently it was thought nobody would want to carry a radio around. When Bell put the transistor on the market in 1952 they had few takers apart from a small Japanese start-up called Sony. They introduced the transistor radio in 1954.

Irish scientist, Dr. Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859) didn't believe that trains could contribute much in speedy transport. He wrote: "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers 'would die of asphyxia' [suffocation]."

In 1943, Thomas Watson, the chairman of IBM forecast a world market for "maybe only five computers." Years before IBM launched the personal computer in 1981, Xerox had already successfully designed and used PCs internally... but decided to concentrate on the production of photocopiers. Even Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, said in 1977, "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

(Courtesy of didyouknow.org)


-------------------- gestures

Arms akimbo (a standing person whose extended arms are out in a V pattern with the hands placed on the hips, thumbs backward) is a powerful territorial display that is used to establish dominance or indicate that there are "issues." Women tend to use arms akimbo less often than men.

The "hooding affect" is a powerful territorial display among humans. Interlaced hands behind the head are indicative of comfort and dominance. Usually the senior person at a meeting will pose or "hood" this way.



Fingertips planted and spread apart on a surface are a significant territorial display of confidence and authority.

Hand-steepling may be the most powerful high-confidence hand gesture. It involves touching the spread fingertips of both hands in a gesture similar to praying hands, but the fingers are not interlocked and the palms may not be touching. In the U.S., women tend to steeple low (at the waist), while men tend to steeple at chest level.


------------------------- emotion

Emotion is typically defined as a response to stimuli that involves physiological changes (increased pulse rate, increased body temperature, activity of certain glands, increased or decreased breathing rate), which motivate a person to act. Simply put, emotions are the feelings of the mind, the equivalent of what physical sensations are to the body.



Most scientists believe that basic emotions are innate rather than learned. For example, people who are born blind and have never seen faces still display the typical facial expressions of the basic emotions.

Studies show that if people adjust their facial expression to reflect an emotion, they actually begin to feel that emotion.



Any emotion has three components: 1) physiological changes (e.g., acceleration of heart rate) 2) behavioral response, such as a tendency to escape from or stay in contact with whatever is causing the emotion, and 3) a subjective experience, such as feeling angry, happy, or sad.

flavors////////////////////////////////////////

The banana tree is not a true fruit at all but a giant herb, and the banana is actually its berry. A banana plant produces only one bunch or "hand" in its life, but that bunch may have between 100 to 400 bananas.

colors ///////////////////////////////////////

Did anyone tell you when you were a kid that too many carrot sticks would turn your skin orange? It's true! (Sort of). Hypercarotenemia, or carotenosis, is a yellowy orange discoloration of the skin caused by high levels of carotene in the blood, the result of eating a LOT of vitamin A.


'Pink' once meant 'yellow.' We know, it's confusing. See, Dutch 'pink' was a yellow pigment; but because 'pink' also means a frilled edge, it became closely associated with the dianthus flower, which has notched petals. And what's the most common color for dianthus flowers? You guessed it: pink.

sayings //////////////////////////////////////

There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch: In the 1840s, bars in the United States offered anyone buying a drunk a "free lunch." It was really just a bunch of salty snacks that made customers so thirsty, they kept buying drinks.

Bring Home the Bacon: The Dunmow Flitch Trials, an English tradition that started in 1104, challenged married couples to go one year without arguing. The winners took home a "flitch" (a side) of bacon.

Spill the Beans: In ancient Greece, the system for voting new members into a private club involved secretly placing colored beans into opaque jars. Prospective members never knew who voted for or against them - unless the beans were spilled.

With a Grain of Salt: Salt was once believed to have healing properties, and to eat or drink something with a grain of salt was to practice preventive medicine against potential poisoning or illness.

Happy as a Clam: The original phrase was "happy as a clam at high tide." Because clam diggers are able to gather clams only at low tide, the clams are much safer (and happier) when the tide is high and the water is too deep to wade into.

Take the Cake: The phrase originated at cakewalk contests, where individuals would parade and prance in a circle to the audience's delight. The person with the most imaginative swagger would take home first prize, which was always a cake.

gestures ///////////////////////////////////

The "thumbs-up" sign means "good" to Westerners, "one" to Italians, "five" to Japanese, and "up yours" in Greece. In Iran, it represents a penis.

The "hang loose" sign (thumb and little finger extended) means, "stay cool, relax" in Hawaii, "six" in Japan, and "would you like a drink?" in Mexico.

Wine ////////////////////////////////////////

Wine making (and drinking) has a career almost as long as written history. Archaeologists found grape seeds, usually considered evidence of winemaking, dating from 8000 B.C. in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.

So let us take a look at a couple of helpful facts about this historically popular beverage.



Today's Random Fact:

Not all wines improve with time. In fact, a vast majority of wines produced are ready to drink and do not have much potential for aging. Only a rare few will last longer than a decade.

FACTS?
Bill Manley begs to differ. He’s the Product Development Manager at Sierra Nevada Brewing, which recently released its flagship Pale Ale in cans.

Manley’s opinion? “I respectfully disagree with the notion that there is a flavor difference between our bottles and cans. We’ve done extensive (exhaustive?) sensory and analytical analysis that suggests otherwise. In hundreds of double-blind trials we’ve found no statistical or analytical difference in flavors. There is literally no difference between the beer in the can and the beer in the bottle.”

Biggest American Breweries
------
Top 50 Craft Brewing Companies

1 Boston Beer Co. Boston MA

2 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Chico CA

3 New Belgium Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO

4 The Gambrinus Company San Antonio TX

5 Deschutes Brewery Bend OR

6 Matt Brewing Co. Utica NY

7 Bell's Brewery, Inc. Galesburg MI

8 Harpoon Brewery Boston MA

9 Lagunitas Brewing Co. Petaluma CA

10 Boulevard Brewing Co. Kansas City MO

11 Stone Brewing Co. Escondido CA

12 Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Milton DE

13 Brooklyn Brewery Brooklyn NY

14 Alaskan Brewing & Bottling Co. Juneau AK

15 Long Trail Brewing Co. Burlington VT

16 Shipyard Brewing Co. Portland ME

17 Abita Brewing Co. Abita Springs LA

18 Great Lakes Brewing Co. Cleveland OH

19 New Glarus Brewing Co. New Glarus WI

20 Full Sail Brewing Co. Hood River OR

21 Summit Brewing Co. St. Paul MN

22 Anchor Brewing Co. San Francisco CA

23 Firestone Walker Brewing Co. Paso Robles CA

24 Sweetwater Brewing Co. Atlanta GA

25 Rogue Ales Brewery Newport OR

26 Flying Dog Brewery Frederick MD

27 Victory Brewing Co. Downingtown PA

28 CraftWorks Breweries & Restaurants Chattanooga/Louisville TN/CO

29 Oskar Blues Brewery Longmont CO

30 Odell Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO

31 Stevens Point Brewery Co. Stevens Point WI

32 Ninkasi Brewing Co. Eugene OR

33 BJ's Chicago Pizza & Brewery, Inc. Huntington Beach CA

34 Blue Point Brewing Co. Patchogue NY

35 Bear Republic Brewing Co. Cloverdale CA

36 Lost Coast Brewery Cafe Eureka CA

37 Big Sky Brewing Co. Missoula MT

38 North Coast Brewing Co. Inc. Fort Bragg CA

39 Saint Louis Brewery, Inc./Schlafly Bottleworks St. Louis MO

40 Gordon Biersch Brewing Co. San Jose CA

41 Breckenridge Brewery Denver CO

42 Founders Brewing Co. Grand Rapids MI

43 Saint Arnold Brewing Co. Houston TX

44 Karl Strauss Brewing Co. San Diego CA

45 Real Ale Brewing Co. Blanco TX

46 Mac and Jack's Brewery Inc. Redmond WA

47 Smuttynose Brewing Co. Portsmouth NH

48 Utah Brewers Cooperative Salt Lake City UT

49 Left Hand Brewing Co. Longmont CO

t.50 Anderson Valley Brewing Co. Boonville CA

t.50 Four Peaks Brewing Co. Tempe AZ

Top 50 Overall Brewing Companies

1 Anheuser-Busch Inc. (a) St. Louis MO

2 MillerCoors (b) Chicago IL

3 Pabst Brewing Co. (c) Woodbridge IL

4 D. G. Yuengling and Son Inc. Pottsville PA

5 Boston Beer Co. Boston MA

6 North American Breweries (d) Rochester NY

7 Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Chico CA

8 New Belgium Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO

9 Craft Brew Alliance, Inc. (e) Portland OR

10 The Gambrinus Company (f) San Antonio TX

11 Deschutes Brewery Bend OR

12 Matt Brewing Co. (g) Utica NY

13 Bell's Brewery, Inc. Galesburg MI

14 Minhas Craft Brewery (h) Monroe WI

15 Harpoon Brewery Boston MA

16 Lagunitas Brewing Co. Petaluma CA

17 Boulevard Brewing Co. Kansas City MO

18 Stone Brewing Co. Escondido CA

19 Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Milton DE

20 Brooklyn Brewery Brooklyn NY

21 Alaskan Brewing and Bottling Co. Juneau AK

22 Long Trail Brewing Co. Burlington VT

23 August Schell Brewing Co. (i) New Ulm MN

24 Shipyard Brewing Co. Portland ME

25 Abita Brewing Co. Abita Springs LA

26 World Brews/Winery Exchange (j) Novato CA

27 Great Lakes Brewing Co. Cleveland OH

28 New Glarus Brewing Co. New Glarus WI

29 Full Sail Brewing Co. Hood River OR

30 Pittsburgh Brewing Co. Pittsburgh PA

31 Summit Brewing Co. St. Paul MN

32 Anchor Brewing Co. San Francisco CA

33 Firestone Walker Brewing Co. Paso Robles CA

34 Cold Spring Brewing Co. (k) Cold Spring MN

35 Sweetwater Brewing Co. Atlanta GA

36 Rogue Ales Brewery Newport OR

37 Mendocino Brewing Co. (l) Ukiah CA

38 Flying Dog Brewery Frederick MD

39 Victory Brewing Co. Downingtown PA

40 CraftWorks Breweries & Restaurants (m) Chattanooga/Louisville TN/CO

41 Oskar Blues Brewery & Tasty Weasel Tap Room Longmont CO

42 Odell Brewing Co. Fort Collins CO

43 Stevens Point Brewery Co. (n) Stevens Point WI

44 Ninkasi Brewing Co. Eugene OR

45 BJ's Chicago Pizza & Brewery Huntington Beach CA

46 Blue Point Brewing Co. Patchogue NY

47 Bear Republic Brewing Co. Cloverdale CA

48 Goose Island Brewing Co. (o) Chicago IL

49 Lost Coast Brewery and Cafe Eureka CA

50 Narragansett Brewing Co. Providence RI

*Top 50 U.S. Overall Brewing Companies notes: (a) includes Bass, Beck's, Busch, Goose Island, Landshark, Michelob, Rolling Rock, Shock Top and Wild Blue brands. Does not include partially owned Coastal, Kona, Red Hook and Widmer Brothers brands; (b) includes A.C. Golden, Batch 19, Blue Moon, Colorado Native, Herman Joseph, Keystone, Killian's and Leinenkugel's brands; (c) includes Schlitz and 28 other brand families; (d) includes Dundee, Genesee, Labatt Lime, Magic Hat and Pyramid brands; (e) includes Kona, Red Hook and Widmer Brothers brands; (f) includes BridgePort, Shiner and Trumer brands; (g) includes Flying Bison brands; (h) includes Mountain Crest and 10 other brand families; (i) includes Grain Belt brand; (j) private label brands; (k) includes Gluek and 17 other brand families; (l) includes Butte Creek, Kingfisher and Olde Saratoga brands; (m) includes A1A, Big River, Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurants, Rock Bottom Restaurants, Ragtime and Seven Bridges brewpubs; (n) includes James Page and Whole Hog brands; (o) sold to Anheuser-Busch in 2011.

Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI.BR), London-listed SABMiller (SAB.L), Heineken, and Denmark's Carlsberg (CARLb.CO) have moved ahead of the rest of the pack led by China's Tsingtao Brewery (0168.HK) (600600.SS) in fifth place.

"The new Big 4 have established a clear lead, with combined market share estimated at just over 50 percent (pro forma 2009)," Plato said.

Budweiser-brewer AB-InBev had beer volumes of around 350 million hectolitres in 2009, well ahead of Miller-brewer SABMiller at just under 250 million, Heineken at just over 200 million, and Carlsberg around 125 million, while Tsingtao trailed at just over 50 million hectolitres a year.

In sixth place was North American Molson-Coors Brewing Co (TAP.N), while Mexico's Grupo Modelo (GMODELOC.MX), China's Beijing Yanjing Brewery Co Ltd 000729.SZ and Japanese brewers Kirin Holdings Co Ltd (2503.T) and Asahi Breweries Ltd (2502.T) made up the rest of the top 10.

Agave:  Tequila is distilled from the juice of agave plants. (The agave plant is not a cactus.). Agave plants are grown in the Mexican states of Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacan, Nayarit and Tamaulipas.  It takes an agave plant approximately 8 years to reach a maturity level that makes it suitable for harvesting and using in tequila production. Mature harvested agave plants can weigh between 80-175 pounds.

Mexican Tequila:  Tequila is strictly regulated by a branch of the Mexican Government known as the CRT (Tequila Regulatory Council). Mexico considers tequila its national property.

Tequila in the USA:  Tequila was first imported into the United States in 1873 when the first load was transported to El Paso, Texas. In 1973, tequila sales in the US topped one million cases.

XX Honeymoon:  It was common in babylonia 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the Father of the Bride would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey wine, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what is now known as "honeymoon".

Election Day:  Alcohol is banned on election day in Kentucky and South Carolina.  In Kentucky, the booze ban only lasts until polls close at 6 p.m., but it goes all day in South Carolina. Five other states -- Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Utah and West Virginia -- had similar laws this time four years ago, but have since repealed them.

Even if it were possible to prohibit the consumption of alcohol, people who have emotional or psychological problems and need a "crutch" would turn to the abuse of other, frequently illegal, substances.

If alcohol were less available there would not be fewer alcoholics.  This is an idea that has been tested through prohibition. Numerous studies in the US and a number of other countries found there is no association  between the availability of alcohol and alcoholism.

Prohibition Kills: During the Prohibition, at least 1565 Americans died from drinking bad liquor, hundreds were blinded, and many were killed in bootlegger wars. Federal agents and the Coast Guard made 75,000 arrests per year.

Drunk Ants: The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.

XX Deadly Cork: You are more likely to be killed by a Champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

XX Tinted Bottles:  Red wine will spoil if exposed to light; hence tinted bottles.

Barrel Aged:  The age recorded on a whiskey bottle refers to the number of years it is aged prior to being bottled. Once in the bottle, whiskey does not improve.

The Worlds Most Expensive Whiskey:  A bottle of Dalmore 62 scotch whisky has been bought for a new world record of £125,000.

 
College Drinking:  According to Federal statistics, most students arrive at college with prior drinking experience and te proportion of drinkers doesn't increase greatly during college.

Early Drinkers:  Generally speaking, people who on their own begin drinking either much earlier or much later than their peers begin are more likely to experience subsequent drinking problems. This appears to result from the fact that either behavior tends to reflect a tendency to be deviant. Therefore, delaying the age of first drink would not influence the incidence of drinking problems because it would not change the underlying predisposition to be deviant and to experience drinking problems. And, of course, children who are taught moderation by their parents are less likely to abuse alcohol or have drinking problems.

Tequila Worm:  There is no worm in tequila. It's in mescal, a spirit beverage distilled from a different plant. And it's not actually a worm, but a butterfly caterpillar (Hipopta Agavis) called a gurano.

 The moderate consumption of alcohol does not destroy brain cells. In fact it is often associated with improved cognitive (mental) functioning.

Brain Cells: 
Equivalence:  Standard Drinks graphically illustrates information on the equivalence of standard drinks of beer, wine and distilled spirits or liquor. Its accuracy has been established by medical and other health professionals.   A glass of white or red wine, a bottle of beer, and a shot of whiskey or other distilled spirits all contain equivalent amounts of alcohol and are the same to a Breathalyzer. [see Alcohol Equivalence and visit Standard Drinks] A standard drink is: •A 12-ounce bottle or can of regular beer  •A 5-ounce glass of wine  •A one and 1/2 ounce of 80 proof distilled spirits (either straight or in a mixed drink).

Blood Alcohol Content:  The level of blood alcohol content (BAC) is what determines sobriety or intoxication. Remember that a standard drink of beer, wine, or spirits contain equivalent amounts of alcohol. Alcohol is alcohol and a drink is a drink.

Sober Up:  Only time can sober up a person...not black coffee, cold showers, exercise, or any other common "cures." Alcohol leaves the body of virtually everyone at a constant rate of about .015 percent of blood alcohol content (BAC) per hour. Thus, a person with a BAC of .015 would be completely sober in an hour while a person with a BAC of ten times that (.15) would require 10 hours to become completely sober. This is true regardless of sex, age, weight, and similar factors.   There is simply no scientific basis for this misperception, which appears to have its origin in temperance and prohibitionist ideology.

Weight:  This is a very commonly believed myth, even among medical professionals, because alcohol has caloric value. However, extensive research around the world has found alcohol consumption be does not cause weight gain in men and is often associated with a small weight loss in women.

Growth Stunt:  Alcohol does not stunt the growth of children or retard their development.  Scientific medical research does not support this old temperance scare tactic promoted by the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Saloon League, the Prohibition Party, and similar groups

Binge Drinking:  Binge drinking is clinically and commonly viewed as a period of extended intoxication lasting at least several days during which time the binger drops out of usual life activities. Few university students engage in such bingeing behavior. However, a number sometimes consume at least four drinks in day (or at least five for men). Although many of these young people may never even become intoxicated, they are branded as binge drinkers by some researchers. This practice deceptively inflates the number of apparent binge drinkers. In reality, the proportion of college students who drink continues to decline, as does the percentage of those who drink heavily.

Effects on Women:  Women are affected more rapidly because they tend to have a slightly higher proportion of fat to lean muscle tissue, thus concentrating alcohol a little more easily in their lower percentage of body water. They also have less of an enzyme (dehydrogenase) that metabolizes or breaks down alcohol, 9 and hormonal changes during their menstrual cycle might also affect alcohol absorption to some degree.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome:  Extensive medical research studying hundreds of thousands of women from around the world fails to find scientific evidence that light drinking, much less a sip of alcohol by an expectant mother, can cause fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).Of course, the very safest choice would be to abstain during the period of gestation. 

Alcohol Free:  People who abstain from alcohol are not "alcohol-free."  Every person produces alcohol normally in the body 24 hours each and every day from birth until death. Therefore, we always have alcohol in our bodies.

 
Alcohol abuse a growing problem among young people?  Heavy alcohol use among people in the US 17 years of age or younger actually dropped by an amazing two-thirds (65.9 percent) between 1985 and 1997, according to federal government research. The proportion of young people who consumed any alcohol within the previous month dropped from 50% to 19% in about the same period. Other federally funded research also documents the continuing decline in both drinking and drinking abuse among young people. Similarly, alcohol-related traffic injuries and fatalities among young people continue to drop. Deaths associated with young drinking drivers aged 16 to 24 decreased almost half (47%) in a recent 15-year period. 15 [see Underage Drinking]

Drinking in the United States:  The US isn't even among the top ten alcohol consuming countries. Top 10 Alcohol Consuming Countries on per capita Basis Country / Consumption in Gallons of absolute or pure alcohol: At a consumption rate of only 1.74 per person, the US falls far down at 32nd on the list.

United States Drinking Laws:  The US has the most strict youth drinking laws in the Western world. The USA has the highest minimum drinking age in the entire world. And this is buttressed by a public policy of Zero Tolerance. 10.

Alcohol Advertizing:  Alcohol advertising does not increase drinking problems.  Hundreds of scientific research studies around the world have clearly demonstrated that alcohol advertising does not lead to increases in drinking abuse or drinking problems. Alcohol advertising continues because effective ads can increase a brand's share of the total market.

 
Hold your Liquor:  People who can "hold their liquor" are not to be envied.   People who can drink heavily without becoming intoxicated have probably developed a tolerance for alcohol, which can indicate the onset of dependency.

Abstinance Saves:  Few lives would be saved if everyone abstained from alcohol.  Some lives would be saved from accidents now caused by intoxication and from health problems caused by alcohol abuse. However, many other lives would be lost from increases in coronary heart disease. For example, estimates from 13 studies suggest that as many as 135,884 additional deaths would occur each year in the US from coronary heart disease alone because of abstinence.

Drunkenness or Alcoholism:  Many non-alcoholics on occasion become intoxicated or drunk. However, if they are not addicted to alcohol, they are not alcoholic. Of course, intoxication is never completely safe or risk-free and should be avoided. It is better either to abstain or to drink in moderation. While consuming alcohol sensibly is associated with better health and longer life, the abuse of alcohol is associated with many undesirable health outcomes.

Alcohol causes Alcoholism?  As a governmental alcohol agency has explained, "Alcohol no more causes alcoholism than sugar causes diabetes." The agency points out that if alcohol caused alcoholism then all drinkers would be alcoholics. 22 In fact, a belief common among members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is that people are born alcoholic and are not caused to be alcoholic by alcohol or anything in their experience. They argue that many people are born and die alcoholic without ever having had a sip of alcohol. Of course, a person can't be a drinking or practicing alcoholic without alcohol.
Prohibition Problems:  Unfortunately, prohibition leads to a number of alcohol and other problems such as death and disability from contaminated illegal alcohol, the growth of organized crime, an increase in heavy drinking when alcohol can be obtained, a serious loss of tax revenue, the discouragement of moderation in consumption, a widespread disrespect for the law, and many other social ills.

India Drinking Laws:  Men caught drinking alcohol by their wives in an Indian village now face being slapped across the face by their wives' slippers.  A committee of women at Japalli, in Andhra Pradesh, introduced the punishment in a bid to 'curb the menace of liquor', reports the Press Trust of India.  Any married man discovered drinking will be hauled up before village elders and slapped five times with his wife's leather slipper in front of local residents.  They will also be fined the equivalent of £64. The fines will be handed over to the offenders' wives to spend as they see fit.  The women decided on the tough new measures after their attempts to close local liquor stores ended in failure.

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Loyal Pubs:  Originally, public house names reflected the history of the country or the area in which they were sited.  Names from the past tended to be patriotic or royal. Common names in the UK include (1)  The Crown - this is representative of the King or Queen.  (2)  The Red Lion - this pub name became popular when James I ordered red lions to be displayed outside all public places.  (3)  Royal Oak - this only became popular after Charles II escaped during the English Civil War by hiding behind an Oak tree.  (4)  Swan - a symbol used commonly in the coat of arms. All swans [the birds] are owned by the Queen and protected by law.  (5)  White Hart - this was the heraldic symbol of King Richard II.  (6)  Duke of Buckingham - named after the Duke who was murdered in Old Portsmouth in 1628.

Christopher Columbus:  Christopher Columbus brought Sherry on his voyage to the New World.

Abraham Lincoln:  Abraham Lincoln held a liquor license and operated several taverns.

Star Spangled Banner:  The national anthem of United States "The Star Spangled Banner," was written to the tune of a drinking song.

USA Bourbon:  Bourbon is the official spirit of the United States, by act of Congress.
Kentucky Bourbon:  Bourbon takes its name from Bourbon County in Kentucky.

US Marines:  The first recruiting station of the US Marines was a bar.

XX Bubbly:  It is estimated that there are 49 million bubbles in a bottle of champagne.

Alcohol Laws:  It is illegal to feed alcohol to Moose in Alaska and fish in Ohio.

XX Toast:  The word 'toast,' which means wishing good health originated in ancient Rome where a piece of toasted bread was literally dropped into wine.

Warming Up:  Most people think that drinking alcohol raises the body temperature. Alcohol actually lowers the body temperature.

Fear of Alcohol:  Methyphobia is fear of alcohol.

Natural Alcohol:  Most vegetables and almost all fruits contain a small amount of alcohol in them.
 

Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.
beer does not make you fat.

Will and Guy have discovered that it makes you lean: against tables, chairs, floors, walls and people.

