I know what you're thinking: "What if I attached a faucet to a watermelon and filled it with spiked watermelon juice so party guests could serve themselves right from the melon?"
posted on May 28, 2008 - View this thread

"It is binge drinking. We don't see people who've had just two drinks. People have had 20 shots of vodka." In central London, "Alternative Response Vehicle - or Booze Bus, as it's more commonly known - draw on their reserves of composure, ingenuity and stoicism to treat more than 20 dazed drunks," over the course of a 12-hour shift.
posted on Dec 18, 2007 - View this thread

"Significantly, the percentage of monkeys and humans who avoid alcohol is the same." [YouTube]
posted on Dec 10, 2007 - View this thread

Alcohol at Son's 16th Gets 27-Month Sentence.
posted on Jun 8, 2007 - View this thread

MADD has an interesting new ad campaign out that uses something a lot of designers tend to forget about when putting together a poster: the paper it's printed on.
posted on Oct 12, 2006 - View this thread

I'm Just Drinking is Paul Kahn's attempt at making a bartending guide to webcomics. Here you'll learn how to make any one of several Penny Arcade themes drinks, a Diesel Sweetie, a VG_Cats and my personal favorite, a Something Positive (whose latest comic is how I came across this project).
posted on Jul 19, 2006 - View this thread

Is Cinco De Mayo For Sale By the Alcohol Industry? In the 1960s, Chicano activists in Colorado promoted a boycott of Coors beer in response to employment discrimination against Latinos at Coors breweries. Coors had two problems. They had to fix their image with Latino consumers, and they had to figure out some way to get college students to drink more beer in May. The solution: start sponsoring Cinco de Mayo! Thus, even though Mexicans in Mexico celebrate their independence day on September 15th and 16th, Mexican-Americans are more likely to celebrate the May 5th anniversary of the Battle of the Puebla, which is not even commemorated with a national holiday in Mexico. In fact, the Battle of the Puebla was a skirmish in the Pastry War, a French intervention in Mexico that began because a French chef demanded several thousand pesos to compensate him for Mexican military officers looting his pastry supply.
posted on May 5, 2006 - View this thread

On-On! I had never heard of the Hash House Harriers ("the drinking club with a running problem") until a friend clued me in. Now I don't know how I had missed them! They're certainly very visible -- and audible. Here's how it works. Their origins are in the British expat community in Kuala Lumpur, but nowadays they are everywhere!
One of their key ingredients is a bit problematic in this post-9/11 world, but they are adaptable.
posted on May 27, 2005 - View this thread

NYC man pledges to visit 1000 bars in 2005. That's an average of about three per day, and as of yesterday he was already up to 135. Pray for his liver.
posted on Jan 31, 2005 - View this thread

Hello to you, my name is Liquor Control Bee (wav). Meet L.C. Bee -- his songs are sure to keep your kids uncrunked. Part of an elite cabal of juvenile moralizers, L.C. Bee is currently collaborating on an album with Daren the D.A.R.E lion (WAV). These kids today, you know.
posted on Jan 29, 2005 - View this thread

Idiotarod. The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. Our Idiotarod is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it's people, instead of sleds, it's shopping carts, and instead of Alaska it's New York City.
posted on Jan 20, 2005 - View this thread

"Not My Head!" Drinking games based on movies or television shows are legion, but surely the most epic, erudite, witty, and hangover-inducing is "Not My Head": the "I, Claudius Drinking Game"! Whether or not you've ever seen the 13 part BBC series on which it's based, the rules are quite simple—and since every episode contains plenty of banishments, poisonings, and orgies, you can be sure you'll be working through those bottles of red wine pretty quickly. Dress as your favorite character for extra debauched realness - and remember, you can't tell the players without a scorecard! (Especially when you're drunk.)
posted on Dec 27, 2004 - View this thread

Speaking Of weight loss and exercise... Those who like their booze also like their nicotine. People who drink to excess also tend to be chronic smokers, and a new report suggests the combination of the two might prove more toxic than either one alone. a small study found chronic smoking + alcohol dependence = increased severity of brain damage. The frontal lobes (short-term storage sites) turn out to be the most damaged. A separate study used rats to show that alcoholism and excessive food intake may share the same chemical pathways in the brain. Forbes has the HealthDayNews report that focuses mainly on the smokes, MSNBC looks more at the eats. They also have an interesting Addictions Sections. Could it be that some folks are just prone to addictions and everyone settles on something different?
posted on Dec 17, 2004 - View this thread

