Alcademics.com

Good Booze, Bad Booze: Two Beers, Three Times The Cancer

 
One day science says drinking will make you live forever. The next day science says it will kill you tomorrow. Good Booze, Bad Booze is an Alcademics category where I put all these stories together. 

2/6/12:  Two glasses of wine a day 'triples mouth cancer risk' [link] 

From the Guardian: "Regularly drinking two large glasses of wine or two strong pints of beer a day triples the risk of developing mouth cancer, a government campaign will warn."

 

Previous Good Booze, Bad Booze

2/1/12:  Daily glass of red wine might not be good for you [link] 

1/19/12:  Science Proves that Alcohol is Fun [link] 

1/19/12:  The Personality Trait Linking Alcohol to Aggression [link] 

1/19/12:  10 Surprising Health Benefits of Beer [link] 

 12/27/11:  Prevention: Beer and Martinis: As Healthy as Wine? [link] 

 12/6/11:  A Sobering Look at Alcohol: 10-Year Study Finds High Death Rate [link] 

12/6/11:  Is a Daily Glass of Red Wine Good For Your Heart? Maybe Not [link] 

 12/3/11:  Moderate Alcohol Intake Linked To Lower Female Diabetes Risk[link] 

 11/16/11:  Wine is no Better Than Beer in Benefits [link]

 11/4/11:  Substance in red wine shows promise in first human study [link] 

 11/1/11:  Raising the Chance of Some Cancers With Two Drinks a Day [link] 

10/28/11:  Alcohol linked to better survival after heart attack [link] 

 

 

see plenty more news stories after the jump...

Trends in Craft Beer in SilverKris Magazine

My editor at SilverKris, the inflight magazine for Singapore Airlines, emailed me something like, "I hear craft beer is becoming popular. Can you do a story on that?"

"Sure," I said, knowing that boiling down everything going on with craft beer into even a feature-length story was going to be incredibly difficult. 

The story kind of kicked my ass but taught me a lot about beer. I have a feeling for the trends but not a lot of knowledge of the technical details behind the beer styles so this involved a lot of research.

Anyway, I mushed things into categories like Belgian, barleywine, saison, session, flavored, high-alcohol, sparkling, canned, and casked. 

The story is online in one of those online magazine reader formats at this link.

Cocktail Menu: Jasper's Corner Tap in San Francisco

Opening Wednesday, July 27 is Jasper's Corner Tap, a beer-centric restaurant in the former Ponzu space not far from Bourbon & Branch in downtown San Francisco.

I've got a peek at the beverage menu. As you can see, there are drinks designed by bartenders Kevin Deidrich, Jacques Bezuidenhout, Allison Webber, and Brian MacGregor. Suddenly I'm looking forward to this place.

Click below for the menu.

Camper English: Penthouse Model

In the June issue of Penthouse, I have a travel story about my trip with Dos Equis to Playa Del Carmen. You can read the original posts here on Alcademics in part one, part two, and part three.  

I've written for Penthouse previously, but this is the first time I've appeared in its pages as a super sexy model. Check me out!

Hot stuff, right? 

Cerveza Adventure Part Three: Out in Playa Del Carmen

Read Part I
Read Part II 

After a full day of jungle adventure, we hit the town of Playa Del Carmen on the last night of the Dos Equis Cargo Hunt winners' trip. Playa Del Carmen is a smaller city than nearby Cancun, near a long set of resorts down what they're calling the Mayan or Mexican Riviera. 

We started with dinner at a restaurant that specializes in flambe dishes. For dessert, some folks ordered the Mayan Coffee, made with coffee, Kahlua, Xtabentun (a local liqueur with anise and honey on a rum base), and sugar.

First one waiter lit it on fire in a metal gravy boat, then tossed the liquid between one boat and the other like the Blue Blazer. Then he started doing it while standing over the head of another waiter who was seated, and we were like, "Stop- you're going to light his freaking head on fire!" but it turns out it was all part of the act. A third waiter stepped in between the seated and the standing waiter and held out two of his own gravy boats. They poured the flaming alcohol from one gravy boat to the next down six levels and into the glasses on the table.

Take that, Jerry Thomas.

Then we went barhopping. We started at the Blue Parrot, a beachside disco with an impressive fire spinning show. I say impressive because living in Burning Man central, I've seen more lousy fire spinning shows than I can count and this one actually impressed. 