FUNNY PUB NAMES

The Idle Cook - Idle, Bradford, Yorkshire
Bucket of Blood - Phillack, Cornwall
*The Fawcett Inn - Portsmouth, Hampshire
*The Ram Inn - Newark, NottinghamshireModeration Inn - Reading, Berkshire
*The Pub with No Name - Priors Dean, Hampshire [known by locals as The White Horse Inn]
The Vat and Fiddle - Nottingham
The Happy Medium - Chichester, West Sussex
The Hung Drawn And Quartered, London
*Hole in the Wall - Southsea, Hampshire; *Caernarvon, north Wales; Little Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire; Waterloo, London; Lowside, Bowness Windermere, Cumbria [Hole Int Wall]; and several other venues.
Bank Tavern, Keswick, Cumbria
The Bleeding Wolf, Hale, Altrincham, Cheshire
Blooming Fuchsia, Ipswich, Suffolk
The Cow and Snuffers, Llandaff, Cardiff, Wales
Drunken Duck, Hawkshead, Cumbria
Mad Dog, Odell, Bedfordshire
The Quiet Woman - York [The sign being a woman carrying her own severed head]
Nobody Inn - Doddiscombsleigh, Devon
One that almost got away: The Cemetery in Rochdale, Lancashire.
The Tap Shop, Mid Calder, West Lothian, Scotland.
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Vodka Uses: To remove a bandage painlessly, saturate the bandage with vodka. The solvent dissolves adhesive.
Vodka Uses: To clean the caulking around bathtubs and showers, fill a trigger-spray bottle with vodka, spray the caulking, let set five minutes and wash clean. The alcohol in the vodka kills mold and mildew.
Vodka Uses: To clean your eyeglasses, simply wipe the lenses with a soft, clean cloth dampened with vodka. The alcohol in the vodka cleans the glass and kills germs.
Vodka Uses: Prolong the life of razors by filling a cup with vodka and letting your safety razor blade soak in the alcohol after shaving. The vodka disinfects the blade and prevents rusting.
Vodka Uses: Spray vodka on vomit stains, scrub with a brush, and then blot dry.
Vodka Uses: Using a cotton ball, apply vodka to your face as an astringent to cleanse the skin and tighten pores.
Vodka Uses: Add a jigger of vodka to a 12-ounce bottle of shampoo. The alcohol cleanses the scalp, removes toxins from hair, and stimulates the growth of healthy hair.
Vodka Uses: Fill a sixteen-ounce trigger-spray bottle and spray bees or wasps to kill them.
Vodka Uses: Pour one-half cup vodka and one-half cup water in a Ziploc freezer bag and freeze for a slushy, re-freshable ice pack for aches, pain or black eyes.
Vodka Uses: Fill a clean, used mayonnaise jar with freshly packed lavender flowers, fill the jar with vodka, seal the lid tightly and set in the sun for three days. Strain the liquid through a coffee filter, then apply the tincture to aches and pains.
Vodka Uses: To relieve a fever, use a washcloth to rub vodka on your chest and back as a liniment.
Vodka Uses: To cure foot odor, wash your feet with vodka.
Vodka Uses: Vodka will disinfect and alleviate a jellyfish sting.
Vodka Uses:  Pour vodka over an area affected with poison ivy to remove the urushiol oil from your skin.
Alcohol Uses : Swish a shot of vodka over an aching tooth. Allow your gums to absorb some of the alcohol to numb the pain.

Top 10 Alcohol Consuming Countries
1.Portugal 2.98
2.Luxembourg 2.95
3.France 2.87
4.Hungary 2.66
5.Spain 2.66
6.Czech Republic 2.64
7.Denmark 2.61
8.Germany 2.50
9.Austria 2.50
10.Switzerland 2.43

 25. Latvia   3.30 gal./person
24. Finland 3.31 gal./person
23. Germany  3.38 gal./person
22. Luxembourg 3.44 gal./person
21. Austria 3.50 gal./person
20. Netherlands  3.50 gal./person
19. Slovakia 3.52 gal./person
18. Denmark 3.53 gal./person
17. United Kingdom 3.53 gal./person
16. France 3.61 gal./person
15. Ireland 3.81 gal./person
14. Portugal 3.84 gal./person
13. South Korea 3.91 gal./person
12. Lithuania 3.97 gal./person
11. Croatia 3.99 gal./person
10. Belarus 4.00 gal./person
9. Slovenia 4.01 gal./person
8. Romania 4.04 gal./person
7. Andorra 4.09 gal./person
6. Estonia 4.11 gal./person
5. Ukraine 4.12 gal./person
4. Russia 4.16 gal./person
3. Hungary 4.30 gal./person
2. Czech Republic 4.35 gal./person
1. Moldova 4.81 gal./person

15. United Kingdom
Per capita alcohol consumption: 13.37 liters
Recorded consumption: 11.67 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 1.70 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 4.93 liters
Wine: 3.53 liters
Spirits: 2.41 liters
Other: 0.67 liters

14. France
Per capita alcohol consumption: 13.66 liters
Recorded consumption: 13.30 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 0.36 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 2.31 liters
Wine: 8.14 liters
Spirits: 2.62 liters
Other: 0.17 liters

13. Ireland
Per capita alcohol consumption: 14.41 liters
Recorded consumption: 13.41
Unrecorded consumption: 1.00

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 7.04 liters
Wine: 2.75 liters
Spirits: 2.51 liters
Other: 1.09 liters

12. Portugal
Per capita alcohol consumption: 14.55 liters
Recorded consumption: 14.55 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 2.10 litres

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 3.75 liters
Wine: 6.65 liters
Spirits: 1.27 liters
Other: 0.51 liters

11. South Korea
Per capita alcohol consumption: 14.80 liters
Recorded consumption: 11.80 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 3.00 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 2.14 liters
Wine: 0.06 liters
Spirits: 9.57 liters
Other: 0.04 liters

10. Croatia
Per capita alcohol consumption: 15.11 liters
Recorded consumption: 12.61 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 2.50 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 4.66 liters
Wine: 5.80 liters
Spirits: 1.91 liters
Other: 0.14 liters

9. Belarus
Per capita alcohol consumption: 15.13 liters
Recorded consumption: 11.22
Unrecorded consumption: 3.91

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 1.84 liters
Wine: 0.80 liters
Spirits: 4.08 liters
Other: 2.67 liters

8. Romania
Per capita alcohol consumption: 15.30 liters
Recorded consumption: 11.30 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 4.00 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 4.07 liters
Wine: 2.33 liters
Spirits: 4.14 liters
Other: 0.00 liters

7. Andorra
Per capita alcohol consumption: 15.48 liters
Recorded consumption: 14.08 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 1.40 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 3.93 liters
Wine: 5.69 liters
Spirits: 3.14 liters
Other: 0.00 liters

6. Estonia
Per capita alcohol consumption: 15.57 liters
Recorded consumption: 13.77 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 1.80 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 5.53 liters
Wine: 1.09 liters
Spirits: 9.19 liters
Other: 0.43 liters

5. Ukraine
Per capita alcohol consumption: 15.60 liters
Recorded consumption: 8.10 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 7.50 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 2.69 liters
Wine: 0.58 liters
Spirits: 5.21 liters
Other: 0.02 liters

4. Russia
Per capita alcohol consumption: 15.76 liters
Recorded consumption: 11.03 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 4.73 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 3.65 liters
Wine: 0.10 liters
Spirits: 6.88 liters
Other: 0.34 liters

3. Hungary
Per capita alcohol consumption: 16.27 liters
Recorded consumption: 12.27 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 4.00 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 4.42 liters
Wine: 4.94 liters
Spirits: 3.02 liters
Other: 0.14 liters

2. Czech Republic
Per capita alcohol consumption: 16.45 liters
Recorded consumption: 14.97 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 1.48 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 8.51 liters
Wine: 2.33 liters
Spirits: 3.59 liters
Other: 0.39 liters

1. Moldova
Per capita alcohol consumption: 18.22 liters
Recorded consumption: 8.22 liters
Unrecorded consumption: 10.00 liters

Per capita consumption by type (recorded)
Beer: 4.57 liters
Wine: 4.67 liters
Spirits: 4.42 liters
Other: 0.00 liters

Alcohol consumption among adults (age 15+) in litres per capita
recorded alcohol

country recorded unrecorded total beer wine spirits other

Moldova 8.22 10.00 18.22 4.57 4.67 4.42 0.00
 Uganda 10.93 1.00 11.93 6.51 0.00 0.18 10.50
 Czech Republic 14.97 1.48 16.45 8.51 2.33 3.59 0.39
 Hungary 12.27 4.00 16.27 4.42 4.94 3.02 0.14
 Russia 11.03 4.73 15.76 3.65 0.10 6.88 0.34
 Ukraine 8.10 7.50 15.60 2.69 0.58 5.21 0.02
 Estonia 13.77 1.80 15.57 5.53 1.09 9.19 0.43
 Andorra 14.08 1.40 15.48 3.93 5.69 3.14 0.00
 Romania 11.30 4.00 15.30 4.07 2.33 4.14 0.00
 Slovenia 12.19 3.00 15.19 4.10 5.10 1.33 0.00
 Belarus 11.22 3.91 15.13 1.84 0.80 4.08 2.67
 Croatia 12.61 2.50 15.11 4.66 5.80 1.91 0.14
 Lithuania 12.03 3.00 15.03 5.60 1.80 4.50 0.60
 South Korea 11.80 3.00 14.80 2.14 0.06 9.57 0.04
 Portugal 12.45 2.10 14.55 3.75 6.65 1.27 0.51
 Ireland 13.39 1.00 14.41 7.04 2.75 2.51 1.09
 France 13.30 0.36 13.66 2.31 8.14 2.62 0.17
 United Kingdom 11.67 1.70 13.37 4.93 3.53 2.41 0.67
 Denmark 11.37 2.00 13.37 5.06 4.43 1.78 0.00
 Slovakia 10.33 3.00 13.33 3.90 1.70 5.40 0.00
 Netherlands 9.55 0.50 10.05 4.72 3.26 1.56 0.00
 Austria 12.60 0.64 13.24 6.70 4.10 1.60 0.40
 Luxembourg 12.01 1.00 13.01 1.59 8.16 2.00 0.00
 Germany 11.81 1.00 12.81 6.22 3.15 2.30 0.00
 Finland 9.72 2.80 12.52 4.59 2.24 2.82 0.31
 Latvia 9.50 3.00 12.50 3.61 1.10 6.24 0.10
 Bulgaria 11.24 1.20 12.44 3.53 2.44 4.88 0.10
 Nigeria 9.78 2.50 12.28 0.54 0.01 0.02 9.17
 Saint Lucia 11.35 0.50 11.85 3.49 0.71 8.21 0.31
 Spain 10.22 1.40 11.62 4.52 3.59 1.31 0.61
 Armenia 10.05 1.30 11.35 1.05 0.39 0.65 9.36
 Serbia 9.97 1.12 11.09 4.40 2.21 3.42 0.04
 Switzerland 10.56 0.50 11.06 3.10 5.10 1.80 0.10
 Kazakhstan 6.06 4.90 10.96 1.69 0.30 4.19 0.01
 Belgium 9.77 1.00 10.77 5.49 3.55 0.62 0.03
 Greece 8.95 1.80 10.75 2.20 4.51 2.38 0.13
 Italy 8.33 2.35 10.68 1.73 6.38 0.42 0.00
 Azerbaijan 7.30 3.30 10.60 7.00 0.03 0.97 0.00
 Seychelles 9.59 1.00 10.59 7.15 3.15 1.59 0.00
 Grenada 9.85 0.50 10.35 3.16 0.42 7.15 0.04
 Sweden 6.70 3.60 10.30 2.60 2.90 1.10 0.00
 Palau 9.10 1.00 10.10 8.68 0.52 2.10 0.00
 Poland 9.55 3.70 13.25 4.72 3.26 1.56 0.00
 Australia 9.89 0.13 10.02 4.56 3.12 1.16 1.02
 Argentina 8.00 2.00 10.00 2.49 4.62 0.52 0.20
 Niue 8.85 1.00 9.85 4.63 0.11 2.95 0.00
 Rwanda 6.80 3.00 9.80 0.54 0.00 0.01 6.44
 Canada 7.77 2.00 9.77 4.10 1.50 2.10 0.00
 Sierra Leone 6.72 3.00 9.72 0.46 0.01 0.02 6.06
 Bosnia and Herzegovina 9.63 0.00 9.63 2.22 0.34 7.08 0.00
 New Zealand 9.12 0.50 9.62 4.09 3.04 1.37 0.81
 Namibia 5.87 3.75 9.62 4.35 0.48 1.30 0.35
 Guyana 7.50 2.00 9.50 1.14 0.31 5.70 0.01
 Nepal 7.20 2.20 9.48 1.15 0.00 0.07 0.00
 Burundi 6.47 3.00 9.47 1.16 0.01 0.00 5.07
 South Africa 6.96 2.50 9.46 3.93 1.17 1.15 0.75
 United States 8.44 1.00 9.44 4.47 1.36 2.65 0.00
 Saint Kitts and Nevis 8.93 0.50 9.43 3.98 0.18 6.00 0.10
 Ecuador 4.01 5.37 9.38 2.30 0.07 1.69 0.00
 Gabon 7.32 2.00 9.32 5.38 0.80 1.69 0.00
 Cyprus 8.26 1.00 9.26 3.25 2.97 2.95 0.12
 Brazil 6.16 3.00 9.16 3.36 0.33 2.49 0.03
 Bahamas 8.16 0.60 8.76 3.99 1.55 5.27 0.23
 São Tomé and Príncipe 5.82 2.92 8.74 1.12 3.40 0.83 0.00
 Chile 6.55 2.00 8.55 2.03 2.59 2.16 0.04
 Macedonia 5.61 2.90 8.51 2.11 1.62 2.08 0.00
 Mexico 5.02 3.40 8.42 3.96 0.02 1.09 0.03
 Venezuela 6.83 1.40 8.23 5.19 0.07 1.65 0.00
 Uruguay 6.14 2.00 8.14 1.33 3.95 1.21 0.06
 Japan 7.83 0.20 8.03 1.72 0.29 3.37 2.61
 Botswana 4.96 3.00 7.96 2.56 0.04 0.00 1.88
 Paraguay 6.38 1.50 7.88 3.48 0.97 1.77 0.19
 Dominica 7.34 0.50 7.84 0.50 0.80 6.69 0.07
 Norway 6.21 1.60 7.81 2.98 2.00 1.28 0.11
 Cameroon 4.97 2.60 7.57 2.05 0.05 0.00 2.60
 Antigua and Barbuda 6.76 0.46 7.22 2.67 1.70 5.04 0.09
 Thailand 6.37 0.71 7.08 1.75 0.02 4.69 0.00
 Burkina Faso 4.48 2.50 6.98 0.41 0.09 0.42 3.77
 Barbados 6.41 0.50 6.91 2.90 0.73 3.78 0.17
 Peru 2.90 4.00 6.90 2.16 0.32 0.61 0.00
 Panama 5.85 1.00 6.85 3.71 0.22 1.91 0.01
 Tanzania 4.75 2.00 6.75 0.57 0.02 0.15 4.51
 Laos 5.73 1.00 6.73 1.42 0.03 4.35 0.00
 Albania 4.58 2.10 6.68 1.61 0.94 2.30 0.02
 Haiti 5.99 0.62 6.61 0.01 0.01 5.20 0.00
 Côte d'Ivoire 4.48 2.00 6.48 0.61 0.33 0.05 3.55
 Dominican Republic 5.76 0.65 6.41 2.69 0.14 2.92 0.01
 Georgia 3.90 2.50 6.40 0.76 0.83 2.56 0.02
 Philippines 4.38 2.00 6.38 1.29 0.02 2.91 0.00
 Iceland 5.91 0.40 6.31 3.67 1.95 1.33 0.10
 Trinidad and Tobago 5.78 0.50 6.28 3.10 0.11 2.78 0.04
 Colombia 4.17 2.00 6.17 2.71 0.08 1.44 0.02
 Suriname 5.19 0.90 6.09 2.00 0.13 3.26 0.05
 Equatorial Guinea 5.31 0.77 6.08 0.45 4.18 0.00 0.00
 Belize 5.07 1.00 6.07 3.89 0.13 1.78 0.01
 China 4.21 1.70 5.91 1.50 0.15 2.51 0.23
 Puerto Rico 5.47 0.28 5.75 3.68 0.34 1.35 0.05
 Swaziland 5.70 0.00 5.70 1.64 0.21 0.15 3.05
 Costa Rica 4.15 1.40 5.55 2.29 0.18 1.71 0.02
 Lesotho 1.90 3.65 5.55 1.24 0.00 0.01 0.69
 Cuba 4.41 1.10 5.51 1.48 0.05 2.94 0.01
 Federated States of Micronesia 4.50 1.00 5.50 1.43 1.31 0.60 0.00
 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 4.94 0.50 5.44 2.55 0.12 3.16 0.05
 Angola 3.80 1.60 5.40 1.81 1.37 1.12 0.41
 Nicaragua 3.77 1.60 5.37 1.13 0.03 2.55 0.00
 Bolivia 2.62 2.50 5.12 2.17 0.06 0.61 0.00
 Kyrgyzstan 3.19 1.90 5.09 0.45 0.10 2.26 0.01
 Zimbabwe 4.08 1.00 5.08 0.96 0.19 0.06 2.61
 Liberia 3.47 1.59 5.06 0.30 0.01 3.16 0.01
 Jamaica 3.50 1.50 5.00 1.49 0.11 1.80 0.10
 Cape Verde 2.06 2.90 4.96 0.36 1.99 0.14 0.00
 Nauru 2.33 2.50 4.83 2.24 0.08 0.00 0.00
 Samoa 3.80 1.00 4.80 3.31 0.08 0.24 0.00
 Cambodia 1.77 3.00 4.77 0.74 0.02 1.21 0.00
 Turkmenistan 2.33 2.30 4.63 0.21 0.90 1.22 0.00
 Honduras 3.08 1.40 4.48 1.29 0.04 1.87 0.00
 Chad 0.38 4.00 4.38 0.23 0.01 0.02 0.15
 Malta 3.85 0.42 4.27 1.79 1.45 1.86 0.15
 Republic of the Congo 2.04 2.23 4.20 1.76 0.00 0.11 0.12
 Kenya 1.64 2.50 4.14 0.84 0.02 0.51 0.55
 Guatemala 2.43 1.60 4.03 1.12 3.92 1.20 0.05
 Ethiopia 0.52 3.50 4.02 0.19 0.01 0.13 0.25
 Zambia 2.35 1.50 3.85 0.42 0.01 0.27 1.62
 Tonga 3.28 0.50 3.78 0.89 2.29 0.64 0.18
 Vietnam 1.07 2.70 3.77 1.13 0.01 0.02 0.00
 Mauritius 2.72 1.00 3.72 1.92 0.32 0.39 0.00
 Kiribati 1.71 2.00 3.71 1.56 0.02 0.02 0.00
 Cook Islands 3.20 0.50 3.70 0.54 1.39 3.45 0.00
 Guinea-Bissau 2.58 1.10 3.68 0.24 0.66 0.53 1.75
 Bahrain 3.56 0.10 3.66 1.91 0.52 1.24 0.00
 El Salvador 2.61 1.00 3.61 0.88 0.04 1.57 0.00
 Uzbekistan 1.64 1.90 3.54 0.28 0.19 1.30 0.00
 Papua New Guinea 1.49 2.00 3.49 0.57 0.02 0.90 0.00
 Gambia 2.40 0.99 3.39 0.19 0.06 0.04 2.07
 Tajikistan 0.39 3.00 3.39 0.08 0.02 0.29 0.00
 Central African Republic 1.65 1.70 3.35 0.21 0.02 0.03 1.37
 Democratic Republic of the Congo 1.97 1.26 3.30 0.32 0.01 0.02 1.67
 Malawi 1.24 2.00 3.24 0.39 0.11 0.67 0.21
 Ghana 1.47 1.50 2.97 0.40 0.07 0.03 0.97
 Israel 2.39 0.50 2.89 0.97 0.18 1.30 0.04
 Djibouti 1.37 1.50 2.87 0.78 0.07 0.46 0.00
 Mozambique 1.56 1.00 2.56 0.00 0.00 0.27 1.08
 Tuvalu 1.94 0.50 2.44 0.71 0.02 0.58 0.00
 Fiji 1.43 1.00 2.43 1.46 0.02 0.58 0.00
 Iraq 0.20 2.21 2.41 0.07 0.00 0.13 0.00
 Sudan 1.56 0.82 2.38 0.52 0.09 0.79 0.05
 Lebanon 1.73 0.50 2.23 0.36 0.56 0.78 0.01
 Benin 1.15 1.00 2.15 0.49 0.14 0.15 0.30
 Brunei 1.76 0.25 2.01 1.67 0.02 0.05 0.00
 Togo 0.99 1.00 1.99 0.43 0.32 0.06 0.22
 Turkey 1.37 0.50 1.87 0.24 0.08 1.35 0.00
 Mongolia 1.24 0.50 1.74 0.14 0.00 0.22 0.74
 Solomon Islands 1.16 0.50 1.66 0.66 0.03 0.40 0.00
 Singapore 0.55 1.00 1.55 1.45 0.25 0.40 0.00
 Eritrea 0.94 0.60 1.54 0.56 0.00 0.25 0.00
 Morocco 0.46 1.00 1.46 0.23 0.17 0.06 0.00
 Syria 1.13 0.30 1.43 0.04 0.32 0.69 0.00
 Madagascar 0.78 0.55 1.33 0.34 0.11 0.32 0.00
 Tunisia 1.09 0.20 1.29 0.67 0.34 0.04 0.00
 Qatar 0.85 0.40 1.25 0.04 0.11 0.73 0.01
 Mali 0.54 0.50 1.04 0.07 0.00 0.01 0.46
 Iran 0.02 1.00 1.02 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00
 Algeria 0.66 0.30 0.96 0.09 0.07 0.00 0.50
 Oman 0.64 0.30 0.94 0.27 0.00 0.39 0.00
 Vanuatu 0.43 0.50 0.93 0.46 0.19 0.19 0.00
 Timor-Leste 0.36 0.50 0.86 0.30 0.01 0.00 0.00
 Malaysia 0.50 0.32 0.82 0.38 0.02 0.08 0.00
 Sri Lanka 0.35 0.44 0.79 0.02 0.00 0.33 0.00
 Comoros 0.26 0.50 0.76 0.17 0.02 0.03 0.00
 India 0.55 .20 0.75 0.06 0.02 0.05 0.00
 Jordan 0.41 0.30 0.71 0.04 0.01 0.34 0.01
 Senegal 0.30 0.30 0.60 0.15 0.12 0.01 0.00
 Indonesia 0.06 0.50 0.59 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00
 Myanmar 0.11 0.46 0.57 0.10 0.00 0.01 0.01
 Bhutan 0.22 0.33 0.55 0.21 0.00 0.00 0.00
 United Arab Emirates 0.34 0.20 0.54 0.30 0.01 0.00 0.02
 Afghanistan 0.00 0.50 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
 Egypt 0.27 0.10 0.37 0.10 0.02 0.06 0.00
 Guinea 0.26 0.10 0.36 0.14 0.02 0.06 0.00
 Niger 0.09 0.25 0.34 0.05 0.01 0.03 0.00
 Saudi Arabia 0.05 0.20 0.25 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.00
 Bangladesh 0.00 0.20 0.20 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
 Kuwait 0.00 0.17 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
 Libya 0.01 0.10 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
 Mauritania 0.01 0.10 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00
 Somalia 0.00 0.10 0.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
 Pakistan 0.01 0.05 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01
 Yemen 0.00 0.02 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00

