Alcohol Trivia

From The Amazing Book of Useless Information

The strongest that any alcohol beverage can be is 190 proof (or 95 percent alcohol). At a higher proof, the beverage draws moisture from the air and self-dilutes.

Studying the experimentally induced intoxicated behavior of ants in 1888, naturalist John Lubbock noticed that insects that had too much to drink were picked up by nest mates and carried home. Conversely, drunken stranger ants were summarily tossed in a ditch.

Alcohol consumption decreases during the time of the full moon.

One glass of milk can give person a .02 blood alcohol concentration on a Breathalyzer test, enough in some states for persons under the legal drinking age to lose their driver's license or be fined.

Unlike wines, most beers should be stored upright to minimize oxidation and metal or plastic contamination from the cap. High-alcohol ales, however, which continue to ferment in their corked bottles, should be stored on their sides.

Nine people were killed and two houses destroyed on October 17, 1814, when a brewery tank containing 3,500 barrels of beer ruptured and created a giant wave.

According to a diary entry from a passenger on the Mayflower, the pilgrims made their landing at Plymouth Rock rather than continue to their destination in Virginia due to a lack of beer.

In Bangladesh, $5 will buy a beer... or a first-class train ticket for a cross-country trip.

If a young Tiriki man offers beer to a woman and she spits some of it into his mouth, they are engaged to be married.

Among the Bagonda people of Uganda, the widows of a recently deceased king have the distinctive honor of drinking the beer in which his entrails have been cleaned.

Bourbon is the official spirit of the United States, by act of Congress.

A mixed drink with a carbonated beverage is absorbed into the body more quickly than straight shots are.

British wine is different from English wine. British wine is made from imported grapes; English wine is not.

The vintage date on a bottle of wine indicates the year the grapes were picked, not the year of bottling.

Poor soil tends to produce better wines.

The entire production of kosher wine, including cultivation of the grapes, must be performed by Sabbath-observant Jews, and it remains kosher only if opened and poured by an orthodox Jew.

Vikings used the skulls of their enemies as drinking vessels.

In Uruguay, intoxication is a legal excuse for having an accident while driving.