THINK ABOUT IT

And so, a deal: give us drugs, after a certain age - say, 80 - all drugs, any drugs we want. In return, we will give you our driver's licenses. (I mean, can you imagine how terrifying a nation of decrepit, solipsistic 90-year-old boomers behind the wheel would be?) We'll let you proceed with your lives - much of which will be spent paying for our retirement, in any case - without having to hear us complain about our every ache and reflux. We'll be too busy exploring altered states of consciousness. I even have a slogan for the campaign: "Tune in, turn on, drop dead." (Time Magazine Apr 16 2009)

QUOTATIONS

Martin Luther, prime mover in the Reformation, married a brewer's daughter and declared: 'Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!'

Even though a number of people have tried, no one has ever found a way to drink for a living.

I only drink when I get depressed. I only get depressed when I don't drink.

What a marvellous thought you wise little thing. I think that's worth a celebratory glass.

Wine improves with age - the older I get the more I like it

Take the juice of a bottle of whisky

He's a light drinker - as soon as it gets light he starts drinking

Beer the greatest invention of mankind - wheel is up there but doesn't go as well with pizza

Beds cause hangovers - all drunks go to bed happy and well

life isn't all beer and skittles - in fact it's been ages since I touched a skittle

Lock 4 people in a room with alcohol and they'll fight. Lock them up with marijuana and they'll start a band.

Quotes about Drink and Drink

ANECDOTES

Clive James and the dunny man

Alcohol saviour modern civilization - saved us from contaminated water - Bible never mentions drinking water - everyone drinks wine - Asians solved problem by boiling water to make herbal teas - so never evolved the genes to cope with alcohol

One of the longest and largest studies looking at alcohol consumption in older people found that moderate drinking was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of developing dementia.The study followed 3,069 people ages 75 and older for six years. The researchers found that those who drank moderately - eight to 14 drinks per week - were 37% less likely to develop dementia, compared with those who did not drink at all. It did not matter what type of alcohol they drank. The reduction in risk is similar to that found in other research showing a benefit from exercising at least three times a week.

Want to know how to make your wine taste really nice? If you take any red wine, cheap or expensive, the most effective thing you can do to make it taste better is blitz it in a food blender for 30 seconds. You can use a bowl-blender or a stick. Then - because this is the sort of theatre that gets a Christmas meal humming - use the half of the bottle you've reserved to conduct a taste test. I guarantee that your audience will prefer the wine that's been mechanically assaulted. But you need to drink it then; after a few hours it tastes completely dead. This trick comes from Nathan Myhrvold, who has tested his 'hyperdecanting' method on teams of wine buffs.

In 2001, Frederic Brochet conducted two experiments at the University of Bordeaux. In one experiment, he got 57 wine experts together and had them taste one glass of red wine and one glass of white wine. He had them describe each wine in as much detail as their expertise would allow. What he didn't tell them was both were the same wine. He just dyed the white one red.In the other experiment, he asked the experts to rate two different bottles of red wine. One was very expensive, the other was cheap.Again, he tricked them. This time he had put the cheap wine in both bottles. So, what were the results? The experts in the first experiment, the one with the dyed wine, described the sorts of berries and grapes and tannins they could detect in the red wine just as if it really was red. Every single one, all 57, could not tell it was white. In the second experiment, the one with the switched labels, the experts went on and on about the cheap wine in the expensive bottle. They called it 'complex' and 'rounded.' They called the same wine in the cheap bottle 'weak' and 'flat.'

Niels Bohr is one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. He was a favorite of his fellow Danes when he lived in Copenhagen. Today, however, I found out just how much they loved him. Apparently, after he won the Nobel Prize in 1922, the Carlsberg brewery gave him a gift - a house located next to the brewery. And the best perk of the house? It had a direct pipeline to the brewery so that Bohr had free beer on tap whenever he wanted.

Anecdotes about Drink and Drugs

ARTICLES

A program that gives shelter to homeless alcoholics but allows them to keep drinking and not be forced into treatment could save taxpayers millions in public costs, according to a study published on Tuesday.The study also found that daily alcohol consumption fell by 2 percent per month for those in the shelter. Helping Alcoholics

Drinking a small glass of wine a day can protect women against dementia, a new study has claimed.Research by academics at the University of Glasgow suggests that moderate alcohol consumption may improve the function of older women's brains. Wine Prevents Alzheimers

Heston Blumenthal, the Michelin-starred chef and kitchen chemist who gave the world egg and bacon ice-cream, has won another award for his latest Frankenstein food - warm chocolate wine. The velvety, frothy drink is made by whisking a red dessert wine with sugar and chocolate. Splicing grapes with cocoa beans and coming up with a surprising chocolate wine has proved a winning formula for Blumenthal. Chocolate wine dates back to 1710 and used to be made by whisking claret or port with sugar and chocolate. Chocolate Wine

The myth of '8 glasses of water a day Sports Drinks

Resveratrol does nothing

Wine effects The British Booze Face

More Articles on Drink and Drugs

BOOKS

The development of civilization depended on urbanization, which depended on beer. The Ghost Map

Most of the evidence suggests that if red wine, in particular - and to a lesser degree white wine, beer, lager and spirits - were used as a preventive and therapeutic medicine, disease rates would fall substantially. Not only that, but lives would be saved - with huge benefits to the economy.