TABLE
8.22 10.00 18.22 4.57 4.67 4.42 0.00 Moldova
10.93 1.00 11.93 6.51 0.00 0.18 10.50 Uganda
14.97 1.48 16.45 8.51 2.33 3.59 0.39 Czech Republic
12.27 4.00 16.27 4.42 4.94 3.02 0.14 Hungary
11.03 4.73 15.76 3.65 0.10 6.88 0.34 Russia
8.10 7.50 15.60 2.69 0.58 5.21 0.02 Ukraine
13.77 1.80 15.57 5.53 1.09 9.19 0.43 Estonia
14.08 1.40 15.48 3.93 5.69 3.14 0.00 Andorra
11.30 4.00 15.30 4.07 2.33 4.14 0.00 Romania
12.19 3.00 15.19 4.10 5.10 1.33 0.00 Slovenia
11.22 3.91 15.13 1.84 0.80 4.08 2.67 Belarus
12.61 2.50 15.11 4.66 5.80 1.91 0.14 Croatia
12.03 3.00 15.03 5.60 1.80 4.50 0.60 Lithuania
11.80 3.00 14.80 2.14 0.06 9.57 0.04 South Korea
12.45 2.10 14.55 3.75 6.65 1.27 0.51 Portugal
13.39 1.00 14.41 7.04 2.75 2.51 1.09 Ireland
13.30 0.36 13.66 2.31 8.14 2.62 0.17 France
11.67 1.70 13.37 4.93 3.53 2.41 0.67 United Kingdom
11.37 2.00 13.37 5.06 4.43 1.78 0.00 Denmark
10.33 3.00 13.33 3.90 1.70 5.40 0.00 Slovakia
9.55 0.50 10.05 4.72 3.26 1.56 0.00 Netherlands
12.60 0.64 13.24 6.70 4.10 1.60 0.40 Austria
12.01 1.00 13.01 1.59 8.16 2.00 0.00 Luxembourg
11.81 1.00 12.81 6.22 3.15 2.30 0.00 Germany
9.72 2.80 12.52 4.59 2.24 2.82 0.31 Finland
9.50 3.00 12.50 3.61 1.10 6.24 0.10 Latvia
11.24 1.20 12.44 3.53 2.44 4.88 0.10 Bulgaria
9.78 2.50 12.28 0.54 0.01 0.02 9.17 Nigeria
11.35 0.50 11.85 3.49 0.71 8.21 0.31 Saint Lucia
10.22 1.40 11.62 4.52 3.59 1.31 0.61 Spain
10.05 1.30 11.35 1.05 0.39 0.65 9.36 Armenia
9.97 1.12 11.09 4.40 2.21 3.42 0.04 Serbia
10.56 0.50 11.06 3.10 5.10 1.80 0.10 Switzerland
6.06 4.90 10.96 1.69 0.30 4.19 0.01 Kazakhstan
9.77 1.00 10.77 5.49 3.55 0.62 0.03 Belgium
8.95 1.80 10.75 2.20 4.51 2.38 0.13 Greece
8.33 2.35 10.68 1.73 6.38 0.42 0.00 Italy
7.30 3.30 10.60 7.00 0.03 0.97 0.00 Azerbaijan
9.59 1.00 10.59 7.15 3.15 1.59 0.00 Seychelles
9.85 0.50 10.35 3.16 0.42 7.15 0.04 Grenada
6.70 3.60 10.30 2.60 2.90 1.10 0.00 Sweden
9.10 1.00 10.10 8.68 0.52 2.10 0.00 Palau
9.55 3.70 13.25 4.72 3.26 1.56 0.00 Poland
9.89 0.13 10.02 4.56 3.12 1.16 1.02 Australia
8.00 2.00 10.00 2.49 4.62 0.52 0.20 Argentina
8.85 1.00 9.85 4.63 0.11 2.95 0.00 Niue
6.80 3.00 9.80 0.54 0.00 0.01 6.44 Rwanda
7.77 2.00 9.77 4.10 1.50 2.10 0.00 Canada
6.72 3.00 9.72 0.46 0.01 0.02 6.06 Sierra Leone
9.63 0.00 9.63 2.22 0.34 7.08 0.00 Bosnia and Herzegovina
9.12 0.50 9.62 4.09 3.04 1.37 0.81 New Zealand
5.87 3.75 9.62 4.35 0.48 1.30 0.35 Namibia
7.50 2.00 9.50 1.14 0.31 5.70 0.01 Guyana
7.20 2.20 9.48 1.15 0.00 0.07 0.00 Nepal
6.47 3.00 9.47 1.16 0.01 0.00 5.07 Burundi
6.96 2.50 9.46 3.93 1.17 1.15 0.75 South Africa
8.44 1.00 9.44 4.47 1.36 2.65 0.00 United States
8.93 0.50 9.43 3.98 0.18 6.00 0.10 Saint Kitts and Nevis
4.01 5.37 9.38 2.30 0.07 1.69 0.00 Ecuador
7.32 2.00 9.32 5.38 0.80 1.69 0.00 Gabon
8.26 1.00 9.26 3.25 2.97 2.95 0.12 Cyprus
6.16 3.00 9.16 3.36 0.33 2.49 0.03 Brazil
8.16 0.60 8.76 3.99 1.55 5.27 0.23 Bahamas
5.82 2.92 8.74 1.12 3.40 0.83 0.00 São Tomé and Príncipe
6.55 2.00 8.55 2.03 2.59 2.16 0.04 Chile
5.61 2.90 8.51 2.11 1.62 2.08 0.00 Macedonia
5.02 3.40 8.42 3.96 0.02 1.09 0.03 Mexico
6.83 1.40 8.23 5.19 0.07 1.65 0.00 Venezuela
6.14 2.00 8.14 1.33 3.95 1.21 0.06 Uruguay
7.83 0.20 8.03 1.72 0.29 3.37 2.61 Japan
4.96 3.00 7.96 2.56 0.04 0.00 1.88 Botswana
6.38 1.50 7.88 3.48 0.97 1.77 0.19 Paraguay
7.34 0.50 7.84 0.50 0.80 6.69 0.07 Dominica
6.21 1.60 7.81 2.98 2.00 1.28 0.11 Norway
4.97 2.60 7.57 2.05 0.05 0.00 2.60 Cameroon
6.76 0.46 7.22 2.67 1.70 5.04 0.09 Antigua and Barbuda
6.37 0.71 7.08 1.75 0.02 4.69 0.00 Thailand
4.48 2.50 6.98 0.41 0.09 0.42 3.77 Burkina Faso
6.41 0.50 6.91 2.90 0.73 3.78 0.17 Barbados
2.90 4.00 6.90 2.16 0.32 0.61 0.00 Peru
5.85 1.00 6.85 3.71 0.22 1.91 0.01 Panama
4.75 2.00 6.75 0.57 0.02 0.15 4.51 Tanzania
5.73 1.00 6.73 1.42 0.03 4.35 0.00 Laos
4.58 2.10 6.68 1.61 0.94 2.30 0.02 Albania
5.99 0.62 6.61 0.01 0.01 5.20 0.00 Haiti
4.48 2.00 6.48 0.61 0.33 0.05 3.55 Côte d'Ivoire
5.76 0.65 6.41 2.69 0.14 2.92 0.01 Dominican Republic
3.90 2.50 6.40 0.76 0.83 2.56 0.02 Georgia
4.38 2.00 6.38 1.29 0.02 2.91 0.00 Philippines
5.91 0.40 6.31 3.67 1.95 1.33 0.10 Iceland
5.78 0.50 6.28 3.10 0.11 2.78 0.04 Trinidad and Tobago
4.17 2.00 6.17 2.71 0.08 1.44 0.02 Colombia
5.19 0.90 6.09 2.00 0.13 3.26 0.05 Suriname
5.31 0.77 6.08 0.45 4.18 0.00 0.00 Equatorial Guinea
5.07 1.00 6.07 3.89 0.13 1.78 0.01 Belize
4.21 1.70 5.91 1.50 0.15 2.51 0.23 China
5.47 0.28 5.75 3.68 0.34 1.35 0.05 Puerto Rico
5.70 0.00 5.70 1.64 0.21 0.15 3.05 Swaziland
4.15 1.40 5.55 2.29 0.18 1.71 0.02 Costa Rica
1.90 3.65 5.55 1.24 0.00 0.01 0.69 Lesotho
4.41 1.10 5.51 1.48 0.05 2.94 0.01 Cuba
4.50 1.00 5.50 1.43 1.31 0.60 0.00 Federated States of Micronesia
4.94 0.50 5.44 2.55 0.12 3.16 0.05 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
3.80 1.60 5.40 1.81 1.37 1.12 0.41 Angola
3.77 1.60 5.37 1.13 0.03 2.55 0.00 Nicaragua
2.62 2.50 5.12 2.17 0.06 0.61 0.00 Bolivia
3.19 1.90 5.09 0.45 0.10 2.26 0.01 Kyrgyzstan
4.08 1.00 5.08 0.96 0.19 0.06 2.61 Zimbabwe
3.47 1.59 5.06 0.30 0.01 3.16 0.01 Liberia
3.50 1.50 5.00 1.49 0.11 1.80 0.10 Jamaica
2.06 2.90 4.96 0.36 1.99 0.14 0.00 Cape Verde
2.33 2.50 4.83 2.24 0.08 0.00 0.00 Nauru
3.80 1.00 4.80 3.31 0.08 0.24 0.00 Samoa
1.77 3.00 4.77 0.74 0.02 1.21 0.00 Cambodia
2.33 2.30 4.63 0.21 0.90 1.22 0.00 Turkmenistan
3.08 1.40 4.48 1.29 0.04 1.87 0.00 Honduras
0.38 4.00 4.38 0.23 0.01 0.02 0.15 Chad
3.85 0.42 4.27 1.79 1.45 1.86 0.15 Malta
2.04 2.23 4.20 1.76 0.00 0.11 0.12 Republic of the Congo
1.64 2.50 4.14 0.84 0.02 0.51 0.55 Kenya
2.43 1.60 4.03 1.12 3.92 1.20 0.05 Guatemala
0.52 3.50 4.02 0.19 0.01 0.13 0.25 Ethiopia
2.35 1.50 3.85 0.42 0.01 0.27 1.62 Zambia
3.28 0.50 3.78 0.89 2.29 0.64 0.18 Tonga
1.07 2.70 3.77 1.13 0.01 0.02 0.00 Vietnam
2.72 1.00 3.72 1.92 0.32 0.39 0.00 Mauritius
1.71 2.00 3.71 1.56 0.02 0.02 0.00 Kiribati
3.20 0.50 3.70 0.54 1.39 3.45 0.00 Cook Islands
2.58 1.10 3.68 0.24 0.66 0.53 1.75 Guinea-Bissau
3.56 0.10 3.66 1.91 0.52 1.24 0.00 Bahrain
2.61 1.00 3.61 0.88 0.04 1.57 0.00 El Salvador
1.64 1.90 3.54 0.28 0.19 1.30 0.00 Uzbekistan
1.49 2.00 3.49 0.57 0.02 0.90 0.00 Papua New Guinea
2.40 0.99 3.39 0.19 0.06 0.04 2.07 Gambia
0.39 3.00 3.39 0.08 0.02 0.29 0.00 Tajikistan
1.65 1.70 3.35 0.21 0.02 0.03 1.37 Central African Republic
1.97 1.26 3.30 0.32 0.01 0.02 1.67 Democratic Republic of the Congo
1.24 2.00 3.24 0.39 0.11 0.67 0.21 Malawi
1.47 1.50 2.97 0.40 0.07 0.03 0.97 Ghana
2.39 0.50 2.89 0.97 0.18 1.30 0.04 Israel
1.37 1.50 2.87 0.78 0.07 0.46 0.00 Djibouti
1.56 1.00 2.56 0.00 0.00 0.27 1.08 Mozambique
1.94 0.50 2.44 0.71 0.02 0.58 0.00 Tuvalu
1.43 1.00 2.43 1.46 0.02 0.58 0.00 Fiji
0.20 2.21 2.41 0.07 0.00 0.13 0.00 Iraq
1.56 0.82 2.38 0.52 0.09 0.79 0.05 Sudan
1.73 0.50 2.23 0.36 0.56 0.78 0.01 Lebanon
1.15 1.00 2.15 0.49 0.14 0.15 0.30 Benin
1.76 0.25 2.01 1.67 0.02 0.05 0.00 Brunei
0.99 1.00 1.99 0.43 0.32 0.06 0.22 Togo
1.37 0.50 1.87 0.24 0.08 1.35 0.00 Turkey
1.24 0.50 1.74 0.14 0.00 0.22 0.74 Mongolia
1.16 0.50 1.66 0.66 0.03 0.40 0.00 Solomon Islands
0.55 1.00 1.55 1.45 0.25 0.40 0.00 Singapore
0.94 0.60 1.54 0.56 0.00 0.25 0.00 Eritrea
0.46 1.00 1.46 0.23 0.17 0.06 0.00 Morocco
1.13 0.30 1.43 0.04 0.32 0.69 0.00 Syria
0.78 0.55 1.33 0.34 0.11 0.32 0.00 Madagascar
1.09 0.20 1.29 0.67 0.34 0.04 0.00 Tunisia
0.85 0.40 1.25 0.04 0.11 0.73 0.01 Qatar
0.54 0.50 1.04 0.07 0.00 0.01 0.46 Mali
0.02 1.00 1.02 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 Iran
0.66 0.30 0.96 0.09 0.07 0.00 0.50 Algeria
0.64 0.30 0.94 0.27 0.00 0.39 0.00 Oman
0.43 0.50 0.93 0.46 0.19 0.19 0.00 Vanuatu
0.36 0.50 0.86 0.30 0.01 0.00 0.00 Timor-Leste
0.50 0.32 0.82 0.38 0.02 0.08 0.00 Malaysia
0.35 0.44 0.79 0.02 0.00 0.33 0.00 Sri Lanka
0.26 0.50 0.76 0.17 0.02 0.03 0.00 Comoros
0.55 .20 0.75 0.06 0.02 0.05 0.00 India
0.41 0.30 0.71 0.04 0.01 0.34 0.01 Jordan
0.30 0.30 0.60 0.15 0.12 0.01 0.00 Senegal
0.06 0.50 0.59 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 Indonesia
0.11 0.46 0.57 0.10 0.00 0.01 0.01 Myanmar
0.22 0.33 0.55 0.21 0.00 0.00 0.00 Bhutan
0.34 0.20 0.54 0.30 0.01 0.00 0.02 United Arab Emirates
0.00 0.50 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Afghanistan
0.27 0.10 0.37 0.10 0.02 0.06 0.00 Egypt
0.26 0.10 0.36 0.14 0.02 0.06 0.00 Guinea
0.09 0.25 0.34 0.05 0.01 0.03 0.00 Niger
0.05 0.20 0.25 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.00 Saudi Arabia
0.00 0.20 0.20 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Bangladesh
0.00 0.17 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Kuwait
0.01 0.10 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Libya
0.01 0.10 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 Mauritania
0.00 0.10 0.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Somalia
0.01 0.05 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 Pakistan
0.00 0.02 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 Yemen

RECORDED
8.22 Moldova
10.93 Uganda
14.97 Czech Republic
12.27 Hungary
11.03 Russia
8.10 Ukraine
13.77 Estonia
14.08 Andorra
11.30 Romania
12.19 Slovenia
11.22 Belarus
12.61 Croatia
12.03 Lithuania
11.80 South Korea
12.45 Portugal
13.39 Ireland
13.30 France
11.67 United Kingdom
11.37 Denmark
10.33 Slovakia
9.55 Netherlands
12.60 Austria
12.01 Luxembourg
11.81 Germany
9.72 Finland
9.50 Latvia
11.24 Bulgaria
9.78 Nigeria
11.35 Saint Lucia
10.22 Spain
10.05 Armenia
9.97 Serbia
10.56 Switzerland
6.06 Kazakhstan
9.77 Belgium
8.95 Greece
8.33 Italy
7.30 Azerbaijan
9.59 Seychelles
9.85 Grenada
6.70 Sweden
9.10 Palau
9.55 Poland
9.89 Australia
8.00 Argentina
8.85 Niue
6.80 Rwanda
7.77 Canada
6.72 Sierra Leone
9.63 Bosnia and Herzegovina
9.12 New Zealand
5.87 Namibia
7.50 Guyana
7.20 Nepal
6.47 Burundi
6.96 South Africa
8.44 United States
8.93 Saint Kitts and Nevis
4.01 Ecuador
7.32 Gabon
8.26 Cyprus
6.16 Brazil
8.16 Bahamas
5.82 São Tomé and Príncipe
6.55 Chile
5.61 Macedonia
5.02 Mexico
6.83 Venezuela
6.14 Uruguay
7.83 Japan
4.96 Botswana
6.38 Paraguay
7.34 Dominica
6.21 Norway
4.97 Cameroon
6.76 Antigua and Barbuda
6.37 Thailand
4.48 Burkina Faso
6.41 Barbados
2.90 Peru
5.85 Panama
4.75 Tanzania
5.73 Laos
4.58 Albania
5.99 0.62 6.61 0.01 0.01 5.20 0.00 Haiti
4.48 2.00 6.48 0.61 0.33 0.05 3.55 Côte d'Ivoire
5.76 0.65 6.41 2.69 0.14 2.92 0.01 Dominican Republic
3.90 2.50 6.40 0.76 0.83 2.56 0.02 Georgia
4.38 2.00 6.38 1.29 0.02 2.91 0.00 Philippines
5.91 0.40 6.31 3.67 1.95 1.33 0.10 Iceland
5.78 0.50 6.28 3.10 0.11 2.78 0.04 Trinidad and Tobago
4.17 2.00 6.17 2.71 0.08 1.44 0.02 Colombia
5.19 0.90 6.09 2.00 0.13 3.26 0.05 Suriname
5.31 0.77 6.08 0.45 4.18 0.00 0.00 Equatorial Guinea
5.07 1.00 6.07 3.89 0.13 1.78 0.01 Belize
4.21 1.70 5.91 1.50 0.15 2.51 0.23 China
5.47 0.28 5.75 3.68 0.34 1.35 0.05 Puerto Rico
5.70 0.00 5.70 1.64 0.21 0.15 3.05 Swaziland
4.15 1.40 5.55 2.29 0.18 1.71 0.02 Costa Rica
1.90 3.65 5.55 1.24 0.00 0.01 0.69 Lesotho
4.41 1.10 5.51 1.48 0.05 2.94 0.01 Cuba
4.50 1.00 5.50 1.43 1.31 0.60 0.00 Federated States of Micronesia
4.94 0.50 5.44 2.55 0.12 3.16 0.05 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
3.80 1.60 5.40 1.81 1.37 1.12 0.41 Angola
3.77 1.60 5.37 1.13 0.03 2.55 0.00 Nicaragua
2.62 2.50 5.12 2.17 0.06 0.61 0.00 Bolivia
3.19 1.90 5.09 0.45 0.10 2.26 0.01 Kyrgyzstan
4.08 1.00 5.08 0.96 0.19 0.06 2.61 Zimbabwe
3.47 1.59 5.06 0.30 0.01 3.16 0.01 Liberia
3.50 1.50 5.00 1.49 0.11 1.80 0.10 Jamaica
2.06 2.90 4.96 0.36 1.99 0.14 0.00 Cape Verde
2.33 2.50 4.83 2.24 0.08 0.00 0.00 Nauru
3.80 1.00 4.80 3.31 0.08 0.24 0.00 Samoa
1.77 3.00 4.77 0.74 0.02 1.21 0.00 Cambodia
2.33 2.30 4.63 0.21 0.90 1.22 0.00 Turkmenistan
3.08 1.40 4.48 1.29 0.04 1.87 0.00 Honduras
0.38 4.00 4.38 0.23 0.01 0.02 0.15 Chad
3.85 0.42 4.27 1.79 1.45 1.86 0.15 Malta
2.04 2.23 4.20 1.76 0.00 0.11 0.12 Republic of the Congo
1.64 2.50 4.14 0.84 0.02 0.51 0.55 Kenya
2.43 1.60 4.03 1.12 3.92 1.20 0.05 Guatemala
0.52 3.50 4.02 0.19 0.01 0.13 0.25 Ethiopia
2.35 1.50 3.85 0.42 0.01 0.27 1.62 Zambia
3.28 0.50 3.78 0.89 2.29 0.64 0.18 Tonga
1.07 2.70 3.77 1.13 0.01 0.02 0.00 Vietnam
2.72 1.00 3.72 1.92 0.32 0.39 0.00 Mauritius
1.71 2.00 3.71 1.56 0.02 0.02 0.00 Kiribati
3.20 0.50 3.70 0.54 1.39 3.45 0.00 Cook Islands
2.58 1.10 3.68 0.24 0.66 0.53 1.75 Guinea-Bissau
3.56 0.10 3.66 1.91 0.52 1.24 0.00 Bahrain
2.61 1.00 3.61 0.88 0.04 1.57 0.00 El Salvador
1.64 1.90 3.54 0.28 0.19 1.30 0.00 Uzbekistan
1.49 2.00 3.49 0.57 0.02 0.90 0.00 Papua New Guinea
2.40 0.99 3.39 0.19 0.06 0.04 2.07 Gambia
0.39 3.00 3.39 0.08 0.02 0.29 0.00 Tajikistan
1.65 1.70 3.35 0.21 0.02 0.03 1.37 Central African Republic
1.97 1.26 3.30 0.32 0.01 0.02 1.67 Democratic Republic of the Congo
1.24 2.00 3.24 0.39 0.11 0.67 0.21 Malawi
1.47 1.50 2.97 0.40 0.07 0.03 0.97 Ghana
2.39 0.50 2.89 0.97 0.18 1.30 0.04 Israel
1.37 1.50 2.87 0.78 0.07 0.46 0.00 Djibouti
1.56 1.00 2.56 0.00 0.00 0.27 1.08 Mozambique
1.94 0.50 2.44 0.71 0.02 0.58 0.00 Tuvalu
1.43 1.00 2.43 1.46 0.02 0.58 0.00 Fiji
0.20 2.21 2.41 0.07 0.00 0.13 0.00 Iraq
1.56 0.82 2.38 0.52 0.09 0.79 0.05 Sudan
1.73 0.50 2.23 0.36 0.56 0.78 0.01 Lebanon
1.15 1.00 2.15 0.49 0.14 0.15 0.30 Benin
1.76 0.25 2.01 1.67 0.02 0.05 0.00 Brunei
0.99 1.00 1.99 0.43 0.32 0.06 0.22 Togo
1.37 0.50 1.87 0.24 0.08 1.35 0.00 Turkey
1.24 0.50 1.74 0.14 0.00 0.22 0.74 Mongolia
1.16 0.50 1.66 0.66 0.03 0.40 0.00 Solomon Islands
0.55 1.00 1.55 1.45 0.25 0.40 0.00 Singapore
0.94 0.60 1.54 0.56 0.00 0.25 0.00 Eritrea
0.46 1.00 1.46 0.23 0.17 0.06 0.00 Morocco
1.13 0.30 1.43 0.04 0.32 0.69 0.00 Syria
0.78 0.55 1.33 0.34 0.11 0.32 0.00 Madagascar
1.09 0.20 1.29 0.67 0.34 0.04 0.00 Tunisia
0.85 0.40 1.25 0.04 0.11 0.73 0.01 Qatar
0.54 0.50 1.04 0.07 0.00 0.01 0.46 Mali
0.02 1.00 1.02 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.00 Iran
0.66 0.30 0.96 0.09 0.07 0.00 0.50 Algeria
0.64 0.30 0.94 0.27 0.00 0.39 0.00 Oman
0.43 0.50 0.93 0.46 0.19 0.19 0.00 Vanuatu
0.36 0.50 0.86 0.30 0.01 0.00 0.00 Timor-Leste
0.50 0.32 0.82 0.38 0.02 0.08 0.00 Malaysia
0.35 0.44 0.79 0.02 0.00 0.33 0.00 Sri Lanka
0.26 0.50 0.76 0.17 0.02 0.03 0.00 Comoros
0.55 .20 0.75 0.06 0.02 0.05 0.00 India
0.41 0.30 0.71 0.04 0.01 0.34 0.01 Jordan
0.30 0.30 0.60 0.15 0.12 0.01 0.00 Senegal
0.06 0.50 0.59 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 Indonesia
0.11 0.46 0.57 0.10 0.00 0.01 0.01 Myanmar
0.22 0.33 0.55 0.21 0.00 0.00 0.00 Bhutan
0.34 0.20 0.54 0.30 0.01 0.00 0.02 United Arab Emirates
0.00 0.50 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Afghanistan
0.27 0.10 0.37 0.10 0.02 0.06 0.00 Egypt
0.26 0.10 0.36 0.14 0.02 0.06 0.00 Guinea
0.09 0.25 0.34 0.05 0.01 0.03 0.00 Niger
0.05 0.20 0.25 0.00 0.00 0.05 0.00 Saudi Arabia
0.00 0.20 0.20 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Bangladesh
0.00 0.17 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Kuwait
0.01 0.10 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Libya
0.01 0.10 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 Mauritania
0.00 0.10 0.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Somalia
0.01 0.05 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 Pakistan
0.00 0.02 0.02 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 Yemen

BEER
1  Czech Republic 158.6,  1,878
2  Ireland 131.1,  521
3  Germany 110,  9,555
4  Austria 108.3,  855
5  Australia 104.7,  853
6  United Kingdom 99.0,  5,920
7  Poland 95,  2,670
8  Denmark 89.9,  486
9  Finland 85.0,  437
10  Luxembourg 84.4,  39
11  Slovakia 84.1,  456
12  Spain 83.8,  3,376
13  United States 81.6,  23,974
14  Croatia 81.2,  365
15  Belgium 81.0,  970
16  Estonia 80
17  Netherlands 77,  1,269
18  Lithuania 76 
19  New Zealand 75.5,  313
20  Hungary 75.3,  755
21  Canada 68.3,  2,183
22  Latvia 68
23  Bulgaria 67,  448
24  Portugal 59.6,  627
25  South Africa 60,  2,530
26  Russia 58.9,  8,450
27  Venezuela 80.0,  1,951
28  Romania 58.2,  1,302
29  Cyprus 58.1,  45
30  Switzerland 57.3,  426
31  Gabon 55.8,  76
32  Norway 55.5,  249
33  Mexico 51.8,  5,435
34  Sweden 51.5,  464
35  Japan 51.3,  6,549
36  Brazil 63,  12,000
37  Argentina 43.2,  1,732
38  Namibia 40
39  South Korea 38.5,  1,897
40  Colombia 36.8,   1,658
41  China 30,  28,640
42  Vietnam 19 
43  Kenya 12 
44  Uzbekistan 11 
45  Tanzania 8.4 
46  Uganda 6.0
47  Sri Lanka 2.45,  50
48  India 2.33,  1,400

...............beer drinking states

15. Iowa
Per Capita Consumption: 35.5 gallons
Drinking-Age Population: 2,151,719
Delivery Totals: 2,462
14. Delaware
Per Capita Consumption: 35.7 gallons
Drinking-Age Population
13. South Carolina
Per Capita Consumption: 35.9 gallons
Drinking-Age Population
12. Mississippi
Per Capita Consumption: 36.8 gallons
Drinking-Age Population
11. New Mexico
Per Capita Consumption: 37 gallons
Drinking-Age Population
9. (Tied) Texas
Per Capital Consumption
9. (Tied) Nebraska
Per Capita Consumption: 37.2 gallons
Drinking-Age
8. Wisconsin
Per Capita Consumption
7. Louisiana
Per Capita
6. South Dakota
Per Capita Consumption: 38.6 gallons
Drinking-Age Population
5. Wyoming
Per Capita Consumption: 38.8 gallons
Drinking-Age
4. North Dakota
Per Capita Consumption: 41.7 gallons
Drinking
3. Nevada
Per Capita
2. New Hampshire
Per Capita Consumption: 42.9 gallons
Drinking-Age
1. Montana
Per Capita

Beer Ravioli: TastyBeer loving Mark Zable creates the snack by putting beer inside dough and dunking it in hot oil for just 20 seconds.This means that when diners bite into the pretzel-like dough it mixes with the beer in what is claimed to be a delicious taste sensation. Yummy declares Will.

Mr Zable said it had taken him three years to concoct the cooking method and he refused to reveal to us if any secret recipes were involved.

His deep-fried beer will be officially introduced in September 2010; and the Texas Alcoholic Commission has said people need to be aged 21 to buy it.

