Drink for a better tomorrow.

[davywavy]

Back in the goode olde dayes when I was heavily involved in the Cam*, several times a year I'd jet over the Atlantic to use my British accent to pick up American girls chat to the Board of Directors face to face rather than the unfriendly medium of email. On one trip I was staggering into my hotel after the general misery of a cattle-class long-haul flight when I bumped into riksowden. "Oh!", he said. "Hi, Dave. Look, I've got some good news for you."
"Good news?" I blearily asked.
"Yeah. They've got Sam Smiths on tap in the bar."
This was indeed good news as anyone who has ever drunk Budweiser or American-brewed Carlsberg will tell you. I checked my watch. "Well", I said. "The sun's over the yardarm. In England, anyway. Fancy a pint?"
The two of us retired to the bar and lined up a couple of drinks, at which point one of my online American chums wandered over to say hallo and clocked that we were drinking at lunchtime. I didn't twig the subtle change in attitude which came over them at the time, but later I learned they were very anti-alcohol and, because I was having a pint at lunchtime, they'd decided that I was obviously an alcoholic. I still laugh about this now.

Anyway, this got me thinking about attitudes to booze and what alcoholism is. I dont' know if you saw, but one of the most commented upon pieces of Tony Blair's autobiography is a confession that he relied upon alcohol as a crutch. He would drink maybe a glass of whisky and half a bottle of wine every day just to keep going. He was aware, he says, that he was "at the very limit".
At the very limit? I know people for whom a glass of whisky and half a bottle of wine are at the very limit of what they might notice. Unless that half bottle of wine was Buckfast I doubt anyone is very impressed. I suppose compared to teetotal George Bush Jr. Blair was a raging booze-hound, but Bush was a 'recovering alcoholic', which from what I've seen of polite attitudes to drink in the 'states means he once drank half a can of Bud Light and panicked. Back when William Hague was leader of the opposition he really should have made more of his claim to be able to drink 16 pints and challenged Blair to a drinking contest over an EU referendum.
History suggests that the more a politician drinks the better at the job they are**. Winston Churchill is famous for drinking at least two bottles of Champagne a day and then ringing Hitler to suggest they stepped outside and settled it like men - indeed, Hitler launched the Ardennes offensive in reaction to news that Churchill had been on a forty-eight hour bender and taken Juno beach singlehandedly. Further back in history, The Duke of Wellington killed Napoleon in a brawl outside the Lamb and Flag on St Helena dockside after tying one on and suggesting that Josephine could do with a bath. Margaret Thatcher kept herself topped up constantly for almost fifteen years with a two-litre bottle of Drambuie in her handbag at all times, and Pitt the Younger was getting served at his local when he was only eight years old. During the last election campaign David Cameron and Nick Clegg competed over claims of who could drink the most, with Cameron claiming to be able to sink eight pints without needing the toilet and Clegg riposting that anyone who drank only eight pints "is a bit of a puff, really". This led to people carrying "I agree with Nick" placards in the streets.
On the other hand, Sir Alec Douglas-Home believed anything more than a small sherry was an extravgance, Harold Wilson was so clueless he thought he could get tiddly off a pack of Maynards Wine Gums, and Neville Chamberlain became badly ill when he was only halfway down the glass of schnapps he was offered when visiting Hitler in 1937. Gordon Brown never drank a drop, but he at least made up for it with a prodigious intake of mescaline.

<sup>*One of the things I remain proudest of in my time running the CamUk was the international agreement I hammered out that travelling members were subject to the rules of their home country rather than the country they were visiting. I now confess I did this solely so I could get merrily stoked during events in the US whilst their own members were banned from doing so.

**Margaret "Bottle of vodka in my desk" Beckett being the honourable exception.</sup>

Comments

[belak-krin.livejournal.com]

From what I can tell, homebrewing took a real hit in the mid-80s as it stopped being a 'cool' thing to do (pretty much everyone my parents know brewed their own beer at one time or another). This is a largely unevidenced hypothesis but it does fit with the prevailing cultural trend at the time of shifting to a heavily commercial attitude with displays of wealth being the mainstream demonstration of status.

I'm very happy to say that local breweries in Cambridge are still getting their oar in and from some very suprising sources. The local Budgeons has several shelves purely for local beers, there's a fairly high proportion of CAMRA pubs, some of which have their own festivals. There are at least 2 decent size beer fests in non-pub locations. Wierdest of all, the local Wetherspoons always has real Ale on tap.

But the transportation does seem to be a big sticking point. I was a huge fan of the local brews down in Falmouth, but unless you're ordering a barrel especially, they can't be found at this end of the country. That probably makes the chance of getting decent American beer somewhat remote.

In terms of buying bottles, have you tried contacting local small breweries? They might be willing to sell on some of their stock.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Oh, I have enough now (fortunately hubbie worked near the depot when I was staring out, and houseguests are well trained in leaving my bottles to be washed rather than chucking them) - it's more that it makes it difficult when folks are starting out.

I think it's safe to re-use bottles from commercial bottle-conditioned beers as well - but you have to be careful to identify them correctly, because beer that is just carbonated with a blast of CO2 when bottling (when you bottle/cask-condition, you add a little extra sugar when bottling/barrelling, and the secondary fermentation creates the CO2) uses thinner glass, which can shatter under the pressure from fermentation.

(La. Hobby that keeps the old chem & phys knowledge ticking over, while makig me whimper at lack of microbiology!)

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

(oh - and fortunately my parents were never cool, so I grew up with homebrew at Christmas & helping to mash elderberries for wine in the autumn...with the way booze is taxed though, and a vague upper middle class swing towards all things wellie boots, I wouldn't be surprised to see it making a come back!)