The Dittohead Guide To Adult Beverages can be read in its entirety (abt. 250Kb) on the Web. (For those of you in Rio Linda, a dittohead is a Rush Limbaugh fan.) But Britt Gillette has also self-published his book and wants you to make his dreams come true by buying it on Amazon. It's got hilarious drink names in it, like "Caller Abortion" (a stunt Limbaugh used on his show -- complete with the sound of a vacuum cleaner), "Feminazi Frazzle," and "John F-ing Kerry." The recipes look like they'd make tasty drinks, but I think I'll pass on the purchase. Who really needs a novelty, right-wing drink recipe book?
posted on Aug 13, 2004 - View this thread

The AWOL Machine - a new way to party. Just incase you have trouble getting drunk.
posted on Jul 14, 2004 - View this thread

It's time to send the team home: "England has bred a contemporary culture of immoderation at every level, with particular reference to drinking and fighting. The recent Panorama programme on weekend binge-drinking in city centres provided a wake-up call, as should the novelist Andrew O'Hagan's admirable essay on current British attitudes to masculinity, reprinted in yesterday's G2." (via The Guardian)
posted on Jun 17, 2004 - View this thread

How much alcohol have YOU consumed in your life? Take the "drink-o-meter" test. (Flash) I rated a "Homer Simpson", which means I could fill a few bathtubs, but haven't quite spent the Ferrari money. Something tells me that many of MeFi's finest will bury my score...via the Sporting Press.
posted on Dec 11, 2003 - View this thread

"You are What you Drink?" The University of Manitoba has published a study asserting that your choice of tipple could provide insight on your personality. Perhaps we will finally have some answers to the questions posed in this thread.
posted on Nov 7, 2003 - View this thread

Poor, Much-Maligned Alcohol Gets A Good Word: It's quarter to three, there's no one in the place/Except you and me,/So set 'em' up Joe, I got a little story/ I think you should know... And the story is something, if you're a drinker, you probably already know. (I was so surprised by this article I wondered if it was sponsored by the booze industry. But then I mixed myself another drink; read the wonderfully-named, probably Guinness - and poteen-fuelled - Dublin Principles and drank its health anyway!)
posted on Nov 3, 2003 - View this thread

Of All The Gin Joints In All The Towns In All The World, (You) Walk Into Mine: In Lisbon, it would have to be Lux for fun or The Ritz for serious drinking. But in all the towns in all the world, only Harry's Bar in Venice, despite the carping, would do. Listen to Hemingway! (More inside.)
posted on Oct 26, 2003 - View this thread

The Spirits Of The Times: Whatever's Next? In an unstable marketplace, good old spirits have been undergoing an extraordinary renaissance since 1988, with 2003 the best year yet. And growing. With summer over and thoughts turning to the more warming libations, I wonder what the next big drinking craze will be. My bets are on the wonderful, underrated fruit brandies, distilled directly from fruit juices with nothing else added: kirsch, framboise, mirabelle. Mmmm... The best eaux-de-vie, in my experience, are those from G. E. Massenez and above all (though they're quite expensive and alcoholic) from the Swiss Paul Morand distillery. (Flash req.) An ice-cold Williamine, served in a shot glass surrounded by an old-fashioned tumbler full of shaved ice: oh what bliss on an autumn night, after a late dinner with old friends!
posted on Sep 27, 2003 - View this thread

mmm, cold beer How to keep your beer nice and cold on a hot summer day.
posted on Jun 5, 2003 - View this thread

You've Come A Long Way, Baby: Unfortunately, you picked the wrong one, dear old Old-Fashioned, dean of cocktails. Robert Hess's definitive essay on the ever-changing ways of making one shows just how contentious a cocktail recipe can be. It also bears sad testimony to how the great classics are being fruited up, iced up, fizzed up, shaken till obliteration and generally girlied, dumbed and boozed down. So how do you stand on the cherry, the pineapple and the orange? And don't even bother commenting if you're a seltzer fan! ;)
posted on May 21, 2003 - View this thread

The end of a stereotype? Ireland's Prime Minister wants to limit advertising and slap warning labels on alcoholic beverages in an effort to curtail teenage binge drinking. It doesn't seem to work too well here in the U.S., can it work in Ireland, the punch line of most drinking jokes?
posted on May 19, 2003 - View this thread