Mr Zable originally used Guinness in the ravioli type pasta but has said he may switch to paler ale. He commented to Will and Guy, 'Nobody has been able to fry a liquid before. It tastes like you took a bite of hot pretzel dough and then took a drink of beer.'

We learned that Mr Zable has previously invented dishes including chocolate-covered strawberry waffle balls and jalape�o corndog shrimps. Tasty stuff says Guy.

 ф
For Desert: Beer Trifle!
McVeigh grabs a clutch of beers from an ice bucket in the kitchen. He enjoys "weaving extreme beers" into the picnic-style meal, opening with Oude Geuze Boon, a Belgian Lambic beer produced by spontaneous fermentation - the closest a beer comes to champagne, according to McVeigh. A liquoricey Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout (9.5 per cent) and Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest Ale (6.7 per cent) follow.

There's even a "beer" eau de vie to match the pudding: a clear, hop-distilled Bertrand Fleur de Biere (40 per cent), which is poured reverentially into thimble-sized glasses as Harris kneels to serve the magnificent trifle from a huge conical glass bowl. The children down playthings and form a disorderly queue, bowls in outstretched hands. It's a treasure trove of a dessert that has guests guessing the ingredients: white-wine vanilla sauce, roasted apricots, red fruit jellies, "beer" and pink praline sprinkles.

Guy has yet to master these recipes, 'bur ist fun twying! ......'

 Alcohol cooked in food still has up to 85% of the original alcohol content!

It is commonly believed that when you use alcohol in cooking all of the alcohol is burned off. In general people believe that the processes of cooking mean that none of the alcohol remains in the dish, only the flavor of the alcohol.

The reality is that the amount of alcohol that remains in the food varies greatly depending on time cooked and many other factors. Studies done on the alcohol remaining in food varied widely.

On the high end, 85% of the alcohol remained in the food, and that was when the food was prepared by adding alcohol to a boiling liquid and removing it from the heat. By cooking a food for about two and a half hours you can burn off about 95% of the alcohol, but it’s still likely that you have a small amount of alcohol still remaining.

It seems like the best way to ensure you have absolutely no alcohol would be cooking if for three or more hours! Although, you may be able to cut down on this time slightly by using a larger pan, which gives the alcohol a greater surface area to evaporate from.

For people who don’t drink alcohol for ethical or religious reasons or for parents, this is a significant finding. People might accidentally be getting alcohol from dishes they believed no longer contained alcohol!

Which town has the most pubs for its size? 

By Daniel Tetlow
BBC Radio 4, More or Less 

 
A seemingly easy question - just count the pubs, and the population, and that's the answer. But it's not that simple.
The British pub is part of the historic identity of many cities, towns and villages. And at least 25 claim to have the most pubs, among them Glasgow, Glastonbury, Bewdley, Bollington, Weymouth, Witney, Saffron Walden and St Albans.

So which is it? In an unscientific survey by BBC Radio 4's More or Less, one place appears to pull ahead of the pack - Manningtree in Essex, with five pubs and 900 people - that's 180 people per pub.

Also keen to claim the title are Otley, in West Yorkshire, with 21 pubs for 15,000 people, equalling 714 people per pub; Beeston in Nottinghamshire with 18 pubs for its population of 21,000; and Brighton and Hove, with 278 pubs for 250,000 residents.
 
Tony Grey outside his pub in Otley
"Otley has many claims to fame, one which we like to be proud of is the fact that we have more pubs than any other town in the UK," says local landlord Tony Grey.
"Many other places claim it and they would, because it's a good way of attracting trade. But we know that we've got more than anybody else."

Think of all those thousands of stag and hen parties each weekend looking for somewhere new to try.

To understand why it's possible to get so many answers to one question, go back to the question itself - it's ambiguous. For a start, should the population as a whole be measured, or just those legally allowed to drink?
 FIND OUT MORE...
More or Less is on Radio 4 on Mondays, 1630 BST
Or catch up at Radio 4's Listen Again site
Nor does the definition of "town" shed much light on the matter.

"A group or cluster of dwellings or buildings... an inhabited place larger and more regularly built than a village and having more complete and independent local government," says the Oxford English Dictionary. This probably counts out Manningtree and Otley.

Do bars and working men's clubs count? Is "size" the population, or physical size of the town? All these variables show how easy it is to claim this commercially prestigious title without much accuracy.

There's a historical reason why old market towns such as Manningtree and Otley are more likely to top the list. Old licensing laws permitted public houses to open all day on market days, usually two to four days a week, and this attracted more pubs to open in the town. This law continued through to 1988.
 
The title can help attract stags and hens, for better or worse
Some claim that the town of Rugby is in the Guinness Book of Records as having the greatest number of pubs, but the publisher says that Rugby holds no such title - and nor does any other town, as it has no record for number of pubs.

Mark Hastings, of the British Beer and Pub Association, says there are 57,500 pubs in the UK and more than 15 million people visit a pub each week. "It's a hotly contested competition as to which town has the most and why. Everyone wants to be number one in the number of pubs league."

What is more straightforward to pin down is the number one pub name. It's Red Lion, with 756 such establishments across the UK.
................................
I will buy anyone a beer if they can find a street with more bars than George Street, a road in St. John's Newfoundland made entirely of bars.

For certain holidays (George Street Festival, Canada, Mardi Gras) they close down the street to make it one big outdoor bar complete with beer venders on the sidewalks.
......................
The unofficial title of the UK town with the most pubs per person has been awarded to Rhayader in mid Wales.

Dozens of places up and down the country may claim the accolade, but BBC Radio 4's More or Less has given it to the quaint Powys market town.

Rhayader has 12 pubs for its 2,075 residents, or just about 173 people per watering hole.

...............
Locals claim that Dingle, with 52 pubs for its 1300 residents, has more watering holes per capita than any town in Ireland. Visit several until you find just the
..................

FACTS::

#6.In Some Cases, Alcohol Makes You Invincible
After the fourth or fifth round of drinks, it's not unusual to see some idiot stand up in the middle of the bar and announce how heroically tough he is and demand that you dare him to jump through a plate glass window. A 22-year-old Russian man named Alexei Roskov, however, decided to dare himself and jumped out of his kitchen window after guzzling three entire bottles of vodka. This was a particularly bad idea since he lived on the fifth floor of his apartment building.

Not only did he not splat messily into the sidewalk like an alcohol-soaked sponge, but to his wife's relief and his own drunken amusement, he wasn't hurt. At all. He just got up, brushed himself off and staggered back upstairs, where his wife was on the phone calling him an ambulance. Not wanting to hang around and listen to her lecture him about how his comically impaired sense of judgment had nearly cost him his life, he jumped out of the window again.
The paramedics that arrived on the scene where baffled to find that Alexei had only a few cuts and bruises after diving from his apartment twice in a row and presumably punched him in the damn face for wasting their time.

In a pattern we'll be seeing throughout this article, the reason Alexei didn't explode into the sidewalk like a mayonnaise jar full of hamburger meat was the same thing that caused his dumbass to try it in the first place: the vodka. A drunk central nervous system is numb, causing the muscles in the body to relax. Then, the same drunken reflexes that make people more likely to park their car in the produce section of your grocery store made Alexei's body less likely to tense up in anticipation of the impact, which it turns out can save your limbs from snapping like twigs.

So in a sense his rampaging alcoholism saved his life despite pushing him from the ledge in the first place, sort of like when Riggs handcuffs that guy and jumps off the building in Lethal Weapon.

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BOSTON—Trauma victims who were drunk at the time of their injury have higher survival rates than their sober counterparts, says a study in the journal American Surgeon.

A study of nearly 8,000 trauma patients found that 7% of the sober died of their injuries, while drunks croaked only 1% percent of the time. Trauma patients who came in to the hospital drunk were discharged sooner as well.

Previous studies on animals found that alcohol helps prevent nerve damage and the new study suggests that alcohol might have a place in treating traumatic injuries.

#5.Alcohol Improves Your Libido
There seems to be a sweet spot for alcohol consumption that lays along a spectrum from no alcohol to enough to make things a little better to utter ruin. For instance, while most of us recognize that 75 percent of the world's sex occurs under the influence of alcohol (unofficially) because it has a way of lowering our inhibitions, there is also such a thing as "whiskey dick."
That is, you get too drunk to perform due to its sedative effect on the central nervous system, which numbs your body to external stimulus. It's the same reason you slur your speech, sway when you walk or just straight up lose consciousness.

Yet, once again, there is the sweet spot.

Studies have shown that moderate drinkers are actually 20 to 30 percent less likely to have erectile difficulties than non-drinkers. They're not sure why, it may have to do with antioxidants found in some alcohol (the same reason moderate amounts of wine protect against heart disease). Further, it appears that a small amount of alcohol can apparently "improve" a man's erection, according to one expert. We assume "improve" here means it makes it harder/bigger, rather than "adds wings and a laser beam."

#4.Alcohol Can Keep Your Brain Alive
According to actual doctors, and presumably not just drunk ones, having a moderate amount of alcohol in your system can actually prevent death from brain trauma. Ironic, considering booze was probably the pied piper that led you to the land of severe head injury in the first place.

In a study involving almost 40,000 cases, researchers found that in younger patients with less severe injuries, having alcohol in their systems actually prevented the spread of swelling and inflammation in their brains (alcohol suppresses the body's inflammatory response). They go so far as to suggest the possibility of administering ethanol to patients with head injuries in the future, so hopefully it's only a matter of time until first responders answer emergency calls with a fully stocked bar in the back.
The study does point out that the drunken patients were more likely to run into complications during their stint in the hospital, and like we mentioned before, being drunk is usually what leads to you getting a ride in an ambulance. But we've got to admit, a couple days of free ice cream and vodka would certainly make a brick to the orbital socket less of a downer.
But of course, just because it helps in these specific brain injuries, it doesn't mean it can, you know make you smarter or anything. Right? Oh hey look, there's a second page to this article ...

#3.Alcohol Makes You Smarter
Ah, we stand corrected. According to the British Medical Journal, regularly drinking a moderate amount of alcohol can actually have a positive effect on your cognitive ability, keeping you safe from later onset brain disease and correctly determining a 15 percent gratuity on your bar tab.

Participants in this study who had about 30 drinks per week performed better on logic and mathematical reasoning tests than those who drank very little or nothing at all. They even scored better on short term memory evaluations, which is supposed to be the first thing to go once you start slinging back highballs.
Granted, the studies don't mention the potency of the alcohol being consumed, and also point out that drinking too much alcohol can damage the shit out of your brain and even lead to dementia in some cases (which we're assuming you already knew). But combine those brain-flexing test results with this Italian study that suggests alcohol consumption reduces the risk of death by any cause (which we assume includes both "cancer" and "bear attacks"), and that bottle of Southern Comfort suddenly becomes the goddamn Super Soldier Serum. This effectively makes Prohibition a supervillain.
------
LONDON—A UK study reports that the more intelligent children are the more alcohol they’re likely to drink as adults. The exhaustive National Child Development Study monitored the test subjects from their childhoods to their 40s, and found that children scoring in the top “very bright” category grew up to drink almost twice as much as their “very dull” counterparts. Children of average intelligence generally grew up to drink average amounts of alcohol during their average lives.

ROUND RECORD
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TOKYO—Heroic architect and all-around swell fellow Kaz Miura smashed the world record for buying a round for the house by shouting for an astonishing  3,011 shots at the Geronimo bar in Tokyo.

The grand gesture, which set Miura back $36,890, more than doubled the previous record held by Jack Amos, who ordered a mere 1,222 rounds in Newcastle upon Tyne, England in 1974.

Miura said he wasn’t celebrating anything in particular and was “hoping my wife understands.”

Good luck with that, Kaz.

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237-year Old Bottle of Non-Stolen Wine Goes for $77,000

PARIS—A 1774 bottle of Vin jaune (yellow wine) was auctioned for $77,000 in France.

The bottle of wine, brewed from grapes during Louis XVI’s reign, hit the record price at a wine festival in Arbois, France.

Pierre Chevrier, the Swiss gentleman who won the bid, said he regarded the price reasonable.

“My passion is to open bottles and I am delighted to have bought this bottle of yellow wine, which I will drink,” he said.

---------
World’s Oldest Winery Found

ARMENIA—A UCLA-led team has discovered a 6,000-year-old winery in an Armenian cave. The recent dig unearthed everything necessary to make wine, including a grape press, fermentation vats, storage jars and wine-soaked pottery shards.

The winery is at least 1,000 years older than any similar facility previously known, and was found in the same cave where researchers in June announced the discovery of the world’s oldest leather shoe.
----------
Pregnant singer Pink says if she has a son she’s going to name him Jameson, after her favorite drink. Good thing she doesn’t drink Fighting Cock. Lady Gaga has revealed she’s on “the drunk diet” and likes to “drink whiskey and stuff while I’m working,” and this announcement in no way has anything whatsoever to do with the fact that her bartender boyfriend is about to release a book called “The Drunk Diet.”
-----------
Drunks More Likely to Get Ripped

BOSTON—The more people drink, the more they exercise, reports a large-scale survey published in The American Journal of Health.

“Heavy drinkers exercise about 10 more minutes per week than current moderate drinkers and about 20 more minutes per week than current abstainers,” the authors of the study said. Furthermore, “an extra episode of binge drinking increases the number of minutes of total and vigorous physical activity per week for both women and men.”

 The authors admitted they were confounded by their own report, declaring the survey results did not “follow expected patterns.”

----------
WikiLeaks Spills Shocking Lack of Concern for Whiskey Leaks

WIKILEAKS—President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the authoritarian ruler of Yemen, which bans alcohol consumption, told US Army General David Petraeus that he was very concerned about the smuggling of drugs and weapons from nearby Djibouti. He wasn’t so concerned about another form of contraband.

“Tell (Djiboutian President) Ismail Guelleh that I don’t care if he smuggles whiskey into Yemen,” Saleh told Petraeus. “Provided it’s good whiskey.“
-------
WHO Releases International Booze Rankings and Guess What? We Suck

GENEVA—The tiny but spunky nation of Moldova lunged up from fourth place to capture the number one spot in the World Health Organization’s prestigious Global Alcohol Consumption Awards. Moldovans drank the equivalent of 18.22 liters of pure alcohol per capita yearly.

The Czech Republic, who were knocked out of the top spot, clung to second place, followed by Eastern European powerhouses Hungary, Russia and the Ukraine. The UK chugged in at 17th, Australia embarrassed itself with a 44th-place finish and America—for the love of Christ—shamefully gimped in at the 56th position, well behind countries that probably don’t even exist, like Burundi and Niue.

---------
This Beer Is Totally Gay

MEXICO CITY—A Mexican microbrewery has introduced what it says is the world’s first two beers specifically made for the homosexual community.

The pair, called Salamandra and Purple Hand Beer, have a slight honey flavour and will be initially marketed to gay drinkers in Mexico, Colombia and Japan.

A Minerva Brewery spokesman said that the “artisan honey-ales” would appeal to a segment of the beer-drinking community that has felt disappointed by the failure of larger breweries in releasing gay beers.
The spokesman added that the label on the bottles is designed to be peeled off and worn as a symbol of gay or lesbian pride and/or an advertisement for the brewery. The brewery is also planning to release a strawberry-flavored variant.

Web site GayAgenda.com announced that it wasn’t certain if the gay community was being insulted or honored.

No stranger to trying to cash in on controversy, in 2007 the brewery released Malverde pilsner, honoring Jesus Malverde, the patron “saint” of narcotics traffickers.

--------
YOU KNOW YOUR A DRUNK WHEN
---
Tequila not only has your number, you’re on top of its speed dial.

It takes only one person to convince you to go to party but at least four strong men to get you to leave.

Your last drink of today is your first drink of tomorrow.

When you look back on the beach that is your life and see only one set of footprints, you realize that that was when Bacchus was sleeping it off.

Apologizing for last night would be like Oswald offering to pay for Jackie’s dry cleaning.

Whenever someone tells you they don’t “appreciate” your drunken behavior you become very sad because you were really banking on that asshole’s appreciation.

You didn’t leave the party. The party left you.

You shout, “Turn up the goddamn jukebox!” in a department store.

Your idea of codependency is splitting the bar tab.

You open a friend’s refrigerator and are bewildered to find food where the beer should be.

You got laid off and had to live on nothing but food and water for a whole week.

A real woman could stop you from drinking. A real big woman.

You got held up by two guys last night. All the way home.

 —FKR, Troy Baxley, Dudley Moore

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Winos have stopped asking you for change. They just nod and give you that weird half-smile.

Wild Turkey 101 neat tastes watered down.

The liquor store clerk looks in your cart and says, “Woo! That’s gonna be some party!” And you think, “Party?”

It doesn’t bother you when you wake up with an empty wallet because all those bartenders and waitresses probably deserve that money more than you do and HOLY SHIT HOW THE FUCK DID I SPEND SO MUCH FUCKING MONEY?

Your hangover has a hangover.

Your binge drinking gets in the way of your benders.

There’s a garbage can in your living room.

You think it’s perfectly reasonable to waive the “a gentlemen never drinks before noon” rule so long as the gentleman in question is still up from the night before.

You sometimes like to start the morning with a hearty, “Who the fuck are you?”

You have no memory of ever eating a 7-Eleven jalapeno dog and you’ve eaten about 50.

You sometimes misplace yourself.

You know that black carbon smoke from a forgotten pot of Top Ramen makes for an excellent alarm clock.

You think the world revolves around you, especially when you lie down.

—FKR, Aquarius

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You got lost crossing the street.

You reckon that returning an unfinished keg is right on par with your father watching you gettting your ass kicked by a mime.

You get that weird tingling in your groin when you walk past a liquor store.

You take off your hat and strangers drop change into it. Not that you’re complaining.

You have proof the Bud Bowl is fixed.

Your blood will run a lawn mower.

Future generations will call you an urban legend.

 M.A.D.D. has a budget line with your name on it.

 You’re quite good looking when you’re plastered, and you have the mug shots to prove it.

 You can sniff out a hidden bottle of scotch in under two minutes. One minute if it’s been cracked.

 You don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but  it seems a pretty big coincidence that none of the bars in town will let you stay after hours.

 Your bar tabs impact the international price of wheat and barley.

 Your hangovers can be seen from space.

 You’ve heckled A.A. meetings.

 You think you can influence the outcome of a football game two time zones away by yelling at a television.

  —FKR, Richard English.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can see your breath in July.

You can’t say the word sober without making air quotes.

You feel incredibly sexy despite the vomit stain down the front of your shirt.

Gin never gives you a hangover, but martini olives absolutely murder you.

You figure the cab companies are making a fortune off the cell phones, lighters and all that other shit that falls out of your pockets.

You know to put extra ice in your cocktail when you take a hot shower.

Contrary to popular opinion, you don’t drink all the time. You just enjoy having a few civilized night caps, day caps, afternoon caps and morning caps.

After eight drinks your “hugs” bear an uncanny resemblance to UFC take-downs.

You fell into a whiskey vat and bravely fought off your rescuers for three hours.

The first thing you think when you can’t find your wallet is, “Great, now how am I going to buy beer?” 

You failed CPR class because your breath set the dummy on fire.

You’re having a little trouble reading this because the bar’s lighting sucks and you’re kinda loaded.

You called the cops on yourself but refused to testify because you “didn’t want to get involved."

—Spencer P., Miss Conception, John-Erik P., Brad H., FKR.

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You use spearmint schnapps for mouthwash because it eliminates that whole spitting hassle.

You employ a booze-based monetary system, e.g.: “I’d loan you the money but all I have is a liter of Evan Williams and a twelver of Hamm’s in the bank.”

You seem to think you can restore that classic car in your garage by drinking beer while staring at it.

Your dishwasher’s glassware-to-plate ratio is roughly eight to one.

You’re seriously considering learning how to play the bagpipes because, hey—nobody gets more free drinks than bagpipers.

You’ve worn a kilt to ladies night in hopes of beating the system on a technicality.

Tequila makes you lose your mind and howl at the moon, so you only drink it in the morning.

Most days you’re up and at ‘em at five in the morning. Then you pass out.

If you died, went to Heaven and found out it was dry, you’d casually inquire: “So, what’s the deal downstairs? They serving or what?”

Your friends know the best way to bring you down is yell, “Last call!”

You have ten ice cube trays in your freezer and they’re all empty.

You have made cocktails with ice chiseled from the inner walls of your freezer.

When the guy at the door yelled, “Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,” you assumed it was someone bringing more supplies.

You inform the arresting officer that gravity is the only law you feel compelled to obey.

You take pub crawls very literally.

Crying in your beer increases its alcohol content.

You’ve invented a Sesame Street drinking game so you can spend more time with your kids.

You start your morning by reaching to the night stand, picking up your phone, pressing re-dial, and apologizing to whoever answers.

Some bastard always manages to slip a Mickey Finn in your 30th drink.

You regularly shout constructive criticism at the winos holding cardboard signs on street corners, e.g.: “It’s too political! You’re alienating half your demographic!”

All your finest athletic feats were executed after six or more drinks.

Your golf bag contains more beer than clubs.

You complain to friends that you “got really sober last night.”

—FKR, Barcillo, Chopper, Brian Normant, Mike White, F. Odin

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Your friends accuse you of “acting weird” whenever they meet you sober.

You want to rid the world of booze—one drink at a time.

You fall off the wagon and it backs up and runs you over a couple times.

You’ve flunked the wine-tasting class at the local free university four times this year but still keep giving it the ol’ college try.

You don’t get “falling down drunk,” you get “gravity-challenged.”

You don’t call them birthdays, you call them “a-free-shot-at-every-bar-I-can-reach-in-the-next-24 hours-days.”

You think the only thing worse than warm flat keg beer on Sunday is no warm flat keg beer on Sunday.

You know that in Heaven the bars open at 6am and close at 5:59am and in Hell it’s the other way around.

You’ve convinced your boss that your cologne is called “Eau de Cheap Scotch.”

You can identify most of the bars in town by the underside of their barstools.

You try to buddy up to the arresting officer by offering him a drink from the open container between your knees.

You’ve gotten so loaded you cursed the DJ for refusing to play “Muskrat Love.”

Youv’e tried to lay down on the ceiling.

—FKR, Frank Bell, L. Safian

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Bouncers have a special headlock named after you.

Gin is your tonic.

You joined AA because you heard you could get sponsorship for your drinking.

Your first tree fort had a wet bar.

You’ve never been out of the country, but you frequently visit Twevlepackistan.

You like to think your friends call you a “big, fucking sponge” because you can absorb so much alcohol.

Your donated blood is only given to people over the age of 21.

Your best friends and worst enemies are all bartenders.

Your favorite dive is so dark you can’t tell when you’re blacked out.

Your dentist is afraid to drill in your mouth for fear of an unexpected spark.

“Taking the edge off” usually means waking up on your lawn.

You’ve stopped drinking, but only when you’re asleep.

When making punch, you dilute the rum with vodka.

Your plan to move to New Orleans during hurricane season is based entirely upon the possibility of getting “trapped” in a bar.

— FKR, Troy Baxley, Keith W., Roomie, Zot, Beto Sanchez, Sean Higgins, John O.

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You can judge what time it is by looking at the shelf you’re buying drinks from.

The bars send out a search party when you don’t show up at opening time.

You use your cuff links as curb feelers.

You’ve stepped on your own fingers.

Everyone thinks you’re bilingual.

You’ve told a priest, “Make it a triple this time, and hold the wafer.”

You walk into a new bar and ask to see the finance manager.

You have a reserved parking space in front of two different liquor stores.

Your birthday is a holiday in Scotland.

You favorite brand of vino comes with the disclaimer, “No grapes were harmed in the making of this wine.”

The fire marshal fines you every time you yawn near an open flame.

You get so loaded it takes two trips to get it all home.

You walk into a new bar and they already know what you drink.

You invented a drinking game for A.A. meetings.

You match your outfit to the liquor you plan on drinking.

You buy a lamp because you need a hat.

— Sam Wagner, FKR, Dogboy, S. Hendron, Geoff Lilley, M. Young, Nicholas Kochems, JR Lighthall, Scsigrrl, & Rowdydrunk.

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FEMA declared you a national disaster.

You’re not sure when Mary Ann snuck out your apartment last night, but you figure it was about the same time Mrs. Howell snuck in.

You resolve to call your local councilman and complain about the city’s ill-advised policy of putting lampposts in the middle of the road.

Uncontrollable vomiting, falling out of a tree and a heavily overdrawn bank account may very well be elements of “the most awesome weekend.”

You call an ex-friend at 3am to ask what he meant by that remark last July.

You receive divorce papers from your liver and it wants full custody of the kidneys.

You were genuinely excited about Cingular’s “More bars in more places” promise until you found out they were talking about cell phones.

You don’t have to imagine what a spilled gin and tonic sucked from a shag rug tastes like.

You stub out your glass in the ashtray and ask the bartender to fill up your cigarette.

You drank so much beer last night you single-handedly wore out a fresh urinal cake.

— Sean Higgins, Venita Louise, Luke Schmaltz, FKR

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All your character witnesses are in the drunk tank.

You have attempted to wring out a rum cake.

The cops set up a DUI checkpoint in your driveway.

The rattlesnake that bit you yelped.

You once woke up with a new job.

Your menage a trois fantasies include a bartender.

Your DNA is shaped like a corkscrew.

Your streetside recycling company has to bring an extra truck.

The ATF has a You division.

You catch yourself rambling on about Thunderbird’s “delicate, yet audacious bouquet.”

