Alcohol trivium and the truth behind them

* As Magellan prepared to sail around the world in 1519, he spent more on sherry than on weapons...

[Always a shrewd judge of character, he quickly realized that amongst a gang of half-mutinous sailors, sherry and no gunpowder was a much better recipe for happy sailing than gunpowder and no sherry]

* Alcohol is considered the only proper payment for teachers among the Lepcha people of Tibet.

[I admit it sounds good, but considering the fact that most of our money seems to end up as beer anyway, what’s the difference? By the way, look out for “Lhasa” beer coming to a convenience store near you. It’s probably what the Lepcha drink these days!]

* The shallow champagne glass originated with Marie Antoinette. It was first formed from wax molds made of her breasts.

[Actually, this is a spurious claim because it could equally be attributable to several women of the period, or none of them, but it sounds plausible because from the male perspective, alcohol and female breasts together in the same sentence make for good reading. Apologies ladies]

* The region of the U.S. that consumes the least alcohol (commonly known as the "Bible belt") is also known by many doctors as Stroke Alley.

[Damn. This sounds like it should be true based on what we know about the French diet and their longevity, but unfortunately it most probably has more to do with the coincidental fact that the average diet in the region, while low on alcohol, is also massively high in bad fats…]

* During the reign of William III, a garden fountain was once used as a giant punch bowl. The recipe included 560 gallons of brandy, 1200 pounds of sugar, 25,000 lemons, 20 gallons of lime juice, and five pounds of nutmeg. The bartender rowed around in a small boat, filling up guests' punch cups.

[In today’s costs this would run to about a trillion dollars but I’m obscurely happy that someone actually did this, rather than just idly fantasizing about how bodacious it would be]

* An Italian study of 14 men using MRI scans found that the seven of them who were wine experts used both hemispheres of the brain when they tasted wine. The rest used only the right one. According to the scientists the sommeliers' intellectual capabilities allowed them to appreciate the wine more than ordinary people do.

[The obvious catch being that this may only be true of Italian sommeliers, or any Italian with both hemispheres intact, both being equally statistically low thanks to their driving habits]

* St. Dunstan, the patron saint of goldsmiths, introduced to England a practice to prevent fights among drinkers. He ordered that ale tankards be fitted with pegs marking equal intervals, so that when more than one person drank from the same cup they would drink equal amounts. Hence the expression “level-pegging”.

[This, incidentally, says a great deal about how little the English love of social order (football excepted) has changed over the centuries. Today’s manifestation is their obsession with forming orderly queues at the least opportunity]

Back