Not Worth a Thread: Booze

[RottingCorpse]

Despite my alcoholism, I am health conscious.

http://getdrunknotfat.com

[nacho]

Despite my alcoholism, I am health conscious.

http://getdrunknotfat.com

And yet the post in the other thread says you can't stop drinking one of the "D+" entries on that list! Spit out the Urquell and go for the tequila.

THRONE MAIDEN!!

[RottingCorpse]

I'm actually dipping into the Czech spirits tomorrow night with Slivovice, a plum brandy that's a home grown Moravian hooch used to celebrate special occasions.

But yes, I was disappointed with Urquell's rating as well. I'm assuming it's the crappy U.S. imported stuff.

[nacho]

I'm actually dipping into the Czech spirits tomorrow night with Slivovice, a plum brandy that's a home grown Moravian hooch used to celebrate special occasions.

But yes, I was disappointed with Urquell's rating as well. I'm assuming it's the crappy U.S. imported stuff.

It's brewed to be drunk within 90 days. Which makes it hard to import and stock.

But don't go singing holy holy -- always remember that Urquell is owned by Miller.

[nacho]

Probably the big local booze news of the last 5-6 years, as DC uber-gentrifies, is the return of local breweries. Where once we had none (after the demise of our last old guard breweries in the 80s-90s), now we have...too many!

Worse yet, they've started to snipe each other. The latest between DC Brau and Silver Spring's Citizens:

Cease and desist letters have become an important part of the business of craft beer as breweries and brands attempt to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace and defend their brands in order to do so. Two local breweries recently ran into such a situation, and the resulting dust seems to have settled quickly.

Just a few days ago we introduced our readers to Silver Spring's Citizens Brewing Company, which  will open in downtown Silver Spring, MD in 2014. However, when that brewery opens, it will do so with a new name, as it was the subject of a cease and desist letter from DC Brau, located about eight-and-a-half miles away in northeast Washington, DC.

The potential problem stems from the possibility of asking for "a Citizen" and there being confusion between an offering from either DC Brau or Citizens.

For the past three years, DC Brau has made a Belgian-style pale ale called The Citizen. This beer is distributed in Montgomery County, where Silver Spring is located, which, in the words of DC Brau CEO Brandon Skall, "creates consumer confusion." According to Skall, DC Brau has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars marketing and developing this beer, one of their flagships. He describes the decision to issue a cease and desist letter as "gut-wrenching" and with "absolutely no malicious intent." He also notes that nobody from Citizens consulted, asked, or inquired with DC Brau about the brewery name.

We here at DCBeer hope that this happened early enough in Citizens Brewing Company's development that a name change will have minimal impact on its progress. Citizens will announce a new name for its brewery shortly, perhaps as soon as this afternoon. We expect a statement from Citizens Brewing Company shortly and will update this post when we receive it.

UPDATE, Citizens has issued this statement: "It's certainly not an insignificant thing to change a name, but we are taking this in stride. Our goal is to get our doors open this summer, which is why we've decided to move on, change our name, and not spend the thousands of dollars required to fight the Cease and Desist order. We'll be announcing our new name this afternoon. We are excited to focus on making excellent craft beer accessible to everyone through our taproom and beer garden in downtown Silver Spring."

[RottingCorpse]

So, I sort of side with DC Brau here. Thhe SS brewing company should have done their research.

[nacho]

Actually an interesting look at how siloed the DC area is becoming, eh? (Which is a side effect of uber-gentrification.) I know exactly what Citizens was thinking -- this ain't DC, this is Silver Spring.

[RottingCorpse]

How Bad Are Your Drinking Habits? An 18th-Century Temperance Thermometer Has the Verdict.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2014/09/23/history_of_the_temperance_movement_18th_century_temperance_thermometer_by.html

[nacho]

So...that's exactly the same as modern medicine would say. Though the difference is that, today, "moderation" has been extended to include spirits, whereas that graph pretty much says stay away from spirits altogether.

By the way...  I recently fell down a Wiki hole reading about this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Wheeler

Wayne Wheeler is not only the architect of prohibition (which led to the rise of organized crime, countless thousands of deaths from unregulated booze, and may arguably be a major contributing factor to pitching the world into economic collapse and creating the vacuum that would give rise to Hitler), but he prided himself on some of those facts!

Worse than prohibition itself, Wheeler urged the US government to poison industrial alcohol and make denatured alcohol. So solvents, rubbing alcohol, etc, isn't, on its own, strictly poisonous. I mean, yes, you shouldn't drink it, but when you had the unregulated booze boom during prohibition, that stuff snuck into quite a bit of the bathtub spirits that were being made.

Wheeler successfully encouraged congress to denature industrial alcohol -- strychnine and mercury were what he favored. This was NOT publicized. There were no warnings.

Furthermore, stronger liquor surged in popularity because its potency made it more profitable to smuggle. To prevent bootleggers from using industrial ethyl alcohol to produce illegal beverages, the federal government ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols. In response, bootleggers hired chemists who successfully renatured the alcohol to make it drinkable. As a response, the Treasury Department required manufacturers to add more deadly poisons, including the particularly deadly methyl alcohol. New York City medical examiners prominently opposed these policies because of the danger to human life. As many as 10,000 people died from drinking denatured alcohol before Prohibition ended.[87] New York City medical examiner Charles Norris believed the government took responsibility for murder when they knew the poison was not deterring people and they continued to poison industrial alcohol (which would be used in drinking alcohol) anyway. Norris remarked: "The government knows it is not stopping drinking by putting poison in alcohol... [Y]et it continues its poisoning processes, heedless of the fact that people determined to drink are daily absorbing that poison. Knowing this to be true, the United States government must be charged with the moral responsibility for the deaths that poisoned liquor causes, although it cannot be held legally responsible."[87]

The number killed in 1927 alone was 10,000...so Wiki is incorrect. Thousands died each year...and Wheeler was proud of it!

At one point the Anti-Saloon League decided that the only way for people to stop drinking any alcohol drinks was to add poison to as much drinkable alcohol. Wheeler was even quoted saying "The person who drinks this industrial alcohol ...is a deliberate suicide"