You swallow your mouthwash because it reminds you of spearmint schnapps.

You drink tequila to get the taste of rum out of your mouth. And visa versa. For hours at a time.

You’d never steal a fellow drunk’s drink, but you do occasionally “adopt orphans.”

Your local liquor store lets you put bottles on layaway.

You’ve attempted seppuku with a cocktail sword.

— Rich English, Walter, FKR, Troy Baxley

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You have to go to court to find out what happened.

You’ve talked the monkey on your back into chipping in on bar tabs.

You’ve been 86’d from detox.

The only time Shane MacGowan looks sober is when he’s standing next to you.

You see nothing ironic in chasing your daily vitamins with a water glass full of whiskey.

Your office chair is a barstool.

You own three beer bong patents.

You only drink socially, except when you’re alone.

You can’t stand tomato juice but love those Bloody Marys.

You don’t need to hire a personal trainer to encourage you to start running because cops do it for free.

Your PhD. thesis in political science was titled, “I Could So Outdrink Ted Kennedy.”

You get indignant if a wedding reception has a cash bar. Especially if the reception was hard to sneak into.

The simple act of returning an empty keg can spiral into an big emotional scene.

You started taking scuba lessons when you learned that the Titanic went down with 500 cases of Bass Ale.

— Troy Baxley, Vince, FKR, Jason Becker, Luke Schmaltz

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If a party runs out of booze, you sock the host and drink his nosebleed.

Your wife asks you to pick up a canned ham, and you show up with a case of Hamm’s in cans.

Interventions have become so frequent that you just leave the folding chairs set up in your living room.

 The arresting officer tells you that you have the right to remain silent and you waive that right so you can finish singing Enter Sandman.

 You know how to say “Where are my pants?” in seven languages.

 You have a lot of respect for that 80-year-old guy at the end of the bar, but you know from experience that he’s a dirty fighter.

 You go on week-long benders just so you’ll have a cool story to tell at your AA meetings.

 You got in a fist fight with a wino over how long a bottle of Thunderbird should be allowed to “breathe”.

 You’re willing to go on the wagon, so long as it’s heading for a bar.

 You got pissed off when you forgot whatever you were drinking to forget.

— Lorin Partridge, FKR, Randall Greenland, Frank Bell, Rev. Steven F. Scharff, Keith W.

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You have so much alcohol in your system that your cabbie has to be HazMat certified.

If a wino jumped off a building, you’d bravely leap forward to break the fall of his bottle.

You install shag carpet because it’s easier to hang on to.

Embalming fluid would be an improvement.

Your last Breathalyzer reading was “No Fucking Way.”

Distilleries fight over the billboard nearest to your place of residence.

The state has installed a Breathalyzer interlock device on your shoes.

You drew up a living will that states very clearly that you do not want the booze tube removed under any circumstances.

Your friends often substitute “Good night” with “Hey, you can’t sleep here.”

When you donate blood they store it in oak barrels.

You openly commit crimes just to learn new pruno recipes.

Your name is police code for Public Intoxication.

You’re fairly sure a letter to Dear Abby signed “Want To Leave the Bum, But Can’t” was written by your liver.

—Barca, ssapals, maddog, FKR

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Your favorite drinking game is Do A Shot Every Time You Do A Shot.

Your idea of a seven-course meal is a six-pack and a pizza.

TV beer ads have started addressing you by name.

Someone offers you palm wine and you think they’re out of glassware.

You brush your teeth with bourbon. It hasn’t helped cut down on cavities, but who cares?

When a panhandler asks, “Can you give me a quarter for some beer?” you reply, “Okay, but I want to taste it first.”

You know heavy drinking makes you smarter because you can never remember doing anything stupid while blacked out.

You have a split personality—every time you meet someone with booze you want to split it with them.

You were so drunk at the office Xmas party that you kissed your own wife.

You’ve never been to Afghanistan or Pakistan, but you’re a frequent visitor to Imtoodrunktostan.

You become sexually aroused by the tapping of a keg.

You know you can use Jagermeister as cough syrup. And visa versa.

Your 86s are passed down to your grandchildren.

—D. Tostenson, FKR, Luke Schmaltz

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You have a sweet tooth for alcohol—in fact, your whole mouth likes it.

You spill so much booze at home your dog slurs his barks.

Your credit history is composed entirely of bar tabs.

When you get a cold you get a bottle of whiskey, do shots, and it’s gone — not the cold, the whiskey.

You’re always shaking hands, even when there’s no one else around.

Whenever you bend your elbow your mouth snaps open.

When your boss asks you to work overtime you demand time and a fifth.

You get held up almost every time you go home — in fact it’s the only way you can get home.

You’d be happy to go on the wagon if you could find one with a bar.

Your favorite bar is four blocks away — six blocks coming back.

When you order a hound for the rouse.

The Red Cross uses your blood to sterilize their instruments.

You’re half scotch, and your ancestors aren’t from Scotland.

You know how to handle your liquor — with both hands.

You hate the very sight of liquor, which is why you hide it in your stomach.

—FKR, Troy Baxley

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A liter of scotch isn't enough to invite a friend over for a drink.

Your first science fair project was a still.

You know most the of people in a bar and can’t remember one of their names.

Anyone who kisses you must legally wait half an hour to drive.

They have to mix your blood with tonic water before giving it to anyone.

You’ve filed assault charges against a coffee table.

When you’re out in the street, you are literally “out” in the street.

You think of drinking beer as “sobering up,”

You can say “Whiskey, please” in 34 languages, but can’t understand “Last call” in English.

Your liver takes sides against you during an intervention.

You know better than going near an open flame while you’re bleeding.

Your bed looks a helluva lot like a park bench, and your bedroom looks a helluva lot like a park.

You need a blood transfusion to legally enter a dry county.

Your flask is spring-loaded.

You judge cologne by its bouquet and finish.

— SJP, Will Butler, MidSummer Cocktail, el pulpo, barcalounge, DJF, FKR

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Your liver is in the Federal Witness Protection Program.

You enjoy cooking with wine, and sometimes you even put it in the food.

You’ve only been drunk once in your life, and so far it’s lasted twenty-three years.

You liver has a restraining order on you.

You can tell the difference between a bottle of Jack and a bottle of Jim by the sound they make hitting the back of your head.

Alcoholism doesn’t run in your family—it takes its own sweet time.

You’ve been cut off during communion.

You wonder why they call it Southern Comfort when they know damn well there is nothing comfortable about being handcuffed in the back of a squad car.

Growing-up means buying better booze, getting older means getting used to the cheap stuff again.

You miss the old days when you were younger than the cop that finds you sleeping in a dumpster.

You were excited about the Olsen twins turning “legal” until you realized they still aren’t old enough to buy you a drink.

You resent it when people call you a raving alcoholic, because you’ve never been to a rave in your life.

—Keith, W., Billy, Pat Murphy, DrunkenJackFlask, Zaknaldrett, FKR

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You keep a bottle of liquor next to your bed so you can have breakfast in bed when you wake up.

You consider anything less than 80 proof a chaser.

You’ve eaten 87 packets of honey mustard because on the label it lists “white wine” as an ingredient.

You have convinced yourself that you’re not drinking alone so long as your friends Jack, Jim and Johnnie are over.

Your wardrobe is divided into Summer, Winter and Things You Woke Up Wearing. The third category includes a number of thongs.

Your BAC is measured in proof.

You measure time by drinks, as in: "Hold on a shot, the movie doesn't start for another four bourbons."

To you "Last call!" sounds just like "Please don’t leave! We love you and you're charming wit!"

You don’t use cologne or aftershave because you have a moral objection to alcohol going anywhere but down your throat.

You’d exercise more but when you sweat it smells like booze and that makes you thirsty.

You always finish your drinks because there are sober people in China.

When you come home to find your house burglarized the first thing you check is your liquor cabinet.

You'll join A.A. when they start serving cocktails at the meetings.

Your ATM is a Dumpster full of recyclable cans.

You'll sleep through a train wreck, yet spring awake to the sound of a bottle top turning.

—Erik Hinrichsen, Oggar, pbrstreetgang, 190 Proof, Troy Baxley, FKR

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You can order a beer in 17 different languages but don’t know how to pronounce “Perrier.”

When a cop asks, “Have we been drinking?” you reply, “Do you really think I’d drink with the likes of you?”

You freak out when you wake up in your own bed.

You’d have passed the sobriety test if you hadn’t mistaken the Breathalyzer for a bugle.

Your waking thought is, “Wow, look at all the gum stuck to the bottom of the table.”

You got in trouble at work because your standard greeting is, “Hey, let’s do a shot!”

You cursed the St. Bernard who rescued you because he had the nerve to bring only one lousy liter of brandy.

You can hear someone whisper “free beer” from three blocks away.

You consider a bottle of cheap whiskey and two shot glasses a very romantic gift.

You hate it when men give you flowers because, hey—you can’t drink flowers.

You dream of the beautiful day when all races, religions, creeds and colors finally get it together and pitch in to buy you a case of decent scotch.

You show up to brewery tours wearing fins and a snorkel.

You tell your friends your dog’s name is “Time For A Beer Run” but you call him “Hurry Up.”

The tooth fairy left you shots of Rumpleminze.

You’ve convinced yourself your liver isn’t distended—it’s pregnant. With a new liver.

—FKR, Rich English

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You play the same song 20 times in a row at top volume at three in the morning and are certain the neighbors don’t mind because, you know, it’s such a kick-ass song.

You think the porcelain hat looks good on you.

Your idea of karaoke is falling off the stage while yelling “Rock and roll!” into the microphone.

Your house is four times farther from the bar on the way back.

Your alarm clock is synchronized with the nearest liquor store’s opening time.

You have threatened to murder and marry the same person in the span of a single happy hour.

You are the answer to the question, “What kind of idiot pukes in a bidet?”

While in the drunk tank your friends tried to sneak you a fifth of Beam in a cake.

You’re personal trainer is a bartender.

You’ve known Jack Daniels so long you refer to him as John.

You watch Behind the Music and think “That’s really not that much alcohol.”

The bartender is in the weeds and you’re the only person in the bar.

You refuse to play Golden Tee because there is no beer cart girl.

Think box wine is great; eagerly awaiting box whiskey.

—Troy Baxley, Matty G., Nick Esposito, FKR, Swamp, Oggar

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You get cut off in absentia.

You won’t rent an apartment that doesn’t have a bar and liquor store within two blocks.

You’re favorite cocktail is one quarter vodka, one quarter vodka, one half vodka and topped up with vodka.

You get angry when guys who can’t hold their liquor keep stepping on your fingers.

You get nervous when there are only three bottles of liquor left in your house.

You forget how pants work.

You’re not angry about the fly in your drink, you’re angry he didn’t chip in on the tab.

You’ve never taken a lesson, but after eight drinks you’re pretty damn sure you can play the piano. And break dance. At the same time.

You hate it when your lightweight drinking buddies get so drunk you can barely see them.

You’ve put a dozen vampires into A.A.

You shake the same person’s hand five times between last call and getting booted out.

You’re entire life’s savings equals a case a cheap beer and bottle of rotgut bourbon. And you’re very excited by the fact.

You think Jim Beam is a utility company because it keeps shutting off your lights.

You never blackout. You just take a lot of “loud vertical naps.”

—FAS, FKR, A Liar’s Club Regular, Dave Schalmo, The Dirty Swede, barcalounge, Big Casino and Toondale.

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You have never taken a drink of a non-alcoholic beverage without thinking, “Man, a splash of booze would fix this right up.”

You’ve apologized to people you don’t remember meeting for things you don’t remember doing in places you don’t remember going.

You think of plate glass windows as more suggestions than guidelines.

You can’t walk a straight line unless the floor is moving.

You dressed as a wino for halloween and no one noticed.

Half the bartenders in town know exactly which porch to leave you on.

Your tapeworm joined a 12 Step program.

You attempted to have a keg delivered to your cell in the drunk tank.

Your paychecks are deposited directly into a bar’s bank account.

Instead of “Good morning,” the first words out of your mouth are “Have you seen my trousers?”

You were looking forward to your court-mandated alcohol classes until you found out there wasn’t any actual alcohol involved.

You hang an open umbrella from your drinking hand to catch the spillage.

Long Islands are your cup of tea.

The words “Last Call” physically hurt you.

Detox leaves a mint under your pillow.

—Jacko, Barcalounge, DPAW, Omar, Troy Baxley, One For The Frog, Frank Bell and FKR.

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You fall down a well and send Lassie to the liquor store.

Bartenders call you when you’ve been absent for more than two days.

Lawn sprinklers are sometimes your alarm clock.

You wake up in a strange city not knowing how you got there, and the three other guys don’t know either.

You need help getting the breathalyzer in the right hole.

You lost a fistfight with yourself.

It takes two shots of schnapps to wash the taste of Breathalyzer out of your mouth.

You like to stop for a drink on the way to the fridge to get a beer.

You went on vacation for two weeks and the owner of your regular bar had his boat repossessed.

You’ve asked a bartender to “freshen up” your shot glass.

Bars call in their off-duty bartenders when you walk in the door.

You’ve asked a waiter: “What sort of wine goes with vodka?”

When buying floor tile, you press your face against it to see how comfortable it would be to sleep on.

You get into a loud, enraged argument, then realize you’re alone.

—Hugh Janblack, Dave Schalmo, Barcalounge, Drunken JackFlask, Geofflilley and FKR.

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After your fifth drink, you’re like Don Juan with the ladies: They Don Juan nothing to do with you.

You suspect that water, taken in small quantities, isn’t all that dangerous.

You occasionally have meals with your wine.

You wake up every morning at the crack of ice.

You drink to forget you drink.

You distrust camels, or anyone else who can go a week without a drink.

People get drunk by shaking your hand.

You never eat breakfast on an empty stomach.

Beer is the reason you get up every afternoon.

The only drinking problem you have is the two-hands/one-mouth thing.

Your house is so messy because it spins like a top every time you lie down.

You drink to steady yourself, and sometimes you get so steady you can’t move.

You never walk, you just occasionally stagger in a straight line.

You get angry because there’s always so much booze left at the end of your money.

You think that drunks are a lot like chess players, only drunk.

You forgot your fishing pole on your fishing trip and didn’t notice.

You’ve been laid out on more floors than Johnson’s Wax.

Your liver has hired an attorney.

You wish all the world’s parking lots could be somehow turned into lush rain forests, because, you know, it’s hard to hide from cops in a parking lot.

Your favorite bar installed a seat belt on your barstool.

The glass isn’t half empty or half full. It just needs to be topped off.

You don’t fall off the wagon—you leap off it while chugging a bottle of cheap bourbon.

You have two personalities: Mr. Responsibility and Mr. I-Think-I’ll-Call-All-My-Old-Girlfriends-While-I'm-Blacked-Out.

The word “rent” loses all meaning after your fifth drink.

You’re so good at “drinking to forget” that you sometimes forget how to walk.

Whenever someone in a suit spills your well bourbon it magically transforms into top shelf scotch on the way to the floor.

You laugh at funerals but weep like a baby whenever you hear about a beer truck overturning.

You’d rather be a bus driver than an astronaut because, hey, there ain’t no beer where they’re going.

You don’t mind when your wife finds you stinking drunk in a bar, because then you can hit her up for a free drink.

Pink elephants get drunk and they see you.

You can get drunk on Scotch tape.

You’re not a hard drinker. It’s the easiest thing you do.

You like to have a drink between drinks.

You’d join AA but your always too drunk too memorize the pledge.

Your sleep number is 151 . . . proof.

You quit drinking once, and it was the worst afternoon of your life.

You won’t eat an olive unless it’s sterilized in gin.

You think Beethoven’s Fifth is a bottle of schnapps.

You’re living a champagne lifestyle on a beer budget. Except you don’t like champagne so you just drink lots and lots of beer.

Gin rummy sounded like a fun game.

You’re stalked by alcoholic vampires.

You have never screwed a cap back onto a liquor bottle.

Your friends pretend to be bartenders, just so you’ll pay attention to them.

Your personal mantra is, “Where there’s a swill, there’s a sway.”

You suffer from barthritis— every night you get stiff in another joint.

You don’t recognize the difference between “waking up” and “coming to.”

You donate a pint of blood and the hospital has to card the patient they give it to.

Your liver enters itself in a Tough Man competition.

You wear Hawaiian shirts because it’s tougher to see vomit stains on them.

Going out drinking with you is covered by your friends’ insurance.

As a child your dad helped you learn math by first explaining a four-count.

Your personal math system is based on the number six, i.e.: “I’ll take a twelver of Big Macs, with a sixer of those without cheese.”

You use visualization techniques to master beer bongs.

In high school, you were voted most likely to drink in grade school.

2 for 1 is your lucky number.

A perfect date is soft music, a bottle of wine and moi.

A couple times a year you go on a “non-bender.”

Before you go out each night you consult a psychic hotline to determine which bartenders will be pouring strong.

Peeling the label off a beer bottle arouses you.

You feel a tinge of pride when someone refers to you as a “shameless alcoholic.”

You’ve discovered that teaching your dog to shoplift from liquor stores was not nearly as hard as teaching him to distinguish between Grey Goose and McCormick’s.

You were against going to war with Iraq until you found out those poor fuckers aren’t allowed to drink.

The first thing you thought when you woke up yesterday was, “Wow, look at all that gum stuck under the bar!”

Your girlfriend left you because you accidentally cried out “Glenfiddich” while making love.

Your beer back comes with a tap.

You conduct weekly “assisted short-term flight” experiments every weekend. With the help of various bouncers.

You’re regularly mobbed by autograph hungry alley winos.

You were the first person in line at the flu clinic because you heard they were giving away free shots.

You like tequila with a lime — or dirt, or a hamster or whatever, so long as there’s tequila involved.

You come home sober and your dog bites you.

The cafeteria in the detox center has a sandwich named after you.

You can’t recognize your best friend unless he’s leaning against a bar. With a drink in his hand. Drunk.

You like a splash of coffee in your morning whiskey.

You can blow a .08 BAC from twenty feet away.

You take swim trunks to brewery tours.

You’re kept awake at night by the sound of your liver crying.

You prefer cold showers because the ice in your drink doesn’t melt as fast.

You’re shocked and confounded to discover they actually sell Coke without Jack Daniels.

When a cop asks you to walk a straight line, you ask, “Which one?”

You tried getting out of a DUI by putting a beer label on your arm and telling the cop you’re off the booze and on the patch.

You woke up on New Years Eve with the resolution of finding out which bars open earliest.

Get mad when your family calls you a
wino because they know damn well you prefer whiskey.

You’re definition of a problem drinker is guy who won’t buy you a round.

You hate the person you become when you black out, because, you know, that fucker drinks all your beer.

You know hangovers only last a day, but a good drinking story lives on forever.

You don’t like to think of it as blacking out. You prefer to think of it as exercising the lizard brain.

The only useful thing you got out of an A.A. meeting was learning how to identify your enablers. Because, hey, those guys are most likely to buy you a drink.

You distrust any wine that doesn’t give you a decent hangover.

A good drinking buddy will bail you out of jail, but a great drinking buddy will be sitting in the cell beside you, saying, “Man, that was awesome!”

The last words you remember each night are, “Hold my beer and watch this!”

You’re disappointed when you go to a funeral and there’s no keg.

You refer to your mouth as your “booze hole.”

You’ve told Jehovah’s Witnesses, “Of course, I want to go to Heaven. I’m sure it’s awesome. God does pick up the tab every night, right?”

You once got so drunk you dreamed you got fired and broke up with your girlfriend — and it all came true!

You regularly ask bartenders, “So, how are the spill mats looking tonight? Anything good in there?”

Someone tells you they don’t drink anymore, and you bravely respond, “Don’t worry about it, buddy, I’ll take up your slack!”

You prefer vodka that comes in the handy plastic squeeze-size bottles.

The bartender asks for your I.D. just to see how long it'll take you to find your pants.

Two weeks into the bender you found out “Drink Canada Dry” was a corporate slogan, not a challenge.

For the money you’ve spent on Thunderbird, you could have bought the car.

You know that vodka is tasteless going down, but memorable coming up.

You say when your drunk what you think when you’re sober.

You know the best beer in the world is the one in your hand.

Beer does not make you fat. It makes you lean— against bars, poles and tables.

You always drink Irish Coffee for breakfast because it contains all four adult food groups: fat, sugar, caffeine and alcohol.

You don't drink anymore . . . of course, you don't drink any less, either.

Your bartender never has to ask, “Do you want another?”

You recognize that vomiting is just the body’s way of making room for another round.

You distrust camels or anything else that can go a week without a drink.

You're favorite method of dieting is the “Slim Jim”: Ultra Slim-Fast shakes made with Jim Beam.

Absolut wants to run an ad featuring a picture of your liver in the shape of a bottle.

You only drink to get rid of hangovers, and sometimes it takes all night.

You know if you give up drinking you won’t actually live longer — it’ll just seem like longer.

You spend ninety percent of your paycheck on drinking and waste the rest.

You fell down two flights of stairs and didn’t spill a drop.

You don’t mind blacking out because it makes Sunday confession much less embarrassing.

When you wake up hungover you’re afraid you’ll die. Half an hour later you’re afraid you’ll live.

You wonder why people need friends when you can just sit in a room and drink all day.

You believe the only Absolut(e) in life is vodka.

You went on a diet, swore off drinking and bar food, and in fourteen days you lost two weeks.

Booze may not be the answer, but it helps you to forget the question.

You exist in a perfect Zen circle: you drink because your wife nags and she nags because you drink.

You got so drunk on St. Patrick’s day it seemed like every other day.

You must have a drink by eleven, it’s a deed that must be done. If you can’t have a drink by eleven, you must have eleven by one.

If a man gave you a fish and you’d eat for a day. If he taught you to fish you’d sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

If it weren’t for the olives in your martinis, you’d starve to death.

When your spirits get low, you use a straw.

You’d go on the wagon, but can’t find one with a bar.

You always cook with wine. Sometimes you even add it to the food.

You drink a bottle of wine everyday. Unless you’re sick. Then you drink two.

You refer to grapes as “wine eggs.”

You can walk into a 7-11 at 2am, look at the cheese dog that’s been mutating on the grill since 8am and think, “Man, that looks tasty!”

You know liquor gets better with age, because the older you get the more you like it.

You only drink to steady your nerves. Sometimes you get so steady you have to be carried out.

You drink to make other people appear cool enough to hang out with you.

Quitting drinking is the easiest thing in the world. You’ve done it a thousand times.

You have a reserved parking space at four different liquor stores.

You woke up feeling really strange, then realized you didn’t have a hangover.

With a bottle of Passport Scotch and a suitcase of Stroh’s you can go on vacation without ever leaving your house.

You never drink anything stronger than vodka before breakfast.

You make a point of never drinking before noon. Which is convenient, because you’re never up before three in the afternoon.

One of your hobbies is sitting down and calculating exactly how much liquor your next paycheck would buy at the liquormart. Just out of curiosity, of course.

Your co-workers start whispering with concern when you don’t come in with hangover.

Your boss tells you to “Shape up or ship out,” and you reply, “You mean like a cruise ship? Are the drinks expensive on cruise ships?”

The whole terrorism deal became very clear to you when you found out muslims aren’t allowed to drink.

You wish you were closer to Jesus, especially when he’s doing his wine to water thing.

A cold cement floor looks comfortable and inviting.

You wish temperance leagues still sang anti-drinking religious hymns outside bars, because, you know, it’d be a very funny thing to watch while getting hammered.

You think alcohol-fueled automobiles are the wave of the future because, hey, it certainly works for you.

You think a wrong number is an adequate excuse to go on a bender.

“Going out for a beer or two” sometimes means waking up in Vegas three days later.

You hated Ted Kennedy until you realized he can probably outdrink you.

You always confuse the words picture and pitcher, especially when someone says, “Hey, take my picture.”

You happen to share the same home town, ethnicity, lifestyle, opinions, occupation or whatever-the-hell of whoever happens to be buying the drinks.

You consider vodka a chaser.

Your roommates say good morning to you and you haven’t been to bed yet.

You volunteered to work for free for NASA when you heard about the gas clouds in space containing billions of gallons of alcohol.

You know a bottle of Jack under your bed is worth a million bottles in the liquor store after midnight.

You have told a bartender: “I didn’t hear anyone yell last call. How could I? I was in the bathroom, vomiting in your urinal.”

Half the bouncers in town know exactly how much you weigh.

You know that time is never wasted when you’re wasted all the time.

You use Calvin Klien’s new aftershave, but don’t really care for the aftertaste.

You refer to your mouth as your “booze hole.”

You wish bartenders would spend more time ‘tending’ and less time ‘barring.’

The first thing you say when you walk in a bar is, “I’m not still 86’d, am I?”

You’d go to Mass more often if they weren’t so stingy with the wine.

When you were in high school you had a poster of W.C. Fields on your bedroom wall.

You drank ten bottles of wine last week and didn’t need a corkscrew once.

You prefer Hamm’s and eggs for breakfast, minus the eggs.

The rotgut whiskey you buy is so disgusting you have to drink the first half the bottle just so you’ll be drunk enough to put up with the taste of the second half.

Whenever someone starts reading a bottle of Jack Daniels you say, “Quit cheating!”

You don’t sniff the cork, you chew it.

Your career is interfering with your drinking.

You get so drunk Bud Light starts tasting like beer.

You read this magazine until you fall asleep, then use it as a blanket.

You heard you get drunker at higher altitudes so you always drink on top of the dumpster.

Your alarm clock is a garbage truck.