Next we headed to Coco Bongo, a place that's sort of like a vintage nightclub on crystal meth. A floor level and three levels of theater seating/standing crowds face a stage at the top level, on which a slew of dancers and lipsynchers in costume perform hits by chart-toppers from the last 40 years, from Elvis to Katy Perry.  

(Believe it or not, this is the Van Halen number.)

The acts change about every three minutes and a whole new set of dancers come out, or a troupe of aerial acrobats may drop down from the ceiling over the crowd like Cirque du Soleil, or it may be a musical comedy act reminiscent of Sabado Gigante. 

Then about every 5 minutes a huge blast of snake-shaped baloons or confetti will shoot at high volume from the ceiling, coating everyone. 

It's ridiculous and cheesy and so much fun. 

After that we headed to another bar for a quick final beer but most of the group was exhausted from two days of adventure and a couple hours of Coco Bongo.  

Thanks to Dos Equis for a most interesting trip. 

Cerveza Adventure, Part Two

Read Part I

When we last spoke, I was telling the tales of my trip to Playa Del Carmen with the winners of the Dos Equis Cargo Hunt.

At the end of the first big day, we had dinner on the beach outside the hotel with a drum show and fresh hand-rolled rolled cigars.

Fun fact: apparently one doesn't inhale cigars, unlike cigarettes, which is why other people don't get horribly barfy when they smoke them. The more you know.

 

In the morning, we were off to a second epic day of adventure. We began at Rio Secreto, a series of caves with an underground river running though them. We walked, crouched, and swam through a series of caves for an hour and a half. Beautiful.

 
(I'm up in your cave, swimming with your catfish.)

Then it was off to another spot in the jungle with a tour operator called Alltournative for a series of challenges. The first was walking through another cave and undergoing a Mayan ceremony asking nature for permission to enter and protecting us from evil spirits. It must have worked because I didn't die the rest of the day on the adventure sports. 

Then we rode mountain bikes through the jungle and swung on ziplines above it. 

(From this angle you can't hear me shrieking.)

Then we finished the day by repelling down into a cenote (sinkhole) like the beginning of The Descent and splashing around in the water. But with less cave monsters. 

An action-packed day, which was then followed by a night in Playa Del Carmen that I'll post about next. 

 Read Part III

Cerveza Adventure in Mexico

Hello from Mexico! Yes I was just in Kentucky yesterday morning but now I'm in mostly-sunny Playa Del Carmen, near Cancun. I'm hear on a trip with winners of the Dos Equis Cargo Hunt. They competed in an online treasure hunt to help The Most Interesting Man in the World (for the media shy of you, that's a very successful ad campaign) recover his lost items. 

I, on the other hand, am just a hanger-on traveling in the entourage. We're not visiting the Dos Equis distillery on this trip, so it's all about jungle adventure for these two days. 

Our hotel is on Playa Del Carmen. I've never been here before so I had no idea that every property down the beach is like a giant ultra-lounge/spa/beach club. 

We woke up early and took small planes (four people plus the pilot) to Chichen Itza, a famous and lovely set of Mayan ruins. This year I've been on 4 helicopter rides so I'm finally getting less screamy/panicky when riding on small aircraft.  

After Chichen Itza, we headed to one of the many cenotes, or sinkholes, that dot the area. You can see some large ones in the picture from the plane above. We went to a small one we had reserved for the Dos Equis group. 

It's hard to photograph, but it's a crystal blue pond about 100 feet below the surface level, and the pond is about 50 feet deep. Peaceful, lovely, amazing. I could float there all day if only there were umbrella drinks.

Then we took the planes home and we're waiting for dinner. They're not telling us what we're doing on this trip (unlike most press trips where they hand us an agenda down to the quarter-hour), so who knows what adventure awaits tonight and tomorrow!

Read Part II
Read Part III 

Beer in the Penthouse

Finally, I'm appearing in the pages of Penthouse magazine. Oddly, they didn't ask me to model. That's not me on the cover. 

In the December issue of Penthouse magazine,  I have a two-page spread on "Advanced Level Beer Gear," including some gift items like a homebrew kit, kegerator, and a dog collar that holds a bottle opener. 

So now you bartenders have an excuse to buy Penthouse and write it off as a work expense.

You're welcome.