The Cocktail Season Is Upon Us! Get That Cocktail Season Off Of Me! For I regret, Mesdames, Messieurs, that 2003's best little cocktail website is in French. Sacré Bleu! [More inside.]
posted on May 3, 2003 - View this thread

SWAT tactics being used to combat public drunkenness in Fairfax County, Virginia. Go to a bar or restaurant and risk being "escorted" outside by teams police in full riot gear, given a sobriety test, and arrested if you've had more than a drink or two in under an hour. Thank god our tax dollars are being used to keep us safe from the danger of slightly tipsy people celebrating the holidays in establishments that legally serve alcohol. Not like they have anything better to do.
posted on Jan 1, 2003 - View this thread

Bar Signs. Modern Drunkard has posted a handy guide for the alcoholic in us all, a set of gestures to communicate your needs when it's too loud to hear, or just because, as the site says, "when words come out, whiskey can't get in."
posted on Dec 16, 2002 - View this thread

Finally, a holiday we can all get behind. Saturday, November 2 is the American Homebrewers Association’s 4th Annual Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. Find a location near you to help you create the nectar of the gods. "To alcohol! The cause of – and solution to – all of life’s problems."
posted on Oct 22, 2002 - View this thread

Water for thought. Is 8ouncesx8glasses a day a myth at best or a beverage industry conspiracy at worst? "I did 43 years of research on that system -- the osmoregulatory system. That system is so precise and so fast that I find it impossible to believe that evolution left us with a chronic water deficit" ..just drink enough to slake thirst -- and this includes coffee, tea, and even beer!
posted on Aug 10, 2002 - View this thread

Man and his family booted off airplane after asking if pilots were sober. Hans von Schweinitz, on his way to go fishing in Canada, asked one of the flight crew whether the pilots had taken a sobriety test. They hadn't. A blood alcohol test kit was sent for. Two and a half hours later, with the plane sitting there on the tarmac, the pilots were found to be clean. Then they ordered von Schweinitz and his family to get off the plane, while the other passengers cheered.
posted on Jul 16, 2002 - View this thread

No thanks, I'm on Mineral Water. As the MeFi Meetup commences, the Atlantic Monthly offers some tips for teetotalers. And, hey...a designated driver is always a good thing, no? (via a&l daily)
posted on Jul 11, 2002 - View this thread

Your very own pub in your garden Do I have to say anything more? I don't think so.
posted on May 3, 2002 - View this thread

Beer makes me smart...Beer, me make art. After trying to make little "Golden Child" men out of Bud Lite cans Saturday, I checked the web for other beer inspired artforms. The results are range from the folky-Beer Label art to cozy beer bottle homes and dangerous beer can guns. Even cash can be made...for hilarious rent woes... to Big $$$ as with David Hockney's Pearl Blossom Highway currently at the Getty Museum. Anyone else inspired by beer?
posted on Apr 8, 2002 - View this thread

The Philadelphia Daily News has recently covered a series of articles on "Malternatives," those hard liquor laced beverages like hard lemonades and vodka based alterna-beers that have sprung up in the last year. Even though they contain 100% distilled alcohol, they are taxed as beer, saving Smirnoff over $80 million in taxes last year alone. Among their other advantages for manufacturers, they get to advertise on TV and be placed for sale next to milder forms of alcohol, dodging laws against hard liquor. Is this a boon for the industry or deceptive practices?
posted on Mar 29, 2002 - View this thread

"Children Drink 25% of Alcohol Consumed in the U.S." At least according to the attention-grabbing headline of a press release recently issued by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. The only problem is that it wasn't true. The organization had miscalculated the data, and the figure was actually closer to 11%. It was also misleading, since the word "children" included 18, 19, and 20 year-olds (who presumably do most of the drinking). Aside from yet another lesson in the inherent malleability of statistics, what conclusions should we draw from this study? Should we accept that teenagers are going to drink, and teach moderation? Or is stricter enforcement of the 21 age-limit the way to go? I'm also interested in the views of those living in (more enlightened?) countries with a lower drinking age.
posted on Mar 1, 2002 - View this thread