You’ve worked out a devious plot to steal Einstein’s brain. So you can drink the alcohol it’s stored in.

You masturbate to the liquor ads in Playboy.

You show up at the flu clinic to investigate rumors of  "free shots."

You have a born-on date tattooed on your beer gut.

You hold a bottle of hair spray and say, "Man, if you were ice cold."

You're addressed by three separate liquor store owners as "the guy who paid for my houseboat."

You often confuse the word breakfast with Bloody Marys, i.e., "What are we going to have for Bloody Marys this morning?"

You know that liquor is especially tasty when it comes from the secret hiding place in your roommates's closet.

You can, in a pinch, construct a fully-operational keg tap from a cigarette lighter, two clothespins and lots of love.

You get in a heated conversation with your barstool neighbor about the proper way to vomit from a moving vehicle.

At 2am you proclaim, "The party ain't over until the fat lady says no!"

You need a cosigner to open a bar tab.

The monkey on your back is in rehab.

You know that, with a bouncer's assistance,  man in capable of short-term flight.

You have recurring dream you're hired by the Guinness\Playboy Research foundation to prove twenty pints a day improves your sex life.

You often take your lover for romantic strolls among the picturesque aisles of liquor superstores.

You will eat a bug for a shot.

You know wine is mentioned in the Bible over 250 times. Perrier? Not once!

You have strained cigarette-butt infested beer through your teeth.

You consider 3.2 beer on Sunday as Uncle Sam's cruel taunt.

You can hear someone whisper "free beer" from three blocks away.

You know the heartbreak of watching the bartender dump the spill tray.

You call the bartending academy, inquiring as to what they do with their mistakes.

You refer to your refrigerator as "the stand-up beer cooler."

You give directions with liquor stores and bars the the major landmarks, i.e., "You'll pass Argonaut's Liquors on the left and Scooter's on the right, then turn right on the street between the Satire Lounge and the Lion's Lair, then continue until you see the tree that looks like a huge martini glass."

You think vomiting is the body's way of making room for the next round.

The first thing you look for on a wine label is the alcohol content.

You consider Aqua Velvet a daring after-hours liqueur.

You recognize last call as a secret signal that all unattended drinks are fair game.

When someone says "expensive wine," you think "gallon jug."

Four years of research and three hours of writing went into your masterful college thesis, "MD 20\20: Self-Esteem Enhancer For the Leisure Classes, or Cancer Cure for the Working Masses?"

#2.Alcohol is a Poison Antidote
For the sake of argument, let's say you drank some antifreeze.
The ingredient in antifreeze that makes it work is called ethylene glycol. When you ingest it, you experience symptoms such as vomiting and severe diarrhea, paranoia, dementia and intense hallucinations. Eventually, the glycol gets turned into calcium oxylate and forms small, needle shaped crystals that shred your kidneys to pieces. Typically, this kills you.

It's time to call Poison Control, and for the first time in your life you may hear legitimate medical advice that begins with "drink a few shots of vodka and drive yourself to the hospital."
See, the ethanol in that shot you just drank will be digested preferentially by your body, passing the ethylene glycol out of your system in a life-saving stream of pee. The method is so reliable that it's a staple at hospitals, and some even recommend that you mix yourself a screwdriver before you call 911, presumably so they can record the phone call and play it later at an office party.

In an even more amazing turn of events, some Australian doctors hooked up a tourist to an IV drip of cheap liquor when they ran out of medicinal alcohol, treating him with the equivalent of three drinks an hour for three days to wash the ethylene out of his body. This was presumably suggested after one of the doctors saw a rerun of MacGyver on the break room television while drinking from a hip flask.

#1.Alcohol Can Help You Lose Weight
As with "whiskey dick," the term "beer gut" exists for a reason. A can of beer has 160 calories, basically like eating most of a candy bar with each one you down. But once again there is a magical amount that miraculously has the opposite effect.

In a massive study of 37,000 people, the thinnest people were not the non-drinkers. It was the people who had a few drinks a week (any more than one a day and you start to go the opposite direction). Not surprisingly, the occasional binge-drinkers were the fattest.
Why? It's not clear, as it appears to be tied more to the person's habits than any magical fat-burning qualities on the part of alcohol. Maybe people who can moderate themselves around alcohol are also good at moderating themselves around food? Maybe people who refuse to drink replace it with food (that is, they celebrate special occasions by going out to eat rather than getting drunk)? Whatever the reason, moderation wins again, even beating abstinence.

For women, the results are even more dramatic. Studies have shown that women who consume more than one drink a day are 70 percent more likely to avoid obesity (unless you're already overweight, in which case you will only get fatter). Men don't see anywhere near those results.

The reason for this is still not clear but some experts suggest it could be as simple as drinking alcohol instead of eating actual food, which women are statistically more likely to do.
Women and men also metabolize alcohol differently, so what results in an energy balance in men actually translates into a net loss for women, costing their bodies more effort to metabolize it. This means that at the end of the night, those calo

INFO
Introduction
beer (and wine) is one of the oldest and most popular alcoholic beverages on earth. All over the world, with the possible exception of France, Italy and Portugal, people guzzle beer in copious quantities.

Even in India, beer is one of the fastest growing segments within the liquor industry. But it is in England and Germany where beer drinking takes on an entirely new meaning. It is, in fact, almost a religion. Consider the numerous English pubs with their individualistic styles of beers; the stein wielding barmaids at a German beer garden. It is a way of life rather than the road to destruction. You could go on a `beer trail' and drink zillion different kinds of `tap' in one evening, then wonder how the simple beer could reach heights thought unattainable. Read on to figure out the basics about beer, how it's made, what the different types of beer are, what's the best way to drink it, so on and so forth.

How Is it Made
It is unjust that the hauteur which rightly attends wine should so often be permitted to overshadow beer. The two ought to be companions of honour as the principal types of fermented drink: made in the first case from the grape (or other fruits) and in the second from grain (mostly barley). Both are capable of great delicacy, and it is to the drinker's disadvantage that beer is...
(read more)

Types
Technically speaking, there are two basic styles of beer - lagers and ales - different in the type of yeast used to brew it. This is what gives ales (top fermenting yeast) its characteristic hoppy...
(read more)

Draught Beer
Beer served straight from the keg by means of a spigot or a valve. Unlike the bottled or canned varieties, draft beer hasn't been subjected...
(read more)

How to Drink it / Food to go with/Good Cocktails
After an exhaustive round of statistics and conjecture, let's get to the pleasurable side of drinking this great brew. Beer drinkers are often quite definite about the glass...
(read more)

Festivals / Trails / Famous Regions
Several beer festivals happen all over the world, from the famed Oktoberfest in Munich to the Great British beer festival and closer home, the Arlem beer festival in Goa. Below are details of a few of the important...
(read more)

Indian Scene
Not that we haven't had our share of innovation. Years ago, in the early eighties, Associated Breweries (of London Pilsner fame) launched London Stout into a market not quite ready for such adventure. It was soon shelved.
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Brandy

Introduction
In simple words, Brandy is distilled wine. The name is derived from the Dutch word brandewijn meaning burnt wine. Brandy is typically made from grapes but lately other fruits are also widely used. Brandy is by default made of grape unless specified.

Most often had as an after-dinner drink, it has an alcohol content of 40% - 50% alcohol by volume. Based on the main ingredient or flavour used, and where it comes from, brandy can be broadly classified into 3 types:

Grape Brandy:

Made by distilling fermented grape juice (wine).

• American – Mostly from California.

• Armagnac – Being the first spirit to be distilled in France, the drink is made from the grapes of the region of Armagnac in south-west France.

• Brandy de Jerez – Available on its own or used as an additive for sherry, it is a brandy from Jerez.

• Cognac – Almost become a generic term for brandy, it comes from the Cognac region in France.

• Lourinha – Comes from the Estremadura region of western Portugal.

• South African – Made almost like in Cognac.

• Aguardente – Means burning water, as known in countries like Portugal, Mexico, Germany, Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, Moldova, Cyprus, and Italy.

Pomace Brandy:

Made from the left over pulp, skin, seeds and stems of wine production. It is known by different names in different places.

• Lozovaka (loza) – Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia.

• Zivania – Cyprus.

• Marc – France.

• Chacha – Georgia.

• Tresterbrand – Germany.

• Tsipouro – Greece.

• Torkoly – Hungary.

• Grappa – Italy.

• Grozdova – Bulgaria.

• Aguardente – Portuguese.

• Orujo – Spain.

Fruit Brandy: Also known as Eau – de – Vie.

Various fruits and flavours can be used.

• Calvados – Apple brandy from Lower Normandy region of France.

• Kirshwasser – Made with cherries.

• Palinka – Traditional Hungarian brandy. Made using a variety of fruits like plum (szilva), apricot (barrack), grape (törköly), elderberry (bodza), pear (vilmoskörte), cherry (cseresznye), and there are the rare ones like apple, peach, and even walnut (dio). Even a mixed fruit palinka known as Vegyes, is popular.

• Slivovitz/Rakia – Conventional to Bulgaria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonian Republic and Croatia. It is made from plums.

• Slivovice – A plum brandy with a standard of 52% alcoholic strength set by law. Distinctive to places like Slovakia, East Mountains of Czech Republic, and Southern Mountain region of Poland.

• Schnapps/Snaps – Usually good with meals owing to the light bodied structure. Could be German (fruit brandy) or American (liqueur).

• Tuica (tzuika) – Made from either or a combination of fruits like plums, apples, pears, apricots, mulberries, peaches, and quinces. It is a clear brandy from Romania. Also known regionally as turt, tura and hornica.

• Himbeergist – Coming from the region of Alsace, it is a clear mild eau-de-vie made from fermented Raspberry juice.

Liqueurs that use brandy as a base:

• Benedictine • Ratafia • Kajmir • Tuaca • Advocaat • Chambord Liqueur Royale de France • Crème de violette • Grand Marnier • Pineau de charantes • Hpnotiq • Kruskovac • Lichido • Triple Sec
....
Cognac

Introduction
     In layman's jargon it's nothing more than Brandy, but for an aficionado a brandy worth a billion.The difference between a brandy and a cognac is simple i.e., Cognac is a brandy distilled from white wine and produced in the vicinity of Cognac, France.

Law of the Land
The term “Cognac” can be used for all those manufacturers who produce the brandy in a certain delimited region in France called the Charentais region, and more specifically in 6 demarcated districts namely:
1. Grande Champagne (nothing to do with “Champagne”)
2. Petite Champagne
3. Fin Bois
4. Bon Bois
5. Borderies
6. Bois Ordinaire
By law Cognac must be aged a minimum of three years.     

Making It...
Well simply put, brandy is a distilled wine, and that's the reason it was called “brandejiwn” (meaning burnt wine), since, in the olden times when the wine was transported in ships, as it crossed the equator, the wine used to get a little concentrated, and a result the taste was different and some of the patrons started developing a taste for this drink. That's how the drink became popular and known. In addition to the above, the wine from which the cognac is distilled has to be made from only a certain style of grapes namely:

1. Folle blanche
2. Colombard and
3. Ugni blanc.

If it is made from any other grape variety, then it cannot be labeled as Cognac.It generally is distilled in special Giant Copper Kettles called Alembic Kettles. The style of distillation followed is the pot still one. The specialty of cognac is that it has to be aged in special wooden casks made from the trees of the limousin forests in Portugal.

Drinking Cognac
The best way to drink Cognac is from a Brandy Balloon or from a Brandy Snifter, where the lip just curls inwards. This will help to preserve the aroma and the initial Bouquet not escaping faster. It is ideally drunk on its own or mixed with warm water in equal quantities. Hold the base of the glass and allow the palm of your hand to impart a little warmth to the spirit. Swirl for 30 seconds, sniff, inhale and just lace it around the top part of the tongue to get the slightly woody and crispy feel. You can feel the smoothness as it flows down.     

Why maturing is important in cognac
Contrary to the popular notion, maturing is the time the spirit spends in the wooden barrels or casks, where it develops it final character. In a true sense most of the spirits are matured and then bottled, because their character never changes once bottled, except wines. It is only through maturing in oak wood casks a cognac acquires its colour, flavour, bouquet, aroma and individual characteristic. It is important to note that around 3% of cognac is lost due to evaporation every year from the barrels termed as "Angels Share.

Reading the Label
If the label of a cognac bottle says it is blended and 12 years old, it means there were various different cognacs of various years and the youngest blend which was used was 12 years old.

Cognac Terms
1. * Aged for 3 years
2. ** Aged at least for 4 years
3. *** Aged at least for 5 years
4. V.S. - Very superior
5. V.S.O.P. - Very superior old pale
6. V.V.S.O.P. - Very very superior old pale

If a Cognac label has "Fine Champagne" on it , it means that 60% of the grapes used are from the Grand Champagne region. It has "Grande Fine Champagne on it than it means that the cognac is manufactured entirely form the grapes form the Grande champagne rgion. Labels such as Reserve, Extra Reserve, XO generally stands for some of the oldest aged cognacs from that cognac house.

Famous Brands
· Hennessy
· Courvoisier
· Hine
· Bisquit
· Martell
· Camus
.......
Gin

Introduction
Gin is often regarded as the most specifically `English' of all spirits, and they did drink an awful lot of the stuff, but gin is, in fact, a creation of the Netherlands. It is believed that an apothecary, possibly in the sixteenth century, re-distilled a neutral spirit with juniper berries for medicinal purposes - to use as a `diuretic' and in all probability as a `cure-all' potion as they were wont to in that era.

An English legend tells of how their troops, sent to the Low Countries by Queen Elizabeth in 1585 to fight against Philip of Spain, came back marvelling at the `Dutch courage' shown by their partners-in-war, and carrying it with them in `bottles'! The English soon began distilling it themselves. A century later, in 1688, with the accession of Dutch William to the English throne, gin became truly the patriotic spirit to drink.

How to Drink it / Food to go with/Good Cocktails
Cocktails: The Gin Classics. One cannot talk of gin without referring to that greatest and most noble of all cocktails - the Martini. The drink that inspired many an over-worked executive to...
(read more)

Types
Dutch gin, generally known as Holland gin (genever at home) differs quite radically from English gin, both in flavour as well as the way in which it is drunk. Holland gin is heavier and more flavourful as it is distilled along with its aromatic ingredients unlike London gin,...
Dutch gin, generally known as Holland gin (genever at home) differs quite radically from English gin, both in flavour as well as the way in which it is drunk.    » Introduction
» How to Drink it
» Types 

Holland gin is heavier and more flavourful as it is distilled along with its aromatic ingredients unlike London gin, which is lighter, drier and subtly flavoured. The aromatics (juniper berries, corriander, citrus peel, etc.., in secret combinations specific to individual brands) are steeped in a neutral spirit and not distilled to achieve its distinctive flavour.

The Dutch drink their genever like the Russians drink vodka - ice-cold, neat with strong, fishy hors d'oevres. The Brits drink them in cocktails and tall drinks. The preferred base for this spirit is either barley, maize or molasses. This spirit is then flavoured and each manufacturer uses his own unique ingredients although juniper is always normally included. These flavourings are referred to as "botanicals". The first step in the production of gin is normally the dilution of the spirit by the addition of water to reach the required strength. The flavouring ingredients are then added to the spirit in a still, which is then heated to remove essential oils from the botanicals. 
....
Mezcal (also spelt: Mescal) is often treated as ‘the poor cousin of tequila’. It’s an indigenous fiery spirit from Mexico, but the number of good things that one hears about tequila is probably similar to the number of slanderous rumours that float around about mezcal.  It’s the perfect drink for the amigo mood (or Amiga, the she-amigo) since it’s not supposed to be very sophisticated or enjoy a very illustrious image.

The word Mezcal comes from Metl or Mexcalmetl, the pre-Hispanic Nahuatl language, meaning Agave. Mezcal is made from agave, which has more than 400 varieties. Agave, contrary to popular belief is not from the cactus family - it is actually from the Lily or Aloe family. Out of the 400 varieties, one happens to be the webber blue agave that makes the famous tequila, the rest help in making various types of mezcal. Technically, that makes tequila one of the types of mezcal.

In all fairness it would be right to compare the ‘tequila vs. mezcal’ predicament to that of ‘cognac vs. brandy’. Tequila is distilled at least twice in a pot still and can be made only in and around the region/town of Jalisco. On the other hand mezcal is usually only distilled once (usually continuous still) and can be made in more than one region, though its production is concentrated around the valley town of Oaxaca.

The famous rumours about mezcal didn’t start in the Aztec times (yup, it’s been known to be consumed since then!) but rather became famous due to the famed 1930’s novel by Malcolm Lowry on alcoholism called ‘Under the Volcano’. It described mezcal as capable of inducing gruesome hallucinations upon drinking, though this has never been proven. A lot of bad stuff is also said about mezcal because it is common for tourists to get fleeced in Mexico while buying a cheap bottle of mezcal, only to end up with a smelly and funny tasting drink that leaves one nasty hangover. However the most known “fact” about mezcal is the ‘Worm’. Today it’s impossible to separate mezcal from the worm image.

Mezcal and the Worm

The worm in the mezcal is said to encourage great heroism (wow, anyone who has the worm is a hero enough anyway, isn’t she ?). Mezcal de gusano (worm mezcal) is the most popular mezcal probably because it is the most commercialized. The worm is a maguey worm; it lives on the agave plant from which mezcal is made. This isn’t just a smart marketing gimmick but is supposed to actually help give the characteristic smoky flavor. Speaking of gimmicks there are even scorpion mescals which have a real scorpion in the bottle, with the stinger or the poisonous part removed, though it’s not recommended that one consumes it.

The pickled white worm in a bottle of mezcal is intended to be eaten with the last drink that’s poured. A jar of the pickled white worm (things like this actually exist) could ensure that everyone on the table gets their fair share, if they want it of course…

Ingredients / How it's made
The heart of the agave plant called the piña is used to make mezcal. After harvesting, the leaves are cut off and the piñas are baked in rock-lined conical pits called palenques.
(read more)

How to Drink it / Good Cocktails
The only right way to drink mezcal according to any Mexican would be just knocking it back like a shot (with the worm of course)....
The only right way to drink mezcal according to any Mexican would be just knocking it back like a shot (with the worm of course).     » Introduction
» How it's made
» How to Drink it
 
However if that’s too fiery a proposition, one could add some lemon juice to it and top the drink up with tonic water, soda or even ginger-ale.

On the cocktail front there really are no great classics but the door is completely open to experimentation; the most common ones heard of are the Mezcal Margarita and the Mezcal Martini.
....
Ouzo

Introduction
     2004 was the year of Greece. It began with “Troy” (Illiad for dummies), moved on to their stunning triumph at Euro 2004 and culminated in the Olympic Games. What better time than to talk of Ouzo, the national drink of Greece. 
Ouzo is an aniseed spirit, which will remind Indians of "saunf". It turns cloudy when water is added, for reasons too complex to explain unless you have a degree in chemistry.

Ouzo is made from a combination of pressed grapes and herbs and berries. It begins as alcohol made from grape skins or other local produce. It is then brought together with herbs and other ingredients, including star anise, coriander, cloves, angelica root, licorice, mint, wintergreen, fennel, hazelnut and even cinnamon and lime blossom.     

It is usually served as an aperitif, but is also used in some mixed drinks and cocktails. In Greek cafés ouzo is served with mezedes (Greek term for appetizers). The mezedes can be anything from a salad, stewed meat and vegetables, sardeles pastes (really fresh sardines), koukia (beans), sweetbreads, meatballs, cheese, sausage or fried fish.

The island of Lesvos in Greece is believed to be the origin point for ouzo. Famous brands include Ouzo Giannatsi from Plomari, Plomari by Arvanitis, Ouzo Mini, Ouzo Veto, Ouzo Kefi & Ouzo No 12.
Viva Ouzo!
....
Scotch

Introduction
From its earliest days, scotch has been known for its curative and creative properties. It evolved into a unique cultural icon of the people who savoured it. Who can ever forget the distinctive bottle of VAT 69 in a Hindi movie. Today scotch is enjoying yet another revival as a cultural icon.

Legend has it that the ancient Celts knew how to distill grains at least as far back as 800 B.C. Given that they lacked the climate to grow the more fragile grapevines, they used cereals such as barley and rye. Those Celts viewed their fiery brew as a gift from their gods that literally brought the dead to life and warmed even the coldest spirit. In fact, in Celtic whisky is called "uisge beatha" (ooshka baha)-the water of life.

What is Whisky ?
A spirituous liquor distilled from a fermented mash of grains, usually rye, barley, oats, wheat, or corn, and matured in wood casks, usually for three or more years. Inferior grades are made from potatoes, beets, or other roots.

From Scotland and Ireland in the 1400's, to the United States and Canada during Colonial times and to the rest of the world as its popularity grew, Scotch has become a popular libation for any occasion. Yet each culture has placed its stamp on this "aqua vitae" and each is sought out for its particular character.

How it's Made
The basis of every scotch whisky is barley. During the malting process, barley is soaked in water for two or three days, then spread out to germinate for a week or so. During germination, enzymes turn the starch in the barley into soluble sugars - which is nice...
(read more)

Aging and Maturation
Aging is a fairly complex process, which adds richness, flavour and texture to whisky. It is surrounded by a lot of mystique and people who oversee this process are really valued. During aging the spirit loses some of its harshness and acquires the natural aromas of its environment. Thus a whisky that is aged near the sea may be different...
(read more)

Reigions
Whisky types can be clubbed by region of production. These distinctions would however emerge only if you were to sample Single Malts as Blends tend to marry different flavours..
(read more)

What’s in a name?
The story behind your favourite Single Malt..
What’s in a name? - The story behind your favourite Single Malt

GLENLIVET
 The Name Glenlivet origins from the word Livet, which is the name of the river in the valley (Glen), where Glenlivet is produced because according to the founder George Smith it was the perfect location for production of whisky. The place had all of nature’s essentials for making the finest malt whisky – barley, peat and a copious supply of good, clean water – were all abundant.

GLENMORANGIE (Glen-Moranjee)
 The whisky was named after the peaceful land; William Matheson (the founder) loved. In Gaelic, the ancient language of Scotland, ‘Glenmorangie’ means ‘Valley of Tranquility’.

GLENFIDDICH
 The Distillery of Glenfiddich was started in 1886 in the valley of the River Fiddich. The glen of the river Fiddich gives its name to the biggest-selling single malt whisky in the world. The Glenfiddich distillery is on the small river whose name it bears. In Gaelic it means ‘Valley of the deer’ and indeed a stag is the company's emblem. 

CARDHU
 In 1811 John and Helen Cumming sited their first still at Cardow Farm on Mannoch Hill, high above the River Spey. At this location, spring water, naturally softened by rising up through a layer of peat, bubbled from the ground. Cardhu has made a unique contribution to the success of Johnnie Walker Blends. In 1893 when the Walker family wanted to guarantee the quality of their Blends, at a time of rapid growth, they negotiated the purchase of Cardhu Distillery from Elizabeth Cumming to secure supplies for blending.

TALISKER
 Talisker- the inimitable Island malt whisky. It is the only distillery on the Isle of Skye, and takes its name from a farm some miles away near the village of Carbost.

HIGHLAND PARK
 The distillery was founded in 1798. The name of this whisky does not refer to the area of Scotland known as The Highlands, from which the Orkney Islands are excluded, but rather to the fact that the distillery was founded on an area distinguished from a lower area nearby. It was originally known as High Park, later officially renamed Highland Park as we know it now.

KNOCKANDO
 Foremost among the distilleries along the banks of the chill, clear waters of the Spey stands Knockando. Built by John Thompson in 1898 the Knockando distillery lies in the village of the same name, derived from the Gaelic ‘Cnoc-an-dhu,’ meaning ‘little black hill.’

ROYAL LOCHNAGAR (pronounced “loshnagar”)
 Distillery was actually established in 1845 by a man who may have originally been involved in illicit whisky. In fact, the prefix "Royal" was added after a visit to the distillery by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1848. During this visit and tour, the owner, John Begg, persuaded the royal couple to try a dram. They apparently were very impressed and awarded Mr. Begg a royal warrant and permission to use the name Royal Lochnagar. It was named ‘Lochnagar’ after a mountain in the Grampians of Scotland, located about five miles south of the River Dee near Balmoral where the distillery is located.

THE SINGLETON
 The Singleton single malt is distilled at Auchroisk Distillery. The malt was given the "Singleton" name because the anticipated difficulty, on the part of the consumer, of pronouncing the name of the distillery. Auchroisk, pronounced "orth-rusk," means "ford of the red stream" in Gaelic.

BENRINNES
 Ben Rinnes (simply known as "The Ben" by locals) is a mountain in the region of Moray, Scotland. The beautiful and distinctive outline of Ben Rinnes (840m, 2775ft) is one of the best loved landmarks in Banff shire. Benrinnes Distillery was established in the 1820s and was built 700 feet (213 meters) above sea level on the northern slopes of the mountain of the same name which dominates eastern Speyside. 

COAL ILA
 Caol Ila (pronounced "cull-eela") was built in 1846 by Hector Henderson and lies peacefully in the Port of Askaig overlooking the Sound of Islay on the Northeast shore of Islay. Caol Ila means "Sound of Islay," in Gaelic, which is the body of water that separates Islay from the Isle of Jura. 

BOWMORE
 Some 400 years after the name Bowmore first appeared in history books, the jury’s still out on its origins. Some would have it that the name refers to the little black reef just outside Loch Indaal, the scene of so many shipwrecks over the years. Others believe the place was originally called Poll-mor meaning great pool, which incoming Lowlanders corrupted into Bowmore - or perhaps it derives from the Norse Bogha Mor, meaning sunken rock. If truth be told, we’ll probably never know.

