Drink
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McCain could have a conflict brewing. (LA Times)
Hensley & Co., one of the nation’s major beer wholesalers, has brought the family of Cindy McCain wealth, prestige and influence in Phoenix, but it could also create conflicts for her husband, Sen. John McCain, if he is elected president in November.
Hensley, founded by Cindy McCain’s late father, holds federal and state licenses to distribute beer and lobbies regulatory agencies on alcohol issues that involve public health and safety.
The company has opposed such groups as Mothers Against Drunk Driving in fighting proposed federal rules requiring alcohol content information on every package of beer, wine and liquor
Its executives, including John McCain’s son Andrew, have written at least 10 letters in recent years to the Treasury Department, have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to a beer industry political action committee, and hold a seat on the board of the politically powerful National Beer Wholesalers Assn.
US Airways to charge $2 for soda, juice, water. (Yahoo)
Alcoholic drinks will also go from $5 to $7.
We all know the evils of alcohol. I won’t bore you with the nasty details, but it bears mentioning the potential dangers of cooking and drinking. The former acts like a congener for the latter, in my experience.
Witness a recent conversation in our household:
Wife: Honey, can you bring up the vacuum and clean the cat litter?
Me (on the couch): (Mumbles something non-committal)
Wife: Hey! Last night you said you would help me today with any house chores and you wouldn’t complain, and then you hugged me and gave me a kiss and told me you loved me!
[Long pause]
Me: That doesn’t sound like something I’d say.
On Hardball, while remarking on Sen. Barack Obama’s reported request for orange juice after being offered coffee at an Indiana diner, David Shuster asserted: “[I]t’s just one of those sort of weird things. You know, when the owner of the diner says, ‘Here, have some coffee,’ you say, ‘Yes, thank you,’ and, ‘Oh, can I also please have some orange juice, in addition to this?’ You don’t just say, ‘No, I’ll take orange juice,’ and then turn away and start shaking hands.” Host Chris Matthews agreed, “You don’t ask for a substitute on the menu.”
Starbucks sued again over tip pools. (Seattle Times)
A week after Starbucks was ordered to refund more than $100 million to baristas in California over a tip pool controversy, the coffee giant was hit Tuesday with a similar lawsuit in Massachusetts.
And a Boston lawyer said more lawsuits could be filed in Washington, New York and Minnesota over whether shift supervisors can share baristas’ tips.
In Suffolk Superior Court, barista Hernan Matamoros seeks restitution for himself and other baristas who worked for Starbucks during the past six years. He claims baristas did not receive the “total proceeds of tips” left by customers because the company allowed shift supervisors to have a portion of them.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney who filed the suit, said Massachusetts’ law is even clearer than California’s law that “anyone with managerial authority is not an employee who may receive a share of tips.”
A drink a day for a longer life: study. (Yahoo! News)
Drinking is healthy, exercise is healthy, and doing a little of both is even healthier, Danish researchers reported on Wednesday.
People who neither drink nor exercise have a 30 to 49 percent higher risk of heart disease than people who do one or both of the activities, the researchers said in the European Heart Journal.
“The main finding is there seems to be an additional beneficial effect of drinking one to two drinks per day and doing at least moderate physical activity,” said Morten Gronbaek of the University of Southern Denmark, who led the study.
A Liquor of Legend Makes a Comeback. (NY Times)
The division of the Treasury Department that approves alcohol packaging sent back his label seven times, he said. They thought it looked too much like the British pound note. They wondered why it was called Absinthe Verte when their lab analysis said the liquid inside was amber. Mostly, it seemed to him, they didn’t like the monkey.
“I had the image of a spider monkey beating on a skull with femur bones,” Mr. Winters said. But he said that the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau thought the label “implied that there are hallucinogenic, mind-altering or psychotropic qualities” to the product.
“I said, ‘You get all that just from looking at a monkey?’”
His frustration came to a sudden end last Wednesday, when he learned the agency had finally granted approval to his St. George Absinthe Verte, the first American-made absinthe on the market in almost a century.
Nyquil is faster.
Device Created for ‘Red Wine Headache’. (Wired News)
Chemists working with NASA-funded technology designed to find life on Mars have created a device they say can easily detect chemicals that many scientists believe can turn wine and other beloved indulgences into ingredients for agony.
The chemicals, called biogenic amines, occur naturally in a wide variety of aged, pickled and fermented foods prized by gourmet palates, including wine, chocolate, cheese, olives, nuts and cured meats.
“The food you eat is so unbelievably coupled with your body’s chemistry,” said Richard Mathies, who described his new technology in an article published Thursday in the journal Analytical Chemistry.
Scientists have nominated several culprits for “red wine headache,” including amines like tyramine and histamine, though no conclusions have been reached. Still, many specialists warn headache sufferers away from foods rich in amines, which can also trigger sudden episodes of high blood pressure, heart palpitations and elevated adrenaline levels.
The detector could prove useful to those with amine sensitivity, said Beverly McCabe, a clinical dietitian and co-author of “Handbook of Food-Drug Interactions,” a book cited by the article for its descriptions of the effects of amines on the brain.
The Ultimate All-in-One Beer Brewing Machine.
Behold PopSci staff photographer/mad scientist John Carnett’s homemade microbrewery: an elaborate device that boils, ferments, chills, and pours home-crafted ale.
Alcohol Goes on a Health Kick. (NYTimes)
In an era of “natural” cigarettes, trans-fat-free chips and low-carb beer, it is probably no surprise that that last guilty pleasure, the cocktail, is trying to atone for its sins. And it isn’t just vegan restaurants serving more vitamin-rich vodka mixes and slinging vegetable gardens in a glass.
Whether absurd or merely inevitable, the idea of healthier tippling has started to catch on among those who have embraced things like organic food and low-sugar diets. Always ready to pounce on a fad, mixologists at trendy bars, restaurants and clubs in New York and Los Angeles have begun creating concoctions from organic fruit and vegetable purées and vitamin-filled sports drinks instead of gooey syrups.
French wine militants threaten jihad. (“Wine militants threaten action”, Guardian UK)
In a tape sent anonymously to French TV a month ago, the shadowy militant organisation known as CRAV (Comité Régional d’Action Viticole or regional winegrowers’ action committee) threatened violent action if new President Nicolas Sarkozy did not take measures to help economically desperate wine growers in the France’s vast Languedoc-Roussillon area.
Stoking the flames of future Girls Gone Wild-fires…Dutch students brew up powdered alcohol hit. (The Register)
Dutch students have developed what might be the ultimate Reg hack survival aid - a powdered alcohol beverage going out at €1-€1.50 for a 20-gram packet, Reuters reports.
Just add water to Booz2Go and you get a “bubbly, lime-colored and flavored drink with just three percent alcohol content”, ideal for those journalistic Bravo Two Zero situations where you find yourself pinned down by a corporate PowerPoint presentation with nothing more than a plastic cup and a water cooler between you and a sobriety-heightened two-hour torture session.
…
Van Elderen and four classmates at Helicon Vocational Institute brewed up Booz2Go as part of a final year project. Fellow student Martyn van Nierop showed his WKD side by announcing one major attraction of the concoction for the yoof demographic: “Because the alcohol is not in liquid form, we can sell it to people below 16.”
Gotta love the Dutch.