For Lent, I'm Giving Up Not Drinking Cocktails - What About You? I collect cocktail books but there are two web sites* that are just as good as the best bartender's bible. The first is Dale DeGroff's. The second, sadly discontinued but still invaluable, is Paul Harrington's. Both are very personal and reveal a deep knowledge and love of this quintessentially American and civilized art form. Cocktails may very well be the only truly democratic and universally accessible pastime. They can be made at home quite cheaply by anyone and be just as delicious as the very best served in the very best bar to the richest imbiber in the world. Not to mention their incredible Valentine's Day potential... so what's it to be, pal? *Webtender, Drinkboy and Esquire's cocktail guides pale by comparison
posted on Feb 13, 2002 - View this thread

Match the label to the beer bottle.
posted on Feb 1, 2002 - View this thread

When this appears in newspapers across America tomorrow morning, will dad choke on his Special K and think of his number tucked in the drawer, or will he feel outrage and disgust at the public discussion of drugs ?
posted on Jan 27, 2002 - View this thread

So When Can The Boy Start Drinking Then? From February 1 you'll have to be 16 to order an alcoholic drink in Portugal. We Portuguese were the last bastion in Europe - with no age limit at all - but have finally given in the to pressures from the European Union. Yet young people here enjoy drinking but rarely get drunk. Age limits vary wildly all over the world and the debate on the ideal drinking age rages on. The U.S. is still the strictest country of all. And yet public displays(and tacit approval)of drunkenness seem to be far more prevalent in the stricter countries than in those who have more liberal legislation. So what should be the minimum drinking age? [The main link, in Portuguese, refers to the political battles that preceded the new law. Interestingly, it reports the Portuguese government resisted EU pressure to limit 16-year-olds to beer and wine, more or less saying "alcohol is alcohol - you can get drunk on anything - so it would be silly to limit young people's choices." ]
posted on Jan 25, 2002 - View this thread

Do you love beer? Do you really love beer? What’s your favorite beer? Have you ever made your own beer? The 168th Oktoberfest starts Saturday in Munich Germany. Six million visitors = six million liters of delicious, nutritious beer. I wish I were there instead of here.
posted on Sep 20, 2001 - View this thread

Are you drinking too much? Daniel Lieberman is a psychiatrist at George Washington University who has posted a clinically-tested questionnaire which measures personal relationships with the demon drink. Unlike the usual amateur "are you an alcoholic?" tests on the Net it seems methodologically sound and non-judgemental. I don't know about scientific - but it may actually be useful in a Socratic, "know yourself" sort of way. It does take about 10 minutes to fill out - enough for half a gin and tonic - but it's free, well set out, and will probably leave you feeling slightly less guilty about your drinking habits than before. So...chin-chin!
posted on Sep 11, 2001 - View this thread

Increasingly, London is its bars. Twenty-seven new drink portals open every week. Luckily Chris Morris has sorted through the chaff to give us the definitive London bar guide.
posted on Aug 27, 2001 - View this thread

Good grief, It seems I may be a feeling a bit tipsy.
posted on Jul 19, 2001 - View this thread

World's Most Likely Person To Get Caught Buying Booze Underage Gets Caught Once More Trying To Buy Booze. Can't she at least get the Secret Service to go to the liquor store?
posted on May 30, 2001 - View this thread

Irish Students' Drinking Linked to Dropout Rates -- 38 gallons of beer per year on average leading to a almost 1/3 student dropout .. but its ok because "per capita consumption of alcohol was higher at the bar in the Irish parliament than in student pubs."
posted on May 29, 2001 - View this thread

Happy New Year! It's not too early to think about your safety and well-being at the New Year's bash you're planning on attending (or hosting).
posted on Dec 28, 2000 - View this thread

"Instead of pretending that prohibition on college campuses is realistic, we should be investing in helping those young people learn to make healthy and responsible choices." -- August A. Busch III, chairman, Anheuser-Busch
posted on Oct 12, 2000 - View this thread

There's always room for Jell-O! Most people don't know that Tom Lehrer is the co-inventor of the vodka Jell-O shot
posted on Mar 13, 2000 - View this thread

The Shmaltz Brewing Company out of San Francisco is the brewer of He'brew, the Chosen Beer. Be sure to try the Sammy Davis, Jr., which is a cocktail of Guinness floating atop He'brew Genesis Ale. L'Chaim!
posted on Oct 10, 1999 - View this thread