In fact, red wine may well be one of the most effective 'medications' in history. Like other drugs, it has side-effects. It has a minimum and maximum therapeutic dose - take too little and it won't work; take too much and it may make you ill. And it has a daily treatment regime: ideally, you should take wine once a day with the evening meal. The Good News About Booze

Gout develops when crystals of uric acid build up in joints. Uric acid is produced when we metabolize meats, particularly offal, seafoods and legumes. Alcohol worsens the problem by slowing down the natural elimination of uric acid. Beer is worst risk - drinking daily increases risk by 49%. Other alcoholic drinks much smaller effect. But can halve the risk by drinking low-fat milk or yoghurt. Brain Fuel

Most beer is around 4 or 5% alcohol; the rest is practically all water. It's not hard to get a few higher per cent alcohol. But at around 12% the alcohol kills the yeast that turns the sugar into alcohol. Brewers get up to 20% by using special champagne yeast. And by using freeze-distillation it's possible to get up to 40%. Curious and Curiouser

Everything you thought you knew about drugs is wrong. The focus of research has always been on the drugs themselves. I'm not saying that's an inappropriate focus, but the vast majority of people who use drugs have no [addictive] problem. That tells me that people's behavior under the influence of drugs is affected by something other than pharmacology. Another piece of evidence is that when you offer people alternative reinforcers you can shift drug-taking behavior in a way that is predictable. If you offer them an attractive option, they will take that option. Again, if the drug was so powerful, you wouldn't get these types of shifts. High Price

Addictions could be seen as a self control issue, because they are actually on the continuum of normal appetite. No more stark contrast between short term and long term preferences. And doubt that you can call addiction a disease because you can influence an addict with incentives, whereas not with cystic fibrosis. Most addicts are not truly compelled, since most manage to quit even without outside help. One study found that only 12% of heroin addicted Vietnam vets still hooked 3 years after returning to US. When stress of combat duty ended, so did most of the compulsion. We Have Met The Enemy: Self Control In An Age of Excess

When you drink alcohol, it gets converted to energy in several steps. An enzyme (alcohol dehydrogenose) coverts alcohol to another chemical (acetyldehyde). Another enzyme (acetyldehyde dehydrogenose) converts it to the chemical acetate, and another enzyme converts that to CO2, Fats and water. Many Asians have a genetic variation which produces a less active form of the second enzyme, so lots of acetylaldehyde doesn't get converted to acetate. The former is a lot more toxic and produces reactions like face flushing dizziness and nausea. Survival of the Sickest

In a 1974 baseball game the Cleveland Indians, hoping to attract more spectators, offered as much beer as you could drink at ten cents a glass. 25,000 fans turned up instead of usual 8000. By the time the game started, most of them were pissed. A large woman started the fun by running onto the field and baring her enormous breasts, to sustained applause.... The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures

The impact of the introduction of coffee into Europe during the seventeenth century was particularly noticeable since the most common beverages of the time, even at breakfast, were weak "small beer" and wine...Those who drank coffee instead of alcohol began the day alert and stimulated, rather than relaxed and mildly inebriated, and the quality and quantity of their work improved .... Western Europe began to emerge from an alcoholic haze that had lasted for centuries. The Invention of Air

More Books about Drink and Drugs

OPINIONS - FORUMS AND LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

404 ...

Drinking Letters

SHORT STORIES

Stephen King Quitters, Inc

More Short Stories About Drink

LIMERICKS and VERSE

Every man has beliefs he holds dear,
Where his faith is unshakably clear.
My belief is devout,
With no shadow of doubt:
I believe that I'll order more beer.

More Limericks About Drink

"If, as they say, God spanked this town
For being much too frisky,
Why did He burn His churches down
And save Hotaling's Whiskey ?"

- Poem about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fire, in which the city's largest whiskey distillery was left unscathed.

We're winning the war on drugs! We're winning the war on drugs!
Praise the Lord and pass the bong, we're winning the war on drugs
You can grow them in your back yard, or score them off the thugs
Put your hands against the car, we're winning the war on drugs!