BRUICHLADDICH
 Bruichladdich (try ‘Brook-Laddie’) is a Gaelic reference to the ‘raised beach’ upon which the distillery is sited, on the Hebridean Isle of Islay, on Scotland’s Wild West coast. Built in 1881 by William Harvey and his brothers.

GLENFARCLAS
 Situated in the heart of Speyside – malt whisky country – Glenfarclas, translated from the Gaelic as “Glen of the green grassland”, nestles at the foot of the Ben Rinnes Mountain. The distillery is owned by the Grant family since 1865, making it truly independent.
.....
Tequila

Introduction
If there ever was a spirit replete with history, mystery and intrigue, it must be tequila. Even today, years after it's arrival on bar shelves, tequila is often regarded as a strange Mexican potion containing worms, hallucinogens, et al. And these same wondrous attributes have probably contributed towards establishing tequila as the most `hip' liquor to drink. Almost everyone I meet seems to want to know where they can find a bottle of this happening liquor. Yet most are uncertain about what it really is. There seems to be a strange fascination for drinking something which might have a worm floating in it. Yuck! Does it really??

Let's discover the inside story. Tequila-like spirits have been produced in Mexico from the age of the Aztecs, long before the arrival of its Spanish conquerers in the 16th century. It was in 1795 that Jose Cuervo, under a license from the government, began distilling tequila in the region of Jalisco (which includes the town of Tequila), where there was an ample supply of the Weber blue agave `cactus'. Actually, the agave is not a cactus at all but a sort of succulent, related to the aloe and lily family! Jose Cuervo is still one of the foremost brands of tequila in the world.

Ingredients / How it's made
Tequila can be made only from the `Weber blue agave' grown in a specific, government designated area of Mexico, and must conform to strict government quality controls.
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Types
Silver, Gold, Reposados, Anejos...
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How to Drink it / Good Cocktails
The one drink that is responsible for elevating tequila to such great heights is the Margarita - said to have been named by... 
Tequila » How to Drink it / Good Cocktails

How to Drink it / Good Cocktails    » Introduction
» How it's made
» Types
» How to Drink it
 
The one drink that is responsible for elevating tequila to such great heights is the Margarita - said to have been named by a sentimental bartender in honour of this young girl who was felled by a stray bullet and expired in his arms. The drink was a runaway success. The classic Margarita is made by shaking tequila, triple sec or cointreau (clear orange liqueur) and lime juice in varying proportions with a lot of ice and strained into a salt rimmed goblet. Alternately, it can be blended with crushed ice and served `frozen'. It is sometimes shaken and then served `on the rocks'. Make a strawberry or peach margarita with the addition of fresh fruit to the original, frozen recipe.

Here's a sample of the many different ways of mixing a Margarita; a) 60ml tequila + 15ml triple sec + juice of 1/2 lime b) 30ml tequila + 15ml triple sec + juice of 1/2 lime c) 45ml tequila + 30ml triple sec + 15ml lime juice d) 60ml tequila + 30ml triple sec + 120ml lime juice + 2tsp sugar The last recipe is recommended for a frozen Margarita. Try them all and then stick to the one you like best.

Maybe you might even arrive at your own special formula. Americans went nuts over the Margarita and our `phoren-returned' yuppies brought the craze back home. But the way tequila is drunk in its natural habitat is thus - a lick of salt, a neat shot of tequila and a suck of lemon. Awesome what?! I tried that in a restaurant once and they looked at me like I'd come from Mars. So I did the next best thing. I salt-rimmed my glass, filled it with ice, squeezed in a couple of wedges of lemon and sloshed the tequila in. It tasted great and I wasn't green anymore.

There are crazy variations to this basic swig combo, innovatively marketed by tequila companies internationally. Pepe Lopez introduced the `Jalapeno Juice' promo which used jalapeno (a hot Mexican chilli) salt as the lick. Briefly, lick the fiery salt, shoot the tequila and generally pass out. Pecos Heat Chili Pepper tequila and TQ Hot from Hiram Walker are the other mindblowing specialities. Then there's the other great classic - the Tequila Sunrise. It's a simple variation of the Screwdriver (orange juice and vodka over ice). Switch the vodka for tequila and add some `grenadine' (pomegranate syrup). The syrup settles at the bottom, creating the sunrise effect. If you can't find pomegranate syrup, use strawberry crush. And try and use fresh orange juice. Makes a helluva difference.

There are other interesting, if not very popular, tequila cocktails. Brave Bull uses 60ml each of tequila and Kahlua (coffee liqueur) poured over lots of ice, stirred and strained into a cocktail glass. Iguana is similar but adds 30ml vodka to the BB recipe. Dirty Mother is BB on the rocks topped with cold milk or cream. Tequila can also be substituted for regular spirit in a great many cocktails. Bloody Maria is a Bloody Mary with tequila, Tequini is a tequila martini.
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Vodka

Introduction
There is a small section of historians who strongly support the theory that it was vodka that was in great measure responsible for the `bloody' end of the Czarist regime in Russia! The Reds, it appears, made up for lost drinking time imposed by the imperial ban of 1914 (as a war-time measure), fuelling the already existing mayhem. Crazy idea, what? Not quite. Attempts to re-impose the ban on vodka after the revolution in 1917 failed miserably with Lenin resignedly saying, "Drunkenness is better than slavery!"

Vodka has its origins in Russia, but it has been distilled in Poland and Finland as well since forever. The base is usually grain (wheat, rye, corn), though in Scandinavia they use a lot of potato - and call their drink `aquavit'. In Denmark and certain parts of Central Europe it is known as `schnapps'. Schnapps and aquavit are quite often flavoured, but are drunk much in the same way as vodka is - ice-cold in small shooter glasses, and neat; accompanied by caviar and other strong fishy stuff.

Vodka Dos And Don'ts
What kind of drinking dos and donts can you have for a liquid, which in its native Cyrillic is spelt Djlrf ?
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Ingredients / How it's made
Although most vodka around the world is made from rye, some are also made from potatoes and still others from molasses. As you would no doubt assume, the quality and type of the raw material has an important hand to play in what your vodka tastes like. ...
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Some Cocktails
BLOODY PEPPERONE : Glass: roly poly/old fashioned
MULISH MULE : Glass: large cocktail/highball 
some cocktail recipes of Vodka    » Introduction
» Vodka Dos And Don'ts
» How it's made
» Some Cocktails 

BLOODY PEPPERONE : Glass: roly poly/old fashioned. Ingredients: 60 ml White Magic Pepperone vodka, 100 ml tomato juice, juice of 1 lemon, 3-4 drops worcestershire sauce, 2-3 drops capsico sauce (optional) Garnish: salt rim, spent lime shell, slice of lime, green chilly Method: Rim the glass with glass with salt - moisten rim with wedge of lemon, then dip in a plate of salt. Fill with with ice cubes. Drop in the used shell. Add all ingredients except the vodka and stir. Gently slide in the vodka to form a clear layer. Place the lime slice over the rim and use the green chilly for a stirrer. For a regular Bloody Mary, use 60ml unflavoured vodka with 8-10 drops of capsico sauce.

MULISH MULE : Glass: large cocktail/highball Ingredients: 45 ml vodka juice of 1/2 lemon gingerale/Canada Dry dry white/sparkling wine. Garnish: strip of cucumber, mint leaves, slice of lemon and orange Method: Put 3-4 ice cubes in glass, add vodka and lemon juice. Top with gingerale and wine in equal quantities. Place mint leaves in the centre of drink, fruit slices over the rim and cucumber strip on the side.
...
Wine has been cultivated ever since pre-history and was probably the first thing that mankind used to get plastered. Every civilization and culture has drunk it. It was popular among the Sumerians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, Roman and of course our own venerable ancients who used it in large quantities in various sacrifices and generally devoted large tracts in the scriptures in praise of Soma. One of the greatest historical mysteries according to Tulleeho is the composition of Soma. If only one knew the ingredients of that nectar.
 

Anyway, here we hope to demystify wine. For far too long , wine and all aspects related to it have been tangled in a web of jargon. This may have resulted in people (particularly us in India) developing a healthy vinophobia. By the end of your read we hope to have dispelled that.

First drunk driving arrest
On this day in 1897, a 25-year-old London taxi driver named George Smith becomes the first person ever arrested for drunk driving after slamming his cab into a building. Smith later pled guilty and was fined 25 shillings.

In the United States, the first laws against operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol went into effect in New York in 1910. In 1936, Dr. Rolla Harger, a professor of biochemistry and toxicology, patented the Drunkometer, a balloon-like device into which people would breathe to determine whether they were inebriated. In 1953, Robert Borkenstein, a former Indiana state police captain and university professor who had collaborated with Harger on the Drunkometer, invented the Breathalyzer. Easier-to-use and more accurate than the Drunkometer, the Breathalyzer was the first practical device and scientific test available to police officers to establish whether someone had too much to drink. A person would blow into the Breathalyzer and it would gauge the proportion of alcohol vapors in the exhaled breath, which reflected the level of alcohol in the blood.

Despite the invention of the Breathalyzer and other developments, it was not until the late 1970s and early 1980s that public awareness about the dangers of drinking and driving increased and lawmakers and police officers began to get tougher on offenders. In 1980, a Californian named Candy Lightner founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD, after her 13-year-old daughter Cari was killed by a drunk driver while walking home from a school carnival. The driver had three previous drunk-driving convictions and was out on bail from a hit-and-run arrest two days earlier. Lightner and MADD were instrumental in helping to change attitudes about drunk driving and pushed for legislation that increased the penalties for driving under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. MADD also helped get the minimum drinking age raised in many states. Today, the legal drinking age is 21 everywhere in the United States and convicted drunk drivers face everything from jail time and fines to the loss of their driver's licenses and increased car insurance rates. Some drunk drivers are ordered to have ignition interlock devices installed in their vehicles. These devices require a driver to breath into a sensor attached to the dashboard; the car won't start if the driver's blood alcohol concentration is above a certain limit.

Despite the stiff penalties and public awareness campaigns, drunk driving remains a serious problem in the United States. In 2005, 16,885 people died in alcohol-related crashes and almost 1.4 million people were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
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I’m not quite sure what to make of this conspiracy theory, sent in by a friend and loyal reader (thanks Jeff). While I’m a natural skeptic, I do think at least parts of many conspiracy theories contain a grain of truth. But here’s one I’ve never encountered, and I’ve read a bit about Prohibition.

According to Hidden History, and specifically Rockefeller, Ford and the Secret History of Alcohol, at least part of the reason prohibition was successful had to do with business and money — are you shocked or surprised? — and a desire to eliminate the competition. To wit:

John D. Rockefeller, under the ruse of Christian temperance, gave 4 million dollars to a group of old ladies and told them to fight for Prohibition (they successfully used the money to buy off Congress). Why? Rockefeller owned Standard Oil, the main company pushing gas as an alternative fuel to alcohol.

Essentially, it killed ethanol as an alternative fuel, which has only been talked about again recently, at least in the mainstream media.
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HISTORY FACTS
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Oct 2 to be 'World No Alcohol Day
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Alcohol History
It's likely that alcohol production started when early farmers noted the fermentation that took place in fallen fruit. They may have found the fizzy flavor and sharp aroma pleasing. Trial and error using different fruits and grains finally resulted in formulas that could be refined and repeated for a pleasant alcoholic drink.

Alcohol manufacture started in an organized fashion about ten thousand years ago, when a fermented drink was produced from honey and wild yeasts.
By 6000 BC, grapevines were being cultivated in the mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas, just for the purpose of making wine. In another 2000 years, Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) had a thriving wine-making activity.

When Egypt hit its stride around 3000 BC, wine production and shipping throughout the Mediterranean were important businesses. Romans made wine from the wild grapes that grew in the countryside - grapes with the yeasts necessary for fermentation already growing on their skin. The wine was important in their commerce as well, sometimes being used in trade for slaves who then worked at the vineyards. The Romans developed a way of letting a fine vintage age, using an amphora, a large, tapered two-handled jar. It was filled with nearly seven gallons of wine and then sealed. It was then protected from the air while it matured.

Around 1500 BC, the Roman god Dionysus began to appear in literature. Dionysus (Bacchus in Greek myth) was the god of the grape harvest and wine-making. A cult grew around the belief that wine could be used in rituals to return to a more innocent, aware state. Even today the word "bacchanal" is used to describe a drunken celebration. Dionysian rites got somewhat out of hand after they spread to Italy and they were outlawed by the Senate. Increasing drunkenness began to accompany a Roman decline in simplicity and honesty, with those characteristics being replaced by ambition, corruption and regular, heavy drinking.

It's possible that alcoholic beverages were being used in China well before it was being used in the west, but records are hard to come by. It is thought that alcoholic drinks were used as part of celebrations, when taking an oath of office or going into battle, as well as usual occasions like births, deaths and marriages. While moderation was officially encouraged in 1116 BC, the Chinese treasury was continually fattened by alcohol sales.

By 800 BC, barley and rice beer began to be produced in India.

When Plato arrived on the scene, he advised that wine was beneficial to health and happiness, but only in moderation (400 BC). As time passed, one philosopher after another began to criticize drunkenness. One assumes the alcoholism problem must have been becoming more pronounced. Alexander the Great was known for his drunkenness as well as his ability to conquer other cultures.

Between 500 BC and 300 BC, the Hebrews adopted the beverage for all classes and ages. It was a drink, a part of festivals, a medicine, a provision in time of war, a necessary supply for their lives. Soon after, wine began to be used in Jewish rituals and ceremonies.

In Christian writings during the time of Jesus's life, drunkenness was criticized but alcohol consumption was recommended for medical purposes and not forbidden for other purposes.

While back in Rome, one emperor after another became known for abusive drinking. After 69 AD, these reports dropped off and it is thought that drinking may have declined substantially over the whole Roman Empire.

600 AD, the Prophet Muhammed ordered his adherents to refrain from drinking alcohol. Bhuddists and Hindu Brahmins also abstained.

By 1100, a medical school in Italy developed distillation, meaning that a much purer, stronger alcoholic drink could be developed.

The Middle Ages in Europe saw extensive development of choices of wines, beer and mead (alcoholic beverage made from honey). Wines stayed the most popular choices in the regions that became Italy, Spain and France. Monks began to brew nearly all the beer of good quality - beer which now contains hops - plus wine for celebrating mass. They eventually added brandy to their list of wares.

Beer manufacturing began to grow in Germany, with cities competing for the best products. By the end of the Middle Ages, beer and wine production made its way to Scotland and England and quickly became important industries.

When the 1600s rolled around, drunkenness began to be described as a widespread problem in England, with both beer and wine acting as the offending beverages. Religious groups fled for American in the next century, and formed Temperance Societies in the new country.

Protestant leaders in Europe maintained that alcohol was a gift from God and could be used in moderation for pleasure, enjoyment and health. But drunkenness was always a sin. As mankind struggled for balance on the subject, Spanish and Polish peasants consumed an average of three liters of beer per day, and in some English districts, the amount of beer and ale consumed averages 17 pints per person, per week. This compares to three pints, today. In Sweden and Denmark, sailors and laborers seem to have been given a gallon of beer per day.

In America, the first distillery was established on Staten Island and hops began to be grown in Massachusetts to supply the beer breweries. Massachusetts also had a rum distillery, started in 1657 in Boston. This would soon become New England's most prosperous industry and give rise to smuggling activities along the coast, as alcohol production was taxed in the colonies.

The early 1700s in England saw the production of millions of gallons of gin, alcohol flavored with juniper berries. By 1733, the London area alone produced 11 million gallons of gin. The poor in London found relief from the difficulties of urban poverty in the cheap liquor. Taxes on gin were soon increased to try to reduce to epidemic of drunkenness that followed.

When industrialization spread, a new culture of reliability and sobriety began to spread with it, no doubt encouraged by mill owners who needed employees who would get the job done.

American went through its unsuccessful attempt at complete ban of the substance, shoving the legislation through Congress while many of the male citizens were away fighting World War One. Unfortunately, this ban on a substance desirable to many gave rise to organized crime that trafficked in the forbidden drink.
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Drinking in Colonial America
by Ed Crews
Photos by Dave Doody

An afternoon's pleasure of company, cards, and rum. From left, Chris Allen, Phil Schultz, Jason Gordon, and Bill Rose.

From left, Pete Wrike, Menzie Overton, Terry Dunn (hidden), Marilyn Jennings, Virginia Brown, Bryan Simpers, Erin Wright, Spencer Chestnut, and Adam Wright toast a wedding.

Imbibing with the birds was one of the daily liquid breaks colonists enjoyed. Jason Whitehead takes a bed-rising nip.

Jefferson, here Bill Barker, picked up a taste for fine wines as ambassador to France and later imported them to America.

A bucket of beer was often a standard part of the workday for tradesmen. Barbara Scherer serves the suds to, from left, Garland Wood, Steve Chabra, Wes Watkins, and Robert Watson.

Patrick Henry—interpreter Daniel Cross—tended bar as a young man.

A keg offered refreshment to the militia: Robert Rowe, Andrew Ronemus, Justin Liberta, Chris Geist, Josh Bucchioni, Dale Smoot, Colin Brauer, Terry Yemm, and Stephanie Flischel.

The father of the country was also captain of the whiskey industry. At Mount Vernon's distillery, Ken Johnston as Washington's distiller Peter Bingle takes the temperature of the copper kettle.

Star Galloway rounds out the day with an evening glass.
Editor's note: Autumn and winter holidays bring to festive American tables all manner of drink, from fine wines to grocery store eggnog. The celebrations of Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, and New Year's are traditional justifications for raising a convivial glass with friends and family. Early Americans neither needed nor waited for such excuses.

Colonial Americans, at least many of them, believed alcohol could cure the sick, strengthen the weak, enliven the aged, and generally make the world a better place. They tippled, toasted, sipped, slurped, quaffed, and guzzled from dawn to dark.

Many started the day with a pick-me-up and ended it with a put-me-down. Between those liquid milestones, they also might enjoy a midmorning whistle wetter, a luncheon libation, an afternoon accompaniment, and a supper snort. If circumstances allowed, they could ease the day with several rounds at a tavern.

Alcohol lubricated such social events as christenings, weddings, funerals, trials, and election-day gatherings, where aspiring candidates tempted voters with free drinks. Craftsmen drank at work, as did hired hands in the fields, shoppers in stores, sailors at sea, and soldiers in camp. Then, as now, college students enjoyed malted beverages, which explains why Harvard had its own brewery. In 1639, when the school did not supply sufficient beer, President Nathaniel Eaton lost his job.

Like students and workers, the Founding Fathers enjoyed a glass or two. John Adams began his days with a draft of hard cider. Thomas Jefferson imported fine libations from France. At one time, Samuel Adams managed his father's brewery. John Hancock was accused of smuggling wine. Patrick Henry worked as a bartender and, as Virginia's wartime governor, served home brew to guests.

The age of the cocktail lay far in the future. Colonists, nevertheless, enjoyed alcoholic beverages with such names as Rattle-Skull, Stonewall, Bogus, Blackstrap, Bombo, Mimbo, Whistle Belly, Syllabub, Sling, Toddy, and Flip. If they indulged too much, then they had dozens of words to describe drunkenness. Benjamin Franklin collected more than 200 such terms, including addled, afflicted, biggy, boozy, busky, buzzey, cherubimical, cracked, and "halfway to Concord."

If most Americans loved their drink, many to excess, not everybody was so sure that immoderate alcohol consumption was a good idea. As early as 1622, the Virginia Company of London wrote to Governor Francis Wyatt at Jamestown complaining that colonist drinking hurt the colony. James Oglethorpe, founder of Georgia, feared rum would ruin his venture and tried to ban it. Puritan leaders attacked drunkenness, although they also saw alcohol as a necessary part of life. Franklin enjoyed a convivial drink but called for moderation, writing "nothing is more like a fool than a drunken man."

Most Americans saw excessive drinking as a simple lack of will. If people wanted to stay sober, the argument went, they would. The notion of a relationship between alcohol and addiction did not exist for much of America's first 150 years.

In the late 1700s, Benjamin Rush, a Philadelphia physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, became fascinated with mental illness. Today, he is considered the father of American psychiatry. He took a special interest in alcoholism and penned a work on the topic, Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind, published in 1785.

Rush saw alcoholism as a disease—not a failure of will—and an addiction. As he put it: "The use of strong drink is at first the effect of free agency. From habit it takes place from necessity." He said the only cure was abstinence. His advice to alcoholics was: "Taste not, handle not."

Rush's thinking played a role in shaping the temperance movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as modern ideas about alcoholism, but it had little impact at the time.

Early Americans really did not care what anybody thought about their love of alcohol. As a Georgian wrote: "If I take a settler after my coffee, a cooler at nine, a bracer at ten, a whetter at eleven and two or three stiffners during the forenoon, who has any right to complain?"

In 1790, United States government figures showed that annual per-capita alcohol consumption for everybody over fifteen amounted to thirty-four gallons of beer and cider, five gallons of distilled spirits, and one gallon of wine.

Americans thought alcohol was healthful. To their minds, drink kept people warm, aided digestion, and increased strength. Not only did alcohol prevent health problems, but it could cure or at least mitigate them. They took whiskey for colic and laryngitis. Hot brandy punch addressed cholera. Rum-soaked cherries helped with a cold. Pregnant women and women in labor received a shot to ease their discomfort.

Water, on the other hand, could make you sick. Though the New World had plenty of fresh, unspoiled water, incautious Americans sickened and sometimes died by drinking from polluted sources. Jamestown gentleman George Percy, relating the troubles of the settlement's early days, wrote that the colonists' drink was "cold water taken out of the River, which was at a floud verie salt, at a low tide full of slime and filth, which was the destruction of many of our men." In some cases, even when it was safe to drink, river water had so much mud that a bucket of it needed to sit long enough to allow suspended material to settle.

In Europe, where polluted waterways were a bigger problem, people substituted alcohol. It was an easy example for the colonists to follow.

The first beverages of choice were cider and beer. Both were simple to make. For cider, the raw material, apples, was readily available. For beer, they turned to corn, wheat, oats, persimmons, and green cornstalks.

In 1612, the Dutch opened in New Amsterdam the first brewery in what would be British America. Breweries began to supply ordinaries and taverns. In larger population centers, this worked well, because beer did not keep. Cities had enough drinkers to consume the beer before it spoiled.

The first Europeans thought that the New World would be a perfect place to make wine. It was not. European grapevines did not survive American pests and diseases. Successive experiments in establishing vineyards failed in Virginia, New England, Maryland, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Colonists did use native grapes to make wines, but these never supplanted European imports.

Jefferson was a passionate wine advocate and connoisseur. He became interested in wines and viticulture during his diplomatic service in France during the 1780s, taking time to tour vineyards in Alsace, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, and the Rhone and Rhine Valleys. He collected wine, bought 20,000 bottles of European imports as president, and advised George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, and James Monroe on vintages. Jefferson called for grape cultivation in the United States. Like everyone else, though, he failed at it.

Madeira was popular. It came from the Portuguese Atlantic island of that name. This beverage not only survived the long ocean voyage but improved with the tossing in a ship's hold. It also proved resilient in the steamy South. About 1750, somebody decided to fortify Madeira with brandy. The new taste appealed to Americans, and Madeira became the preeminent wine in British North America.

As time passed, distilled spirits became popular and widely available. They required more equipment and skill than beer and cider but made better economic sense for producers. The raw materials were available—grapes, plums, apples, blackberries, pears, and cherries. Peach brandy, a Southern specialty, was popular, as was applejack, which came from distilling cider. Distilled spirits kept longer than cider or beer, and because of their concentration of alcohol, were more potent. From the standpoint of intoxicant per ounce, they took less space than beer or cider and could be more easily transported. Those factors helped contribute to the success of rum in America.

Rum was king of the colonies before the Revolutionary War. It was made from molasses imported from Caribbean sugar plantations. Sometimes the raw material arrived legally; sometimes it was smuggled.

By 1770, the colonies had more than 140 rum distilleries, making about 4.8 million gallons annually. That was on top of the 3.78 million gallons imported each year. Production was concentrated in the Northeast.

American rum was inferior to Caribbean, but the domestic stuff was cheap and available. For example, a gallon of American rum cost 1 shilling and 8 pence in Philadelphia during 1740. The smoother, better Caribbean variety went for 2 shillings and 5 pence. With prices for domestic alcohol so low, almost anybody could afford it. It is difficult to know just how much rum colonists drank in British North America, but one historian estimates that during the 1770s the average adult male may have consumed as much as three pints weekly.

Rum was a powerful economic engine. Demand for it became the foundation of colonial intercoastal and international trade. Distillers exported their wares to England, Ireland, southern Europe, and Africa. The beverage was integral to slaving. Rum for that business was distilled several times to make a concentrated product. This saved storage space on ships, as captains could cut their cargo with water upon arrival in Africa.

Whiskey began to gain ground during and after the Revolution. Whiskey was made in America before the conflict, though its production typically was limited to farmers who had surplus grain. This began to change when war and the Royal Navy made molasses imports expensive and irregular. Denied large quantities of rum's raw material, Americans turned to domestic whiskey. Whiskey gained popularity after the conflict as a new sense of American identity flourished and patriots sought a beverage devoid of English ties.

The new nation's whiskey makers tended to be Scotch-Irish immigrants. Their settlements in Pennsylvania, Maryland, western Virginia, and western North Carolina become hot spots of alcohol production that used a mix of rye and corn. By the late 1700s, Kentucky began developing a reputation for its distillers' skill. Nobody knows if one person can take credit for this, but the whiskey of Bourbon County, Kentucky, gained a national reputation and following. The state had the right resources for making a quality drink. It was blessed with a ready supply of corn, limestone-filtered water, and hardwood for barrels.

Before the nineteenth century, Kentucky producers started shipping barrels of their whiskey by river to New Orleans. At the end of the long trip, the contents had taken on a distinctive reddish color from the charred barrels in which they were stored. By the early 1800s, Kentucky whiskey resembled modern bourbon.

Early on, George Washington recognized whiskey's moneymaking potential. After his presidency, he was casting about for a way to increase Mount Vernon's cash flow. James Anderson, his plantation manager, suggested a distillery. By 1798, the father of our country had a solid building in which several stills were bubbling away. Mount Vernon's whiskey production went from 600 gallons in 1797 to 4,500 gallons in 1798 to 11,000 gallons in 1799. Washington died that year, and, at the time, he was one of the largest distillers in the United States.

The Mount Vernon estate recently reconstructed the farm's distillery and runs off an approximation of Washington's brand. The stuff is not whiskey as now known, but more like grain alcohol. Still, a market may exist for it. In 2007, the Virginia General Assembly passed a bill that allows Mount Vernon to sell commemorative spirits. Executive Director James C. Rees says Mount Vernon does not intend to become a serious whiskey producer.

"We have no plans to enter the high-stakes liquor business," he told a reporter, "even though it's tempting, given that the name of George Washington would certainly provide us with a sensational marketing advantage. We could say he was first in war, first in peace, and first in smooth libations."

HISTORY FACTS
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The History Of Alcohol

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Throughout history alcohol has been something of a double-edged sword, reviled and revered in equal measure

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Alcohol was almost certainly discovered by chance. Maybe rotting and fermenting fruit was eaten by ancient man, perhaps some honey turned 'bad'. Who knows?

What we do know is that beer mugs have been found that date back to Neolithic times. That is 10000 BC. That is a long time ago. The Stone Age to be precise.

A quote on the history of alcohol and its legacy:

"...alcohol has existed longer than all human memory. It has outlived generations, nations, epochs and ages. It is a part of us, and that is fortunate indeed. For although alcohol will always be the master of some, for most of us it will continue to be the servant of man."

Morris Chaftez, Founding director, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

From the moment of its discovery to the present day, alcohol has played a major role in many cultures and been of great benefit.........

Alcohol History and Religion

Remember the story of Jesus turning water into wine. Although the Christian church frowns on excessive drinking, drinking in moderation plays a major role in Christian worship.

It is thought that Mohamed forbade his followers to drink alcohol so that they could be distinguished from other religion's followers.

In Holy Communion red wine represents the blood of Christ.

In Ancient Egypt, Osiris (the god of wine) was the only God worshiped throughout the empire. Alcohol was left in tombs- to be used in the after life.

Moses planted a vineyard on Mt. Ararat (Genesis 9:20)

The History of Alcohol and Medicine

It was and is used as a painkiller (analgesic). Ever seen one of those films where an amputation is carried out and the only anesthetic is a swig from a whiskey bottle?

Recent research states that the moderate consumption of alcohol is beneficial to health. More so than abstinence.

The ancient Chinese used it to reduce fatigue (funny, I was always knocked out by alcohol but then I wasn't really following the instructions).

Alcohol History and Nutrition

It has been said that beer was the staple food in some cultures. In Ancient Egypt the phrase "bread and beer' was used to represent all food.

Clean drinking water is a relatively new phenomenon. In the past alcohol was drunk as it was far safer than water which was generally very dirty and a major source of disease.

The fermentation process greatly increases the level of amino acids and vitamins.

The Social History of Alcohol

It is used in social situations to encourage conversation (a social lubricant)

It can enhance the flavors of food (e.g. wine with cheese).

It can help people to relax.

History and the Negative Effects of Alcohol

YES, alcohol has been of great benefit to society throughout history.

However, alcohol causes alcoholism and, at least in my opinion, the damage caused by alcohol and alcohol dependency on society far outweigh the benefits.

The story of alcoholism began with the discovery of alcohol.

The pain and misery alcohol has caused countless individuals, families,communities and peoples is immeasurable.

A statistic for you to think about: the treatment of alcoholism and its consequences costs more than the treatment of cancer.
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[10/01/12] 
Alcohol is a massive part of human culture. It's one of the biggest contributors to the global economy, the reason we feel pick-pocketed after the weekend. We know a lot of you are enjoying a "Dry January" so we thought we'd serve you a pint of knowledge, starting with a list of countries with an interesting history of booze.

The first evidence of alcohol in China are a selection of jars dating back to 7,000 BC that were found in Jiahu. They make China the first recorded country in the world to create and consume alcoholic beverages - 9,000 years ago. The historic drink was made from rice, honey, and fruit, and we're sure it would have tasted a lot better than most Baijiu today (rice alcohol) which has a hint of dirty socks and can be used to clean engine parts.

Alcohol first appeared in the Indus valley civilization during the Chalcolithic era, between 3000 BC - 2000 BC. Sura, a drink brewed from rice meal, wheat, sugar cane, grapes and other fruits, was popular among the Kshatriya warriors as well as the peasant population. We're sure it must have been an excellent blend because it was considered a favorite drink of Indra, the King of the Gods. Most Indian farmers today still devote a portion of their crops for making alcohol, and to make farming a little more fun.

A huge chunk of our understanding of ancient wine has been gleaned from a yellow residue which was excavated by Mary Voigt in the northern Zagros Mountains of Iran in 1968. The residue was named Chateau Hajji Firuz. The jar containing the sample, meanwhile, could have contained up to 9 litres of hooch and was found with five similar jars buried along a "kitchen" wall in a Neolithic mud-brick building (5400 - 5000 BC). Perhaps the kitchen of the famous neolithic bar, Fred and Barney's.

Although wine making reached the Hellenic peninsula by about 2000 BC, the first alcoholic beverage to obtain widespread popularity in the area was mead, a fermented beverage made from honey and water. By 1700 BC, wine making was commonplace and during the next thousand years wine assumed the role it has in much of the world today. The ancient Greeks incorporated it into religious rituals, medicine and hospitality where it became an integral part of daily dining. It was drunk in many ways: warm or chilled, pure or mixed, plain, spiced or to help kick the head off a Persian yelling "This is Sparta!"

Alcohol played a huge role in colonial America - right from the country's birth. The Puritans took more beer and wine than water on the Mayflower for their New World journey. Oh how they've changed. It's worth mentioning that at the time drinking booze was much safer than drinking water which was usually sourced from places of sewage disposal, much like Budweiser today. Alcohol played a huge part in the construction of the new world as it gave the workers energy, nourishment and the ability to construct asymmetric buildings.
 

The origin of the Bloody Mary is somewhat unclear but Fernand Petiot claims to have invented the drink in 1921 while working at the 'New York Bar' in Paris. Later known as 'Harry's New York Bar', the watering hole became a frequent hangout for Ernest Hemingway and other expatriates. According to Petiot, the first two customers for whom he made the drink were from Chicago. "They say there is a bar there named the Bucket of Blood", he said, "and there's a waitress there everybody calls Bloody Mary. One of the boys said that the drink reminds him of Bloody Mary, and the name stuck." In the 1930s Petiot tried without success to change the name of the Bloody Mary to the "Red Snapper."

There are as many ways to make a martini as there are stories of its origin but there are two which are most commonly told. One claims a New York bartender named Martini invented the drink in 1912 at the Knickerbocker Hotel. The other, meanwhile, says it was invented by Professor Jerry Thomas in San Francisco around 1850 for a miner on his way to Martinez, California. The story goes that a miner placed a nugget of gold on Jerry’s bar and said, "make me something special". The result was the Martinez, the alleged prototype of the Martini.

The Martinez was first published in The Bartenders Guide in 1887, the first bartenders manual of its kind, and was made with a full wine glass of sweet vermouth, one ounce of Old Tom Gin, some bitters and a dash or two of maraschino. Most people didn't like sweet vermouth as the mixer so it became progressively drier as the years went by.

The martini became a business man's drink in the 1930's for the simple reason you could leave the office for a half hour lunch, have three martinis, and come back for a meeting completely smashed without smelling of whiskey. 007 has helped with its popularity - as well as how people like it to be made - and if you don't know how Bond likes his drink, we're shaken to our core.

From the October 24, 1949, issue of Time Magazine: "In the dimly lighted bar of the sleek Park Hotel, Turkish intelligence agents mingle with American engineers and Balkan refugees, drinking the latest Yankee concoction of vodka and orange juice, called a 'screwdriver'." It was a recipe made by Americans but not in America. American Oil rig workers abroad were given American canned goods, including cans of orange juice. The engineers would poor vodka and mix it with their screwdrivers carried in their tool belts.

A group of them came to a New York bar and asked them to make a vodka-OJ and told their bartender jokingly to mix it with a screwdriver, the bartender asked why and the name stuck. The modern day interpretation, however, is "it's called a screwdriver cuz if you drive after a few you're screwed".

You've probably heard the saying "hair of the dog", but where did it come from? It predates Shakespeare's time and it all started with contracting rabies. The medical theory of the day was to apply the hair of the rabid dog that had bitten you into the relevant bite wound. It was thought 'the demons that sicken you would then vanish'. We feel for those patients.

The high-tech treatment fell by the wayside but the idea of going back to the demon that had bitten you stuck, becoming a metaphor for Jack, Jim, and that Russian mutt Smirnoff. It's now one of the oldest idioms in the English language and if you're sick of drinking Bloody Marys for 'Hair of the Dog' we've got a different option called the Corpse Reviver. Popular in the 1930s, it was served with breakfast in hotels known for hosting socialites and party animals.

2 parts cognac
1 part apple brandy or Calvados
1 part sweet vermouth

Stir with ice, strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Looking at the ingredients it's no wonder it cures a hangover - it just gets you smashed again - with the alcohol much more prominent than in "Hair of the Dog" recipes today. You have to have some big Calvados to order one in the morning, but it should put a smile on your waiter's face.

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Myth: Alcohol kills brain cells.

Now, to qualify that title, pure alcohol will absolutely kill brain cells and many other types of cells, which is why it is used as a disinfectant. However, recent research has shown that the quantity of alcohol you could possibly take in, without killing yourself, does not introduce enough alcohol into your bloodstream to kill brain cells. This was proven by a study by Grethe Jensen and co. (1993), who meticulously counted neurons in matched samples of non-alcoholics and alcoholics. What they found was that there was no real difference in the density or overall number of neurons between the two groups. Various other research since has backed up Jensen’s findings. Thus, even alcoholics who are continually taking in unhealthy amounts of alcohol aren’t going to see brain cells die because of their drinking problem. However, alcohol does have other effects on the brain, both positive and negative, that have nothing to do with brain cells dying.

First, the positive: drinking moderate amounts of alcohol on a regular basis has been shown to have various positive effects on your body. The one that pertains to this article’s topic is that it has been shown to help protect people from cognitive impairment as they age. According to a study done at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, in Italy, 29% of people 65 years or older who almost never drank alcohol throughout their life had mental impairment issues. On the flip-side of that, only about 19% of people 65 years or older who drank moderate amounts of alcohol regularly had any mental impairment. It was further discovered that, among the various groups where other problems, such as health problems or the like, might impair them mentally, the same trend appeared. In every group, those who drank moderately on a regular basis throughout their lives always had a diminished chance of becoming mentally impaired in their old age compared to those who didn’t drink at all or almost never drank.

Now for the negative (there’s a lot when it comes to intemperate alcohol consumption, so I’ll only cover a few): while brain cells aren’t being killed as the result of drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, the ability for your brain cells to communicate with one another is being inhibited. What’s going on here is that the alcohol ends up damaging dendrites, which are the things at the ends of neurons that conduct electrochemical stimulation from another cell to the cell body in question. Basically, with some of these dendrites damaged, it inhibits the ability of your brain cells to talk to one another.

Luckily, you have an amazing number of connections and neurons in your brain (about 100 billion neurons, along with 10′s of billions of glial cells, which support the neurons). So this helps mask the problem. Also, even among long time alcoholics, it has been shown that simply quitting drinking copious amounts of alcohol is all that is required for your body to be able to reverse most of the damage to the dendrites and restore the ability for your brain cells to communicate. So you can afford to damage some of the neurons temporarily without any real lasting effect.

Unfortunately, for the people who have an extreme habit of excessively drinking, there are other side effects on your brain that aren’t so easily completely fixed, such as developing Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, which is characterized by: confusion, coordination problems, hallucinations, memory problems, eye problems, and even inducing a coma or death, if it’s left untreated. What’s going on here is that excessive alcohol consumption over a long period of time causes a vitamin B1 deficiency (8 out of 10 alcoholics are vitamin B1 deficient), due to the alcohol inhibiting the body’s ability to absorb thiamine (also many alcoholics are often malnourished because of their own bad eating habits). This, in turn, causes neuron death, among other things. This is treatable, in most cases, but certain effects stick around forever as your body won’t be able to repair itself completely from this particular brand of damage.

Another brain-related side effect caused by excessive drinking is that high doses of alcohol, while not killing your brain cells, inhibits the growth of new brain cells. However, recent research has shown, at least with rats, that once the alcohol was no longer given to the rats, new brain cell production went into overdrive to try to compensate for the previously inhibited brain cell production. Now, if you go for long enough without giving your brain a chance to recover, drinking excessively on a regular basis, it is thought there may still be lasting effects due to this inhibited new brain cell growth over extended periods, but whether this is actually the case or not, isn’t yet known.

There are also a variety of other known neurological problems that are associated with intemperate alcohol consumptions over long periods of time and some that even show up in a short amount of time in children and teens who abuse alcohol, but this article is already too long.  Then of course, there are the myriad of other problems, non-brain related that come with alcoholism, such as liver problems, other nervous system problems outside of how it affects your brain, and others.

Bottom line, alcohol consumed in moderation, such as a small glass of wine a day, can be very good for you. On the other hand, drinking excessively won’t kill you brain cells directly, but is still bad for your brain. Although, your body can compensate, to a certain extent, and repair the damage caused in most cases, at least as far as your brain is concerned, so long as you don’t make a regular habit of it.

Bonus Factoids:

Another myth concerning alcohol that was once spread about, particularly during Prohibition, but to which I don’t think anyone actually believes anymore (at least I hope not!), is that drinking excessive amounts of alcohol can lead to spontaneous combustion due to alcohol being flammable and it coursing through your veins. This is ridiculous on many levels, but nevertheless, was a popular notion during Prohibition and for a while afterwards. The myth that alcohol kills brain cells was also widely popularized during Prohibition.
There are several things that contribute to hangovers, but principally what’s going on here is simple dehydration. Alcohol has a dehydrating effect by inhibiting the release of vasopressin, which is an anti-diuretic hormone. So in layman’s terms, the result of alcohol inhibiting the vasopressin is that your body produces a lot more urine than normal with the result that you become dehydrated easily.
Scientists once believed that the number of nerve cells you have in your brain, once you reach adulthood, was all you’d ever have. Thus, damaging these cells could be extremely detrimental to the individual. However, this isn’t correct. New neurons are created all the time in the adult brain, in a process that is called neurogenesis.

FACTS
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A timeline of interesting moments in the history of Alcohol.

8000 B.C.
In persia and the Middle East, a fermented drink is produced from honey and wild yeasts.

6000 B.C.
Viticulture, the cultivation of grapevines for making wine, is believed to originate in the mountains between the black and Caspian seas.

4000 B.C.
Wine making is established in Mesopotamia (which is present day Iraq).

3000 B.C.
Both beer and wine are produced in ancient Egypt; wine production and trade become an important part of Mediterranean commerce.

800 B.C.
Barley and rice beer are produced in India.

625
Islamic Prophet Muhammad orders his followers to abstain from alcohol.

1100
A medical school in Italy documents alcohol distillation. The product is named “spirits.”

1516
Germany passes a beer purity law, making it illegal to make beer with anything but barley, hops and pure water.

1600-1625
During the reign of James I in England, numerous writers describe widespread drunkenness from beer and wine.

1789
The first American temperance society is formed in Litchfield, Connecticut, with the goal of reducing alcohol consumption. Similar societies soon follow in other states.

1791
The act of 1791 (popularly called the “Whiskey Tax”) enacts a tax on both publicly and privately distilled whiskey in the United States.

1793
During the whiskey rebellion of Pennsylvania, government troops arrest a handful of distillery leaders who refused to pay taxes on their products.

1802
The Whiskey tax is repealed.

1814-1817
A new alcohol tax is temporarily imposed in the united States to help pay for the War of 1812.

1850s
New York Bartenders invent the cocktail.

1860
In the United States 1,138 legal alcohol distilleries are operating and producing 88 million gallons of liquor per year.

1862
Abraham Lincoln imposes a new tax on liquor to help pay the bills from the Civil War.

1884
Laws are enacted to make anti alcohol teaching compulsory in public schools in New York State. The following year similar laws are passed in Pennsylvania, with other states soon following.

1906
The Pure Food and Drug Act is passed, regulating the labeling of products containing alcohol.

1910
New York introduces the first drunk-driving laws.

1920
The passage of the 18th Amendment (prohibition) and the Volstead Act effectively outlaw the production, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages in the United States. (Alcohol was also illegal in Finland from 1919 to 1932 and in various Canadian provinces at various times between 1900 and 1948.)

1920-1933
The illicit alcohol trade booms in the United States.

1933
Prohibition is repealed; most states restrict youth under 18 (the minimum voting age) from possessing or consuming alcoholic beverages.

1935
Alcoholics Anonymous is established; the American Medical Association passes a resolution declaring that alcoholics are valid patients.

1944
The U.S. Public Health Service labels alcoholism the fourth-largest health problem.

1964
The Grand Rapids study shows that the risk of an automobile crash increases as more alcohol is consumed.

1970-1975
The minimum drinking age is lowered in 29 states from 21 to 18, 19 or 20 following the enactment of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which lowers the legal voting age to 18.

1980
Mothers Against Drunk Driving is established with the goal of reducing alcohol-related highway fatalities.

2000
A new federal law requires states to pass legislation making it a crime to drive with blood alcohol concentration (BAC) at or above .08 percent.
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http://www.alcohol-facts.net/Alcohol-History-Facts.html
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Facts on how alcohol goes through the human body and the effects it has on it.

The kidneys eliminate 5 percent of alcohol through urine.

The lungs exhale 5 percent.

Hangover headaches are caused by blood vessels expanding in the head from alcohol.

The only true cure for a hangover is the time needed for enlarged blood vessels to shrink.

About 20 percent of alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream from the stomach.

Chronic male alcoholics have reduced capacity for penile erection, decreased sperm production, and lower sperm counts.

Alcohol affects the upper part of the brain, where self-control and other learned behavior is stored.

Alcohol dilates the blood vessels, or capillaries, that carry blood just below the surface of the skin. When they expand, the flow of blood to the skin is increased. The skin flushes, causing a warm feeling.

The absorption of alcohol into the small intestine is slower on a full stomach.

When alcohol enters the bloodstream, it leaves the body through the kidneys, the lungs and the liver.

It takes one hour for a half ounce of alcohol to leave a fully grown man's body.

About one-fourth of longtime heavy drinkers develop alcoholic hepatitis, in which the liver becomes inflamed and cells die.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) says the brain continues to develop into the early 20s, and exposing the brain to alcohol in that period may impair brain development.
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The Rise and Fall of Alcoholism in America

Determining the amount of alcohol consumed in our country is tricky because the percentages of alcohol vary from one alcoholic beverage to another.  Beer is 3% to 5% alcohol, while wine is around 18% alcohol.  The harder drinks like vodka and whiskey may be around 45% alcohol.  What makes finding a statistic on alcohol consumption even more difficult is the statistics may be based on all ages or just adults.

Alcohol in Early America

Even though statistics may vary, it is quite clear that the consumption of alcohol in the early years of the United States was prevalent and extensive.  It was not hidden; citizens and visitors to our country both openly noticed it and thought of it as a developing problem.  Historians believe that, although drinking alcohol was widely accepted and done in excess, there wasn’t a lot of people getting “drunk”.  This means that drinking alcohol was such a part of the lives of early Americans that they had a tolerance to its effects and rarely got to the point where they were ‘falling down drunk’.

The Popularity of Alcohol

Most casual drinkers at the time would start their days with a quarter pint of cider.  If they did not have their drink at home, they would stop for a drink on their way to work.  Most merchants and businessmen would take a late morning break for a drink of their favorite liquor.  On their way home it was customary to stop for a drink at the local pub.  All walks of life at all times of the day and at all ages participated in the consumption of alcohol.  It was America’s pastime.

The Reasons for Drinking

The reasons that Americans drank back in the early days of our country are probably the same as they are today.  They liked the feeling that alcohol gave them.  Plus alcohol was easy to make and this great country of ours had all the right ingredients.  It was a cash crop.  It was cheap to make, and a lot of it was made, which paved the way for mass consumption.  People drank to celebrate.  They drank to bond.  They drank to numb their feelings.  Back then, it seems nobody was above the allure of alcohol.

Early Statistics of Alcohol Consumption

The consumption of alcohol in America (per capita) in 1830 was nearly 4 gallons.  In other words, every person in the United States of America averaged about 4 gallons of alcohol per year.  Fifteen years later that average had declined to 1 gallon per person.  Why such a decrease in a relatively short period of time?  It has to do with the big changes that society in the United States underwent during the first fifty years of the 19th century.  The development of the economy; the monopoly of employment; the big changes in how we communicate and how we get around; the insurgence of religion – all of these changes were motivators for people to be more interested in abstaining from alcohol than being under the influence of it.

Alcohol in Society Today

In today’s society, there is much divisiveness over alcohol consumption. Many religious cultures forbid drinking, while other more cosmopolitan cultures view it as a social staple.

FACTS

A lot of research has been done to find and explore the reason why people drink alcohol. From research conducted in the Netherlands among 15 to 25 year-olds, the following answers came up:

Sociability (71%)
Like the taste (51%)
Feel at ease (12%)
Get intoxicated (6%)
Get drunk (2%)
Because everybody does it (6%)
To forget problems (0%)

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Heart Health
A vast number of studies show that moderate consumption of alcohol, including beer, may reduce the risk of heart disease--consistently the No. 1 cause of death in the United States. A 2006 study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the Harvard School of Public Health found that, among men with healthy lifestyles, those who consumed moderate amounts of alcohol had a 40 to 60% reduced risk of heart attack compared with heart healthy men who abstained.
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Stroke
Beyond helping you get heart healthy, moderate drinking also may help prevent the formation of blood clots that can block arteries in the heart, neck and brain, according to the Harvard School of Public Health. Those blockages are a cause of the most common kind of stroke, ischemic stroke

HOL
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winter or summer solstice, fall or spring equinox, May Day (May 1st) or the Mid-Autumn Festival (follows the lunar calendar and generally falls between mid-September and mid-October)

ALCOHOLIC DIET

Common Nutritional Deficiencies in Alcoholics Diet
Before making dietary suggestions to combat the effects of heavy drinking, let's look at the nutritional effects they cause. Excessive alcohol consumption overloads the liver adversely affecting its ability to store fat soluble vitamins (eg. vitamin A, D, E) and metabolize protein. In addition, alcoholics often have low levels of the following essential nutrients: calcium, folate, magnesium, thiamin (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin (vitamin B3) and zinc. The best diet for alcoholics should address these dietary deficiencies thus helping to repair the damage done as well as strengthening the body for the future.

Diet Tips For Alcoholics
If you are (or have been) a heavy drinker, and you want to eat a healthy diet, follow these suggestions carefully. They represent the minimum possible changes that you need to make to your daily diet. For personal advice, consult a dietitian with experience in treating alcoholics.

Increase Your Intake of Antioxidants
This means including regular amounts of brightly-colored fruit and vegetables in your daily diet (eg. apricots, peaches, carrots, peppers), green leafy vegetables (eg. spinach), vitamin C rich foods (eg. oranges, grapefruit, kiwi fruit, tomatoes), and vitamin E foods (eg. 1 tsp wheatgerm oil daily). Five servings (treat one medium fruit, fresh, chopped or cooked, or equivalent, as one serving) of these antioxidant rich fruits and veggies is a minimum requirement.

Increase Your Intake of Protein
Eat a minimum of 4-5 ounces of quality protein per day. Choose fish (grilled/baked), skinless chicken or turkey, or very lean beef (max 5 percent fat). Soybeans, egg whites and lentils are good vegetarian choices. On one day of the week, choose lamb's or calves' liver, for its vitamin A and thiamin content.

Increase Your Intake of Essential Fatty Acids
Include 2-3oz of oily fish (mackerel, sardines, salmon) in your weekly diet. Also switch to flaxseed oil for cooking or salads.

Eat Whole Grains Rather Than Refined or White Flour Carbohydrates
Eat brown rice (a good source of thiamin, especially beneficial for heavy drinkers), oats, whole wheat pasta and dense chewy breads. As well as providing various essential micronutrients, whole grains improve blood glucose management which reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Increase Your Intake of Magnesium and Zinc
Wheatgerm, beans, sesame seeds, dried figs, lemons and almonds are good sources of magnesium, while lean steak, wheatgerm, brewer's yeast, pumpkin seeds and eggs are good sources of zinc